Some of my favorite content from 2020
From interesting ideas to thought-provoking perspectives, here are a few of the articles, videos, and podcasts that have influenced my thinking this year. I hope you enjoy!
Imagined Futures, Douglas Rushkoff & Jamie Wheal
"We look for scaled, universal, global solutions to these scaled universal problems - instead we need particular, local, individual and distributed solutions.
The way to do this is going to be scaled to the human body, not to the abstract universal organisation or institution that we long for to fight this battle for us.
It sounds like a cop out but it's actually harder to do moment to moment, eyeball to eyeball, choice to choice in your community.
They won't scale up but they will ripple and create a different experience of reality for so many of us."
Evolve interview with Dr Robert Kegan
"It is easy to criticize those who may appear to us to be standing obstinately on the wrong side of history, on the wrong side of the future. But they may be digging in their heels out of fear for their lives.
We may have to do a better job, not just calling people into a more complex way of making meaning, but understanding the loss, even the anger, terror, and devastation that these very calls cause.
The calls are needed, but they need to be accompanied by an understanding of what others perceive their cost to be. Otherwise, these calls are going to lead to the increasing division that we see playing itself out in social democracies and in populist movements all over the world."
WHO: How to respond to a pandemic, Dr Michael J. Ryan
"Anyone who’s involved in emergency response will know this, if you need to be right before you move, you will never win.
Perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection.
And the problem in society that we have at the moment is everyone is afraid of making a mistake. Everyone is afraid of the consequence of error.
But the greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralysed by the fear of failure.”
TED: How to lead in a crisis, Amy Edmondson
“We follow this new kind of leader through upheaval, because we have confidence not in their map but in their compass.”
NY Post: Pope Francis says market capitalism has failed
"The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom.
It is imperative to have a proactive economic policy directed at ‘promoting an economy that favors productive diversity and business creativity’ and makes it possible for jobs to be created, and not cut."
Barron's interview with Jeremy Grantham
"People listen but don’t really take it in. If that continues, climate change is going to trample through your portfolio and kick its ass. And you have to care about it, because it’s not just an issue for your miserable portfolio. It’s an issue for your grandchildren.
Capitalism has a way of taking perfectly reasonable human beings who play at the weekend with their grandchildren, who are occasionally altruistic, and turning them during the workweek into Milton Friedman zombies working to maximize short-term profit.
If you said, “My only objective as a human being is to maximize my own advantages,” that’s a workable definition of sociopath. And yet that is what the corporations do. And we treat them as damned human beings. It’s remarkable. So wake up."
99% Invisible podcast ep 412: Where do we go from here?
“What I feel is so elegant about the Stalled! public toilet project is that at some level… it doesn’t matter what most people think about trans people. It doesn’t matter if you feel like you should accommodate people with disabilities… The design of the space just solves the problem.”
"Equality means everyone gets the same thing. Equity means everyone gets what they need."
Anti-Racism Daily: Understand the role of cancel culture
"We can't tip the scales too far in the opposite direction and lose sight of our goals. But we must be nuanced with how we brand cancel culture. Otherwise, we could discredit both this form of protest and the invaluable stories that need it to be heard."
“Be mindful of any thoughts or feelings that may come up that are oriented around seeing children as a disruption, an annoyance, or an inconvenience, when they’re home with you.
Because this style of thinking derived from residential schools and the forcefully implemented colonial education systems.
Due to this, our mindset from how we relate to children has also shifted dramatically.
Those systems have re-wired our brains to the point where it is seen as ‘abnormal’ and as a ‘disruption’ to have our children home with us, by our sides, watching, learning, living, and growing with us.”
Your ‘new normal’ is our ‘old normal’, Khalid Albaih
“Cutting short your stay abroad in order to board a plane home happened to many people in this pandemic. It has happened for a long time to many Brown and Black people, too. You call it ‘evacuation’, we have had to call it ‘deportation’.”