Deepening Understanding of the World in the Infomation Eco-system
So what is Medium and why does it exist?
“This is why Medium exists: To deepen understanding of the world and spread ideas that matter. But we also recognize the information we pay attention to plays a huge part in shaping how we think. It can divide us or empower us. It can lead to insight or spark anxiety. There is a need today to rethink the systems that dominate our information landscape — and, therefore, our attention. Do they create more clarity or confusion? Do they mislead more than they inform?
Medium is creating not just technology, and not just content, but a new information ecosystem — one that is open for everyone to participate in, but without submitting to the lowest-common denominator. One that rewards quality over quantity. One that supports nuance, complexity, and substantive storytelling that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else.”
— Ev Williams
Reading about this purpose, to create a new information ecosystem, reminded me of a recent talk I attended online given by Dr. Arthur Lyon Dahl, an eminent marine biologist. He has advocated, for many years, the power of the coral reef ecosystem to teach what is needed to make individual and collective adaptation to the exigencies and demands of the twenty-first century possible and achievable.
Below are a few extracts from ‘One Country’ interview with Dr Arthur Lyod Dahl discussing ‘The ECO Principle: Ecology and Economics in Symbiosis’ (1996), published by George Ronald/Zed Books Ltd (Bloomsbury). Although written 25 years ago this slim book remains of value:
At the heart of a reef’s complex and finely balanced ecosystem, he explains, is a highly developed regime of information content and exchange. More than anything else, he argues, this regime allows the reef to survive and even prosper in an environment of scarcity.
Although coral reefs exist in tropical waters that are low in nutrients and plankton, that basic food of the sea, they support a tremendous density and diversity of life. In this fact…is a lesson of critical importance to humanity’s long-term survival.
Indeed, the book ultimately sets out the framework for a bold new theory that integrates concepts from a wide range of fields — ecology, biology, economics, systems theory, sociology and even religion — and then elaborates a set of universal principles based on this integration.
According to Dr. Dahl, these principles offer a method by which humanity might reevaluate its direction and reorganize to create a truly sustainable global civilization.
Fast forward 25 years to Arthur Dahl’s most recent publication, co-authored with Augusto Lopez and Maja Groff, ‘Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century’ (2020) Cambridge University Press
‘Change comes slowly, but this book is a prodding catalyst.’ — Robert I. Rotberg, Harvard University
The book has also been made available through Open Access. Its proposal is been recognised in contributing to new thought and received first place in the New Shape Prize awarded in 2018 by the Global Challenges Foundation, a non-profit encouraging discussion on systems for managing global risks:
The proposal highlights the need for a system of global governance capable of effectively addressing the major contemporary challenges facing humanity.
— Maja Groff
A range of inherently global crises cannot be solved outside the framework of global collective action involving supranational cooperation and a fundamental rethinking of the meaning of ‘national interest’ — Extract from Paper presented by Dahl, Lopez & Groff.
As Dr Arthur Lyon Dahl said back in 1996 for ‘One Country’:
The words ecology and economy share the same Greek root, oikos, meaning house or habitat. Economy refers to how to manage our house, and ecology how to know or understand it. This unity of word roots also reflects an underlying unity of purpose and function that should link ecology and economy.
In practice, however, each discipline lives largely in a separate world, speaking a different language, applying different principles — and reflecting often conflicting paradigms. The chasm between economics and ecology is a symptom of the malfunctioning of modern society.
“Eco is any natural or man-made functional system with internal integrity and distinct features and behavior enclosed within clear boundaries. This general definition, “can apply equally to an organism, an ecosystem, a machine, a town, a nation, the earth or even a star, as well as to such forms of social organization as a corporation or a national economy.”
Dr. Dahl develops this idea by discussing the coral reef as an information system, explaining that it is the “high information content and interconnection” of relationships among reef organisms that allow them to survive in an environment of scarcity.
It is the information content that is the most critical characteristic of an eco, he writes, adding that the information on the organization and integration of the eco is the critical factor determining its value or wealth, a wealth that has been largely missed in economics.
— Arthur Lyon Dahl
