Emergencies are relatively easy to respond to. People who take action get support. Itʻs the rebuild that is the challenge. People have to work to eat so they move. Others buy up what they leave. Community and history disappears. People stay and fight for community. But then what can you rebuild? Itʻs so expensive! Who will insure it?
Also difficult is systemic collapse that is more gradual--When the economy no longer works for people, when housing, food, health care, childcare/eldercare is too expensive and/or scarce, when the systems that got us here no longer support us. Maybe emergencies happen again and again and nothing works any more. Maybe the empireʻs lifespan is over. Maybe the tower of Babel falls again. Then you either move to other empires or you stay where you are and pioneer new systems in the rubble. This is not a time for "business as usual." Iʻm old and established in the current system but Iʻm excited about possibilities, about the power of systems thinking/science to help us create new kinds of social systems and understand more deeply those that lasted for centuries in the past. Entropy may mean dispersal, but it also means more possibility for new combinations. Crazy, but exciting times!
Emergencies are relatively easy to respond to. People who take action get support. Itʻs the rebuild that is the challenge. People have to work to eat so they move. Others buy up what they leave. Community and history disappears. People stay and fight for community. But then what can you rebuild? Itʻs so expensive! Who will insure it?
Also difficult is systemic collapse that is more gradual--When the economy no longer works for people, when housing, food, health care, childcare/eldercare is too expensive and/or scarce, when the systems that got us here no longer support us. Maybe emergencies happen again and again and nothing works any more. Maybe the empireʻs lifespan is over. Maybe the tower of Babel falls again. Then you either move to other empires or you stay where you are and pioneer new systems in the rubble. This is not a time for "business as usual." Iʻm old and established in the current system but Iʻm excited about possibilities, about the power of systems thinking/science to help us create new kinds of social systems and understand more deeply those that lasted for centuries in the past. Entropy may mean dispersal, but it also means more possibility for new combinations. Crazy, but exciting times!