Of People and Systems

03/10/15

I find myself thinking about systems a lot. They're everywhere, and they're fascinating. Some exist on purpose, some seem to be an emergent property. Some are actively maintained, and some just go about existing and mutating without anyone's purposeful intervention.

How systems affect people, for good or for ill, is the part that interests me. It tells you a lot about a person, but it also tells you a lot about human nature—perhaps better put as human statistics.

Something I find myself thinking about now is how people act within a system considering their opinion about said system. As I think about it, there are many ways a person can think about a system:

• Unaware
• Indifferent
• Denial
• Agreement
• Sabotage
• Refusal
• Disobediance
• Acceptance
• Dependence
• Independence

Now, these aren't all mutally exclusive. I think patterns probably arise, regardless of the system in place, when people have aligning opinions about a system.

A person unaware of system is slave to that system. At least, any contact with the system she has no control over. It will do what it does, and she will be manipulated by it in whatever way she is. She may even be unaware of its presence while this happens.

A person indifferent to a system only really thinks about the system when she notices it. She could be most any other state about the system when she notices, just not really feel too strongly about it. It isn't something that defines her.

A person in denial about a system doesn't believe that system exists. It'll interact with her regardless, but maybe if she notices it she will rationalize it as something other than the system.

A person in agreement with a system is actively working to improve the system, or at least keep it running/working. I guess a stronger version of this would be a zealot or evangelical for the system, someone who tries to convince others to adopt it.

A person sabotaging a system is a person using the system with the intent to break it via dishonest means. I guess a person doing this without realizing it would be a parasite. Lots of slight variations of relationships to systems, I guess.

A person refusing a system is a person who actively avoids participating in a system. This probably overlaps with disagreement, which somehow I failed to list above.

A disobendiant person works in a system but actively breaks its rules. She is in disagreement, but can't refuse to be a participant.

A person who accepts a system agrees that the system is in place and that it has influence. She doesn't necessarily have any feelings further than that.

A person in dependence on a system is reliant on that system for some measure of personal gain that would make her nonfunctional without it.

A person independent of a system could work outside of that system if she so chose.

So, what's the point I'm getting at here. I'm not entirely sure, Stephan. I'm just doing some beginning explorations of systems and my personal hypotheses therein. People interact with systems, that much is obvious, but how much behavior can we derive from those interactions in general terms? Without knowing anything about the person or the system, just their relationship or attitude or opinions on the system.

It seems that being aware of the users of a system in this way could help in the design of such a system.

Though, perhaps, right now I'm being too abstract. I should pick a real-world system, do some research, and see what I find.

To be continued?