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Nov 5 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Read these 3 pages. I post them every so often because I think it is some of the tightest, wisdom-packed writing on managing complex systems ever.

And almost every system is a complex system today, which is why cascading failures are swirling around us. researchgate.net/publication/22…
I think about #10 & #11 a lot. They apply to entrepreneurs & also basically any expert who has ever had to make a decision under uncertainty.
And to understand the science of complexity, this site is a great place to start.
And some additional perspectives from the author of the article, shared by someone who knew him

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More from @emollick

Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Nov 4
It is both fascinating to see how critical the Mississippi River still is to the flow of all freight in the US…

And somewhat terrifying given that we are BARELY holding the river back from spontaneously changing its course to the Atchafalaya basin and becoming unnavigable.
The Old River Control Structure is all that keeps the Mississippi from being captured by the channel of the Atchafalaya.

But the river could carve a new path at a different place, or climate change could overwhelm the system. The results would be scary: wunderground.com/cat6/Americas-…
Or read the classic John McPhee piece: “It was at the Old River that the United States was going to lose its status among the world’s trading nations. It was at Old River that New Orleans would be lost.”  newyorker.com/magazine/1987/…
Read 6 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Nov 2
I expect that we are going to see an explosion of “secret AI,” where AI advice is delivered by humans. Why?

We hate to listen to AI. For example, getting feedback from an AI system improved employee performance… until people learned it was from an AI, then performance DROPPED.
The world is only going to get weirder.
(Of all of the science fiction books we could be living in, Blindsight would not be my novel of choice.)

Paper here: researchgate.net/publication/35…
Read 4 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Nov 1
Policy position more politicians should advocate for: mandate Rockstar Games release more Grand Theft Auto games to lower crime rates

When a GTA game is released, violence & crime actually drop, as potential criminals stay inside to play (This applies to other big shooters, too)
Therefore, everyone who is saying that there are too many Call of Duty games is just pro-crime.

(I believe Elden Ring may have increased the crime rate out of sheer misdirected frustration, but have no proof that this is the case)
Video games may be a pretty cost-effective crime prevention strategy. According to @patmarkey’s research: “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Grand Theft Auto IV potentially saved not only 616 lives, but also a staggering $5.5 billion dollars.”
Read 6 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Oct 30
Everyone on social media should know about the Illusory Truth Effect

If you see something repeated enough times, it seems more true. Multiple studies show that it works on 85% of people. Worse, it still happens even if the information isn't plausible & even if you know better.
Paper showing it works after just five repetitions for obviously false statements (“George Washington was born in China”); researchgate.net/publication/35…

Knowing better does not help: apa.org/pubs/journals/…

A lot of statements at the same time strengthens it. journalofcognition.org/articles/10.53…
The only thing that is proven to reduce the Illusory Truth Effect is to train yourself to check every fact the 1st time you see it.

Which is a problem when less than 3% of high school students even try to Google dubious propaganda videos before choosing whether to believe them.
Read 4 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Oct 28
The 2001 collapse of Enron was a fatal hit to elite control of politics.

It led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which made sitting on many corporate boards hard. The "old boys network" was built on board interlocks.

100 directors sat on 5+ major boards in 1974, now only one does. 1/
These board interlocks were the way elites coordinated with each other and ensured they had mutual interests for the past 100+ years.

A small set of corporate & social elite would sit on boards of charities, foundations, and companies, and rotate in and out of government. 2/
Powerful business people still have tremendous influence, of course, but it is no longer coordinated influence.

Scholars have argued that, with the end of a common elite consensus, individual business people now use their influence in much less moderated ways than before. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Ethan Mollick Profile picture
Oct 27
As Twitter is getting new leaders, reminder that moderation is vital:
1) A few trolls ruin everything: Just 0.1% of all Reddits make 38% of attacks on others
2) Short well-explained bans for 1st offenses, followed by perma-bans, work well
3) Toxic communities turn new users toxic
The business case, from League of Legends:
👺Trolling can be stopped: banning abusive players while giving fast feedback results in 92% of toxic players improving
💸Trolls cost: if your 1st game has a toxic player, you are 320% more likely to quit forever
nature.com/articles/53156…
Here is the paper on the fact that a few trolls do most of the damage, from the first tweet: arxiv.org/pdf/1803.03697…

And here is the one on moderation policies: dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.114…

And the paper on toxicity spreading: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWS…
Read 4 tweets

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