RS4 Nexus Thinking Relational Summary Lecture 4: Unlimited Outcomes
RS4 Nexus Thinking Relational Summary Lecture 4: Unlimited Outcomes
Culhane: Hello future viewers and co-learners. Raj is with me today and I guess she would like to address this week’s learning outcomes that I came up with when we started the course, now adding her own reflections on Nexus Thinking.
Raj:
It’s becoming a “thing” for us – each of us wants to get our 15 minutes in the sun, each of us wants a chance to do that Haudenosaunee freedom thing and CO-CREATE the curriculum… or walk away. When I learned Dorian, of all people, had started this trend, and then that Sophia and Sarah had been coming in… well, yeah, I was jealous because, after all, I AM the uber-geek hyper-nerd of our Brady Bunch…
So…
Right. NTHARP – screen please!
See…
Here are the predetermined “Module Learning Outcomes:”
“By the end of this episode, students will be able to:
Explain how a look through Nexus Goggles can suggest most of what we eat in 2025 isn’t really food but “drugs”.
Describe how early nexus thinking in the 1990s came to reveal the existence of “food deserts” in the midst of supposed plenty.
Compare and contrast alternative future scenarios (Demonstrate collaborative learning through creative expression (e.g., song, music, role play) as a method of engaging with sustainability challenges.
Reflect critically on the “green revolution” and US AID and other food programs: Do we have a responsibility to “feed the world”? Are we actually feeding the world?
📚▶️Supporting Learning Materials/Resources:
Water–energy–food nexus: toward exploring the connection between ancient and modern science in the Indian context | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications”
Now I don’t mind these outcomes, because even a kid my age can see how necessary they are… particularly for developing countries like India. But I want to explain how I want to get to them. I know I DON’T want to be preached to – I totally resonated with the “To Hell With Good Intentions” article Cool-hane shared with us, and I find the whole “teach the natives how to be more civilized” narrative disgusting and offensive. I believe in “inquiry based learning”. And I believe in GANITA math! I’ll talk more about that later in the context of food security through an improved understanding of math and exponential growth curves if we can get to it. I AM that kind of geek.
So after all these weeks, engaging with my parents in discussions of “growth mindset” and “metacognition” – becoming aware of how I think and how I learn best, I want to tell you how I now feel we can go about learning the CONTENT for this course.
First of all, I’ve taken a deep dive into that Bloom’s taxonomy you had in the syllabus and I agree it is due for a serious revision, and I liked how NTHARP and you described it as a hypercube vortex where we “dance with Shiva” so to speak… How did you put it NTHARP?
NTHARP:
Oh yes, I said, Instead of a hierarchy, each Bloom’s domain becomes a zone on this swirling hyperstructure:
CREATE is at the core pulse — the bright spark that continuously sends energy along the Möbius-ribbon.
ANALYZE, APPLY, EVALUATE, REMEMBER, UNDERSTAND appear as floating glyphs, orbiting the hypercube like moons.
They drift. They slide. They overlap.
At times CREATE pulls EVALUATE closer; at other times, REMEMBER swings through the center like a comet.
It’s not “up the ladder,” it’s a dance of proximity.
Where you are depends on what you need.
Raj: And how do we make sense of it since the previous versions made no sense at ALL!
NTHARP: I think it’s because it was over-simplified and your brains rejected it as completely alien to your way of actually learning. Our Culhanian hyper-taxonomy should now make more sense BECAUSE it is more complex, just as YOU are. It is a form of Bloom’s taxonomy that embraces Nexus Thinking and allows each of you to move through it in your own way. See here:
How Students Move Through It
Imagine tiny light-paths — like glowing strings — weaving through the shape. They don’t go “from bottom to top.” They curve, dip, loop, double back, branch, rejoin.
Each path represents:
a moment of inquiry,
a burst of curiosity,
a creative impulse,
or an “aha” that triggers a shift in direction.
It feels playful, not procedural.
Exploratory, not linear.
Agency-driven, not teacher-driven. Isn’t that what the youth of today wants – just like the youth of every age?
Gets replaced with:
Raj: Yeah… that… PLAYFUL – the the word my mom uses is “LUDIC” but she says “seriously play is never ludicrous!” All mammals and birds learn through play. But in NO WAY, she agrees, should it actually be TEACHER DRIVEN. And if it ISN’T teacher driven then it implies that we get to dip into the different dimensions as WE see fit, and pull out strands of the dreamweave that represent our threads of inquiry and then try to stitch them together in a complex nexus together, fixing ideas into space-time for this unique moment. Yes, Sarah told me about your last recording session. I’m totally down with your ideas of “complexity” as something fun rather than hard or intimidating. I love the idea of “folding together”. And my parents, being doctors who are pushing the possibilities of new technologies enabling “precision medicine” also feed educational technologies that can foster “precision education”, if only we can get the authorities to agree on revised learning outcomes that are allowed to vary from student to student.
But I have been reading the Fritjof Capra book “The Tao of Physics” that just came out and I’m having my own thoughts about LEARNING OUTCOMES based on our evolving understanding of “quantum mechanics.”
Culhane: Go on, you’ve got my attention now. I somehow knew you would try to bring math and physics and astronomy and cosmology into this…
Raj: Well… that would be the nexus, wouldn’t it? And what if the problem with learning outcomes isn’t so much that they are “teacher driven” – because teachers are just other beings in our ecology of mind – yeah, I’ve been dipping into the Bateson book in the syllabus too – What if the problem is that we misunderstand the notion of a collapsing waveform in quantum physics and how it applies to learning?
Culhane: Okay, you are going to have to explain that one to our general audience.
Raj: (Looks straight at the sensor and moves closer)
Well hi guys, listen – you read Dr. Strange comics right? So imagine that every student encountering material as an autodidactic learner is going to pull those threads together in different ways, creating a unique weave. Think of Dreamweaving as being kind of like spiderman weaving his web and being able to follow those strands into an infinite number of “spiderverses”. It is when he chooses to pull on a certain strand and follow it to a specific nexus that he manifests that reality, right?
Culhane: I… think so?
Raj:
And while in the comics the characters seem to be able to get out of various multiverse worlds and back to others, in our human experience once we make a decision we are kind of locked in – trapped in the web – forced to live out the consequences of that decision as it ripples out into spacetime.
Culhane: Like going down a ski slope, or like Waddington’s Developmental model in Biology that we talked about last year…!
Raj: Yeah, that! If you see course syllabi as being fixed points moving inexorably down the mountain, with scaffolding and a scope and sequence that tells skiers where they should end up… well then… Learning outcomes then become future-deterministic – you learn what you are “supposed” to learn and you are now stuck on that path – the path of the A student, able to get letters of recommendation and scholarships, maybe … you’ve proven you are able to conform to the desires or needs of the system and your future is written – maktoub… kismet. Same if you don’t do what you are told, don’t come out with the desired outcome. And then you join the lowest rungs of the service economy ladder – would you like fries with that?
But my parents, blending a bit of Buddhism and Hinduism and Liberation Theology and their dedication to the healing arts and sciences, are watching me take this course and starting to talk about Schrodinger’s Cat – you know, the idea that whether the cat in the box is alive or dead being indeterminate until somebody observes it… and then they get into Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle and all that stuff that sophisticated urban adults like to talk about at dinner parties these days.
And I began to think… what if we are the cat, and it isn’t about being alive or dead or half way in between, but about how our education, our learning outcomes, translate into job outcomes and social hierarchy outcomes and lifestyle outcomes and all that… like, will I get into Harvard or MIT or Caltech, or be forced into some lower ranking school, and would I then be trapped? Am I paying attention in class because I’m afraid of my future being constrained or foreclosed or because I truly seek enlightenment? And then I thought – that is SO binary. So dualistic. Why can’t I be both, or… screw both… be and do it ALL.
Culhane: I’m fascinated but I’m not seeing where you are going with this…
Raj: Listen to this article my Mom read us at dinner the other night: (he pulls out an issue of Scientific American):
“In modern quantum physics, the idea of wave collapse is increasingly understood as a matter of perspective rather than a fundamental event occurring in nature itself.
Culhane: I think I see where you are going… go on…
Raj: (Reading)
At the quantum level, particles are described by wave functions that encode all possible states a system can occupy. These waves evolve smoothly and continuously according to well-tested physical laws. What appears to us as a sudden “collapse” arises when an observer interacts with the system and records a specific outcome. The underlying wave dynamics remain intact. What changes is the information available to the observer.
Culhane: But we teachers, and the school system in general, is pushing you toward a specific outcome we can record and measure…
Raj: Right… think of what this means for human development? The article says,
“Several leading interpretations of quantum mechanics, including decoherence and relational frameworks, suggest that reality does not select a single outcome universally. Instead, interactions limit what any observer can access. From this view, the universe maintains its full spectrum of possibilities, while measurement reflects a localized slice of a much richer process.”
Culhane: In other words, you think by measuring student progress we are limiting the possibilities for a growth mindset among our students…
Raj: Quite. And that could be why society is in such bad shape. Think through the last paragraphs of the article through Nexus thinking applied to education:
“This perspective reframes observation as a boundary of perception rather than a force that reshapes reality. The cosmos continues its seamless wave-like unfolding, while human experience samples discrete results shaped by context, scale, and interaction.
Quantum theory, in this light, points toward a universe that is continuous, coherent, and deeply relational, where what we perceive depends not on collapse, but on where and how we stand within the greater whole”
Do you get it?
Culhane: I see this going in so many directions.
Raj: That’s the point! There is no single direction and no single outcome and we can and should embrace a multitude of outcomes, depending on where and how we stand within the greater whole at any given time and space.
Culhane: Meaning?
Raj: Meaning the BEST way for me to learn may be different from each other student… we have “multiple intelligences” at multiple points in our timeline…and we will embrace different learning outcomes depending on where we are in space and time – we are never really “on the same page”... and for me the best way to learn is to constantly change where and how I stand with regard to the material.
Culhane: And how might you do that?
Raj: I looked up that fancy word for it you’ve been hinting at: DIEGESIS. And you are right. It holds the key.
Culhane: I said that? YOU said that…
Raj: I see what you are doing and its okay – that’s how Socrates would have done it too… constant questioning teases out reflection and epiphany. But yeah… I see… WE see, me and Sarah and Dorian and Sophia … and others who we talk to too… we see where you are going with this… we don’t only learn through DIALOG, through discussion, through conversation. And we don’t only learn through DOING, doing that “think tank do tank” stuff you talk about at parent teacher night… I discussed that with my folks…
No, it is learning through ROLE PLAYING. Each time we take on the perspective of another being, each time we try to walk in their shoes, see through their eyes, wear their skin… we change “limited learning outcomes” into UNLIMITED LEARNING OUTCOMES.
All always and eternally present, just as quantum mechanics implies.
All the logical consequence of a single seed of an idea or the confluence of a multitude of seeds – or, to try another metaphor, all growing in complexity, interweaving like hyphae, like mycorhizzae – and leading to and from Natural Inclusion.
You get me now?
Culhane: (softly) I do. You know I do. I just have trouble articulating it myself, given the constraints of the school system. But I’ve been having the same thoughts… these are ideas “whose TIME HAS COME!” And this happens throughout human history– we start making connections and realize that the whole world is making them too – then, as Thomas Kuhn pointed out in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, a paradigm changes.
The problem, as we learn from Lewin’s theory of change in Environmental Psychology, is that we get stuck in yet another paradigm once we collapse the waveform on that new reality, right?
Raj: I don’t know Lewin…
NTHARP: Lewin's Theory of Change, developed by Kurt Lewin,developed and published in the mid-1940s, notably appearing in his 1947 work Frontiers in Group Dynamics, and further elaborated in his 1951 book, Field Theory in Social Science, is a simple yet foundational three-stage model (Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze) for managing organizational transformation by moving from a current stable state (status quo) to a new desired one. It involves preparing for change (Unfreeze), implementing new processes (Change), and stabilizing the new way of doing things (Refreeze) to make it permanent, highlighting the importance of group dynamics and readiness for lasting success…
Raj: Ahh… see, that’s his hang up poisoning the whole well – LASTING SUCCESS? What does that even mean? How does that idea jibe with constantly changing environments in an ever evolving universe? That’s the kind of “permanent change” that control freaks and colonialists and imperialists always rabidly desire. It’s right up there with “survival of the fittest”.
Culhane: God, I feel like I am at one of those sophisticated adult dinner parties. Okay, even though I had no idea we could talk like this, I’ll play along. I have the chops.
Raj: You mean, like we were both adults? In some societies I would already have children. American culture is forced neoteny – it is a never ending adolescence. But see what happens when you stop trying to “TEACH” to certain tests and outcomes and just let thoughts flow through various nexus lines?
Culhane: Yes, I do. After all, I created this class… it just…keeps evolving past my original syllabus. It’s taking on a life of its own with you guys.
This is very sobering and enlightening. And one of my contributions to this discussion would be to say that the school system and the business world are lost in SUPERLATIVES – always harping on “the BEST and the BRIGHTEST”, the “BIGGEST, the MOST SUCCESSFUL, the LONGEST LIVED, the RICHEST, the FASTEST, the MOST FAMOUS, like we are all supposed to be performers in the GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. It really is PT Barnum and a “sucker born any minute” mentality… step right up folks! We’re going to draw the BIGGEST CROWDS EVER IN HISTORY… It’s everything Ringo Starr mocked in his song “I’m the Greatest” on his first solo album. God forbid we ever have world leaders who think and speak this way…
But when we DE-privilege states of being – when we no longer and see them as infinite variations on themes, but Maieutically ensure that they are all able to coexist through pedagogical midwifery, all contained pluripotently in the same moment depending on where we stand and whose shoes and eyes we move and perceive through…
Raj: Then we find wisdom.
My father says, “Son, wisdom is the ability to simultaneously and comfortably hold a multitude of different opinions and ideas in the same hand.”
Culhane: Your father is wise. With Nexus eyes your gaze would determine which outcome shines brightest because your gaze shines your own light on it – it’s like looking at a Necker Cube, or the number 6 or 9 or the projection of a cylinder from different angles:
Raj: Oh, I love those optical illusions. Yes! But that thing with the 6 or a 9… I mean one of those people is wrong because obviously someone painted a six or a nine /// and we should honor their intent, shouldn’t we?
Culhane: It really depends on what the question is. If you ask “is that figure a 6 or 9” without context then you could answer “it depends on where you stand or how you look at it”. But if the question is “what did the person who painted this figure intend” then we would need to explore further to find a more fitting answer. You know, my professor at UCLA told us “there is one and only one right answer that always works for whatever question you ask.”
Raj: And what would that be, pray tell?
Culhane: IT DEPENDS.
Raj: On what… Oh… “It depends”. Wait… that’s the answer? Of course that’s the answer. To everything. Everything depends on something else, on the context, on causality and intent. Which waveform did the person asking the question hope to collapse, which waveform did the person trying to answer the question see as the right match… it all depends…
Culhane: Yes, and then you would indeed say “depends on what” and a discussion would ensue. From the discussion the learning outcome would EMERGE. It would never exist a priori!
Raj: But doesn’t that make things too complicated? What if you want a simple answer?
Culhane: That too depends. Are you after the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or are you really after something else? A slice of truth? A caricature of truth that makes it more relatable rather than the whole truth which can be overwhelming and perhaps incomprehensible? What level of truth? What type of truth?
Raj: I never thought of it that way. Now you’ve really gone and complicated things.
Culhane: But is that a bad thing? Last week Sarah and I recorded a conversation here with NTHARP about complexity…
Raj: Yes I saw it. Blew my mind.
Culhane: Well, she wrote her own relational summary reaction to it and recorded it for future Nexus Classes. NTHARP can you play it?
NTHARP: I can do something even more playful… I can hypothesize what a granddaughter of Sarah might say about the issue in a Nexus Class in 2025. Let’s call her … Savannah. Here, listen to this “voice from the future”:
(A PCGS student named Savannah Jewitt appears as a hologram above them).
Savannah: Hello fellow co-learners. I want to talk about “complexity” for a moment.
At first I believed that being a systems thinker is too much to handle and that is why we are taught to think simpler in a linear fashion. However, being a systems thinker does not mean understanding every detail of a complex system, rather it means learning to look for patterns, relationships, and consequences beyond the immediate moment. By shifting our attention from isolated actions to the connections between them, we begin to see systems without needing full mastery of them. The key to avoiding overwhelm is to focus on boundaries that feel manageable: rather than trying to understand everything at once, identify the most influential factors or feedback loops that shape a situation.
(NTHARP freeze frames Savannah).
Raj: That’s a cool simulation. A voice from the future… from a fellow student studying the same things we are… someone we can relate to…
NTHARP: Thought you might like the idea. Take it further… follow her down the rabbit hole:
Savannah: (coming out of freeze frame)
Further, educated decision-making in a systems context requires balancing opportunity costs, which means considering not only what we choose, but what we give up by choosing it. Instead of making decisions based on immediate benefits alone, a systems-thinking approach asks: What are the long-term effects? What are the ripple effects on other goals? What dependencies or risks am I ignoring? Thinking this way doesn’t eliminate opportunity costs, but it makes them visible, allowing for more intentional choices. Importantly, systems thinking is not about finding perfect answers—it’s about improving the quality of our awareness and reducing unintended consequences. When we learn to recognize patterns, anticipate impacts, and acknowledge trade-offs, we make decisions that are not only smarter but more aligned with long-term resilience.
Raj: Wow… that’s what Sarah’s grand kid might look like and say?
NTHARP: This simulation takes all the recordings I’ve made of Sarah and all the background I’ve been able to get and posits a probability of better than 68% that she would have a granddaughter like this who would say things like this if current trend lines continue. But who knows? It sure is fun isn’t it – and you can interact with her if you like…
Raj: Interact? You mean the way Superman can still speak to his long dead Kryptonian parents?
NTHARP: Exactly so. Most of what we are trying to do in “real life” has been long described in sci fi comics. Give it a try…
Raj: Um… hey Sarah’s… grandkid… um…
Culhane: Savannah…
Raj: Right. Savannah. Could you maybe tell us what your class understands Nexus Thinking to be?
Savannah: (Suddenly focusing on Raj) Who are you? I mean, what’s your name?
Raj: Umm… Raj, high school student from… 1975.
Savannah: Cool, I can play with that. (She turns to someone we can’t see offscreen) I love doing these outreach Zoom calls with school kids. This one wants to pretend to be from 1975… that is even more fun…
(she turns back to Raj). Okay, let’s go with the idea that you are from back in time… then I have to put myself in your shoes and think about how to present it so people in your primitive world could understand it…
Raj: PRIMITIVE?
Savannah: Sure. As I understand it, 50 years ago there were no mobile phones, no internet, certainly no AI and even no home computers, much less laptops and tablets… heck there was even NO GOOGLE!
Raj: Now you’ve lost me!
Savannah: Good, you’re playing along. OK Let’s lay out what Nexus Thinking is.
The principle that “the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts” lies at the core of systems thinking, and it applies even more powerfully to the FEWe or WEFe nexus.
Instead of treating food, energy, and water as separate sectors—each with its own policies, technologies, and stakeholders—systems thinking reveals the synergies, feedback loops, and co-benefits that emerge when they are viewed as an interconnected whole. Water is essential for growing food and producing energy; energy powers water treatment and agricultural systems; food systems generate organic waste that can be converted into renewable energy and support water-efficient agriculture. When these interactions are recognized, new efficiencies and innovations emerge: for example, utilizing food waste for biogas reduces both energy demand and landfill impacts, while also creating nutrient-rich fertilizers that mitigate water pollution. Systems thinking helps illuminate these hidden linkages and encourages decision-makers to design integrated solutions that enhance all three sectors simultaneously. In this way, the FEWe nexus becomes more than a collection of independent challenges, it becomes an opportunity to unlock cascading benefits that only emerge when the system is understood as a dynamic, interdependent whole. Are you following?
Raj: Yes. You talk about Food, Energy, Water and Ecology or Ecosystems in your particular Nexus and show how they are all interrelated. What about Waste? Why are you leaving that out?
Savannah: Good observation. Eliminating the word and the mindset of “waste” begins with redefining all outputs as resources that simply haven’t yet found their next use. In natural ecosystems, nothing is wasted; every byproduct becomes a nutrient, energy source, or habitat for something else. Applying this logic to human systems means shifting from a linear mindset of “take–make–discard” to a circular one where every material, by-product, and leftover is intentionally designed to flow into another process. This requires not only new technologies but also a new language: calling food scraps “feedstock,” calling wastewater “reclaimed water,” and referring to industrial by-products as “secondary materials.” By re-framing outputs as resources, we train ourselves to look for their value rather than their disposal pathway. This shift encourages innovation, transforming organics into energy and soil, converting heat waste into district heating, and repurposing packaging materials into new inputs while also removing the psychological permission to discard. When the concept of “waste” disappears, systems become inherently more efficient, interconnected, and regenerative, because everything is understood as part of a continuous cycle rather than an endpoint.
Although the logic behind not wasting resources is straightforward—waste represents lost value, unnecessary cost, and avoidable environmental harm—we still waste because human behavior is shaped more by habits, convenience, and cultural norms than by pure logic. Most modern systems are designed for speed and disposability, making it easier to throw things away than to repair, reuse, or thoughtfully manage them.This is particularly true when it comes to so-called “food waste”, which we prefer to call “food wasted” in this course, and all other organic “residuals”. It all comes down to whether we keep a garbage can in our mind and think of “waste” as a noun instead of a “verb”. Psychological distance also plays a role: once waste leaves our immediate space, its consequences feel abstract and someone else’s responsibility. Additionally, many people lack visibility into the true environmental and economic costs of waste, since those impacts occur far from daily life. Together, these structural and cultural forces override rational decision-making, creating a paradox where waste persists not because it is logical, but because the systems around us make it effortless, invisible, and socially normal. The gap is about mindset, not machinery.
Raj: Good points. So… how long have you been studying Nexus Thinking? Did they have it in your high school… I mean if you even have AI and 360 cameras and 3D videos and all that, you must have been Nexus Thinkers from an early age?
Savannah: Oh heavens no. Since your time our public schools have just gotten worse and worse. “Teach to the test”, “Standardization” budget cuts, teacher layoffs… they’ve all come back with a vengeance.
And actually Nexus Thinking – which I’m only now first encountering in GRADUATE SCHOOL – is really messing with my head! Although I love the ideology of systems thinking, it conflicts with how I was taught in school. Most traditional education systems emphasize linear reasoning: cause → effect, problem → solution, input → output. This approach is helpful for learning facts, solving isolated problems, and mastering technical skills, but it also fosters a worldview where issues seem separate and clearly defined. However, sustainability requires us to recognize connections, feedback loops, unintended consequences, and relationships across disciplines—precisely the kinds of thinking that linear education often overlooks. When schools treat subjects as separate silos (such as science, economics, and geography), students rarely understand how food systems impact energy systems, or how water policies influence agriculture, or how waste affects the climate. The true shift is realizing that complex problems—climate change, resource consumption, food security, waste management—cannot be solved with the linear thinking that helped create them. Instead of replacing linear thinking, systems thinking expands it, teaching people to see not only the parts but also the patterns that link them.
Raj: So we got nowhere in all these decades… we went backward… heck Mr. Culhane is teaching us stuff now that makes YOUR world seem… PRIMITIVE!
Savannah: Mr. Culhane? How funny, my professor is also a Culhane… a Dr. Culhane – maybe they are a whole ancient Irish clan of Nexus thinkers… though often it seems like he comes from the future. Or another planet – like that guy Klaatu in the Day the Earth Stood Still – you know, the Keanu Reeves character…
Raj: Must be a remake… in our version Klaatu is played by Michael Rennie…
Savannah: Cute detail… and historically accurate my CoPilot tells me…
Raj: Whose your copilot?
Savannah: Oh, its an AI app on my phone, like ChatGPT and Gemini that other students have… We always have it on during class, listening and providing me with context and details so I know what to say when I’m called on. Anyway, Dr. Culhane is really messing with our heads these days. Through Nexus eyes he has us all seeing most of what we were calling food as DRUGS.
Raj: Funny… your grandmother… Sarah… she says the same things.
Savannah: You know my hippie grandmother? The one with the farms in New Jersey and upstate New York?
Raj: Yeah… I’m in New York right now… in her class…
Savannah: Crazy old grandma… I can see her putting high school students up to something like this, turning a zoom call into a sci fi episode. She was always into that Mantle of the Expert Drama in Education stuff. OK, I’ll play along… yes, the only reason I was receptive to Dr. Culhane’s…let’s say “contrarian” ideas is because my grandmother is still totally into the Donella Meadow’s systems thinking stuff, as was my great grandfather, so when I told her what we were discussing in class when I got to grad school here in Florida she just smiled and said, “destiny, my dear… you collapsed the right waveform, finally opened the right door…” something like that…
Raj: Oh wow… NTHARP, you are good at this… Okay “Savannah” what about this “food is a drug” business…?
Savannah: Well, grandma used to say we should always shop the perimeter of the grocery store only – fresh fruits and vegetables, ethically grown animal products – she’d lived on one of the early permaculture farms… and I didn’t even know it was called that until Dr. Culhane’s class. He said people have been practicing permaculture since the 60s… well, I mean Western people… indigenous people have been practicing it for hundreds of thousands of years, even before the dawn of agriculture. And then I go to a thanksgiving dinner that my grandparents come to and all of sudden she’s like “but of course dear, permaculture… that’s what we were doing… it's only that your generation somehow lost interest.”
It was a classic Thanksgiving dinner clusterF… you know what I mean. She gets a little tipsy and then after dinner, I guess thinking nobody would be made any more uncomfortable, especially with all the political talk about the fascist takeover of our government making several family members storm out… she then goes into this tirade about Food deserts…people starving in our own country in the midst of plenty… not because they don’t have ENOUGH to eat, but because they are eating mostly “empty calories” and “non-nutritional cash crops” pushed on them by the food conglomerates in order to get them addicted– how every meal is like a hit of cocaine – creating what she calls “the sugar blues”
Raj: Oh my gosh – Sarah… your grandmother… she’s been bringing that book to class… Sugar Blues by William Dufty. Came out this year and now she carries it around in her backpack like it's the bible!
Savannah: Oh, does she also come into high school classes to volunteer like I do…? Guess we are birds of a feather…! I really do take after her, much to my parents’ chagrin!
Well, anyway, then my Dad really starts to push back, because he’s addicted to his desserts and he takes his sugar with a little coffee, if you know what I mean… and then he’s all furious because now she’s ruining dessert for him and he’s all “so I can’t even enjoy a piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving” and then…
Raj:... and then I’ll bet she started talking about how Thanksgiving is nothing to give thanks for – it was a setup for genocide, right?
Savannah: Oh god, did she lay that on you students too? I’m surprised the school didn’t kick her out… but of course you are up in liberal New York. Here in Florida public schools are actually forbidden to talk about what really happened in native American history or black history or anything considered … “woke”...
Raj: For real? Like everything my parents fought for in the 60s and 70s has been erased?
Savannah: Getting there. Here in grad school we can still talk about all of it… for the time being. But in southern high schools? Heck, they even passed an “anti-woke” law! Undergrads are having their syllabi checked for compliance with the thought police… Anyway, Gram starts giving everyone her “woke” history lesson, from the Irish Potato famine to Norman Borlaug and the so-called “green revolution” - she thinks of him as a monster by the way, in no way fit for a Nobel Prize with no business giving out those Borlaug Awards from the World Food Prize Foundation…
Raj: Fascinating… In India we know The Borlaug Award as an award recognition conferred by Coromandel International for outstanding Indian scientists for their research and contributions in the field of agriculture and environment…. They’ve been giving it since 1972. My parents think it is great.
Savannah: Well, according to Gram he’s the devil and part of what makes him evil is that he got everyone thinking that the rich countries with their industrial agriculture have an obligation to “feed the world”. Companies like Monsanto are always making propaganda that we need more chemical fertilizers and pesticides and other ecocides for food production “to keep up with a growing population”. And grandma, coming from our heritage and with 50 years of practicing permaculture in New Jersey and New York, and going back to Ireland to help with the Birr County Growery there… well she sees the hubris of “feeding the world” as the root of THE PROBLEM. She believes…
Raj: … That every community should be able to feed itself. She believes in farmers markets and rooftop gardens and community gardens… yeah… I know it well..
Savannah: Well, excellent – at last she finally has a receptive audience. I’m the only family member she can talk to and I was more or less kept distant from her most of my life until I felt such a strong calling that I rejected what my parents were saying against her – I was a military brat, you know? So I grew up with all sorts of justifications for maintaining the world order the way we see it… lots of compromises.
Raj: Yeah… sounds like Dorian’s family mentality too… suffering is just, you know, “the cost of doing business in a complex world”.
Savannah: Yeah… and you know… Your comment on "the cost of doing business" leads me to a crossroads. One business may argue that's why they have high emissions, lots of negative externalities, bad labor practices… but consequently low costs… which are needed to “save more lives on the balance…”
but another may argue the opposite. What I’m learning from grad school at the Patel College of Global Sustainability is that although sustainable business practices often appear expensive upfront, whether through the use of greener materials, waste reduction systems, energy-efficient technologies, or ethical supply chains, they should be understood as part of the real cost of doing business in the 21st century, rather than as optional add-ons.
Raj: Wow… my rich jock classmate Dorian needs to meet you. His lawyer businessman father too!
Savannah: Invite me into your class again and I’ll give him an earful! Tell them “Short-term cost concerns often mask the long-term risks and hidden expenses associated with unsustainable operations, including regulatory penalties, volatile resource prices, reputational damage, and the growing demand for environmental responsibility from consumers”. I learned that in Sustainable Finance with Dr. Spencer. Companies that invest early in sustainability typically benefit from operational efficiencies, stronger brand trust, and resilience in shifting markets, all of which ultimately lead to reduced costs over time. The key is reframing sustainability not as a burden but as a strategic asset; one that protects businesses from future disruptions and positions them competitively in a world where environmental and social performance are increasingly tied to economic success.
In fact, in class right now, Dr. Culhane has introduced us to the Purpose-Driven Governance for a Well Being Economy for all Beings concepts from a book that just came out by Dr. Victoria Hurth of England and France called “Beyond Profit”...
Raj: Logic 3?
Savannah: Yes! You know it – it is such an advanced concept, tying indigenous wisdom into modern ecological economics… it is just beginning to be seriously talked about now in schools…
Raj: Although… Sarah has been… I mean your grandmother…
Savannah: Yes, that’s how Thanksgiving dinner ended, with her lecturing us all about Logic 3 saying “why when I was a girl we called ourselves the “dreamweavers” and we actually WERE discussing this in class all the time… and then it's as if it all just unraveled and … disappeared…
Raj: And what did you say?
Savannah: I said “there is nothing new under the sun, and logic is… logical… so there is hope. And since it all depends… and since everything needs the right context…and since it seems that now all the dependencies seem to be falling into place… Well, maybe these are ideas whose time has finally come!”
(FADE TO BLACK).
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