Status:

I am having trouble naming this page!!!

This is just a few notes and links to systems design, systems dynamics, interaction analysis, game theory, control systems, and systems engineering info - and the subset of those that I am targeting right now.  In the end, I decided to put together a curriculum to study Interaction Analysis as I see it: The tools I need to get started - Control Theory, Game Theory, Data Analysis, Python, and Jupyter notebooks.

Problem:

I'm looking for a discipline that helps to describe and analyze systems that influence the behavior of people, and the resources available to them.  Problems that involve people/systems/resource are just everywhere - I want to know how academia slices these.  

I was hoping to find a single discipline that is employed when finding solutions to those problems, but, unsurprisingly, I couldn't.  I.e. I want to understand how UBI might affect an economy that has certain specific characteristics, and the actual the resource availability (time, necessities, money) and the mental state of the participants before, during, and after a UBI experiment.  What you find when looking for academics who analyze those problems is that they come from widely varied fields of study.

So, AFAICT, what I am looking for doesn't exist precisely.  There is no single discipline that is focused on these types of problems specifically and exclusively.  There are lots of related disciplines, though, and a I found a few interesting things to take notes on.

Terminology:

I probably first need to make clear the terminology that exists around the Systems Dynamics, Systems Design, and Systems Engineering - the terminology is definitely overloaded and there is poor consensus on it.  

So, right now, this is a tiny survey of the nearby fields, and a description of my aspirational field of study:

Systems Design and Systems Dynamics

I probably should *not* be calling this page Systems Design: Design-focused folk think of "systems design" as systems thinking coupled with design team dynamics: Here's article from an IDEO systems designer  that mentions three lectures on Systems Thinking (1,2,3) by Russell Ackoff.  Somewhat similarly, wikipedia currently thinks Systems Design is purely a product-focused endeavor. 

Other Systems Design folk think of Systems Design solely as IT/DevOps/Sysadminy process interaction design - something I've got some experience with and enjoy, but, also, not what I'm focused on.  However, a lot is being learned by those architecting large networked computing systems, so I thought I would throw a couple meta links in here as notes: Pretty good list of computing systems concepts in this github repo on acing the systems design interview.  

I should also probably not call this page Systems Dynamics, although Systems Dynamics supplies useful conventions and diagramming tools to explain some things I would work on: Systems Dynamics is a relatively narrow methodology for analyzing systems - at least according to the (likely consensus) definition on wikipedia: System dynamics (SD) is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and time delays.

Systems Engineering, Control Theory, Blockchain Technology and Game Theory

Some parts of Control Theory and Game Theory are clearly useful to my efforts in understanding those problems, and I do need to study those disciplines further. 

Blockchain technology is an poorly defined thing, so I won't study it per se, but it's hugely relevant as a study.  Digital Ledger Technology is clearly a subset of what people think of as "Blockchain Technology", and is often combined with applied cryptography, applied computer science, and game theory to do the things people talk about when they talk about "blockchain systems".  Anyway that field is actually really fertile ground for development and study of systems that keep track of resources - I mean, it's screamin' on the research front - you cannot find a field with more live, uniquely different, mass-scale experiments going on.  So, in sum, I do think it is worthwhile to continue to study the four things I mentioned: DLT, applied cryptography, applied computer science, and game theory - in combination.  But before I agree to name that blockchain technology, I have to have my own pity-party first.  You are invited, but you can skip to the next section, too: crytpoterminologicalpityparty

Control Theory and Game Theory are the clear winners out of this set.

Naming it for the heck of it - Interaction Analysis or Systems Analysis

The term "interaction analysis" is primarily used in sociology to describe human communication and in business to describe interacting business processes.  Those domains are, actually, much closer to the core function of a system involving humans than Systems Engineering and Control Theory are, and when I need to dip into those other disciplines, I will.

Interaction Analysis is also, more rarely, used to describe almost any interacting objects in a system studied in academia.  I have found articles that mention including interaction analysis on the topics of biology, human computer interfaces, public health, and more.  So, I think this might just be broad enough that no one will care if I use the terminology "Interaction Analysis" and I won't have to discuss this further.  "Interaction Design" is kind of dominated by HCI folk, so people might be confused if I use that term.

Systems Analysis is probably also o.k. for me to use, as it's somewhat close to my problem statement, and in it's usage it is vague, overloaded, and lightly searched for.

Whether I model something that exists or something that is new, being able to analyze and explain a system that I am modeling is hugely useful - i.e. next time I look at something like Circles or Ohm or a diagram of the research evidence supporting leading methodologies in suicide prevention - I'll have better tools than I do today.

Tools:

Causal loop diagrams:

These are right up my alley - great for thinking through stuff and explaining systems to others:

Jay Wright Forrester came up with these.

Nice Stock to Flow article.

Systems and Us - some really important articles here.

UvA video that has some thoughts on CLDs.

ASU video on CLDs.

No courses exist on CLDs that I know of.

My Curriculum

These are the courses I have chosen so far - I'm taking the first two in parallel.  The ones that I make myself will be simple - just one video by me, a reading/watching list of external courses by others, and a problem set by me.

1. Google Data Analyst

1. IBM Data Analyst

2. Python refresher

3. Jupyter for beginners

4. Control Theory course - TBD

5. Game Theory course - TBD

6. CLD course - TBD (I might have to make this)

7. Systems Analysis - TBD (I might have to make this)

8. Circles UBI Study - TBD (I might have to make this)

I'll post something on Galaxy Maps when I've completed my initial study.