My Journey

mapping a polycrisis

2 min read

Yes — what you’re describing is exactly how people are starting to operationalise this idea in tools like Obsidian.

Here’s how your intuition maps cleanly onto a workable structure:

🧠 How this works conceptually

  • Each node = a page (note)
    e.g. “Artificial Intelligence”, “Energy Demand”, “Geopolitics”

  • Each edge = a link between pages
    In Obsidian, this is just [[Energy Demand]] inside the AI page

  • The graph view = your polycrisis map Obsidian automatically builds the visual network

📂 How to structure your vault

You don’t actually want just one big page — that becomes messy fast.

Instead:

1. Create a central “hub” page

Call it something like:

  • AI in the Polycrisis

This page:

  • briefly explains the system
  • links out to all major domains

2. Each concept gets its own page

Example pages:

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Economic Disruption
  • Energy Demand
  • Misinformation
  • Cybersecurity

Inside each page, include:

  • short definition
  • why it matters
  • links to connected concepts

Example (inside “Artificial Intelligence” page):

Links:
[[Economic Disruption]]
[[Misinformation]]
[[Cybersecurity]]
[[Energy Demand]]
[[Global Competition]]

The powerful part:

  • You don’t manually draw the map
  • The structure emerges from connections

This mirrors the polycrisis idea itself:

no central control, just interacting systems

🔁 Why this works especially well

Obsidian vaults naturally support:

  • Non-linear thinking (like the polycrisis concept)
  • Multiple perspectives (economic, political, technological)
  • Evolving structure (you refine links over time)

It’s basically a personal systems model, not just notes.

⚠️ One important constraint

You can make a “master map page,” but:

  • It will quickly become outdated
  • It forces hierarchy onto something that’s inherently networked

Better approach:

  • Keep one index page
  • Let the graph view be the real map

🧭 If you want to go further

You can level this up by:

  • tagging types of nodes:
    • #system
    • #risk
    • #actor
  • adding “relationship notes”:
    • e.g. a page called AI → Labour Markets

This turns your vault into something close to:

a lightweight knowledge graph / systems model

If you want, I can design a starter Obsidian vault structure (folder + page templates) so you can build this without it getting chaotic.

Graph View