Seeing the Threshold — Choosing the Direction
Pairing Civilizational Gauges with Regenerative Attractors
In posts 6 and 7 of Frank Diana’s recent series, he offers something essential in a moment like this: a way to tell when the present can no longer bear the weight of the future. His Total System Domain Score and Activation Dispersion gauges help us see when complexity has overrun the structure of a civilization — when pressure is no longer background noise, but the signal itself.
Pressure pushes toward change.
But pressure alone can’t tell us where we’re headed.
What The Gauges Reveal
Across past transitions — Agricultural, Axial, Renaissance, Industrial — the pattern is consistent:
↑ Total Systemic Domain Score = broader activation
↑ Activation Dispersion = greater imbalance
→ tighter coupling and heightened sensitivity
This signals structural saturation. Institutions can no longer absorb the energy flowing through society. Frank’s gauges help us recognize the when of transformation.
What Gauges Don’t Reveal: Direction
History suggests that when thresholds are crossed, progress tends to follow default attractors — patterns that emerge when growth dominates:
Efficiency
Expansion
Control of resources
Throughput acceleration
These defaults made sense in eras of an abundant frontier.¹ But each leap — from fields to empires to factories — deepened reliance on extraction and centralized power.
These attractors weren’t chosen. They were selected for — because they produced surplus, strength, and scale.²
That logic brought us prosperity.
And a planetary crisis.
In complexity-theory terms (as articulated by the Cynefin community), attractors are emergent patterns that draw and stabilize behavior in complex adaptive systems.⁴
Crucially, attractors are value-neutral. They can structure a system toward flourishing — or toward fragility. In past transitions, attractors aligned with expansion and extraction because those patterns increased available energy and power.
Complexity doesn’t select for what’s good — only what works. Evolutionary theory tells us we must align those two things on purpose.
This is where regenerative attractors enter: shaping patterns that increase system resilience, coherence, and long-term viability — not just output.
Why Regenerative Attractors Matter Now
Today’s pressure is not merely systemic — it’s ecological:
planetary boundaries exceeded⁵
biodiversity collapse accelerating⁶
interdependence tightening across domains
Default attractors have become self-terminating:
efficiency that destroys resilience,
extraction that undermines life-support systems.
A livable future requires regenerative attractors — patterns that increase coherence as systems scale:
Reciprocity → repairing embedded harm
Distributed agency → adaptive capability
Ecological alignment → continuity over throughput⁷
These are not idealistic preferences. They are structural conditions for persistence in a finite world.
Frank Shows the Push
Regeneration Describes the Pull
Frank’s Gauges:
Indicate when the threshold forms
Diagnose rupture
Show inevitability
Regenerative Attractors:
Shape what emerges after crossing
Enable agency and choice
Intentionally design for coherence
Pressure pushes us out.
Attractors pull us through.
Thresholds are inevitable.
Direction is a design choice.
Frank reveals the moment. Our work is to determine what logic comes next.
Toward Frank’s Post #8
If TSDS and AD reveal the fingerprint of every past transition, what do they tell us about the one we’re living now?
Because the gauges don’t just show pressure.
They show potential.
More in This Dialogue
Frank’s 6th post: Reading The Pulse Of A Civilization In Motion
Frank’s 7th post: How The Gauges Were Built: Making Systemic Pressure Legible
Series
Post 1: When Systems Turn Over
Reflection: When Systems Turn Over
Post 2: Why Everything Feels Like It’s Changing At Once
Reflection: When Everyday Life Becomes a Threshold
Post 3: How Big Shifts Unfold — And Where We Are Now
Reflection: The Edge of Instability
Post 4: Why No Single Force Changes The World
Reflection: What Drives the Turn, and What Shapes It
Post 5: The Three Drivers That Push Civilizations Across Thresholds
Reflection: Drivers and Attractors: Expanding the Threshold Conversation
Other Works
My series: Shaping a Regenerative Future
Related tool: Regenerative Possibility Chains – A Primer on Pressure, Hinges, and Reconfiguration
Footnotes
Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Ursula K. Le Guin, Freedom, National Book Awards Speech, 2014.
Donella Meadows and Diana Wright, Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Chelsea Green, 2008).
Chris Corrigan, Explaining Cynefin for Strategy and Decision Making, 2015.
Will Steffen et al., Planetary Boundaries: Guiding Human Development, Science, 2015.
IPBES, Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2019.
Johan Rockström et al., A Safe and Just Operating Space for Humanity, Nature, 2023.