Raging Against the Dying Light - A Systems View of Human Futures
Also catalogued elsewhere
A model of four million 2040 scenarios finds most futures end in decline or collapse; the Hope attractor is tiny. Polity type—strong democracy—is the crucial variable that makes hope possible. We must shift worldviews and build collective institutions, technologies, and wisdom schools to grow resilience, resistance, and renewal toward that Hope.
Most so-called systems change initiatives fail because they don’t address worldview. Dismantle one system and it often respawns in another form, because the underlying patterns of thought and being remain intact.
Worldview is also an expression of how we belong to and are in relationship with the world.
Our mental frameworks don’t exist in a vacuum - they emerge from and are constantly shaped by our embodied engagement with specific material realities.
Worldview shift requires attention to both dimensions simultaneously. We can’t just change our minds and expect systems to follow, nor can we only focus on changing external structures while ignoring the consciousness that creates and sustains them.
I’m wary when people try to engineer it for others – even if their aim is noble.
from a place of interconnectedness, a worldview shift is something that happens through us rather than by us It is developmental, relational and ecological.
The ‘work’ is less about changing our minds and more about letting our minds be changed by the world we were never actually separate from in the first place!
In this way, worldview shift becomes less reformation and more remembering. Not so much building new mental structures but dissolving back into the aliveness that predates all our stories about it.
Cascade Institute’s Polycrisis Core Model Technical Synopsis
They have identified and analyzed over 4 million potential planetary scenarios for the year 2040. And 99.75% of the stable ones represent either the decline or collapse of our social and ecological systems.
the trouble with putting all your energy here is that collapse preparation can become self-fulfilling. And don’t forget that others – who have waaaaay more resources than you - are doing the exact same thing to ensure the survival of the very institutions and value systems you might believe are accelerating collapse in the first place!
In truth, we need all three: resilience, resistance, and renewal. They reinforce one another. No matter how profound your methodology for cultivating wisdom, there’s no excuse for not helping to resist the decline. And preparing for disaster – whether it’s forest fires or the threat of invasion[vi] – can be a critical and motivating entry point for building new levels of collective capability and cohesion.
critics will likely make the case that it’s basically reductionism masquerading as comprehensiveness. There’s no regional differentiation. It reduces the entire ‘global system of systems’ to just 11 variables with 3-5 states each, and it can’t capture the emergent movements, moments of grace and flashes of genius that often change history. And it doesn’t account for exponential complexity - 2nd and 3rd order effects – which would quickly take the modelling process into currently non-existent quantum computing terrain.
It forces a crucial question - are you preparing for collapse, resisting decline, or building alternatives?
How do we actively navigate – at a species level - toward the Hope Attractor?
when I look at the PCM’s eleven global system descriptors, polity type emerges as perhaps the most influential cross-cutting variable
Without legitimate, adaptive governance, societies cannot navigate the complex trade-offs required for long-term flourishing
Democratic systems, for all their adaptive advantages, often struggle with the very coordination the PCM suggests is essential for reaching the Hope attractor.
Democratic institutions are particularly susceptible to elite capture, information manipulation, and what Gregory Bateson called schismogenesis - the escalating cycles of polarization that malevolent actors can exploit.
The kind of strong democracy needed for transition to the Hope attractor is going to require a critical mass[vii]of mature, engaged citizens.
complexity consciousness from which flow: a long-term perspective that considers responsibility to future generations; a relational perspective that recognizes our fundamental interdependence and shared membership in the human family; an ecological perspective that understands the interconnectedness of all life; and a principled perspective grounded in self-restraint, right relationship, and deep commitment to collective flourishing.
Haudenosaunee citizenship development is fundamentally relational, spiritual, ecological and inter-generational. It requires individuals to find and nurture their own unique gifts, to act with a sense of long-term, collective responsibility and to cultivate a good mind – a peaceful way of being that is aligned with natural law and the welfare of one’s people.
Rather than franchising our model, we’re working to contribute frameworks, practices, and insights that others can adapt to their cultural contexts and bioregional needs.
I don’t see the Hope attractor as an endpoint. It’s the jumping off point for civilizational maturation.
Worldview formation - and its transformation - unfolds through the living relationship between the inner and outer arcs of our experience.