[ratel]

This article is wrong on so many levels:

1. Theoretical: chaotic and complex are not the same thing. Organized and tidy are neither the opposite from or excluding complex systems. Some very tidy systems can still be mind-boggling complex. Furthermore Chaotic systems have a single underlying order (it might just be impossible to discern), but they are not complex. Complex systems might have multiple orders, none at all or everything in between.

See for an in-depth discussion: The Collapse of Chaos; Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World, Jack Cohen & Ian Stewart, Penguin, 2000.

2. Practical: The amount of tidiness in a complex system does not say anything about its efficiency, but neither does its untidiness. Complex systems might be untidy through sunken costs, like most cities are, revolution, evolution, historical accident, or even attempts to make an ordered system (like a system of law) always leaving some gap. The fact that a complex system exists does not say anything about it being efficient or its fitness for purpose. Like the three year old who thinks the mess is beautiful, but cannot find her favorite plush toy.

Changing complex systems is indeed hard, because different subsystems will interact, have feedback loops, create externalities, exclude external information or are near impossible through sunken costs. But that still leaves the calculation of how much the new system or altered system might be more efficient or better than the current system and what the risks involved are.

Tiding up complex systems has risks, but also benefits even if you don't believe the second law of thermodynamics applies to human created systems. Tidied up systems are more easy to reason about and thus can be more easily fixed, adapted or expanded upon. The act of tiding up has the additional benefit of adding to our knowledge about how a system actually works.

3. This guy works for Uber. The cab company with a computer that wants to uproot the current (complex) systems and replace it with something simpler. Yet fails to turn a profit. Do we need to read something into this article, or did he just not realize he contradicts his employers mission?

[rossdavidh]

All true, and I would also add a lesson from software design. Spaghetti code might, in some limited sense, be more efficient in some cases, but it is difficult to understand, therefore difficult to fix when something is wrong. Making things orderly, even from a top-down perspective, may be more important than being as efficient as possible, if you need to be able to understand what's happening in order to use (or fix) whatever it is.

[stjohnswarts]

3. I don't think Uber is less complex, just complex in different areas. Uber's sole purpose is to make its owners more money, currently that means providing a upheaval in the industry and providing easy ride access to humans. When those humans are no long the best (or most obvious way) to make money the capital and investors will move on.