Concepts & Principles

Ideas that recur across the work. Not definitions — more like species you’ll encounter repeatedly on different trails.

Foundational

• Carrier Bag Theory — Narrative as container, not weapon. Gathering instead of conquering.
• Appropriate Technology — Tools chosen for context, not prestige. Human-scale, locally maintainable.
• Selective Technology — Not rejection, not embrace — relationship. Using sparingly, for specific things.

Organizational

• Mutual Aid — Cooperation as fundamental as competition. The barn-raising model.
• Human Scale — What one person can maintain. What a community can govern.
• Replication, Not Scaling — Spreading through relationship, not franchise.

Epistemological

• Seeds, Not Solutions — Planting for futures you won’t see. Materials, not blueprints.
• Holding Contradictions — Refusing to resolve. Both/and rather than either/or.
• Embodied Knowledge — What hands know that minds forget.

These concepts connect to each other. Follow the links. Notice the clusters.