Homer-Dixon discusses tipping events and leverage points

Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the new Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, appeared on CFAX 1070 to discuss with host Adam Stirling the institute’s focus on studying complex problems.

Here’s an excerpt:

The thing about our world nowadays is that we have this tangled mess of natural and social systems operating together… and the floes of causation move back and forth in ways that are incredibly hard to understand… Human beings create facts by believing they are true to a large extent. We don’t create the physical reality around us, but patterns of social behaviour, the rules we follow, our institutions of government, all of those things exist because we believe that they exist. And if we change our beliefs it has a huge impact not just on the way we behave, but also on that material reality around us and how we interact with our natural environment.

This interview aired on the Adam Stirling Show on CFAX 1070.