Engineering Generosity
Collection to inspire the book
Engineering Generosity
Kindness isn’t always easy or obvious, because the urgent race to the bottom, to easily measured metrics and to scarcity, can distract us. But bending the arc toward justice, toward dignity and toward connection is our best way forward.
Seth Godin • Three types of kindness
Seth has a lot of good ideas on this. Should tie in to his ideas more.
The principle here is reciprocity, but notice that it is not simultaneous. Unlike the notion of barter, time is allowed to elapse before one deed is repaid by another. Trust is required to bridge that gap. Unlike barter, the exchange is not mechanistic in that it does not place a concrete value on one deed versus another. Rather it is inherently... See more
Richard Pickering • Reciprocity as a Business Model
Time gap requires trust
In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles
... See moreRobin Wall Kimmerer • The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Generous people view their possessions as temporary; they are joining in a bigger story. Generous people are always looking toward the needs of others by using what they have been given. Things don’t matter; people do. They open their house to others. They open their pool for parties. They let people borrow their cars. They freely give, with no
... See moreJeff Shinabarger • More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity
People matter
Being good at reciprocity means knowing your friend well enough to know what kinds of things will contribute to them feeling loved and valued.
Kat Vellos • We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
Trust and friendship
An abundant system is a system in which any individual in a system acting to achieve their own goals does not negatively impact the other participants’ pursuit of their goals. Another way of saying this is that the system isn’t a zero-sum game.
Introduction to Abundant Systems
a scarce system is one in which there are limited resources and one person in the system getting those resources means that everyone else can’t have those same resources. A zero-sum game.
Introduction to Abundant Systems
While computing power grows in exponential leaps, the pace of transition to a green economy that would cleanly fuel that growth lags far behind.
noemamag.com • Will AI Bring Plentitude or Further Imperil the Planet? | NOEMA
Incentive structures don’t map to ultimate high-value results
Reciprocity is not merely generosity; giving away a surplus is an investment, insurance that others will help in your own time of need
Kathleen DuVal • A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change
Insurance