[Reporting on Nature 2.0] Paradigm jumping

Nature 2.0 hackathon participants and stand-up comedians have something in common: A playful take on reality. Asking what is stupid, hard, weird or scary about day-to-day situations results in big challenges that are attractive to tackle

Humor is intelligence having fun

What happens at a hackathon is magic, and so is creativity, storytelling and… humor. Bright ideas, especially moments of epiphany, and humor have something in common: they produce endorphins, a neurotransmitter that functions as the reward system of your brain. Laughter reduces stress and feels good. It has a decompressing effect on sensible issues such as taboos and opposing political viewpoints. These days, in times of transformation, I consider humor as a necessity. Why? Big societal changes come with a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt (recently coined as F.U.D.) Now think of the decompressing qualities of humor. Laughter has the power to engage and motivate people to see things differently. It makes new ideas digestible, ignite people’s inner fire, makes people understand things, and even start movements. Humor is intelligence having fun.

Humor is intelligence having fun.

A playful take on reality

Browsing your Netflix, you’ll probably agree that stand-up comedians are the one-man-multinationals and pop stars of our times. Think of celebrities like Iliza Shlesinger, Louis CK and Eddie Izzard, three of my personal favorites who clearly demonstrate that laughter can stretch people’s mind, no matter how hard or weird it gets.

It is even more obvious in the work of Trevor Noah (The Daily Show, US) or his Dutch counterpart Arjen Lubach (Zondag met Lubach, The Netherlands): Humor can alter people’s awareness without effort. It makes them adopt new ideas. Laugh after laugh, one shot of dopamine at a time.

When you apply for a stand-up comedy course, you’ll quickly learn that humor is not just talent or X-factor. It comes with technique and hard work.

A joke has a formula that consists of elements such as a theme, an attitude, a set-up, an act-out, … Jokes are algorithms. A defining element in the equation is ‘attitude’. Judy Carter, the author of the Comedy Bible defines ‘attitude’ as “your playful take on reality”

Here is her recommendation to nourish a ‘playful take on reality’

Take ordinary life and day-to-day situations and ask what is Stupid, Hard, Weird or even totally Scary about it.

In order to increase your sense of humor, you should train yourself looking at the world with new eyes. Ask what is stupid, hard, weird or scary in everything you see and experience. The more day-to-day your subjects are, like car traffic, going out, television, consumption, relationships, the better you will connect with your audience. On a snap of a finger, you create an intimate relationship by sharing an unusual perspective on what is usual. This is where the magic happens and that is exactly what participants at the hackaton do too.

Paradigm jumping

In the seven steps towards the unimaginable, Jan Peter Doomernik encourages participants of the Nature 2.0 track to think big, be inspired by large global issues, create new ecosystems and make the concept of business models obsolete.

In the first few hours during the Odyssey Hackaton 2019, I took it to the test. The Nature 2.0-track is all about creating commons; ownerless infrastructures that connect people with nature and technology in ways that result in abundance. All of the participants are grown up in a society and era where all that surrounds us, is the result of market logic and a dominant regime of business models. It is hard to let go of a reality where all produce and behavior is money related in some way. After tapping random Nature 2.0 participants on their shoulders, I engaged them in a thought experiment.

“Imagine you are an alien. You head to planet earth, discover easily that there is such a thing as ‘homo sapiens’ and you start studying the phenomenon. What is weird, hard, stupid or scary about them? You as a team are the aliens. What are you doing to liberate them from their suffering?

Looking at their drawing tables and transformation canvasses filled with post-it notes, they came up with the following answers. The answers came natural, spontaneous and intuitive:

• We consider ‘Waste’ as weird. Why do materials have no value any more after a single use? (Nathalie, Team BuffaloNetwork)
• What is scary is that humans lack humility. They kill other lifeforms in order to survive. That is why we build different ecosystems to supply a basic protein income for everyone (Michiel, Team pFTW)
• Our relation with materials is stupid. We erode raw materials that need millions of years to regenerate (Janin, team Habari)
• What is hard? Pulling people out of their vectors. In order to make them cooperate for the common good, you have to disconnect them from self-interest (Brian, Team SourceCred)
• Democracy is weird and stupid. One man, one vote (among millions of other people) results in ‘voting apathy’. We want to build a system of ‘always-on signaling’ instead of voting (Stefaan, Team The CommonStack/ Giveth)
• What is both scary and stupid is that our entire digital infrastructure is centralized. The power is in the hands of the powerful (Dan, Team Kryha)
• What is both weird, scary and stupid is that despite our awareness on climate change, we destroy forest and ecosystems. Therefore we want to build a DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organisation) that takes care of nature. (Marcus, Team Pines&Electronics)

All demonstrate a playful take on reality. The intent is not to come up with incremental novelty or the next Silicon Valley unicorn. It is not about the next ‘twitter-meets-facebook-for-chicken’. The paradigm jumps are there to go beyond money making machines. The aim is to ignite change. Not by numbers and statistics, but by triggering people’s imagination with a new world.

Unimaginable, but buildable.