REALITY CHECK:
PSYOPS, GROUP OPTICS, and FACTS
Get me once you run out of oxygen.
Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick.
I practise foresight ("to pose key questions that might have gone unasked in developing a strategy, and to reveal and challenge potentially fatal assumptions and expectations"; from https://www.oecd.org/strategic-foresight/whatisforesight).
We are working hard to provide our rigorous approach to those who want to deal with the richness of the world as it is. And by the way, those who are looking for a recipe for eternal youth, please turn to the energy of the trickster to aid this.
Alex Teselkin, MSc chance and necessity, MDes strategic foresight and innovation: uncovering hormetic potential in machine, ontogenetic, and phylogenetic programming by making the familiar unfamiliar, and in reverse. Interest: the gap between our intentions vs. what really happens. Innovation as exaptation. Corporate psychiatry. Sudden unintended accelerations and psychoses, in combinations thereof.
A.k.a: Alex T Selkin, Oleksiy Teselkin. Against the Plato-Aristotelian c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶i̶p̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ mistaking of ideas for experiences, and symbols for observations
Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick.
I practise foresight ("to pose key questions that might have gone unasked in developing a strategy, and to reveal and challenge potentially fatal assumptions and expectations"; from https://www.oecd.org/strategic-foresight/whatisforesight).
We are working hard to provide our rigorous approach to those who want to deal with the richness of the world as it is. And by the way, those who are looking for a recipe for eternal youth, please turn to the energy of the trickster to aid this.
Alex Teselkin, MSc chance and necessity, MDes strategic foresight and innovation: uncovering hormetic potential in machine, ontogenetic, and phylogenetic programming by making the familiar unfamiliar, and in reverse. Interest: the gap between our intentions vs. what really happens. Innovation as exaptation. Corporate psychiatry. Sudden unintended accelerations and psychoses, in combinations thereof.
A.k.a: Alex T Selkin, Oleksiy Teselkin. Against the Plato-Aristotelian c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶i̶p̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ mistaking of ideas for experiences, and symbols for observations
"WE BEGAN TO FEEL AS IF WE REALLY WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SUCCESSFUL, ERROR-FREE PERFECTUSE OF THESE MACHINES. I DON’T THINK WE ARE. I THINK WE’RE RESPONSIBLE FOR STRETCHING THEM, SETTING THEM OFF IN NEW DIRECTIONS, AND KEEPING FUN IN THE HOUSE."—ALAN J. PERLIS
One limited, self-defeating direction........ OR maybe better....
THINGS ARE WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT WE CALL THEM, UNLESS ONE BELIEVES THAT WHAT WE CALL THEM IS ALL THEY DO... [..] A DOOR NOT IN USE IS FUNCTIONALLY A WALL. ―THOMAS MANDEL"
THE CHAIRMAN SAID ' ... OUR COMPANY IS NOT ITS WEALTH, NOR ITS FACTORIES, GENTLEMEN, THE OLD LOT OR THE NEW 'UNS' (HE ADJUSTED HIS TIE), 'THESE' (HE GLARED AT THE READING DESK) 'ARE MERE TRAPPINGS. OUR COMPANY'S A LIVING THING, GENTLEMEN. IT GROWS.' HE SAT DOWN, FLUSHED AND WHEEZING. THE EXECUTIVES CLAPPED, EXCUSING THE DICTION OF A SELF-MADE MAN. THEY RECKONED HIM OLD FASHIONED, A BIT POETIC IN HIS DOTAGE. BUT, IN FACT, THE SELF-MADE MAN HAD TOLD A REVOLUTIONARY TRUTH, AS HE HAD TOLD IT BEFORE, BADLY, AND WITHOUT THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. HAD THEY LISTENED, AND UNDERSTOOD, IT WOULD HAVE SHAKEN THEM TO THE BOTTOM OF THEIR INCENTIVE SCHEMES AND ORDER SCHEDULES. ― GORDON PASK
Consulting—the purpose of this work is expanding the scope, range, and power of imagination. The invention of new and better reality, and making that reality as impactful as possible.
In an increasingly complex world, we must correctly assess events and facts, think critically, learn to analyze and understand reality, set the right goals and make the right decisions. To act correctly, we must think correctly.
Get me once you run out of oxygen. To surface alternative methods, unlock “invisible” resources, and tweak your relative priorities. If your worldview and self-view shifts, the corners you face may dissolve.
Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick.
My mission is inducing *adjustment* via assumption check and process limits recognition. As a trickster, I practice second-order cybernetic thinking. I am a fit with people who are looking for insight, sincerity, and strategic advice. Strategic and creative thinker, I will not fit well with organizations which are happy with "risk-free" cosmetic changes and expect such. (All things have their place, but a certain mindset and certain category of people are necessary for genuine foresight and innovation). Management has its place. Leaders have their place, too. It is Management disguised in Leaders' clothing that does all the damage. The Trickster is a deep force that cannot be controlled by anyone, the result of which is unpredictable even for the Trickster themselves, thanks to their unstable psyche. That's the only way genuine innovation can happen (a fact of reality). A Trickster takes on the task to make new parts of the implicit explicit, being the first to invade the realm of the Unknown. The goal is integrity, not social conformity. In such a way, they stand on the brink of human and the nonhuman (=the rest of the Universe, "the real world"), so from the point of view of man as a social being, the trickster is ridiculous, unreasonable, and unconscientious. From *this* viewpoint, this lens.
Does a trickster guarantee a solution to problems? No one can (honestly) do that. But without a trickster, there is not even a chance. That's honesty.
As pointed out by Ranulph Glanville, the origin of the world "design" is "pattern-finding." Man the pattern finder is Homo designans in Latin. What's hard is not to find some pattern among the infinity of the possible ones (and focus on it for the rest of the life), but to keep unlearning old patterns so as to make space for new ones.
To make sense of the process we must talk about systems. The assumptions made 30 years ago are now making your experience slow and insecure. Creativity is in being able to abstract stuff in multiple alternative ways. It is necessary for continued survival of systems as per the cybernetic law of requisite variety. The systems can be anything: those in psychiatry, information and decision systems, in management, government, communication, and in computer networks.
One is measured by what others already understand. One also measures mobility by immobility, and future by the past. Where does novelty then come from? Since anyone who fails to adequately meet complexity will be overcome by it, I focus on questions or frameworks within which systems happen and which we tend to assume in order to be able to act. In that sense I’m someone who looks at the foundations and questions them. I look for differences that make a difference.
One can become sophisticated only by admitting to being unsophisticated. When one doesn't understand something, one subconsciously replaces it by the nearest thing one does understand. As a trickster, my focus is on the form (relations), without definite things (matter). I am curious how systems regulate themselves, reproduce themselves, evolve and learn. Also curious about what to do and what not to. The universe, biological life, and human imagination all have one thing in common: they keep expanding, in some totally incomprehensible way, in all directions at the same time, and without ever glancing back. Both biologically, evolutionarily, and imaginatively, creative energy is not yours; it passes through you. You can capture value by allowing your prior self to be destroyed as creative waves pass through you.
The brain abstracts (nonexistent) objects from the unspeakable processes, and on top of that, colors the process of abstraction with preexisting inferences by making predictions. George Spencer Brown has famously said about Sir Isaac Newton that “to arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, required years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is that one needs to know.”
*In 1965, as told by Nassim Taleb in his Black Swan, two radio astronomists at Bell Labs in NJ discovered the cosmic background microwave radiation --- the trace of the birth of the universe. They did so while looking for bird poop, and did not immediately appreciate the nature of their discovery --- and yet the official narrative acclaimed them for "their prescient vision."
My life has revolved around evolution -- first, in the organic world, then in the (larger) world of Design and Business. Scientific research is a subset (a restricted form) of design, a human construction, and we do not generally require the set of a subset to act as the superset to that subset any more than we require the basement of the building to be its attic.
Many things can be had only by not being in need of them --- jobs, health, innovation. I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else. The crucial decisions in life have no optimal execution, no optimal answer. Forget about the answers. Most of the time we don’t even know what the questions are. In the world of innovation, it is sometimes said that the problems created in an industry can rarely be solved by those who created them. Too many failures are failures of understanding, and of imagination. We lack imagination and repress it in others. Designers don’t necessarily build a new version of the world — engineers, contractors, printers and many others play their parts — but they can help others see the unthinkable possible. Whitehead wrote that art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. This is more powerful than most realize.
In an increasingly complex world, we must correctly assess events and facts, think critically, learn to analyze and understand reality, set the right goals and make the right decisions. To act correctly, we must think correctly.
Get me once you run out of oxygen. To surface alternative methods, unlock “invisible” resources, and tweak your relative priorities. If your worldview and self-view shifts, the corners you face may dissolve.
Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick.
My mission is inducing *adjustment* via assumption check and process limits recognition. As a trickster, I practice second-order cybernetic thinking. I am a fit with people who are looking for insight, sincerity, and strategic advice. Strategic and creative thinker, I will not fit well with organizations which are happy with "risk-free" cosmetic changes and expect such. (All things have their place, but a certain mindset and certain category of people are necessary for genuine foresight and innovation). Management has its place. Leaders have their place, too. It is Management disguised in Leaders' clothing that does all the damage. The Trickster is a deep force that cannot be controlled by anyone, the result of which is unpredictable even for the Trickster themselves, thanks to their unstable psyche. That's the only way genuine innovation can happen (a fact of reality). A Trickster takes on the task to make new parts of the implicit explicit, being the first to invade the realm of the Unknown. The goal is integrity, not social conformity. In such a way, they stand on the brink of human and the nonhuman (=the rest of the Universe, "the real world"), so from the point of view of man as a social being, the trickster is ridiculous, unreasonable, and unconscientious. From *this* viewpoint, this lens.
Does a trickster guarantee a solution to problems? No one can (honestly) do that. But without a trickster, there is not even a chance. That's honesty.
As pointed out by Ranulph Glanville, the origin of the world "design" is "pattern-finding." Man the pattern finder is Homo designans in Latin. What's hard is not to find some pattern among the infinity of the possible ones (and focus on it for the rest of the life), but to keep unlearning old patterns so as to make space for new ones.
To make sense of the process we must talk about systems. The assumptions made 30 years ago are now making your experience slow and insecure. Creativity is in being able to abstract stuff in multiple alternative ways. It is necessary for continued survival of systems as per the cybernetic law of requisite variety. The systems can be anything: those in psychiatry, information and decision systems, in management, government, communication, and in computer networks.
One is measured by what others already understand. One also measures mobility by immobility, and future by the past. Where does novelty then come from? Since anyone who fails to adequately meet complexity will be overcome by it, I focus on questions or frameworks within which systems happen and which we tend to assume in order to be able to act. In that sense I’m someone who looks at the foundations and questions them. I look for differences that make a difference.
One can become sophisticated only by admitting to being unsophisticated. When one doesn't understand something, one subconsciously replaces it by the nearest thing one does understand. As a trickster, my focus is on the form (relations), without definite things (matter). I am curious how systems regulate themselves, reproduce themselves, evolve and learn. Also curious about what to do and what not to. The universe, biological life, and human imagination all have one thing in common: they keep expanding, in some totally incomprehensible way, in all directions at the same time, and without ever glancing back. Both biologically, evolutionarily, and imaginatively, creative energy is not yours; it passes through you. You can capture value by allowing your prior self to be destroyed as creative waves pass through you.
The brain abstracts (nonexistent) objects from the unspeakable processes, and on top of that, colors the process of abstraction with preexisting inferences by making predictions. George Spencer Brown has famously said about Sir Isaac Newton that “to arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, required years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is that one needs to know.”
*In 1965, as told by Nassim Taleb in his Black Swan, two radio astronomists at Bell Labs in NJ discovered the cosmic background microwave radiation --- the trace of the birth of the universe. They did so while looking for bird poop, and did not immediately appreciate the nature of their discovery --- and yet the official narrative acclaimed them for "their prescient vision."
My life has revolved around evolution -- first, in the organic world, then in the (larger) world of Design and Business. Scientific research is a subset (a restricted form) of design, a human construction, and we do not generally require the set of a subset to act as the superset to that subset any more than we require the basement of the building to be its attic.
Many things can be had only by not being in need of them --- jobs, health, innovation. I can’t begin to tell you the things I discovered while I was looking for something else. The crucial decisions in life have no optimal execution, no optimal answer. Forget about the answers. Most of the time we don’t even know what the questions are. In the world of innovation, it is sometimes said that the problems created in an industry can rarely be solved by those who created them. Too many failures are failures of understanding, and of imagination. We lack imagination and repress it in others. Designers don’t necessarily build a new version of the world — engineers, contractors, printers and many others play their parts — but they can help others see the unthinkable possible. Whitehead wrote that art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. This is more powerful than most realize.
An evolutionary biologist by training, and a futurist by heart, I help organisations to deal with the unknown. Capitalizing on my technical background and on imagination, I help teams prepare for coming challenges they may not be aware of. I am ready to tackle the opportunities in weak signal analysis, visioning, and behavior space design, and to deliver solutions using a visual analytics approach, with imaginatory insights generated through direct experience, ethnography, experimentation, and discovery in public data.
Relationships are important to me, and I value working with people who take risks and who push me to think differently. My job is to work with my teammates to understand the opportunities collectives are missing on, expand those into a vision of possible design solutions, and consider the ways to measure if we’ve been successful in achieving what we had set to achieve. Together we can design to leverage positive uncertainty in a world we will never understand. ‘We are creating the future’—the famous quote of Steve Jobs says it all.
Relationships are important to me, and I value working with people who take risks and who push me to think differently. My job is to work with my teammates to understand the opportunities collectives are missing on, expand those into a vision of possible design solutions, and consider the ways to measure if we’ve been successful in achieving what we had set to achieve. Together we can design to leverage positive uncertainty in a world we will never understand. ‘We are creating the future’—the famous quote of Steve Jobs says it all.
"WE HAVE ART IN ORDER NOT TO DIE OF TRUTH." - NIETZSCHE
WE ARE NOT REDUCING ANY UNCERTAINTY HERE—THIS CAN BE "DONE" ONLY BY SELF-DELUSION. WE ARE EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY AND CELEBRATING IT. “ART IS THE IMPOSING OF A PATTERN ON EXPERIENCE, AND OUR AESTHETIC ENJOYMENT IS RECOGNITION OF THE PATTERN.” - WHITEHEAD
THE NOTION THAT EACH OF US CONSTRUCTS OUR OWN WORLD [..] CAME ABOUT FROM THE OBSERVATION I HAVE MADE SECOND BY SECOND SINCE MY BIRTH, THAT OBSERVATION IS DONE BY OBSERVERS, AND KNOWING IS DONE BY KNOWERS. TO DISGUISE THIS IS ABSURD. MY INTEREST IN CYBERNETICS IS BECAUSE IT IS THE AREA OF STUDY THAT WELCOMES THE OBSERVER (AND ALLOWS HIM TO MAKE ERRORS). MY INTEREST IN DESIGN IS BECAUSE IT IS, PAR EXCELLENCE, AN AREA OF CONSTRUCTING. - RANULPH GLANVILLE
CYBERNETICS AND DESIGN AS "OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE SAME COIN"; ------------AVANTGARDE: BOTH TRUE TO DIFFERENT AREAS OF INTEREST, AND TO THAT WHICH CROSSES SUBJECTS SEEKING ANALOGIES THAT REVEAL HIDDEN, SHARED STRUCTURES. - RANULPH GLANVILLE
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The wealth of nations:
Innovation as a matter of culture, governance, and scale. WARNING: This may not be of everyone's taste. As is truth in general. Choose to read at your expense. CHINA: REDISCOVERY OF A GIANT / 2018
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Ce̶n̶s̶o̶r̶e̶d̶:
Lack of inductive foresight as consequence of the deductive groupthink culture:
the misappropriation of Darwin and coming black swans from GMO decision-planning
Lack of inductive foresight as consequence of the deductive groupthink culture:
the misappropriation of Darwin and coming black swans from GMO decision-planning
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Alchemist and cyberneticist. Think about what isn't in front of you and make right choices no matter how much you may dislike them