Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems for Thrivable Futures: Crafting and Curating the Conditions for Future-Fit Education

Abstract

This paper explores the shifting dynamics in our Learning Landscapes as pressure for deep systemic change mounts. Concepts of future-fit learning and future-creative competencies are introduced as part of a new narrative for new educational paradigms. A Protopia of Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems (ELEs) is proposed. The emergence of ELEs is more likely to curate and foster a thrivability world during those times of growing pressures. Six integral levels of wellbeing for thrivability are postulated, and the role of education to integrate them in the development of future-fit competencies is considered. These competencies are further explored through five evolutionary archetypes.

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World Futures
The Journal of New Paradigm Research
ISSN: 0260-4027 (Print) 1556-1844 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gwof20
Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems for Thrivable
Futures: Crafting and Curating the Conditions for
Future-Fit Education
Anneloes Smitsman, Alexander Laszlo & Pavel Luksha
To cite this article: Anneloes Smitsman, Alexander Laszlo & Pavel Luksha (2020) Evolutionary
Learning Ecosystems for Thrivable Futures: Crafting and Curating the Conditions for Future-Fit
Education, World Futures, 76:4, 214-239, DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2020.1740075
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2020.1740075
Published online: 30 Mar 2020.
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Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems for Thrivable
Futures: Crafting and Curating the Conditions for
Future-Fit Education
Anneloes Smitsman
a,b
, Alexander Laszlo
c,d
and Pavel Luksha
e,f
a
EARTHwise Centre, Quatre Bornes, Mauritius;
b
University of Maastricht, Maastricht,
the Netherlands;
c
The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research, Bagni di Lucca,
Italy;
d
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
e
Global Education Futures, Amersfoort, the Netherlands;
f
Moscow School of
Management SKOLKOVO, Moscow, Russia
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the shifting dynamics in our
Learning Landscapes as pressure for deep systemic
change mounts. Concepts of future-fit learning and
future-creative competencies are introduced as part
of a new narrative for new educational paradigms. A
Protopia of Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems (ELEs)
is proposed. The emergence of ELEs is more likely
to curate and foster a thrivability world during those
times of growing pressures. Six integral levels of
wellbeing for thrivability are postulated, and the
role of education to integrate them in the develop-
ment of future-fit competencies is considered. These
competencies are further explored through five evo-
lutionary archetypes.
KEYWORDS
Evolutionary archetypes;
Evolutionary Learning
Ecosystems; future-creatives;
future-fit education;
thrivable protopias
The Landscape of Learning is Shifting
Education has always been about preparing the next generation of citizens
to take on the mantle of societal leadership and development. Ideally this
would include empowering and preparing our children, adolescents, and
young adults to make meaningful contributions to our societies within
the carrying capacity of our planet. Indications that conditions are ripe
for a new generation of learners, with needs and aspirations that cannot
CONTACT Anneloes Smitsman anneloes@earthwisecentre.org EARTHwise Centre, 55 Avenue
Duperr
e, 72351, Quatre-Bornes, Mauritius.
ß2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
WORLD FUTURES
2020, VOL. 76, NO. 4, 214–239
https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2020.1740075

be satisfied by mainstream education systems, are starting to emerge.
Kingsley Dennis wrote a pathbreaking book in 2014 on The Phoenix
Generation: A New Era of Connection, Compassion, and Consciousness in
which he explored the temporal culture norms of the generation to follow
the Millennials. In an even earlier essay, published in 2012 as “The
Phoenix Generation: The Rise of Those Who Will Change the World,”
Dennis traced the value memes emerging among this youngest generation
to be profiled en masse. Testament to this trend is evinced by the recent
school climate protests catalyzed through the actions of Swedish Greta
Thunberg and others. The statements and actions of these young leaders
have now spread around the world with thousands of youth joining in
solidarity. Through their climate protest youth demands that governments
and business leaders take decisive action to safeguard our planetary health
and future wellbeing (Watts, 2019). As Greta Thunberg mentioned during
her UN speech of December 2018:
[…] why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more,
when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point
of learning facts when the most important facts clearly mean nothing to
our society? (Thunberg, 2018)
Times are shifting; the landscape of learning is changing rapidly. The
time of dictating to our youth what we want them to learn through top-
down educational policies is over. These young people can see what is
happening all around them and they are alarmed. It is their future and
our responsibility that is in the spotlight now. The weight is heavy and
the window for acting in time to stop major collapse is narrowing each
day. It is imperative that we get real and at the same time draw hope and
strength from what is rising through the consciousness of youth mobiliza-
tion around the world.
This is the time, now more than ever, that conscious educational sys-
tems and new forms of learning can, in the words of Gregory Bateson, be
the difference that makes the difference (Bateson, 1972). Conscious systems
require conscious people who are in touch with the larger realities of life,
responsive to future-needs, and responsible for the impacts of their past
activities. Never before has it been more urgent and critical to develop
competencies that make us future-fit and future-creative for a world that
works. A world that works is a world where all of us can thrive together
with both our planet and the larger ecology of life.
The recent UN climate summit in Poland brought into clear view our
failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to within safe limits, despite
knowledge of the dangers (Carrington, 2018). The impacts of this worsen-
ing ecological collapse takes place in a world of growing complexities and
easily destroyed interdependencies. What have our educational systems
WORLD FUTURES 215

been able to do to effectively prepare us, individually and collectively, as
stewards of life on Earth and to avoid slipping unwittingly into the role
of Planetary Homewreckers? Even if that has not been the exclusive goal
of education, it is rapidly needing to become its primary goal. Simply
put, if we do not learn now to live in balance with all life and life-
creating processes on Earth, we will cease to maintain livable conditions
for our species as a whole. Education must foster future-fit competencies.
Our current ecological challenges and increasing societal complexities
require that we develop appropriate evolutionary learning capabilities to
embrace these impediments in generative ways. This developmental pro-
cess cannot be delivered by educational institutions that operate in silos
and are based on mechanistic worldviews. One could argue that a mech-
anistic worldview is at the root of today’s climate change and social-
ecological crises (Laszlo, 2018a; Smitsman et al., 2018).
Our mechanistic worldview and over-emphasis on fossil fuel driven
economic societal development has also prevented us from becoming
future-fit. Becoming future-fit implies learning to be capable of anticipat-
ing and regulating the futures we are co-creating in the present through
the impacts of our actions and activities. This type of future-responsive-
ness provides essential information for steering our decision-making
processes, something that our past and current educational systems have
placed little emphasis on (Luksha et al., 2018; Smitsman & Smitsman,
2019). Learning to become future-fit is essential for the development of
future-creating capabilities, based on responsible membership in the
larger community of life on this planet.
In practical terms, this means gaining a pro-active understanding of
our impacts and being willing to take responsibility for the manner in
which we drive development on our planet with consequences for life as
a whole. The role of education at all levels must now be to re-focus on
how best to facilitate this evolutionary learning process. This includes
facilitation of learning processes that empower us to systemically trans-
form the behaviors that we now realize are damaging. The role of educa-
tion then becomes capacity development to bring forth future-fit
behaviors and collective leadership for safeguarding our shared future
wellbeing. Accordingly, citizens become empowered in their capacity to
take individual and collective decisions based on an integral understand-
ing that each choice brings with it consequences for life as an embracing
holistic expression of Earth, herself.
The Role of Education
Education has a unique and essential role to play in preparing us to
become future-fit and future-creative (Smitsman & Smitsman, 2019;
216 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

Luksha et al., 2018). However, so far it has not even come close to fulfilling
this role. The contemporary mechanistic educational paradigm is best
described as a “factory model”—with its emphasis on rote memorization,
standardized learning tasks, evaluation and exams, “one size fits all”conveyor
belt type courses, and the manner in which educational institutions are man-
aged (Moore, 2012;Sengeetal.,2012;Smitsman&Chung,2018). Rather
than becoming a vehicle for civilizational transformation, education currently
fuels the dynamics of an Industrial Age Society by perpetuating the culture of
consumerism, materialism, short-termism, hyper-rationalism, egoism, and
strident individualism.
Furthermore, the way in which learning is structured in many of our
mainstream educational institutions feeds the economic model of individ-
ual consumers who compete for their market-share. This type of learning
does not inspire learning for future-fitness. The recent school strikes are
not just happening as a solidarity stand with our planet, they are also a
collective outcry of youth saying they don’t want to learn in this old dual-
istic way anymore. What is required for future-fit learning is the develop-
ment of interwoven educational networks that prototype a Lester
Milbrath famously termed a learning society (viz. Milbrath, 1989).
Learning societies—whether in the form of learning communities and the
old apprenticeship type models—demonstrate an evolutionary under-
standing that learning cannot take place in isolation. Many youths are
looking for how they can join learning networks, communities, and
movements that are capable of inspiring learning for conscious action in
the collective caretaking of our integral wellbeing.
Integral wellbeing stems from a focus on deeply sourced wellness on
at least six different levels of being, simultaneously. In our modern mad
mechanized rush to a materialistic nirvana, we often think of wellbeing as
a highly personal and individualized concern. Questions such as: Am I
doing okay? How do I feel? Do I have all that I need? What’s missing? can
keep us isolated and self-absorbed and sadly many children first become
acquainted with this narrow focus through the schools they attend, and
their peer-to-peer relationships. Self-care is part of future-fitness and
thrivability when it becomes embedded within a larger focus. We briefly
present these six levels of wellbeing here as they answer the deeper ques-
tion about the purpose and role of education with regard to the founda-
tions of systemic thrivability (see Laszlo, 2018a; Laszlo & Russell, 2013;
Smitsman & Smitsman, 2019).
1. Personal Wellbeing—The first level concerns our personal wellbeing
and what by many is considered the domain of individual thrivability.
2. Communal Wellbeing—This is also called the inter-personal level
where the emphasis now expands to include our relationship with
WORLD FUTURES 217

others and the contribution that our human relationships make to
our sense of wellbeing and thrivability.
3. Societal Wellbeing—The focus here expands to include the import-
ance of community relations. A collective sense of us as one
humanity begins to emerge. The focus now becomes, how do we
interact in thrivable ways as entire societies?
4. Ecosystemic Wellbeing—The focus now expands beyond the exclu-
sively human sense of self to also embrace a sense of trans-species
thrivability and integral ecology. This includes planetary wellbeing,
where we begin to feel that we are part of the living and breathing
expression of Earth, herself.
5. Transgenerational Wellbeing—The fifth level invites us to empathize
with the hopes, dreams, needs and expectations of our ancestors
and of future generations not yet born. In First Nations indigenous
education programs of the Americas this is often referred to as 7th
Generation Education (Jacobs, 2016; Lane et al., 2019).
6. Cosmological Wellbeing—By expanding to include the cosmic
dimension of our wellbeing and ability to thrive we begin to con-
sciously work with the creative dynamic that brings forth planets,
stars, galaxies and all of everything in the very design of our soci-
eties and learning activities (Smitsman & Smitsman, 2019). This
sixth level wraps full circle to the first by revealing the cosmo-
logical dimension through introspective exercises of personal well-
being and thrivability. Practices such as meditation, mindfulness,
martial arts, yoga and many others that connect us with the flow
of existence within and all around us are starting to find their way
into formal and informal learning environments.
The key to integral wellbeing is to honor the interdependence of all
six levels of thrivability as expanding concentric circles that form an evo-
lutionary learning spiral. We start to see this emerging awareness and
integral thrivability capacity in the Phoenix Generation (aka, Generation
Z) as part of the networks of learning and action they create (Dennis,
2012,2014; Laszlo et al., 2012).
These learning networks are beginning to emerge as a new educational
prototype, which is especially becoming visible through the activities and
ways of learning of Generation Z (Barr, 2016; Staples, 2019). Collective
learning through learning networks is not something new. Peter Senge,
for example has written and taught this approach extensively for several
decades through his model of the Learning Organization and Schools that
Learn (Senge et al., 2012). Yet what is new is the demand of youth to be
part of the co-design of the new educational prototypes with emphasis on
the need for integral thrivability as expressed in their urgent call to action
218 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

for stopping ecological collapse (Monbiot, 2019). Furthermore, what is
new in the prototypes that are emerging is the evolutionary focus and
new paradigm worldview where life is no longer viewed through the
myopic lens of chronocentric and homocentric interests.
The new paradigm worldview is based on the emerging (and peren-
nial) scientific and evolutionary understanding of our universe as a living
wholeness. This has also been described by scientists such as David
Bohm, Ervin Laszlo, and Jude Currivan as the holographic nature of our
universe, which basically explains that there are no parts and particles in
empty space (Bohm, 1980; Currivan, 2017; Laszlo & Laszlo, 2016).
Instead there is a larger unified field which has both physical and non-
physical qualities that are intertwined and mutually responsive as has also
been described by Karl Pribram, Rupert Sheldrake, Mae Wan Ho, Vilmos
Czanyi, Paul Laviolet, and Eric Chaisson. By becoming aware of ourselves
as intertwined within a responsive universe we become even more aware
of the impact and importance of our conscious evolutionary agency at all
six levels of wellbeing and thrivability. This, coupled with the capacity to
mobilize networks and actions through an interconnected informational
world, makes that the landscape of learning, and the horizons presented
through education, have drastically changed.
One of the fundamental characteristics of young infant’s development,
as studied by ecological psychologists such as Ad Smitsman, Daniella
Corbetta, Leonard Shlain, and Esther Thelen, is that children explore
affordances
1
in their environment to further their goals and develop their
skills. Our current landscape of digitalization, youth mobilization, new
paradigm science worldviews, ecological urgency, and social-media con-
nectedness creates a whole new set of affordances for learning and devel-
opment. Most of our current educational systems do not even
acknowledge the extent to which the landscape of learning has shifted.
Accordingly, much learning is taking place outside the classroom, which
makes the classroom seem increasingly less relevant.
The purpose of this article is to begin mapping out some of the
dynamics in this shifting landscape and to bring this together by describ-
ing some of the qualities of these emerging new evolutionary learning
ecosystem prototypes, also known as protopias (and not utopias). A pro-
topia provides practices, pathways and eco-systemic designs for a desir-
able future that can be realized with the conditions and potentials
available to us now (Luksha et al., 2018). Accordingly, a protopia is dif-
ferent from a utopia, which can only be approached asymptotically but
never reached. A protopia empowers ways to bring our vision of the
future we want into achievable practice and action to become the evolu-
tionary systems we seek for our future right now. As such, a protopia can
also help us become conscious of the affordances and opportunities
WORLD FUTURES 219

within the landscape of our shifting times. In this way, a protopia can
help inform the actualization of opportunities and evolutionary potentials
that could otherwise be missed.
Protopias for future-fit educational systems require an ecosystemic
approach to learning and development. We therefore propose that such a
protopia for a thrivable future incorporate the design and cultivation of
what we are introducing here as “Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems.”
The concept of the Evolutionary Learning Ecosystem (ELE) is not new.
For example, Laszlo explained in 2001 how ELEs serve as the embodi-
ment for Evolutionary Learning Communities (ELC), “in which people
act as stewards of their own futures in syntony with their dynamic
surroundings,”and help to manifest an embodied “evolutionary con-
sciousness”(Laszlo, 2001, p. 319). Spencer-Keyse, Luksha and Cubista
build on this to explain how an ELE can be defined as a complex,
dynamically evolving, and self-renewing system of structures, processes,
and milieus that organize individual and collective learning for universal
well-being and thrivability (Spencer-Keyse et al., 2019).
Although the terminology “Evolutionary Learning Ecosystem”is still
considered new in the mainstream, it is a term that has been used for sev-
eral decades in the field of social systems design praxis known as
“Evolutionary Systems Design”(Laszlo, 2003). Through this article we invite
you to join us in exploring the ELE protopia of what is possible when we
embody and enact the heartset, mindset, and skillset needed to bring into
being a world and future in which all of life on Earth can thrive and flour-
ish together. The approach mentioned here is not limited to formal educa-
tion institutions and environments. Rather, it aims to infuse every sphere of
society open to systemic transformation and conscious evolution.
The VUCA Dynamics in Our Learning Landscapes
We are living in a time of “wicked problems”; challenges that affect all of
humanity and cannot be addressed through monodisciplinary research
and practice, or by any one sector of society on its own. Our time is often
characterized by the acronym VUCA: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and
Ambiguous. Education, as an institution at the heart of the regenerative
and evolutionary processes of our civilization, is bound by dynamics that
set constraints and delimit the possibility space of the evolution of
humankind in the future now. Listed below is an overview of some of the
key VUCA dynamics that most influence our learning landscapes (Luksha
et al., 2017):
Globalization of markets, technologies, and culture:
220 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

䊊Business is increasingly moving to 24/7/365 nonstop modal-
ities of production and service availability, and its supply
chains span across economies that engage billions of peo-
ple worldwide;
䊊Science, culture and media operate, collaborate and spread in
increasingly interconnected transnational contexts;
䊊Information processing and communications technologies per-
mit, foster, and encourage global economic and cul-
tural exchange.
Accelerated technological change:
䊊Shorter lifecycle of technologies, including shorter research to
innovation to production cycles, accelerates disruption of
many sectors of the economy;
䊊The rise of new waves of technologies (including genetics,
nano-technology, robotics, Smart Data, IoT, deep AI and
immersive AR) that are disruptive individually, and both
promise and threaten explosive change when combined.
Geo-political and socio-economic challenges:
䊊Growing global inequality and poverty, rising threats to global
systems of economy and justice, ongoing food and refugee cri-
ses, elevated risks of global wars and pandemia—potentially
can cascade into a spiral of self-reinforced civiliza-
tional collapse;
䊊Fragile intergovernmental structures seem increasingly less
able to anticipate grassroots and homegrown movements of
decentralized global networks of marginalized groups seeking
their own brand of justice; such rhizomic networks present an
unprecedented potential for systemic crises as well as for
opportunities to transcend them.
Environmental pressures:
䊊Increasing interdependencies between human and natural sys-
tems have already crossed many carrying capacity threshold
limits with dire implications for the sustainability of local and
global biomes;
䊊Humans began tapping into and disrupting intra-planetary
systems beyond the biosphere (i.e., the constitution of the
atmosphere and hydrosphere) that can create irreversible
dynamics making Earth a “hothouse,”not suitable for any
known forms of life.
As we have analyzed elsewhere (Laszlo et al., 2017), the cumulative
effect of these trends poses at least two critical challenges that will impact
the ability of our species to survive and thrive during and beyond the
WORLD FUTURES 221

21st century. The first challenge regards our ability to cope with the
accelerating growth of internal complexity (an expression of intra-sys-
temic coherence). Our second challenge concerns our ability to suffi-
ciently restore the sustainable/regenerative/thriving relationship with our
planet (an expression of supra-systemic coherence). Accordingly, four cat-
egories of long-term scenarios for humanity can be identified, and need
to be addressed in our learning landscapes:
1. Catastrophic scenarios that imply “civilizational collapse”(degrad-
ation of our culture and death of a significant proportion of the
population) and even the possible extinction (“die out”) of our
species, likely with most, if not all, of the biosphere.
2. “Business as usual”scenarios that assume little to no change in our
patterns of consumption and other key parameters that define our
civilization. The extrapolation of this pattern on a future now tra-
jectory (i.e., societies remain industry/market focused, hierarchic-
ally governed, mass production oriented, with strong reliance on
externalities) continues the dynamic of overshoot and environmen-
tal degradation that exceeds our planetary carrying capacity. A
subset of “business as usual”scenarios includes “sustainability as
usual”scenarios that appear to take seriously the need for change
but end up pouring all their resources into either protesting
against the terrible state of current affairs or else promoting green
products and practices that don’t substantially change the con-
sumption patterns of humanity. These scenarios are akin to
“rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”instead of actually
changing course.
3. Singularity scenarios assume that human progress and the trans-
formation of our species will be predominantly informed by
technological progress, and that technologies such as Artificial
General Intelligence (AGI) will help humanity resolve its existen-
tial challenges through a transhuman co-evolution of the AGI-
powered technosphere with human cyborg beings. The implicit
assumption of this scenario often is that it will create an even
greater rift (or incoherence) between evolved humans and the rest
of the biosphere, and between humans and “transhumans”that
become a new superior species. Singularity scenarios do not chal-
lenge predicaments of the existing industrial civilization, and can
be seen as an ultimate culmination and end-point of, rather than
as a spring-board that departs from, the future now trajectory.
4. Thrivability scenarios are predicated on visions of a world that works
for all (see Fuller, 1971) and aims at restoring the balance between
humanity and the planetary systems on win-win premises, as well as
222 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

within the human species, departing from future now pathways and
overcoming contemporary existential risks. In other words, it is a
world where everyone thrives. Such scenarios do not preclude the
intensified use of technologies, but rather envisage technological evo-
lution as serving, not driving, the evolution of humanity toward states
of higher internal and external coherence with planetary and cos-
mic systems.
Our predicament is that, of these four sets of scenarios, only one is
both evolutionary stabilized and likely to be preferred by the majority of
stakeholders (since it aims to work in the interest of most, if not all, of
humanity). This is the fourth set of scenarios listed above: the thrivability
scenarios. But the thrivability cannot be guaranteed—in fact, current
assessment of global risks indicates that the probability it will occur is
well below 50%.
2
In order to increase our chances of success with these
types of scenarios, we need to create a collective planetary-scale practice
that will help us transcend to the other side of probability, and into desir-
able, feasible, and realizable futures. We see education as an essential self-
guiding process for this to occur—but in order for thrivability scenarios
to become reality, they must reflect the qualities of the desired emergent
futures that future-fit evolutionary learners can envision today.
Engaging the Learning Landscapes of Thrivable Futures
The curation of protopia futures implies creating and engaging new pat-
terns of being and becoming. If we continue with “business-as-usual”or
even with “sustainability-as-usual”while talking about new futures, noth-
ing fundamental will change. Only when the majority (or at least a critical
mass) of humanity begins acting and living in accordance with the pat-
terns, values, and worldviews of a thrivable civilization, will the status
quo transform. A mechanistic paradigm and worldview is not capable of
generating the perspective required to lead the way for the co-creation of
thrivable futures. As illustrated by the six levels of integral wellbeing
described earlier, paradigms and worldviews that aim for thrivability, and
not merely for fossil fuel driven economic growth, emphasize a develop-
mental evolutionary learning process that includes all major systems from
the physical to the societal to the ecosystemic and even to the sacred and
the spiritual. In this paradigm, all beings are treated with the dignity
accorded to life, and every system seeks to champion the principle that
“life creates conditions conducive to life.”In other words, our way of see-
ing the world and thinking about it becomes based on life-affirming,
future-creating, and opportunity-increasing organic (rather than mechan-
istic) structures.
WORLD FUTURES 223

Context matters—and not only the visible, tangible contexts of our
learning environments, but their cultural, normative and behavioral con-
texts, too. All systems have an evolutionary “goodness of fit”with the
environment in which they operate, developed through what systems sci-
entist Humberto Maturana would call the process of “structural-coupling”
(Maturana, 2002). In ecosystemic terms, expression of this dynamic sys-
tem/environment relationship is called a “niche.”The niche of any com-
plex adaptive system is an expression of finely tuned connections with
the dynamically changing external context and the internally generated
impulses and volitions to explore, create and change that express the life-
force and potentialities of the system, itself (Smitsman & Smitsman,
2019). In short, our context reinforces our behavior, and our behavior
reinforces our context. We blend and become one expression comprised
of various unique but harmonized patterns. This is why change is so diffi-
cult: to change the pattern, we must change ourselves. But to change our-
selves, the pattern must be changed.
The reinforcing feedback loops can only be shifted by a shift in con-
sciousness, and then enactment of this shift in the collective commitment
to manifest new ways of being, seeing, sensing and doing in new learning
systems. This shift of consciousness from a behavioral systems perspective
is not a mental shift. Rather it is a shift in our stance in the world, which
opens new explorations of the affordances and evolutionary potentialities
in the learning landscape that remained out of reach through earlier stan-
ces (Smitsman & Smitsman, 2019).
To foster the emergence of new patterns through new stances and new
behavioral dynamics, we need to draw upon the profound new-paradigm
scientific worldview emerging in the first quarter of the 21st Century.
The significance of this worldview lies in its validation of perennial
insights derived from wisdom traditions over millennia. While modern
science and technology serve as enablers of our actions—providing know-
how—the ancient and indigenous wisdom provides guidance for them—
know-why. Indigenous wisdom practice mobilizes also the capacity to
apply the know-how and know-why in concrete actions based on the care-
why and care-how capabilities nested in collectively developed leadership
(Laszlo, 2017; Smitsman et al., 2019).
According to this new-paradigm scientific worldview, evolution through
the expansion of space and the flow of time is a process of increasing
functional diversification, structural complexification, and evolutionary
coherence (Smitsman & Currivan, 2019). In this worldview, evolution can be
described as “a tendency toward greater structural complexity and organiza-
tional simplicity, more efficient modes of operation, and greater dynamic
harmony”(Laszlo, 2009, p. 215). This greater dynamic harmony and
224 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

optimization has been described by Alexander Laszlo in terms of concept
of syntony:
As an organizing force in societal evolution, syntony involves an
embodiment and manifestation of conscious evolution: when conscious
intention aligns with evolutionary purpose, we can foster and design
evolutionarily consonant pathways of human development in partnership
with Earth. It is the effort to cultivate these dynamics that constitutes what
is often called a syntony quest. (Laszlo, 2015, 167)
As outlined briefly earlier in terms of the six levels of wellbeing for
integral thrivability, this evolutionary process takes place on multiple lev-
els simultaneously—as organisms and individuals, as communities, as
entire societies, as ecosystems, as legacies (both past and future), and as
the entire planet and the worlds we form part of. By creating and curat-
ing individual and collective patterns of behavior in accordance with the
evolutionary process of life itself, we tap into our evolutionary potentials
as future creatives. One of the expressions of this dynamics is “planetary
citizenship”(Laszlo & Keys, 1981), whereby human beings become
empowered to sense cosmically,think globally, and act locally, including in
times of increasing complexity and growing uncertainty (Laszlo, 2018a).
Accordingly we become the state-attractors for the emergence of a world
that works, bringing into being a civilization in syntony with the ecosys-
tems with which it is interdependent (Smitsman et al., 2018).
To do this, we must be able to recognize and enact evolutionary
dynamics in the landscapes of learning. By honoring and enacting the
rhythms and patterns of our evolutionary emergence through, for
example, sensing activities, rituals, play, and gaming, we can start con-
sciously to explore the future potentialities in our current landscape of
learning for a world that works.
Learning needs to form a bridge between our future self of a more
actualized thrivable state and our present world. Learning can bring our
future world into our present world when children realize they are the
bridge between what has not yet come into being and what is here now
and came before them. This intergenerational and cosmic awareness
activates our future creative abilities in ways that help our children to
unlock their inner genius. By guiding children to their thrivability
potentials they learn to attract their future state of their more actualized
self into being, here and now. When learning supports the exploration of
these potentialities (inner and outer) we become the Future Creative
Human for a Thrivable World. (Smitsman & Smitsman, 2019, p. 23)
A world that works where all can thrive together is what was described
earlier in the last category of long-term scenarios for humanity—“the
Thrivability scenarios.”By vesting our energy and creative efforts in this cat-
egory of scenarios, we ensure our evolutionary success, which can be best
WORLD FUTURES 225

expressed as finding pathways for surviving and thriving of our species
together with all other forms of life within the biosphere and other planetary
systems. We do so by curating ways for our Evolutionary Learning
Ecosystems to become the landscapes for fostering the type of future-creative
competencies so needed at this time. Future creatives strategy for thriving
comes from the richness of non-reductionist life sciences, such as evolution-
ary and ecosystem studies, or living systems theory. It is also derived from
applied methodologies of biomimicry, permaculture, and so on—as well as
from the sciences of complexity, such as complex adaptive systems theory,
second order cybernetics, social systems dynamics theory, and the emerging
field of systemic innovation (Laszlo, 2018b).
Designing Evolutionary Learning Activities for Thrivability
Knowledge alone cannot create an Evolutionary Learning Ecosystem for
embodying and enacting the evolutionary dynamics of thrivable futures.
The question we seek to explore together is: how can we learn from the
future, and how can what we learn inform, guide, and regulate our actions,
intentions, and behaviors today? We suggest that this is not only possible,
it is actually how young children naturally learn (Smitsman & Smitsman,
2019). The future may not exist in physical reality in manifest form—yet
the unborn future exists now and here: in the form of a seed that grows
to become a magnificent tree, in the form of a child that grows to
become a creative and empowered adult, or in the form of a dream that
becomes a beautiful piece of art. The unborn future consists of many
potentialities and various probabilities, some of which we seek to avoid,
others that we seek to foster. Children have naturally far greater future
creative and future responsive capabilities compared to adults, as their
exploration and attunement capabilities are less constrained (until their
niche in society becomes more well defined and delineated) (Smitsman &
Corbetta, 2010; Smitsman & Smitsman, 2019).
The kind of future-creating learning capabilities present in young
infants is precisely what many educational institutions, governments, cor-
porations, and NGOs now seek to enhance and develop within their own
systems in order to resolve our ecological crisis. In other words, innov-
ation requires learning activities that mobilize future-creating capabilities
within the learning landscape of these activities. The priority of learning
within organizations is then no longer to create competencies for existing
tasks and performance protocols. Instead, learning becomes the evolution-
ary driver by which organizations are able to renew and innovate them-
selves from the inside-out (Senge et al., 2012). Educational institutions
must also cultivate this capability of individual and collective evolutionary
learning within their own systems, processes, and culture. This is the
226 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

promise and potential for organizations to become Evolutionary Learning
Ecosystems (ELEs).
In order to successfully innovate our societal institutions so they, and
we, become future-fit for thrivable futures, our mainstream institutions—
and in particular our educational institutions—must become Holistic,
Evolutionarily Coherent, and Generative—in other words, to follow the
primary patterns that life itself manifests. These three principles of life
are explained as follows:
Holistic: Life emerges from wholeness and evolves through increas-
ing complexity by learning from all its dimensions of being, and
co-creatively synergizing its innate diversity.
䊊Responsive: the capacity of life to manifest whole system
response-ability.
䊊Integral: the essential unity of life as embodied in any liv-
ing system.
Evolutionarily Coherent: Life fosters dynamics that achieve greater
internal and external coherence while evolving existing forms of
life and evoking new forms.
䊊Consonant: the internal and external tuning of life with other
systems that creates vibrant relationships.
䊊Connected: the way life purposefully and proactively
reaches out to form connections through ongoing acts of
co-creation.
Generative: Life constantly experiments or prototypes and integrates
feedback from its environment on what works and what doesn’t.
䊊Inclusive: the way life includes and responds to informational
feedback generated from all actors involved.
䊊Diverse: Life thrives and evolves from the diversity it generates
in a manner that is collaborative and co-creative.
By adopting these principles, Evolutionary Learning Ecosystem (ELE)
Protopias can take the curating and embedding function to prepare edu-
cational systems to produce not merely a sustainable, but a truly thrivable
future for all. To do this, ELEs need to be designed so that they are cap-
able of:
Holistically embracing complexity for its own benefit by cultivating
evolutionarily “wise”learning systems through responsive mindsets
(know-why and know-what), skillsets (know-how) and heartsets
(care-why and care-how), in a way that integrates learning and
development across intra- and inter-personal, trans-generational and
trans-species levels (Laszlo, 2018a).
WORLD FUTURES 227

Supporting and increasing evolutionary coherence in our society by
moving toward educational provision that is networked and eco-
systemic through collectively driven governance. Fostering learning
that connects with our biosphere and other planetary systems
(including and combining human individuals, technology-
enhanced human communities and organizations, autonomous
technological agents, and non-human living agents that represent
various species and planetary systems). In doing so, cultivating
consonant relations with life-affirming systems that celebrate
“learning as a way of being.”
Operating as evolving, open-ended, prototype-and-scaleup systems
that constantly generate new patterns, practices, curricula and
methods. Embracing an inclusive pathway of Protopia: optimistic
but achievable future scenarios brought forward from a diversity of
perspectives by prototyping the future in the present; being the sys-
tems we want to see in the world.
Learning from and for the Future
The variety of scenarios set by the future now trends is predominantly
informed by our past stages of learning and development. It is an outflow
from the past, and not sufficiently informed by future possibilities and
new evolutionary stances for which we, in the here-and-now, can become
the attractors. Many of the greatest innovations of our species were not
based on past frameworks and constraints. Instead, they emerged from a
creative process of imagining new possible futures that crystallized as new
ways of being, acting, relating, and organizing.
What are the qualities and competencies of evolutionary learners for
these new ways of being, acting, relating and organizing for thrivable
worlds and futures? Here are some which we see emerging from our
many years of working in the field of evolutionary learning and trans-
formational change. We could even say that some of these descriptions
are new evolutionary archetypes with the potential to become future pro-
totypes for the profiles that education seeks to foster and organizations
seek to elect (Smitsman, 2019):
Wholeness Coders—The Wholeness Coders are able to generate
thrivability from complexity and diversification using wholeness as
the design principle and evolutionary coherence as the dynamic
attractor for coding new behavioral stances and system dynamics.
Coders are also able to tune into and optimize the intelligence of
complex dynamic systems for thrivability, and to work with the
process of emergence in future-creative ways.
228 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

Future-Creatives—The Future Creatives see and seek future-
shaping processes and possibilities. They focus on generating and
enhancing conditions for life to thrive. They work with VUCA
elements to transform them into opportunities for innovation,
regeneration and renewal.
Evolutionary Catalysts—The Evolutionary Catalysts are able to
activate and infuse the dynamic process of evolutionary learning
and development for our collective thrivability by curating and
fostering syntony and evolutionary coherence in the midst of chal-
lenges, divisions, and entropic complexity. They do not seek to be
leaders; instead they mobilize the future as an attractor amidst the
systems with which they work. Nevertheless, they do lead by being
and becoming state-attractors, themselves, not by telling people
what to do. They catalyze change by activating and opening access
to our personal and collective wisdom potentials.
Pattern Weavers—The Pattern Weavers focus on and work with
the Pattern that Connects (Bateson, 1972). They weave the new
paradigm into being by bringing forth this connective pattern
between and among the six levels of integral wellbeing and thriv-
ability described earlier. They are conscious of the pattern of dis-
connection and division that has been so present in the hitherto
dominant mechanistic worldview and paradigm. By introducing,
weaving and seeding the Pattern that Connects, new systems can
come into being that honor the evolutionary principles of reci-
procity, interdependence, mutuality, and interconnectedness.
New Paradigm Storytellers—The New Paradigm Storytellers share a
new narrative that inspires our conscious evolution. They focus on
sacred birth and conscious dying as conditions for thrivability and
flourishing. Even in the midst of chaos, death, and division when
VUCA elements are most activated, they can transform the focus
and shift the attention to our future-creative competencies and
evolutionary possibilities. As storytellers of a new narrative they
help bring thrivable worlds and futures within the dynamics and
learning landscapes of our current realities by helping re-member
our co-authorship in the evolutionary narrative and re-story our
sense of agency in weaving new patterns of existence.
These evolutionary archetypes of the new paradigm are based on
the emerging scientific understanding of our universe as holographic.
According to this view, each landscape and world contains the thru-
ways, portals and potentialities for the emergence of every other world.
If we now apply this principle in conjunction with the evolutionary
archetypes to the design of ELEs, it becomes possible to see how an
WORLD FUTURES 229

ELE can serve as a fractal of, and attractor for, a future evolutionary
learning society. When we apply this holographic principle even fur-
ther at the operational level, we can envision how at the heart of each
ELE there needs to be a number of interconnected hubs of
Evolutionary Learning Communities (ELCs), each engaged in comple-
mentary approaches for realizing the evolutionary vision of a just, inte-
gral, sustainable and thrivable world.
Holding this possibility and applying it to the design of learning activ-
ities is how a Protopian Vision can begin to catalyze the patterns and
shifts toward a thrivable world, and to bring these new evolutionary
archetypes into play. Accordingly, education can become truly trans-
formative by acting as an affordance and attractor from the future we
want and fostering a more actualized version of our higher evolutionary
potential. This envisioning and actualizing aspect of education can inspire
people to make the effort and embark on the learning journey to become
future-fit and future-creative. Perhaps today’s outcry of our youth is really
a cry for engagement in their future, which they currently express
through climate protests and school strikes.
The ancient Greeks called a protopian society a Paidea, which is a
society where the promotion and enabling of life-long evolutionary learn-
ing and the actualization of the best of our human potential in the broad-
est sense is a central priority (Milbrath, 1989). Let us explore now in
further details what a possible protopian Paidea might become in the
hands, hearts and minds of evolutionary future-creatives
3
:
Imagine …The year is 2030. The Evolutionary Learning Ecosystem (ELE)
has developed through a variety of strategically chosen interconnected
Evolutionary Learning Communities (ELC) on all continents, reaching out
to at least a billion learners worldwide. The members of these ELCs meet
regularly in person and online, coordinating the evolution of an ELE
Protopia for a Thrivable World. New cultural practices and connective
technologies have spread through the ELE and are starting to have visible
impact on people’s daily life, bringing greater prosperity, well-being, joy
and inspiration to every household affected. ELCs make sure to bring
together every voice of their community: business, education, civil society,
government, and more—linking them in at local ELC Hubs that serve as a
“community of communities.”
The ELE Protopia has developed from the synergy of many tried and tested
approaches and earlier ELE prototypes. These have been experimented with in
real world situations through work at forward looking think/link/do/be tanks
such as Global Education Futures, EARTHwise Center and the Laszlo Institute
of New Paradigm Research. Out of this effort of prototyping emerged the first
Syntony Centers of Argentina, Mauritius, Australia, the USA, Canada, and
Russia as prototype ELC Hubs.
The ELE Protopia is now actively informing and facilitating the educational
design of thriving learning environments around the world. The ELE
230 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

Archetypes of the Evolutionary Learners are serving as aspirational roles
for bringing forth the future-creative competencies, patterns, and narratives
that form part of the New Paradigm Education, and young people are
eagerly stepping into these roles. Their narratives and practices weave the
ancient and future wisdoms with new paradigm scientific principles that
are further contextualized by the ELCs. Learning and development unfolds
holistically by applying the same principles by which our universe evolves
and flourishes through the creative and ludic design and facilitation of
evolutionary learning activities.
The learning landscape of a thrivable world is no longer off in the future
or a distant vision. People are actively engaged in the learning landscape of
a thrivable world and are generating experiences of flourishing via the
ELCs which spread and inform education around the world—and also
produce a multitude of projects and initiatives that transform our
civilization toward an abundant, ecologically-friendly, just, and culturally
rich society. The ELE fractal has a strong evolutionary coherence and is
naturally attracting the opportunities and investments required for its full
actualization, without any formal organizational control from above. The
ELC opportunities to share, exchange, and consciously learn together
provide breakthroughs in life-affirming, future-creating, and opportunity
increasing learning practices. These are spreading to other areas at various
scales through the rhizomic network of local ELCs connected in regional
Hubs, and Hubs connected in ELEs that span the globe.
The emerging evolutionary learning society benefits from the linked
prototyping of informal education environments as well as formal ones. Some
ELCs have evolved from what used to be the schools and universities of the
early 21st century; those that quickly learned to apply the ELC approach to
become hubs of emerging learning ecosystems, providing new learning and
organizational competencies and entire new skillsets and concomitant jobs
opportunities. None of this would have been possible without the educational
focus on forming compassionate and capable future-creatives.
Through the ELCs, new business models are also developing based on
regenerative and inclusive economic principles and practices. They self-
organize as an Evolutionary Learning Partnership (ELP), becoming
attractors for a new economy of thriving, sharing and caring that manages
to overcome the egocentric and self-destructive dynamics of industrial
capitalism, setting our civilization on a pathway of harmony and flourishing
for centuries to come.
And so it goes. From scholars to homecarers, from academia and
business to neighborhoods and farms, the ELE Protopia is becoming a
new planetary reality for our species. It is providing hope, and a means
for generating hope that is not dependent on the whims of a larger,
impersonal system, but can be self-directed and shared.
Embracing the VUCA Dynamics to Catalyze Our Birth
The emergence and curation of Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems based
on principles of thrivability heralds a new educational paradigm with the
WORLD FUTURES 231

potential to generate a future akin to that described in the creative vision-
ing scenario presented above. The dynamics of our increasingly VUCA
world may well be exactly what is catalyzing our collective birth into a
new evolutionary pattern. Just prior to birth, VUCA dynamics tend to
increase as the pressures intensify on the entire system of mother and
fetus. By understanding and embracing the VUCA dynamics from an
evolutionary perspective, we can hold this cascade of potentially acceler-
ated crises in a very different way. Our stance in the world informs and
influences the manner in which we engage the inner and outer potential-
ities and affordances of the systems of which we form part. The old para-
digm worldview regards VUCA dynamics as a threat, as something that
is to be controlled, managed or else avoided. The emerging new paradigm
worldview sees the situation quite differently.
According to the old mechanistic worldview, the rising mobilization of
youth climate action may well be regarded as an unwelcome VUCA
dynamic. However, a new-paradigm evolutionary worldview presents an
entirely different narrative, one wherein youth actively explore the future
we all want within our collective learning landscapes. Youth around the
world are showing clearly and coherently that there is no more wiggle-
room for denying that the parameters of our ecological responsibility
have shifted. Denying responsibility for our planetary stewardship is sim-
ply not an option anymore. Avoiding becoming future-fit and maintain-
ing an old mechanistic stance and worldview is a fast track to
civilizational collapse and die out, the first type of scenarios described
earlier. This, too, is not optional. When birth becomes catalyzed there are
not many options; either we engage head-down in humility, or else we
risk a breech birth by throwing our head in the clouds.
The ELC Protopia can inspire active exploration of the evolutionary
dynamics inherent in our current learning landscapes that can empower
us to become future-fit. We can, and indeed, we must collectively gener-
ate practices for transcending to the other side of fear and despair, into
hopeful and desirable futures. Education is meant to prepare and
empower us to enact and engage the dynamics of desired emergent
futures in the living systems and landscapes of our current realities.
VUCA dynamics have always been a part of our learning landscapes
since time immemorial. They tend to activate at evolutionary bifurca-
tion points: times of significant transition. Indigenous wisdom practices
prepared people for VUCA periods by fostering rituals and practices
for learning through sensing, envisioning, rhythm, dreaming, and col-
lective leadership in ways that are needed now more than ever.
It is said that White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared to the First Nations
people of the Americas during the time that they were faced with the pos-
sibility of their extinction. She came to give the teachings for how to
232 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

transform their VUCA dynamics into generative cycles of renewal in the
midst of death and despair (Lane, 2018). The VUCA times through which
we are now transiting have long been prophesized by many First Nations
communities (Courlander, 1987; Lane, 2018,2019)—as the ancient Hopi
prophecy suggests, “we are the ones we have been waiting for.”
The Birth of New Educational Paradigms Now
The emergence and curation of educational systems based on principles
and practices of thrivability are part of the new educational paradigm
that is starting to emerge as we move further into the first half of the
twenty-first century (Laszlo, 2003,2018a; Luksha et al., 2018; Smitsman &
Smitsman, 2019). Our growing ecosystemic challenges raise the concern
that we are somehow predestined to go through a cascade of accelerating
crises that may eventually result in the extinction of our species from this
planet. The postulation of the ELE Protopia shows that another world is
possible. This new world is already starting to come into being as we can
see through the new evolutionary archetypes that are emerging (Lane,
2018; Luksha et al., 2018; Smitsman, 2019). Renewal, innovation, and
transformation require ecosystemic support and embedding brought
about by ELE Protopia prototyping.
We propose that the ELE Protopia can serve as a strong attractor and
bridge to the possibilities of desired thrivable futures that support the
transformation and transmutation of our hitherto negative and destruc-
tive tendencies. Many of these tendencies developed as a result of an out-
dated mechanistic worldview that did not favor the development of
empathy, compassion, mindfulness, and conscious co-creation. We can
design for thrivability in a world of complexity by learning how to
become evolutionary future-creatives (Smitsman et al., 2018). The practi-
ces, systems, methodologies, and partnerships are already available and
accessible to us here and now, and that is what makes the ELE Protopia
immediately possible and practicable.
The ELE Protopias can be designed by any group of people and when
this is done from the perspective offered (via six levels of thrivability,
three guiding principles of life, and five evolutionary archetypes), the
design process itself can be evolutionary. Those evolutionary principles
and archetypes are like the imaginal cells of the butterfly. The code for
the imaginal butterfly disks lies dormant in the skin of the caterpillar,
until its body starts to decay, which is when these disks link-up and con-
nect to form the imaginal cells that grow the body of the butterfly
(Sahtouris, 2000). ELE Protopias function in ways similar to this code
and can be thought of as carriers of the DNA of new education para-
digms, with the ELCs serving as the imaginal disks and the ELEs as the
WORLD FUTURES 233

imaginal cells that emerge when the ELCs link-up and connect. From the
ELEs the thrivability scenarios can become embedded and our future
brought into being. Here is how the ELC and ELE Protopia can be
designed and implemented with the help of the five evolutionary
future archetypes:
1. Wholeness Coder—Start by developing the ELC in a way that is
collaborative and inclusive. If you are founding the ELC as a col-
lective, then create the code for your ELC on the basis of the prin-
ciples that are evolutionary, as mentioned earlier; holistic,
evolutionarily coherent, and generative. Design for collaborative
diversity in a way that this can amplify each person and group
who is part of this. Think from wholeness and thrivability in the
design process and build the foundations from those principles.
Design for the ways people can learn together, share, give feedback
and input, and how these inputs can be integrated. If the ELC
includes people from around the world, reflect on the technologies
that can support this and how each person can have access to
those technologies.
2. Future Creative—As part of the founding of the ELC, invite the
collective of members into shared visioning exercises, exploring
the possibilities from the future to explore new paradigms of edu-
cation and the experience of evolutionary learning, envisioning the
realization of the foundations of the ELC over time, exploring if it
carries sufficient attraction and engagement for the future genera-
tions. Explore the possibility field together.
3. Evolutionary Catalyst—Work on the principles and practices for
making this truly an Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC).
Explore the many ways that the journey itself can be documented,
researched, communicated and shared. Evaluate together what
works and what does not and why. Apply an experiential learning
approach and support each other’s personal transformation as part
of the collective transformation.
4. Pattern Weaver—Work with the pattern that connects and start to
weave the larger stakeholders into the community outreach and
inreach, to weave the possibilities for the ELC to become an ELE.
Explore the organisms (groups, communities, organizations, networks,
people,places)oftheecosystemforittobecomethrivable.Designthe
strategies for connecting the dots from the future possibilities to the
now, working with Scenario 4 as shared earlier in this paper.
5. New Paradigm Storyteller—Weave the narrative of the new story
of us into the activities and communications of the ELCs and the
larger ELE. Allow the new narratives to emerge from the diversity
234 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.

of the ELCs and ELEs, seed the codes of wholeness into the way
the stories are co-created and shared, invite the world to become
part of this story. Make what you do truly interactive and partici-
patory. Provide also space in the narratives for sharing the stories
of grief, death, and collapse, which are part of this transition phase
as well, and share the practices and community support for how
to work through those periods of collapse and find Life in the cen-
ter of it.
We would like to support the manifestation of the ELC and ELE
Protopias by offering four questions for ongoing consideration:
Is there a place within your life, your work, and your organization
to envision and enact a Protopia of the emergent and
desired future?
How would you describe this Protopia if your life or your organ-
ization became part of, or one of the systems you want to see in
the world?
What cognitive or behavioral patterns, habits of mind and action,
and ways of sensing and feeling can invite this Protopia from the
future and ground it in the present reality of your life, and/or
your organization?
How do you relate with these emerging new evolutionary arche-
types described in this paper?
We encourage readers to connect with us and continue the exploration
of these questions together.
Brief Summary
We shared how our societies are increasingly coming under pressure and
the potential for irreversible systemic collapse is growing. Readiness to
face this emerging reality requires preparedness through new approaches
based on an evolutionary learning process that engages our thrivability
thinking and acting in the midst of collapse and breakdown. We explored
six thrivability levels of integral wellbeing as expanding concentric circles
that form an evolutionary learning spiral, and we elaborated four possible
scenarios of what may happen depending on the extent and depth of our
future preparedness, which we call future-fitness. We also explained how
now is the time to become future-creative by enhancing our evolutionary
learning capacity and engaging our innovation skills for the design of
Protopias of Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems (ELEs) through which we
can collectively develop our future-fitness and future competencies.
WORLD FUTURES 235

We explained how ELEs can be brought into being via intertwingled con-
nection among and between Evolutionary Learning Communities (ELCs).
We proposed how the design of such Protopias can unfold through three
key life principles and the kinds of evolutionary learning practices, com-
petencies, and foci that are described in five evolutionary archetype
dynamics currently emerging in response to contemporary VUCA
dynamics. We explained that the way Protopias are designed is as import-
ant as why they are designed and what they are designed for. As a result
of this exploration, we offered an evolutionary design process with con-
crete examples based on the evolutionary archetype dynamics. This
framework and process can be applied and contextualized by any group
of people who wish to take this work further. We also shared that many
Protopias are already in existence and we gave examples of organizations
that are in the process of curating their emergence right now, and have
been living this journey together already for many years.
As we shared earlier, as a species we now have but a small window of
time and opportunity to avoid the worst of systemic collapses. Let us act
wisely now by developing the competencies and the imaginal cells of
thrivability systems, as conscious midwives, curators, evolutionary learn-
ers, gardeners and custodians of a more thrivable world and future.
Notes
1. Affordances refer to present conditions that the environment offers for future
states or action outcomes to aim for, and qualities that are inherent in a
situation or in an object’s sensory characteristics that permit specific kinds of
uses. The presence and discovery of affordances by young children also act as
attractors by stimulating exploration that promotes learning and development
via exploration (Gibson & Pick, 2000). Similarly, anything that serves as an
invitation or state attractor for organizing behavioral patterns can also be
thought of as an affordance (Smitsman et al., 2018).
2. This figure is based on calculations by late Akop Nazaretyan (2016) who
takes into account probability of “civilizational collapse”and “die out”
scenarios, estimated by various scholars at 50%and 20%, respectively.
3. The explorative scenario presented is based on current real-life practice and
evolutionary learning partnerships.
ORCID
Anneloes Smitsman http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3279-3442
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