Culture, Communication, Complexity.

Tag: unintended consequences

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

Cybernetics: Good Intentions, Bad Vibes

Post author By G
Post date Jan 27, 2026
No Comments on Cybernetics: Good Intentions, Bad Vibes

The language of the school was expansive: culture, power, technology, ethics, ecology, gender, indigeneity, diversity, human experience, systems, responsibility, complexity. It spoke fluently about uncertainty, fragility, and care. It marketed itself as a space for deep reflection on and constructive engagement with how technological systems were and are reshaping civilisation. But in one all-staff meeting, […]

Tags academic publishing, adversarial politics, aesthetic critique, AI slop, ANU, Australian universities, biodiversity, Canberra, climate and governance, communication systems, complexity theory, corporate power, cultural politics, cybernetics, diversity discourse, epistemic uncertainty, ethics and technology, feedback loops, field logic, forests and ecology, gender and culture, governance, human experience, indigeneity and culture, institutional culture, knowledge institutions, language and meaning, learning and recovery, legitimacy economy, media ecology, metabolic systems, natural systems, op-ed, organizational continuity, organizational metabolism, post-truth systems, power dynamics, public intellectualism, recursive power, resilience, stroke recovery, structural critique, system blindness, systemic capture, systems ecology, systems thinking, technocracy, technological leviathan, truth and doubt, unintended consequences, wildlife symbolism

cybernetics

The Cobra Effect of Unintended Consequences

Post author By G
Post date Dec 10, 2022
No Comments on The Cobra Effect of Unintended Consequences

The Cobra Effect of unintended consequences is the tip of an enormous iceberg of complex systems feedback loops and interdependency. It is not just the measurable, observed or recorded properties, processes and downstream consequences that concern us. Where we seek to control, shape or otherwise, and more realistically, to (minimally, if constructively) influence the arc […]

Tags cobra effect, complex, Complexity, consequences, intervention, language, system, systems, unintended consequences, wicked