Four For Friday | June 28, 2024
LF130 | Bioregional Financing Facilities, Ray Kurzweil on the impact of AI, How To Citizen, and a decade of building a DAO
Welcome to Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week. Enjoy!
Weekly Snapshot: Back in Melbourne with a quick trip to an excellent financial longevity workshop in Sydney hosted by Dr Abby Bloom and Anne Marie Elias. Then a catch up in Melbourne with financial longevity guru Stephen Huppert.
Bioregional Financing Facilities (BFFs)
Thought that BFF meant Best Friends Forever? Think again.
One of the most critical areas to explore in order to transition our economy to a more sustainable one, is how to redirect financial capital to improve the world, not just amass more capital.
A new phrase to add to the (already rather bloated) lexicon of systems change is ‘Bioregional Financing Facilities’. This concept, developed by an ex-World Bank expert and UK systems design agency, Dark Matter Labs.
The book suggests we need a new kind of institution that connects financial resources of all shapes and sizes (philanthropy, impact investing, donations, pension funds etc) with local place-based regeneration activities that are often not included in the traditional financial system.
Though there’s now some capital flowing towards regenerative projects, it’s generally within the current extractive system and existing power relationships; this would create a new set of institutions suited for the transition, informed by local knowledge and indigenous wisdom.
The book suggests four types of 'BFF’: Trusts, Venture Studios, Investment Companies and Banks. Lots of good concepts and frameworks in this document that can also serve to inform discussions around funding new models for healthy longevity.
Ray Kurzweil on AI transforming the physical world
In an essay in The Economist, futurist Ray Kurzweil lays out an upbeat vision for how AI will soon reinvent multiple aspects of our lives. (Hat tip to Albert for the find). Some choice statistics:
Capturing 0.01% of the sunlight the Earth receives would cover all human energy consumption.
Since 1975, solar cells have become 99.7% cheaper per watt of capacity, allowing worldwide capacity to increase by around 2m times
The price-performance ratio of computing has increased 75-quadrillion-fold since 1939
Last year the first drug designed end-to-end by AI entered phase-2 trials (for lung disease). Dozens of other AI-designed drugs are now entering trials.
In all of history until 2022, science had determined the shapes of around 190,000 proteins. That year DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2 discovered over 200m, which have been released free of charge to researchers to help develop new treatments.
Ray predicts “longevity escape velocity” to happen between 2029 and 2035—at which point ageing will not increase their annual chance of dying.
How To Citizen
A TED conversation about the future of democracy, reflecting the need for a critical review and reassessment of our failing Western democratic system.
Baratunde Thurston outlines four principles of the concept of ‘citizen’, which he defines as an active verb, not a passive noun:
Show up - have a role to play
Understand power, and your role in it
Commit to the collective sel
Invest in relationships with self, others and the planet
Adrienne Maree Brown suggests it’s time for America to “care and repair” and should admit that it doesn’t know all the answers and open up a conversation with others around the world to figure out new models together. Such welcome, fresh and humble thinking.
For DAOs, with Love
A good summary of a decade building a decentralized self-organizing system at New Zealand impact consultancy, Enspiral. Though they got started before Web3 and DAOs made this in fashion, there are some enduring lessons relevant regardless of type of technology used.
A shared mission that unites around a North Star, although there’s plenty of divergence for how it’s implemented
Around 200 high agency people - similar to Dunbar’s number, this reaches a critical mass of a diversity of expertise and skills needed
Support to build ventures - being open to emergent projects at different levels of maturity
A central structure and finance commons - not just a community, but one with a bank account and shared ownership
Space for relationships - weaving community to build trust is vital
A collective system to deliver a shared ambition - the impact of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
It also suggests a number of ‘layers’ that were needed to build Enspiral:
Legal & structural layer - a limited liability company with steward owners and profits invested in the mission.
Shared financial management layer - transparent financial management for all members - easy to see who gets what.
The roles and coordination layer - including roles such as members, catalysts, working groups, ‘minimum viable boards’ and sprints.
The social layer - including circles, pods and retreats
The governance and economic partnership layers
For those interested, these ideas are laid out in more detail in the Enspiral Handbook here.
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen