The “Complex” Perspective
English
The English edition of the 2016 book — translated from the German original with AI in 2025 and revised in 2026. This is the panel that builds the lens the rest of the series looks through.
Complex Systems
To understand the current technological, economic, and political change a combination of the following is needed:
- Complex systems – seeing societies, organizations, and markets as networks of interacting agents with feedback loops and emergent behavior.
- Game theory – analyzing incentives, conflicts, and cooperation between actors who adapt strategically.
- Behavioral economics & psychology – understanding bounded rationality, biases, and the human element.
- Data, algorithms & AI – data as raw material, transformed by data science and AI into knowledge and actions.
- History & political economy – learning from past technological revolutions, shifting bottlenecks, and the tension between tradition and innovation.
This page collects the Complex Perspective series and material to play with these concepts.
The Complex Perspective series
Ten years ago, I wrote "Die komplexe Perspektive" as a self-learning experiment—a collection of foundational ideas I believed were necessary to understand technological, societal, and economic change. The series has since grown into four panels: the book that builds the lens, an interactive successor for today, a speculative outlook on 2036, and a how-to for putting the lens to work. The 2026, 2036, and how-to sites appear as cards under "Made with AI" below.
Die ‚komplexe‘ Perspektive
Deutsch
The German original, written in 2016: an introduction to the digital economy through complex systems, networks, data, and AI.
New material
Simulations
Vibe coded simulations
Loading simulations...
Interactive simulations based on chapter 2 of the book (2016)
Loading simulations...
Made with AI
See all sitesStandalone websites built with AI, one complex-systems topic per site:
What still matters when machines think: six skills AI makes more valuable, each argued from a present-day mechanism and playable as a toy. Every claim is marked Anchored, Projection, or Cinema, so you always know when it turns to speculation.
An interactive essay on Hayek’s 1945 “The Use of Knowledge in Society” — and whether transformative AI changes the answer. Eleven stations of games and simulations let you feel the knowledge problem instead of only reading about it.
The Complex Perspective 2026
Systems thinkingAn interactive successor to the 2016 book The Complex Perspective: thirteen modules applying complexity science, networks, and agent-based modeling to economics, society, politics, and AI.
Complex Perspective · How-to
ComplexityHow to actually use the complexity lens: concrete moves for politics, large and small companies, and your own life — against the grain of command-and-control culture, plan worship, and fear of failure.
The Watercourse Way
TaoismLao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching read five times over — by a Cynefin practitioner, a cyberneticist, a cognitive scientist, a process philosopher, and a mandatory Skeptic who keeps the metaphors honest.
Articles about Complex Systems
Dec 22, 2025
science
A Journey Through "The Complex Perspective" with NotebookLM
Ten years ago, I wrote “Die komplexe Perspektive” (the complex perspective) as a practical mental model for making sense of the digital economy. I’m revisiting those ideas using a set...
#complex-systems
#ai
#data
#gen-ai
Read more
Feb 13, 2016
science
The 'Complex' Perspective - Introduction to the Digital Economy
Humanity has arrived in the information and knowledge society. No sooner have the first changes been digested than more news appears on the horizon: the Internet of Things, Big Data,...
#data
#complex-systems
#ai
#machine-learning
Read more
Aug 08, 2011
science
Review of 'Complexity - A Guided Tour'
“Complexity - A Guided Tour” is a worthwhile and interesting introduction. “Complexity” is a cross-disciplinary topic that permeates many fields, such as biology (immune system, brain, evolution), economics, computer science,...
#review
#complex-systems
Read more