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
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