Polarities (Part 2)

Last time I explained ‘causal loop diagrams’, which are graphs with edges labeled by plus or minus signs, or more general ‘polarities’. These are a way to express qualitatively, rather than quantitatively, how entities affect one another.

For example, here’s how causal loop diagrams us say that alcoholism ‘tends to increase’ domestic violence:

We don’t need to specify any numbers, or even need to say what we mean by ‘tends to increase’, though this leads to the danger of using the term in a ...