Wicked Minds - Issue #4
Why public problem solving?Here's a sketch of an answer: the challenges of the twenty first century are at a planetary scale and we will be sorely tempted to address them by building centralized systems: uber governments & uber companies for the most part. If you think that's the right way to purse happiness, may a thousand dictatorships bloom in your backyard.But if you think that centralization increases concentrations of wealth and power, then you will want to vote with your feet and build peer to peer systems of problem solving.
Kindness
In many parts of the world, mine included, we are making a virtue out of cruelty, which is despicable. As an antidote, read and listen to George Saunders, a great writer and by all accounts a lovely person.
Opinion | What It Means to be Kind in a Cruel World - The New York Times — www.nytimes.com One of America’s greatest living writers explores what it means to be kind in a cruel world.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders — www.goodreads.com Lincoln in the Bardo book. Read 20,084 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Sa...
Price it Right
I was talking to an enthusiastic young person who said that the problem with the world is that we don't price it right, i.e., we don't put enough of a price on pollution, carbon etc. Hurt the wallet and save the world. Not sure if I believe that argument (actually, I am pretty sure I don't) but it reminded me of an argument that our current systems have taken control by cheapening the world.
How the chicken nugget became the true symbol of our era | Food | The Guardian The long read: This is what happens when you turn the natural world into a profit-making machine
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things by Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore - Paperback - University of California Press — www.ucpress.edu Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today’s planetary emergencies.
That's all for this week. Stay wicked.