The introduction of systems theory and the homeostatic feedback loop is really helpful in thinking about leadership and structural problems within a society. By imagining systems, such as Professor Bezio’s example of the educational system, as “living” things that can self-regulate, the long-term impacts of decision-making by leaders become more clear. For her example, Prof. Bezio explains that the education system needs some input to maintain the level of health that will allow it to operate. This input comes in the form of money and teachers. However, anything beyond what is needed to keep the education system running, like technology updates and diversity laws, and standardized testing, is not “necessary.” The education system will continue to work just off of inputs, even if it is not working right or effectively. Therefore, updates to systems carry an incredible amount of weight, because not only are they not “necessary,” but they can also be destabilizing and detrimental.<\/p>\n
The reading uses the example of the Moro community to demonstrate how these updates, while seemingly positive in the short term, can often have long-lasting negative effects that were not intended. This example reminded me so much of MacAskill’s\u00a0Doing Good Better<\/em>, and the PlayPump. I think that his message of effective altruism applies beyond making charitable donations to policy work, such as reforming the education system. We shouldn’t just make decisions because they seem good, we should make decisions that are the\u00a0most\u00a0<\/em>good for both the present and the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The introduction of systems theory and the homeostatic feedback loop is really helpful in thinking about leadership and structural problems within a society. By imagining systems, such as Professor Bezio’s example of the educational system, as “living” things that can self-regulate, the long-term impacts of decision-making by leaders become more clear. For her example, Prof. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4547,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-responses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6950,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947\/revisions\/6950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/criticalthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}