System Change

What we need are visions of the future of technology that are values-driven, but we don’t need just design fictions. We need business model fictions, engineering feasibility study fictions, interop protocol specification fictions, investment return fictions.

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

9. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).


10. Regulating negative feedback loops.


11. Driving positive feedback loops.


12. Material flows and nodes of material intersection.


13. Information flows.


14. The rules of the system (incentives, punishments, constraints).


15. The distribution of

Exploring where impediments are hard, where they are soft and when they can be ignored is powerful.

the great thing about living in a world of dying systems is that you are uniquely well-positioned to replace suboptimal systems with something superior. New growth takes root best in the decay of its predecessors. For most of the past, if you wanted to create a better future, you had to rally the troops and take someone else’s land or destroy

To make diagnosis something ‘empowering’, the first step is to completely break it apart and acknowledge all of its potential different and conflicting functions. Diagnosis can give you access to community, or cut you off from community. It can give you access to benefits, or it can bar you from income through employment. It could get you your

“leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.