TED Talk
Posted December 22, 2017
When it comes to medicine, one rule of thinking has generally prevailed: Have disease, take pill, kill something. But physician Siddhartha Mukherjee says treatment should take a broader approach.
Showing posts with label Systems Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Systems Theory. Show all posts
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Can We Reimagine Our Approach To Treating Disease?
Siddhartha Mukherjee
TED Talk
Posted December 22, 2017
When it comes to medicine, one rule of thinking has generally prevailed: Have disease, take pill, kill something. But physician Siddhartha Mukherjee says treatment should take a broader approach.
TED Talk
Posted December 22, 2017
When it comes to medicine, one rule of thinking has generally prevailed: Have disease, take pill, kill something. But physician Siddhartha Mukherjee says treatment should take a broader approach.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Is There an Ideal Amount of Income Inequality?
Brian Gallagher
Nautilus
Originally published September 28, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
Is extreme inequality a serious problem?
Extreme inequality in the United States, and elsewhere, is deeply troubling on a number of fronts. First, there is the moral issue. For a country explicitly founded on the principles of liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness, protected by the “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” extreme inequality raises troubling questions of social justice that get at the very foundations of our society. We seem to have a “government of the 1 percent by the 1 percent for the 1 percent,” as the economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote in his Vanity Fair essay. The Harvard philosopher Tim Scanlon argues that extreme inequality is bad for the following reasons: (1) economic inequality can give wealthier people an unacceptable degree of control over the lives of others; (2) economic inequality can undermine the fairness of political institutions; (3) economic inequality undermines the fairness of the economic system itself; and (4) workers, as participants in a scheme of cooperation that produces national income, have a claim to a fair share of what they have helped to produce.
You’re an engineer. How did you get interested in inequality?
I do design, control, optimization, and risk management for a living. I’m used to designing large systems, like chemical plants. I have a pretty good intuition for how systems will operate, how they can run efficiently, and how they may fail. When I started thinking about the free market and society as systems, I already had an intuitive grasp about their function. Clearly there are differences between a system of inanimate entities, like chemical plants, and human society. But they’re both systems, so there’s a lot of commonalities as well. My experience as a systems engineer helped me as I was groping in the darkness to get my hand around these issues, and to ask the right questions.
The article is here.
Nautilus
Originally published September 28, 2017
Here is an excerpt:
Is extreme inequality a serious problem?
Extreme inequality in the United States, and elsewhere, is deeply troubling on a number of fronts. First, there is the moral issue. For a country explicitly founded on the principles of liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness, protected by the “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” extreme inequality raises troubling questions of social justice that get at the very foundations of our society. We seem to have a “government of the 1 percent by the 1 percent for the 1 percent,” as the economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz wrote in his Vanity Fair essay. The Harvard philosopher Tim Scanlon argues that extreme inequality is bad for the following reasons: (1) economic inequality can give wealthier people an unacceptable degree of control over the lives of others; (2) economic inequality can undermine the fairness of political institutions; (3) economic inequality undermines the fairness of the economic system itself; and (4) workers, as participants in a scheme of cooperation that produces national income, have a claim to a fair share of what they have helped to produce.
You’re an engineer. How did you get interested in inequality?
I do design, control, optimization, and risk management for a living. I’m used to designing large systems, like chemical plants. I have a pretty good intuition for how systems will operate, how they can run efficiently, and how they may fail. When I started thinking about the free market and society as systems, I already had an intuitive grasp about their function. Clearly there are differences between a system of inanimate entities, like chemical plants, and human society. But they’re both systems, so there’s a lot of commonalities as well. My experience as a systems engineer helped me as I was groping in the darkness to get my hand around these issues, and to ask the right questions.
The article is here.
Friday, November 4, 2016
Fostering Collective Growth and Vitality Following Acts of Moral Courage
Sheldene Simola
Journal of Business Ethics
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to explore a critical paradox related to the expression of moral courage in organizations, which is that although morally courageous acts are aimed at fostering collective growth, vitality, and virtue, their initial result is typically one of collective unease, preoccupation, or lapse, reflected in the social ostracism and censure of the courageous member and message. Therefore, this article addresses the questions of why many organizational groups suffer stagnation or decline rather than growth and vitality following acts of moral courage, and what can be done to ameliorate this outcome. A general system, relational psychodynamic perspective through which organizational group members might receive and respond to acts of moral courage is offered, and seven insights emerging from this perspective for fostering collective growth and vitality following acts of moral courage are provided.
The article is here.
Journal of Business Ethics
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to explore a critical paradox related to the expression of moral courage in organizations, which is that although morally courageous acts are aimed at fostering collective growth, vitality, and virtue, their initial result is typically one of collective unease, preoccupation, or lapse, reflected in the social ostracism and censure of the courageous member and message. Therefore, this article addresses the questions of why many organizational groups suffer stagnation or decline rather than growth and vitality following acts of moral courage, and what can be done to ameliorate this outcome. A general system, relational psychodynamic perspective through which organizational group members might receive and respond to acts of moral courage is offered, and seven insights emerging from this perspective for fostering collective growth and vitality following acts of moral courage are provided.
The article is here.
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