- Aug 2023
-
-
these are the seven main thrusts of the series
- for: societal design, designing societies, societal architecture, transforming society, whole system change, SSO, social superorganism, John Boik
The seven main ideas for societal design: 1. societal transformation - is necessary to avoid catastrophe 2. the specific type of transformation is science-based transformation based on entirely new systems - de novo design - 3. A practical way to implement the transformation in the real world - it must be economical, and doable within the short time window for system change before us. - Considering a time period of 50 years for total change, with some types of change at a much higher priority than others. - The change would be exponential so starting out slower, and accelerating - Those communities that are the first to participate would make the most rapid improvements. 4. Promoting a worldview of society as a social superorganism, a cognitive organism, and its societal systems as a cognitive architecture. 5. Knowing the intrinsic purpose of a society - each subsystem must be explained in terms of the overall intrinsic purpose. 6. The reason for transformation - Transformation that improves cognition reduces the uncertainty that our society's intrinsic purpose is fulfilled. 7. Forming a partnership between the global science community and all the local communities of the world.
-
- Dec 2022
-
www.nonprofitpro.com www.nonprofitpro.com
-
It used to be that organizations looking to pick up signals of change in realms outside of their project — system-level change — had a limited set of methods to use. Some might have tried outcome mapping or harvesting, or used developmental evaluation; more often than not, such changes went unmeasured. Now, there is a wider set of methodological options, each specialized for certain functions, such as tracing how the organization’s efforts might have contributed to a policy or influence win. A few examples are ripple effect mapping, outcome harvesting, sentinel indicators, process tracing and the what else test.
Examples of methods for evaluating systems change
-
- Oct 2022
-
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
-
In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight. Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change.
A great example of the lag that large, complex systems exhibit when responding to significant input changes.
Lag is something that humans are woefully weak at recognizing and understanding. This, and other systems concepts are what we need to add to the curriculum at all levels of education, to change this very significant shortcoming of "common knowledge".
-
- Nov 2021
-
miro.com miro.com
-
A Theory of Change and Systems Thinking
-
- Oct 2020
-
newrepublic.com newrepublic.com
-
You have no choice. You can shop at a store that pays its workers better, sure, but the real atrocities have taken place long before your desired products have reached the shelf, and the stickers have nothing to do with it. “And here grocery has one last trick,” Lorr writes: “it allows us to hate our shrimp and eat it too. The image of the bad polluting aquaculture farmer or vulnerable exploited migrant gets imprinted in our first-world brain, while the fungibility of commodity goods—that maze of brokers and agents—gives the entire system the plausible deniability it craves.”
Systemic change is hard. But it is the most effective tool for the job. Where are the levers and where can we stand? Who has the power and motive to make these changes?
-
- Jan 2020
-
www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com
-
How Complex Systems Fail
-