Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast

Latest Episodes:

When is a Tree not a Tree? The 'Net Zero' Wood Burning Scam - with Dr Mary Booth of Partnership for Policy Integrity Aug 21, 2024

Show notes

We live in a burning world. As we record, there are record wildfires across the Americas, record temperatures around the world, falling oxygen levels in the oceans and however much supposedly renewable energy we produce, Jevons' Paradox means we keep on burning fossil fuels. This is not a great combination, but even the so called renewables have more under the hood than appears on the surface. Burning wood - or grasses - for 'Green' Energy is both a massive accounting scam and one of the ways that the predatory industrial complex sucks in eye-watering quantities of public money - while selling us the lie that this is somehow net zero. It isn't, but sometimes we need someone who really knows what they're talking about to spell out the details for us and this week, our guest is one of those people.

Dr. Mary Booth is the founder and director of the Partnership for Policy Integrity, a Massachusetts-based think tank that uses science, communications, and strategic advocacy to protect forests and our climate future. Mary worked as Senior Scientist in the Environmental Working Group in the US, working on water quality. Now, she directs the PFPI’s science and advocacy work on greenhouse gas, air pollutant, and forest impacts of biomass energy and has provided science and policy support to hundreds of activists, researchers, and policy makers across the US and EU - and now that the UK is no longer in the EU (sigh) in the UK as well.

I heard Mary on the Economics for Rebels podcast back in February and was blown away by her grasp of the essential science, and also by the sheer mendacity of the companies involved: the lies they tell, the false accounting they use and the extent to which they are destroying the biosphere to give us - or at least, those who set our policies and spend public money - an illusion of somehow being more 'green', more sustainable, more ethical.

I wanted to give listeners to Accidental Gods the chance to hear Mary in action, so here we are: people of the podcast, please welcome Dr Mary Booth of the Partnership for Policy Integrity.

Partnership for Policy Integrity https://www.pfpi.net/
PFPI international work https://www.pfpi.net/international-work/
Guardian article by Greta Thunberg https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2022/sep/05/burning-forests-energy-renewable-eu-wood-climate
Land Climate Blog https://www.landclimate.org/the-problem-of-bioenergy-in-the-eu/
Forest Defenders Alliance (EU) https://forestdefenders.eu/
Forest Litigation Collaborative https://forestlitigation.org/
BBC Panorama: Green Energy Scandal Exposed https://vimeo.com/795555785/c6e9420ff6

A trillion willing helpers: Exploring the microbiome of people and animals with Joe Flanagan of Ingenious Probiotics Aug 14, 2024

Show notes

We know that being kind to our gut biome is crucial to our health, but what about the trillion happy helpers (or not) on our skin, in our lungs, our ears, our mouths… the things we slaughter daily with the ‘cleaning products’ we splash around our homes that not only impact our biomes directly, but leach out into our waterways, soil and the air that we breathe so we end up adding to ecosphere annihilation.

Human health and the health of our planet are intimately interwoven and while we're all getting to grips with the need to keep our gut biomes (and those of the animals who share our lives) healthy, we're woefully behind on the need to look after the rest of our biome: skin, lungs, teeth, eyes, ears..

I listened to Joe Flanagan months ago on Viki French’s brilliant ‘PupTalk’ podcast and knew we needed to talk here, too.

Joe is a font of information and this was a unique opportunity to explore ideas with someone right at the cutting edge of transformation. We talked everything from canine aural surgery to human behaviour and the corruption endemic in our health systems. Above all, we got to grips with the fact that if each of us changes our behaviour – if we actively choose to stop poisoning the planet that is our home – and stop poisoning ourselves and those we care most about at the same time – we can make radical improvements in the way our system works.

Joe is the Owner of Ingenious Pet Probiotics https://ingenious-probiotics.com/
Joe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-flanagan/

Ingenious Probiotic products are not a medicine or medical device - if in any doubt, always consult your vet.

Any Human Power Book Club Sunday 15th September 6-8pm UK time (BST) https://accidentalgods.life/any-human-power-discussion/
Pup Talk Podcast with Vicky French https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pup-talk-the-podcast/id1525563393

Governable Spaces: Solve for democracy on the internet and our outer politics becomes a lot more sane - with Nathan Schneider Aug 07, 2024

Show notes

The Western world is in a crisis of democracy - but we learn a lot of our principles from the ways we interact online and the internet is essentially a feudal space that gives absolute power to a few and robs the many of agency. Nathan Schneidersuggests that if we were able to shape a more liquid democracy online, our experience of generative interactions would spill over into the outer world. Has to be worth a try, right? So how do we do it?

As we spend increasing amounts of our time, energy and emotional bandwidth online, so we are increasingly exposed to what passes for democracy online. And then we internalise the inherent autocracy and are at risk of exporting this to the real world. So what can we do to change things? What's democracy for in the first place and how can we experiment with increasing the scope and scale of agency and accountability so that we can build trust in the processes that define our lives.

Nathan Schneider is a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the Media Economies Design Lab and the Masters program in Media and Public Engagement. The book that drew me here is 'Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for online life', - which you can buy as a paper copy, but you can also download for free. He has also written 'Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy', 'Thank you Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Movement' and God in Proof, the Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet. He's edited other books about crypto and co-ops, writes numerous articles and his blog posts are essential reading. He serves on the boards of Metagov, Start.coop, and Waging Nonviolence. Follow his work on social media at @ntnsndr or at his website

In essence, discovering Nathan has been like discovering the well of life... He's deeply enmeshed in that liminal space where the best of human technologies meet the leading edge of digital technologies and he brings to it the sense of deep wonder, humility and humour that I've only otherwise met in meditators or contemplative mystics. I feel I only scratched the surface of his thinking in this conversation and would dearly like to go back for a second round, but only after I've re-read everything he's written - and dived into some of the online spaces. In the meantime, as a taste of what's possible, please do enjoy this podcast.

Nathan's website https://nathanschneider.info/
Governable Spaces https://nathanschneider.info/books/governable-spaces/
Everything for Everyone https://nathanschneider.info/books/everything-for-everyone/
Thank you, Anarchy https://nathanschneider.info/books/thank-you-anarchy/

University of Colorado Media Economies Design Lab https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/

MetaGov https://metagov.org/

Net Zero Cities: Crafting a Generative Urban Future with Georgia Cameron of Dark Matter Labs Jul 31, 2024

Show notes

Cities: most of us live in them and most of them are geared around the old values of the last century. But what if our core question was: what does it take to have pride in the place I live? How can we completely rethink the way cities act and are shaped to put a flourishing future at the heart of all they do? Georgia Cameron of Dark Matter Labs lays out the visions of Net Zero Cities that goes way beyond just the carbon.

Of the 8 billion (ish) people on the planet, over half now live in cities. If we're going to create a just, equitable, enduring transition to that more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, how we live, work, play and connect with each other in urban centres is going to be key. Which is why we're talking today to Georgia Cameron, who is a policy strategist and innovator at Dark Matter Labs who is currently working with the 112 cities involved in the EU Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission helping navigate the legal, regulatory, economic and social barriers they face in advancing transition pathways.

For over a decade, Georgia studies, researches and works at the intersection of law, public policy, organisational strategy, and community organisation. She practised as an urban planning and environment lawyer at a top four law firm in New Zealand before completing a Masters in Regenerative Economics (with Distinction) from Schumacher College, UK in 2021, and now, as we said, she's working with the Net Zero Cities Mission which aims to achieve ‘climate neutrality’ in those cities taking part, although, as you'll hear, those at the heart of this are really clear that it's not just about the carbon, and that everything we do must enhance our connections with ourselves, each other and the wider web of human and More than Human life.

This Mission is one of five within the EU - and miraculously, wonderfully, totally encouragingly, the plan is that all of these will be integrated: that each Mission will feed into the others. So this conversation roamed wide and deep through the theory and practice of this relatively new initiative, exploring the changes in political, inter-personal (and intra-personal) and regulatory thinking that will allow a complete phase-shift in how we work, play, live, commute and engage with the world. At heart, the question boils down to, What does it mean to live well in any given city - or indeed, anywhere? What does it take to feel pride in your neighbourhood? How can those in charge removed obstacles as much as putting new ideas in place? How can all of us work from the ground up to make changes - and what are the stories of change, of being and belonging, that will make this feel like a just, equitable - and desirable - transition?

Georgia on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgia-cameron-frsa-8a90668a/
Net Zero Cities https://netzerocities.eu
Net Zero Cities EU 2024 Conference in Valencia https://netzerocities.eu/2024/07/04/thats-a-wrap-key-takeaways-from-the-2024-cities-mission-conference-in-valencia/
Net Zero Cities Circular Economy Paper https://netzerocities.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Policy-brief-Circular-Economy-Policy-Lab.pdf
Net Zero Cities Nature Based Solutions Policy Paper https://netzerocities.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Policy-brief-Nature-Based-Solutions-Policy-Lab-2024-06-23.pdf
Dark Matter Labs https://darkmatterlabs.org/
Mariana Mazzucato https://marianamazzucato.com/

Earth and Soul: Reconnecting Amid Climate Chaos with Leah Rampy Jul 24, 2024

Show notes

Clearly we need urgently to shift the democratic dial towards something that might actually serve the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. But how do we get there? How do we open the doors to possibility so that we can shift from the disconnection of our culture to a path of real heart-mind connection to the web of life?

Our guest this week is Leah Rampy, author of the book Earth and Soul, Reconnecting Amid Climate Chaos, a beautiful, many-layered weaving that is a memorial to the world that is dying around us, a paean to the world that is possible and a deeply imagined, deeply practical guide to how we can actually engage with the living web so that we can bring ourselves into a place of understanding, connection and service.

She says, 'We are not made to be separate from Nature. We were formed from Nature by the same cosmic evolution. The vitality of our lives depends on our acceptance of the gift of communion.' This book is full of personal insights, of stories from the islands of Britain, from Australia, from the Americas. It's beautiful and heartfelt and the prose flows with an ease you'll recognise when you hear Leah speak. At this time of utter turbulence in the world, please take this chance to settle into the words of someone who is crafting a path towards a future that works for all.

Leah's website https://leahrampy.com/
Leah's books https://www.leahmoranrampy.com/books.html
The Center for Spirituality in Nature https://www.centerforspiritualityinnature.org/

Creating Quantum Theatre: radical story-becoming to change the world with Jenifer Toksvig Jul 17, 2024

Show notes

Humanity is a storied species - everything we do from forming partnerships, to buying stuff, to moving house, to getting a new job… arises from the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other. If we’re going to shift to a new way of being, the route will be led by the stories we can build of how it will look and feel, how we’ll be more alive, more connected, have a deeper sense of being, belonging, becoming…

So - how do we tell stories of transformation in ways that engage everyone, that give everyone the agency, support, encouragement and freedom to be what they need in any moment - in every moment?

This week's guest is theatre maker and champion of access, Jenifer Toksvig. Jen is creator of the Copenhagen Interpretation, which takes concepts of uncertainty and fluidity evolved to describe the quantum process in physics, and applies them to theatre, to the telling of living stories in a shared space in a way that fosters connection, creativity, and personal growth. Clearly we on Accidental Gods believe that the stories we tell ourselves and each other of ourselves and each other - and our place as more or less conscious nodes in the web of life - are crucial to how we navigate this moment of total turmoil in our cultural, energetic and biophysical worlds. We not only need new stories, we need new ways of telling those stories, new ways of experiencing different ways of being and this, it seems to me, is what Jen is creating.

When I first learned of the Copenhagen Interpretation, and The Broad Cloth that arises from it, when I first took part in Jen's gathering of a Fairy Tale, it felt as if someone was opening doors in my mind; that here is a way safely to explore the emergent edges of interbecoming that are where the magic happens. So I wanted to bring some of this magic to the podcast, to let Jen tell her story and to see if we could bring it home for you. So here we go, stepping into a place of magic and emergence, people of the podcast, please do welcome Jenifer Toksvig of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

Jenifer Toksvig

https://linktr.ee/toksvig
https://www.jenifertoksvig.com/

The Copenhagen Interpretation
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/thecopenhageninterpretation

Open Space Technology - Harrison Owen
Original: https://openspaceworld.org/wp2/what-is/
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_space_technology

Our version: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/thecopenhageninterpretation/a/open-space-article

Joseph Campbell - The Hero's Journey (aka 'arrow narrative')
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey

Ursula K. Le Guin - The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
https://stillmoving.org/resources/the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction
https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Ursula-Le-Guin/The-Carrier-Bag-Theory-of-Fiction/24443320

Navigator of Current See: Diana Finch
https://www.dianafinch.info/

Navigator of Gathering: Ess Grange

https://slgrange.com/

Navigator of Accompanying: Flo O'Mahony / ZooCo - Perfect Show For Rachel
https://www.wearezooco.co.uk/shows/perfect-show-for-rachel

Copenhagen Model: The Fairytale Library
https://www.instagram.com/the_fairytale_library/

Copenhagen Model: The Broad Cloth
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/thebroadcloth

The Broad Cloth: producing partner, Scandinavia
The Field Station on Ingøya - Oliver Dawe
https://www.fieldstation.no/
https://www.oygrid.no/ - this is Harald Hansen, Oliver's husband, who is working in renewable energy on the island

https://www.favli.no/ - this is Harald's company for renewable energy work elsewhere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ing%C3%B8y

The Broad Cloth on the Isle of Wight: partners

- Ventnor Exchange, host organisation
https://ventnorexchange.co.uk/

- Lisa Kerley, caretaker
https://memoriesofthesea.uk/
https://farmingmemories.com/

- Art Ecology
https://www.artecology.space/

- Arc Biodiversity
https://arcbiodiversity.co.uk/

- Wolfguard Viking Reenactment
https://www.wolfguardiow.co.uk/

The Tools we Need: Raising the Collaborative Commons with Resilience Strategist Michael Haupt Jul 10, 2024

Show notes

We know by now that the old system is crumbling, that the old paradigms are no longer fit for purpose and we need to take part in the birth of something new: this is what this podcast is for. But what are the tools and how can we begin actually to build something relevant and useful within the strictures of a system that is still trying to cling onto legitimacy and power?

Michael Haupt was a key figure in the widespread introduction of mobile telephones to South Africa ahead of the first all-race elections in 1994. He was head-hunted soon after and the next decade saw him working around the globe in 16 cities on 6 continents. He was in Thailand, taking a year out when he had a vision - an actual not-expected, not-planned, not-drug-or-meditation-mediated set of visions - that showed him how the world could look and feel like if we manage to craft a route through to what he calls the Transition Phase of our evolution.

This moment was pivotal in his life. Now he's a 'Resilience Strategist' bridging between those businesses that are switched on enough to know that corporate greenwashing is no longer useful, and agile enough to find what is. He's building mycelial links to others who are working in this area and he's thinking deeply - so deeply - about where we could go and the actual logistics of how we might get there. I've been holding a lot of conversations on the back of launching Any Human Power about how we could build a future that is fit for purpose, where the human and More-Than-Human worlds flourish on a thriving planet. Thanks to Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl, I can see some of the routes through to political and technological change. Thanks to the Gaia Foundation, the Sustainable Food Trust, the million and one permaculture organisations around the world, I can see a way to mending our totally broken food and farming system. I can see ways to shift transport and power generation and city design. What I have lacked, until now, is the ideas that might bring the great behemoth that is the corporate world on board in a way that's useful. And this is what Michael is doing. As ever, this was a wide, deep conversation and it pushed the edge of my thinking, but it brought me to a place where I can more clearly see a few more steps forward. I hope it does the same for you.
00:00 Introduction: Reconnecting with Nature
01:19 Welcome to the Podcast
01:40 Michael's Journey to Resilience Strategy
02:14 Load Shedding in South Africa
03:49 Understanding Resilience Strategy
04:52 Michael's Life Journey and Worldview
07:40 The Vision on the Beach
12:15 Potential Futures and Human Coordination
15:22 Cycles of Civilisations
18:12 Class-Based vs. Values-Based Societies
20:19 Emerging Consciousness and Systemic Change
22:01 The Role of Currency and Mutual Credit
27:25 Coordinating for Systemic Change
28:55 South African Elections and Corporate Responsibility
32:10 Legal Personhood for Natural Entities
35:12 The Mycelial Network and Future Coordination
38:28 Encouraging Systemic Change
39:13 Resilience Strategies and City Exclusion
40:12 Rural Experiments and Human Purpose
41:12 Challenges of Implementation
45:27 Local Currencies and Community Commitment
50:50 Ownership vs. Stewardship
53:22 Rediscovering Connectedness
57:26 Emerging Incentive Mechanisms
01:09:35 Forking Governance and Parallel Systems
01:16:25 The Power of Narrative

Michael on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhaupt/
A blog past about the Thai beach experience: https://michaelhaupt.com/the-beach-4b6e60e407e8
Michael - Liminal School liminalschool.org
Cycle of Civilization: https://bit.ly/7-Phases-Glo
Interstructure: https://bit.ly/Int-Struct
Roger Briggs, Emerging World - explains the shifts in consciousness: https://bit.ly/Em-World
Will Ruddick, Commitment Pooling: https://bit.ly/CommPool
Joe Brewer Bioregional Movement: https://bit.ly/JBrewer
Clare Graves' Momentous Leap: https://bit.ly/MoLeap
GaiaNet: https://www.gaianet.earth/
Dark Matter Labs: https://darkmatterlabs.org/

How the System is Slaying Us - and What to Do About It: Getting Healthy in Toxic Times with Dr Jenny Goodman Jul 03, 2024

Show notes

How does our increasing destruction of the earth's biosphere also impact our health? What diseases are we seeing in almost pandemic proportions and how much younger are the people in whom we're seeing them? Above all, what can we do to step away from the system that's extracting everything from us - our health, our futures and our potential to be good ancestors?

Our guest this week is Jenny Goodman who is a doctor - and also an author. Her first book, Staying Alive in Toxic TimesL A seasonal guide to lifelong health is a fascinating look at how we can stay well, but it's her second that we're going to explore today, partly because at the time of recording, it's just about to be launched. 'Getting Healthy in Toxic Times: an ecological doctor's prescription for healing your body and the planet' is a mind-bending read. I really did think I knew this stuff, but there are large parts of this book that have blown all my fuses, not just for the health impacts - particularly on children and young people (did you know we're seeing Alzheimer's now in teenagers?) but for the cold-blooded way it's been allowed to happen. Every part of this book is essential reading - not just because it shows us how we're being poisoned by our food, our water, the air that we breath, the things around us that we can't even see - but more importantly because it details how we can get healthy again and help restore the integrity of our soils, our water, our air…the whole world we live in.

As you'll hear, Dr Jenny Goodman is a medical doctor, lecturer and broadcaster. She qualified in Ecological Medicine with British Society for Ecological Medicine and practiced this for over two decades, giving rise to many of the case studies in her books. Jenny has appeared with Terry Pratchett in ITV’s documentary What’s in Your Mouth? and has been featured on the Victoria Derbyshire show, BBC One’s Inside Out and numerous other TV and radio shows.

00:00 Introduction to Microplastics in Clothing
01:10 Welcome to the Accidental Gods Podcast
01:44 The Journey of Dr. Jenny Goodman
03:12 From Conventional Medicine to Ecological Medicine
10:07 The Impact of Industrialised Agriculture
13:17 The Dangers of Glyphosate and Pesticides
23:10 The Epidemic of Chronic Diseases
26:55 The Importance of Organic and Regenerative Farming
35:57 Filtering Water and Avoiding Toxins
36:42 The Hidden Dangers in Our Water
46:01 The Problem with Synthetic Clothing
52:23 The Impact of Fossil Fuels on Air Quality
54:21 Heavy Metals and Air Pollution
55:19 Political and Personal Actions Against Air Pollution
57:01 The Clash of Freedoms: Clean Air vs. Car Ownership
57:25 The Need for Efficient Public Transport
59:27 AI and the Future of Public Transport
01:02:49 Electric Vehicles and Ethical Concerns
01:06:43 Nuclear Power: Risks and Realities
01:07:39 Protecting Yourself from Nuclear Radiation
01:19:33 Electromagnetic Radiation: Hidden Dangers
01:31:08 Making Your Home a Safe Haven
01:40:29 Final Thoughts and Resources

Pre-Order Jenny's book here:

Waterstones

Bookshop.org

Amazon

Jenny's website
Jenny on Facebook
Jenny on LinkedIn
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny on Instagram

The British Society for Ecological Medicine

Election Special 4: What is Governance for and how can we shape genuine democracy - with Glen Weyl of the Plurality Institute Jun 28, 2024

Show notes

If the current electoral/governance system is not fit for purpose (and who could possibly imagine it was?) how can we lay the foundations for new ways of organising democracy, new ways of voting, new ideas of what governance is for and how it could work in the twenty-first century. How, in short, do we create space for future generations to be able to decide their own futures in ways that are not constrained by material or political strictures they've inherited from us?

In this fourth election special, I have a profound conversation with Glen Weyl - economist, philosopher, film producer and visionary thought-leader for our time. We explore how we can break away from traditional governance structures and how spiritually acknowledging the complexity within each individual can pave the way for more inclusive, fluid, and efficient democratic systems.

Glen is co-author with Audrey Tang of the ground-breaking book Plurality, which emerged partly Audrey's experiences in re-shaping the democracy in Taiwan towards connection, collaboration and - above all - peaceful resolutions of the many internal contradictions of that state.

He introduces the concept of quadratic voting (of which he is the creator) as a significant innovation in this field. The conversation expands to the potential of technology in aiding governance reforms, and Glen shares insights from his work with the Plurality Institute and Radical Exchange. We also touch on the success of Taiwan’s innovative governance, influenced by Audrey Tang.

Join us as we discuss creating experimental, adaptable governance systems aimed at ensuring peace and human flourishing in an ever-complex world.

Glen currently works at Microsoft where he is the founder and research lead of the Microsoft Research Special Project the Plural Technology Collaboratory, though he was previously GeoPolitical advisor to the CTO. He also founded and serves on the board of the RadicalxChange Foundation the leading thing tank in the web 3 space, and is founder and chair of the Plurality Institute which coordinates an academic research network developing technology for cooperation across different disciplines.

He's also senior advisor to the Getting-Plurality Research Network at the Harvard Edmond and Lily Saffra Centre for Ethics. He previously lead Web 3 technical strategy at Microsoft's Office of the CTO and taught economics at the Universities of Chicago, Yale, Princeton and Harvard.
00:00 Introduction to Polarisation and Complexity
01:04 Welcome to the Accidental Gods Podcast
01:31 The State of Global Democracy
02:15 Quadratic Voting and Governance
02:51 Defining Governance in the 21st Century
03:13 The Role of Peace in Governance
04:36 Harnessing Human Diversity for Progress
08:42 Challenges to Current Democratic Systems
11:11 Expanding the Polity and Legal Innovations
11:58 Lessons from Historical Societies
13:42 Imagining Future Governance Systems
19:42 Locality and Pluri-locality in Governance
26:39 Metaphors and Toolkits for Governance
27:33 Concrete Voting Designs
28:55 Dynamic Voting Systems
30:48 Quadratic Voting Explained
35:06 Liquid Democracy and Emotional Literacy
37:24 Taiwan's Unique Political Landscape
41:27 Audrey Tang's Impact and Philosophy
47:06 Glenn's Diverse Background and Vision
54:43 Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

Glen's website
The Plurality Institute
RadicalxChange Foundation
Quadratic voting explained

PLURALITY - the book

Audrey Tang on Twitter
Trailer for film biopic about Audrey Tang: The Good Enough Ancestor
Project Liberty

Quadratic Voting - with Ruth Catlow in Episode #193

Beautiful Trouble - crafting a political Alternative - and an independent Scotland - with Indra Adnan and Pat Kane Jun 26, 2024

Show notes

The question of how we reshape democracy, walking the fine line between stagnation and populist rage - is the defining problem of our time - with a coherent strategy, we can shape anything. In its absence, we’re going to end up spinning in pointless circles, arguing about trivia while the world burns.

We set this podcast up months ago, thinking we’d talk about the example Scotland sets for the UK and the rest of the world as a way *maybe) to shape democracy. And then Nicola Sturgeon stepped down and Scotland fell into the kind of turmoil I thought only impacted England. And then the turmoil in England sparked a general election. So now we’re talking about how we can use this moment to affect the digital, distributed democracy that we need with two of the smartest people in our eco-system - people who give their entire lives to thinking about this question: Indra Adnan and Pat Kane of The Alternative.

This week's guests are Indra Adnan and Pat Kane. Indra is the author of The Politics of Waking up: Power and Possibility in the Fractal Age and Pat is a musician, writer, curator, consultant, activist and futurist and his substack is absolutely essential reading for anyone who wants to keep up to date with the ideas in our eco-system. The reason we're here, they're, Co-Initiators of The Alternative, which is a socio-political platform hosting #PlanetA: new ground to stand on for a flourishing future - and a daily blog and a forum, or perhaps a melting pot - for new ideas and new ways being. Acknowledging that the systems we are embedded in - media, economic, political - take our power away. The Alternative and Planet A ask us how we achieve the world we know deep down is possible.
You have to experience The Alternative really to understand what it is to explore ideas at the leading edge of our emergent inter-becoming, to think through the lens of cosmo-localism, to hold new truths of who and how we are and to frame radical new political options in this age of cardboard cut-out politicians spouting ever more stale lines that were out of date in the 80s and are certainly not fit for purpose in the third decade of the twenty first century.
So this conversation takes us deep into this territory. Recorded on the day after the EU elections, as France heads to the polls and the UK's general election descends ever further into infantile name-calling and political posturing that no longer even pretends to be the adults in the room, it was - and is - really refreshing to explore ideas of what's possible with people whose entire lives revolve around the concepts of emergent change.

The Alternative
Indra's book
Indra in episode #124
Pat's music
Pat on Substack and at The National
Pat's Blog - The Play Ethic www.theplayethic.com
Ecological Civilisation

Manda's novel Any Human Power

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