A Brief History of Systems Science, Chaos and Complexity

By Daniel Christian Wahl, P2P Foundation Blog

On the one hand I believe it is vital to accept uncertainty, not-knowing, and unpredictability fully to the point of deep humility. On the other hand, I also believe that we need to choose to act from the conviction that we can design for positive emergence in complex systems even if it is not an exact science and we cannot know with certainty how our efforts will turn out to affect transformative change.

Did Climate Change Cause the Fall of the Roman Empire? No, But What may Have Actually Happened is Amazing

By Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's legacy

The Earth's ecosystem is a typical complex system. It reacts to perturbations, even minor ones, sometimes very strongly. Don't expect it to remain stable just because it has been stable up to a certain moment.

Ecofeminism to Escape Collapse

By Margarita Mediavilla, Resilience.org

From my point of view --which comes from systems dynamics and environmentalism rather than from feminism-- one of the tools that can best help feminist economics articulate a coherent discourse is the pattern of collapse.

Vertical Literacy: Reimagining the 21st-Century University

By Otto Scharmer, Medium

The classical university was based on the unity of research and teaching; the modern university has been based on the unity of research, teaching, and practical application. I believe that the current historical moment, with one civilization ending and dying, and another being born, invites us to reconceive the 21st-century university as a unity of research, teaching, and the praxis of transforming society and self.

Re-wilding the Bauhaus: What its Foundation Course Should be like Today

By John Thackara, John Thackara blog

No textbook for the new foundation course exists – which is probably just as well. The course is better thought of as a journey, than as a body of knowledge.

What are Systemic Alternatives?

By Pablo Solón, Systemic Alternatives

The premise of systemic alternatives is that the environmental, economic, social, geopolitical, institutional and civilizational crises are part of a whole, are interrelated and feed into one another.

Why the “Anthropocene” is not “Climate Change”

By Julia Adeney Thomas, Local Futures

The challenges of our altered, unpredictable Earth System cannot be met by technological tinkering within the very systems that pushed it over the edge in the first place. There’s nothing for it but to roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work of transforming our political and economic systems with the aims of decency and resilience.

A Science of Qualities: Experiencing the World Coming into Being & Living on the Edge of chaos

By Daniel Christian Wahl, Medium

The Science of Qualities is really an extension of conventional science in the sense that it depends upon consensus, agreement and a methodology whereby people come to recognize the agreement or the consensus they have about the qualities of experience of other beings.

The Big Picture

By Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org

It is only by pulling together that we can hope to salvage and protect what is most intrinsically valuable about our world, and perhaps even improve lives over the long term.

Society As Platform — A New Frontier in Complexity Science

By Joe Brewer, Medium

Our evolved history as a species has not prepared us for what is happening now. It is time to start seeing culture as a complex system that evolves according to Darwinian principles.