Witness The Death Of – “Systems Thinking”

Linear Thinking

As children, we a taught to see things linearly. We are led to believe that for every cause, there is an effect. That everything has only one beginning and one end. This is further reinforced by the physical observations that every action results in a reaction.

This simplistic way of learning about the world around us, serves as a valuable learning tool, as it is allows us to broadly understand, what we see, and what we do and what we experience, with our juvenile intelligence.

This is considered linear thinking.

The Real World Is Made Up Of Complex Systems

Unfortunately, there are few systems in our world that fit that model. Systems such as biology, the environment, weather systems and the development of knowledge in general, is far more complex. To use linear thinking on complex systems is only possible if you focus on a single aspect of the system. When this happens, the desired outcome is rarely achieved. History has shown us that more often than not, that using linear thinking on complex systems results in bad outcomes.

There was a good article written by the United Nations University on Systems Thinking and the Cobra Effect and numerous example in Wikipedia where this has occurred.

Linear Thinking Is Far Too Prevalent Today

Unfortunately, in 2024, we are witnessing so many so-called responsible people, demonstrating linear thinking to solve complex problems. The climate change initiatives and the management of the recent pandemic are good examples. Fuelled by Fact Checkers that enforce linear thinking, has lulled people into believing that the thought model they grew up with, as a child, is perfectly valid as adults.

To this day, we see most governments are continuing to demonstrate linear thinking to solve problems, with devastating consequences. In this article, I wanted to illustrate another ever increasing problem which is emerging out of the dogmatic linear thinking demonstrated by governments today.

Our Digital World Is A Complex Multi-Dimensional Evolving Infrastructure

Our digital world has evolved rapidly since the birth of the Internet in the early 1970’s. It was originally developed as a open networked data communication system that could be used for free and open information sharing. Without going into too much detail, much as changed since 1970. The underlying information delivery system is still the same, but the layers of data management designed on top this infrastructure has allowed people to utilise essentially the same system for every complex network function in use today. Current applications include:

• Voice communication
• Cloud storage
• Cloud computing
• Secure data transmission
• Remote control and monitoring of digital equipment, ranging from simple home appliances through to complex systems such as spaceships, vehicles and industrial equipment
• Multi-media entertainment
• Secure banking and online shopping

It is important to realise that these systems are connected by the same “wires”! (Technically, “wires” in this context consist of radio waves, light beams and copper wires) It is a shared resource. Since everybody is sharing the same infrastructure, it has become so complex that there is not one person that understands all aspects of of all of the interconnected devices. The software programs built into the equipment connected to the Internet consists of billions of lines of computer code, written by humans.

We are reminded of how fragile the Internet is, when single software error can result in a whole company (Optus) providing telecommunications services to a whole country (Australia) for 9 hours. I do not believe that the smart person who wrote the single line of code in router firmware, could have anticipated such a possible outcome.

Those people who write and test code for online systems would say that calling our digital world “complex”, is an understatement.

Case Study: Indian Government Uses Linear Thinking And Their Citizens Pay The Price

On February 16, 2024, the Indian government proposed to ban ProtonMail emails after 13 bomb threats were sent using a ProtonMail server. The logic used by their government was that the “mail servers” were the problem, as investigators could not trace the culprits though the encrypted mail system.

In the same country, the government demonstrated this same linear thinking in legislation requiring VPN providers to leave their servers un-encrypted to allow government access, resulting in a number of VPN companies leaving the country.

The problem is: “Encryption is a hindrance to criminal investigation”

The solution is “Allow the government to bypass encrypted systems”

This is classical linear thinking. The price is that their citizens no longer have access to the Internet with the same level of security as other countries enjoy.

Security Should Be The Number One Focus

Since honest transactions and dishonest transactions share the same wires, security has evolved to be the number one focus of developers of all operating systems and equipment makers. To this end, end-to-end encryption is now considered to the minimum requirement to conduct any sort of business over the public Internet.

The single focus of allowing government full access to encrypted systems to track criminals, ignores the following legitimate requirements:

• Allowing citizens to conduct online financial transactions securely. This includes banking and shopping.
• Allowing businesses to conduct communication between offices and their employees, confidentially. This is a fundamental requirement in a competitive economy.
• Allowing communication that is sensitive, private and confidential, like medical information, to be transmitted between medical providers and their patients.
• Allowing businesses and citizens to secure their data and communications from cybercriminal activities that target them for the purpose of theft, or extortion.

Linear Thinking Continues – Worldwide

Every “opening” created on an encrypted system is not only accessible by government officials, but also anybody else on the planet who has a desire to infiltrate the “system” for their own motifs. Rest assured, the other intruders are generally not considered good social citizens.

Unfortunately, we are seeing government over the world continuing the trend showed by the Indian government and using linear thinking to break the very things that technologically proficient people have developed to help keep everybody safe while working on the public Internet.