The Unbearable Stupidity of Social Sciences
summary
Claims that software repeatedly reinvents century-old social science findings and misses contingency, using concrete models: Thorngate's G‑A‑S tradeoff and Luhmann's recursion-based systems theory to treat teams as communicative social systems. Shows bounded contexts as sociotechnical systems, maps Max Weber's bureaucracy onto implemented domains, and argues that migrating domain behavior into code removes social contracts and increases bureaucracy. Presents trust as an experience-based expectation (citing Axelrod), and contrasts true self‑managed decision-making with the misused buzzword self-organization.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction and concepts
- 3:18Thorngate's postulate
- 5:44Systems theory
- 11:03Socio-technical systems
- 13:54Bureaucracy and software
- 22:18The nature of trust
- 29:14Self-organization and wrap-up
- 34:36Q&A session
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