What’s Missing in Policymaking and News Production: Complexity

Everyone knows (sort of) that we live in a “complex world.” But what does that demand of us? This is a double “us”: regarding political policymakers as well as individual citizens.

Let’s start with legislators, bureaucrats and the like. Given how numerous government functions have become, it’s only natural that each department focuses on its specific professional specialty. However, that comes with a huge downside: the real world itself is not “modular” – most everything is connected to everything else. Here’s a fascinating example from the 1970s in the U.S.

Over several years there were two cases of a plane stopping very short on the takeoff runway. At the time, babies did not have to have their own seats but rather simply sat on their parent’s lap. Two such babies died when thrown into the bulkhead with the plane’s quick halt. A commission was set up to determine whether to require seat purchases for every child, regardless of age. After due deliberation their recommendation was a strong “NO”! Why? Because after taking “everything” into account, they found that such a requirement would force many families to drive by car from one relatively nearby city to another – and then far more such travelers would die in ensuing traffic accidents than in airplane stoppages (or any form of in-flight crash).

In short, here was a rare case of a government body considering the complexity of life: transportation, psychology, economics, statistics, etc.

In real (bureaucratic) life, unless an interdisciplinary commission is set up, such broad-based thinking does not get done within any specific department, given the deep but narrow knowledge base of its policymaking structure.

An Israeli case in point (one of many that could be brought): the Ministry of Education. It specializes in “pedagogy” – how to teach, the best tools to use, the comprehension abilities of each age group etc. But where it fails is on the huge question “What to Teach?” If the whole idea of education is to prepare our youth for life, then why aren’t they learning about finance (banking, savings), child psychology (bringing up kids), the importance of nutrition and sleep, proper interpersonal communication (body language etc.), neurobiology (how the brain works and affects everything we do), as well as several other critical aspects of life?

(Higher education in Israel tries to address the complexity of life by requiring students to take a few courses outside their major and minor study disciplines, but this hardly makes up for their general knowledge shortfall.)

The result of the usually narrow-minded bureaucratic approach is policymaking weakness, if not outright failure. Of course, this extends to the legislators themselves, most without wide-ranging expertise and thus reliant on those same bureaucrats. At least in the U.S., Congresspersons have a few dozen assistants, each with a different specialization, so that policymaking can take into account some amount of complexity. In Israel, unfortunately, each MK is granted the grand total of three parliamentary assistants (committee chairs get an additional one) – most of whom are more involved in “politics” (communicating and helping the public) than in the legislative process itself.

From this sad situation one can understand the difficulties facing the citizenry as news consumers trying to comprehend the world. There are several problems with the way the news is presented. First, it’s almost always only about “yesterday” and “tomorrow” – not long-term trends or impacts. Second, most news venues present the news in modular fashion (much like bureaucratic departments): politics on one page (or section), economics on another, science on a third, etc. – with little connectivity between them. Third, most have a specific bias, so that whatever information is conveyed will go through a filter that presents only part of the data or a one-sided analysis.

All this forces us as news consumers to do a lot of combinatory work – if we are aware at all that such “work” is necessary. Of course, no one can completely understand all the elements that go into whatever social (or political, economic etc.) phenomenon we’re interested in, but the less we are aware of such interactions, the further away we are from real comprehension. As the saying goes: the problem is not what we don’t know; it’s that we don’t know what we don’t know.

I’ll leave you here with one final question: what will Israel’s economy do in the coming year(s)? I don’t have the answer, but here many of the elements one would have to account for:
1) Negative: Israel’s high-tech sector leans heavily on workers doing software development, but the latest AI can code just as well (and a lot faster) than humans.
2) Positive: Israel’s high-tech sector also is heavily involved in advanced military weaponry and is in great demand given the Israeli army’s successes during the recent war.
3) Positive: Israel’s ratio of national debt to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2025 was 68.6% having dropped by almost ten percent (!) since 2000. This ratio is far better than in America, Japan, and other leading OECD countries.
4) Negative: Over the past three years it is estimated that more than 150,000 Israelis have emigrated as result of the government’s Judicial Reform program and then the Oct. 7 War. Most of these Israelis are highly educated and formed the backbone of the hi-tech sector.
5) Possibly either way: Will the ultra-Orthodox eventually get the “IDF exemption” legislation they’re demanding. If yes, that’s very bad news for Israel’s economic future because that also limits their educational and professional abilities; if the law does not pass, that could accelerate Israel’s future economic growth with many more haredim entering the workforce, not to mention freeing up the reserve soldiers from far too heavy duty as of now.
6) Positive: Israel’s birth rate is the only one well above replacement among OECD countries who all suffer from a rate under two per woman – a natural economic advantage for Israel’s economy.
7) Negative: Israeli youth scores in international tests (e.g., PISA: Program for International Student Assessment) continue to rank below the international average – especially in math and the sciences.
8) Negative: The weather in Israel is getting warmer and drier so that the future could see much lower agricultural production, not to mention increased energy costs due to more water desalinization needs.

In short, dealing with just the economy demands far more multifaceted thinking and planning than simply reading the newspaper’s economics section. One must account for AI technology, war, national debt, emigration (immigration too), religion, demographic trends, education, and climatology, among other areas of life. Our complex world demands complex thinking – for leaders and led alike. Unfortunately, that’s news to too many people.