"Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems" is a paper by Jay Forrester.

In it, Forrester gives a concise explanation of how flame wars start.

The mental model is fuzzy. It is incomplete. It is imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within one individual, a mental model changes with time and even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As the subject shifts so does the model. When only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. Goals are different and are left unstated. It is little wonder that compromise takes so long. And it is not surprising that consensus leads to laws and programs that fail in their objectives or produce new difficulties greater than those that have been relieved.

Forrester's work with complex systems has potential applications to semiotics, artificial intelligence, and the semantic web.

Links

• Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems (html)
• Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems (pdf)