Pamela,
By applying money at the tipping point, we guide society toward favorable
attractors and away from unfavorable ones.
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
----- Original Message -----
From: Pamela McCorduck
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 4/14/2009 9:15:21 AM
Subject: [FRIAM] Complexity and Institutional Philanthropy
In a talk with an historian of philanthropy the other day, he told me how early
20th century philanthropy was driven by a metaphor derived from the germ theory
of disease, very new and exciting just then. Thus the most forward-thinking
philanthropists expressed ambitions to "cure" evil at its source; to "cure
social ills," to get at root causes, to prevent the spread of social ills.
In the early 21st century, surely the right metaphor is complexity. How would
such a metaphor be applied? How would institutional philanthropy organize
itself to take advantage of what we now know about complex systems?
Pamela
"To measure the abundance of positrons in cosmic rays, the team used data from
the instrument PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and
Light-nuclei Astrophysics), which launched aboard a Russian satellite in June
2006. Unlike previous antimatter-hunting instruments, PAMELA can pinpoint not
just the type of incoming particle but also its energy."
WIRED Science
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