Andrew Hinton
dorianit's really too bad that the systems term "positive feedback", referring to dangerous dynamics, also means "good job, skippy!"
Jorge Arango@doriantaylor 🤣
@jarango (also negative feedback in a system is actually something you want, lol)
@doriantaylor I laughed because this comes up in my systems studio class. The terminology is set up to confuse students.
River Brandon@jarango @doriantaylor Has always struck me as well. I’ve seen more uses of things like “limiting” and “reinforcing” in stuff I’ve read, which helps reduce the sense of a moral dimension, I think. Sometimes you want one or the other. Neither is always good or bad.
@rvr @doriantaylor that's close to Meadows’s terms: “balancing” vs. “reinforcing” feedback. I suspect she chose these terms to alleviate the potential confusion. The problem, of course, is that they're nonstandard; other systems texts use “negative” and “positive” feedback.
@jarango @doriantaylor Oh right, I was trying to recall what she used, specifically. They’re nonstandard, but I actually think they’re *clearer*. So there’s that.
@rvr @doriantaylor yep — that's one of the reasons I have my students read her book; it makes many of these concepts clear and relatable.