“The systems approach is not a bad idea”

“We do not live in a world that mainly suffers bad policies due to lack of ideas about better ones, or lack of elegant explanations supporting good policies, but one that suffers bad policies due to system and meta-system level incentives.”

“There are no experts in the systems approach”

“You may turn a bad idea into a good idea — don't kill the bad idea prematurely. A bad idea can evolve into a good idea.”

“Don’t passively accept contagions. Turn your mind into an immune system that intercepts invading ideas, assesses them, and destroys the bad ones.”

“The synthetic mode of thought, when applied to systems problems, is called the systems approach. In this approach a problem is not solved by taking it apart but by viewing it as a part of a larger problem.”

“Bad ideas in computer science and anywhere are sticky. If the first idea was a bad idea, then because it works people will sort of repeat it.”

“Historical, political economic systems theory. The Marxian approach to system theorizing clearly points us to sociologically important phenomena: the material conditions of social life, stratification and social class, conflict, the reproduction as well as transformation of capitalist systems, the conditions that affect group mobilization and political power, and the ways ideas functions as ideologies.”

“The comprehensiveness of OR’s aim is an example of a ‘systems’ approach, since ‘system’ implies an interconnected complex of functionally related components.”

“It's not that I don't know that it's a bad idea. It's that, lately, bad ideas have a particular hold over me.”