The Missing Ingredient in Social Change Networks
I’ve been reading a series of essays lately about building networks; about how social change leaders must come together, collaborate, cooperate, connect. And that’s absolutely true. I…
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Diversify Your Trust Portfolio
Modern society has become extraordinarily efficient at scaling trust upward, but relatively poor at cultivating trust sideways. We trust distant institutions more than our own neighbors. We…
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On The Virture of Stubbornness
I’ve been thinking. I know, I know — that’s dangerous. But I do it anyway. We often praise words like courage, agency, grit. We like them on…
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You Are What You Eat; Even the Junk
One of the strangest things I noticed when I lived in France wasn’t the history, or even the slower pace of life. It was the Doritos. I’m serious.…
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Short Essays Collection # 12
I Imagine and Re-imagine Community Social Safety Nets… Social safety nets that are community-based systems able to catch those who fall through the cracks of the larger…
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Eco-Civilization
Ecocivilization: Making a World That Works for All is, at its core, an argument that humanity’s crises are not separate crises at all. Climate collapse. Loneliness. Economic…
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Modern Life and Our Dopamine Addiction
We carry in our pockets little glowing machines that can instantly show us war, collapse, outrage, scandal, disaster, betrayal, economic panic, social conflict, and existential dread… twenty-four…
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Café Culture
I talk a lot about qualitative living versus quantitative living. Most people nod when I say it. They get the concept immediately. But getting it conceptually and…
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The Economy of Trust: A White Paper on Re-Community, Social Capital, and the Future of Human Systems
By River Stephens Executive Summary Modern society is experiencing a crisis of fragmentation. Communities are dissolving. Institutions are losing trust. Economic systems increasingly reward extraction over contribution.…