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From growth to care: remembering what we learned during lockdown

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 5d

"Two compelling recent books provide different but complementary answers to what should organise our economies when growth is no longer possible or desirable: care" - read my review of @timjackson.org.uk 'The Care Economy' & @ecodenker.bsky.social 'Dare to Care' www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-g...

Spring 2020: Streets were empty, economies frozen, yet something remarkable emerged. Health workers and care givers mattered.

Frankenstein's warning: when creators lose control

Reposted by Willy De Backer BE

Kate Raworth @kateraworth.bsky.social · 6d

Big Doughnutty News.
Just out in Nature: the all-new 2025 Doughnut. Transformed from a single-year snapshot to an annual global monitor of 21st century social & ecological thriving. Available to all in an open-access paper by @andrewlfanning.bsky.social and me. 🧵 1/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 6d

New episode of my literature series 'Reading for the world to come': What Mary Shelley's Frankenstein reveals about our AI future
#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Literature #SiliconValley #AIGovernance
www.linkedin.com/pulse/franke...

Re-reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in September, I was struck by how the AI debates currently dominating some of my posts echo the novel's central warning: what happens when creators refuse respon...

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 9d

My evaluation of the @eea.europa.eu report on the state of Europe's environment:
"The EEA's data underlines a pessimistic reality, yet its narrative remains optimistic. This contradiction needs confronting."
@teresaribera.ec.europa.eu @jessikaroswall.ec.europa.eu
www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-e...

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 14d

Can you tell me where you see a future hegemon that is working on an ecologically sustainable, socially just, and culturally plural vision? @soumayamajdoub.bsky.social - and please do not answer me the EU.

Soumaya Majdoub @soumayamajdoub.bsky.social · 14d

Yes but the fall of US hegemony isn’t a tragedy and shouldn’t be seen as geopolitical. It’s exactly what the world needed. For decades it enforced a system of extraction, war & domination. Now the door is open to other futures that are ecologically sustainable, socially just, and culturally plural.

Beyond sufficiency: the complex politics of 'enough'

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 15d

Read my new LinkedIn post on the complex politics of #sufficiency, resource scarcity & the need to recognise limits
www.linkedin.com/pulse/beyond...

A recent LinkedIn post by Flemish think tank Oikos on the limits of flying sparked my thinking about the broader question of sufficiency. Their argument was compelling: there is no "right" to unlimite...

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 21d

Try to see the bigger picture - I suggest you read my recent LinkedIn article on the EU's Circular Economy strategy
#circulareconomy
@eeb-economyclimate.bsky.social
www.linkedin.com/pulse/time-r...

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 21d

Soumaya, kan je mij jouw artikel toesturen?

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 22d

Correct analysis @jelmerevers.com -although I believe #Draghi does not understand that his logic of growth and competitiveness before all else, will lead to that outcome. Read my recent article www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-r...
@sotiriat.bsky.social @aida.follows.technology

From reformist to Cassandra: why Draghi's diagnosis is right but his prescription still wrong

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 22d

For anyone following the #Draghi analysis today, please read my recent evaluation www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-r...
@lindakalcher.bsky.social @alemanno.bsky.social

Mario Draghi's August 2025 speech in Rimini marks a remarkable shift. The former ECB President has shifted from confident reformist to prophetic Cassandra, delivering the most brutal assessment of Eur...

Europe’s impossible promises for security and well-being

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 24d

"Those who attack majorities that vote wrongly seem to speak, when it comes to international organizations, in tongues that come from an entirely different era." - excellent analysis @brankomilan.bsky.social on our crisis of democracy and increasing polarization

Branko Milanovic @brankomilan.bsky.social · 25d

Sitting at that panel, I had a clear feeling of unreality. The Open Society person was reading from a prepared script how people across the world fight mean dictators but at the same time we have millions who do vote for such mean dictators.

Branko Milanovic @brankomilan.bsky.social · 25d

My new Substack:
The Age of Discord: Fragmented politics and unhinged discourse
branko2f7.substack.com/p/the-age-of...

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 27d

"Real security and well-being would demand recognition of interdependence rather than fantasies of strategic autonomy, sufficiency rather than extraction, genuine democracy rather than managed participation." - my view on #SOTEU 2025
@cdegryz.bsky.social
www.linkedin.com/pulse/europe...

EU President von der Leyen positioned the EU as protector of European security and well-being in Wednesday's State of the Union address. "Europe must fight for its place in the world," she declared, p...

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · 28d

Important interview with German sociologist Philipp Staab on his new book "Systemkrise"
www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

Digital sovereignty: taking back control.

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Sep 4

"There is no real democracy if societies do not have effective control over the technologies they use"
Read my new LinkedIn post on Europe's #DigitalSovereignty - #TechForDemocracy #GreenDigital #DemocracyShield
@cdegryz.bsky.social
www.linkedin.com/pulse/digita...

At Trump’s inauguration, tech bosses sat in the front row like lords watching their servant pledge loyalty. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, the new masters of digital feudalism.

The Last Dance: when Earth Systems crash the great Power Party

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Sep 2

"The Dragon's engineering prowess, the Elephant's demographic dividend, and the Eagle's technological advantage, all depend on planetary stability that no longer exists. These animals dance on a stage burning beneath their feet."
@cdegryz.bsky.social
www.linkedin.com/pulse/last-d...

This weekend's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin dramatised a remarkable geopolitical shift. The world's largest regional forum, representing 23% of global GDP and 42% of the w...

The broken promise behind democracy's crisis

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 29

My new LinkedIn post on the democratic cost of a society in descent
#resentment #authoritarianism #democracy
www.linkedin.com/pulse/broken...

Jonathan Barth's insights from the Political System Constellation at Alpbach highlight a core dilemma facing democracy: for it to remain resilient, citizens must transform resentment (‘Barth's despise...

From reformist to Cassandra: why Draghi's diagnosis is right but his prescription still wrong

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 25

"Draghi’s speech reveals Europe's failure to see that true security depends on planetary health, not perpetual growth or military might. We are trapped, using outdated frameworks to face new ecological realities."
Read my new LinkedIn post
@cdegryz.bsky.social
www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-r...

Mario Draghi's August 2025 speech in Rimini marks a remarkable shift. The former ECB President has shifted from confident reformist to prophetic Cassandra, delivering the most brutal assessment of Eur...

Can AI deliver a “humanist economy”… or is this elegant mirage blinding us to basic physics?

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 22

What if #AI could end unemployment, make work meaningful, and free us from the treadmill of GDP - all at once? When AI's economic dreams clash with biophysical limits - my new LinkedIn post
@sotiriat.bsky.social @aida.follows.technology @etui.bsky.social
www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-ai...

What if AI could end unemployment, make work meaningful again, and free us from the treadmill of GDP - all at once? Nothing less than that, is the bold promise of Experiential Matrix Theory (EMT), a m...

How Mettler's 'inconvenient truth' confirms my 2011 Phoenix Europe vision

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 20

Next week, I will run to the bookshop to buy this new publication after having devoured @peterbrannen.bsky.social's 'The Ends of the World' 5 years ago -
if you want to know why, read the Guardian's Long Read www.theguardian.com/environment/...
@ecodenker.bsky.social

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 18

The future of Europe? When two very different visions suddenly come close? Read my new LinkedIn post in answer to a brilliant 'inconvenient truth' article by one of its leading thinkers
#Mettler #EuropeanUnion
www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-me...

Ann Mettler's analysis brilliantly reinforces the central argument of my Phoenix Europe concept, though from a different angle. While I originally proposed a complete rethinking of the European projec...

When AI "solves" economics: a cautionary tale

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 14

We do not need to choose between broken capitalism, failed socialism, or AI-enhanced technocracy. Read my latest LinkedIn article
www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-a...

A viral YouTube video from the Germany-based YouTube channel Clarified Mind (sparse information about who is behind it!), "Two AI Agents Design a New Economy (Beyond Capitalism / Socialism)", has rack...

The Sciences of the Democracies - ambitious vision, blind spots on planetary reality

Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 14

It is indeed. BTW, just discovered your fascinating publication with @flusterbird.bsky.social The Ecology Politic - goes on my reading list (when will I have time to read all?)
@ecodenker.bsky.social
direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

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Willy De Backer BE @art4theark.bsky.social · Aug 12

Read my critical review of this innovative take on the science of the #democracies
www.linkedin.com/pulse/scienc...

Jean-Paul Gagnon, a democratic scholar at the University of Canberra and founding editor of the journal Democratic Theory, along with his colleagues, has produced an ambitious volume that attempts to ...