by Joe Ravetz
The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused death and disruption around the world, and also exposes underlying tensions, traumas and conflicts. There are many hard lessons in disaster management, public health, economic recovery and so on. But in this Perspective I would like to look more deeply and widely. I begin some mappings of systemic transformations now in motion, both negative and positive – and then explore what kind of systemic pathways could help steer from one outcome to another. Drawing on the synergistic methods set out in Deeper-City, this agenda includes: –
- Exploring the potential of collective intelligence in pandemic-related systems, from local to global;
- Mapping or designing Pathways towards societal transformation;
- ‘Visual foresight’, shown here with some ‘Corona games’, which help to explore deeper and wider ideas and insights.
The result is a first take on the scope and potential of a Pandemic-3.0. Such a Pandemic-3.0 is basically a system of systems, working both within public health and more broadly, with the capacity to turn crisis towards transformation. A Pandemic-3.0 follows the principles of collective intelligence, in government, technology, urban design and many other areas. And it seems the vital qualities of collective intelligence can be mapped on three main Modes of system organization, ranging from the technical to the co-evolutionary. In summary,
Mode-I systems are framed as technical problems, to be fixed by functional solutions: so the Pandemic-1.0 is a basically focused on epidemiological modelling, public health and medical responses;
Mode-II systems are framed with evolutionary ‘winner takes all’ competition: for the Pandemic-2.0, we look to markets and smart innovations, along with the typical side-effects of waste and inequality.
Mode-III systems are framed as co-evolutionary ‘winners are all’, with synergies between many layers of social, technical, economic, ecological, political, cultural logic and value. A Pandemic 3.0 system mobilizes deeper forms of collective intelligence across wider communities, to bring all these together.
In practice all three Modes are needed to work in parallel. While Mode-I does the basics, Mode-II works with incentives and social psychology, and Mode-III brings all layers together for a Pandemic-3.0 level of transformation.
A game of deeper threat multipliers
In such global crisis, challenges such climate change or rampant inequality are not going to disappear overnight: they seem more likely to magnify up, as new forms of power and wealth and hierarchy emerge. If this COVID-19 pandemic can be contained or resolved, then we can get back to work on these challenges and others: but if it continues (as seems likely) to be messy and divisive, or indeed as the next wave or the next pandemic arrives, then we face new challenges alongside the old. We can use the notion of Deeper Threat Multipliers (as in the USA security / defence industry), visualized as a scenario game-play, to illustrate the challenge and opportunity when multiple challenges of deeper complexity all interact. The graphic in Figure 1 is one of a series of Corona Games, which use the visual game-play format to explore both challenges and opportunities (from work in progress on www.urban3.net/mind-games):
Graphics © Joe Ravetz under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Foresight 3.0 as collective anticipatory intelligence
It seems for these situations of high urgency, uncertainty, conflict and controversy, the Foresight-III approach from the Synergistic Toolkit is very useful (Ravetz and Miles 2016). The methods and tools of Foresight Mode-III or 3.0 extend from standard practice, to explore the scope of collective anticipatory intelligence, the learning and creative potential of whole communities and societies. With simple visual thinking tools, we can begin to explore and map pathways, directions for forward change, not only in crisis management, but of transformation in all systems ‘social-technical-economic-ecological-political’.
The sketches below show three angles on this global crisis of critical danger and opportunity. They start with the saying ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ – and then ask, if new systems of Mode-III social-political-economic cooperation can emerge from this crisis, how to let these grow and flourish? And how to counter or bypass the forces of ‘winner takes all’ populism, of exclusion and intolerance, hijack of truth and expropriation of livelihoods? This is a brief sketch of a planet-sized challenge, again drawing on current thinking on collective intelligence and the pathways from smart to wise (Ravetz, 2020). And if this can help to contain or resolve this crisis, then we are better prepared for the next….
Scenarios – unknowns or unknowables?
As of now it’s an unknown whether COVID-19 can be contained, or continues to multiply or re-emerge: but it’s a deeper kind of unknown as to how social and economic and political systems might interact with the direct effects of the COVID-19. It’s an even deeper unknown (perhaps ‘unknowable’), whether or not social-economic-political systems could return to the old normal, or transform towards some kind of ‘new normal’. So it’s interesting to map out the combinations, as possible ‘what-if’ scenarios, each with a mix of danger and opportunity, and each with a mix of external forces and internal intentions. Here in Figure 2 is a basic map of alternative futures:
Graphics © Joe Ravetz under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
- ‘new panarchy’: we ask, what-if progress is resumed and the pandemic solved, while staying vigilant for the next one? Meanwhile there is deeper and wider learning from the 2020 episode, and a serious agenda to look beyond old-style hierarchies and extractive systems.
- ‘business as usual’: as the general direction of most official or corporate prospectives (OECD, MGI etc), this simply looks to the other side of the pandemic, and aims to reconstruct the familiar game of capitalist-materialist production and consumption.
- ‘real virtuality’: here everything has changed, with technology as the enabler for hyper-networked- isolationists, a new normal of video-holograms, decontamination suits and sterile pods. While humans are endlessly adaptable, this future brings huge challenges for individuals and communities, and maybe opportunities.
- ‘lock-down’: a familiar techno-dystopia of ‘Blade-runner’ surveillance/disaster capitalism. Here the ongoing pandemic and its effects of disruption and trauma, is an open door for power-mongers and warlords who merge with the tech corporates. The graphic shows how ‘safe zones’ can easily turn into exclusion and oppression.
It gets interesting, as it emerges these scenarios are not only neutral visions of a possible alternative futures – they are more like active and contested grabbing of the present and very near future (a week or month at the time of writing). It also gets more interesting to explore these scenarios or similar, not as distinct and separate, more like different angles on a chaotic bundle of deeper realities.
Societal transformations – by accident or design?
To unpack such a bundle, we can follow the domains of social, technology, economic, ecological, political (‘STEEP’ for short), around the material facts of the pandemic, in the centre of a nexus of inter-connections. As sketched on the left of Figure 3, each of these involves not only material facts such as economic growth, but the underlying layers of discourse and myth between all involved (Inayatullah and Black 2020). This could be the beginning of a long project, to explore and map the many cross-connections between each of the circles or domains, many of which are again ‘unknowable’. And for each part of the nexus there’s also a potential counter-case, shown in the connexus on the right, where we explore and map the synergies. With both sides in view then we could begin to design pathways from one to the other, and cultivate the seeds of transformation.
Graphics © Joe Ravetz under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
In the social domain, the pandemic response in lock-down has shut most forms of direct social interaction, along with one third of economic activity in service consumption: it also exposes the gaps and shortfalls in public services, and the underlying inequality and exclusion. However there’s a resurgence of social and cultural values, organizations and systems in different countries, from singing on balconies to a mass volunteering in the health service.
For technology, the door is open ever wider for techno-corporate surveillance and financialization: while local businesses go down, and while community apps and 3D printing emerge, the global ‘GAFA’ platforms are expanding without limit. Meanwhile in a possible future world of distancing and ‘contactless community’, the same digital platforms and networks will also be indispensable keys to interaction and collective action.
Production in the global economic system has been through possibly its greatest ever shock and reduction of GDP, with untold suffering from the newly sick, unemployed, uninsured and homeless. However, there are new patterns of part-time and home-working, along with a deeper questioning of materialist debt-fuelled production and consumption.
For the ecological and climate agenda, the pandemic slowdown has brought clear skies for the first time in generations, even while climate change, species extinction and toxic overload continues. While international cooperation will be more difficult, it seems possible that in a post-pandemic era, new forms of the green deal will emerge along with non-material lifestyles.
Political implications spread in all directions – the most obvious being the extraordinary acts of the state (in some countries) underwriting businesses and workers – and the most extreme, where large (tax-avoiding) corporates carve up the multi-billion bailouts. Again in a post-pandemic era we look for pathways for transformation, with new political-social-economic games in play, and a potential emerging collective political intelligence.
Scientific knowledge and expert practice in a post-truth society may yet emerge as the source of trust and confidence. But the massive uncertainties in the basic science are now entangled with existential controversies. It seems post-normal science is one way to approach this, if it can link ‘science’ with other forms of knowledge (Waltner-Toews et al 2020): but we should talk about not only ‘post’ but ‘pre’-something, in this case a synergistic Science-III (Ravetz and Ravetz 2016).
Collaboratorium – from evolution to coevolution
The trillion dollar question is then, how to shift from crisis to opportunity, and what kind of pathways might enable this. But in reality consensus is lacking on the goals of such transformation: and meanwhile many players are not ‘letting their crisis go to waste’ – rather they are pushing their interests by whatever means, as shown in Figure 4. Another time we would map in this way the whole disaster cycle, from anticipation to preparation, initial response and recovery, and then to resilience and/or transformation. For now we just sketch a typical process of learning, thinking, co-creation and co-production – asking the question, how would different kinds of actors adapt and evolve with these challenges and opportunities, with very different goals, strategies, myths and archetypes? Again it’s useful to frame this with different levels of system organization and learning, from the linear (Mode-I), to evolutionary (Mode-II), to the co-evolutionary (Mode-III).
Graphics © Joe Ravetz under Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
With a linear Mode-I response, seen on the left of Figure 4, we plan ahead with best available evidence, with enforcement on transmission paths, with supplies of medical equipment, and with functional social communications (seen in one or two countries so far). This is the implicit framing of epidemiological analysis, such as the modelling study which informed the UK response (Imperial College 2020).
When the shortcomings of the linear emerge, then Mode-II evolutionary thinking then comes into play, with advanced risk management, socio-psycho ‘nudges’ or incentives, and smart urban micro-engineering (also on the left of Figure 4). But if the overall problem ‘frame’ is how to maintain business or power structures, the crisis is also an opportunity to accelerate the power game of ‘control’. The sketch on the left of Figure 4 shows the result, a dystopian logic of digitally-enabled social engineering solutions.
In contrast the co-evolutionary Mode-III, on the right side of Figure 4, shows many deeper aspirations – where the problem ‘frame’ is about how to use such a crisis for transformation of social-economic-political systems. Here we are talking not only ‘solutions’ but extended pathways, which combine all three Modes. We look for advanced systems of integrated tracking of cases and transmissions (Mode-I): and for the best dynamic social psychology, with incentives and communications for hearts and minds (Mode-II). And most of all we look for a co-evolutionary mesh-work structure (Mode-III), a collective social intelligence in the learning and thinking capacity of communities/organizations / networks.
Some countries such as New Zealand, Taiwan and many of the Nordics, have demonstrated the basic societal qualities, of trusted leadership, social reciprocity, and a functioning public health system (and is it coincidence that many such countries have female leaders?) (Fukuyama 2020). Beyond that, there’s a call for a next generation of social systems: regenerative finance, positive health systems, inclusive social mesh-works, socio-eco-business models, deliberative-associative multi-level governance, to name a few. Each of these can be explored and designed with collective intelligence principles, as pieces of the Pandemic 3.0 jigsaw.
Conclusion and next steps
Whether the future is one of hazmat suits and holograms, or communities partying in the street, this is all to emerge. The main question here is how the world can best respond to fundamental choices, between a ‘bounce back’ to inequality and alienation, or some kind of ‘bounce-forward’. For this it will need to explore many of the ‘pathways from smart to wise’ which are beginning to emerge. And more than any one pathway, this crisis/opportunity calls for a collective creative intelligence to realize the future now emerging.
Author:
Joe Ravetz,
Manchester Urban Institute, Leader ‘Future-Proof Cities’
Manchester University, Oxford Rd, M13 9PL, UK
joe.ravetz@manchester.ac.uk – joe.ravetz@gmail.com
www.urban3.net – www.manchester.ac.uk/synergistics
www.mui.manchester.ac.uk/research/groups/cure/
Acknowledgment:
Some material here is supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council, via the project ‘Peri-cene’. Some material is drawn from the ideas in the book Deeper City (Ravetz 2020).
References:
Fukuyama, F, (2020) The Pandemic and Political Order: It Takes a State. Foreign Affairs
Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team, (2020). Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand. Imperial College. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Inayatullah, S, and Black, P, (2020). Neither A Black Swan Nor A Zombie Apocalypse: The Futures Of A World With The COVID-19 Coronavirus. Journal of Futures Studies. https://jfsdigital.org/2020/03/18/neither-a-black-swan-nor-a-zombie-apocalypse-the-futures-of-a-world-with-the-COVID-19-coronavirus/
Ravetz, J, & Miles, I.D, (2016) Foresight in cities: on the possibility of a “strategic urban intelligence”, Foresight, Vol.18(5), pp469-490, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/FS-06-2015-0037
Ravetz, J, & Ravetz, A, (2016). Seeing the wood for the trees: Social Science 3.0 and the role of visual thinking. Innovation: the European Journal of Social Science Research, Vol 30(01):104 – 120. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2016.1224155
Ravetz, J, (2020), Deeper City: collective intelligence and the synergistic pathways from smart to wise. NY, Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Deeper-City-Collective-Intelligence-and-the-Pathways-from-Smart-to-Wise/Ravetz/p/book/9780415628976
Waltner-Toews, D, Annibale Biggeri, Bruna De Marchi, Silvio Funtowicz, Mario Giampietro, Martin O’Connor, Jerome R. Ravetz, Andrea Saltelli, and Jeroen P. van der Sluijs. (2020) PostNormal Pandemics: Why COVID-19 Requires A New Approach To Science. Discover Society: https://discoversociety.org/2020/03/27/post-normal-pandemics-why-COVID-19-requires-a-new-approach-to-science/
