The Third Attractor

Daniel Schmachtenberger

Perhaps as a consequence of being so clever, Schmachtenberger is prone to a lot of jargon.  He uses the term "Third Attractor" quite a lot, so it's worth getting its definition clear in your mind (and mine).  Personally I mostly learn from repetition so here is your first chance to understand the title of this talk:

Attractors are a concept from physics about the various states, stable, unstable, and fluctuating, that a system can have.  In respect to human societies, attractors are used to discuss potential future states that we can fall into.

  1. The first attractor is a global system that gets its stability from top-down control.  Authoritarianism, dictatorship are the examples here, but this could also be the dominance of one society or class. This attractor has the ability to make bold decisions; however, this can be for good or ill.
  2. The second attractor is perhaps the one we currently have.  A system in which stability comes from many competing actors balancing each other out. The problem here is that if co-operation is difficult or impossible in this system, global issues like climate change, migration, bad actors, and environmental issues cannot be addressed.
  3. The third attractor is thus the state that Schmachtenberger and thinkers like him are propagating as where we need to move to. This is where power is decentralised, giving the stability of the second attractor, whilst the effective centralised coordination of the first attractor is achieved via cooperation, democratic processes, and rational discussion, of which the best of our scientific community are an example.

So there you go, as much for me as it was for you, hopefully this helps orient you as you listen to this important discussion.

Published

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6 months 1 week ago

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