The Chinese government as a multi-national corporation seems to be able to do things that we cannot seem to reach here in the US.   Experimentation and use of the scientific method is social learning in the broadest sense and a good thing.

But what does Democracy do? We can’t easily change to a non-democratic form of government.   Maybe it does call for cooperation and innovation.  I agree that a government which is mostly made up of lawyers (US) means that we spend too much time fighting each other over Trump and tax breaks.  It’s entertainment and the mainstream media follows it.  This contributes to our ignorance of China.

There is a case to be made for use of Information Group Games (IG or IGG) (a.k.a. Learning Games). You may be too busy, but you should find someone who could do some testing and experimentation of IGG on some local issue.  Someone needs to try the game and maybe tweek the rules a bit.  It can be a powerful tool despite the fact that it seems to be only local.  Advances in biopharmaceuticals is focusing on what happens at the local level (molecular and cellular) and it is proving to be a game changer.  IGG is a social information technology (SIT) that allows players to use recent advances in communication technology to help search for information.

Games are important too, more than just child’s play.   One might hear that Yao Ming and fellow basketball players spend their lives trying to put a ball through a hoop and wonder why.  But that would be missing the point.  The structure of the game and the challenge allows discovery of the human spirit and many opportunities for interaction and collaboration, spurred on by friendly competition that is generally positive.  IGG is a simpler game but yet provides some of the same opportunities.

Brief review of IGG (Information Gathering Game)

A dozen players chosen at random are divided into 3 teams of 3 each, plus there is a 3-person panel of judges.   The Discussion Question (DQ) is given and the players have a period of time to find ideas and information which their team can then summarize and present to the whole group.

The time allowed for search and discussion will vary  depending on the complexity of the issue.  It could be 10 or 20 minutes.  Other DQ’s might require an overnight period during which time the players can use any source of information or talk to anyone they want.

A panel of judges, also picked from the dozen participants, decides the winning idea.   Teams and judges can be re-mixed by the moderator and the process repeated until a useful idea is discovered.  The sponsor of this process, like a movie producer, can withdraw support if the group seems to have no direction.  Some IGG may become self-sustaining.  This is not simply crowd sourcing and the differences are important.

Ten Things IGG can do for China Greening:

1. IGG can help to change the Mindset.
2. IGG can be sensors in a system that needs reliable feedback.
3. Push Experimentation and Innovation in social communication.
4. Create a Division of Labor for Information Gathering.
5. IGG can make the Rule of Law easier.
6. Discover Non-uses of Energy.
7. Find essential changes to implement at the local level.
8. Use IGG across generations.
9. Use IGG across national borders for solving local problems.
10. Explore other types of growth.

(1)  IGG can help to change the Mindset.

I agree with JUCCCE’s emphasis on story telling and finding the right words.  It may be useful to show a fat, ugly guy in an expensive sports car, but that may backfire.

Immediately after your public service ad will be an ad from Ferrari, showing a fast car, handsome guy and beautiful woman having fun.  My two sons, ages 14 and 15, love fast cars . . . Can we change their dream?  Changing the mindset of anyone can be a major obstacle when there are so many competing stories.  IGG can first help to understand the dominant mindset and possibly gain insight on how to change it.  It is a process of discovery.

Some new words can have a positive effect. 

Changing words can help to change the mindset or at least to look at ourselves in a new way.  “Oil companies” who become “energy companies” may have suddenly opened many new opportunities for themselves and allowed people within the company to look for new, sustainable sources of energy.  If the Holy Grail is consumption, how do we attack this Holy Grail?  Changing the name “consumer” to “actor” or “player”, at least temporarily, can make people take more responsibility and feel more effective in their own lives.

“Meat-less” Monday must feel like a sacrifice and the person may not gain much benefit or feel different. Changing the phrase to “Meat Mondays” where eating meat only one day a week is a way to more likely reveal the benefits of cutting back on meat consumption.  Many people who cut back significantly will probably feel better within a week or two, though not all of them.   Not sure?  Do an experiment.

I read one report that said people who change from a carnivore diet to a vegan or vegetarian (v/v) diet will cut their carbon footprint in half.  Logically, carnivores should want other people to become v/v. It lowers the carbon load on the atmosphere and the carnivores themselves will have the best cuts of meat for cheaper prices.  Unfortunately it is not that simple since we all want to surround ourselves with people who support our story and our mental models.  Except for Bill Clinton, I don’t know any top level leaders who have made the change from carnivore to v/v.  They simply won’t or can’t change.  So don’t expect help from any leaders on this issue.

Stories and words, by themselves, are not enough.  

Business leaders tend to use “sustainability” to mean “sustainability of our business”.  This has limits since the company may not actually help sustain the local community.  Food companies like KFC, Pepsi, and McDonalds will not change their products or their approach until they actually get involved with a specific community to ask “what does it take to bring sustainability to this community and to these people?”  Nutrition education, if taken seriously, will shut the door on junk food distributors if those companies cannot change.

Co-creation of stories is essential.  The Story will be slightly different at each location because of different natural, social, and cultural environments at that spot.   It’s like airport terminals that are all different to reflect differences in local culture, even though the runways must all be standardized.  A story is not just a goal, but a pathway in getting there.  Some would say the process or pathway IS the story.  That may change the strategy of how we visualize what we want.

 “Transform desire. Desire creates market.”  Social norm placement can be limited if it becomes too obvious.  People resent being told how to think.  Be careful not to hide behind words.  There must be real action.   ‘Environmental movement ‘ can become a ‘prosperity movement’, but the word ‘prosperity’ can then be anything an ad agency wants it to be.  After changing Stories and Words there must be Action and Testing (SWAT).

The energy in a gallon of petrol is amazingly high.  When China goes green the rest of the world will still burn fossil fuel and this will come back to harm China too.  Owners of the machinery that use fossil fuel (airplanes, cars, tucks, generators, etc.)  will argue that it doesn’t make sense to not use the tools we already have.

(2) IGG can be sensors in a system that needs reliable feedback.

Good feedback is essential for the scientific method, just like experimenting or throwing spaghetti on the wall.  You mentioned that people in China are not innovative enough.  Still, they are very much like sensors in a control system that give feedback.  A sensor must give unbiased information back to the control.  If a thermostat reads 25 degrees but the actual temperature is 20 degrees, there will be a lot of wasted energy trying to bring the system back to the set point.  IGG can neutralize bias if structured correctly, using a random mix on each team. Mixed teams will not naturally form however unless required as part of the game.

IGG can give participants some time to listen, talk, and think.  People can make better decisions if they see more than one option.  The farmers who threw their pigs into the river may have seen no other option.

In democratic and non-democratic countries alike, IGG can help to develop that evasive “political will” by providing a structure for people to discover and discuss why, in some places, there are subsidies for oil but none for geo-thermal.

Nature uses competition. Capitalism uses competition too, but capitalism cannot solve problems that it helped to create until there are adequate and unbiased feedback loops.   IGG is a non-judgmental type of feedback that can be very useful before a government bureaucrat steps in to levy fines.

Do people really dream of 2 cars?  In one of your panel discussions, Vijay Vaitheeswaran brought up the possibility that instead of owning two cars (which automakers would love), maybe consumers just want mobility.  Simply using the word “mobility” here can help to find other options and other pathways.

IGG gives structure to information gathering.  Jared Diamond’s description of places like Easter Island makes me think that the people who lived there had no structure to gather and filter new ideas.  They might have discovered that some among them knew how to swim and fish, opening another way of survival.

Telling people something bad will happen and then not allowing them any input into the process is what BF Skinner called “learned helplessness”.  That can be avoided if one recognizes that there are great resources among the grass roots that can help any country move to a green economy, but there must be the right structure or process to make use of those resources.

 (3) Push Experimentation and Innovation in social communication.

Innovation must include social communication innovation and experimentation.  During the Q&A for the panel in New Zealand, the point was brought up that water is so cheap.  How does anyone incentivize the smarter use of water?  This is where a game structure can help immensely, making a competition of water savings.   Government, NGO’s and most businesses don’t have time to run it, but they could get an IGG process started.

Smoking is still harming many people and smoking cessation would make another good test case for IGG. Habits such as smoking have much in common with the personal and social psychology of climate change than one might think.  IGG was first begun with people who were trying to quit smoking, and it was fairly successful.  Players do not have to be smokers.  The goal might be to get a specific person (outside the group) to quit for a period of time, or the goal might be to find a pathway that would be useful to many smokers who want to quit.  Research by tobacco companies themselves shows that most smokers want to quit, so we know that people want to move in that direction if they can find a pathway.  Eventually, after several rounds, one wants to find some ideas that are effective.   At some point the story must meet reality.

(4) Create a Division of Labor for Information Gathering.

It seems that one of the most important things JUCCCE has done is to convene leaders to listen and talk to each other.  One wonders why they did not do this on their own.  They really needed the structure that JUCCCE provided.

In a similar way IGG provides structure (the game itself) to the task of gathering and filtering information.   IGG can provide an information gathering tool for farmers.  The farmer may want better info on a problem about pesticide use or other operation of the farm and may want to avoid penalty from a government official.  The farmer does not have to be a techie.  Players don’t have to care much about the issue but only want to play the game. Still, an IGG used in this way can multiply information sources many times over.

The farmer can start an IGG by putting in $5, then challenge a dozen other people to each put in $5. Each player on the winning team gets $15.  The farmer does not receive any money unless he or she is a participant in the game. It’s a stone soup recipe for finding useful information and done on the receiving end of information, helping to tune in what information is useful and tune out things that are less useful.

An IG group can be started by someone outside the farm, sponsored by someone who is willing to put in seed money to get it started.  The sponsor, like a movie producer, can withdraw support if he or she thinks the game is not productive.  It would be impossible for all farmers to visit an organic farm but the information needs to move and thought put into how and whether or not to make the changes.

(5)  IGG can make the Rule of Law easier.

If, as you say, an average citizen in China can report a business that is polluting too much, and even sue them in court, then contrary to what Niall Ferguson says, you do have the rule of law.  But whistle blowers in any country, democratic or non-democratic, have a common problem.  If they blow the whistle and damage a company that provides jobs to their neighbors, then the whistle blower will be ostracized.  An IGG can help to remedy this by providing a semi-private period (the team meeting) in which a complaint can be brought up and talked about before sending it to the courts.  It may be there are other solutions.  Companies who see benefit from this type of feedback may start IGG’s on their own.

(6)  Discover Non-uses of Energy

Where can we save energy by not using it?  Shut off the lights?  Turn down the hot water temperature?   Discover questions about efficient use of transportation?  The story of prosperity does not have to be a story about wasting energy.  There is a lot yet to be discovered, a lot of information to process and new ideas planted.

IGG can be a hackathon magnifier, bringing in people to the hackathon process that will greatly expand the tributary of ideas and sources of information.  It is not just cooperation with someone else’s existing idea that brings success, but using competition and games as a type of winnowing process.

(7) Find essential changes to implement at the local level.

In Borneo, logging companies are taking resources and not giving much in return. Dr. Kinari Webb, a Yale trained physician, started Health in Harmony to connect local health care with the care of the environment.  They create jobs that are not associated with logging.   But programs like this are not growing fast enough.  People in other villages wait for someone from the outside to come and ‘sell’ these ideas to them.  They cannot yet imagine or dream how it could be done in their own village.  IGG can help spread those ideas.

“. . . be afraid of standing still.“  If you simply go with the flow of current ideas, you lose control over your destiny. There is a lot of experimentation to do at the local level.  It will not be the same experimentation as the mayors and city planners, but it is experimentation nonetheless.  When talking about China, Jim Rogers says “there is innovation in scale”.   There is innovation too in finding, filtering, and moving useful information.  It just needs a way to process all the results.  IGG has applications in many local areas and helps people meet the leadership half way.

More examples of IGG applications at the local level:  Divide and conquer a book of several hundred pages by dividing it up into smaller bits and then re-constituting the important points, and do it all within and hour.    Another example might be to get more people to look at the Dream in a Box.   Use an IGG to get that process started, or at least to find the obstacles to implementation of the dreams.

Grass roots can help craft the story for their local level.  Some of the people on your panels point to the regional variations in water resources and the need to have meat in the diet (in the case of Subsaharan Africa). These are local issues that need input from the local people but ideas from the outside can help too.

(8) Use IGG across generations. 

I don’t know about China, but in the US, millenials don’t talk to seniors.  There may be a natural gap in their modes of thinking but social media is making that gap wider, and it’s a loss for the community.  IGG can help bridge that gap by mixing younger and older people onto the same team.  For a short period of time they are on the same team and they may or may not appreciate what the other has to offer, but they are not there to be nice.  Nor are they there simply to share their own story, but they are doing this to be problem solvers and to help create a new story that they can all try and test.

(9) Use IGG across national borders for solving local problems.

Henry Kissinger is very worried about OBOR.  He and Graham Allison (Destined for War) have several Youtube videos in which they discuss the probability of an incumbent power going to war with a rising power.  Graham Allison describes some of the factors, including entanglement of nations that have signed alliances and so are at risk of getting drawn into a war.  However, he also says that economic ties can help nations avoid war.

IGG is not “Us” versus “Them”.   It is not China versus the US (or any other country), because teams are mixed randomly with players from both nations on the same team (using communication technology). Yet the element of competition remains to motivate.  Doing a 1:1 mapping of towns in country A with towns in country B would be optimal with players from each town mixed together randomly into small teams.  The goal and Discussion Question might be oriented to help one town become sustainable.  Getting away from a mindset of conspicuous consumption will require something to which people can turn their attention, something outside their own self.  This is usually a good thing to do.

(10) Explore other types of growth.

Darien Green of SAP said that people will lose interest if a plan does not make good  business sense.  He also says that in the end, everything is driven by profit.  This is too short a view.

There are many other things that motivate and other ways of thinking about society.  You yourself pointed out the de-coupling of fossil fuel use and economic viability.  Examples from biology indicate that growth is not simply growing larger but growing more complex, and growing in ways that increase the security or durability of an organism.  In human society, education and communication are methods of growing that may not show up on a balance sheet, but they certainly help people at the local level to solve problems.

Conclusion:

People who turn away from conspicuous consumption still have a need for meaning and purpose in their lives – maybe now even more so.  But it can be something they do in their own community.   The Chinese government has given many people meaning and purpose by providing the jobs associated with the great modernization and urbanization plan.  This is a huge undertaking.

There are applications of IGG at many levels that can help.  GR citizens can start IGG on their own.  If there seems to be no interest, then one can increase the prize money (or other incentive), change players, or change the Discussion Question.  It may take some effort and investment to get started.

Many answers to the dilemmas will appear if one starts with the sustainability of a single, specific community.   If I have a company that hires people to make junk food for the next town, I can be a hero in my own town.  If I sell the same junk food to my own town however, I may be a villain.   A better thing to do is to provide nutritious food for all.  How to get there is the challenge.  It can be helped along with hybrid groups who can toss around some ideas, both for better nutrition and creating jobs.

Each form of government has it weakness.  Democracy can be very slow.  When the environment is changing rapidly, this may not be enough.  China cannot do it alone.  If China goes Green, fossil fuel will still be used by other countries and still pollute the atmosphere.  The carbon count will still increase and come back to hurt China.  So China must take a leadership role in this.

Does China expect other developing countries to go through the same type of growth spurt using Fossil Fuel?  This cannot happen.  China must help developing countries find sustainable pathways without using more fossil fuel.  The government has a full plate, but grass roots citizens can share this load.   During times of rapid change, we can give each other some kind of security.  We can also give them some task to do or challenge to face, plus give them a structure to make their efforts count.