Ian Parker / Unsplash / Big Think
Key Takeaways
- Main Story: Monarch butterflies have two independent compasses built into their biology.
- A backup navigation option suggests butterflies have evolved slack into their system — and there are telling parallels for business.
- Also among this week’s stories: Culture as infrastructure, a new kind of leader, and the richness of our inner world.
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This is an installment of The Nightcrawler, a weekly collection of thought-provoking articles on tech, innovation, and long-term investing by Eric Markowitz of Nightview Capital. You can get articles like this one straight to your inbox every Friday evening by subscribing above. Follow him on X: @EricMarkowitz.Ever since I first read Janine Benyus’s Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, I’ve descended into a rabbit hole in search of what “intelligence” really means (and who has it). Perhaps that’s why I love the name of this newsletter so much. [It’s a worm, after all. A humble, indispensable critter buried beneath the soil.]
Benyus’s central argument is that the “smartest” solutions to human problems already exist in nature. We just need to know where, and how, to look for them. (For instance: wind turbines inspired by humpback whales.)
So perhaps it’s no surprise that I was riveted by a recent piece on monarch butterflies. The piece explains how monarchs actually navigate: with two independent compasses built into their biology. On clear days, they orient themselves using a solar compass. But when clouds roll in or weather becomes unpredictable, they switch to a backup magnetic compass that reads ultraviolet light to sense the angle of Earth’s magnetic field.
In other words, they’ve evolved slack into the system, a subject I explored in greater detail earlier this year. For butterflies, just like humans or organizations, redundancy — not optimization or efficiency — creates the conditions for long-term survival.
Key quote: “Monarchs have evolved two highly sophisticated navigational systems. Most of the time, they rely on a system that orients them in relation to the sun, keeping them pointed south throughout the day by compensating for the sun’s movements across the sky. When clouds get in the way, monarchs switch to a backup compass that relies on ultraviolet light to detect the angle of the Earth’s magnetic field. Their twin compasses usually keep migrating monarchs headed in the correct general direction.”
Culture, not AI, is the real engine of progress
This week, Big Think released its Engines of Progress special edition, which I highly recommend.
My favorite piece comes from Beatrice Erkers, a writer and podcaster who helps lead the Existential Hope project.
Beatrice’s essay makes the case that while hundreds of billions of dollars are flowing into the physical infrastructure of artificial intelligence — data centers, power plants, chips, etc. — there’s an even more powerful force we consistently overlook: culture.
“We usually think of infrastructure as bridges, satellites, and fiber-optic cables,” she writes. “But beneath steel and concrete lies something less tangible but just as powerful: culture — the stories and symbols that make some futures seem absurd, others inevitable, and a few worth building.”
Key quote: “Culture is infrastructure, yes, but it is infrastructure that’s more like weather than bridges: largely unpredictable and sometimes destructive. And this volatility is precisely why the tone of culture matters. Left unchecked, fear and cynicism fill the space. To channel culture toward constructive ends, we need something sturdier: hope.”
A few more links I enjoyed:
How business leaders can help solve the world’s toughest problems -via HBR
Key quote: “Rosabeth Moss Kanter, professor at Harvard Business School, believes the world demands a new kind of business leader. She says so-called “advanced leaders” work inside and outside their companies to tackle big issues such as climate change, public health, and social inequality. She gives real-life examples and explains how business leaders can harness their experience, networks, innovative approaches, and the power of their organizations to solve challenging problems.”
In a digital world, reading printed media has become more important than ever – via Monocle
Key quote: “Perception and knowledge always develop in interaction. The abstract knowledge that we acquire can shorten our path to an enriched experience, diversifying and intensifying our engagement with the sensory world. The apparent richness of the external world is in reality the richness of our inner world. Think of an exhibition: only those with knowledge of cultural history can fully comprehend the wealth of associations that it offers.”
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