Community is the Foundation
Community is not a byproduct of society. It’s the foundation upon which society is built. And we seem to have gotten that backwards lately. It seems like…
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Banksy and Truman: “This is for you.”
Don’t you think there’s something different about art that’s given away? I do. And I’ve been working on this idea for years. It ended in a project…
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It’s More than Just “Capacity”
A lot of modern ideology assumes humans are infinitely interchangeable units with equal ability to navigate complexity independently. But lived reality says otherwise. People vary tremendously in…
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The Indie Web, The Boring Web, Web Rings
One thought that struck me while crafting this piece: the history of the internet mirrors a lot of the patterns that I write about in communities. The early…
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“The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber and David Wengrow
At its core, this book is an argument that most of what modern people assume about human history is either oversimplified… or outright wrong. The standard story…
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Frameworks for a Better Theory of Change
The Problem Statement Modern systems optimized for production and consumption have systematically dismantled the social infrastructure (trust, reciprocity, belonging, mutual obligation) that once made communities strong. And…
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Money Is Not Value; a Position Paper
Reclaiming Human and Social Capital as the Foundation of Economic Life A Position Paper by River Stephens Executive Summary Modern society has become extraordinarily skilled at measuring…
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The Economics of Solvents and Nutrients
Ernesto Van Peborgh once offered a metaphor that is, frankly… very cool. (And, thank you to Kelly Clark for telling me about it.) He suggested that extractive…
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“Blood in the Machine” by Brian Merchant
This book is essentially a re-examination of the Luddites; and an argument that we have misunderstood them for two hundred years. Most people hear the word “Luddite”…
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Nos Misérables
I’m watching Les Misérables and it is… tearing my heart. Is there a better depiction of the human social condition? A raw testament of how money and…