Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, D.C. went viral online after a group of high school students from Kentucky mocked an indigenous Vietnam War veteran, Nathan Phillips, outside the Lincoln Memorial on Jan. 18.
We citizens have a lot of work to do. We delegated too much, we have assumed experts can do it and have ended up in an exploitative relationship. We need to develop our own expertise.
Systems Thinking for a Turbulent World is a timely book offered by an experienced elder so that we may collectively learn to make the best out of the turbulent times ahead.
Chris Martenson’s recent article about collapse and the plummeting of biodiversity made me think about what it feels like to be left behind. Few people living in affluent countries or communities understand what this means.
How do we define “good” or “excellence” without imposing an ideology or world-view on others who have their own? Who judges and according to what standards? If such a reconciliation is impossible, will we be required to make a difficult choice? Or is there no real choice at all?
“Come, friends, let us sit down together. Not in a lecture hall, not in a laboratory, not in a political forum. Here on the banks of the Kentucky River, let us sit down together and see what went on here. What’s going on here now? Why is it the way it is now? What do we want?”
Sometimes, one event or action can trigger a cascade of events which will bring down even the mightiest empire. The school strike of 15-year old Greta Thunberg can be such an event, even if we will not know until later.
James Bridle’s New Dark Age is a deeply researched plea for us to move beyond computational thinking. He says learning to code doesn’t help us understand the internet age, any more than learning plumbing skills will give us an understanding of the ways an essential municipal utility is determined by hydrology, infrastructure, and sociopolitical policies.
The [future] economy will depend for its existence on a deep foundation in culture. It is possible to live without it, but only for a time, like holding your breath under water. Or as one of his readers put it – when productivity improves, “in our system you have a problem; in Fleming’s system you have a party.”
The research shows that belief in meritocracy, the view that success depends on hard work rather than social structures, strengthens with rising inequality.
This document offers a systems approach derived from my own work and experiences to articulate a way of approaching these crises through the lens of ‘collective intelligence’.
They launched Every One, Every Day in November 2017, opening two shops (the first of five) on high streets in Barking and Dagenham. The shops don’t sell anything but are places where people meet, discuss ideas and launch projects.
