====== Systemics as a deterrent to ignorance ======

//Abstract//:  Why systemics?  Are systemics relevant any more?  Are there alternatives and/or complements?

//Keywords//:  systemics

===== Introduction:  What problems do systemic approaches solve? =====

Pragmatic questions for systemicists include:
  * What problems do systemic approaches solve?
  * How are systemics applied, and what alternatives and/or complements exist?
  * Are we asking too much from systemics?

(Outline the sections that follow)

===== Systemics is an enemy to ignorance =====

(College on Medical Ignorance)

===== Systemics represent a large body of knowledge, and complementary views have emerged =====
In modern times, the systems movement has been linked to the founding of the Society for General Systems Research.

==== Systemic thinking ====
Focus on interconnections between thing -- system dynamics
=== Scenario planning is an alternative to systems thinking ===
Thinking about potential futures, including unlikely ones

==== Systemic methods ====
SSM, VSM
=== Project management is an alternative to systemic methods ===
Identify and mitigate risks

==== Systemic design ====
From social systems design through architecture and urban planning
=== Pattern languages are an alternative to systemic design ===
Christopher Alexander, through to Software Design Patterns

==== Systemic practice ====
Mostly about social change or changelessness
=== Organizational learning is an alternative to systemic practice ===
Communities of practice


==== Systems science ====
Isomorphisms
=== Interdisciplinary research is an alternative to systems science ===
Less a search for the truth than a bridge between the two

==== Systems philosophy ====
Back to the Greeks?
=== Postmodernism is an alternative to systems philosophy ===
Like sociotechnical systems to socioecological systems

===== Systemics represent "a" tool, not "the" tool =====
A signal that systemics is becoming a discipline is when it becomes the hammer looking for the nail.

=== Systemics helps to balance expansiveness and reductiveness ===
Reductionism is based on analysis, but over-emphasis on analysis results in brittleness or lack of robustness in a changing environment.

Expansiveness draws in the environment, to the point at which nothing can get done in a world with finite resources and finite time.

=== The battle should be with arrogance, not alternative approaches ===
Putting a label on something as "non-systemic" is arrogant in itself.