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claire_58We live in a time of rapid change and uncertainty. The 50 year failure of the environmental movement has left us with a tangle of interconnected problems. Ecosystem destruction; freakishly high levels of pollution of the land the water and the atmosphere; and resource depletion combine to create a looming crisis of epic proportions. We are faced with increasing political and economic instability and it’s clear that there will be no large scale co-ordinated efforts to address any of it.
This blog is about what we can do, as ordinary people in families and small groups, to create lives worth living; to build a future worth having; and to be a force for renewal and regeneration in our much depleted world.
While the internet remains a useful tool (the sheer volume of people making content on various internet platforms make it possible to learn skill or find out anything about anything), what concerns us here is how information can be understood in the context of systems and systems thinking. More specifically, how we can use an understanding of the movement of information to maximize our ability to navigate an uncertain future.
This is the third post on Practicing Systems Thinking. Whole systems are made up of Energy, Matter, and Information. Each of these has a different pattern of movement and depletion. Tracing the flows of each is essential to developing an understanding what is happening in the system. Understanding how they move makes it possible to catch and store resources and make the best possible use of them.
Information is a key limiting factor in all systems. It is also the most perishable. Information moves erratically and is easily lost or corrupted. Good accurate information is essential to the success of any project. Lack of information or misinformation can have severe negative consequences in decision making or system design.
First a distinction must be made between “data” and “information.” The difference is meaning and intention. Data can provide information if you can interpret it. It’s meaningless without context and significance. Intention is what gives it both.
If you are walking through an unfamiliar neighbourhood the street signs and landmarks are information. As you look around your brain will scan the trees and shrubs on the boulevards, the houses, and the landscapes around them searching for anything unusual to mark the territory. Most of what you see will not register. The plants themselves, as well as birds, the clouds in the sky, and other animals roaming the area are irrelevant “noise.”
If you are walking through the same neighbourhood with a bag in your hand and an urban foraging guide in your pocket, the plants in the landscape will have your full attention. The houses, streets signs, and random creatures all recede into the background. Your brain automatically filters out and ignores irrelevant data so you can focus on what matters.
The difference between information and data is intention.
The second point is that information is fragile. It is easily lost if not used and easily corrupted if not preserved and carefully passed on.
There was a time when anyone over the age of 11 could read a clock face and count out change. Now counting out change is unheard of and many young adults have never learn to tell time other than digitally. These skills are not important but the same story can be told about many once common skills. Try finding your way around without GPS or Google Maps. Or predicting the weather without checking your phone.*
Preserving information has always been an essential aspect of the development of human societies. Written languages have been developed many times and in many places around the world and non-literate cultures take passing on information very seriously. In “The Memory Code” Lynne Kelly documents the many traditional practices and memory aid technologies used by Australian cultures and shows how widespread these thing were throughout the ancient world.
As modern people we have a wealth of information at our fingertips.** The problem is our information storage system is the most fragile ever created. “The Cloud,” is a fantastically inaccurate description of an enormous network of very solid and massive data centres.
The system is incredibly complicated; relies on multiple redundancies at every stage of the process to maintain data; and has an insatiable appetite. Data centres in the US alone consume energy(168 billion kWh annually), materials (228 kt/year to produce components ), and water(100–200 billion gallons per year) at an phenomenal rate.
The tech bros and political elites will probably do their best to keep the it running as long as possible but it’s very likely that the easy access we enjoy today will be an early casualty of the long descent.***
Right now because we are still in the process of discarding the most recent ways of storing information the thrift stores and charity shops are full of books on any kind of hobby or practical skill you can imagine. Collecting books strategically is well worth considering. Books on practical skills like cooking, gardening, and doing repairs as well as books on ecology, weather guides and field guides to your local ecosystem, etc should top your list.
More importantly you may want to consider training your brain to store and retain information. According to Kelly’s most recent book The Knowledge Gene, one of our most unique human traits is our ability to encode information. For over 70,000 years**** people all over the world have used our uniquely human skills in music, art, spatial abilities, story and performance to store and convey knowledge.
Electronic data is effervescent; books and paper burn and decompose; clay tablets crumble; stone cracks, breaks, and is eroded by wind and water. Yet the Kalamath people in Oregon tell a story about the clash of the gods that created Crater Lake that contains accurate descriptions of geological events nearly 8,000 years old. Oral stories kept by Australian cultures describe the ocean level rise that goes back to the end of the last ice age.
Ironically, art, music, and story telling, our most ancient art forms, are the most durable way to store information.
*These are vital survival skills for non-industrial people. Before computers street and road maps were readily available in gas stations and convenience stores and asking strangers for directions was commonplace.
**Finding information has never been easier. Sorting it, understanding it, determining its accuracy is another story.
***If you doubt this you may want to think deeply about the meaning of “sustainable.”
**** The actual genetic mutation that makes this possible may go back as far as 600,000 years.
A Smorgasbord of Comments
Date: 2026-05-30 09:24 pm (UTC)A few random thoughts from my side:
Information as a component of whole systems: when I first came upon this concept a long time ago, I found it perplexing. Yes – energy and matter I understand. But information in a natural ecosystem? What information is being communicated and from what to what? Then, once I started reading up on organic gardening, I found out that as soon as a seed sprouts it sends out tens of thousands of different biochemical messages into the soil, saying in effect to bacteria, fungi and many other “critters” in the soil ecosystem, “I’m here! Let’s meet up!” I then learned about the “wood-wide web” – that is, the complex web of information sharing among plants (even among species) within a forest ecosystem.
And now there are some geophysicists who are drawing links between certain kinds of solar activities and fluctuations and patterns in Earth’s natural resonant and harmonic frequencies as well as geological activities (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and such): who knows what kind of information sharing is going on within our solar system? (I know, scientific materialists pooh-pooh such a concept since planets, stars, asteroids and comets are just “lifeless matter” to them; well, if they want to plug their ears and sing loudly, “La-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you!” endlessly despite mounting evidence to contradict that theory, I don’t think that I can stop them.)
“Predicting the weather without checking your phone”: this one just kills me! My dad – who spent much of his life outdoors – taught me a lot about weather prediction based on observing wind and clouds. I passed this knowledge on to my son. And now, he has taken this knowledge a quantum leap forward: when learning to be a pilot, he had to study a lot about atmospheric phenomena and then supplemented it with the wealth of information that’s out there on the ‘net’. When working on construction projects, he is always looking around, and when he sees a noteworthy change, he’ll tell his construction buddies what is going to happen, from what direction and how soon. And then he grins when the change happens exactly as he predicted and his buddies look at him in amazement as if he is a sorcerer or something. No weather app required! Hell, half the time he can beat the weather forecasting algos in terms of accuracy!
Regarding “the Cloud” and such. Funny how the more “advanced” out society becomes the more ephemeral and risk-prone our methods of information storage and retention become. I worked for an information-intensive company for a long time. As the decades rolled by the “tech” in the server room became more baroque and labyrinthine. And then, when the IT company that bought us out commanded that “thou shalt not have a server room” and that all corporate data must be up in “the Cloud” I headed for the exit. I didn’t want to be around to see what happens when (not “if”) our data – some of which has government “secret” security status -- either gets hacked or vanishes into the Void.
Regarding oral narratives as a stable and long-term method of storing information, it just so happens that I recently watched a video of Graham Hancock discussing this very thing. He contends that it is possible that a great deal of “advanced” information from previous (perhaps even forgotten) civilizations are preserved through legends and that only once a new civilization becomes advanced enough that this information is recognized for what it is; that is, the story-teller is the vehicle for conveying the information over the course of centuries or millennia not recognizing it for what it is, but all that he knows is that it is “part of the story”. In case you are interested, it is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4oL88wB5MM
Re: A Smorgasbord of Comments
Date: 2026-05-31 05:00 am (UTC)Love the weather "sorcerer." I knew a guy from Fort Mac when I was in Uni in Calgary. We were going out to an event one summery evening and he said "It smells like snow." He insisted on going back to the house to get warmer clothes for us. Sure enough when we came out of the concert it was sleeting. Amazing. I still wonder sometimes how he could smell snow.
Encoding information for future civilizations to find once they are advanced enough to understand ins't so far fetched. It's similar to what the Australian groups do to teach children. All the songs and rhymes and stories of childhood have encoded meaning. Training for initiation rituals includes revealing the codes.
That blew my mind. The things you learn in childhood are never forgotten!
Re: A Smorgasbord of Comments
Date: 2026-05-31 06:52 am (UTC)Do you think that nursery rhymes might be more than nonsense or satire?
Re: A Smorgasbord of Comments
Date: 2026-05-31 11:15 am (UTC)As for your Fort Mac friend who can smell snow. I can do it, too - and I have absolutely no explanation for it (which makes it all the more intriguing).
Re: A Smorgasbord of Comments
Date: 2026-06-01 02:49 pm (UTC)Some of the actions songs we learned in kindergarten in the early 1960's were from much older traditions. "The More We Get Together" was used by field workers to keep rhythm and pace while scything grains while reminding everyone of the value of collaboration in gathering the harvest. Sea shanties were used in a similar way to set the pace while rowing or hauling ropes.
I also remember learning that "folk music" originated not just as entertainment, but as a way for ordinary people to keep their own history, the history that never makes it to the history books, alive. A form of resistance to powerful people imposing their interpretation on events.
Fascinating stuff.