We Need Social, Not Technological Innovation

#proposition2 mentions

While Innovation has often been identified with technological innovation,In the narrow sense of technology, i.e. excluding social technology and institutions.

this is an unhelpful conflation in a situation where we face Climate and Ecological Breakdown and possible societal Collapse:

We have confounded the idea of innovation with technology. We need something dramatic that’s outside of this framework in order for the system to make a dramatic change.Geoffrey West, synthesised from the sources listed.

Further technological innovation will not decouple material from Economic Growth sufficiently to stay within planetary boundariesHaberl et al. (2020), Hickel and Kallis (2019), Vadén et al (2020), Ward et al. (2016)

. At the same time, Innovation fuels continuous growth.

This means we have to extend our understanding of innovation beyond products, services and processes into the realm of social technology and our Cultural Technē and change our values and Institutions, away from Consumerism towards Sufficiency and alternative institutions like a Universal Basic Income.

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