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Constructive Conflict Guide >
The Complex Factors That Make Intractable Conflict So Difficult >
The Additional (and Even Bigger) Challenge of Societal Complexity
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BI Article
Reprise: Sharp vs. Fuzzy Feedback --- The Distinction That Explains Why Society Can Be Both Astonishingly Smart and Incredibly Stupid
We are good at understanding and responding to sharp feedback, but continue to have serious trouble seeing and responding to fuzzy feedback. These difficulties do much to explain why society is in such serious trouble.
BI Article
The Blood-Boiling Trap
A look at how cognitive biases lead us to focus too much on things that are going wrong and not enough on things that are going (or could go) right.
BI Article
Massively Circular Hyper-Polarization
Complex social systems are made up of multiple interlocking negative and positive feedback loops that can, for good or ill, lead to stability or to change. In order to improve the system, we need to understand these loops.
BI Article
Exponential Growth in Pandemics, the Economy, and Escalation
The most sudden and dramatic social changes result from positive feedback loops that continually accelerate the rate of change.
Colleague Activities
QAnon and Mass Digital Radicalisation: Peacebuilding and the American Insurgency
An explanation of the positive feedback cycle between Trump, QAnon, and social media platforms, and how peacebuilders can respond.
Colleague Activities
Not Just Bigotry, not Just Economics: Why Rural Voters Are Red -- BCB #107
Rural residents have strong feelings of attachment, pride and loyalty to their homes. When urbanites disparage their beloved communities, they get mad, which then creates a positive feedback cycle of anger and resentment.
Colleague Activities
How does our anger at "them" create the things we're angry about?
An insightful essay on positive feedback systems (in which "positive" does not mean good, but rather ever-escalating) and what we call "the backlash effect" which creates a self-fulfilling destructive prophecy.
News and Opinion
The Problem With America's Protest Feedback Loop