Nicole Woods

Building alternatives to extractive economics isn’t just about critiquing the system from afar/behind our screens. It’s about actively rewriting the story at the local level, where change feels personal and immediate. When those benefits are visible to the people we care about, they have the power to inspire more systemic change over time.

Our fixation on measurable outcomes often leads us to overlook the nuances of human experience: comfort, joy, even a bit of whimsy.

Joy is not a function of a life free of friction and frustration, but a function of focus — an inner elevation by the fulcrum of choice.

In a world that glorifies individual success, we easily forget that our greatest power lies in our ability to come together. A truly empowered and resilient society can only arise from a sense of unity and collective purpose, not self-interest. How can we reclaim the power of the collective without losing our sense of self?

“The Official Future” tells us to “think exponentially, act incrementally,” beckoning us to utilize foresight in service of the ever-expanding present systems of quantifying, micro-analyzing, extracting, consuming, and automating. This way of futuring is at the heart of Epistemic Uncertainty. “The Emergent Future” instead challenges us to “ think... See more

As author and philosopher Bonnitta Roy would say, we must “dream ourselves awake.”

Contribute your skills to an existing effort – make it possible. Build the website, raise the funds, recruit the talent, plan the events. As Bill McKibben puts it, “Faced with the kind of crises that we face, the most important thing that an individual can do is to not always be an individual.” Move from I to we .

Underlying the structural changes was an ideological shift toward reciprocity, an ideal of sharing and balance that undergirded economics, politics, and religion across much of the continent. The Sonoran Desert–living O’odham, for example, developed a himdag , or “way of life,” that taught that people are supposed to share with one another... See more