Thwarting forces in the ITS
Posted by ICS respondent on October 17, 2007
Be aware of what various of the survey respondents comment on thwarting forces in the system:
- Structures that are either too rigid or too loose. What is most essential here is that structures continue to evolve to meet the evolving needs of the collective they are serving. -decision-making processes that are either too democratic (green) or too autocratic (blue/amber). Both polarities mire the emergence of true collective wisdom, which relies on a respect for both a natural hierarchy and a bottom-up self-organizing impulse.
- The routine (habits). Giving up the idea that things can be done. The expression ‘is impossible’.
- Building and maintaining true ecological systems to provide water, energy, food, shelter, and transport at an affordable cost is a great challenge to any community. Finding ways to keep the community financially sustainable, also in the face of potential economic crises is a problem that is very difficult to tackle.
- Living in a society hostile to community because it is structured around mutual distrust, competition, and legalities. Insufficient pre-solution of infrastructure systems. (Hell is living in your house while you’re remodeling.”) (Beginner’s idealism thwarts adequate planning.)
- What most thwarts us also presents us an opportunity to be creative, and it challenges us to be sure of the committments we make. Adversity can be a binding agent!
- Rigidity — the outer collective must serve both the need for shape, for fixed form that serves, but at the same time, maintain itself as an active, alive learning system.
- Fixed rules, that hand over responsibility to an institution and people awaiting initiative from there General, unreflected critics to suggestions and ideas Obligations and the feeling things HAVE to be done for the sake of doing it.
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Laws, policies and rigid structures can stifle the environment within which the community operates. If the community cannot impact the these external systems through activities, such as lobbying, then it could affect the life-span of the community. A lack of external resources, particularly those resources that the community depends on for sustaining itself affects success. Example: funding requirements of a sponsor could change, or funding could be re-directed to short-term emergencies.
