September 22nd 2026 The Incentives Are Wrong The Incentives Are Wrong When a system rewards a salesperson for making sales on a commission basis, the temptation is for the salesperson to manipulate, gaslight, lie, deceive and obfuscate to make the sale. When a system rewards the CEO for profit margins, the temptation is for the CEO to squeeze out everything, get the workers’ wages down to rock bottom, cut corners, anything, to get that profit margin. When a system allows a politician to be...
1 day ago • 1 min read
September 21st 2026 The System Working as Built The System Working as Built My training in systems thinking began in my twenties, with Buckminster Fuller. His core maxim was the Generalised Principle, something true in all cases, a working law of Universe. The Principle of Principles is synergy: the behaviour of a whole cannot be determined by examining its parts separately. Start with Universe first, Bucky would say. Aspirational. Rarely achievable. Always the right instruction. Since...
2 days ago • 2 min read
September 18th 2026 There is nothing natural about it There is nothing natural about it The floods. The fires. We have called them natural disasters. But perhaps it is time to reframe our language. More and more, what we call disasters are the political outcomes produced by a system designed to extract to extinction, exploit till broken, and colonise till hollowed out. Profits hold supremacy over the health, livelihood and well-being of billions of humans. Debased and discounted as worth less...
5 days ago • 2 min read
September 17th 2026 Tools of domination Tools of domination Pressure Pressure (n.): from Latin pressura, from premere, to press. The sense “moral or mental coercing force, exertion of authority or influence” arrives in the 1620s — the word migrates from the body to the will. (Online Etymology Dictionary) When do we feel pressure? And from whom, or from what? Some pressure carries information. A deadline, a failing system, a body that will not keep going. These pressures exist because...
6 days ago • 1 min read
September 16th 2026 Holding the Shape Without Folding Holding the Shape Without Folding Integrity is this big, fat, loaded word. Like any word, so easy to say. So much harder to live. If there is a value I hold closest, it is integrity. Digging into the meaning it carries, from its etymological roots, meaning oneness, wholeness, I hold integrity to mean holding the shape without folding. I hold my values and principles, especially when things get hard. This is the test, is it not? Easy to be...
7 days ago • 1 min read
September 15th 2026 Remaining apolitical Remaining apolitical Ed Sheeran, the singer-songwriter, wants to remain apolitical. No stand is a stand. Apolitical is a stand. It stands for safety. It stands for the desire to be loved by all. To not rock boats. Nice and safe and apolitical in a world on fire is only a temporary illusion of safety. Silence makes us complicit. Prolonged silence against terrible crimes makes us advocates of terrible crimes. When you know something evil is happening and...
8 days ago • 3 min read
September 14th 2026 To cultivate love To cultivate love AI will…probably lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there will be GREAT companies created, says Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT. I wonder how anyone arrives at this comment without questioning its insanity. Actually, I think I know. It is baked into everything, and has been for centuries. I watched this ten-minute video about Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s new book, End Times Fascism. (Very worth taking the time.) Watch here...
9 days ago • 1 min read
September 11th 2026 Untether our addiction to supremacy Untether our addiction to supremacy We, as humanity, are being pushed to extinction. The central design feature of our extinction-seeking, maximisation machine is supremacy. Our deluded addiction to our supremacy. In any form, wearing any costume – religious, ethnic, skin melanin content, heritage, lineage. Supremacy over others, Nature, systems, the future, even the past. We have placed a singular system as the central coordinating...
12 days ago • 1 min read
September 10th 2026 In flames and tears In flames and tears The people building AI earnestly believe that AI could kill us all by the end of this decade. In four years! We might ask: if they do believe this, why are they still building AI in a mad frenzy? But the question is not as gobsmacking as we think. The world is on fire. The ice is melting. People are dying. Whole ecosystems are collapsing. We know why. We have known for many decades. We have made many limp-wristed pretences that we...
13 days ago • 1 min read