BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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"Decision makers whose decisions make risk for others, but not necessarily for themselves" (M.H. GLANTZ, p.12)

GLANTZ applies the concept to the case of the Moscow bureaucrats who took the decisions that led to the drying of most of the Aral Sea.

He adds: "The bottom line is that risk makers are often not held accountable for the environmental crises that result from their decisions" (Ibid).

Two more aspects should be emphasized:

1. Leaving apart the (frequent) case of risk makers who quite consciously take decisions in benefit of some pressure group, many are basically victims of their ignorance of synergic effects. Such ignorance generally results of their narrow specialized angle and incapacity of appreciating cross impacts with other issues.

2. Risk makers are also indifferent to the possible long-term effects of their decisions, and ignorant of any sound prospective methodology.

In any case, paraphrasing Lord KEYNES, in the long run, we will all be dead. This is indeed a powerful incentive to irresponsability.

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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