for - epiphany - adjacency - progress traps - losing sight of the sacred - the Genesis story of intentionality - the symbol is the abstraction - is the intentionality - is the incompleteness - in the light of the infinite emptiness

epiphany - adjacency - between - progress traps - losing sight of the sacred - the Genesis story of intentionality - the symbol is the abstraction - is the intentionality - is the incompleteness - in the light of the infinite emptiness - adjacency relationship - Epiphany occurred to me that Genesis is the story of control - and control is about intentionality - and intentional design is all about incompleteness - The written symbol is inherently incomplete - To control anything in nature requires intentionaity - We must design something with intention, which will always be incomplete - and here we immediately run up against the infinite - and the emergence of progress traps - In this sense, every design is a mistake, biding its time to reveal the form of its unintended consequences

for - adjacency - climate crisis - raw milk - Boevar food supplement for cows to lower methane emissions of farting cows - misinformation - far right conspiracy theories - deeper issue - blindspot revealed by anxiety - Deep Humanity - progress traps

for - progress - measure of - Dil Green

progress - measure of - Dil Green - the degree to which we transcend blind evolution and - grow a capacity to evolve our culture purposefully, with increasing wisdom

comment - Wisdom trumps intelligence - Part of that wisdom is a deep understanding of the nature of human progress and how progress traps are an intrinsic possibility of all progress - wisdom includes a diversity of perspectives that mitigate myopic design - In particular, it means a deep understanding of the emptiness of reality and the role that plays in progress traps

for - progress traps - law of unintended consequences - A Transcender Manifesto - Dill Green

for - progress traps - science - technology - neoliberalism - Post Capitalist Philanthropy Webinar 1 - Alnoor Ladha - Lynn Murphy - 2023

progress traps - science - technology - neoliberalism - Post Capitalist Philanthropy Webinar 1 - Alnoor Ladha - Lynn Murphy - 2023 - It is with progress that the modernity shaped by centuries of scaled-out industrial,scientific and technological innovation has created all our crisis. - It is absurd to say that science, technology and industrialization did not play a major role in the creation of all the crisis of modernity - If science, technology and industry inherently embed separation, how do we use it in a meaningful way that doesn't lead to another progress trap? - What are the motives of those who fund technology?

for - progress traps - AI - created by mind level that created all our existing problems - AI is not AI but MI - Mineral Intelligence

for - progress traps - measurement

for - adjacency - ecology of communication - progress traps - intentionality - language

adjacency - between - ecology of communications - progress traps - intentionally - language - emptiness - adjacency relationship - human intentionally focuses it attention on only a few select aspects of the entire gestalt of any moment of our phenomenological reality - It creates our salience landscape - What we choose to focus on and know more about it always coupled with and complimented by a vast ignorance of what we choose NOT to know - Indeed, the use language itself is the telling of a very specific story - Of all the stories we can tell, - Of the infinite stories we can construct now, -we settle on one - So the use of language already betrays the complexity inherent in each and every one of our ecological moments - We plant the seeds for progress traps as soon as we - manifest an intention - attempt to communicate - Hence, it is not avoidable and the best we can do is - recognize our situation - manage it - It is the relationship between - human nature (perceived as limited) - nature nature (infinite) - What springs to mind if the Zen koan - The elbow does not bend backwards

for - progress traps - intentionality - (see previous annotation)

for - adjacency - precautionary principle - risk assessment - progress traps

adjacency - between - precautionary principle - risk assessment - progress trap - adjacency relationship - Precautionary principle is really stating that we don't have enough knowledge and there can be a high risk - Even if there is low probability of occurrence, we must apply precautionary principle to avoid a progress trap

for - ToC construction - recommendation - should be participatory

comment - Stop Reset Go process using Trailmark mark-in notation within Indyweb people-centered, interpersonal software ecosystem is inherently designed: - to be participatory - to mitigate progress traps - In fact, - the greater the diversity of perspectives, - the greater the efficacy in mitigating progress traps - For this reason, open source is necessary to achieve the optimal transformations of improvement

for - book - Over the Seawall - Steven Robert Miller

book - Over the Seawall - Steven Robert Miller - A book about PROGRESS TRAPS! - How climate adaptation measures can lead to progress traps, such as - lead to a sense of complacency and false security - leading to overdevelopment - leading to even more people vulnerable to climate and extreme weather events

for - progress traps - exceptional civilizations - Egypt and China

progress traps - exceptional civilizations - Egypt and China - While 1,000 years seems to be the norm for the lifetime of an average civilization, China and Egypt have both endured 3 times as long - Egypt had the self-replenishing Nile River with topsoil being washed down from Ethiopia every year to maintain their soil fertility - So they avoided the salinity problem until modern times with the construction of high dams that have had unintended consequences - China also had unusual conditions of exceptionally deep layers of annually replenished topsoil called loess that were formed by being blown in by the wind from surrounding areas

for - progress traps - interview - Ronald Wright

summary - In this more recent interview, Ronald Wright, author of "A Short History of Progress" and advocate of the idea of "progress traps", offers his cogent take on the world today, as refracted and reflected through an archeological lens - Wright sheds light on the relevance of history and especially archeology on our contemporary polycrisis, illustrating how, while different in details, are very similiar to the same mistakes our ancestors of every age have made - The archeology lessons of Sumeria, Stone age humans, Easter Island and more illustrate that it is dangerous to romanticize our ancestors as their mistakes cost them their civilizations, as much as the current mistakes we are now making may cost ours - I would add that our own Stop Reset Go and Deep Humanity research compliments Wright's superb work on Progress Traps with ideas borrowed from the East - specifically, Shunyata or Emptiness - Complimenting progress traps with Emptiness reveals another dimension of the perennial problem our species face since time immemorial, and in every generation henceforth - Deep Humanity integrates Progress with Emptiness, the individual with the collective, friends with enemies and proposes that we are approaching a singularity in our species, - in which all past civilizations are converging in one heterogenous entity in modernity - and the future of our species will depend on whether we can culturally adapt quickly enough to the multiple existential risks we now face - Our future as a viable evolutionary species may depend on the collective direction we move in in the next few years, of resolving the age-old quagmire of the holographic unnamable present in every one of us born into a living and dying body, continually fractures itself into violently polarized pieces. - Do we have the collective foresight to penetrate our own ignorance?

for - progress trap - archeology - Easter Island

progress trap - archeology - Easter Island - The archeology tells the fascinating story of the progress trap that Eastern Island ancestors created. - Easter Island is desolate and only 64 square miles total - It is located 2,000 miles (3218 km) from the nearest landmass of South America - Archeologists trying to piece together the stone monoliths of Easter Island found pollen samples in the crater lakes on the island, proving that the place was once a thriving forest - By the time the first Europeans landed (the Dutch) on Easter Island, it was just grassy hills - How did it go from a lush forest land to a grass land? - The layers of pollen samples told a story - The aboriginal polynesians that the Dutch explorers encountered arrived about 1,000 years earlier - They cut down the forest, grew their population and used trees in many ways, including to transport the huge stone monoliths that paid respect to their ancestors - The original people multiplied then separated into separate warring tribes - The environment was devastated as the logging destroyed the forest and all the abundant ecosystem that provided for their sustenance - This created severe erosion and the soil became impoverished - The tribes collapses into warfare and cannibalism

progress trap - Easter Island - Sumeria etc - lesson - don't romanticize our ancestors - Human groups have continuously sabotaged themselves through overexploitation and lack of foresight - Progress traps have been a constant part of our species for a long, long time

for - AI - progress trap - nice simple explanation of how progress traps propagate

for - progress traps - Nora Bateson - response to interviewer's comment on everyday example of complexity - parent encouraging children to go to school - example of mitigating progress traps - complexity is hard!

for - quote - Nora Bateson - progress trap

quote - Nora Bateson - progress trap - (see below)

• This is where we get into trouble
  • trying to solve problems in isolated ways

from - Prometheus and modernity -https://hyp.is/HUI6WAUsEe-r97ezRaj6bg/bigthink.com/thinking/dan-carlin-on-humanitys-uncontrollable-prometheus-complex/

for - progress traps - tree planting - climate change

-for: quote, quote - Jennifer Jarratt, quote - progress trap, progress trap, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, quote - unintended consequences, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap - quote: with new technologies come new crimes and criminals – opportunities for all! - author: Jennifer Jarratt - co-principal of Leading Futurists LLC

• for: progress traps, progress, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, unintended consequences - technology, unintended consequences - digital technology, progress trap - quotations, quote, quote - progress trap
• title: Experts Predict More Digital Innovation by 2030 Aimed at Enhancing Democracy
• authors: emily A Vogels, Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson
• year: June 30, 2020
• description: a good source of quotations on progress traps / unintended consequences of digital technology from this Pew Research 2020 report on the future of the digital technology and democracy.
  • the Pew Research Center interviewed a lot of experts in the field
  • in particular, section 5 of the report entitled
    • "Tech causes more problems than it can solve" is quite salient for the topic of progress traps
  • The Indyweb actually addresses many of these problems:
    • https://opencollective.com/open-learning-commons/projects/indy-learning-commons

• for: progress trap, unintended consequences, Indyweb - justifiication
• description
  • a great source of quotations by thought leaders on the unintended consequences of technology,
    • in other words, progress traps
• comment
  • also a lot of rich material to justify the Indyweb's design ethos

5 principles for mitigating progress traps - 1) - a priori assessments of potential unintended consequences of policies - should be conducted by - multidisciplinary teams - with as broad a range of expertise as possible. - This would require decision-making - to flex around specific policy challenges - to ensure that decision-makers reflect the problem space in question. - 2) - policy plans made in light of the assessment should be iterative, - with scheduled re-assessments in the future. - As has been discussed above, - knowledge and circumstances change. - New consequences might have since - become manifest or new knowledge developed. - By planning and implementing reviews, - organizational reflexivity and - humility - needs to be built into decision-making systems (e.g., Treasury, 2020).

• 3)
  • given the scale of systems
    • such as the water-energy-food nexus
  • and the potential for infinite variety and nuance of unintended consequences,
    • pragmatism necessitates specification of boundaries
      • within which assessments are made.
  • It should be noted that this can in itself give rise to unintended consequences
    • through potential omission of relevant areas.
  • Hence, boundary decisions regarding
    • where the boundaries lie
      • should be regularly revisited (as per 2) above.
• 4)
  • unintended consequences identified
    • should be placed in the framework
      • with as much consensus among decision-makers as possible.
  • The positioning does not need to be limited to a single point,
    • but could be of the form of a distribution of opinions of range
      • of knowability and
      • avoidability;
    • the distribution will be indicative of
      • the perspectives and
      • opinions of the stakeholders.
  • If a lack of consensus exists on the exact position,
    • this can highlight a need to
      • seek more diverse expertise, or
      • for further research in order to improve consensus, or
      • for fragmenting of the issue into
        • smaller,
        • more readily assessable pieces.
• 5)
  • there is a need for more active learning
    • by decision-makers
      • about how to avoid repeating past unintended consequences.
  • To support this,
    • assessment process and
    • outcomes should be
      • documented and
      • used
    • to appraise the effectiveness of policy mechanisms,
      • with specific attention on outcomes
        • beyond those defined by policy objectives and the
          • assumptions and
          • decisions
        • which led to these outcomes.
  • Such appraisals could reflect on - the scope of the assessment, and - the effectiveness of specific groups of stakeholders
    • in being able to identify potential negative outcomes,
      • highlighting gaps in knowledge and limitations in the overall approach.
  • Additional records of the level of agreement of participants
    • would allow for re-evaluation with new learning.

// - This is a good basic framing - for future basic research - on progress traps - Future paper would explore details in a much more granular way //

!- symbiocene :key attribute - understanding the dangers of cultural evolution to the degree that we can mitigate the dangers emergent from progress traps

!- Question : culture-driven human inheritance - How do progress traps fit into this, as opposed to genetic-driven inheritance?

We have to mitigate progress traps

https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthetyee.ca%2FAnalysis%2F2019%2F09%2F20%2FRonald-Wright-Can-We-Dodge-Progress-Trap%2F&group=world

Key questions are asked and the nexus approach of looking at the entire gestalt, consisting of many moving parts and their feedbacks is critical for avoiding and mitigating unintended consequences, also known as progress traps.

Bringing this to a global public space to create engagement is critical to create a groundswell. The public must understand that leverage points offer us our greatest hope. Once they understand them, everyone can help to identify and participate in leverage points.

Collectively mapping them and their many feedbacks in a global, open source map - an open knowledge commons (OKC) or open wisdom commons (OWC) for system change will drive global participation.

progress traps