http://redteamjournal.com/2010/02/complexit/ Red teaming and alternative analysis for national security and business advantage. Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:48:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://redteamjournal.com/2010/02/complexit/comment-page-1/#comment-2389 Phil Ridderhof Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:18:18 +0000 http://redteamjournal.com/?p=2117#comment-2389 This is a great post, as is your associated paper on SWJ on Design. This recent Foreign Affairs book review backs up your points on the complexity of the Cold War: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66033/lawrence-d-freedman/frostbitten?page=show. As you allude to, there's a connection between how familiar we are with a subject and its percieved complexity or difficulty. I don't beleive that's it generally a case of more or les complex, but more or less familiar. What is familiar to us now is less complex. Additionally the insight enabled by hindsight--of knowing what actually did happen based on what actions were taken, provides a false perception of simplicity (relative). This belies the actual complexity of the problem when it was considered with the information available beforehand. There is also the case that in history, we tend to generalize the cause and effect relationships, which also leads to inaccurate simplification of the problem. This is a great post, as is your associated paper on SWJ on Design. This recent Foreign Affairs book review backs up your points on the complexity of the Cold War: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66033/lawrence-d-freedman/frostbitten?page=show.
As you allude to, there’s a connection between how familiar we are with a subject and its percieved complexity or difficulty. I don’t beleive that’s it generally a case of more or les complex, but more or less familiar. What is familiar to us now is less complex.
Additionally the insight enabled by hindsight–of knowing what actually did happen based on what actions were taken, provides a false perception of simplicity (relative). This belies the actual complexity of the problem when it was considered with the information available beforehand. There is also the case that in history, we tend to generalize the cause and effect relationships, which also leads to inaccurate simplification of the problem.

]]>