Another World Is Blossoming Benefit Gig

Friday 31st March @ The Synergy Centre

7pm – 3am, £10 / £7 adv/concs – Buy Tickets Now!

A Fundraiser for The Synergy Centre and uniteddiversity

with Live Music from

Joe Driscoll, The Pistachios, Jamie Woon, DJ Rubbish, The Rub, United Vibrations, Sarah Bear, Corneilius, Bones of Contention & more

plus at 8PM Screening of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

and Healthy Food from Synergy Sattva Cafe

plus lots of info stalls and more!

Call Josef on 07974 88 88 95 for more info.

Joe Driscoll

http://www.joedriscoll.net

Joe Driscoll from New York is a modern day one man band who fuses folk, hip hop and reggae, creating the soundscape of a live band using only his voice, loop pedal, guitar and didge – you gotta see this to believe it!

“Probably the most energetic performer on the planet. Joe Driscoll is as real as it gets” – Revolving Door Magazine

“All in all, Joe Driscoll is destined to be a musical force. Keep your eye on him.” – Music Outlook Magazine

“Improvisation is like oxygen to Joe Driscoll. Accompanying live samples of his own vocals, guitar lines and beats, and if you closed your eyes, you’d swear there was a full band wedged in Driscoll’s tiny corner.” – New Times Magazine

“An audio explosion that will stay fresh in my mind for a long time to come. He builds up an amazing tune right there on stage. Something you must all definately see.” – Wah Magazine

“Driscoll’s styles converge on the crossroads of hip-hop, folk, and reggae… If one word comes close to describing the vibe of the Joe show, the word would be transendence.” – Table Hopping Magazine

The Pistachios

http://www.thepistachios.com

With a name like “Frankie Picasso & The Fabulous Pistachios” there’s one thing you don’t need ears to know… …they’re all clearly nuts.

A 13-piece band, with influences at work so diverse they make the name looks ordinary… …thank god they all like it funky… …or they’d never agree about anything. …oh yes… it’s all about the funk. …or is it the vibe? …no no… it’s the horns isn’t it. Or is it that bit when they start dropping live MC’ing to a backdrop of driving funk, stop on a dime, rip some furious ska, turn it upside down, melt into dub reggae with thick engulfing horns taking you to that next level where Christabel blows your mind with her phenomenal singing……. Oh forget it. They’re the nuts!

“A fantastic feeling of band playing everything from ska, reggae, hip-hop to raw dirty funk” – Evening Standard

“One of the craziest nights of funk, reggae, hip-hop mixture ever heard” – BCCi

“They have the energy of the early Beastie Boys with that proper UK sound” – Knowledge Magazine

Jamie Woon

http://www.jamiewoon.com

“A spark in the voice. A glint in the eye. Often what makes a singer / songwriter so captivating can be the most subtle of expressions. Jamie Woon – a former Brit school student – has both. But it’s the way his soulful demure is magnified by a voice so effortlessly unique, and powerfully affecting, that gives him such entrancing sensibilities. It’s a sonic tension that clasps at your very core and makes you sit up and focus; a real conversation-stuttering sound that has every single person in this room drawn magnetically to a charm that radiates through his kinetic jazz-blues slurs.

It matters not that this is his first performance with a full band (and after just one rehearsal) yet they compliment his freefalling vocals so naturally, so incessantly. The bass plucks with a smooth, resonating pulse above cool jazz-surfed drumming that gently urges Jamie’s woozy Jamiroquai excursions, his voice curling through poignant, expressive meandering that is filled with just enough tension to have us all following his every phrase. It’s a somewhat short set but as it finishes there is a tangible feeling that illuminates the thick humid air, one of understated triumph and of a special exclusivity that a performance so inspiring could be confined to such a limited audience.

One thing’s for sure – this anonymity won’t last for long.” – Drowned in Sound

DJ Rubbish

Rubbish resurrects the righteous radical ire of punk poets like Attila The Stockbroker over plundered beats. Such political dissent was notably absent from pop during the Iraq War when most musicians, for all their subversive posturing, toed the Blair line. “People thought their careers would be threatened because the stakes were raised so high by Bush with the ‘you’re with us or against us’ thing. But I felt there were things that should be said that weren’t being, although mostly it was me wanting to rant over some beats!”

Proper Propaganda sounds like Noam Chomsky upbraiding George W Bush in a debate over Iraq down your local, only for Noam to produce a snooker ball in a sock halfway through and crack Dubya round the chops. Which, Rubbish is saying, is hardly that different to the current White House definition of “diplomacy”. With scuzzy, lo-fi production which sounds like the fag-ends of hip-hop culture in a musical ashtray, Rubbish sets the world to rights with a conviction, intellect and passion sadly absent from our sanitised pop culture.

The Rub

http://www.peace-not-war.org

The Rub is one of the best singer-songwriters in the movement. An active member of the Peace Not War collective, no peace show or conscious event is complete without The Rub.

United Vibrations

UV United Vibrations is a collection of musicians who are as different as their styles and backgrounds. We don’t see ourselves in any particular category of music, because we embrace them all. Our mission is to create some bangin’ tunes, and pass that vibe onto others.

United Vibrations (UV) are Ahmad Dayes (trombone), Doug Currie (drums),
Sam Nankivell (keys), Kareem Dayes (bass), Miles James (guitar), Len
Kvalheim (sax), and Oggie (vocals).

They have recently been rehearsing and performing some good tune featuring The Rub.

Sarah Bear

http://www.myspace.com/sarahbearsounds

The fabulous Sarah Bear, who organises the lovely Sunday Sounds session at The Square.

Corneilius

http://www.corneilius.net/

Another great conscious wordsmith and musician

Bones of Contention

Excentral the Tempest’s new acoustic act. They’ve played 3 gigs so far, at 2 at Sunday Sounds, and one The Synergy Centre for the launch of Peace Not War’s London Mix CD on March 18th.

Another World Is Blossoming

The systems and institutions upon which we rely for our well-being and survival are at risk of massive failure. Ecosystems everywhere are in decline. The age of cheap plentiful oil is over. Food and energy shortages are on the horizon.

Few are aware of the full nature and extent of our predicament and, of those that are, many feel powerless to do anything about it.

Corporate media manipulates our minds while the monetary system continues to fund plundering unelected presidents and plunge the world into an ever-increasing spiral of debt.

But all is not lost. There IS another way.

In fact, Another World Is Blossoming…

Communities across the World are beginning to self-organise and share resources in order to take back control of their lives and build hope for a sustainable future.

Another World Is Blossoming events will raise awareness about our predicament, inspire collective action for change and launch the Synergy Community Fund.

With films, music, debate and more participants will be empowered with knowledge about the state of the world, what pioneering groups are doing about it and how they can join in.

Together We Have Everything we need to Create the World We Want.

Friday March 31st @ The Synergy Centre

220 Farmers Road, London SE5 0TW. See http://www.thesynergyproject.org

7pm – 3am. £10 door, £7 adv/concs

See also:

• Another World Is Blossoming
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Screening
• Mucha Marcha in conjuction with Peace Not War at Cargo
• The Corporation, Zapatista, Space Hijackers and Lab of ii…
• Good Weekend, Busy Week…

Film and Food @ The Synergy Centre
Another World Is Blossoming Screening
Thursday March 23rd from 6pm
Entry by donation

The Synergy Centre is located at:
220 Farmers Road
London SE5 0TW
Click here to see a map

Farmers Road is off Wyndham Road,
which is off Camberwell New Road.
Nearest Tube is Oval.
On Thursday it is the third in uniteddiversity’s series of Another World Is Blossoming screenings. This week we’re showing multi-award winning must-see film The Corporation.

Main Feature – 8pm Sharp

The Corporation

http://thecorporation.com

THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda, illuminates the corporation’s grip on our lives. Taking its legal status as a “person” to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist’s couch to ask “What kind of person is it?” Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The Corporation includes forty
interviews with corporate insiders and critics – including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore – plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

Winner of 24 INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, 10 of them AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS including the AUDIENCE AWARD for DOCUMENTARY in WORLD CINEMA at the 2004 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL.?

Second Feature Film – 10pm

Zapatista

http://bignoisefilms.com

It is New Year’s night 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comes into effect. To the Mayan Indian communities in the Lacandon Jungle of Southeastern Mexico, NAFTA symbolizes the culmination of over 500 years of exploitation. That night, 2,000 Indian soldiers occupy several cities in the state of Chiapas and declare political and economic autonomy. They call themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).

“This is not the last gasp of guerrilla resistance in Latin America. What you see here is not communism or socialism or anarchism. This is something you have never before in your life imagined. . . this is the Truth.”

Shorts – from 6pm

Space Hijackers

http://www.spacehijackers.org

“The Space Hijackers are a group of Anarchitects which was set up at the beginning of 1999.

Our group is dedicated to battling the constant oppressive encroachment onto public spaces of institutions, corporations and urban planners. We oppose the way that public space is being eroded and replaced by corporate profit making space.

We oppose the way that users of space are being put under increasing
scrutiny and control by those who own or run it. Be this via CCTV installed to monitor us, or architectural elements designed to control our moods.

We oppose the blanding out and destruction of local culture in the name of global economic progress. Newer and Bigger is not always better, it is usually both impersonal and imposing.

Through our various actions we attempt to raise awareness of issues within spaces and change how these spaces are used and percieved in the future. We intend to destroy heirarchies within spaces and claim back public ownership. Our projects act as another voice within space, and become engrained upon the places we Hijack.

Our aim is to change the way that ownership and usage of space is percieved, to put users of space in a more level position. We want to have a say in how we all exist within public space, on where and how we meet. We are fed up with being treated like criminal cattle by the institutions and corporations that decide on the shape and content of our environment.

The Space Hijackers in no way want to become leaders of some kind of
resistance movement, our actions detailed on this site should act as a catalyst for others. If we can, you can. However we want to expand our membership in order to create a forum for discussion and development of these ideas. Our agents area is a space where interested parties can meet in a non heriarchical manner and help each other in their quests.

Our first major event was the hijacking of a Circle line carriage on London Underground . Since then we have expanded our operations to include everything from building miniature “City farms” all over the square mile through to producing “Experimental Pedestrian Schemes” in Brixton, and the production and design of Hijacker Equipment.”

Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imanagination

http://www.labofii.net

“The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (lab of ii) is a network of socially engaged artists and activists whose work falls in between resistance and creativity, culture and politics, art and life.

We believe that playful forms of cultural intervention in everyday life and the development of convivial spaces that enable participants to cultivate full confidence in their own creative capacity are fundamental tools for social change.

The Lab of ii was launched in London during the European Social Forum, in October 2004, with 4 days of presentations, training’s, performances and actions. Several hundred people from across Europe took part in the events. We then went on tour leading up to the G8 Summit Gleneagles 2005, with 2 day intensive training’s, interventions and a free outdoor event.”

Other Another World Is Blossoming events:

Another World Is Blossoming Screening 4
6pm – 11.30pm, Thurs March 30th @ The Synergy Centre

Another World Is Blossoming Benefit Gig
7pm – 3am, Fri March 31st @ The Synergy Centre

Buy Tickets Now!

uniteddiversity.com

See also:

• Another World Is Blossoming
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Screening
• TONIGHT: Another World Is Blossoming
• alt.SPACE MARATHON – TWO DAY EVENT – July 28-29, 2006
• An autonomous space initiative during the Athens ESF…

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally production ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of stable social order. – Bill Mollison, Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual

There are three main ingredients to permaculture.

1. Shared ethics of “earth care”, “people care” and “fair shares”(which is shorthand for limits to populations and consumption, and the fair distribution of resources to further the work of earth care and people care.) Permaculture also stresses the importance of taking personal responsibility for our actions.
2. Ecological principles derived by the observation of natural systems, by ecologists such as Birch and Odum.
3. Design tools and processes that allow an individual or group to assemble conceptual, material and strategic components into a “pattern” or “plan of action”, that can be implemented and maintained with minimal resources.

Summary of Permaculture Principles

1. Observe and Interact – Observation is interaction and Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
2. Catch and Store Energy – make hay while the sun shines
3. Obtain a Yield – You can’t work on an empty stomach
4. Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback – Take Personal Responsibility
5. Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services – Nature knows best
6. Produce No Waste – Waste not – want not
7. Design from Patterns to Details – Don’t reinvent the wheel and See the forest before the trees
8. Integrate rather than Segregate – Together We Achieve More
9. Use Small and Slow Solutions – Small is beautiful, slow is sane and Slow and steady wins the race
10. Use and Value Diversity – Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and The key to intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces
11. Use Edges and Value the Marginal – The action is at the edge
12. Use and Respond to Change Creatively – Everything evolves, is succeeded but comes around (again)

See also:

• Permaculture Principles
• The Permaculture Concept
• An Introduction to Planet Earth…
• Designing an Open Organisation
• Transition Towns

I came across this via this, though I’m not sure how I ended up there…

It is a film about childen who are abducted from their homes to become soldiers in Uganda.

Made me think Gloria (and Martin?) could try to do something similar for the girls at Maasai Education Discovery in Kenya.

Afterall, the Maasai art’s and crafts that the girls make in the MED’s Arts Center (which Gloria will be helping to get up and running) look a lot more interesting and useful than the Invisible Children Bracelets…

See also:

• Dance upon injustice
• Links for March 7th to March 7th
• Peace takes courage
• Outfoxed
• This Is What Democracy Looks Like

Stevie Wonder is a genius.

I’ve been rediscovering some of his classic old tracks…

This one is from the album Talking Book from 1972…

Here we are on earth together,
It’s you and i,
God has made us fall in love, it’s true,
I’ve really found someone like you,

Will it say the love you feel for me, will it say,
That you will be by my side
To see me through,
Until my life is through,

Well, in my mind, we can conquer the world,
In love you and i, you and i, you and i,

I am glad at least in my life I found someone
That may not be here forever to see me through,
But I found strength in you,
I only pray that I have shown you a brighter day,
Because that’s all that I am living for, you see,
Don’t worry what happens to me.

Cause’ in my mind, you will stay here always,
In love, you and i, you and i, you and i, you and i
In my mind we can conquer the world
In love, you and i, you and i, you and i.

See also:

• Belief is circumstantial…
• Unmissable: Sunday Sounds album launch party on July 23rd
• It’s the End of the World as We know it and I feel FINE #23
• Reclaim Love 5!
• Sessions of Spontaneity

Go placidly amid the noise & haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; And listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud & aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with other, you may become vain and bitter; For always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be, and whatever your labours & aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul; Be careful; Strive to be happy; With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

See also:

• Dee Hock’s MiniMaxims
• Permaculture Principles
• A Brief History of Money
• Dancing with Systems
• An Introduction to Planet Earth…

Just sent this out to a couple of lists…

People keep asking me about Housing Co-ops

Here are a few good links:

Finding Housing Co-ops in London
http://www.cch.coop/coopinfo/london.html
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/iane/coops/coopsdirlondon.html

How to set up a Housing Co-op: Step by Step (pdf file)
http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/documents/how2housingco-opstepbystep.pdf

Sanford Housing Co-op (where I live)
http://www.sanford.coop/

Sanford is a great option for single people at only £45 a week all in (bills, council tax and shared broadband included). That even includes a £5 rent rise which is helping to pay for the eco-refurbishment of our properties and the installation of a large wind turbine.

Enjoy!

Josef

See also:

• Support THE SQUARE this FRIDAY 9AM or earlier
• Commons Creation meeting
• Some of my favourite websites
• The London Fund
• Creative Regeneration @ The Synergy Centre

Thursday March 9th
Film and Food @ The Synergy Centre

Another World Is Blossoming Screening
March 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th from 6pm
Entry by donation

This month The Synergy Centre is hosting uniteddiversity’s series of Another World Is Blossoming events, including four weeks of screenings starting this Thursday 9th, and a big Centre fundraising party on Friday March 31st. It’s all taking place as part the NODE.London Season of Media Arts.

Thursday March 9th
Main Feature – 8pm Sharp
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
http://www.chavezthefilm.com/
International Jury: “The best television programme in the world this year”

Hugo Chavez, elected President of Venezuela in 1998, is a coulful unpredictable folk hero, beloved by his nation’s working class and a tough-as-nails, quixotic opponent to the power structure that would see him deposed. Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office. They were also present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power amid cheering aides. Their film records what was probably history’s shortest-lived coup d’état. It’s a unique document about political muscle and an extraordinary portrait of the man The Wall Street Journal credits with making Venezuela “Washington’s biggest Latin American headache after the old standby, Cuba.”

Second Feature Film – 10pm
Network (1976)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/
Won 4 Oscars and Voted one of the best 100 films of all time.

Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is an ageing TV anchorman for UBS who is fired, effective in two weeks, after his ratings have been steadily deteriorating. He reacts to this by sensationally announcing on live television his intention to commit suicide on air. In doing so, Beale becomes a major TV icon and one of the most valuable assets to the Communications Corporation of America (CCA), the company that is gradually taking control of UBS. As a result he is given his own show as `the mad prophet of the air-waves’. He appears live on television every week-day evening to tell the real truth to the people of America. The programme is a huge success but Beale uses his power to make startling revelations about CCA, leaving the company executives with a serious problem.

Shorts – from 6pm

Real2Real
http://www.real2reel.co.nr

Founded as an off-shoot of Lifecycles (Pedal Powered Cinema And Multimedia Outreach Collective) in mid 2002, Real2Reel is a small group of video artists making short and occasionally amusing films about counter-cultural activities, social struggles and environmental concerns, all with a strong grassroots direct action bias.

Reclaim Love
http://www.o-i-l.org

Footage from the annual Reclaim Love event that takes place at the Eros Statue in Picadilly Circus each year. Check the website for more info and what its all about.

There will also be healthy food from the Synergy Sattva Cafe, served from 7pm.

(more…)

See also:

• Another World Is Blossoming
• The Corporation, Zapatista, Space Hijackers and Lab of ii…
• Good Weekend, Busy Week…
• TONIGHT: Another World Is Blossoming
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Versions of this piece have been published in Whole Earth, winter 2001 and The Systems Thinker, Vol. 13, No. 2 (March 2002).

The Dance

1. Get the beat.
2. Listen to the wisdom of the system.
3. Expose your mental models to the open air.
4. Stay humble. Stay a learner.
5. Honor and protect information.
6. Locate responsibility in the system.
7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
8. Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable.
9. Go for the good of the whole.
10. Expand time horizons.
11. Expand thought horizons.
12. Expand the boundary of caring.
13. Celebrate complexity.
14. Hold fast to the goal of goodness.

People who are raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are likely to make a terrible mistake. They are likely to assume that here, in systems analysis, in interconnection and complication, in the power of the computer, here at last, is the key to prediction and control. This mistake is likely because the mindset of the industrial world assumes that there is a key to prediction and control.

I assumed that at first too. We all assumed it, as eager systems students at the great institution called MIT. More or less innocently, enchanted by what we could see through our new lens, we did what many discoverers do. We exaggerated our own ability to change the world. We did so not with any intent to deceive others, but in the expression of our own expectations and hopes. Systems thinking for us was more than subtle, complicated mindplay. It was going to Make Systems Work.

But self-organizing, nonlinear, feedback systems are inherently unpredictable. They are not controllable. They are understandable only in the most general way. The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable. The idea of making a complex system do just what you want it to do can be achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never fully understand our world, not in the way our reductionistic science has led us to expect. Our science itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos, leads us into irreducible uncertainty. For any objective other than the most trivial, we can’t optimize; we don’t even know what to optimize. We can’t keep track of everything. We can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each other, or the institutions we create, if we try to do it from the role of omniscient conqueror.

For those who stake their identity on the role of omniscient conqueror, the uncertainty exposed by systems thinking is hard to take. If you can’t understand, predict, and control, what is there to do?

Systems thinking leads to another conclusion–however, waiting, shining, obvious as soon as we stop being blinded by the illusion of control. It says that there is plenty to do, of a different sort of “doing.” The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can’t be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can’t surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can’t impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.

We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!

(more…)

See also:

• Dancing with Systems: What to do when systems resist change
• An Introduction to Planet Earth…
• Designing an Open Organisation
• Dee Hock’s MiniMaxims
• Permaculture

I think this is probably the best introduction to Planet Earth I’ve ever read. Here is my one page edit…

Earth is Whole

Earth is not flat. Earth is much more than round. Earth is whole.

“Earth is Whole” means that all the planet’s physical features and living organisms are interconnected. They work together in important and meaningful ways. The clouds, oceans, mountains, volcanoes, plants, bacteria and animals all play important roles in determining how our planet works.

Systems within Systems within Systems

The first step towards understanding how Earth works is thinking about our planet as a system. We use the word “system” when we want to describe something that is made up of different kinds of parts that join together to form an interconnected whole.

1. each part of a system can itself be described as a system;
2. a system can be very different from its parts.

Each part of a system can itself be described as a system.

You are a system. One of the parts of the “you system” is your circulatory system. The heart, a part of the circulatory system, is also a system made of parts. Its parts include muscle cells, nerve cells and valves. A heart muscle cell is part of the heart system but it is also a system which is made up of a cell membrane, cell nucleus and many different proteins.

And the story does not end with us. Each of us is part of a family system. Each of us is part of an ecosystem. Each of us is part of an entire human system that is part of a system of life on this planet.

A system can be very different from its parts.

Think about your arteries, red blood cells, stomach and toenails. Your stomach is a part of who you are, but you are much more than your stomach. You are much more than the sum of your parts. As a functioning interconnected whole, you have characteristics that do not exist in any of your parts. You have properties that transcend, that go far beyond the qualities of your parts.

A car provides another example of a system. A car has brakes, wheels, cylinders, battery, windshield wipers, carburetor, gas tank, metal frame, steering wheel, and hundreds of other parts. Individually none of those parts will move you from your home to school, work, a restaurant or a lake. Joined together as an interconnected whole, the car system can take you away. It has properties that are qualitatively different than the properties of its parts. No part of a car gets 35 miles per gallon on the highway. No part of a car has the ability to transport you up a mountain road. Only the car as a functioning whole system has these properties.

The popular saying “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” describes this second system feature. This popular saying is much deeper than it might first appear. When we say that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, we mean that the whole system has qualities that are different than those of the parts. The whole is qualitatively different, which is a much more important difference than a mere increase in quantity.

Take water as another example of a system. Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. At normal temperatures and pressures, they are both gases. Hydrogen is highly explosive and fire requires oxygen. Put them together and you have a liquid that extinguishes fires. The system of hydrogen joined with oxygen (H2O) has properties that are qualitatively very different from the parts hydrogen alone or oxygen alone.

The reason to care about “systems within systems within systems” is that systems thinking provides us with a way to understand any particular system, especially complicated ones like planet Earth. No matter what the system is, we can always understand it better by asking three systems questions:

See also:

• David Korten – The Great Turning
• Designing an Open Organisation
• Dancing with Systems
• More money books
• Permaculture