Having listened to the recording, it strikes me that a key framing question for applying engineering systems theory (like interfaces) to social theory is, do social systems really want to be transparent and accountable? For such systems would clarity and accurate information be more of a feature or more of a bug? It strikes me that by-and-large, most social systems really prefer not to be accountable, so clarity of interface is not just an engineering problem to be solved. There is a prior political problem of interests and alignment.
Part way through the talk, Momcilo states that society can visualized as a set of interconnected systems that are organized and rule-bound. This echos the major strand of sociology known as “functionalism”, most associated with the name of Talcott Parsons. On biological analogy, for functionalists, society is modeled as having many moving parts, which are meant to align with one another for the greater good. Quite a bit of sociology after Parsons (going on a century now) however, critiques this functionalist view in favor of one conflict model or another. For conflict sociology, some social systems are seen to really be predatory on other social systems, and not everyone has everyone else’s best interests at heart.
I would tend to favor such post-functionist critical theory over functionalism. As an idealized model, perhaps systems like government really should represent the good of the whole. On a practical analytical level, however, that has never really been the case. For the purposes of gaining and retaining power, obfuscation can be more useful than clarity in many cases. So the question of blindspots for sensemaking really ought to also factor in purposeful misdirection by those keen to manipulate systems for personal advantage.
