byzantine (Byzantine)
adjective

- complicated and difficult to understand

- characterized by elaborate scheming and intrigue, especially for the gaining of political power or favour

- (of a system or situation) excessively complicated, and typically involving a great deal of administrative detail

- from or relating to the ancient city of Byzantium

Cambridge Dictionary, Dictionary.com

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WORD ORIGIN

The word “byzantine” has a rich etymology that traces back to the ancient Greek city of Byzantium founded around 657 BCE, located on the site that would later become Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, Turkey). It was strategically important due to its position between Europe and Asia.

The city was later re-founded as Constantinople by Emperor Constantine in 330 CE and became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. This empire lasted until 1453 when it fell to the Ottoman Turks.

The negative meaning of “byzantine” likely stems from perceptions of the Byzantine court as being marked by rivalries, duplicity, and complex bureaucracy.

Today, the word "byzantine" is often used to describe systems, processes, or situations that are extremely complicated, intricate, or difficult to understand.

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“THE BYZANTINE GENERALS” PROBLEM

“The Byzantine Generals' Problem (from distributed computing and game theory) illustrates the challenges of achieving consensus among multiple parties in the presence of unreliable communication and potential adversaries. This problem is explained through a military metaphor involving Byzantine generals who must coordinate an attack on a city. The generals can only communicate via messengers, and some of the generals may be traitors attempting to disrupt the consensus by sending false or contradictory messages.

The core challenge of the Byzantine Generals' Problem is to devise a protocol that allows the loyal generals (or nodes, in the context of distributed systems) to reach a consensus on a plan of action, even if some generals are acting maliciously or messages are corrupted. This problem is particularly relevant in decentralized systems where there is no central authority to ensure trust and reliability.

In the real world, this problem shows up when we need to trust information or decisions made by a group, especially when we can't see or control everyone involved. For example:

- Online voting = how can we be sure that all votes are genuine and counted correctly?

- Banking systems = how can banks ensure that all transactions are valid, even if some computers in their network are faulty?

- Social media = how can platforms verify that trending topics are real and not manipulated by bots?

- Supply chains = how can companies ensure that all parts of a product are genuine and not counterfeit?

- Self-driving cars = how can these cars make decisions based on information from sensors and other cars, even if some sensors might be faulty?

To solve these problems, sophisticated computer programs are being used to identify lies or mistakes. These programs work by double-checking information from multiple sources and using probability theory to figure out what is fact and what is fiction.

But as ultra-realistic, fake news burgeons, expect a resurgence of in-person meetings — It may only be those people we can see face-to-face who we can assume to be real!

Paul Smith

P.S. If you're involved in coaching or mediating difficult discussions, drop us a line at: paul@smith.de and we'll send you FREE-OF-CHARGE a selection of useful checklists from our upcoming book "Tick-Tactics - The Ultimate Checklist Handbook".

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SYNONYMS

a can of worms, a gordian knot, a labyrinth, a maze, a minefield, a puzzle, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, a tangled web, abstruse, all Greek to me, arcane, as clear as mud, baffling, baroque, bewildering, BYZANTINE, circuitous, clear as dishwater, cloak-and-dagger, complex, complicated, convoluted, crabbed, cryptic, Daedalian, devious, elaborate, enigmatic, entangled, esoteric, Gordian, Greek to me, hard to follow, impenetrable, incomprehensible, inconceivable, intricate, involved, knotty, labyrinthian, labyrinthine, like rocket science, mazy, mind-boggling, multifaceted, mysterious, not for the faint of heart, obscure, opaque, perplexing, puzzling, recondite, rococo, serpentine, sophisticated, tangled, thorny, tortuous, tricky, unfathomable, unintelligible, winding, wheels within wheels

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Some terms and conditions are written in such BYZANTINE language that even lawyers have trouble understanding them.”

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