Regeneration + Ecosystem Strategy + Brand Activism + Innovation + Art
There are enough wicked problems the planet has to deal with already, without adding or exacerbating the one we already have. Yet Comrade Trump and his fearless DOGE monkeys insist on breaking everything we hold dear as Americans.
What can be done?
Read our book. It’s timely and may spark a few ideas. There’s a reason the Republicans are banning books – they don’t want us to know that another world is possible.
Read as if our lives depend on it.
Read, and act.
Here we go.
Here’s a pamphlet on Fascism – prepared by the U.S. Army back in 1944:
Looks like we forgot the lessons of history.
And, here >> the walls at the FBI Academy at Quantico are being graywashed. Just another step in the enshittification of government:
Trump’s America. Where Techbros take over your Social Security and download your info to their own private servers.
Babylon is failing fast. The MAGA crowd got played.
MAGA is not regenerative. It is the make-believe world of American Empire – one that is collapsing under its own delusion. The outcome will be war, unless we decide to regenerate the Common Good – across this planet.
And so the enshittification of government accelerates our decline. Crapitalists aren’t interested in protecting our jobs, just their profits. Tariffs are an excuse for why we can’t compete.
Zombie corporations stumble around without a clue… our ideology is a death trap. The labor movement is coming back to life, but is it too late?
Inflation is a profit-making decision made by the owners of the corporation. Richard Wolff‘s simple yet clear analysis cuts through the B.S.
I think of Jimmy Carter as the last “honest” President.
I feel he actually cared.
He cared about the state of the country and the world and not simply paying back his donors and sponsors. Carter wanted to end such US support for dictators. He emphasized human rights, while trying to bring peace to the Middle East. Carter’s Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt endures today – half a century later.
I still view him as the last hope for peace in the Middle East. His book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid – should be required reading for all future Presidents. Unfortunately, AIPAC has taken over US foreign policy.
Noah Lanard writes: Carter saw where Israel was headed with its refusal to countenance Palestinian statehood, and correctly warned it would end tragically for both sides. In response, the American mainstream treated him as a crank at best and an antisemite at worst. With Palestinians now suffering the worst violence in their history, which Amnesty International recently concluded constitutes genocide, it is more important than ever to recognize the truth of Carter’s claim that peace would only come when Israel—likely under pressure from the United States—abandoned its efforts to deprive Palestinians of sovereignty in their homeland.
Carter also sought to promote peace with Nature. He protected Alaska’s wilderness and promoted solar energy before it was cool.
Citizen’s United has made sure we will never have an ethical President in the US again. Thanks SCOTUS. Thanks Federalist Society. Thanks Leonard “Loser” Leo. And thanks to the billionaires who prefer fascism over democracy – all to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
Rise in Power, Mr. President. And no, you weren’t perfect.
Professor Mearsheimer‘s Christmas blog post is a condemnation of “civilization” >>
Moral bankruptcy implies that there was a time when the West was moral. That’s just too kind. It’s just not what we learn from history.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn puts the genocide in Gaza in perspective. What is important to notice is the silence of our leaders, and the silence of the media.
Israel has destroyed the last remaining hospital in northern Gaza.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) December 27, 2024
We have witnessed the total decimation of Palestinian healthcare, met with silence from political leaders who refuse to acknowledge the horrors they have enabled.
This is the dehumanising reality of genocide. https://t.co/z8MRVbLUvd
Capitalism has killed our democracy, if we ever had it at all.
The pretense of international law is over. There are no human rights. Our institutions are simply PR agencies for evil.
If we can’t stop a genocide in broad daylight, how will we ever stop the climate collapse?
We won’t. The billionaires who run this world have decided that war and fascism are preferable to paying taxes. They will be cursed by history – and by all who have the mind to see.
Our fate – well deserved – is extinction. Stupidity is not regenerative.
Can we stop the madness?
Dark MAGA is almost upon us.
Are you ready?
Hide your books, children.
As the world spirals into crazy, do you get the distinct feeling that you are powerless. Don’t. Our world is just programmed to make you feel that way.
A few days ago I stumbled upon this – “If you were going to take over society and keep humanity from reaching its full enlightened potential, how would you do it?” The question was asked by Rob Sidon of Common Ground.
Sound familiar?
Before we turn into crazy conspiracy theorists, let’s pause for a moment.
Why is everything such a disaster: our politics, mass deportations, the climate crisis, Ukraine, Gaza. COP 29, the World Cup,? How is it possible that on almost every single problem in the world, we make the wrong choice> Is it our flawed decision-making? Nope. Our democracy is doing exactly what our system was designed to do – protect the status quo and make the hyper-rich even more money.
There’s a lot more here.
Stay tuned for our book – Wicked Problems: What can we do in this Time of Collapse?
A brief analysis on the coming lobotomization of the US government, a textbook example of “elite capture” >>
Enjoy.
Read your banned books before they are taken away from you by the morality police.
Bye-bye Common Good.
Bye Democracy. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
The world is unprepared for the level of violence we are going to see in the streets.
Gaza is coming to your neighborhood. The election of Trump in the United States and the complicity of the West in the genocide in Palestine are interconnected. We have lost all sense of societal empathy – and the more desensitized we are – the easier it gets to commit atrocities in broad daylight.
Take, for instance, the soccer-violence in Amsterdam which is being labelled as an outpouring of anti-semitism.
The corporate narrative about Israel has done a disservice to Judaism. By equating Zionism and Judaism, our media has opened the gates to public violence.
The propaganda machine has been spinning its head off trying to frame soccer brawls in Amsterdam as a horrifying “pogrom” against Jewish people because the side instigating the violence were supporters of team Maccabi Tel Aviv who flew in from Israel.
Video evidence shows far right Israeli hooligans terrorizing the streets of Amsterdam, chanting “Fuck the Arabs”, starting fights, beating people, tearing down Palestinian flags, attacking a cab driver, and singing “Let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs! Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!”
In the face of all this evidence of atrocious behavior by Israeli soccer fans, The New York Times ran a story with the headline “Antisemitic Attacks Prompt Emergency Flights for Israeli Soccer Fans”. The Wall Street Journal ran with “Antisemitic Attacks in Amsterdam Prompt Tight Security at Jewish Sites”. “Pogroms have returned to Europe, and the ‘anti-racist’ Left are silent,” says The Telegraph.
Meanwhile the Daily Mail sports section ran with a headline more in line with what people actually saw: “Israeli football hooligans tear down Palestine flags in Amsterdam as taxi drivers ‘fight back’ in night of chaos ahead of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s visit to Ajax”. Leaders of western nations like the US, UK, Canada and France joined the Dutch king in framing these soccer brawls and hooliganism as a historic mass-scale hate crime against Jews, while Israeli officials have been melodramatically shrieking like their hair is on fire.
Our institutions are failing – and flailing.
Meanwhile in Bangladesh, regime change has led to violence and murder of Hindus. This is not a one-off, but rather a systematic wave of terror visited on the minorities in what was considered a moderate Islamic country. Hindus make up about 8% of the country’s nearly 170 million people, while Muslims are about 91%.
In Gaza, we know that 70% of the dead are women and children. We learned nothing from the Holocaust – not the Israelis, not the West.
Religious violence has returned to center stage.
The tired wars of ideology have returned. Watch next for Christian Fascism – the rising star of American politics.
Margaret Atwood tried to warn us, but we said “it can’t happen here.”
What can stop the inevitable leap from individual acts of violence to institutional conflict?
Here’s a blueprint of how individual violence can evolve into institutional conflict:
This is an old, worn tune. But still we dance – our monkey minds gripped by fear.
Meanwhile, the Planet is dying. And lest you forget, the billionaires won’t take you to Mars.
Project 2025 is a roadmap for Trump’s radical-Republican administration to remove the guardrails on capitalism. It will eviscerate government as we know it.
Here are the fun bullet points:
In short, we can kiss democracy goodbye. We will replace the bureaucratic deep state with Trump’s deep state.
How do we resist this descent into trumpfuckery?
Stay tuned.
Another green corporate buzzword is making the rounds: “Nature Positive.”
But what does this really mean? More hot air? More inaction? More distraction?
The outcomes are what matter (and they don’t look good):
I’d like to see this chart going back four hundred years…
For the billionaires and other anti-socials who support accelerationism, your children will curse you – if they survive.
For the rest of us, it’s time to fight.
Is your company democracy positive? Or is it actively promoting fascism?
Start by voting for democracy.
Just asking for a friend. This question also applies to Trump’s billionaire donors like Elon Musk ($75million), Miriam Adelson ($95 million), and Richard Uihlein ($49 million). NOTE: These numbers are just from this third quarter!
When we destroy the Common Good, we build the Zero-Trust Society. Bye, democracy!
I have to say that as a society, we have crossed the tipping point of mass-stupidity – the perfect storm of stupid. The latest proof of this is the tsunami of conspiracy theories during Hurricane Milton – leading to death threats against meteorologists who are finding it difficult to report the Truth amongst the flood of misinformation.
Misinformation poses a strategic risk not just to businesses and governments but to society as a whole. The rise in conspiracies and fact-resistant narratives, coupled with death threats against meteorologists during Hurricane Milton, illustrates a growing disconnect between facts and public perception. Addressing this requires understanding the root causes: misleadership, industry influence, and societal conditions that foster ignorance.
Leadership shapes both belief systems and societal trust in institutions. Donald Trump’s rhetoric during his presidency exemplifies how misinformation becomes institutionalized when leadership actively sows distrust. Trump’s frequent accusations of “fake news” and his endorsement of conspiracy theories undermined not just individual policies but the public’s overall trust in expert institutions. By encouraging skepticism toward media, scientific research, and even democratic processes, his leadership has contributed to the normalization of irrational beliefs. This is misleadership. Manufactured nihilism.
This article outlines Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone with sh*t” strategy, which involves overwhelming the media landscape with misinformation to confuse and polarize the public. This tactic was linked to Trump’s impeachment trial, as misinformation played a crucial role in shaping public perception and deflecting attention from key issues. Bannon’s approach highlights the challenges democracy faces in an era where false information can easily dominate the discourse, potentially undermining trust in democratic institutions.
Why do our leaders lie so blatantly in public?
Let’s also remember Hannah Arendt‘s warning: The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between true and false no longer exists.
Hannah Arendt’s observation that totalitarian rule thrives not on die-hard ideologues but on those who lose the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood resonates deeply with modern political misinformation strategies. Politicians who flood the public sphere with misinformation, like Steve Bannon’s tactic, aim to erode trust in objective reality. When people are overwhelmed with conflicting or false information, they may become cynical or apathetic, which makes them more vulnerable to manipulation, much like the conditions Arendt describes under totalitarian regimes. This disorientation undermines democratic engagement.
We must demand our leaders foster a healthy information ecosystem. Business leadership is not only about decisions but about responsibility to society and the Common Good (remember Drucker?). Misinformation, when promoted by figures of authority, corrodes the integrity of all social structures. Trump’s endorsement of baseless ideas and outright lies is an example of leadership failing in this duty, deliberately sowing confusion and creating a society that increasingly disregards evidence-based decision-making.
A post-truth society is a society which has no future. Denying reality does not change it.
Compounding this issue is the deliberate spread of misinformation by industries with vested interests. The fossil fuel industry, for example, has played a long-term strategic role in lying and deliberately confusing the public about climate change. For decades, companies have used disinformation campaigns to question the science of climate change, much like the tobacco industry did to deny links between smoking and cancer. By funding think tanks and lobbying groups, the industry has created a pervasive narrative that climate change is either not real or not caused by human activity, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are deeply anti-democratic.
This is a total failure of leadership, a lack of societal stewardship. The responsibility of industry extends beyond profitability to ensuring that its actions do not endanger public well-being. By spreading falsehoods, the fossil fuel industry has compromised this responsibility, endangering not just the environment but also the public’s capacity to make informed choices. This deliberate misinformation campaign has created a society where public trust in science and expert knowledge is eroded, contributing to a broader climate of skepticism, undermining democracy and our public institutions.
Understanding this trend through a social lens brings us to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s observations on stupidity as a societal problem. Bonhoeffer argued that stupidity is more dangerous than malice because it makes individuals impervious to reason. While malice can be confronted and defeated, stupidity entrenches itself in social structures, often with the individual unaware they are being manipulated. The underlying issue is not just a failure of intellect but of structure. People become stupid when societal conditions—such as isolation or powerful external influences—strip them of their critical thinking and autonomy.
Social media, combined with leadership failures and industry manipulation, creates an ecosystem ripe for mass-stupidity. When large sections of the population believe “alternative-facts,” they are not just ignorant—they become weaponized against rational discourse, as seen in the death threats against meteorologists. This results from a breakdown in the structures that should empower informed citizenship: education, media, and leadership.
A leader’s job is to build an environment where knowledge and truth thrives. To combat the spread of misinformation and the societal conditions that foster it, leaders and industries must take responsibility for creating systems of trust and accountability. Educational reforms that emphasize critical thinking, regulatory oversight for social media platforms, and strong public communication strategies are essential steps. Narrative laundering must be traced and made public.
Leaders, both in government and industry, must rebuild societal trust in expert knowledge. If trust is broken, societal progress halts. This is a matter of strategic foresight—leaders must address misinformation not merely as a nuisance but as a wicked problem, a strategic threat to the functioning of democratic society.
Step one: Speak Out.
Stay tuned for more on what we can do, and follow the Wicked7 project.
The colonial experiment ends in extinction and erasure. Have you noticed how fast social media is when it comes to removing pro-Palestinian content? Social media is complicit in genocide.
There is no hiding this. Israel is a rogue nation.
The US must not support this genocidal state any longer.
Nothing has exposed our fake democracy more than Gaza.
Here’s Prof. Jeffery Sachs:
UPDATE: OOPS – censored
And just we’re all clear – this is how all our politics works.
No wonder we can’t do anything about Healthcare, or Guns, or Climate Change. All you have to do is follow the money – the legalized bribery we call lobbying.
But don’t take my word, here are the facts >> https://trackaipac.com
Chances are high your representative is a puppet.
Hop on the flywheel of corruption!
Governor Abbott brings the fascism.
As peaceful, pro-Palestinian protests across the country are violently broken-up by university officials, it is worth noting that many of the students being arrested are Jewish.
What does it tell you that the teachers are siding with the protestors?
Israel’s fascism is U.S. fascism.
And Zionism is an insult to Judaism.
What do you do when the world is “evacuated of meaning”? This is the wicked problem Walker Percy concerned himself with.
The search is never over.
Just because you don’t like Al Gore, doesn’t mean he isn’t telling you the truth:
“…the climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis. The solutions are going to come from a discussion and collaboration about phasing out fossil fuels. And there’s only so much longer they can hold this up and tie us down and keep us from doing the right thing.”
Fight. It’s time to regenerate this world.
So our book is finally here. At one point – when we were at 500 pages – I almost gave up. But then I remembered Gail Mazur‘s advice: “anything worth doing is worth doing badly,” and decided to carry on. Now, at 320 pages, this book tries to cover the various angles and sights and buzzwords we see creeping into the regeneration ecosystem (pun intended).
The book’s original title was Regeneration: The Future of Community, but as we went on, it ended up becoming Regeneration: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World.
What’s the big idea? Actually we think there are several.
Climate change is the greatest market failure in history. Its costs are not priced into market transactions because third parties overwhelmingly bear them – they are euphemistically called “externalities.” There is a fatal misalignment between what is in the interests of the economy and the incentives of the companies that comprise it. Nature, and the communities we live in, are nowhere part of the equation!
Regeneration means regenerating the Common Good. Our position is this: The Climate Crisis and the Collapse of Society are both symptoms of the same fatal sickness: the destruction of the Common Good. We cannot compartmentalize the climate and separate it from the rest of society or our activities.
Here are the questions we – Philip Kotler, Enrico Foglia, and myself, asked ourselves:
The choice is clear. It is regeneration, or extinction.
Learn more at the Regeneration Marketing Institute >>
This is the TEDxAthens presentation on regeneration – a preview of the book:
The legendary reggae band Steel Pulse (one of Bob Marley’s favorites) raises its voice to challenge the world to come together – a “movements of movements” – to save the Earth:
The song is a collaboration between Steel Pulse and The Wicked7 Project.
Special thanks to Jessica Lieng from the W7 Working Group for putting together the video. Maximum respect to Steel Pulse and David Hinds in particular!
Join us for the latest webinar from the Wicked7 Project >>
Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar as we discuss the final wicked problem of the Wicked7 Project. With us for the webinar – a group of dynamic personalities from Palermo, Sicily:
– Leoluca Orlando. As Mayor of Palermo, Orlando’s extraordinary vision and courage has changed our understanding of immigration, tolerance, and the fight against corruption.
– Claudio Arestivo. A co-founder of Moltivolti – a unique regenerative business – which serves as an example for the future.
– Melania Memory Mutanuka. An immigrant from Zambia, she is an emerging leader with a purpose.
– Carmelo Pollichino. A passionate leader and the head of the non-profit Libera Palermo contro le mafie
– Francesco Bellina. An award-winning photographer and artist whose brilliant work on the problems of migration and exploitation are featured in leading newspapers such as the Financial Times and The Guardian.
It was my great honor to interview the “Father of modern Marketing” on his lifetime of achievements in marketing.
Professor Philip Kotler received the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award for his work over the past 50 years. I am deeply grateful for his friendship and mentorship – and everything he has done to demonstrate how marketing must be a force for good.
Watch the replay >>
Sometimes I wonder why we have forgotten these principles from the late Paul Polak. When I chatted with him about the $300 House, he wanted me to reconsider and make it a $100 House. His point was simple: affordability drives design.
Now, as part of the research agenda of the Regenerative Marketing Institute, I’m thinking about how these BoP principles and Stuart Hart‘s BoP protocol apply to the developed world — to communities trying to find a way back from the COVID-crash.
Here are Polak’s principles:
1) Go to where the action is. You can’t solve poverty from a World Bank office.
2) Talk to the people and listen to what they have to say.
3) Learn everything about the context of the problem and the people.
4) Think and act big. No reason to be modest. Small solutions applied thousands of thousands of times.
5) Think like a child to find the obvious solution people have missed in the past. (Irony of thinking big and like a child)
6) See and do the obvious. Emersing yourself in the problem helps.
7) If someone has invented it–you don’t have to. Find existing solutions
8} Make sure your approach can be scaled up.
9) Design for the poor. Affordability rules the design process with poor customers.
10) Follow practical 3 year plans. Must transform into effective work plan for 3 years.
11) Continue to learn from your customers. (Interviewed more than 3000 farm families, $12 solar lantern)
12) Don’t be distracted by what other people say (Almost every project I’ve done has had sceptics)
Let’s add another principle for impact innovation:
13) Design for justice. (The design schools don’t)
If you missed it, you may want to check it >>
The Indian edition of our Brand Activism book is now available. It includes a few examples of Indian businesses and we added the Pyramids of Hate and Love…
It’s time to put aside our toys – our ideologies and guns – and look at this time in history as our final exam. This is a test, as Buckminster Fuller said, to see if we, the human species, deserve to carry on. COVID has shown us that we cannot find consensus on how to deal with the virus.
Time’s running out. Philip Kotler, Karthiga Ratnam, and I think it’s time for a movement of movements.
Learn more on the Wicked7 Project site >>
Check it out, and join the Wicked7 Project challenge.
What are we going to do now? The #forkintheroad which Buckminster Fuller warned us about is here now >> “Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment… Humanity is in a final exam as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in the Universe.”
What will it take to leap across the chasm and undo the destruction we’ve caused? Why can’t the UN fix it?
We’re hurtling into a state of climate emergency whilst we simultaneously face the convergence of the Wicked7.
What are the Wicked7? The world’s most urgent problems.
We’ve distilled over 200 problems into the Wicked7:
You can’t solve wicked problems. That’s what we’ve been led to believe. And for years, we haven’t. Solve them, that is.
Well, if not now, then when?
Wicked problems must have virtuous solutions. If any lesson has emerged from this COVID-19 pandemic, it is this: we must address the urgent problems of the world now, or perish. Why? Because COVID-19 is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg… the ecosystem of wicked problems will not wait.
After working on this idea for over a year, Philip Kotler and I kicked off the Wicked7 Challenge on April Fool’s Day, 2021.
Our first challenge? The Death of Nature.
Join us >>
P.S. – Bucky Fuller was wrong. Thanks to Sonmoy, one of our W7 advisors, we now see that there’s a triple fork in the road, and utopia is simply no longer an option. What we must fight for is survival.
Once again, it is useful to study the past to learn what applies here to our ecosystematic journeys. Of particular interest is the work of Donella Meadows, who taught us how to focus on having the most impact on a system (Bill Gates, listen up!) >>
Where to intervene:
12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints).
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
3. The goals of the system.
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.
1. The power to transcend paradigms.
Read all about it >>
Those of us who have been building digital communities know that we were simply trying to re-interpret and re-create the rules of real, living, communities. Wendell Berry had something say about this many years ago which applies to the “ecosystem builders” of today.
These “rules” or steps are not optional – you can’t pick or chose. All or nothing. Our survival as a species may depend on understanding this.
These are also the rules for sustainable development. Gandhian all the way.
Supposing that the members of a local community wanted their community to cohere, to flourish, and to last, they would:
1. Ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth?
2. Include local nature — the land, the water, the air, the native creatures — within the membership of the community.
3. Ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.
4. Supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting their products, first to nearby cities, and then to others).
5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labor saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.
6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products in order not to become merely a colony of the national or the global economy.
7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm or forest economy.
8. Strive to produce as much of their own energy as possible.
9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community, and decrease expenditures outside the community.
10. Circulate money within the local economy for as long as possible before paying it out.
11. Invest in the community to maintain its properties, keep it clean (without dirtying some other place), care for its old people, and teach its children.
12. Arrange for the old and the young to take care of one another, eliminating institutionalized ‘child care’ and ‘homes for the aged.’ The young must learn from the old, not necessarily and not always in school; the community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.
13. Account for costs that are now conventionally hidden or ‘externalized.’ Whenever possible they must be debited against monetary income.
14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.
15. Be aware of the economic value of neighborliness — as help, insurance, and so on. They must realize that in our time the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, leaving people to face their calamities alone.
16. Be acquainted with, and complexly connected with, community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.
17. Cultivate urban consumers loyal to local products to build a sustainable rural economy, which will always be more cooperative than competitive.
From a speech delivered November 11, 1994 at the 23rd annual meeting of the Northern Plains Resource Council.
PS – It’s worth noting that Berry was a Jefferson Lecturer in 2012. Walker Percy was the lecturer in 1989 (scrap book and publication).
The Wicked7 Challenge is on. This month it’s the Death of Nature. See this example: the “insect apocalypse.”
Here’s how you can participate >>
