Arend van Campen

Here is a listing of some negative interdependent industries, organisations, corporations, political ideologies. I will also add the non-linear effects (beyond control). Let me first start by explaining what negative interdependence means and compare it with the opposite which is 'positive interdependence’. Positive interdependent?   All stakeholders will benefit. Negative interdependent? Only some stakeholders benefit because others (people, society, environment, flora, fauna, etc.) will or cannot. It becomes quite easy to understand which organisation, services or products are negatively interdependent and which ones are not but luckily the number of sustainable ones is growing fast. Let's start with the First Cause Principle: the financial industry, which in fact is causing organisations, people, industries, political processes to act with in mind the intention of financial gain. The intention to make money has become prioritised and leads to ignoring in...

Realimity Theory – Realimity Principle – Realimiteit Lynn Margulis: ‘ if it metabolizes it is alive, if it not metabolizes it is not. ’ We have to take into account that there is a natural limitation for the realisation of goals.  Desired realities or goals can be achieved and only be sustainable within natural boundaries of functionality which are dependent on cognition, i.e. interaction with environment by a continuous exchange of information. Life or living systems (Capra, Bateson) depend on the criteria needed for survival; for example health: a non polluted environment, social safety, biological and ecological balance. According to Maturana and Varela ’ s Santiago Theory of Cognition, life is autopoietic; this means it creates, maintains and sustains itself through communication (cognition) with environment. The sustenance of life therefore depends on the availability of creative conditions. Life that encounters ‘ destructive ’ conditions will perish as it ca...

TankTerminalTraining in cooperation with Creazene.org offer a new training program based on research about causality of Risk and Sustainability in the energy sector. It shows that 79% of risks can be contributed to human decision making. The other 21% of risks are caused by non human influence such as weather, floods, volcanoes, drought, earth quakes, etc. Once we understood this, says Arend van Campen, leader of the research team, we then looked at decision makers’ awareness, motivation and if they were able to understand their company or organisation as a living organism. Also an important question was if they were approaching Risk and Sustainability from a mechanistic or reductionist position or from deontological motivation, their duty.   This was needed, because rational, mechanistic thinking usually only understands and deals with linear causality (direct effect), but have sometimes difficulty to understand non linear causality (indirect and unpredictable effect). ...

Dec. 28, 2016 This is an excerpt from my upcoming book ‘Coltan, Congo’s Curse’ Pauline has a chance to address the US President and the United Nations Secretary General on solving global crises such as the one on conflict minerals in Africa. Pauline suddenly realised that a more senior and more powerful audience than today would be impossible and with a nodded encouragement of Erik, she cleared her throat and tried to simplify her answer because this would be one unique chance only. ‘Gentlemen,’ she started, ‘Systems theory or Systems Thinking is science. It is a rather recent, but not a new science of how we see, understand and experience our world. It emerged around the nineteen twenties based on the vision that the whole cannot be understood from the parts alone. We see this world, our earth or planet as a living system where everything on it, the people, the sky, the plants, the water, all, are interconnected and interdependent because only as a complete system it can ...

Using Systems Theory or Thinking, we can understand harmful or disturbing processes by asking: Has all information (feedback) been allowed to base decisions on? If a preset goal or purpose doesn’t allow ALL information and therefore only selects information that is suitable, the direct consequence is instability. A next step for an organization that insists the goal justifies the means is enforcement until a regulator intervenes to stop the harmful process. This is unsustainable, opportunistic behaviour. But just look how energy, big pharma, GMO industries, political parties or governments operate? They only use information that amplifies (positive feedback) and do not allow or deny dampening info (negative feedback), hence the status of our world.   What we can do with this formulae is cooperate with only those organizations who are transparent (allow all feedback) and share goals of sustenance with them. Many products we generally buy will become questionable and we won’t...

Als ik de kranten en het nieuws op internet lees, wordt ik meestal niet echt vrolijk. Een verschil in berichtgeving tussen bekende kranten, televisie journaals en alternatieve nieuwssites geeft een algehele separatie tussen betrouwbare en onbetrouwbare informatie weer. En wat doet het met de mens? Hij of zij weet niet meer wat waar of niet waar is, dus hij of zij kan niets en niemand meer vertrouwen. Dat schept wantrouwen en dat is een sociaal schadelijke en ondermijnende menselijke waarneming. Dit zie je terug in de politiek. Een andere definitie voor politiek is ‘separatie’. Iedereen wil wat anders. Iedere partij heeft haar belangen. Ze handelen dus in belangen, niet in menselijkheid. Ondanks vele boeken en publicaties, sommige al zo oud als de mensheid, online video’s, documentaires of spreekbeurten, worden kennis, wetenschap, filosofen, ethici, systeemdenkers of anderen die zich betrokken voelen met het leven op aarde genegeerd door hen die gemotiveerd zijn dat te doen. Econ...