Designing Public Systems.
System Change Lead @DarkMatterLabs.
I like weird astro-jazz.
First piece for my new publication Permutations is up!
This one is on Futures – an why it might sense to stop thinking about them altogether!
Futuring has become our default response to crises: We dream up positive, desirable, even critical futures to strive for—or brace for darker ones. It's how we orient our choices, set our priorities, find something worth fighting for.
But what if, by constantly looking ahead, we miss what we’re searching for in the first place?
What if the most transformative changes don’t come from expanding our imagination – but from its failure?
I explore this paradox through the lens of Unthinkable Futures: how they shape and silence our imaginaries, and why seeking out glitches might be the future of futuring.
Read it here → https://simonhoeher.substack.com/p/unthinkable-futures
Ideas evolve, recombine – and sometimes, they’re worth picking up again.
I’m starting Permutations: longer reads, slower thoughts on systems, democracy, design and justice.
If this sounds fun, have a look—or even subscribe:
https://simonhoeher.substack.com
Perhaps that weirdness, that moment of seeing clearly, is where real democratic engagement begins.
Weird is a start.
But there's more to it: when you actually focus on a sitcom's laugh track, it becomes strange, unsettling. What if we applied that same conscious attention to our democratic disengagement?
What forms does this democratic delegation take today? Mass protests that dissolve back into Monday morning routine they day after? The ritual of voting every few years - democracy's own laugh track?
Lately I've been thinking about 'delegated democracy' - watching others do what we know deep down is needed. Grassroots organizing in small towns. Human rights protests. Rescue missions in the Mediterranean.
Marc Fisher describes this 'delegated enjoyment': sitcoms laugh for us, catastrophe films process apocalypse for us. We scroll through endless timelines of despair, letting others feel what we know we should.
A few thoughts on #Interpassivity - such a fascinating idea: we outsource our emotional and intellectual engagement to others, experiencing life through their proxy rather than direct involvement.
The troubling thing about interpassivity is that it works. It creates a comfortable distance. Feeds on itself. Gets harder to escape the more we practice it.
Portfolio Making: Embracing Distributed Governance: https://bit.ly/dm-portfolio-making
Our paper on thinking and making multi-layered systemic observations / interventions. @darkmatterlabs
Nakba in the Age of Catastrophe by Sherene Seikaly:
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/45037
Weekend read: From Silicone to Slime. Claire L. Evans on imagination as a form of computation, and the endless entanglement of our biological reality. → https://dark.properties/from-silicon-to-slime/
Weekend read: From Inconvenient Intersections toward an Activist Diplomacy.
Great essay by Camaren Peter → https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2024-09-18-profound-democratisation-of-communications-is-unfolding-sparking-a-culture-war-with-an-uncertain-ending/
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Ha, how ridiculously good is that new reader app!? It’s been a *while* that I’ve been actually amazed by an app but this one: 10/10.
Big tech companies need to be more transparent about the use of their technologies in Gaza:
Sunday was the hottest day ever recorded, ever.
"Just a quick glance at the range of events happening around the globe right now – wildfires, flooding, heatwaves – tells us that we are not remotely prepared for the extremes that this warmer world has bought us,” [...] “We are even less prepared for what is to come.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/23/world-temperature-records-shattered-hottest-day-climate-crisis
These photos of people when they come back to their homes after climate change related flooding are incredibly arresting - I've never seen anything like it. They really stay with you. Worth the read.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/images-of-climate-change-that-cannot-be-missed
Finde btw super, dass wir 2024 Kolonien wieder 'Überseegebiete' nennen. Es macht vieles einfacher.
