Engineering Generosity

Collection to inspire the book

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.

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

Robin Wall Kimmerer • The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance – Robin Wall Kimmerer

Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

Kevin Kelly • 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

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

In a you-or-me world, reciprocity and collaboration don’t fit.

Lynne Twist • The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life

Competition ruins collaboration

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

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