Everyone planting the same crops of “impact frameworks,” all aiming for growth, all tending the same metrics of success.
I’d argue that much of what Tom Watson talks about in these four thought-provoking posts (AI summaries below) relates to my work on ambiguity — especially my article On the strategic uses of ambiguity. There’s also a good dose of systems thinking in there, too.
People as Code (Part 1) Tom Watson’s opening essay argues that society could re‑organise itself using the same collaborative, modular logic that drives open‑source software. By treating “people as code,” he imagines communities and organisations as contributors to a shared repository of social infrastructure, building frameworks that evolve through openness, documentation, and iteration. Borrowing from the culture of digital development, he urges philanthropy and the social purpose sector to act as maintainers of systems where people co‑create and adapt the “source code” of collective good rather than operating in isolation.
People as Code 2 – Collapse, Rewild, Regenerate This follow‑up re‑examines the original optimism through the lens of generative AI’s cultural saturation. Watson warns that algorithmic convergence and efficiency culture flatten creativity and produce brittle systems, both digital and organisational. Using the metaphor of a forest ecosystem, he advocates for “rewilding” our sectors—embracing plurality, slowness, and relational infrastructures more like mycelial networks than monocultures. His call to “keep a little wildness in the loop” positions regeneration, uncertainty, and imperfection as essential design principles for sustainable systems.
People as Code 3 – Quantum Uncertainty Extending the series’ metaphoric vocabulary, this essay draws from quantum theory to explore how embracing uncertainty can help organisations remain responsive and creative in complex environments. Just as particles exist in superposition until observed, Watson suggests that ideas and social systems should be allowed to remain indeterminate long enough for new possibilities to emerge. He frames quantum uncertainty as an ethical stance—one that resists premature definition and instead values curiosity, multiplicity, and relational dynamics over predictability.
People as Code 4 – Entropic Systems The final piece introduces entropy as a metaphor for organisational vitality. Instead of treating disorder as decay, Watson views it as the precondition for renewal and learning. He suggests designing “entropic systems” that can adapt, self‑balance, and evolve through cycles of breakdown and regeneration, much like living ecologies. In practical terms, this means loosening control, distributing agency, and regarding instability not as failure but as evidence of life within complex, evolving networks.
The problem, of course, is that ‘rewilding’ means “consciously doing something different than what we’re doing now” and I don’t think that as a society we have the reflective apparatus to allow that to happen. We live in extremely shallow times. As Tom says in the second article, “Everyone planting the same crops of “impact frameworks,” all aiming for growth, all tending the same metrics of success.”
Image: Suzanne Rushton