Microblog Memes

COVID was the catalyst for Amsterdam exploring ideas from Kate Raworth's Doughnut Economics. It's only a small example, but I find it powerful to see examples of alternative economic frameworks that prioritise sustainability actually being implemented.

Another example is that when I was at university, disabled students activist groups were constantly battling to get the university to implement basic reasonable adjustments, such as recording lectures so disabled students who couldn't attend in person wouldn't miss out. The university was a big, old one, so there was a lot of silly inertia. While I was there, it was often necessary for the university's Disability Support Department to employ people to go into lectures and physically be there to record lectures. It was tremendously silly and wasteful, and even then, some lecturers would refuse to be recorded, even after having been told by the university that they had to.

For obvious reasons, that all changed during COVID, when everything was done remotely. It was quite frustrating to see things implemented so easily, because it highlighted how needless all of the previous battles had been. However, now that things have gone back to being fully in person, those changes made during COVID have persisted for the students who need them. Lectures and other learning materials are now more readily available to students with accessibility needs, because the social and technical infrastructure now exists in a widespread way.

Progress isn't linear, and it certainly doesn't happen all at once. I only know about the remote learning thing because I used to be a part of disabled students groups at that university, and because I am friends with someone working in public policy in Amsterdam. We hear so much about how the world is going to shit, and that's not wrong, but there's also so much good work being done beneath our notice, everywhere and all the time. There are likely things in closer proximity to your life where you're either already a part of building something good, or you could be. I know it's hard to muster the energy to try to change things when the world is so demoralising, but it is possible to build positive things that can make the future a bit better. These things don't erase the awfulness that's going on, but neither do those awful things erase our achievements.