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A Dark Matter of Memory: Adding fiction novel to our repertoire
I’ve recently published a novel, A Dark Matter of Memory. It explores the possibility that dark matter (which is a placeholder for unknown parts of the universe) might retain patterns of history. Not only was it a great deal of fun to write, it’s also a different way of approaching social systems design. What possibilities can we imagine, which might then shape the work that creates them? “A Dark Matter of Memory is a love story set in a future beyond nation-states. Alfred Medupe, a young scientist from the African Region, is exploring the possibility of finding memory in dark matter. Then a tragedy makes his search more personal. Is…
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Social Systems and Design podcast
This podcast was hosted by Tom Scholte, as part of the New Books in Systems and Cybernetics series.
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Social Systems and Design (Springer Verlag, 2014) by Gary Metcalf
In the opening chapter of his edited volume, Social Systems and Design, out from Springer in 2014, Gary Metcalf asks if it is possible to establish ethical “first principles” for the design of social systems. Inspired by his mentor, Bela Banathy (a giant of the systems field), and pondering the potential levels of influence we might actually have over the evolutionary development of the social systems in which we are all embedded, Metcalf provocatively asks what sorts of goals should we set for ourselves and what sorts of means should we use to achieve them. Book homepage (Individual chapters can be purchased) Read the book review