Umm. Not quite. Flywheels are not feedback mechanisms, and neither are ratchets. Flywheels are inertial loads. Integrators that can be wound/unwound if you like systems theory. Ratchets are feedback-driven state constraints. Amazon basically thinks with this lingo.
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In devops consulting and building continuous delivery systems, we use the ratchet metaphor a lot. An example is starting with a code linting ruleset that is very lax, then incrementally adding a rule every time a particular antipattern is removed from the codebase.
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For instance once all of the files that use mixed tabs and spaces for indentation are updated to use only spaces for indent, then we can add a rule against tabs for indentation. And from that point forward the build system will reject any new code that uses tabs for indent.
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like growth (of individual organisms)
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get out of my head banana
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Was part of a society for a long-running game, rules changes were brought in by committee. Old guard had two explicit and oft-quoted mantras: 1. Hate and fear change 2. Fight the ratchet (Hard to roll back changes to a 'good' state, and power creep is ≈impossible to undo)
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Caveat: I can't recommend running a game with rules updates in this way unless you absolutely love meetings and exacting pedantry in procedure and rules-lawyering.
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I wonder to what extent ratchets could be avoided/reversed if they were more readily recognized I.e. "Wait a second, we're only doing this because we feel a need to stay self-consistent / recover sunk costs / fight a pointless arms race"
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Ex: - politicians competing to be the "toughest" on crime - expecting ever-longer lists of paper credentials for employment Struggling to think of more where awareness would help

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