The idea of sustainability can imply there is one perfect, unchanging future, if only we could work out how to get there. Resilience might be more useful, in that it assumes a dynamic environment and that perfection is impossible. You need to design systems to accommodate failure rather than eliminate it. By trying to be perfect, many visions of sustainability are quite brittle
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of resilience over the pursuit of a perfect and static future in sustainability.
Jamais Cascio's quote challenges the conventional notion of sustainability by suggesting that aiming for a flawless state is often unrealistic and can lead to inflexibility. Instead, he advocates for resilience, which acknowledges the unpredictable nature of the world and encourages the development of systems that can adapt to failures. This perspective promotes a more pragmatic and effective approach to sustainability, recognizing that imperfection is inherent in life and that embracing this can lead to more robust solutions.
In practice
During a workshop on sustainable practices, this quote can be used to stimulate discussion on adapting to changes in environmental conditions.
Sustainability is a seemingly laudable goal - it tells us we need to live within our means, whether economic, ecological, or political - but it's insufficient for uncertain times. How can we live within our means when those very means can change, swiftly and unexpectedly, beneath us?
Trying to do what your competitors are doing but basically a little bit better is probably not going to be the winning strategy. The problem is finding what your competitors wouldn't even consider doing.
Being connected to the Internet means being vulnerable to coordinated actions that can knock down walls of secrecy and shatter mechanisms of control.
Well I think it is often the case that the biggest bullies take what they know to be their own defects, as they see it, and they put them right on someone else and then they try and destroy the other and that's what Voldemort does.
Both of them were ahead of their time, but they didn't live long enough to see the time they were ahead of.
All extremes of feeling are allied to madness.
The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.
The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing - a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction.
Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life. It is also a direct or indirect attack on the male right of access to women.
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