# Prep worksheet — DNA Synthesis Discussion
> **You will not submit this.** It is for you, so the conversation in
> class is yours. There is no grade, no upload, no instructor review.
> Bring an example, not an essay.
Spend roughly **5–10 minutes per topic** writing or thinking through
the prompt below it. Class opens with a 5-minute recap of the course
arc, so do not worry if any single week feels hazy.
- **Course page:**
- **HTML version of this handout:**
- **Class:** Friday, June 5, 2026 · 09:00–11:00 · Henkaku Center for Radical Transformation, Chiba Institute of Technology · Joe Austerweil
---
## Topic 1 — What is SDS for?
*Week 1 · Joi Ito*
**Prompt.** Pick the principle from Joi's nine that felt most *wrong*
to you the first time you read it. Why did it sting — and has
anything in the last five weeks moved you on it?
**Anchor.** Joi's nine principles: *Resilience over strength · Pull
over push · Risk over safety · Systems over objects · Compasses over
maps · Practice over theory · Disobedience over compliance · Crowds
over experts · Learning over education.* The Safecast story
(post-Fukushima citizen radiation monitoring). The
SDS-vs-traditional-institutions framing.
Re-skim: [Week 1 lecture — *Why are we here?*](https://dna.chibatech.dev/lectures/why-are-we-here/)
**The principle I want to push back on:**
> _Write here._
**Why it stung:**
> _Write here._
**What (if anything) has moved me on it:**
> _Write here._
---
## Topic 2 — Systems, leverage, and your own theory of change
*Week 2 · Joi Ito*
**Prompt.** Pick a problem you actually care about. Where on Donella
Meadows' leverage-points hierarchy is most of the public conversation
about it happening — and where do *you* think the leverage actually
is?
**Anchor.** Meadows' hierarchy: tweaking parameters (lowest leverage)
→ information flows → rules → goals → *paradigms* (highest leverage).
The antidisciplinary diagrams. Joi's *Resisting Reduction* manifesto.
Re-skim: [Week 2 lecture — *Systems Thinking and Antidisciplinarity*](https://dna.chibatech.dev/lectures/systems-thinking-and-antidisciplinarity/)
**The problem I picked:**
> _Write here._
**Where the public conversation is happening on Meadows' ladder:**
> _Write here._
**Where I think the leverage actually is, and why:**
> _Write here._
---
## Topic 3 — Choosing lenses honestly
*Weeks 3 & 4 · Kim & Austerweil + Winder & Kojima*
**Prompt.** Take one method or framework you actually use in your own
work. Name **three things it reveals** and **three things it
obscures**. Was the second list harder to write?
**Anchor.** Week 3: minimal information is enough for the brain to
fill in gender / race / age / weapon (Wapman & Belle 2014; Banaji
2022; the train-mugging case; Southport vs. Ulsan). Week 4, Lens 1
(EpiSim): trajectory, timing, intervention placement, individual
heterogeneity. Week 4, Lens 2 (percolation): thresholds, universality.
Re-skim: [Week 3 — *Prejudice & Bias*](https://dna.chibatech.dev/lectures/prejudice-and-bias/) · [Week 4 Lens 1 — *Complex Systems Lenses* (Ira)](https://dna.chibatech.dev/lectures/complex-systems-lenses/) · [Week 4 Lens 2 — *Percolation* (Hiroki)](https://dna.chibatech.dev/lectures/complex-systems-lenses-percolation/)
**My method / framework:**
> _Write here._
**Three things it reveals:**
1. _Write here._
2. _Write here._
3. _Write here._
**Three things it obscures:**
1. _Write here._
2. _Write here._
3. _Write here._
**Which list was harder, and what does that tell me:**
> _Write here._
---
## Topic 4 — Ethics under uncertainty
*Week 5 · Mizuki Oka & Catharina Maracke*
**Prompt.** The systems you are about to build will have an ethics
whether or not you wrote one. Name a default ethic that gets baked
into systems in your field *by accident*, and say what it would take
to turn that default into a choice.
**Anchor.** Utilitarianism (Bentham): the right action produces the
most aggregate good. Kant: the right action is the one whose rule you
could will to be universal. Week 5's Part II frames modern AI ethics
as largely utilitarian by default — recommender systems, content
moderation, autonomous-vehicle trolley framings.
**A default ethic baked into systems in my field by accident:**
> _Write here._
**How it gets there (the mechanism — funding, defaults in tools,
incentives, training):**
> _Write here._
**What it would take to make it a choice instead:**
> _Write here._
---
## Close — One principle
Be ready to name **one principle, sentence, or question** you want to
carry forward from the course. It can be from any week, from this
discussion, or one you came in with and want to defend. We will go
around the room once — no commentary, only listening.
**The one I want to name:**
> _Write here._
---
## Optional — Discuss with an LLM
If you want a thought-partner (Claude, ChatGPT, your local model),
paste this and replace the bracketed text. It also tells the model
to respond in Japanese if you write to it in Japanese, so you can
hold the whole conversation in 日本語 if that's easier.
```
You are a thought-partner, not an answer-engine.
I am preparing for a graduate-class discussion in the DNA course
("The Antidisciplinary Approach to the Modern World"), taught at the
Henkaku Center for Radical Transformation at Chiba Institute of
Technology. The discussion covers five prior lectures:
1. Why are we here? (Joi Ito — SDS story, nine principles)
2. Systems Thinking and Antidisciplinarity (Joi Ito — Meadows
leverage points, Resisting Reduction)
3. Prejudice and Bias (Daum Kim with Joe Austerweil — how the brain
fills in defaults from minimal information)
4. Ways of Knowing Complex Systems (Ira Winder with Hiroki Kojima —
EpiSim agent-based modeling and percolation theory as two lenses
on epidemic spread)
5. Utilitarianism, Kant, and AI Ethics (Mizuki Oka and Catharina
Maracke)
I want help thinking through ONE prompt:
[PASTE THE PROMPT YOU PICKED HERE]
Rules:
- Do not write my answer for me. Help me find mine.
- Ask me sharpening questions when my thinking is vague.
- Push back when I am being lazy or generic; do not flatter.
- When I name an example, ask me what it would mean if the
opposite were true.
- If I write to you in Japanese, respond in Japanese
(日本語で書いたら日本語で返してください).
My first attempt at the prompt is below. Engage with it.
[WRITE YOUR DRAFT ANSWER HERE — TWO OR THREE SENTENCES IS PLENTY]
```