Why You Should Avoid Big Systems ?

 



NEERAJ MAHAJAN


I grew up listening homilies about things big and beautiful ; Centralized big nations, big schools, cities, cars, big bureaucracies,  corporations, universities and what not ? One common thing that characterizes all of them is you know what ? Most of them are fragile. Anything with little upside and huge downside is fraught with fragility. And why they are so ? Because these so called man made modern inventions are in direct contravention to what the mother nature loves : Small Robust Systems as they are beautiful.


When I write small robust systems, I refer to decentralized nations like  Canada, USA or a city State Switzerland which are strong sub systems within a big system.  Swiss Cantons and municipalities are near Sovereign & confederation of States in US , Canada are largely independent entities with even a national flag and constitution for a few in the US. 


Highly centric systems as India's, China's ,ex USSR are fragile as one error and the system gets whacked.. Deluge in India (in covid era), ex USSR( post its collapse) is manifest to the world.As some one said, " Stalin could not have existed in a Municipality ". As to China, it is past master in throttling information so less said the better. Here's my thing of a small system with in a big system.


A SQUARE IS A BIG SYSTEM COMPRISING OF MANY SMALL SYSTEMS IN SMALLER SQUARES. THAT MAKES THE SYSTEM ROBUST.


Traffic management systems in mega cities as New York, New Delhi is ultra fragile. A single accident on  Ring Road Systems of Delhi can bring the entire city of 20 million to a grinding halt. Ditto in worlds IT capital Bangalore. Top heavy corporations, bureaucracies are in the same league. They are too unionized and red tapist systems too do anything worthwhile that makes them extremely fragile.


BIG IS USUALLY FRAGILE


A single wrong decision can sink corporations over time. HP is a good example of what not to do.  As the  market leader in office automation of the 90s it refused to diversify into mobile phones  and other related businesses. The decision was taken by the new CEO of the co. and the board was bullied into submission. A stinking example of value destruction thru top down decision making systems.  


Human bodies, the Airlines industry,  are a great case study in small is robust. A heart attack ( non fatal) in human body wont affect the kidneys, lungs or the nervous system. If fatal, the organs can be harvested from the cadaver that will benefit countless others. 

In living things, countless cellular sub systems, genes compete against one another resulting in survival of the fittest.  And what about cats ? Why it has 9 lives ? Because it is very small !


A Malaysian airline crash or a Titanic fiasco wont derail the respective industries. It benefits the entire system, on the contrary, as they learn from mistakes and become better ( as in evolution). This makes them beyond robust Antifragile.( little downside but huge upside).


Henry Petroski, Engineering Historian, mentioned it beautifully . Had Titanic fiasco not happened, we would have continued to build larger ocean liners and the next disaster would have been more tragic. The same can be said of Fukushima Nuclear reactor disaster. Had it not happened, we would have built bigger ones inviting catastrophy ( even if a tiny probability).


SMALL IS USUALLY ANTI FRAGILE TO SMALL HARM



To sum up my point, most top down systems suffer from unusual fragility. Bottom up systems are solid, robust, antifragile and can with stand worst and even become better with small harm. Aviation and Shipping become safer post every major crash. Pl refer to this piece on upside and downside of life to know better.


In your daily lives be it business, your offices, homes, while travelling avoid creating big systems. Make independent sub systems so as a failure of one helps the another. 


The central idea is the need to keep systems small, independent so that the mistakes are small enough for you to survive them. No ones fault should drag others down. 


As always many thanks for reading me. If you have any constructive feedback / ideas I am just a mail away @ neerajmahajan0770@gmail.com


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