Welcome to Ozymandias Intelligence Collective
Welcome to a space where intelligence serves therapeutic transformation. Where we reclaim scientific and narrative power to shape regenerative futures.
đď¸ A Collective Intelligence Agency for Systemic Change
The past year has been a tipping point - politically, ecologically, socially, and, even, personally (see Through the Prism Darkly).
While broligarchal elites double down on extraction, surveillance, and manufactured division, the forces of collective resistance galvanise and knit together. Yet, too often, we find ourselves reactive, fragmented, and outpaced by those driving a chaos no longer just operating in the shadows; those who already understand one fundamental truth:
đ Power is shaped by information, narrative and emotion.
Many of us have felt it: the growing instability, the crises designed to keep us overwhelmed and isolated to the point we are so numb and brain-fogged we begin to operate as techno-zombies, at the whim of erosion of truth; a new anarchy, apathy, and oligarchy-based world âdisorder'.
Carole Cadwalladrâs latest piece lays it out clearly: the Cambridge Analytica model never ended - it evolved. While their original firm collapsed under scandal, the extraction and weaponisation of psychological data has only intensified. The same networks that manipulated Brexit and Trumpâs election in 2016 are refining their tactics, embedding themselves deeper into global political and economic systems.
đ If theyâre refining their playbook, why arenât we?
Iâve spent the last 17 years working across sustainability and climate spaces and centred on organisational transformation and systemic change when the Occupy Wall Street movement began in 2010-11. I worked in embedded, action research-driven ways on sustainability transformations, from universities to impact-driven startups, from high-level policy spaces to grassroots movements. For years, I grappled with the question of why movements, activists, and climate organisations hadnât achieved greater impact despite their efforts, trying to understand what critical aspects we overlooked and who might be actively undermining the work.
One truth became clear: power isnât just in laws and institutions - itâs in narrative, psychology, and how we frame reality itself.
This understanding hit home when I first came across the Cambridge Analytica revelations. They understood that they didnât need direct social manipulation; they could harness technology platforms (in their case, Facebook) to use data to influence elections, mass behaviour and sway public opinion for the highest bidder to influence the worldâs most consequential decisions. Not through force, but through precision-targeted influence, using peopleâs own identities and fears against them.
The exposĂŠ laid bare what many of us had suspected: those who seek to control the future weaponise psychology and influence to do it. The 2024 elections and ongoing corporate influence campaigns show just how deeply this model has evolved, and how urgent it is that we counter it.
This entails harnessing diverse knowledge, building effective intelligence networks for dismantling oppressive power systems, forensically subverting various lobbying fronts, and challenging the nexus of industry and politics that threatens our ecological balance.
Thatâs why I founded Ozymandias Intelligence to reclaim intelligence as a force for regeneration and systemic change. Our science-based mantra:
Radical human transformation of our climate and ecosphere both necessitates and threatens an equally radical transformation of organised human life.
This has to be a human transformation at the core.For this, we need everyone. No one left behind. No one excluded.
Anything less will not resolve the root cause of our poly-crisis: our mindsets, programmed in a paradigm undergirded by Cartesian mechanistic logics that view life itself as a resource to be cannibalised.
Reseeding
Building Resilience into Regenerative Movements & Organisations
Climate, social and human sciences have illuminated clear paths forward, yet systemic injustices persist; having been misled for decades, our society still relies on the power of fossil fuels worsening the climate crisis.
Despite the current zeitgeist on regeneration - which I welcome - I worry weâre not adequately equipping our movements and organisations to shape change (borrowing from Octavia Butlerâs Earthseed); to withstand and respond with directed agency to the immense entrenched forces around them. I am all for inner transformation, community and solidarity. Yet we also have to lead like warriors for the human spirit as Margaret Wheatley writes. We need to galvanise, become more sophisticated and step up our game.
Itâs time to take more radical action. Like many other systems scientists over the years*, we define the term radical in its Latin original meaning, Radicalis, âof or relating to a rootâ: âto address the underlying root drivers of a problem rather than its proximate causes or symptomatic effectsâ (Morrison et al. 2022).
This Substack will be where we radically deconstruct, and rebuild the architectures of power shaping our world. Where we go beyond reaction into intentional adaptation - of the swarming kind adrienne marie brown so beautifully describes in her Emergent Strategy series - and start designing the future on our terms.
In keeping with these principles of emergent strategy and action research practice, we want to adapt our intelligence (services) to your needs; we want to hear from our potential members and beneficiaries: what should we focus on? What are your biggest pain points and intelligence needs? We welcome you to share in the comments!
đ¸ď¸ What kind of community are we building?
This will be a space for thinkers, strategists, activists, and builders who know that:
đĽ Sustainability is relational, political, and requires fundamental human transformation - beyond technical reductive exercise
đĽ Climate, social & racial justice require systemic change, but also radical solidarity and intelligence sharing across movements.
đĽ Narrative warfare is as real as policy battles, and we need to go on offence with psychological and organisational pathologies threatening our existence.
We will break down:
đš How power and influence work, in corporations, think tanks, universities, and governments.
đš How inner transformation fuels systemic change, beyond just policy and tech.
đš How we can proactively shape the future, by designing interventions, not just reacting to shock-and-awe and perpetual crisis.
đ What to expect
đš Bi-weekly intelligence briefings: breaking down emerging trends, power plays, and opportunities for action.
đš Deep-dive essays, collaborative articles & reports: on systemic change, therapeutic transformation, sustainability transformation, regenerative innovation and organisational transformation.
đš Conversations and interviews with movement strategists, sustainability leaders, narrative architects, and investigative journalists (people we admire from independent and alternative media outlets as well as forensic investigators)
đš Tactical frameworks for applying inter-disciplinary psychological, Earth systems, social and organisational sciences, enabling knowledge co-creation, liberational action-oriented education, diagnostic analysis and foresight.
⥠For free subscribers: Access to bi-weekly intelligence updates & curated insights.
⥠For paid subscribers: Deeper strategic and diagnostic analyses, private discussions, and access to live Q&As.
đ Join us - Letâs build the intelligence we need to persevere, reseed and weather the storm
The world is being reprogrammed - whoâs writing the code?
If youâre here for diagnostic systems analysis, transformation strategy and tactics, and in-depth commitment to understanding the how of systemic change, subscribe and share.
Our purpose: to act as a collective intelligence agency, guiding you through the turbulent landscape of the 21st century.
A vehicle for coalitions and partnerships crafting transformation strategies; an ever-evolving knowledge enterprise for planetary health and societal wellbeing.
A platform to collaborate; to induce positive transformation for people and planet, and to support organisations that sorely need the knowledge we often have to pay far too much for, or for many, that we simply do not have easy access to.
Ozymandias Intelligence has grown strong roots to better enhance the resilience of movements and support organisations that regenerate and sustain life in all its forms.
Together, our interdependence makes us mighty.
Thank you for reading.
A
Morrison, T.H., Adger, W.N., Agrawal, A. et al. Radical interventions for climate-impacted systems. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 1100â1106 (2022).
Abson, D. J. et al. Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio 46, 30â39 (2017).
Buscher, B. & Fletcher, R. The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene (Verso, 2020).
Geist, H. J. & Lambin, E. F. Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. BioScience 52, 143â150 (2002).
Meadows, D. Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System (Sustainability Institute, 1999).
* Wheatley, M. J. Who Do We Choose to Be? Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity (Berrett-Koehler, 2023)
Concept of Knowledge Enterprise: Crow & Dabars. Designing the New American University, (John Hopkins, 2015)