Blog-wise

Here are some current blogs, visions, off-pisted ideas, half-formed proposals

Can the dynamic of authoritarian takeover be stopped, subverted or bypassed?

Some climate scientist colleagues went to rustbelt red-state USA in 2018 to research climate denial. They found themselves in the mayor’s house, surrounded by fearsome dogs and guns, and getting nowhere fast. Then they noticed large numbers of children running around the house, and they enquired how that all worked. It turned out these were the orphans of opioid addicts, in a town which was falling apart in every which way… and at that point a common humanity began to emerge (1).

This piece is all about such ‘common humanity’, beyond simple divides of ‘good citizens versus bad elites’. Starting with the social strike and tipping point thinking, we explore four basic questions, from the synergistic ‘4-S’ method of ‘scoping, systems, synergies, strategies’. This then points towards a strategic role for the GTC….

The transition or tipping point into autocracy and maybe fascism is now in full progress in the most powerful nation in the world. Much depends on the mid-term elections, which many foresee will be fixed and/or hijacked by the MAGA elite.

So, the GTC has raised the question of a ‘social strike’ as both urgent and strategic. There is now an international debate on the whys and wherefores of such an extreme action, with results coming shortly on https://gtcampaign.org/. This note is one contribution of 30 to that debate.

‘Easter breakfast with monsters’ …

Last month’s poll seemed pessimistic – our international expert panel thought the most likely outcome – ‘global level conflict’ (59%): second was ‘national level conflict’ (29%), with ‘global & national level peace / stability’ a distant 12%…

It seems now more clear the USA is led by an ‘unhinged madman’ (in the eyes of world leaders), who orders his military to commit war crimes – meanwhile the Straits are the Iranian regime’s chokehold on world food production supplies. We are all now collateral damage, so far estimated at $1 trillion and counting…

So, we ask ourselves, are the Loop-onomic tipping point methods fit for purpose? There are challenges all around –

Complexity – if we put all relevant factors and inter-connections on one system map it’s unreadable – who can decide what is relevant?
Intersectionality – the Iran / USA / Israel conflict intersects with climate change, post-colonial legacies, AI domination, etc (not forgetting the 1953 British role in overthrowing a democratic government) –
Panarchy – if the USA-led global order is self-destructing anyhow, is it more useful to surf the crisis / inter-regnum, and look towards future systems?

We can’t expect rational foresight & evidence-based policy here… So what would be useful?? next instalment coming shortly…

From urban silos to joined up city – who runs this place?’

(Manchester Urban Institute)

Cities are increasingly shaped by complex political, social and economic tensions that challenge traditional ideas of who governs and whose knowledge counts. Using a recent Greater Manchester by-election as a starting point, Joe Ravetz explores the changing landscape of urban politics and the growing importance of knowledge co-production in understanding and shaping our cities. Joe asks a simple but fundamental question: in today’s fragmented urban systems, who really runs this place?

From smart cities to wise

(SAMI Consulting)

If human interaction is about zero…

As a kid in the 1960s I got the bus to school, and soon got to know everyone at the bus stop – now everyone is on their feeds and apps, and human interaction is about zero… So does smart city tech point towards a city of strangers controlled by distant overlords – or – a city of local synergy and cohesion?? And how to enable business models, value chains, investment vehicles and innovation ecosystems to ensure that??

All this comes to a head with AI, and just now the conflict of AI guardrails with the AI-enabled killing fields of the US Department of War: when the AI firm Anthropic refused to licence this use of its system, the Department not only cancelled the contract but declared them a threat to national security.

As for the smart city transition, in simple terms, cities depend on transport, which depends on energy markets, which depend on the Gulf states, which are now entangled in the AI-enabled war. But there are wider and deeper issues, in that cities now run on many inter-connected digital systems, for security, education, employment etc: if the ‘military-industrial-technology’ overlords invest in AI-enabled war machines, they are likely to be ok with AI-enabled social engineering. And then we are on a slippery slope, from ‘smart city’ as technical and benign, towards an ‘unsmart’ city as hijacked by the forces of power, inequality and colonisation (Figure 1).

This theme now runs far and wide. The United Nations Habitat program on “People-Centred Smart Cities” asks similar questions, along with the ITU ‘smart and sustainable cities’ program and others. I would argue that these are all important, but perhaps, missing some deeper layers of the crisis – or opportunity, for transition from ‘smart to wise’ (or at least ‘wiser’).