To understand how technology can support the transition to a regenerative society, we need to embark on a journey that questions our relationship with the human-made. We’ll explore the very nature of technology itself, delve into the complexities of human systems, and examine the intricate relationship between technological innovation and societal change.
Technology
What is Technology?
When I started discussing and researching regenerative technology, I quickly noticed that most people think of digital devices as almost interchangeable with the word technology. However, to really understand what regenerative technology can be, it’s not enough to understand technology within the constraints of our modern gadgets.
If technology is all the ways we extend our abilities and shape our interactions with the world, how can we give shape to it in order to understand it better? What does it consist of? Where does it start and where does it end? These are just some of the questions this section aims to answer.
To get a clearer picture of this broader view, I explored a couple of key ideas:
- Technology Definitions: I examined various perspectives on what technology is, to understand how others have thought about it.
- MEI Model: This is a framework I developed based on research and discussions with other technologists and researchers. It considers technology in terms of Materials, Energy, and Information.
Technologies of Information
The digital age has brought into sharp focus how our social structures and systems are, in essence, technologies themselves. This realization blurs the line between traditional tech and social constructs, prompting us to take a comprehensive look at the informational side of technology and its various manifestations. The goal here is to explore how diverse forms of structured information guide behavior, decision-making, and resource flows in human-technological systems.
We’ll explore several key concepts in this section:
- Informational Constructs: These are the organized systems of information that form the invisible architecture of our world, ranging from explicit structures like computer code to implicit ones like cultural norms.
- Noetic Pyramid: This is a hierarchy of understanding, illustrating how information is structured and builds upon itself.
- Protocols: An examination of the formal rules governing communication and interaction in various systems, from digital networks to social etiquette, helping us understand their relationship and role in shaping digital and social/economic structures.
- Algorithms: I’ll take a balanced view on how these technologies can support information management around complexity, and what this could really mean for a future in which we are more aligned with the planet.
Technological Impacts & Change
This section aims to explore the effects and implications of technology on society and individuals. The objective is to understand how technology shapes our world, influences our behavior, and creates both opportunities and challenges for a regenerative society.
Key areas of focus in this section include:
- Technological Evolution: Exploring the patterns, mechanisms, and drivers of technological change. It aims to provide insights into how technologies develop over time, and what factors influence their evolution.
- Constraints & Affordances: Technology enables human action by creating new possibilities (affordances) while also imposing limits (constraints) on how we do things, which then shapes our actions, societies and values.
- Technology Values: This part explores the idea that technologies are not neutral tools but embody certain values and biases, and therefore have agency in themselves.
- Technological Reality: This subsection examines how technology interacts with physical and social structures to alter reality, such as the notion of hardness by Josh Stark.
This section encourages a more nuanced, critical approach to technology, moving beyond simplistic notions of progress and techno-optimism to consider the broader implications and potential of technological change in supporting the transition to a regenerative society.
Complex Systems
Complex Systems Theory
When we talk about transitioning to a regenerative society, we’re really talking about changing the vast, interconnected web of human and ecological systems. That’s where complex systems come in. Complex systems are, simply put, systems made up of many interacting parts that produce behaviors and patterns that can’t be predicted just by looking at the individual components. Understanding these systems is will give us a map for exploring how technology fits into the wider context of our ecosystems and social systems.
In this section, we’ll explore several key aspects of complex systems:
- Complex Systems: In this essay, I look at what makes a system “complex,” how these systems behave, and how they evolve over time. It explores concepts like feedback loops, tipping points, phase transitions and leverage points.
- Tools for Understanding Complex Systems: Here I’ll collect some of the theories and methods used to study complex systems. I am actively working on this section right now.
- Control Information Theory
- Actor-Network Theory
- Network Analysis
- Metasystem Transition Theory.
Planetary Ecosystems
In our quest to develop regenerative technologies and societies, we have much to learn from the diverse life forms and natural systems that have evolved over billions of years. This section explores how we can draw inspiration and insights from other beings and planetary cycles to inform our technological and social innovations.
- More-Than-Human-Intelligence: An introduction to the concept of learning from nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies to solve human challenges.
- Mycelial Networks
- Plant Communication and Sensing
- Animal Intelligence
- What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?
- Bioregionalism: Understanding the concept of bioregions as ecological and cultural areas.
- Closed-Loop Systems: Learning from nature’s closed-loop systems to inform regenerative design and circular economy principles.
- Evolutionary Principles:
Complex Human Systems
When we zoom in on the complex systems that make up our societies, things get even more interesting. Complex human systems are woven from countless threads of culture, technology, institutions, and individual behaviors. Understanding these complex human systems is vital for this research because it provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing how technology interacts with and influences all aspects of society.
In this section, we’ll unpack the layers of complex human systems:
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Complex Human Systems: Defining characteristics of human systems as complex adaptive systems. I am actively working on this section right now.
- Cultural Materialism: Cultural materialism is a theoretical framework that emphasizes the role of material conditions in shaping culture and society.
- Civilizational Layers & Cycles: This section explores different theories on how civilizations are structured and how they change over time.
- Small Groups as Complex Systems
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System Failure: This section delves into the ways complex human systems can break down or produce undesirable outcomes.
- Metacrisis: The interconnected nature of global challenges.
- Multipolar Traps & Zero-Sum Games: When individual rationality leads to collective irrationality.
- Externalities: The unaccounted costs or benefits in complex human systems.
- Exponential Tech: The challenges presented by rapidly advancing technologies.
What’s next?
Trunks
Complex human systems are explored in more detail in the following sections: 1.1 Superstructure 1.2 Social Structure 1.3 Infrastructure
Get In Touch
Did you resonate with some of the ideas shared here? Got any thoughts or suggestions? Contact me at andrea@diome.xyz