A Living System organizes around
specific Core Values and Principles.
Living System Design
What if we built our social, political and economic systems the way nature builds eco-systems?
Nature builds stable, adaptable and thriving eco-systems, human activity screw them up.
What would the human eco-system look like if we adopted the values and principles used by nature?
Core Values
Community
We cooperate together as a group of people aligned around a location, an activity or both.
- What will we be doing?
- Where will we be doing it?
- How will we be doing it?
We recognize each of us has free will and the power to choose with whom and how we participate.
- How do people join and depart?
- How will we make decisions?
- How do we manage conflict?
Sovereignty
Intention
We articulate our desired outcome(s), opening to possibilities and releasing any attachment.
- What are our goal(s)?
- How will we know they’ve been achieved?
- How does individual participation fit into the bigger picture?
We grow our personal and collective abilities through individual and group practices.
- What are our individual practices?
- What are our group practices?
- How do we provide feedback?
Evolution
Compassion
We hold a place of love for all beings and eco-systems, striving to heal trauma and respecting our interconnectedness.
- How do we express love?
- How can healing take place individually and collectively?
- What are our healing practices?
We hold responsibility for something tangible or ephemeral in the world for a limited amount of time.
- What are we responsible for?
- What are our responsibilities?
- How do they fit with our goal(s)?
Stewardship
Contribution
We each are afforded the opportunity to contribute in our own unique way.
- What contributions are needed?
- How do we distribute contribution?
- How do we fill any gaps?
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Principles
REGENERATIVE
Recognize that all ecosystems are an interconnected whole. The raw materials from one system are products from another. There are no products left unaccounted for in the system.
- What are the inputs to the system?
- What are the outputs of the system?
- How are inputs renewed and outputs processed?
Recognize that the system operates in a band between scarcity and abundance.
- What is the minimum needs of the system?
- What is the maximum goal/cap?
- How is surplus distributed?
SUFFICIENT
EMERGENT
There are many seeds. When the raw materials are available and the environment is ready the seed will begin to grow.
- What is the seed?
- What initial conditions are needed?
- How can the environment be prepared?
All components serve a specific purpose within the ecosystem.
- What purpose is being fulfilled?
- Why is this purpose necessary?
- How does it fit within a larger context?
PURPOSEFUL
CONSCIOUSNESS
The system evolves, it captures knowledge, learns and grows, takes in feedback and adapts or innovates.
- Whats information is being captured?
- Through what process will the system learn?
- How will feedback be incorporated?
There is a manifestation of the system, either something physical (product) or abstract (service or information).
- What is the intended output of the system?
- How will it be produced?
- Who benefits from it being produced?
TANGIBLE
INTERCONNECTED
The system closes loops.The cost of any product must include the costs to renew any resources consumed and to recycle used products and wastes produced.
- What resources are consumed?
- What waste is generated?
- How are these costs accounted for within the broader system?
