Suggestions
Rich Bradbury
Rancher focusing on Grass-Fed Beef - Regenerative Agriculture - Ranch & Rural Real Estate
Rich Bradbury is a Rural Real Estate Broker at High Country Real Estate, with extensive experience in the ranching industry spanning over 30 years. He is committed to regenerative ranching practices, emphasizing sustainability and responsible land management.
In addition to his real estate career, Bradbury has been involved with the Adel Water Improvement District (AWID), where he contributes his expertise in water resource management. His background reflects a strong dedication to both the agricultural community and sustainable practices in rural real estate.
For more detailed insights into his professional journey, you can view his LinkedIn profile here.
Highlights
Urban guilt about the environment, in my view, poses the most significant threat to the environment, and it is starting to seem clear that radical environmental ideologies fade beyond urban boundaries. They can not hold up to the practical knowledge that accompanies proximity.
I've been revisiting Jesuit Casuistry, a concept I first encountered in a 2019 podcast by Malcolm Gladwell. Originating from St. Ignatius Loyola about 500 years ago, Jesuit Casuistry analyzes individual cases for moral decision-making, moving away from traditional rule-based ethics. It gained prominence among Jesuits in the 16th and 17th centuries, advocating for a deep understanding of specific situations before applying moral principles. In the 20th century, it saw a resurgence in fields like professional ethics, law, bioethics, and business ethics. It offered nuanced solutions to complex ethical dilemmas by balancing moral principles with case intricacies.
This concept resurfaced in my mind during my discussions with Margaret Maizel about the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine. I respect Margaret, but I struggled with her and David Seal's apparent indifference to sacrificing one ecosystem for a broader environmental goal. This led me to question our framework for discussing local impacts on the overall environment.
The disconnect, as I see it, lies in society's limited understanding of the macro-environment, which by sheer size and complexity is abstract and overshadows the practicality of local "grounded genius," or knowledge of one's immediate ecosystem. It is impossible for one overarching environmental perspective to address the needs and nuances of the many ecosystems that comprise the whole. We should probably stop carrying on like they do.
It would be asinine to tell a magnolia herder that because I used X solution on the Great Basin Sagebrush Steppe, he should apply that same solution to grazing yaks on the Eastern Mongolian Steppes and that by doing that, we can stop deforestation in Brazil.
This is evident in debates like Allan Savory vs. George Monbiot, where one focuses on local ecology and the other on the infinitely complex global environment, creating a negative feedback loop of conflict that only feeds on itself, ultimately unsupportable and counterproductive.
So, we can't offset the negative environmental impact of Los Angeles by planting trees in Manitoba. We can only fix the negative environment of Los Angeles in Los Angeles.
Considering this, I'm thinking of exploring Conservation based Casuistry. What are your thoughts?
We don't have a Lithium mine in Nevada to offset CO2 spewing out of Manhattan. Manhattan needs to stop burdening faraway ecosystems with their apathy.
Also, here is a pic of a fat guy on a horse
Yesterday, The Girl and I attended the Innovation Hub meeting in Klamath Falls.
We sat in a symmetric glass-faced building, each angle crisp and precise.
Protected by bureaucracy, we looked out into a world of asymmetry.–Lakes, timber, meadows, wildlife, an array of people, trailer parks, a truck stop, daily commence. From where we sat, we were supposed to place order into the disorder beyond the glass.
It was an exercise in emptiness. The order is outside the glass, always has been, and will be beautifully irrational and brutally functional. This scares us, and we've stopped trying to understand its complexities. We naively hold to the notion that we can have a disproportionate influence in systems that functions in complete independence of our machinations. But we try nonetheless.
Nature thrives on diversity, adaptability, resilience. It's about the asymmetric approach, where species leverage unique strengths. Just like in the private marketplace, where flexibility, innovation, and risk-taking drive growth. It's the energy in these asymmetric strategies that fuels adaptation and create fertile ground for change.
Contrast that with symmetric strategies, like imposing order in the wilds. In ecology, think of monoculture farming or overly managed landscapes. They're fragile, lacking diversity to withstand shocks. The same goes for bureaucratic economic strategies, where standardization stifles innovation. It's like trying to tame a bobcat. It just don't work.
Bobcats react to nature's signals. Their survivability relies on improvisation and flowing seamlessly with their surroundings. Obesreve and react.
When we embrace the complexity and energy of asymmetric strategies, we thrive. Our economies prosper, just like a resilient ecosystem. But get caught up in the rigidity of symmetric governmental approaches, and we'll find ourselves stuck.
Funked
So here it is–this tango between ecology and economics, between asymmetry and symmetry, shaping our world. Whether we're talking about nature's whims or the bustling markets, the parallels are undeniable.
Successful strategy is not found behind perfect-hewn glass.
Navajo weavers would purposely incorporate a flaw into their rugs, a practice known as the "Weaver's Pathway," to acknowledge that perfection is unattainable and to honor the natural imperfections and asymmetry of life.
There's restrictive energy in symmetry. The pursuit of order becomes rigid. Let's embrace the progressive and freeing energy of asymmetry, where we read and react to the signals as they are. It's in the disorder and flow that we find balance, innovation, resilience, and prosperity. The willingness to embrace the complexities of nature–tap into the grounded genius that comes from truly understanding our space, our place?
Symmetry represents restrictive, unbalanced control. Our path should always be the wild, untamed energy of asymmetry, where the real order and wisdom lie.
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.