REINFORCING CYCLES
“cycles self-reinforce. breaking them requires attacking the root, not symptoms.”
The Lesson
Many social problems are reinforcing cycles: A causes B, B causes C, C causes more A. Poverty can lead to outcomes that make escaping poverty harder, creating a perpetual engine. The trap: people attack symptoms instead of roots. If marriage rates are low because of earlier problems, promoting marriage won't fix it. If behavior X is caused by condition Y, lecturing about X is useless. To break a cycle, find where it started and attack there. Moral judgments about symptoms don't break cycles-understanding the mechanism does. The solution is usually upstream of where people are looking.
Real-World Example
A founder tries to fix employee turnover by improving exit interviews and retention bonuses. Turnover continues. They trace the cycle: bad hiring → poor fit → frustration → turnover → rushed hiring → bad hiring. The root is upstream: the hiring process. They slow down hiring, improve screening. Turnover drops. They were treating symptoms when the cycle's engine was elsewhere.
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