Every Person a Compass: AI, Doughnut Economics, and Radical Kindness
An atlas for grassroots pathways through the Doughnut Economics lens—using contemplative practice, systems thinking, and world-model expansion.
🗓️ Wed, Sept 3, 9:00am CT (CDT) — a virtual session with Doughnut Economics Action Lab.
We’re living inside two interlocked ecosystems: the biosphere that keeps us alive, and the infosphere that shapes what we notice, feel, and do. Generative AI now mediates much of that second world. This session asks a simple question with big consequences:
How do we resist AI’s harms while reclaiming human wisdom—together?
I’ll share a Doughnut-inspired “atlas” for grounding, widening our world models, and acting with courage and care amid acceleration
What we’ll explore
Doughnut Economics (toroidal geometry and DEAL) as a life-preserver. A safe-and-just space for people and planet—and a compass for tech decisions.
Two interlocked ecosystems. Attention, trust, energy, and water are coupled flows; social media can distort the map and externalize the costs.
Healing-Trauma lens - Intelligence as healing process. Being → Belonging → Becoming: ground the body, bridge across difference, act with small, reversible kindness.
Coherence you can feel. Not mystique: more signal than noise at human pace. We’ll use neuro-symbolic language (fast neural patterns + symbolic constraints + a meta-cognitive governor) as a design target for healthier information ecologies.
Frontier LLMs as collective cognition. Awe and risk: planet-scale parametric models shaped by human culture. Treat AI as an instrument, not an oracle.
Storyweaving as infrastructure. Narratives shape attention; attention shapes agency. We’ll practice non-coercive ways to widen and align world models.
Why storytelling (not metrics) is the move
Everyone can now produce narratives at scale. That’s why grounded storytelling matters: it can counter extractive feeds, invite plural perspectives, and help communities metabolize fear into radical kindness and wiser action. We’ll hold metaphors (toroid/resonance) lightly—as teaching images—and keep our feet on the ground of lived experience, dignity, and compassionate discernment to expand and align our world models.
Open questions we’ll explore:
Modeling & simulation: What simple models (digital or embodied) actually reduce complexity in your context?
Tipping points & levers: Where are the smallest humane interventions with outsized effect?
Cross-boundary collaboration: Who’s missing, and how do we make belonging real?
Contemplative practice: Which practices help metabolize uncertainty and expand world models?
Narratives & rituals: How can community storytelling counter platform incentives without shaming or coercion?
We’ll work at a humane pace. Share from the present moment; no one owes a disclosure. Assume good intent, name impact, prefer reversible moves. If you feel flooded, step out, breathe, and rejoin when ready.
After the session
I’ll share slides, prompts, and a links to resources and reading list (physics & systems, trauma-aware practice, Doughnut resources, neuro-symbolic design language). I’ll also post a few Midjourney prompts for the vintage-atlas watercolor visuals we’re using.
Goal: To nurture curiosity, creativity, imagination for expansive world stories.
If this resonates, share a story from your place. What helped you ground, bridge, or act with kindness this month?
🗓️ Wed, Sept 3, 9:00am CT (CDT) — a virtual session with Doughnut Economics Action Lab.