Engineering Generosity

Collection to inspire the book

That means there are three main components to identify when looking at a system: the people, the interaction (i.e. the sharing of information), and the shared context (i.e. what that group of people have in common).

Introduction to Abundant Systems

Breaking down a system - look at the 3 components

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

None of us are saints, but we can all try to be better. Each time you do something generous, you're shaping yourself into someone who's more likely to be generous next time, and that matters.

Ted Chiang • Exhalation: Stories

Generosity is self-perpetuating

Ultimately, the non-transactional thing works on the basis of trust. You have to have trust first, before you can get that virtuous cycle going, because you have to start by giving and not knowing what you'll get back. It's something like an abundance mindset, trust in the community. But at the same time, if you give and you don't get meaningful va... See more

Divya Siddarth • Building Capacity for Exit to Community

Trust

the era of business poetry begins today.

Business Poetry

However, if we truly aim at discussing the economy at a level where we can start to grasp it in its broadest sense we need to add the “invisible” economy, or what is more often called the non-monetary economy. This is a system of economies typically embedded in a monetary economy yet it undertakes tasks that benefit society by means that the moneta... See more

Jenny Grettve • economicspaces

Money is a captured subset of human value created. For people with plenty, it’s the default, because it’s easy to use. But for people without, that value is captured in ways like status, privileges, perks, etc.

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 pe... See more

Richard Pickering • Reciprocity as a Business Model

Time gap requires trust

Each technology not only unlocks a new state of expanded acceleration (that will be hardcoded into our lives as the new basis for our survival), but will also be used as the basis for new technologies to continue that process. The vast majority of people do not experience this technology as ‘liberating’ them. Rather, they experience it as something... See more

Our Centaur Future - A RADAR Report

Because we don’t think about valuing the work to be done in the future, only the work to be done now, we don’t give people space to explore what the future holds. Instead, we stress people out by giving them vague possibilities of an uncertain future with no time to explore them. By giving people the time, space, and freedom to explore what the future might hold, they will find abundant futures that are bright and exciting. Those are the futures they will work to actively create.