Categories - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 52

right strategy, until Steve Jobs returned to Apple and proved the power of synthesis and integra-
tion.
We find similar opposition in our work on the Web. To define projects, managers limit by layer.
We aim to refresh the interface without touching architecture. We optimize search with no con-
tent strategy. We stretch across silos, then trap ourselves in layers. To escape, we must help folks
see how a simple change to a single page can send ripples from code to culture. When we limit
by layer, it's vital we look for levers.
We should also look to nature for insight. For instance, coral reefs are made of layers, but that's
only one way to see them. Jamaica's reefs in the 1950s served as a lovely archetype of a thriving
ecosystem. Hundreds of species - sharks, snappers, parrotfish, jacks - swam among the colorful
sponges and feathery octocorals sprouting from the hard coral base. In the ensuing decades, the
reefs were subjected to stress and shock. Fishing and tourism grew rapidly. A fierce 1980 hur-
ricane caused major damage. But the system appeared to bounce back. Biologists were im-
pressed by the reef's resilience. Then, in 1983, an unidentified pathogen decimated the long-
spined sea urchin population. Left unchecked, algae quickly covered and killed all the coral, and
the whole system crashed.
On a healthy reef, a new pathogen decimating a single species (like the urchin) might not have had cata-
strophic consequences, because an essential reef function - like keeping algae in check - could be per-
formed by more than one species. On the highly compromised Jamaican reef, however, the continued
flourishing of the ecosystem as a whole became entirely dependent on a single species continuing to do
that job. The loss of the urchins, an otherwise modest trigger, caused the reef to collapse virtually
overnight . lvi
It's vital to note that nobody predicted this chain of events. Cross-layer relationships that are
easy to see after are often invisible before the event. Resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to
respond to disturbance through resistance and recovery. In our systems, we can respond better
if we frameshift from layers to the levers that bind together fast and slow.
Tranquility or Insight
This chapter began in meditation and the search for anattā, since no ontology is more perilous
than how we see ourselves. Historically, we defined man in opposition to nature, yet the bound-
ary doesn't exist. I love our national parks, but we can't stop the clock by encircling wilderness.
As Alex Steffen tells us, the future of environmentalism is bright green.
Dream of living your one-planet life in a bright green city on a sustainable and thriving planet…We need,
through brilliant innovations, bold enterprise and political willpower, to make sustainability an obligat-
ory, universal characteristic of our society, not an ethical choice. We must remake the systems in which
we live. We need to redesign civilization. Anything less is failure. l vii
Our old categories create externalities. We enable ourselves to cause pollution, suffering, and
collapse outside our model of the system. But every action has an unequal and non-opposite re-
action. We're dealing with karma, not physics. Man is not apart from but a part of nature, which
makes the equations far more complex. It's unclear how we'll change the course we're on, but it
starts with redefining ourselves.