Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing through other patterns

Instead of assuming agents were perfectly rational, we allowed there were limits to how smart they were. Instead of assuming the economy displayed diminishing returns (negative feedbacks), we allowed that it might also contain increasing returns (positive feedbacks). Instead of assuming the economy was a mechanistic system operating at equilibrium,

A change to one element affects the entire system. From this vantage point, interdependence is seen as the very fabric of every experience. A systems approach tends to focus on the relationships, structures, and feedback loops that make up the whole. That way we are constantly learning, seeing the problem as an ever-changing process.

When the balance is off or chaos enters, elements of the ecosystem fail, life is harmed, relationships are damaged, sacrifices are made, new ways of being emerge. Nature makes shifts to resist, rebuild, restore, and create. It strives towards balance, wholeness by being in togetherness and harmony with each other.”

Neither of these individuals are saying that we should not be working with organizations, businesses, governments, for-profits, non-profits, or any other entities where people work and live — and neither am I. What we are saying is that our thinking and acting toward the future must challenge the systems that would seek to short-circuit the very fu