[Initial publication had a lot of errors, including duplicate links. My apologies.] This will be a mini article, mostly listing some relevant links. I was writing a much longer article about the human costs of complexity and excessive complexity in government agencies when many issues started occurring at the national and local levels since the beginning of 2025. In addition to that, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted a self-coup on December 3, 2024 and got impeached on April 4, 2025 (https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-martial-law-yoon-constitutional-court-8cdcf4944c2e3cd9edf723bc29ba51ff). I had to pause my writing to get a better sense of what is going on and try doing something locally in a limited way.
One of the ideas I was writing about was controlling complexity through careful subtractive solutions. I do NOT want that idea to be mixed in with arbitrary destruction of the federal government by a paranoid billionaire and his hand-picked 20-something tech bros.
Here are some links about subtractive solutions to reduce complexity. I will see if I can more frequently write very brief articles rather than long ones.
- Good to start: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-brain-typically-overlooks-this-brilliant-problem-solving-strategy/
- This is what led to the “Peak Complexity” article series, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/peak-complexity-why-nothing-works-any-more-steve-melia-mn2ne
- This is the very technical paper that the Scientific American article above refers to: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03380-y.epdf
- A very thoughtful article on “Via Negativa” (subtractive solutions) by a college junior: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/05/05/hassan-the-case-for-via-negativa/
City Untangled 