Why do disasters like blackouts and financial crises cascade so quickly, but fixing them takes so long? The answer, game developer Nicky Case says, is “attractors”—the parts of a complex system that attract the system towards failure.

• This is an excerpt from Nicky Case’s August 02017 Long Now talk, “Seeing Whole Systems.” Watch full video of the talk, and read a summary written by Stewart Brand, here.
• Case has developed a useful and free tool for simulating complex systems called Loopy.
• Go here to play more of Case’s games.