AUTHOR INTERVIEWS - Mika Aaltonen

Mika Aaltonen

- Mika Aaltonen is a Ph.D (Economics), Associate Professor (Foresight &
Complexity), and author of 20 books. He is also the founder of two pioneering
companies: AI Publishing House, arguably the first genuine GenAI
organization, built from the scratch on human and machine cooperation, and
Sustainable Nation Group that excels in innovation in climate change related
analysis and decisionmaking.

Q: Why did you write The Polycrisis?

I always write. It is my way of working. And I write with experts with whom I share
some fundamental beliefs, like in this case, the will to dig deeper in the idea of
polycrisis.

I have known Alf for many years. Of course, he is an outstanding scholar, but he is
also a man with an out of the way sense of humour and a sense of irony. I think, you
can catch on to these in his writings and also in The Polycrisis.

Q: What is your key message, your philosophy that you want to transfer to the
reader?

Our traditional approaches to managing crises, or managing really anything, do not
work. We can no longer lean on approaches designed for simpler times and more
isolated challenges.

We desperately need new ways of thinking and organizing adequate for the
complex, interconnected crises that increasingly define our era.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

This effort – The Polycrisis – is very much about proposing new intellectual,
conceptual and theoretical resources to make sense of the world we live in – in order
to act in it.

It is a FONIC world where the emergence of futures is not decided in silos, but in
the interfaces that bring people and things together.