About Thwink.org
The mission of Thwink.org is to help solve the global environmental
sustainability problem using the most efficient and effective
methods available.
The only way we know to do this
is to use the same tried and true methods that have worked
so well for science and business for centuries.
Our work is driven by a key argument:
1. While there have been many small successes, current
problem solving approaches have in general failed for over
30 years to solve the complete sustainability problem. The problem is getting worse, not better. No
overall credible solution approach is in sight.
2. Therefore an entirely new problem solving approach
is needed.
This new approach is what Thwink.org is all about.
Thwink in a Nutshell
Our key principles are:
Every field needs the right foundational process or theory to solve its central problems. (It follows that if a field is failing, it lacks the proper foundation. For example, science was alchemy before it adopted the Scientific Method as its foundational process. Biology was relatively unproductive until the theory of evolution came along. Business was confined to small family firms and merchants until the process of double entry accounting was invented.)
The more difficult the problem, the more mature the process used to solve it must be. (It follows that if a field is using a process and failing, then the process is immature. According to our analysis, environmentalism is using the process of Classic Activism.)
Our key tools are:
The System Improvement Process
System dynamics, which is an approach to simulation modeling, like the model in Limits to Growth.
Examples of how these principles and tools can be applied are:
The Dueling Loops model
The Proper Coupling Package
A Note of Caution
At Thwink.org we think like scientists. Every assertion we
make is a hypothesis that could be overturned tomorrow. Our
work contains many novel hypotheses.
While these appear to have withstood the test of logical proof,
using a number of analytical tools, few have undergone the
acid test of real world experimentation. No one knows how many
will survive. But rather than couch every assertion with a "maybe," a "this
suggests," or a "probably," and so forth, we
have elected to only occasionally stress that all the conclusions
at Thwink.org are merely examples and pointers to a new way
of thwinking. None should be interpreted as the analysis
or the solution.
As you explore the work at this site, remember the words of Arthur Schopenhauer, the
19th century German philosopher:
"All truth passes through three stages. First,
it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third,
it is accepted as self-evident."
History
Five years ago, back in mid 2001, I had been
watching Curt Smith's successful work with the Sierra Club
on lowering pollution from coal power plants in Georgia. Then
I read Bill Joy's long, perceptive essay on Why
the Future Doesn't Need Us. It electrified me into getting
off the fence and taking action. Researching the essay led
me beyond the threats that nanotechnology, biotechnology, and
robotics pointed to in the essay to the real problem: global
environmental sustainability.
How important is that problem? Well, if it's not solved, nothing
else matters, because as long at it remains unsolved, the carrying
capacity of the biosphere is falling. As it falls, the populations
of many species, including Homo sapiens, will fall.
As a consequence of this many species are going extinct. Sooner
or later one of them is going to be Homo sapiens, which
is perhaps the ultimate catastrophe. Thus this is the top
priority problem for all of civilization. Nothing else comes
close, not even war or poverty. We've had those two problems
as long as we've been competitive replicators, and we will
have them long after the global environmental sustainability
problem is solved. That is, if it is solved.
Once I realized all this, I decided to make this project my
life's work. I pushed aside everything else and began working
on it full time.
Project Strategy
From the beginning (in mid 2001) I made this a six year
project with three phases:
1. The first and second years were for becoming familiar
with the problem.
2. The third and fourth years were for developing
novel contributions that could make a critical difference.
3. The fifth and sixth years are for getting right in there,
elbow to elbow, and working with others.
Imposed on this was a second strategy: to work in deliberate isolation for the first 4 years. Normally this is a surefire recipe for professional disaster. But when I looked around to survey the problem in general, what I saw made me gasp. Everyone who had a solution was certain they had the right solution or were close to it. But because the solutions were all about the same, and none had succeeded for decades, something was terribly amiss. I concluded that the real issue here, the bogeyman in everyone's closet, was a massive case of group think. Essentially they were all living in the same paradigm and that paradigm was failing. Unless I isolated myself I would soon be living and breathing and thinking their paradigm, and would be unable to see or conceive of any other. In late 2004 The Death of Environmentalism memo validated this strategy and made this all perfectly clear. At least to me.
The first 6 years were up in mid 2007. Since then I've pretty much just extended phase 3, working with others and spreading the message, plus further cogitations on the sample process, sample analyses, and sample solutions. I'm hoping one or more organizations adopts ideas like these seriously, and I can start working with them. That will be the next phase.
This brings us to where we are today. I'm now in the
seventh year and a small faint buzz is starting to develop, which is a good
sign. (This was written in May 2008.)
Again, I don't pretend to have the solution. Instead, what I have
to offer is a novel approach to finding a solution.
This approach is what Analytical Activism attempts to convey. I chose a book
format to express my ideas because, in general, books are the
best medium for packaging a large, cohesive concept in communicable
form.
As you will see in the book, the problem solving approach
we advocate is:
1. Process
driven instead of ad hoc.
2. Analytical instead
of common sense oriented.
3. Systems
thinking instead of event oriented.
4. Deep
and refined instead of shallow and simple.
As a result of the above, this approach is:
5. Slow
going instead of fast.
In mid 2007 the six year project reached the end of its initial plan. Things are going slightly ahead of expectations. The new phase is to communicate the message and sample results of applying this new way of thwinking. Lately this has taken the form of:
A book, The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace
A film, Cracking the Mystery of the Progressive Paradox
A book in progress, Process Is Everything
Hopefully all this will lead to a whole new way of thwinking.
Warm regards,
Jack Harich
Systems Engineer and Sustainologist
Atlanta, Georgia, US
Acknowledgements - The
concepts on this site would not have come to fruition without
the help of George and Wilma Turner, Curt Smith, Rick Krause,
and many others. 
Photo Credits -
All photos on this website are by Jack unless otherwise noted. Digital
photography is one of my hobbies. Here are some photos from
a recent trip
to Lithuania.
The idea for the light bulb theme is from Roger Anderson.
By the way, my personal web page is here.
