The Patterns Political systems come and go. But the essential needs of people, animals, the soil, democracy, and ecosystems are are unchanging. Folklaws are resolutions that protect nature, restrain power, ensure fairness, fight globalization, and put community over corporate profits. Adapt them for your town or state, and present them to your representatives. Folklaw patterns […]

There’s a reason billionaires aren’t scrambling to stop climate collapse: they’re not planning to suffer it. At least, not in the same way the rest of us will. They’ve gamed out the ending, and they don’t intend to be here when it arrives. Not here as in “Earth,” but here as in “the public world.”

In 1945, Germany lay in ruins—economically shattered, politically disgraced, morally bankrupt. The country didn’t just lose a war; it lost its government, its credibility, and any claim to being a functional society. The National Socialists were declared illegal and hunted down, the Weimar Republic was declared a failed government for enabling the Nazi rise. There

(Therefore statements from Folklaw, in the format of the German Basic Laws)   In accordance with the Framework for a New Republic, the United State of America hereby declares these Basic Laws. SECTION I – FIRST PRINCIPLES Article 1: Environmental Sustainability Any policy, invention, or economic system that does not place nature’s limits at its

PREAMBLE We, the inheritors of a great but unfinished experiment, acknowledge the vision of those who came before us. The Founders, in their wisdom and limitations, sought to build a system of self-governance that would endure—a Republic bound by laws and guided by the will of its people. They charted a course for liberty, but

A PATTERN LANGUAGE What would a set of simply-worded, widely-agreed upon set of laws originating from people’s common needs look like? I’ve wondered this for decades, since reading A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et. al. An architectural mainstay, the book uses a casual style and unique format to explore the interconnectedness of culture, technology,

THE NEW WORLD When European settlers first arrived in what they called the “New World,” they were astonished by the land’s abundance. Forests stretched beyond the horizon, rivers teemed with fish, and grasslands rolled like oceans. To the settlers, it seemed an untouched Eden waiting for civilization to tame it. But they were wrong. The