Weaving art, story, science, policy, life

Joe RavetzCentre for Urban & Regional Ecology

University of Manchesterwww.manchester.ac.uk/cure

www.urban3.net

FACING EXTINCTION CONFERENCE

CONTENTS

1. Why pictures & conversations

2. WTF Workshop: “Synergistics 101”

3. Ecolo-poly & Ecolo-polis4. Civil-opoly & Civil-opolis5. The Large Thinkonomic

Synergizer6. Beyond sustainability 7. draw your dreams

The objectives

The clients

Work in progress www.urban3.net

www.urban-energy.org

Urban 3.0Creative synergy & shared intelligence for the one planet city

“World’s largest feasibility study” – linking spatial, economy, environment,

society, governance.

URBAN 3.0 –

“Local / global transition strategy” – mapping & design of post-complex

challenges & opportunities

“Environment and the City” - critical

perspectives on the human urban

environment around the world

Town & Country Planning special

issue: October 2013

URBA

N 3

.0

URBA

N 3.0

Joe R

avetz

Joe

Rav

etz

Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust jacket text... Dust

Creative synergy & social intelligence for the one planet century

Introduction:

(1 technical slide only)

Weaving ecology & biodiversity with pressing human concerns

FINANCE & MACRO-

ECONOMY

LIVELIHOODS & CONSUMPTION

ECOLOGY & BIODIVERSITY

PRODUCTION & SUPPLY CHAINS

Entrepreneur, innovation,

Primary / resources

Industrial manufacturing &

processing

Service & knowledge

sectors

Financial credit &

investment, Social finance, pensions etc

Money / exchange systems

Macro-economic & fiscal policy

Mineral resources

Food & renewable resources

Water, energy

Biodiversity habitat & species

Waste & recirculation

Ecological & social values

Basic needs, survival & security

Social equity, welfare,

prosperity

Culture & heritage

Social & community enterprise

Higher needs, identity & meaningFixed assets &

property

This session • This session is about the weaving

together – not just of ecology, industry, sociology etc….. But of art, stories, science, policy, life – to explore futures dark & light.

• The medium here is the graphic storyline…. one way to help creative and deliberative thinking – ‘under the skin’ / ‘out of the box’ / ‘beyond linear’ – to navigate the impasse of extinction and alienation, towards some place beyond.

• Here are some graphic storylines on these themes, both old and new.

• The storylines invite feedback as ‘collective visual wisdom’ – where to go, how to use, what emerges.

• Actually I need your collective help to complete the storyline for the book.. (which is way overdue)

• An interactive graphic wall continues through the day in the Refectory – you are invited to think & respond with visuals, poems, stories, objects or anything else

• (Background to this visual thinking is on - http://urban3.net/visual-thinking/

Weaving

So why do we need pictures and

conversations? I thought this was a heavyweight book about the future.Yeah well,

conversations reveal certain

truths, which are more

complex than saying A=B & maybe

more interesting

And pictures can reveal certain perspectives

They can show visions

Or certain moments which

cannot be defined

Background - why pictures & conversations?

Pictures can show alternative realities &

discourses of resistance A picture is another form of map, or mapping

useful if you lose

your way in

the inter-

connected-ness

of things

Conversations can be

arguments, mis-understandings, or deep seated

rage I can’t believe

you just said

that!!Sometimes you have to draw them yourself

Pictures & maps can be a guide to

the future

Hmm..

Yes!! we could invent

the ‘Fut-Nav’ & make a million With pictures &

conversations we can explore the inter-connected-ness of Thinking

I thought you were gonna say “Drinking”

, ha ha

With pictures we can

notice tiny details

With conversation

s we can debate their

meaning

And with both together we’re ready for anything

welcome to this WTF *

workshop

“Synergi-stics 101”.

Ok here’s the plan... We have

3 Challenges: 3 cases: 4 future scenarios

Then, hands-on “creative

synergy & social

intelligence”

And G-TEC has sent a

demo ‘Sphere’ to inspire us

WTF workshop:

Synergistics 101

* Note – WTF is the World Thinkonomics Forum, set up in 2024 after ‘economics’ was formally discredited and disbanded

The workshop

Then, it’s methods, tools, concepts… & the elephant

effectWhat d’you mean,

elephant? It’s a tree!You’re joking, it’s a

snake!!

Not at all, it’s a

rope, innit

Basically it’s about “synergistic co-evolution” – as easy as “1-2-

3”

1.0 is a

mecha-nical

system

2.0 is a biological

system

3.0 is the human side - synergy & social

intelligence

But Urban 3.0 & the others, are more than simple

cause+effect, you have to play the 3.0 Games

Now if you play Monopoly – it’s very ‘2.0’ –everyone

loses except the winner who takes all.

In the 3.0 Games the

basic aim is to live together

on One Planet... So

you play ‘ECOL-OPOLY’

starting with 1.0 or 2.0 rules – then work out

how to collaborate, to build the 3.0

‘ECOL-OPOLIS’.

But each game contains a

mighty struggle .... The rational

brain now has knowledge so

powerful it cannot lose.

But the creative brain designs the game so it can only win.

On that paradox hangs our future

Hi, I’m Benito. My

family were

rancheros. Hunger was our

main hobby

To eat you had to

take land from the forest...

But the forest was a madhouse – police, agencies, farmers, loggers – all taking

what they could get

Many went to the cities, but I followed the trucks, across many borders, to the other

side of the worldHAPPY

MEALS GO LARGE

One day the police turned the

guns on us. It was time to leave

The people there were so fat, it was not a good sight

“ECOL-OPOLY”

The ONE PLANET game

Game #1: “Ecolo-poly”

For many years I worked & studied.

Then I got a job working on the new

Syn-Earth game module

CLIMATEFOODENERGY

HABITATS WATER

The so-called GLOBAL NEXUS was at the core of the system.

We tried all the options and settings... We monitored all the

results...

Development?

Markets??

Trade??

Finance ??

Regulation ??

Innovation ??

But we couldn’t get it into stability &

balance

Education ??

GMO?

But the system was imploding -

every 6 minutes another species

extinct. The devastation

was shocking

Then we realized – the humans were the

problem. Like with 5 stages of trauma

And the human species was also imploding – sadly, some suffered

more than others

GRIEF

DENIAL

BLAME

ANGER

GUILT

if I was a panda

would you help then??

squawkrrrrrr

After the deluge..

Sin & redemptio

n..

We can only go forward

So some will feel angry, but the fact is, the only

solution is growth & development ...

**** your

solution pollutio

n!!

Like a Conference

of the Species?

Then we’re into deeper myth & archetype

Cosmic justice

What if we could discuss the situation with everyone

involved?

Shiva the destroyer

ssssss

Greetings I’m Aisha. I grew

up in an African township.

Things were rough, but there was hope in the

streets

After a while I

got to be mayor, then a

UN delegate

“CIVILOPOLY”

The governance game

We worked for positive change, but instead there was more terror &

instability

We worked with G-TEC and the others, thinking that any system would be better than this

chaos

we kept the symbols of democratic

politics, while the

real business shifted to elsewhere

Game #2: “Civil-opoly”

So welcome to the game of CIVILOPOLY...

The object is to get ultimate power via

democratic elections. Don’t trust any

of them!!

A better

futureMeanwhile,

global investors

quietly make sure our national system is charged &

watered, so to deliver 10%+

returns to them & friends

A less bad future

But it looks like puppets on a house of cards,

cashing in votes from celebrity glitz & fashion swings

& what about the

“underclass”.. cyber-punks & rejects, misfits

& weirdos, abusers & abused,

freelancers & freeloaders??

Some call for an

alternative to the system -

they don’t last long, but

we admire their

ethical stand

Otherwise it’s a technical

task to net all the possible

voters

floating voters are a problem – lost in their

phones & profiles – they think politics has no

relevance… only wifi & coffee matters

Yeah we’d like to include them, but they just hide in

the cracks & destroy themselves

& there is

resistance

growing, from

inside & outside

the political spectru

m

So to build the CIVILOPOLIS we have to include

all these communities

I can’t believe you are seduced by expensive shiny phallic objects!!

Ok let’s get democracy back to its roots – not just

the town or village, but

anywhere that people come

together

But power is very power-ful... look at

that!!

‘Real’ power is

in the voice & energy of the people

Welcome to the G-TEC Living Labs and the LARGE THINKONOMIC SYNERGIZER. Here you see 100000 inter-connected spheres, each one a test site for the

co-evolution of ‘social intelligence”,

Look at that – spheres within spheres, and

smaller ones inside them. Maybe it

goes on for ever?

Impressive. so when do you expect to go

into commercial production?

Here we see 5 layers: global ecology at the

top, then economies,

cities, communities, & root ecology.

This one seems to be at the 2.0 stage – you can

see the elite, extracting the

value & leaving chaos & fallout...

Sorry I can’t tell you that. I can say that the Large Thinkonomic Synergizer is the most advanced

experiment ever in collective intelligence. Even we can hardly imagine where it’s going to end

G-TEC LIVING LABS

TOP LEVEL RESTRICTED

ACCESS

Game #3: “Thinkopoly”

So to get beyond

the impasse of “sustain-ability”,

we need to look at

how humans really work

Synergistics 101: beyond

sustainability But it’s not in a straight line,

it’s evolutionary. To

live on One Planet humans have to learn

the art. It’s not a technical fix

or even a ‘plan’

There are so many

directions &

levels to walk onLike a

labyrinth with

no exit.... so who has the map?

it’s about community – most of us

are confused & need a crowd to

follow

it’s about aspirations,

like a beautiful

garden seen through a doorway

Well they’ve been

working on that one for 3000 years.

But there’s new things.. We see the

Earth hanging in space. We

know we have complex

brains with multiple

intelligences

Coffee break

But the other is

where we’re at.. Where

cities & human

systems are all messed

up, fragmented, senseless, chaotic,

So there’s two different tracks

here. One is about ‘creative

synergy & social intelligence’

Ok so we all look for

patterns of collaboration, & learn how to do

it better

& chaos isn’t just ‘out there’ but ‘in here’ How many

forums, likes, feeds, streams, pokes, can you use?

What? Actually i’ve lost count

So before anything else, we have to

look for what makes us whole human beings... What is

this thing ‘social’, & what is

‘intelligence’??

Then we can start again with some

building blocks

Conclusion: draw your dreams