One concept people talk about in game design is “pendulum swing”, where something that is too powerful or too weak is overcorrected in balance patches and becomes the opposite—something too powerful becomes too weak, while something too weak becomes too powerful.
A similar concept can be present in other sectors as well—often, noticing one problem can lead to an overcorrection that brings you the opposite problem. For instance, an early stage organization might notice that they aren’t systematic enough in their processes, overcorrect, and become too rigid and doctrinaire.
(Duncan Sabien uses this concept of pendulum swing a lot, and while I was aware of it prior to his use he’s done a lot to bring it to attention as a relevant rationality concept.)
I think it’s useful to distinguish between pendulum swings (Norms that go back and forth within a particular overton window) and overcorrections (where Norma just switch once, but too much)
One concept people talk about in game design is “pendulum swing”, where something that is too powerful or too weak is overcorrected in balance patches and becomes the opposite—something too powerful becomes too weak, while something too weak becomes too powerful.
A similar concept can be present in other sectors as well—often, noticing one problem can lead to an overcorrection that brings you the opposite problem. For instance, an early stage organization might notice that they aren’t systematic enough in their processes, overcorrect, and become too rigid and doctrinaire.
(Duncan Sabien uses this concept of pendulum swing a lot, and while I was aware of it prior to his use he’s done a lot to bring it to attention as a relevant rationality concept.)
I think it’s useful to distinguish between pendulum swings (Norms that go back and forth within a particular overton window) and overcorrections (where Norma just switch once, but too much)