“Even Toynbee, floundering through his massive survey of 20-odd civilizations, was finally able to discern only that: Systems tend to malfunction conspicuously just after their greatest triumph. Toynbee explains this effect by pointing out the strong tendency to apply a previously successful strategy to the new challenge.”

—  John Gall

Source: Systemantics: the underground text of systems lore, 1986, p. 35 cited in: Kevin Kelly (1988) Signal: communication tools for the information age. p. 7

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American physician 1925–2014

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“The system always kicks back. — Systems get in the way— or, in slightly more elegant language: Systems tend to oppose their own proper functions. Systems tend to malfunction conspicuously just after their greatest triumph.”

John Gall (1925–2014) American physician

Source: Systemantics: the underground text of systems lore, 1986, p. 27 cited in: Kevin Kelly (1988) Signal: communication tools for the information age. p. 7

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“[.. ] the values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.”

Cited by Tim Flannery, "Learning from the past to change our future" http://science.sciencemag.org/content/307/5706/45.full, Science, volume 307, 7 January 2005, page 45.
Source: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005)

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