Nicky Case: The Attractors Behind Disasters

Why do disasters like blackouts and financial crises cascade so quickly, but fixing them takes so long? The answer, game developer Nicky Case says, is “attractors”—the parts of a complex system that attract the system towards failure.

• This is an excerpt from Nicky Case’s August 02017 Long Now talk, “Seeing Whole Systems.” Watch full video of the talk, and read a summary written by Stewart Brand, here.
• Case has developed a useful and free tool for simulating complex systems called Loopy.
• Go here to play more of Case’s games.