The Dorner reading was extremely fitting for the situation of the world today. Early on, it discussed how problems can be subtly linked to each other. Only in worst case scenarios do we see how these connections arise. We cannot solve problems one by one anymore, but instead we need to think of the situation as a whole. The reading mentioned that real world decision-making processes are rarely well documented. A lack of this information likely causes us to repeat the same mistakes and stop us from pinpointing common flaws in our train of thinking. Computer simulations, specifically, are a part of this reading that is utilized in the COVID-19 crisis. In real life, they are modeling the spread of the virus under different policy decisions. In the reading, the models tracked success of fictional societies, but also modeled the decisions of different leaders. Figure 7 shoes that leaders who made good decisions, made more and more good decisions, whereas leaders who made bad decisions were more inclined to make bad decisions. In a pandemic situation, it is extremely disconcerting to think that leaders who do not start off making good decisions are unlikely to ever start doing so.
The Forsyth reading, though not directly related, still makes an interesting point of how the solution may make the problem worse than it began. As good as high self-esteem sounds, it is not good in all situations. The study found that bolstering the students who performed poorly made them preform worse. This concept is something that I have been hearing a lot with the pandemic, specifically with the solution of vaccines. Scientist have apparently been rushing and cutting corners in the hope of creating a vaccine to help people as quickly as possible. However, some people are worried that due to the rush, the vaccine that is produced may have negative symptoms that are worse than the actual disease. This is a legitimate concern, but it does not mean there is a clear answer. Is it better to start testing a rushed vaccine or not try at all, and accept not finding a vaccine for many many years. Every solution of the pandemic is essentially facing the same dilemma. As I said before, we will not know the success of solutions until very far in the future.
I like what you are saying about thinking about the problem as a whole, instead of focusing on one small problem at a time. However, when the problem is as large as the issue we are facing presently, it is hard to wrap your mind around what the whole problem even is. It just seems to be getting bigger and bigger.
The lack of documentation of real world decision making processes really makes handling this situation difficult. Although our ideas shift, it would have been nice to see how others have handled a situation like this. I don’t think it would have helped solve it entirely but it could have helped determine what processes did not work.
I like the connection you made to the phrase “cutting corners”. Growing up I was super competitive and always wanted to complete tasks first. I would rush through everything and often, make mistakes in the process or end up with messy work. Although this doesn’t come close to ruining a society or developing new medicine, it’s still a process that I fell victim to before learning the importance of thinking things through.