Atelier WeekNotes w/c 18 Mar
Quantum computing: transformation accelerant? 'Coloniality': the necessity, & limits, of this frame. Powerful Times: Kim Polman & Ella Saltmarshe. Innovation for Sustainability: Sarah Goodenough.
I am writing newsletter of #weeknotes of starting the Atelier of What’s Next (a studio for initiatives at the frontier of generating a better future). For my rationale for starting the Atelier see here.
My chronic family circumstance is still taking time away from projects and from putting the Atelier into practice. So, the lecture write ups and the State of Sustainable Shipping have been a bit stuck. Apologies.
What I can write about is my sensing what is going on to identify possible initiatives for the Atelier (aka 0/DETECTING) and some recent outputs.
This week covers:
0/DETECTING
Quantum computing: transformation accelerant?
'Coloniality': the necessity, and the limits, of this frame.
Recent outputs
Powerful Times: Kim Polman (co-Founder & Chair of Reboot the Future).
Powerful Times: Ella Saltmarshe (leading practitioner of narratives for system change).
Innovation for Sustainability: Sarah Goodenough (of Climate Policy Radar, that rare thing: an actually existing positive use of AI).
How can the Atelier of What's Next be of service to you, and your purposes? We'd love to hear from you. Perhaps you have a challenge or idea to put in the studio. Maybe one of our existing topics appeals to you. What if you love to make new things happen by being part of the studio. Or if you have feedback or comments that would improve this deck. Either click the button below or email davidbent@atelierwhatsnext.org.
0/DETECTING
Quantum Computing: transformation accelerant?
Last week I met up with an old university friend, who is now head of a science department at one of London's leading universities. They were just coming back from an event on quantum computing.
My friend's perspective: just as Galileo's telescope lead to Newton's law of gravity, so quantum computing will lead to new understandings and breakthroughs.
His particular specialisation is biophysics. He is able to use computer modelling to test whether a compound could have a positive therapeutic effect (a method known as in silico, which is in sympathy with the more familiar in vivo (testing on whole organisms), in vitro (testing on stuff out of context), and in situ (testing stuff in context)).
Even now, that allows thousands compounds to be tested with reasonable accuracy compared to physical methods, and with far lower safety risks. The computer simulation speeds up the identification of candidate compounds, which are worth putting through the expensive and lengthy testing process.
Now, quantum computing is a black box to me (despite getting a Masters of Physics 30 years ago). This wikipedia entry explains more.
For my friend, quantum computing will allow modelling which is extremely fine-grained on both dimensions of both space (to the molecular scale) and time. He was talking about real time modelling of the functioning of a cell. Of a cell. Which would be astounding and give us utterly unprecedented insights.
When you have a new measurement technique, you can test your theories against reality in a much more fine-grained way. Which is when you find out your theories are wrong. Sometimes, those errors seem small, but can only be addressed by a full paradigm shift.
When my friend and I were studying physics together, we were taught that one physicist in the 1870s had said “In this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." Those unimportant holes were the photoelectric effect and the inability to find the 'ether' through which light was supposed to passed.
It turned out the only way to 'fill' these holes were two new theories: quantum mechanics and special relativity. You might of heard of them. In which case you know they more than fileld those holes. They totally upturned the landscape of what is reality, anyway.
(SIDEBAR: Einstein proposed both these, and also a proof of the existence of atoms, in his Annus mirabilis papers theories in 1905. Quite possibly the most consequential contribution to human knowledge by one person, in one year, ever.)
All of which is more evidence of the possibility of a step-change in the cognitive capacity of societies; the other being the development of AI.
That matters because one theory about how societies have a 'phase' change (e.g. from hunter-gathered to agrarian) is that they have access to vastly cheaper energy and more cognitive capacity. See Maslin and Lewis' The Human Planet, which is summarised here.
If renewables provide a vastly cheaper energy, and AI + Quantum Computing give a step-change in our collective ability to learn and adapt, then what new form of society might we transform into?
Answers please on a postcard.
And, yes, this is a vast over-simplification of the complex processes in play (including possibly having some embedded presumptions about what a better society is that reflect colonial heritage, see next item). Plus it maybe a bunch of wishful thinking / motivated reasoning. So, it worth pointing to this past WeekNote which is sceptical on talk of postcapitalism, as a bit of an antidote.
WHAT NEXT. Watching brief.
Coloniality': the necessity, and the limits, of this frame
One of the most important parts of my professional life was doing the Masters in Responsibility and Business Practice (RBP) at Centre for Action Research and Professional Practice (CARPP) at the university of Bath (archived webpage here).
It was a radical Masters for a School of Management, both in teaching method (action research) and content (ie that the purpose of business is not just to maximise shareholder returns). This goes some way to explaining why CARPP no longer exists and the webpage above is archived.
The alumni email list of several hundred people around the world is a source of inspiration and connection.
Earlier in the week, retired professor Peter Reason, one of the founders of the course, tested with the group whether a re-designed Masters would need to place the programme much more clearly in it historical context, especially the colonial, exploitational context.
My answer: as a white, Oxford-educated, male who lives in the old imperial metropole, for me, it is a “yes, and...”.
I read Amitav Ghosh's The Nutmeg’s Curse and Vanessa Andreotti's Hospicing Modernity in summer 2022, just before going to Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ) for the first time. (I had been introduced to both by Dougald Hine and his ‘a school called HOME’, a gathering place and a learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture.)
I was in AoNZ to start my time as an Edmund Hillary Fellow, a community of 500+ innovators, entrepreneurs and investors committed to New Zealand as a basecamp for global impact. The introductory weekend started with a group of us being welcomed onto the local land by the resident Maori group (a pōwhiri to the marae, or sacred meeting space).
While mingling with the elders afterwards, I spoke with one woman in her 70s. She remembered how The Crown had ordered her father to tear down their house, and move to many miles away. This was one part of systematic effort to destroy Maori culture and community, and so to extinguish them from the land. I knew this from Nutmeg’s Curse: terraform the land and terrorise (if not kill) the people, so that European settlers can use familiar farming techniques.
But it is quite something else to hear someone talk about how your own country tried to exterminate their culture, and not in some distant past, but in living memory. (All this was being done in the name of Queen Elizabeth, which puts in a different light the praise after her death for the silent acceptance of her duty. But I digress.)
Later in the same weekend, one of our Maori facilitators talked us through Maori beliefs, and how the British had tried to systematically destroy each in turn. Many of the non-Maori New Zealanders (‘Pakeha’) were in tears after this session; they had not been taught this history, and had not realised how much their own families’ material success had depended on such past cruelty and destruction.
My visit left a very strong impression on me. So, YES, any Masters would need to place our current situation in the historical context, and especially of colonialism and exploitation.
AND, I notice that the colonialism frame can become totalising; it can become the only explanation for everything, with no room for nuance or specificity.
For instance, Jason Hickel's More or Less splits the world into coloniser and colonised. But that gives him no ability to analyse modern China (it is either colonised or coloniser?). Or how things can change over time. Or how that framing unintentionally requires the colonised to always be defined by what others did to them, and so continues to rob them of their own agency. Or how putting a priority on decolonialising society still defines society in terms of the colonising frame.
Perhaps that comes from how under-acknowledged the negatives of colonialism are. Those who have realised have to work all the harder to get the insights heard and acted on. In doing so, they paint in broad and bold brush strokes, which removes nuance and context
All frames have weaknesses and shadow-sides. That is true for the colonial and exploitation frame too.
So, the challenge for any redesigned Masters would be to bring in the colonial context, but not turn it into the One Thing That Explains Everything.
WHAT NEXT. In my work, how can I bring in the colonial context, but without it becoming a totalising frame?
Recent outputs
Powerful Times: Kim Polman
Kim Polman is Co-Founder & Chair of Reboot the Future, a fellow of the Aspen Institute and co-founder and chair of the Kilamanjaro Blind Trust (bio on the Reboot website, LinkedIn, Twitter). The purpose of Reboot the Future acts on the belief that a better future is possible if we follow the Golden Rule, that we treat others and the planet as we’d wish to be treated.
In the conversation we dive into the Golden Rule and how that is applied in Reboot The Future. Plus how Kim is a late blooming baby boomer, who didn’t get in front of a microphone until she was 60. She also touches on the importance of love, almost as a practice to be resilient and attract opportunities. Plus, how we are all leaders in our own spheres, and so we can all take action.
Powerful Times: Ella Saltmarshe
Ella Saltmarshe “sit at the intersection of culture, narrative and systems change” (website, LinkedIn, twitter). She describes herself as a founder, systems change specialist, anthropologist, writer, podcaster, teacher, activist, and (as of very recently) a mother.
We recorded this interview on 31 October 2023, only a few weeks into the Isreal-Gaza conflict. Anyone who follows Ella’s work will have seen her recent focus on that conflict. For the start of any International Women’s Day events, she suggested people use some acknowledgements. This one spoke to me in particular:
“Before we start, let’s take a moment to acknowledge and remember the extreme suffering and terror experienced by women in Gaza, Israel and the west bank over recent months. The 195 women killed by Hamas on October 7th, the at least 14 female hostages still remaining in Gaza. The 8,570 (and growing number of) Palestinian women who have been killed by Israel. The 5500 women who are due to give birth in Gaza over the next month with no medical facilities, with 40% of those pregnancies classified as high risk. May our actions contribute to their safety. May we support each other in working for an immediate ceasefire. As women, may we demonstrate what international solidarity looks like, today and everyday.“
Our conversation focused on the role of culture and narrative in helping us transition to a regenerative future. We are really messy, irrational, emotional creatures. So we need to be working at the level of emotions. And the word emotion, the origin of the work is the word is from the Latin move, irate and move. Things that move us emotionally are stories.
In particular, Ella is focused on nurturing cultures that have stewardship at their core, and therefore is asking what infrastructure is needed to enable us to cultivate stewardship at scale?
She suggests building communities around the questions that move you.
Innovation for Sustainability: Sarah Goodenough
Sarah Goodenough is Head of Policy at Climate Policy Radar (CPR), a “startup using data science and AI to build tools that unlock global climate law and policy data. Open data, open source, not-for-profit.”
CPR are right at the cutting edge of the application of AI to climate law and policy.