this ..... Darwin did not remain in the armchair. He got on a boat. He went out into the living world. He watched closely. He compared forms of life in relation to their environments. He let observation disturb inherited theory. He did not make biology more scientific by retreating from life, but by encountering it more directly..... is the difference in truly building into /returning to living systems.... getting into the environment/life and truly experiencing how to make this work - for me it isa what most miss, so much talk about change and the ideation of how and so little from ground up happening - its one of the reasons I love SEKEM so much and am constantly amazed at how little people know of it and talk about it
This piece got me thinking about something I return to often:
Darwin’s breakthrough came from going to the Galápagos, a kind of preserved window into earlier conditions. That separation made relationships visible that were harder to see in more entangled systems.
It makes me think of our monetary system like the human eye. It shapes perception as much as it enables it.
So the question for me is whether the next step isn’t just moving closer to lived coordination, but stepping outside the current system enough to see what it obscures. Earlier forms of obligation and exchange may offer that kind of visibility.
Yes but: you have Darwin backwards. He did not observe a property in nature, which we later apply to society. Darwin was a deeply committed abolitionist, as was his father and grandfather. The core epistemological belief of abolitionists was "we are all of one blood"; every human is a member of the single "family of Man".
He first began his theory of common descent to explain how human adaptation to different environments resulted in our different appearances.
Ron, that’s interesting context, and I appreciate you sharing it.
But I think we’re talking past each other a bit.
My point about Darwin isn’t about the historical origin of his ideas or his moral commitments. It’s about method.
He went into the field and paid close attention to living systems, rather than only reasoning from existing theory.
That’s the parallel I’m drawing.
In economics, we still spend a lot of time theorizing about cooperation, incentives, and coordination from a distance. What I’m interested in is learning directly from communities that are already practicing these things under real constraints.
Not as ideology, but as observation.
So whether Darwin started from abolitionist beliefs or not doesn’t really change the point I’m making here ... which is that we need more field-based understanding of how cooperation actually works in practice.
First ask the question: everyone was looking at nature, so what enabled Darwin to see what no one else was seeing? Now ask the question: why do so many economists miss the point you are making? It is not because all the other biologists failed to go into the field. It is not because all the other economists failed to conduct empirical work in real world societies.
Theory informs data collection; and having an open mind that is receptive to certain things will enable some field workers to see what others do not.
Yes, openness of mind matters. Theory shapes what we’re able to see.
.... yet I don’t think the issue is simply perceptual.
I think part of the problem is that many of the systems being studied are already deeply degraded. And when healthier forms of cooperation do appear, they’re often dehumanized, dismissed, or reduced into abstract categories that miss what’s actually happening.
It’s a bit like a doctor who has only ever studied illness trying to define health.
What I’m pointing to is the need to recognize and learn from living examples of coordination that are actually working ... not just reinterpret them through existing frameworks.
this ..... Darwin did not remain in the armchair. He got on a boat. He went out into the living world. He watched closely. He compared forms of life in relation to their environments. He let observation disturb inherited theory. He did not make biology more scientific by retreating from life, but by encountering it more directly..... is the difference in truly building into /returning to living systems.... getting into the environment/life and truly experiencing how to make this work - for me it isa what most miss, so much talk about change and the ideation of how and so little from ground up happening - its one of the reasons I love SEKEM so much and am constantly amazed at how little people know of it and talk about it
This piece got me thinking about something I return to often:
Darwin’s breakthrough came from going to the Galápagos, a kind of preserved window into earlier conditions. That separation made relationships visible that were harder to see in more entangled systems.
It makes me think of our monetary system like the human eye. It shapes perception as much as it enables it.
So the question for me is whether the next step isn’t just moving closer to lived coordination, but stepping outside the current system enough to see what it obscures. Earlier forms of obligation and exchange may offer that kind of visibility.
Yes but: you have Darwin backwards. He did not observe a property in nature, which we later apply to society. Darwin was a deeply committed abolitionist, as was his father and grandfather. The core epistemological belief of abolitionists was "we are all of one blood"; every human is a member of the single "family of Man".
He first began his theory of common descent to explain how human adaptation to different environments resulted in our different appearances.
He only later applied it to nonhumans. This is well documented. For a review of the literature see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335569316_Anti-Racist_Technoscience_A_Generative_Tradition
We also created an online game to teach kids about Darwin's life as an abolitionist and how it lead to his theory of evolution: https://csdt.org/culture/darwingame/index.html
Ron, that’s interesting context, and I appreciate you sharing it.
But I think we’re talking past each other a bit.
My point about Darwin isn’t about the historical origin of his ideas or his moral commitments. It’s about method.
He went into the field and paid close attention to living systems, rather than only reasoning from existing theory.
That’s the parallel I’m drawing.
In economics, we still spend a lot of time theorizing about cooperation, incentives, and coordination from a distance. What I’m interested in is learning directly from communities that are already practicing these things under real constraints.
Not as ideology, but as observation.
So whether Darwin started from abolitionist beliefs or not doesn’t really change the point I’m making here ... which is that we need more field-based understanding of how cooperation actually works in practice.
That’s what I’m trying to do.
First ask the question: everyone was looking at nature, so what enabled Darwin to see what no one else was seeing? Now ask the question: why do so many economists miss the point you are making? It is not because all the other biologists failed to go into the field. It is not because all the other economists failed to conduct empirical work in real world societies.
Theory informs data collection; and having an open mind that is receptive to certain things will enable some field workers to see what others do not.
Yes, openness of mind matters. Theory shapes what we’re able to see.
.... yet I don’t think the issue is simply perceptual.
I think part of the problem is that many of the systems being studied are already deeply degraded. And when healthier forms of cooperation do appear, they’re often dehumanized, dismissed, or reduced into abstract categories that miss what’s actually happening.
It’s a bit like a doctor who has only ever studied illness trying to define health.
What I’m pointing to is the need to recognize and learn from living examples of coordination that are actually working ... not just reinterpret them through existing frameworks.
That’s where I feel the real shift is for me.