Leaping the Abyss Podcasts
interviews with Matt and Gail Taylor
Deepening our understanding for how to think, design, and act in quantum time to create a future by design, not default
May 2020
1.HIDDEN FACTORS:
Interviewer, Michael Haupt
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhaupt/
“We are entering an age of acceleration. The models underlying society at every level, which are largely based on a linear model of change, are going to have to be redefined. Because of the explosive power of exponential growth the 21st Century will be equivalent to 20,000 years of progress at today’s rate of progress; organizations have to be able to redefine themselves at a fast and faster pace.” Ray Kurzweil, 2003
What do we mean by all life is process? How does one keep up with this rate of change and increased complexity? Is it possible? If not, what strategies are necessary? How do you both see and develop new patterns? How does one weigh and consider across all boundaries when there Is no obvious answer? How do I keep up when information is doubling every 12 hours and often being updated or trashed every two years? How do we learn to see the unseen?
2.DON’T YOU SEE HOW MANY LIVES WE SAVED?: Interviewer, Greg Serikoff
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-serikoff-19909a19/
“What we see changes who we become and what we find and make known with each other will not only change who we become, but what the world becomes.” From Peter Moreville in Findability, 2005 and added to by Gail Taylor, 2008
The title is from a Bucky Fuller story about how to see what matters. In times of chaos and change, when every aspect of our global society is collapsing, becoming something else, how does one learn to see all sides of an idea or trend that no one has seen before? What are the proper ethics during times where multiple views of reality are creating friction in how people see and respond to change, and how they treat each other?
3.WHAT HAPPENS THEN?
Interviewer, Jesko v.d. Steinen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeskov/
“Someday, not too far from now, people will ‘ride’ their personal computers with all the excitement that the motorcycle rider feels when he storms down the long tunnel of the night. We will, with computers, explore our mental world with something that shares, amplifies, and defines our experience. In so doing, it will help us define ourselves as human personalities.” Don Fabun, 1967
How does one learn to see potential futures on Earth? What does it mean to come from the future? How do we open our time frame so that the past and future can come together in the present? Can you Imagine a world without war? Can you sense a better world for all life, all species on Earth? What are some ways to create our future by design?
4.CRISIS IS OPPORTUNITY:
Interviewer Elisabet Sahtouris
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahtouris/
"We are learning that there is more than one way to organize functional systems, to produce order and balance; that the imperfect and flexible principles of nature lead to greater stability and resilience in natural systems than we have produced in ours-both technological and social-by following the mechanical laws we assumed were natural...On the whole, there seems to be good reason to believe our species' recklessly egotistical and destructive phase is coming to an end with new knowledge that leads us back to ancient wisdom. We are capable of regaining our reverence for life, of replacing the drive to conquer with the will to cooperate, of remaking our engineered institutions, including our corporations, into living systems.” Elisabet Sahtouris, EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution
What are the common evolutionary patterns that plants, animals, humans, and large ecological systems and planet Earth have in common? What are the traps between over-specialization and a too general skills set and adaptive capability? How Is this measured before change overwhelms the ability to take effective action. How are “weak signals” seen, understood, and acted on in time? How do we build effective feedback Into Into our essential social/economic/ecological systems?
…coming soon…
5.BY DESIGN, NOT DEFAULT:
Interviewer, Philippe Coullomb
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coullomb/
“I always say to myself, ‘What is the most Important thing we can thing about at this extraordinary moment’.” Buckminster Fuller, 1895-2003
What Is the title talking about? Where do we begin a process of design? What role does design play in achieving a healthy future? is design an important skill for us all to learn? For Individuals, for a culture, for Earth? Design Iterations, adaptation, tradeoffs and compromises …. how do we know? Earth’s designs tend to be beautiful and often playful. How do we join nature in the making of the world we live within and with all life? How do billions of humans design our future together? What If the next paradigm employs all in creating earth as a work of art… think of the learning, skill development, happiness, and craft that we can build in the ‘now’ paving our way to becoming good ancestors for all future life.
6. WHAT’S IN YOUR TRUNK?:
Interviewer, Cath Stace
https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-stace-970b9714/
“Perfect adaptation produces almost certain obsolescence. Any self-maintaining mechanism must have a certain amount of error built Into It. As Lewis Mumford said long ago, only the Imperfect survive. The reason that societies today tend to contain deviance rather than expunging It Is that those societies are the survivors. Social systems that have survived are magpies and packrats. They have attics full of alternative themes, values, and behavior patters that no longer play any active role in society. They are preserved not only in myth and ritual and folklore, but also In subculture and stylized Individual roles.” Philip Slater, 1974
What are the best-and-worst-case scenarios on the path to your vision? Being able to sense, nudge, design best case futures Is dependent on what capabilities and resources you develop and keep ready until the path to you vision Is made clear. We call the place for these “redundant” and ultimately useful resources your trunk. Visions are seldom realized without the ability to carry Ideas, processes, experiencers, tools and resources with you on your journey toward your preferred future. In the midst of crisis and ambiguous futures, how does one decide what travels with them; what to leave behind? When every aspect of our way of organizing and controlling Is dramatically changing and the risks are high, how do our brain, our heart, our actions decide and provide guidance?
7. CREATING SCAFFOLDING:
Interviewer, Carolyn Buck-Luce
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolynbuckluce/
“The problem Wingate faced was the perennial paradox that all whole systems makers confront: where do you start? Everything requires everything else to stay up, yet you can't levitate the whole thing at once. Some things have to happen first. And in the correct order.
“Ecosystems and other functioning systems, like empires, can be destroyed much faster than they can be created. It takes nature time to grow a forest or marsh because even nature can't do everything at once. The kind of assistance Wingate gave is not unnatural. Nature commonly uses interim scaffolding to accomplish many of her achievements.” Out of Control, Chapter 4: Restoring a Prairie, Kevin Kelly, 1994
How do we Imagine a viable future and bring it as vision and context to every present action we take? How can we turn our present time, place, capabilities and circumstances Into inspiration and means that change our present boundaries and constraints, transforming failures, risks, and conflicts into dynamic projects that bring our collective future visions into reality? What do we mean by scaffolding and how can you employ the concept in your own development?