> *Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power”* > Stewart Brand, The Clock of The Long Now In The Clock of The Long Now, Brand suggests 6 different ‘pace layers’ of civilization based on the the work of physicist Freeman Dyson on the differing timescales of the survival of life. From fast-moving to slow-moving, they are: • Fashion, art, ‘innovation’ • Commerce • Infrastructure • Governance • Culture • Nature ([Source](https://walkerart.org/magazine/defuturing-the-image-of-the-future#cite-19)) This concept is very reminiscent of [[Cultural Materialism]]  In a healthy system, ‘pace layers’ are allowed to work at their own pace, allowing the system to self-adjust against imbalance. This reflects Mierle Laderman Ukeles' theory on the Death & Life instincts (mentioned in [[How To Do Nothing - Resisting the Attention Economy]]):  > ***The Death Instinct:** separation, individuality, Avant-Garde par excellence; to follow one’s own path—do your own thing; dynamic change.  > > **The Life Instinct:** unification; the eternal return; the perpetuation and MAINTENANCE of the species; survival systems and operations, equilibrium.* In this case, the bottom layers of Nature and Culture are concerned primarily with the life instinct, whereas the top layers Fashion/Innovation and Commerce are concerned with the death instinct. Both are necessarily for a healthy society, as life allows for continuation and death allows for change. However, what happens when the timescale and logic of ‘disruption’ and ‘move fast and break things’ permeate into the slow layers of civilization? The result is imbalance: what we are breaking is the ecological and social systems we are dependent on for survival. How can we radically redefine the faltering relationship between society, technology, and nature? It’s about rediscovering our place within nature in order to realign our culture, governance and infrastructure with the life instinct. Technology gives us an opportunity to do that, as it has now become the tool we use to mediate our culture and relationships. > [Systemic digital care](https://www.careful.industries/blog/2022-7-systemic-digital-care) is the opposite of disruption.