We define a thing’s value by its characteristics; what it does and doesn’t do. But a thing cannot adequately be defined outside its environment. There are countless dependencies that make a thing, a thing. We need to shift our focus “up” to a more holistic level if we are to move levers that produce positive outcomes. This is because nature chooses what survives by operating on parameters that form in aggregate.

In this episode I use examples from Max Boot’s book War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History¹ to show how an understanding of what occurs in combination can be used to solve hard challenges as nature does.

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