E142| Anthro-Complexity: Entanglement, Wayshaping and Addressing Existential Threat w/ Dave Snowden
What is Anthro-complexity? What makes humans different? How can we respond with wisdom, at scale, to our entanglements? Welcoming the return of polymathic thinker and renowned complexity practitioner Dave Snowden, in dialogue with Tim Adalin. Find Dave’s previous conversations on Voicecraft: "Civilisation, Science & Spirituality" and "Artificial Intelligence & Human Reasoning”.
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The following shownotes are AI generated (and human reviewed) to give a rough sense of topics covered and to aid with search discovery.
Chapter Descriptions
0:00 — What is anthro-complexity? Dave traces the origins of anthro-complexity and why human beings can't be modeled like termites or ants. He distinguishes it from computational complexity, the psychodynamic tradition, and cybernetics.
5:00 — The estuary metaphor The estuary as a governing metaphor for complexity — a highly complex ecology sitting on a boundary between states that doesn't try to resolve itself. Dave introduces the blog series using film and television to develop the idea further.
8:36 — Entanglement, not relationship Why Dave insists on "entanglement" over "relationship" and introduces "perdurability" as a concept that absorbs resilience, robustness and anti-fragility. Language as the master of thought, after Heidegger.
16:09 — Orientation and the Pelagian turn Orientation as the most critical part of Boyd's OODA loop, and a theological detour through Augustine and Pelagius that reframes the debate between authority-dependent and agency-based approaches to change.
23:32 — Distributed ethnography and the problem with facilitators Why workshops always give too much authority to the facilitator, and how making young people ethnographers in their own communities changes the substrate of decision-making.
35:37 — The falcon and the pigeon A Sufi story about Mullah Nasruddin that captures the danger of simplifying complex approaches. Dave connects this to his Celtic debating tradition and six generations of civil disobedience.
46:25 — Three dangers: appropriation, distraction, destruction The three threats facing anthro-complexity as it gains traction — appropriation by systems thinkers, distraction through lotus-eating inner development movements, and outright destruction.
54:58 — Who is this for? The shift from early adopters to early majority. Dave names the markets where complexity is gaining traction — military, government, pharmaceutical, development — and why cost and risk reduction are the entry points.
1:09:06 — Shamans, priests and roles that will emerge A wide-ranging exchange on cultural appropriation, the function of priests and shamans in human history, Dave's trepanning story, and why new roles must emerge from changed interactions rather than be predefined.
1:30:07 — Encounter, context and the triopticon Why bringing people together from radically different backgrounds in unfamiliar contexts matters more than mediating dialogue. Dave describes the triopticon — a ritualized form of encounter he spent four years designing.
1:42:50 — Changing how decision-makers listen How to change the substrate so that people in power encounter authentic signal rather than filtered advocacy. The Liverpool food bank model and why you have to work with the whole system at scale.
1:55:00 — The limits of dialogue and what comes next Tim and Dave sit with the tension between intimate conversation and systemic change. What would be different around a fire, and why the bad news driving new openness is war, conflict and environmental catastrophe.
Keywords
Anthro-complexity, Cynefin, entanglement vs relationship, perdurability, way shaping, substrate, the estuary metaphor, distributed ethnography, the Pelagian turn, demes and macro-demes, the triopticon, obliquity, losing assemblages, inner development goals critique, faux mysticism, cultural appropriation of indigenous knowledge
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Dave is the creator of the Cynefin Framework and originated the design of SenseMaker®, the world’s first distributed ethnography tool. He is the lead author of Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis: A field guide for decision-makers, a shared effort between the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, and the Cynefin Centre.
He divides his time between two roles: founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Cynefin Company and the founder and Director of the Cynefin Centre. His work is international in nature and covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy and organisational decision-making. He has pioneered a science-based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience, and complex adaptive systems theory. Using natural science as a constraint on the understanding of social systems avoids many of the issues associated with inductive or case-based approaches to research. He is a popular and passionate keynote speaker on a range of subjects and is well known for his pragmatic cynicism and iconoclastic style.
Learn more about Dave and Cynefin at https://thecynefin.co/team/dave-snowden/
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Tim is the founder of Voicecraft and a philosopher with a focus on the relation between participation and transformation. You can connect with Tim individually @ https://www.timadalin.xyz
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