Culture, Communication, Complexity.

Tag: information asymmetry

Analytical Ambivalence

Analysis generates transferable leverage: once a vulnerability, structural asymmetry, or coordination failure becomes intelligible, it is transformed into operational knowledge rather than remaining purely explanatory. Such knowledge is inherently neutral with respect to intent and therefore readily repurposed across divergent aims. This creates a fundamental epistemic dilemma: increased analytical clarity simultaneously strengthens capacities for mitigation […]

Tags adversarial adaptation, analysis, Complexity, cybernetics, decision theory, dual-use knowledge, emergent behaviour, Epistemology, ethics of knowledge, governance, information asymmetry, institutional design, power dynamics, social systems, strategic analysis, strategic vulnerability, structural risk, systems theory, unintended consequences

cybernetics

Productive Misanthropy

Service delivery systems must model the environments they act within. This is unavoidable. Eligibility rules, risk categories, performance metrics, and compliance frameworks are all abstractions that allow action under constraint. The model is not the world. It is an interface that reduces complexity to something administrable. Over time, however, the interface acquires weight. The abstraction […]

Tags accountability regimes, activation policy, ADM oversight, administrative burden, administrative error, administrative exhaustion, administrative violence, adverse outcomes reproduction, algorithmic governance, appeals system, APS governance, ashby law, audit and assurance, audit culture, audit logs, australian public administration, automated decision making, backlog dynamics, benefits navigation, bureaucratic drift, campbell law, carceral throughput, care coordination failure, case load pressure, case processing, centrelink processes, churn management, commonwealth integrity, comparative public policy, complex adaptive systems, complexity informed governance, compliance complexity, compliance theatre, consultancy dependence, control systems, cost shifting, cybernetics in policy, debt recovery algorithms, digital by default services, digital identity, dignity in service delivery, disability services, documentation requirements, downstream harm, eligibility criteria, entropy displacement, epistemic closure, explainability, feedback loops, frontline discretion, general systems theory, goodhart law, governance-failure, government accountability australia, health system navigation, high dimensional systems, human centred design, identity verification burden, incentive design, income averaging, inequality reproduction, information asymmetry, institutional complexity, institutional self maintenance, integrated services, jobseeker compliance, justice system churn, knowledge hierarchies, KPI gaming, legibility politics, marginalisation dynamics, metric fixation, model provisionality, model reality mismatch, mutual obligation, mygov access, NDIS administration, non take up, operational efficiency traps, organisational learning, organisational legitimacy, payment suspension, performance reporting, performance targets, policy compliance burden, policy framework inertia, policy humility, policy implementation gap, policy modelling, poverty administration, procedural churn, procedural denial, procedural friction, procedural justice, procedural opacity, procurement incentives, productive misanthropy, provisional metrics, public accountability, public sector ethics, public sector reform, public value, queue management, rationing by process, recidivism cycle, recipient experience, regulation lived experience, regulatory systems, representational assumptions, requisite variety, review tribunals, risk management culture, risk scoring, ritualised validation, robodebt, robodebt royal commission, sanctions regime, sensemaking organisations, service delivery systems, service design, service recipient entropy, services australia, services australia call centre, social determinants of health, social protection systems, social welfare policy, state simplification, statistical governance, street level bureaucracy, system stability versus success, systems dynamics, systems thinking, target culture, transparency, trauma informed services, triage systems, trust in institutions, unemployment services, welfare administration, welfare conditionality, workforce australia