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FOREWORD Joi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab 

PREFACE Notes from a Practicing Heart 

 

INTRODUCTION What Are Social Laboratories? 

What Does It Mean to Be Winning?   / Playing in the World

Cup  / The Scale-Free Laboratory   / A Cascade of

Social Labs 

 

1 The Perfect Storm of Complexity 

The Perfect Challenge   / What Is a Complex Social

Challenge?   / The Futile Optimism of Optimization  /

Yemen as a Natural Experiment   / Too Big to Fail, Too Big

to Jail  

 

2 The Strategic Vacuum 

Business as Usual   / The Expert-Planning Paradigm /

Flying Autopilot in the Perfect Storm  / A Lack of Genuine

Strategic Intent  

 

3 The Sustainable Food Lab: From Farm to Fork 

The Race to the Bottom / The Multiple and Conflicting

Logics of Food  / What Is Sustainable?   / Systemic

Spread Betting  

 

4 The Bhavishya Lab: The Silent Emergency 

The Bhavishya Alliance   / The Moon Shot   /

Movement Requires Friction   / Fail Early, Fail Often  /

Business as Usual and Its Radical Refusals  

 

5 The New Ecologies of Capital 

The End of the Beginning  / Emerging Forms of Capital

and Preventing Collapse   / The Dumbest Idea in the World

87 / More Rainforests, Fewer Plantations  

 

6 The Rise of the Agilistas  

The Practical Wisdom of Social Labs   / Starting with

Current Realities  / Events Rupture Dispositions   /

The Right Stuff  

 

7 Steps Toward a Theory of Systemic Action 

First Requirement: Constitute a Diverse Team   /

Second Requirement: Design an Iterative Process  /

Third Requirement: Actively Create Systemic Spaces 

 

8 Starting a Social Lab: Seven How-Tos  

Strategic versus Tactical Thinking   / #1 Clarify Intention

  / #2 Broadcast an Invitation   / #3 Work Your

Networks  / #4 Recruit Willing People /

#5 Set Direction   / #6 Design in Stacks  /

#7 Find Cadence 

 

Conclusion Next-Generation Social Labs 

Averting the Zombie Apocalypse  / State Collapse: A

Stabilization Strategy / Climate Change: A Mitigation

Strategy   / Community Resilience: An Adaptation Strategy

  / The Battle of the Parts versus the Whole 

 

Acknowledgments 

Notes 

Bibliography  

Index 

About the Author  

About Reos