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.
Jamais CascioRead
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?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sustainability encourages responsible living, but it struggles to account for unpredictable changes.
Jamais Cascio's quote highlights the paradox of sustainability in an unpredictable world. While the idea of living within our means is noble and necessary across various dimensions—economic, ecological, and political—reliance on stability becomes problematic when circumstances shift unexpectedly. This raises critical questions about how to adapt our sustainable practices in response to the dynamic nature of the world around us.
Themes
SustainabilityAdaptationMeansChangeResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about climate change, one might say this quote to emphasize the need for adaptable solutions.
More from Jamais Cascio
All quotes →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
Jamais CascioRead
Being connected to the Internet means being vulnerable to coordinated actions that can knock down walls of secrecy and shatter mechanisms of control.
Jamais CascioRead
Similar quotes
I must achieve internal consistency.
Edmund HusserlRead
I take it that 'gentleman' is a term that only describes a person in his relation to others; but when we speak of him as 'a man,' we consider him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to himself,--to life--to time--to eternity.
Elizabeth GaskellRead
Hardly anyone in the world is an American
Kurt VonnegutRead
Every individual needs revolution, inner division, overthrow of the existing order, and renewal, but not by forcing them upon his neighbors under the hypocritical cloak of Christian love or the sense of social responsibility or any of the other beautiful euphemisms for unconscious urges to personal power.
Carl JungRead
There is a place in the net where the keeper cannot reach the ball.
Jurgen KloppRead
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
Jawaharlal NehruRead