#herbertsimon — Public Fediverse posts

“When #Simon faced a decision, he considered a few alternatives, sometimes asked for advice, chose and moved on. He didn’t agonize, and he didn’t second-guess. ‘The #best is enemy of the #good’ was the mantra he lived by.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/o... #HerbertSimon #satisficing

Opinion | The Nobel-Winning Ps...

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
-- Herbert Simon

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #HerbertSimon #Attention #Information

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #ChacoCanyon #Panopainting #NewMexico

Really great conversation today about Herbert Simon's 1962 paper "The Architecture of Complexity", thanks as always @RuthMalan for keeping us informed and updated! I could have gone on for hours probably.

This paper impressed on me because it talks about complex systems being hierarchical. And that reminds me a lot of Leonard Meyer's musical analysis methods published just six years before in 1956 - Emotion and Meaning in Music - that performs hierarchical analysis on music. Simon even mentions this in the paper, giving music as an example of hierarchical complexity. Coincidence? Maybe not, Meyer's work was well-known and influential at the time. No citation though.

Gestalt psychology is something Meyer was into and it shows a lot in Simon's thinking. The story of the watchmakers feels like a gestalt approach to complexity, one of them working faster by abstracting away the parts. Like Meyer does with his adoption of "iamb" and "trochee" for application to music, continuous abstraction pulls the lens out to the point that an entire symphony can be one large amphibrach pattern of expectation and release.

Anyway, coincidentally this recent $5 purchase arrived today!

#ComplexSystems #LeonardMeyer #HerbertSimon #Hierarchies #NearDecomposable #PapersInSystems

Wie wir Wirklichkeit entwerfen – und warum das für uns als Gesellschaft so wichtig ist

Was ist wahr? Diese Frage klingt so schlicht, doch sie beschäftigt Philosophen seit Jahrtausenden und auch mich immer wieder. Je älter ich werde, desto öfter spüre ich, wie sich „Wahrheit“ bei genauerem Hinsehen entzieht und verwandelt. Oft erinnert mich mein Nachdenken darüber an den Blick in […]

https://blog.hamdorf.org/wahrheitskonstruktion/

.> ... propaganda has a consistent aim: to influence the target to feel a certain way or form a certain opinion about a concept or entity. Propaganda is most often associated with governments, but activist groups, companies, and the media also produce it.

.> Advertising has been the business model that powers the internet since the earliest days of banners, popups, and garish blue hyperlinks; it’s sometimes called “the original sin of the internet.” As anyone who has seen an ad knows, advertising is most effective when it’s targeted and engaging, and the social platforms were uniquely suited both to target and to engage.

.> To help solve the information-glut problem, the platforms have to act as curators. Three curatorial functions in particular have proliferated across the web: search, trending, and recommendation engines. And each of these has become a battleground for motivated propagandists.

.> ... #DARPA researchers believe that memes can change individual and group values and behavior. They fit our information consumption infrastructure: big image, limited text, capable of being understood thoroughly with minimal effort. Person-to-person transmission and social virality tools enable them to spread easily and jump from group to group, evolving and changing as they do.

.> Ridicule is one of the most potent forces for breaking a powerful brand or cutting down a symbol of authority, and meme culture is extraordinarily adept at ridicule.

.> ... “Trolling, it might be said, is the social media equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and memes are its currency of propaganda.” [ #JeffGiesea a #DonaldTrump #ImageManager ]

.> ... Facts are largely irrelevant; a recent study of Twitter from 2006 to 2017 tracked 126,000 rumors spread by 3 million people. “False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth.” The researchers who published this conclusion, Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral, noted that false news “was more novel than true news,” and suggested that novelty might be one reason people shared it.

.> ... #HerbertSimon put it, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

.> ... if you control the messages, you control the people reading them...

.> ... propaganda has a consistent aim: to influence the target to feel a certain way or form a certain opinion about a concept or entity. Propaganda is most often associated with governments, but activist groups, companies, and the media also produce it.

.> Advertising has been the business model that powers the internet since the earliest days of banners, popups, and garish blue hyperlinks; it’s sometimes called “the original sin of the internet.” As anyone who has seen an ad knows, advertising is most effective when it’s targeted and engaging, and the social platforms were uniquely suited both to target and to engage.

.> To help solve the information-glut problem, the platforms have to act as curators. Three curatorial functions in particular have proliferated across the web: search, trending, and recommendation engines. And each of these has become a battleground for motivated propagandists.

.> ... #DARPA researchers believe that memes can change individual and group values and behavior. They fit our information consumption infrastructure: big image, limited text, capable of being understood thoroughly with minimal effort. Person-to-person transmission and social virality tools enable them to spread easily and jump from group to group, evolving and changing as they do.

.> Ridicule is one of the most potent forces for breaking a powerful brand or cutting down a symbol of authority, and meme culture is extraordinarily adept at ridicule.

.> ... “Trolling, it might be said, is the social media equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and memes are its currency of propaganda.” [ #JeffGiesea a #DonaldTrump #ImageManager ]

.> ... Facts are largely irrelevant; a recent study of Twitter from 2006 to 2017 tracked 126,000 rumors spread by 3 million people. “False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth.” The researchers who published this conclusion, Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral, noted that false news “was more novel than true news,” and suggested that novelty might be one reason people shared it.

.> ... #HerbertSimon put it, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

.> ... if you control the messages, you control the people reading them...

.> ... propaganda has a consistent aim: to influence the target to feel a certain way or form a certain opinion about a concept or entity. Propaganda is most often associated with governments, but activist groups, companies, and the media also produce it.

.> Advertising has been the business model that powers the internet since the earliest days of banners, popups, and garish blue hyperlinks; it’s sometimes called “the original sin of the internet.” As anyone who has seen an ad knows, advertising is most effective when it’s targeted and engaging, and the social platforms were uniquely suited both to target and to engage.

.> To help solve the information-glut problem, the platforms have to act as curators. Three curatorial functions in particular have proliferated across the web: search, trending, and recommendation engines. And each of these has become a battleground for motivated propagandists.

.> ... #DARPA researchers believe that memes can change individual and group values and behavior. They fit our information consumption infrastructure: big image, limited text, capable of being understood thoroughly with minimal effort. Person-to-person transmission and social virality tools enable them to spread easily and jump from group to group, evolving and changing as they do.

.> Ridicule is one of the most potent forces for breaking a powerful brand or cutting down a symbol of authority, and meme culture is extraordinarily adept at ridicule.

.> ... “Trolling, it might be said, is the social media equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and memes are its currency of propaganda.” [ #JeffGiesea a #DonaldTrump #ImageManager ]

.> ... Facts are largely irrelevant; a recent study of Twitter from 2006 to 2017 tracked 126,000 rumors spread by 3 million people. “False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth.” The researchers who published this conclusion, Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral, noted that false news “was more novel than true news,” and suggested that novelty might be one reason people shared it.

.> ... #HerbertSimon put it, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

.> ... if you control the messages, you control the people reading them...

.> ... propaganda has a consistent aim: to influence the target to feel a certain way or form a certain opinion about a concept or entity. Propaganda is most often associated with governments, but activist groups, companies, and the media also produce it.

.> Advertising has been the business model that powers the internet since the earliest days of banners, popups, and garish blue hyperlinks; it’s sometimes called “the original sin of the internet.” As anyone who has seen an ad knows, advertising is most effective when it’s targeted and engaging, and the social platforms were uniquely suited both to target and to engage.

.> To help solve the information-glut problem, the platforms have to act as curators. Three curatorial functions in particular have proliferated across the web: search, trending, and recommendation engines. And each of these has become a battleground for motivated propagandists.

.> ... #DARPA researchers believe that memes can change individual and group values and behavior. They fit our information consumption infrastructure: big image, limited text, capable of being understood thoroughly with minimal effort. Person-to-person transmission and social virality tools enable them to spread easily and jump from group to group, evolving and changing as they do.

.> Ridicule is one of the most potent forces for breaking a powerful brand or cutting down a symbol of authority, and meme culture is extraordinarily adept at ridicule.

.> ... “Trolling, it might be said, is the social media equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and memes are its currency of propaganda.” [ #JeffGiesea a #DonaldTrump #ImageManager ]

.> ... Facts are largely irrelevant; a recent study of Twitter from 2006 to 2017 tracked 126,000 rumors spread by 3 million people. “False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth.” The researchers who published this conclusion, Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral, noted that false news “was more novel than true news,” and suggested that novelty might be one reason people shared it.

.> ... #HerbertSimon put it, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

.> ... if you control the messages, you control the people reading them...

.> ... propaganda has a consistent aim: to influence the target to feel a certain way or form a certain opinion about a concept or entity. Propaganda is most often associated with governments, but activist groups, companies, and the media also produce it.

.> Advertising has been the business model that powers the internet since the earliest days of banners, popups, and garish blue hyperlinks; it’s sometimes called “the original sin of the internet.” As anyone who has seen an ad knows, advertising is most effective when it’s targeted and engaging, and the social platforms were uniquely suited both to target and to engage.

.> To help solve the information-glut problem, the platforms have to act as curators. Three curatorial functions in particular have proliferated across the web: search, trending, and recommendation engines. And each of these has become a battleground for motivated propagandists.

.> ... #DARPA researchers believe that memes can change individual and group values and behavior. They fit our information consumption infrastructure: big image, limited text, capable of being understood thoroughly with minimal effort. Person-to-person transmission and social virality tools enable them to spread easily and jump from group to group, evolving and changing as they do.

.> Ridicule is one of the most potent forces for breaking a powerful brand or cutting down a symbol of authority, and meme culture is extraordinarily adept at ridicule.

.> ... “Trolling, it might be said, is the social media equivalent of guerrilla warfare, and memes are its currency of propaganda.” [ #JeffGiesea a #DonaldTrump #ImageManager ]

.> ... Facts are largely irrelevant; a recent study of Twitter from 2006 to 2017 tracked 126,000 rumors spread by 3 million people. “False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth.” The researchers who published this conclusion, Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral, noted that false news “was more novel than true news,” and suggested that novelty might be one reason people shared it.

.> ... #HerbertSimon put it, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

.> ... if you control the messages, you control the people reading them...