Systemic Impact Quotes

[On congressional reform:] If you purify the pond, the water lilies die.

We begin by trying to alter what we can see, but the tremors which our action starts sometimes run through the entire depth our society; levels to which we pay no conscious attention are stirred, and all kinds of unintended results ensue.

Remember you don't do anything in isolation.

Developments in financial markets can have broad economic effects felt by many outside the markets.

If AIG had tried to unwind their derivatives books. I don't know. It would have hit every institution in the world.

It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an accompanying unintended disadvantage.

Because of my experience in Occupy, instead of asking the question, "Who will benefit from this system I'm implementing with the data?" I started to ask the question, "What will happen to the most vulnerable?" Or "Who is going to lose under this system? How will this affect the worst-off person?" Which is a very different question from "How does this improve certain people's lives?"

A tumor often grows silently and doesn't start making itself known until it's pushing on structures or organs or tissues around it in a way that starts to mess up the whole system.

There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.

There is no such thing as institutional conditions without any individual actions and no such thing as individual action without institutional conditions. So there is always personal responsibility.

Design our world so that we have positive social and environmental side effects.

Isolated incidents have lateral, lasting implications.

In space, everything is dependent on everything else and one hiccup causes a lot of ripple effects.

In an economy, an act, a habit, an institution, or a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause - it is seen. The others unfold in succession - they are not seen. Now this difference is enormous, for it is often true that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse.

If one limb of the body is defected or inflicted with, disease, the whole feels tha pai. Some way if any department, minister or official of the state is faulty, the whole country is effected. An administrator should try hard to curb it.

Institutions are more important than the individual leaders.

When rooted, you observe how systems actually affect people.

Every body and thing has politics involved. Every. Single. Thing.

It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon.