Ed Dowding

The unbearable lightness of politics

Politics feels like EastEnders:  hyperbolic soap-opera melodrama in which seems to be the entire world, but it just a small square in London. Football tribalism for broadsheet readers. Until you remember it’s real and creating increasingly existential threats to humanity via its actions and inactions. Arse.

God helped society put its thumb on the scales

When thinking through new ways of configuring society’s organisational models (ie how together we can work, live, trade, and agree goals and values most effectively) it’s useful to reflect on the characteristics of the most successful models humanity has used thus far. Amongst these are the village, guilds, armies, and religions. These have independently evolved ...

A Europe to die for.

This is probably one of these posts which will get me in trouble, but cycling past the soldiers standing in the rain this morning — marking the anniversary of the Somme — I was moved to tears and anger. In that 4 month long battle 1,000,000 men died to fight for 5 miles of mud. Such huge losses for ...

Do smart people change faster?

Is there a correlation between the adoption curve and IQ (or whatever measure of general intelligence / compassion / connection making etc you choose to use)? If this is true, new services start and seem interesting, but for every subsequent member that joins there is a fall in average IQ for for group. Adoption curve ...

What it means to live at the optimum

“Life can only be lived dangerously – there is no other way to live it. It is only through danger that life attains to maturity, growth. One needs to be an adventurer, always ready to risk the known for the unknown. And once one has tasted the joys of freedom and fearlessness, one never repents ...

Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose & Utopia

Mandating “Good Things” = very hard and lots of fights Listing “Unacceptable Things” = really easy, lots of consensus Listing “Desirable Things” = easy, lots of consensus if not mandatory Things that make all humans happy: Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose. Allow people to work towards desirable things (purpose) without mandating them (autonomy) whilst getting better at ...

Customer service times

Numbers I’d like to see for every business: Live and average time to answer sales calls Live and average time to answer support calls Time between payment & service (re)activation

The peace of the lobotomised or the peace of the contended?

That we’re getting better at not killing each other because of international trade co-dependence is a double edged sword. It brings a certain type of peace, but also eg economic sanctions which keep people incompetent. Peaceful, yes. Prosperous no. Not having citizens protest in the streets because they’re resigned to its futility is peaceful, too. ...

Value vs profit.

An insightful and well-articulated comment.

Fossil fuel vs Renewable subsidies

I this I has time to do more research on this, but I don’t, so this will have to do. From a quick Google and news review: A crude but indicative total fossil fuel subsidy in the UK of somewhere between £9bn and £12bn per year. In 2011 just over £3bn was spent on renewable energy ...

Which fossil fuel companies are most responsible for climate change?

This is the best thing on the internet today. Which fossil fuel companies are most responsible for climate change?. Top 90ProducersInvestorownedAlpha Natura…Fuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksAnadarkoFuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksAnglo Americ…Fuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksApacheFuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksArch CoalFuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksBG GroupFuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksBHP BillitonFuel & cementOwn footprintMethane leaksBPFuel & ...

10 things I’d like the Green Party to do

I wrote this in reply to this Facebook status from a Green Party candidate: A question for all my green yet not Green friends – what might stop you voting for us? Genuinely interested as there seem to be a lot of people that I know who are working really hard to help make Bristol ...

Purpose matters.

Along roads I have had banyan trees planted so that they can give shade to animals and men, and I have had mango groves planted. At intervals of eight krosas, I have had wells dug, rest-houses built, and in various places, I have had watering-places made for the use of animals and men. But these ...

What price a tree?

Now for some thoughts on sheep.

We are herd animals. We appreciate and value the safety, surplus, and sharing offered by the herd. But that can only happen if we remain as a definable flock – stray too far and we loose the benefits. When we’ve grazed all that can be grazed and some of the weaker ones are getting hungry, ...

Guess who’s an ENTP?

Entrepreneur Real estate developer Advertising creative director Marketing director Politician / political consultant

It costs the same to solve global warming as it does to solve it.

A research team at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, says it has studied how much it would cost for governments to stick to their worldwide global warming goal. They’ve concluded that for “a 70 per cent chance of keeping below 2 degrees Celsius, the investment will have to rise to ...

Education is a blinder.

More of us are sufficiently well educated to see the problem, but too well educated to see the solution.

Chickens are noisy. Children are noisy. Is there a link?

You know how chickens have been selected for those who cluck and make a hell of a noise when they lay an egg, so we know where to find it? Are children so loud for similar reasons?

Game of Thrones to become daily, global, theatre

Feel of Poppies.