As we undertake this massive process of redesigning our world from the bottom up, it's important to create a shared vision of the future that we want.
OpenCivics' Pillars of Civic Innovation are design principles for ethical, systemic innovation.
Resilience is the state and the capacity for adaptive self-organization sufficient to provide core life support function across changing world circumstances.
As things change over time, resilience ensures we have the ability to adjust and adapt without losing our essential needs. The philosophy of decentralization is inherent to the philosophy of resilience, because centralized structures are fragile and non-adaptive whereas decentralized structures are modular, adaptive, and redundant to ensure their function as circumstances stress the integrity of a system. For example, imagine compostable bio-plastic 3D printer micro manufacturing to minimize dependencies on international industrial supply chains. This is a way of creating decentralized local infrastructure that allows us to more easily meet needs locally and adapt to change.
Vitality is Life’s capacity to create more Life, the embodied state of thriving that emerges from the interconnected levels of well-being and quality of life for individuals, communities, and ecologies.
Vitality is based on the indigenous Quechua principle of Sumak kawsay , which means “I am well because you are well”. This implies that unless our ecologies are thriving, we cannot be well either. We are all connected and our experiences of thriving are all connected. This has to do with bioregionalism, how we steward our soil and water, and how we design our systems to account for all the levels of well-being.
Choice is the state of fundamental respect for the sovereign agency of all beings and the capacity of individual agents to express their agency and influence their circumstances.
Designing for choice compels us to design systems that support agency, not constrict or take it away. Systems of self-definition are systems in which agents opt-in and I choose how they want to participate. Choice also implies that agents have the ability to assert their will and change their situation if they are not satisfied or fulfilled. An example of this is a principle from Elinor Ostrom, which states that people who are affected by a governance structure should be able to participate in its and modify it. Choice is fundamental because unless all agents are all able to participate in the design and application of our systems, systems designers may not include a particular voice, producing unhealthy cultures of dominance.