11 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
      • for: Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap, The Upside of Down, Commanding Hope, Cascade Institute, Polycrisis

      • SUMMARY

        • Thomas Homer-Dixon is a researcher in polycrisis and author of a number of books on aspects of the polycrisis.
        • Here he talks about "Commanding Hope", following his other books "The Ingenuity Gap", "The Upside of Down".
        • Homer-Dixon explores the idea of hope situated in his life, especially surrounding his children and their future in an uncertain world.
        • In particular, he explores a robust form of hope that is honest, astute and powerful and he unpacks the meaning of each of these qualities.
        • Even when the odds are stacked against us, robust hope gives us hope that we can make a big difference.
        • Homer-Dixon offers a bounty of insights for anyone engaged in rapid whole system change. His Cascade Institute is developing tools to assist individuals and organizations alike who want to find the leverage points for rapid system change.
    1. the other part of this thinking about stories is to recognize that we don't know the worlds around us the systems 01:14:16 around us well enough to know that good things are impossible
      • for: quote - the impossible, quote - Thomas Homer-Dixon

      • quote

        • We don't know the world's around us the systems around us well enough to know that good things are impossible
      • author: Thomas Homer-Dixon
      • date: 2021
    2. o i come back to this issue of stories and how we organize our thinking 01:11:03 and worlds around stories and especially stories of ours of what our own purpose in life is uh how we respond to our desperate fear of mortality and death i draw on the work of the anthropologist 01:11:16 and social psychologist ernest becker which has been elaborated by social psychologists in something called terror management theory
      • for: adjacency - Thomas Homer-Dixon - Ernest Becker, terror management theory, immortality project
    3. when we get our story wrong we get our future wrong
      • for: quote - when we get our story wrong, we get our future wrong, quote - Thomas Homer-Dixon

      • quote

        • When we get our story wrong, we get our future wrong
      • author: David Korten, quoted by Thomas Homer-Dixon
      • date: 2021
    4. i think the most dangerous thing about ai is not 00:47:11 super smart ai it's uh stupid ai it's artificial intelligence that is good enough to be put in charge of certain processes in our societies but not good enough to not make really 00:47:25 bad mistakes
      • for: quote - Thomas Homer-Dixon, quote - danger of AI, AI progress trap

      • quote: danger of AI

        • I think the most dangerous thing about AI is not super smart AI, it's stupid AI that is good enough to be put in charge of certain processes but not good enough to not make really bad mistakes
      • author: Thomas Homer-Dixon
      • date: 2021
      • for: polycrisis, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Cascade Institute Royal Roads University - Changemakers Speakers Series, etymology - polylcrisis

      • Talk: Hope in the Polycrisis

      • Speaker: Thomas Homer-Dixon
      • Host: Royal Roads University - Changemakers Speakers Series
      • Date: 2023

      • SUMMARY

        • Thomas Homer-Dixon is a leading complex systems scientist and director of the Cascade Institute, which he co-founded at Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C., Canada, to study the polycrisis and identify strategic high leverage interventions that could rapidly shift humanity's trajectory in the next few critical years.
        • The talk, entitled "Hope in the polycriisis" chronicles Homer-Dixon's multi-decade journey to understand the convergence of crisis happening in the world today.
        • In a real sense, the evolution of his thinking on these complex problems are reflected in the series of books he has written over the years, culminating in the 2023 book "Commanding Hope", based on a theory of hope:

          • Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton, 1999). - a book showing how other factors combine with environmental stress to produce violence.
          • “The Ingenuity Gap: Can Poor Countries Adapt to Resource Scarcity?,” which appeared in Population and Development Review in 1995
          • “Resource Scarcity and Innovation: Can Poor Countries Attain Endogenous Growth?" ?” coauthored with Edward Barbier, which appeared in Ambio (1999)
          • The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (2006), examined the threat to global stability of simultaneous and interacting demographic, environmental, economic, and political stresses. This led to examining energy as a major factor in our modern society.
          • "Commanding Hope: The Power we have to Renew a World in Peril"
        • Homer-Dixon also talks about practical solutions, His team at Casacade Institute is researching a promising technology called ultra-deep geothermal, which could provide unlimted energy at energy densities comprable to fossil fuels.

        • He finishes his talk with his theory of Hope and how a "Robust" hope can be the key to a successful rapid transition.
      • etymology - polycrisis

        • https://polycrisis.org/lessons/where-did-the-term-polycrisis-come-from/
        • Complexity theorists Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern first used the term polycrisis in their 1999 book, Homeland Earth, to argue that the world faces
          • “no single vital problem, but many vital problems, and it is this complex intersolidarity of problems, antagonisms, crises, uncontrolled processes, and the general crisis of the planet that constitutes the number one vital problem" (p. 74).
        • South African sociologist and sustainable transitions theorist Mark Swilling then adopted the term to capture
          • “a nested set of globally interactive socio-economic, ecological and cultural-institutional crises that defy reduction to a single cause” (2013, p. 98).
        • Climate change, rising inequality, and the threat of financial crises interact in complex ways that multiply their overall impact (Swilling 2013, 2019).
    1. Why do some societies successfully adapt while others do not? I concluded that a central characteristic of societies that successfully adapt is their ability to produce and deliver useful ideas (or what I call “ingenuity”) to meet the demands placed on them by worsening environmental problems.
  2. Oct 2023
    1. Dixon’s standards were variable: he was happy for Murray to include ‘cunt’ but drew the line at ‘cundum ... a contrivance used by fornicators, to save themselves from a well-deserved clap; also by others who wish to enjoy copulation without the possibility of impregnation’.
  3. Aug 2023
    1. Most Americans know that before becoming a politician Reaganwas an actor, but fewer are aware that Reagan’s flagging screencareer was revived by a job with the General Electric Corporation(GE). Reagan hosted the popular television show General ElectricTheater, where each week his voice and face reached into tens ofmillions of homes, promoting didactic stories of individualism andfree enterprise. At the same time, he traveled across the country onbehalf of GE—visiting factories, making speeches at schools, anddoing the dinner circuit in communities where GE had a presence—promoting the corporation’s stridently individualist antiunion andantigovernment vision.

      From a philosophical viewpoint, Reagan grew up in Dixon, Illinois a small town (surrounded by farmland) in North West-ish Illinois roughly on the border of the political borders of what Colin Woodard calls The Midlands and Greater Appalachia. He seems to have been a Midlander for the first half of his life, but obviously had an easy time moving to a more Greater Appalachia viewpoint when working for GE.

  4. May 2023
  5. Jul 2022
  6. bafybeibbaxootewsjtggkv7vpuu5yluatzsk6l7x5yzmko6rivxzh6qna4.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeibbaxootewsjtggkv7vpuu5yluatzsk6l7x5yzmko6rivxzh6qna4.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. But educational applications are merely the beginning: the recent development ofgamification applies the mechanisms of game design to enhance focus and motivation for nearlyany kind of activity (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011; Zichermann & Cunningham,2011). It is used in particular by businesses and organizations to goad people into performing tasksthat are useful for the organization—but not intrinsically rewarding for the individual. Examples areparticipating in surveys, filling in forms, or joining customer loyalty programs. While performingthese activities, respondents are given the kinds of points, “badges”, or bonuses that are used assymbolic rewards in games. This constant feedback motivates them to contribute additionally, so asto attain ever-higher total scores. Moreover, the more points they have gathered already, the lessthey are inclined to lose these points by prematurely stopping the activity—a psychological bias forcontinuity known as “sunk costs” (Garland & Newport, 1991).

      Sunk costs are the time and other resource investments a participant has put into the game. Increasing reputation currency is also another motivator.