As the new world that we’re in, post US sovereign default crisis, Norwegian shootings and London riots settles in, I’m feeling a strong pull to wind up more parts of my life.

For the time being, I’m substantially done with politics. I’ve made all the arguments I need to. I’m not saying that I won’t continue to indulge in politics at a recreational level, but at a fundamental level, I’m done with politics as a method. We know what I had to say on the matter and I might occasionally add to that, but it’s not the way forwards. I had to know, for myself, and now I do. Time to move past it.

I’m also substantially done with deep theoretical work on extreme risk management. Artifacts like Disastr, my nuclear contingency work (also applies to very big earthquakes etc.) are useful, but further work in this direction is not where I need to focus right now. This stuff is very, very expensive to produce psychologically, and I’ve done enough of it for now. Maybe when the work done so far is absorbed or used it will be time to go further, but for now it’s time to let it go.

The long term development work, like Winning the Long Peace is more important than ever, although I’m not sure that anybody’s listening to that right now, but it’s a thread I’ll carefully keep alive for the future. CheapID continues to be the crown jewels, but it may well be 15 years before that matters. Long-term storage. I should upload that to Archive.org properly at some point too. So enough of shutting things down and mothballing ideas, on to what’s new!

This little beauty is ResilienceDesigner.com which is my attempt to describe a set of four or five interlocking careers or specialisms which could help people move from fragility to deep resilience over a period of years. It’s very ambitious, early-stage work, basically trying to frame a new industry. This PDF as a three page analysis of where I think the action is, although it’s pretty self-evident from the diagram if you know the field.

I continue to work on The Future We Deserve. If you want to understand why that’s such a process, read a dozen of the pieces (they’re only 500 words each, the length of a Rolling Stone epic) and see what it does to your mind. I’m not sure humans were made for this kind of conceptual density. Getting the right book out of those materials is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

May it have impacts in the world to match.