Writings from Phycomycism

Ideas from the network.

Phycomycism is the mythology. These writings are where the mythology gets used as a lens for looking at the world, society, economics, technology, culture, and the strange stories humans tell ourselves about being separate from everything else.

A restored coastal city where human and living systems coexist in renewed balance
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I’m Not Trying to Raise Obedient Kids

Why raising trustworthy kids means choosing better problems

I’m Not Trying to Raise Obedient Kids looks at punishment, trust, and authority through the lens of parenting—and asks what kind of adults we’re actually trying to raise. If the goal is kids who can think critically, recognize injustice, repair harm, and be trusted with increasing freedom, then punishment can create the wrong incentives. A Phycomycist approach asks a different question: not just whether a consequence works, but what problems it leaves behind—and whether those are better problems than the ones we started with.

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Doctrine

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Phycomycism and The Pursuit of Better Problems

Phycomycism doesn’t promise a perfect world. It asks us to stop using the impossibility of utopia as an excuse for accepting unnecessary suffering, and instead work toward a world with better problems—less harm, more dignity, and tradeoffs actually worth having.

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Gardeners of Balance — early human gardeners cultivating food while giant mushrooms supervise
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The Myth of Separation

We call nature something we visit, send consequences “away,” and treat people far from us as though they inhabit a different world. Phycomycism argues that all three ideas come from the same mistake.

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