Posters placed in the hallway leading to the room in which the Workshop to design the business model for the strongly sustainable business model toolkit

2. Motivations are more
important than effectiveness,
because you can never truly
know how effective your
actions are
— Joanna Macy
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3. We don’t have to save the world.
The world is big enough to look
after itself. What we have to be
concerned about is whether or not
the world we live in will be
capable of sustaining us in it
— Douglas Adams
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4. Minds awaken in a world. We did not design our
world. We simply found ourselves with it; we
awoke both to ourselves and to the world we inhabit.
We come to reflect on that world as we grow and
live. We reflect on a world that is not made, but
found, and yet it is also our structure that enables us
to reflect upon this world.
Thus in reflection we find ourselves in a circle: we
are in a world that seems to be there before
reflection begins, but that world is not separate from
us.
— Francisco J. Varela
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5. Civilization exists by geological
consent, subject to change
without notice
— Will Durant
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6. The one unchangeable certainty
is that nothing is certain or
unchangeable
— John F. Kennedy
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7. Reality must take precedence, for
nature cannot be fooled
— Richard Feynman
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8. Hope is not the same thing as
optimism. It is not the conviction
that something will turn out well,
but rather the certainty that
something makes sense, regardless of
how it turns out. Assume hope all
you who enter here!
— Vaclav Havel
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9. How do I want to be
remembered?
“She was the one who got
caught… trying!”
— Majora Carter
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10. I can’t understand why people
are frightened of new ideas; I’m
frightened of the old ones
— John Cage
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11. If we do not change our
direction, we are likely to end
up where we are headed
— Chinese Proverb
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12. To change the person, change
the environment
— Buckminster Fuller
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13. The best way to learn and
understand a system is to
change it.
— Russell Ackoff and
Jamshid Gharajedaghi
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14. I can understand why people want
more of a good thing. What I
don’t get is that we seem
conditioned to want more of the
same whether it’s any good or not
— Roxanne Ward
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15. We live in two worlds—
perceptions of experience
alongside conceptions of
understanding— both based on
knowledge and assumptions that
may be wrong
— Richard Gregory
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16. The world that we have made as a
result of the level of thinking we
have done this far creates
problems we cannot solve at the
same level at which we created
them.
— Carl Jung and Albert Einstein
(variously attributed)
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17. Our ‘Age of Anxiety’ is in great
part the result of trying to do
today’s job with yesterday’s
tools, with yesterday’s concepts
— Marshall McLuhan
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18. The plan is nothing; the
planning is everything
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
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19. You cannot, in human experience,
rush into the light. You have to
go through the twilight into the
broadening day before the noon
comes and the full sun is upon the
landscape
— Woodrow Wilson
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20. We are searching for some kind of
harmony between two intangibles:
a form which we have not yet
designed and a context which we
cannot properly describe
— Christopher Alexander
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21. Any medium presents a figure
whose ground is always hidden or
subliminal
— Marshall McLuhan
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22. It is not easy to arrive at a conception
of a whole which is constructed from
parts belonging to different
dimensions… we lack the means of
discussing in its constituent parts an
image which possesses
simultaneously a number of these
— Paul Klee
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23. Design is something far more pervasive and
profound then is generally recognized
Designing is fundamental to being human: we
deliberate, plan and scheme in ways which
prefigure our actions and makings.
Hence we experience Heidegger’s ‘hermeneutic
circle’ and Maturana & Varela’s ‘autopoieses’:
Reflexively, we design our world, while our world
acts back on us and designs us
— Anne-Marie Willis (paraphrased)
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24. A life unexamined isn’t worth
living.
— Plato
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25. A life unlived isn’t worth
examining.
— Michael Lissack
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26. There’s no sense being exact
about something if you don’t
even know what you’re talking
about
— John von Neumann
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27. Just the other day, scientists discovered
they’ve had some basic things completely
wrong. For 300 years they said the world
was really simple beneath its complicated
surface. Now they find out it’s the other
way round. It turns out, we should have
been judging by appearances all along.
Everything is changing constantly
— Kevin McMahon
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28. I believe we are leaving one cultural
and technological age [the machine age
of analysis] and are entering another
[the systems age of synthesis], and that
we are in an early stage of changes in
our conception of the world and in our
way of thinking about it
— Russell Ackoff
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29. Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest of all the
arts
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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30. Tryin’ to make it real—
But compared to what?
— Les McCann
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31. You may never know what
results come of your action, but
if you do nothing there will be
no result
— Mahatma Gandhi
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32. Every significant step in every field is
taken by an individual who has freed
himself from a way of thinking held by
associates and friends who may be more
intelligent, better educated and better
disciplined… but who have not mastered
the art of the fresh, clean look at old
knowledge.
— Edwin Land
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33. Reality is that which, when you
stop believing in it, doesn’t go
away
— Philip K. Dick
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34. It can be very dangerous to see
things from someone else’s
point of view without the
proper training
— Douglas Adams
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35. In this world, there are many
heads, but in each head there is
a different world
— Ida Jo Moreno
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36. The nature of knowledge:
• We accumulate ‘data’ through experience
• We negotiate shared understanding by
exchanging ‘data’
• ‘Information’ – figure plus ground –
appears when our data is in sync with the
social and natural environment of our
experience
— Arnold Wytenburg
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37. I believe in evidence. I believe in
observation, measurement, and reasoning,
confirmed by independent observers. I'll
believe anything, no matter how wild and
ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The
wilder and more ridiculous something is,
however, the firmer and more solid the
evidence will have to be
— Isaac Asimov
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38. The Process of Knowing:
1. I observe my experience of my actions, consciously and
unconsciously
2. I select data from what I observe
3. I add meanings, both cultural and personal
4. I make assumptions based on the meanings I add
5. I draw conclusions
6. I adopt beliefs about the world
7. I take actions based on my beliefs
8. Repeat
…and each time this happens my observations and the data
I select change based on my revised beliefs
— Arnold Wytenburg (paraphrased)
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39. Knowledge is a matter of
testing assumptions against
reality
— Arnold Wytenburg
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40. Those who think ‘Science is
Measurement’ should search
Darwin’s works for numbers
and equations
— David Hunter Hubel
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41. The first steps in the path of
discovery, and the first
approximate measures, are
those which add most to the
existing knowledge of mankind
— Charles Babbage
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42. The scientist is a practical man
and his are practical aims. He
does not seek the ultimate but the
proximate. He does not speak of
the last analysis but rather of the
next approximation
— Gilbert Newton Lewis
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43. Physical concepts are free
creations of the human mind,
and are not, however it may
seem, uniquely determined by
the external world
— Albert Einstein
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44. I cannot tell you the truth. I
can only show you what I see
— Arnold Wytenburg
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45. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes
true, is made true by events. Its
verity is in fact and event, a process:
the process namely of verifying itself,
its veri-fication. Its validity is the
process of its valid-ation
— William James
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46. Where machine-based processing is
inherently derived from the
assumption that ‘a fact is a fact is a
fact,’ human understanding is based
on the ambiguous notion that
nothing is a fact until so deemed.
— Arnold Wytenburg
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47. The mind likes a strange idea as little as the
body likes a strange protein and resists it
with similar energy. It would not be too
fanciful to say that a new idea is the most
quickly acting antigen known to science. If
we listen to ourselves honestly we shall often
find we have begun to argue against a new
idea even before it has been completely
stated.
— William Trotter
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48. Tomorrows Child
Without a name; an unseen face
and knowing not your time nor place
Tomorrow’s Child, though yet unborn,
I met you first last Tuesday morn.
Knowing you has changed my thinking,
for I never had an inkling
That perhaps the things I do
might someday, somehow, threaten you.
A wise friend introduced us two,
and through his sobering point of view
I saw a day that you would see;
a day for you, but not for me.
Tomorrow’s Child, my daughter-son
I’m afraid I’ve just begun
To think of you and of your good,
Though always having known I should.
Begin I will to weigh the cost
of what I squander; what is lost
If ever I forget that you
will someday come to live here too.
— Thomas Glenn
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49. All truth passes through three
stages. First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being
self-evident
— Arnold Schopenhauer
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50. I hold that man is in the right
who is most closely in league
with the future
— Ibsen
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51. Don’t let a mad world tell you
that success is anything other
than a successful present
moment… sense of quality in
what you do, even the most
simple action
— Eckhart Tolle
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52. It’s what you do next that
counts
— Jamie Reagan, repeating
advice from his Grandfather,
from the TV Series
“BlueBloods”
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53. In telling stories, we obey certain principles and laws
of drama and melodrama, of crisis and resolution, of
impact and silence. We generate an energy through
our stories that helps to define who we are and
where we are going. We are all creatures of
narrative, and these narratives are important to us
even if they are tragic narratives. It certainly has
been my observation for many years that individuals
would much rather have a tragic narrative than no
narrative at all, and they will cling to suffering in
order to discover the material for such a narrative
— David Spangler
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54. PROFOUND CONTRADICTION
# 92012-990:
How, in a dominant/hegemonic society
whose ‘institutional’ interest is the
maintenance of things as they are and,
at best, incremental change, do we teach
for the dissent that is necessary to save
the planet, if not our souls?
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55. All models are wrong, but some
are useful
— George Box
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56. Don’t confuse the map with the
territory
— Daniel Kim
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57. Resilient sustainability: the
possibility that human and
other life will flourish on this
planet, forever
— John Ehrenfeld
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58. Unless you can answer four questions
about sustainability, you don’t have a
clue:
1. What do you want to sustain?
2. For whom?
3. For how long?
4. How much will it cost?
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra (paraphrased)
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59. When you go to an expert, the
first answer to your question is
always: ‘Well, yes, it’s a good
question; but I’m afraid it’s a lot
more complicated than that…’
— Jack Cohen
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60. It is our responsibility not to give the answer
today as to what it is all about, to drive
everybody down in that direction and say,
“This is a solution to all,” because we will be
chained then to the limits of our present
imagination… Whereas if we always leave
some room for doubt, some room for
discussion… then this difficulty will not
arise.
— Chris Bates
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61. At the macro level there are only three “simple”
avenues (and combinations) available for
management action to achieve sustainability:
1. Simplify to level commensurate with available
energy.
2. Find more energy to subsidize increasing
elaboration.
3. Use energy supplies as efficiently and effectively
as possible.
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter, Thomas
Hoekstra (paraphrased)
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62. Sustainability is an active
condition requiring choice,
not a passive consequence of
doing less
— Timothy Allen,
Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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63. Sustainability is the interplay
between a continuously evolving
state of nature and a continuously
changing state of mind, not a static
ecological condition; hence
sustainability is only assessable
historically.
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra (paraphrased)
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64. The definition of sustainability
must come from the values of the
observer, it can’t come from the
“material world”; sustainability is
not a “natural law”
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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65. PROFOUND CONTRADICTION
#72891-324
How, as products of educational systems
that have, for the most part, taught us
how to regulate, within ‘common sense’
norms our bodies, our sexuality, our
habits, do we learn dissent?
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66. Recipe for Common Sense
Ingredients
– A dash of good sense
– Three dollops of bad sense
– Nonsense
– The sense of those few who
own and control the greater
share of the material
resources of our world
Method:
– Place in blender
– Hit frappe
Optional Ingredients:
– add bitter pill
– add lots and lots of sugar
(cane sugar fruits or corn syrup
recommended, fruits of oppression
an acceptable substitute)
Common Sense is neither good nor bad – it is common.
Which is to say that it is hegemonic
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67. The things we want to sustain
have only the values we assign to
them, which are (hence) transient,
variable and mutable
— Timothy Allen,
Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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68. Unsustainable practices can
sometimes improve people’s
well-being
— Timothy Allen,
Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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69. Part of the dilemma of sustainability
is that intelligent and well-meaning
people can review indicators of
sustainability and reach quite
opposite conclusions about our
future. Moreover, they could all be
correct
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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70. The task is not so much to see
what no one has yet seen, but
to think what nobody yet has
thought about that which
everybody sees.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
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71. Our urgent need is to produce
knowledge (of what constitutes
sustainability) more rapidly than
the growth of unsustainable
complexity
— Timothy Allen,
Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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72. Silence Descends
At last the wind dies
Now a stillness calms the trees
Now silence descends (Japanese poet and engineer - 1990-2043)
Was the early 21sst century’s 'information age’ a dark age? Not altogether. Over its course the women and men of the planet
became far more known to one another than ever before-the phrase "global village" originated then-and far more learned in the
symbiotic nature of their relationships. They reached levels of education and mental acuity that were virtually unthinkable to
their predecessors. They had all the ingenuity and inspiration that had built up in the thousands of years before them to draw on.
And, for good or ill, let them claim one superlative for themselves: never before or since has the human race been as informed as
it was throughout their span. The Age of Information is aptly named.
But how slight an honour that now stands! What small triumph merely to be informed, to tell and be told flimsy little scraps of
truth in steady, stuporous gibberish! Dazzled by and dependent upon their inventions, the citizens of Information were blind
and deaf to the invisible, wordless realities in their midst. It was not just their amusements that were illusory and escapist-this
they admitted to themselves-but so were their solemnities; they were equally trifling, equally marginal to permanent questions
of spirit and cosmos. Not a dark age, then, yet dim and lusterless, noisy with echoes of echoes, flickered with shadows of
shadows of shadows.
Was it a failure? Time does not judge this way, does not see itself as glibly right or wrong. The Information Age is better
described as the gloom before the morning, as a requisite bridge, into a firmer future. Its final centuries give it a taint of doom
and error, but we might more charitably regard it as a natural cycle of growth and decay. The worst we could do, looking back
from the year 2500, would be to repeat its mistakes and boast of some lasting perfection, to presume ourselves and our ways to
be the apex of civilization forever-as the people of the Information Age did. They thought they had achieved the crowning
destiny of the world, that they had harnessed eternity. They had not. They had only begun to prepare for the coming stillness,
to be not to have, to love and to withdraw themselves into the roaring, receding distance.
— George Case
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73. To be sustainable is clearly a delicate
business. Furthermore, although
none of the elements of sustainability
(monitoring, predicting and problem
solving) can be left out, even
undertaking them all does not
guarantee success
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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74. While social justice is part of
sustainability, and that democratic
systems appear to be the best way of
achieving that, it is irresponsible to
allow populist demands to destroy
the means of production (i.e. the
eco-systems within the biosphere)
— Timothy Allen, Joseph Tainter,
Thomas Hoekstra
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75. Someday, after we have mastered the
winds, the waves, the tides and
gravity we shall harness the energies
of love. Then for the second time in
the history of the world, humanity
will have discovered fire
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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76. Act in such a way that you treat
humanity, whether in your own
person or in the person of any other,
never merely as a means to an end,
but always at the same time as an
end
— Immanuel Kant
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77. In a world of pragmatic thinking, my understanding of
the same world that both of us inhabit is likely to be
different from yours because you and I have led
historically different lives. This realization is important
as a fundamental context of love and acceptance,
because, as long as people are acting and thinking
authentically, no one can own an absolutely “true” belief
about the world or claim to have the one “right” way to
act
— John Ehrenfeld
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78. To be truly authentic, to realize the potential of
flourishing, we need a shift from a view of
ourselves first from one of Having to one of Being
and second from one of Needing to one of Caring.
This involves breaking addictions that have been
put in place by the existing modern culture and
replacing them with an adjusted set of values,
beliefs and behaviours, that fulfil the broken
promises that have left people unsatisfied.
— John Ehrenfeld
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79. Pragmatic beliefs on which to act (truths) arise
during a continuous inquiry by the community of
the concerned (stakeholders). Many business
leaders have a badly mistaken idea that being
pragmatic is doing what ever works for them as
the holder of all that is important to a company.
But that is not true; an entire community of
interests is essential to any inquiry that is likely to
produce useful results.
— John Ehrenfeld
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80. The first thing I need to change is me, in order to
change the world. So I need to listen to what
other people are saying; to listen to how I feel; to
understand my own limits and beliefs and look in
the mirror to see all of the wrinkles and the warts.
First I change myself. And while I do this, I
connect myself with all the other selves with
whom I interact, through listening, reflecting,
learning, understanding, and sharing. And then
we change together.
— Richard Charles (“Doc”) Holloway
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81. • Without awareness, people have only a poor sense of a
change
• Without perspective, people are unable to make good
decisions in the face of change
• Without insight, people can’t share their views and
experiences with change
• Without sufficient well-being (integrity, influence,
competence, impartiality and meaning), people can’t
care for each other and together successfully adopt a
change
— Arnold Wyntenburg &
Merlina Missimer
(Freely adapted from)
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82. Do not dance to the music, just
dance the music
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