Intro

• Think in a sustainable way
  • A way to not compromise future generations
• Think in term of evolution. To think lean.
• Think of the greatest system, Earth
  • What did it do to build it's systems?
  • It evolved.

History

• History of evolution
  • Darwin
  • Life in the ocean
  • Crawled onto Earth
  • Humans evolved from monkeys
• One realization
  • Species of orchid that very long nectar spur - 30 cm
  • Must be an insect that can reach for the nectar, so it can carry the pollen for the flower to reproduce
  • Idea is that these two evolved together
  • 41 years later, we found that species
• True for all species
  • Wolf evolved with the deer
  • Bears evolved with the salmon
• What about humans, what did we evolve with? What is our role?
  • We've evolved using everything
  • Trees for shelter and tools, plants for medicine and food, animals for food and material
  • We have evolved with these species
    • Using them as slaves
    • We bend them under our control. There's no respect, and we're not sustainable.
• Our societies evolved too and it's allowing this slavery of nature
  • But what is evolution?

Evolution is a process

• Process of change, of balance over time
  • Does not mean better, but more adapted to it's time and environment
    • Survival of the fittest
    • Systems evolve
  • Successful in one environment may fail in another
    • Dinosaurs today would not thrive
• 1 - Adaptation (shorter term)
  • change within lifetime - individual level
  • Polar bear growing thicker coat in winter
  • From 13 to 16 century Archers in the UK - required by law
    • Asymmetry of upper limbs, Stronger wrist and hands
    • Body physically reshaping itself
  • Does not involve the genetic
• 2- Evolution (longer term)
  • Across generations
    • Has to die for new iteration
    • Rather something has to be born
    • History matters
      • What happened previous generations
  • Done through mutation and selection
    • Mutation is a change from one iteration to another
      • Imagine mutation like big changes (growing a 3rd eye)
        • Actually more nuanced, like being a bit taller
    • Selection is what makes only some of them survive and reproduce
  • Over long periods of time you have evolution
  • Examples
    • Fish to amphibians
    • Artificial selection
      • Example of breeding dogs for temperament, or size or color
  • Happens in spurs
    • When there is friction and selection pressure
      • Leverage points. Small changes during those selection periods redirect everything
      • When old adaptations are no longer working to the time and environment
    • Mass extinction after dinosaurs allowed for diverse mammals to evolved quickly because not many could survive
  • Adaptation may be no longer possible,
• When adaptation is not enough
  • Coral reefs bleaching as the ocean warms
    • then transformation or
    • they can't adapt fast enough -> extinction
  • We're living through a time of mass extinction
    • Climate change
• Will species be able to create mutations and evolve? Create new branches that are more adapted to these new conditions?

Iterations

• Small iterations many time
  • Examples of machines that can create complex systems by iterations over time (machine learning)
  • Based on simple rules
    • If too complex, becomes too complicated and dies
    • Need simplicity to build complexity
      • Complexity allows for adaptation
• Good enough rule
  • Having small improvements is better than having no improvements
    • Instead of trying to create the best, you try to do better, constantly, at every iteration.
    • Why?
      • Creates a compound effect
      • You can spend too much time on something that doesn't matter
        • Once done, no longer adapted
        • Nature knows that, it's clever
      • Reduces waste

Lean thinking

• Reduction of waste - things that don't add value
  • Used in manufacturing
    • Developed by Toyota in Japan
• Categories
  1. Overproduction – making more than needed.
  2. Waiting – idle time (people, machines, or information stuck).
  3. Transportation – unnecessary movement of materials or data.
  4. Extra processing – doing more work than required (overengineering).
  5. Inventory – storing more than needed (physical or digital).
  6. Motion – inefficient movement of people or tools.
  7. Defects – mistakes requiring rework.
  8. Underutilized talent/ideas – not using people’s skills or creativity.
• Tools
  • Poka-Yoke -> Error-proofing techniques to prevent defects before they happen
  • Kanban -> Visual system to manage work and workflow (limit work-in-progress)
  • Kaizen -> continuous small improvements -> basically evolution
  • Goal is to create more value with fewer resources
• Observe the full lifecycle - not just the parts
  • Part of system's thinking

Lean thinking in management

• Less waste = better performance
  • Bureaucracy? Housing permits that take years because each exception needs a different stamp
  • Capitalism? Make more than we need?
  • Globalization? Transports things across the globe that we could grow in our backyard?
• If you want to grow to be lean, you need to grow in a lean way
  • The Nasa spaceships not designed lean. Nasa itself
    • Final price equivalent to how much they had to design
  • Think government policies that are super costly and start from the top
    • Are they lean?
    • International organizations that try to make all countries agree together? Are they lean? If they were, would they mostly be ruled by the richer countries?
• Grow through continuous improvements
  • Lean startup book by Eric Reeves
    • Build a business with higher chances of success
      • Important. Not a bigger business. A more likely to succeed. Lean approach
    • Learning fast with minimal waste. Don't build things that people don't care about
    1. Build → Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with the least effort.
    2. Measure → Test with early adopters, gather feedback.
    3. Learn → Decide whether to improve, pivot, or abandon.
    4. Iterate → Repeat the cycle with another MVP or minimal improvement.
    • Example video game: MVP = early alpha version → player feedback → iterate → beta → final release.
• This avoids spending huge resources before knowing what actually works.
• Avoid the trap
  • Start lean but start to add bureaucracy
  • How to stay lean?
  • Need to continuously improve, innovate
  • Need to limit your size
    • Grow too big
    • Franchise
      • Duplicate instead - like McDonalds. Could not grow so big if people could not open their own.

Doing things lean vs doing the right thing

• Einstein: “Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age.”
• Efficiency = doing things right (fewer resources, faster).
• Effectiveness = doing the right things (maximizing impact).
• We may do a very efficient process, but it may not matter
  • Example: Making diesel engine faster and cheaper
  • Example: industrial agriculture -> more yield per acre efficient. But we don't look at energy return. Needs more energy in than out. Agroforestry does the opposite.
• Lean focus on effectiveness first
  • Don't optimize the wrong process
  • Then make it efficient
  • Output quantity ≠ output quality
    • Not just doing more, but doing more with less, and considering quality
• These wastes become invisible. We get used to it
• Encourage continuous evolution rather than rigid one-time solutions
  • Example:
    • United Nation launching a 25 year strategic plan
    • Community adjusting as it goes
• Because small iterations
  • Reducing risks for trying new ideas
    • We need right now
• Governments don't want to take risks - don't want to fail
  • Risk not being re-elected for a mistake
    • System designed that way
• Fail forward vs not failing at all
  • Small failures but at least trying
    • Learning from mistakes
  • vs big failures that we know are coming
    • Not doing anything for the fear of failing (conservatism)
  • Removing accountability

Implementation in government

• It's a way of thinking
  • why I'm talking about it
• One pillar of lean thinking = RESPECT
  • you can't possibly know everything
  • Respect employees and competitors
  • Ability to listen
  • Humility
• Has to be bottom up. The leadership enables the lean thinking, but the evolution happens at the lower levels, not at the top
• Waste is something that don't add value
  • Value is defined as "something a customer is willing to pay for."
• What other definition of waste could we have?
  • Outputs that the natural environment cannot absorb or reuse safely
  • Forest doesn't have waste. Everything gets re-used
  • "There is no such thing as 'away'. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere." — Annie Leonard
• Definition of waste for human values?
  • Harm or neglect human potential
    • Well-being, safety, fairness, accessibility, transparency
    • Maybe we need a metric for this.
• Lean in government = maximizing human potential with minimal environmental waste
  • Respect people’s time, trust, and dignity
  • Biggest waste in society? Unused creativity???
    • Fact that citizens don't participate in decisions or even ideas
• We're focusing on competing one another

Competition and cooperation

• Game theory
  • An eye for an eye
• Both are required
• Pure competition
  • Short-term gain, long-term loss
  • Why so individualistic -> market is only competition and market rules the world
• Specialization comes from either:
  • Competition between species with high diversity
  • Cooperation within species with high diversity
• Cooperation requires a high connectivity
  • Organization. Cooperation requires organization

Tragedy of the commons

• individuals, acting in their own self-interest, overuse and deplete a shared resource, even though it’s against the long-term interest of the group.
  • Grazing, fisheries
• “If I don’t do it, someone else will.” / “It’s not my responsibility.” / “It won’t matter in my lifetime.”
• Elinor Ostrom design principles
  • Clearly Defined Boundaries
    • The community agrees on where their fishing zone starts and ends (e.g., within 5 km of the bay).
    • Only registered local fishers can fish there.
  • Congruence Between Rules and Local Conditions
    • The community sets catch limits and seasons based on the local fish species’ breeding cycles and tides.
    • Instead of one-size-fits-all regulations, they tailor the rules to what they know about their waters.
  • Collective-Choice Arrangements
    • The fishers hold regular meetings to decide quotas, gear restrictions, and no-fishing zones.
    • Everyone has a voice, so rules feel legitimate.
      • When people help make the rules, they’re far more likely to follow them — and adapt them when conditions change.
  • Monitoring
    • The community designates respected fishers to record daily catches and patrol the bay.
    • Because monitors are local, they understand context and are trusted.
    • Transparency discourages cheating — everyone knows who is catching what.
  • Graduated Sanctions
    • If someone catches too many fish:
      1. First, they get a verbal warning.
      2. Next time, a fine or temporary suspension.
      3. Persistent offenders lose their fishing rights.
    • Sanctions are proportional — firm but fair — which keeps community trust intact.
  • Conflict-Resolution Mechanisms
    • The fishers have a small local committee (elders or elected members) that mediates conflicts — say, gear damage or boundary disputes — quickly and cheaply.
    • This avoids long, costly legal battles and keeps social cohesion strong.
  • Minimal Recognition of Rights to Organize
    • The national government allows the fishing community to manage their own bay and respects their local rules.
    • Without this recognition, external forces (companies, politics) could override the community’s governance.
  • Nested Enterprises (for larger systems)
    • Small coastal groups manage their own zones, but they coordinate through regional councils that handle shared waters and migratory species.
    • Each layer (local, regional, national) handles the scale it best understands.
• Why these work
  • Trust and face-to-face communication
  • Local knowledge
  • Social memory - remember who cheats - informal enforcement
  • Shared dependance
• These break down when it becomes too large
  • Too many anonymous actors,
    • Cannot monitor each other
  • Distance between the people that fish and the people who make decisions
    • Decisions that don't make sense locally
  • Allow big players that industrialize the practice, becomes profit over sustainability

Sustainability

• Albert Einstein “Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
• Nature is sustainable
  • Has no waste
  • Disturbance like wildfire, insect infestation, has a purpose
    • Maintain balance
• Feedback loops
  • Negative feedback
    • Bring back to balance
      • Thermostat, body regulation
  • Positive feedback
    • Drive change to a new state
      • Climate change, melting glaciers
  • Feedback delays, overshoot, cycles
• Sustainability as a discipline
  • A way of thinking
  • Sustain production indefinitely
    • Not exceeding the regenerative capacity
      • How is that measured?
      • Maximize value or undershoot it?
      • How often to review
      • Feedback loop with delay may lead to overshoot
• Stories of sustainability
  • Depressing
    • Stop cutting down trees
    • Stop using plastic straws
    • Stop eating beef
  • Cutting trees, using plastic or eating beef is not inherently unsustainable
    • How we do it that matters
    • Leaving the world better than we found it
      • Things like agroforestry
  • Sustainability is not just what you consume but consuming less
  • We are told that we are the problem
    • We can make changes, but changes are hard when the ones doing the unsustainable practices are the forestry companies, the plastic straw making factories, and the industrial livestock farming
• Problem is not us, but the systems
  • Planned obsolescence, excessive advertisements, no alternatives, poor salaries
  • We're not taught to live a more minimalistic lifestyle
• Sustainable system
  • Adaptable

How to reach sustainable system

• Sustainable way to reach sustainability
  • See the full picture, lifecycle
  • Look at old technologies
    • Milk bottles then vs. now
      • Past: Glass bottles collected, washed, reused → minimal waste.
      • Now: Plastic cartons, single-use packaging → convenience but massive waste.
      • What about the milk itself—was it produced locally, sustainably?
• From short-term convenience → to long-term impact.
  • We need to rethink our timescale from our lifetime to multiple generations
    • "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."
    • “Seven Generation Principle.”
      • How much time is 7 generations?
        • About 200-250 years
      • Survival of the community
      • Large scale, survival of the species
    • Unheard of. Our time horizons are 4 years - political cycle
  • Review how we consume
    • From take, make, dispose to circular cycles
• Circular economy
  • Design for Disassembly / Repairability → Reuse over replace
  • Includes less recycling. Recycling sounds great, but a lot of effort to re-use
    • Only as effective as the designs - need to be breakable in the different materials easily
• Again, circular economy just like Elinor Ostrom design principles
  • Break down when the system grows too large
    • You cannot get a global system to agree on a method
      • Cost of governance and coordination
    • You loose visibility and traceability
    • Global capitalism is about selling more, not products lasting longer
      • Told that consumers want low cost and convenience, not necessarily repairability
      • Not the case. The good products are just too expensive
    • Relies on feedback loops -> knowing effects of ones' actions
      • Local systems - wastes are apparent
      • Global systems - wastes are invisible
        • “The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.” - Shigeo Shingo
• Rethink our systems, including the economy to become more local.
  • From Economy to economies
  • Decentralization, but does not mean independent
    • Means interconnected -> a network
      • Network of small governance systems that are adaptable, different
        • To become more Sustainable - avoid the tragedy of the commons
        • Less waste -> systems that are more diversified that are efficient and effective
        • Cooperation within the network
        • Competition with the outside
• If we're serious about sustainability, we need this.
  • How to do this?
    • Cannot change the current system, it's too rigid
      • Start a revolution in the streets
        • But that's how this current system was created
    • Who said we have to play with the rules of that system?
      • Who said we can't create our network of systems in parallel of this one?

Exercise?

• Use your network you build in the system's thinking
  • Identify the wastes that you see

About this episode

• Iterations
  • Collection of ideas
  • Writing in iteration
  • Recording
  • Has an end - set number of episodes
• Good enough rule
  • No audio edit
  • Avoid stuck on polishing for ever
    • Only way I could do all of this while doing my other commitments
    • Not well produced because I don't have a multi-bilionaire directing me like you see some videos online
      • Try to sell you on this AI will make us more efficient
      • Like bioengineering is great
      • Like technology will solve all our problems
      • That we need global governance
        • Those are traps, ones that bring power in the hands of a few people
      • That's what we've been doing and it's failing us
    • Not many people listening because it's authentic
• I know it will need to be edited
• Adapted the approach
• Aiming for self-organization. I created the subreddit, etc, but I want people to take initiatives.
• Sustainable = cross boundaries of time
  • Teaches important things
• Is good enough
  • I am stopping here
    • Ways of thinking is over

Metaphor

“Planting trees whose shade you’ll never sit under.”

• benefit that may only appear decades later, maybe not even for yourself, but for someone else. selfless and long-term
• we are not the end of the story—we are a chapter in a much larger timeline.

We tilt the scales with every choice,
The winds grow loud, the seas find voice.
The Earth responds, as systems must—
Restoring balance, with or without us.

Let me end with this: Changing the way you think might just change your life, and with it, the world.

7 - Why good enough lead to better results