# Thinking in Systems  ## Metadata - Author: [[Donella H. Meadows]] - Full Title: Thinking in Systems - Category: #books ## Highlights - The second kind of feedback loop is amplifying, reinforcing, self-multiplying, snowballing—a vicious or virtuous circle that can cause healthy growth or runaway destruction. It is called a reinforcing feedback loop, ([Location 641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005VSRFEA&location=641)) - The information delivered by a feedback loop can only affect future behavior; it can’t deliver the information, and so can’t have an impact fast enough to correct behavior that drove the current feedback. ([Location 770](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005VSRFEA&location=770)) - Model utility depends not on whether its driving scenarios are realistic (since no one can know that for sure), but on whether it responds with a realistic pattern of behavior. ([Location 901](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005VSRFEA&location=901)) ## New highlights added October 20, 2023 at 6:35 PM - The higher and faster you grow, the farther and faster you fall, when you’re building up a capital stock dependent on a nonrenewable resource. In the face of exponential growth of extraction or use, a doubling or quadrupling of the nonrenewable resource give little added time to develop alternatives. ([Location 1131](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B005VSRFEA&location=1131))