At this point, I question whether any federal system is achieving its goal. But to speak to your point, no I do not believe welfare diminishes poverty. The welfare system is meant to keep people who need assistance impoverished. I believe this, because my family grew up depending on the welfare system. When you participate in the welfare program you are incentivized to work fewer hours to receive assistance. My mother worked a minimum wage job, and during the holidays she worked 60+ hours to earn extra money. When the welfare office found out that she was making extra money they stripped her of resources until she provided proof of low income. She earned less money than she received from welfare, but according to state regulations, she made too much money to receive assistance. So she was forced to work no more than 40 hours per week. The welfare system also group the recipients of their services in poor, crime filled areas. These areas often lack employment opportunities, which forces recipients to find work far away from their homes and children.

In my opinion, smaller organizations are better positioned to create operational sustainability simply due to their size. Smaller organization have the benefit of fewer elements and interconnections. An organization attempting to change a large fully functioning system to meet environmentally responsible goals will be met will tons of red tape. Multi-level stakeholder meetings would have to take place, to ensure everyone is on the same page. Small organizations can require multi-level stakeholder meeting as well, however there's an increase liability of unhappy stakeholders and missed interconnection As you may recall interconnections are often overlooked during system change, or in this case system update. I found it interesting that you put individual in parenthesis when discussing identity. I hadn't thought about how closely individual identity mirrors corporate identity. To what extent can individual and corporate identity change before it is no longer the same system?

Hi Alicia, You bring up a great point. Can resilience systems be effective when it’s built from a simplified point of view? I think the goal of system resiliency is not to avoid unpredictability, but to secure a system’s ability to function after system shock. In my opinion, I do not believe you can incorporate all of the important details of a complex system and simplify it at the same time. The best course of action is to build multiple resilience systems into the operational framework, in the hopes of addressing the many possibilities of the complex system. To address your last question, resilience planning should include economic shift in the framework, but I envision some do not. Typically, nation economies stay pretty constant, at least in the developed world. However, with the growing unpredictability of climate change significant economic shifts are very possible. A reduction food production alone can devastate an economy. Pesticide resistant insects, inadequate crop yields, and ocean acidification are just a couple of ways nations could see economic shifts.

Hi Sam, To continue the conversation of GMO’s, I do not believe the boundary critique theory was applied the Golden Rice project in southeast Asia and parts of Africa. Increasing the nutritional content of rice, a staple in some developing regions, seems like a great way to address malnutrition. However, in the process of developing the rice researchers did not consider the cultural perspectives of the regions they were trying to help. In some of the regions golden of yellow rice is a sign of spoilage. In The theory and practice of boundary critique: developing housing services for older people, the practice of Boundary Critique “suggests that researchers should remain aware of the need to access a diverse variety of stakeholder views in defining problems, and to ‘sweep in’ relevant information”. By disregarding one of the most important stakeholders, the malnourished communities, money has been wasted and essential aid is at a standstill.