Imagination, And a Biology Bias
Ignore the details of that picture. It’s some representation of the complexity of our economic system across the world. It includes our consumption, our work, our choices, our actions at various levels — individually, as organizations, countries, etc.
I was born in a certain network in 1974. There were a set of technologies, functions, structures and tools and actions I took birth within, and used. It transformed over time and in 2023 it looks different, and you and I must pick from and use the tools I have now.
We know these choices — these nodes and connections on the network — have been compromising the life support systems on the planet. We’re in the 6th, and likely largest and fastest mass extinction on the planet, and it’s amply clear the current network’s choices and design have contributed massively to it.
As we start to try and keep the Earth going as we need it — preserve the ecological niches that allowed for us to emerge and on which our wellbeing depends — we must imagine this network as a different one. Very, dramatically different. Can all of it be regenerative? Can it be hyper energy efficient for all our needs and activities? Can it be ever increasingly biased towards biology, instead of mining?
We must imagine it outside of the bounds of our current tech and imagination, and behaviours.
Our success or failure in changing this network, and the velocity we do this at will determine whether we survive, flourish or flounder or even perish as a species. Our ability to imagine, or not, a hugely different network at every level — individual, professional, economic and every realm of human activity — will be the biggest factor that aids our ability to move towards it, and the velocity we do that at. If all 8 billion people make a change or two at the level of influence — individual or business owner or administrator or innovator or social changemaker — and keep biasing the change towards regeneration, towards biology, towards diversity, we just might be able to adapt well, and keep the planet going for us.
Can we imagine big, audacious? Can we imagine a better, biology-positive network of human activity?
