u/HumanityOfAMoment

I've been going down a rabbit hole on systems thinking and found this story from a Peter Senge talk that stuck with me. A collapsed clam fishery in Baja got restored, but the biologists moved there and started by building a soccer field for the kids and helping people set up farms, not by regulating fishing.

The main point was that people couldn't stop fishing until they had another way to eat. Population went from near 0 to 3 million in 2 years, and the community enforced it themselves.

I am so fascinated by this example, anyone know other restoration stories that worked because of the incentives/relationships? Book recs welcome too.

Doctorow is a writer who coined the term ‘Enshittification,’ named Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year in 2024. As they put it, enshittification describes “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.” It's everywhere:

• What happened to the experience of trying to call a customer service hotline, now a Sisyphean experience speaking to an AI voice which will not understand you, and only then might you be allowed to speak to a human (who is on minimum wage in a call centre in who knows where, not allowed to help you in any real sense).
• What happed with services and product that are just simple to use, that do not require you to pay a monthly subscription and pay more and more to get more features? They are all designed to squeeze as much money out of you, the customer, as much as possible, with no real thought for the future.
• and so many more

These things were supposed to add something to our life, not to feel like they are chipping away at our soul. Am I alone in this?