Preparing to Thrive in Complex Systems

You wake up to find the lights don't work. In fact, no appliances work. You check the fuse to no avail. The heating is dead, soon the water pump silent, and the phone mast on its last battery. Shops didn't even open today. What will the following days be like? That depends both on what you and your neighbours have in reserve, and on what you can organise together.

We have entered an unprecedented era of global change. In this time and age, we need to be prepared for disruptions ranging from natural hazards to man-made ones – extreme weather, pandemics, resource scarcity, hybrid influence and even war. Some risks are known, others yet unknown, and some will remain unknowable.

This era requires more than resilience – antifragile communities benefit from shocks instead of just withstanding disturbances.

Many tools below are part of the M-LIFE (Meso-Level Influence Framework and Explorable tools) research project, which investigates the building blocks of community preparedness – the practices, norms, tools, and structures that sit between institutional policy and individual action.

Project by Matti T.J. Heino.