Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

Latest Episodes:

Can Journalism Survive AI? (w/The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson) Jul 31, 2026

Show notes

As President of The Atlantic and former Editor-in-Chief of Wired, Nicholas Thompson sits down with Rushkoff to discuss the precarious intersection of artificial intelligence, journalism, and American democracy.

Thompson breaks down how The Atlantic turned its business around using paywall optimization, why they chose to form a partnership with OpenAI instead of solely fighting them in court, and the economic incentives driving AI versus traditional social media.

Together, they explore the dangers of anthropomorphizing tech, the flaws in framing the U.S.–China tech dynamic as a winner-take-all race, and what it takes to protect an independent press.

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What Camus Knew That Sam Bankman-Fried Didn't Jul 26, 2026

Show notes

Rushkoff breaks down the intellectual hubris driving Silicon Valley: Effective Altruism (EA), Longtermism, and AI accelerationism.

From Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX collapse to the tech oligarchs attempting to optimize human presence through code, Rushkoff exposes how treating human lives as simple spreadsheet inputs creates a dangerous ends justify the means worldview.

Drawing on philosophers like Albert Camus, Spinoza, and Martin Buber — and even recent statements from the Pope — Rushkoff argues that true moral action isn't calculated in hypothetical future outcomes, but lived out right now in local, face-to-face human connection.

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Is AI Development Modern Chaos Magic? (w/ Trevor Paglen) Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

We once looked at pictures. Now, pictures are looking back at us. Renowned artist and author Trevor Paglen joins Rushkoff to expose how computer vision, generative AI, and algorithmic feedback loops are fundamentally reformatting human perception, labor, and democracy itself.

What happens to a society when its default assumption becomes that all media is untethered from reality? In this episode of Team Human, Douglas Rushkoff sits down with artist, activist, and geographer Trevor Paglen to discuss his groundbreaking new book, How to See Like a Machine: Images After AI.

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

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How to Glitch the AI System (w/ Sophie Strand) Jul 14, 2026

Show notes

Sophie Strand (author of The Flowering Wand and The Body Is a Doorway) joins Rushkoff for a conversation about breaking free from the dominant paradigms of our time.

Together, they challenge the Silicon Valley Sky God obsession with scaling up, critique the limitations of institutional think tanks, and dive into how modern systems have systematically stripped us of our foundational skills.

From the intelligence of mycelial networks to practical strategies for becoming "indigestible" and completely useless to AI, Strand offers a somatic framework for navigating civilizational crisis.

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

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Carnival vs. Coliseum: Reclaiming Our Shared Civics Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

Rushkoff breaks down the disturbing cultural shift toward Might Makes Right, a playground philosophy that values raw power, wealth, and violence over morality and mutual aid.

From the organic, joyful street celebrations of the New York Knicks winning the NBA Finals to the surreal, hyper-industrial gladiatorial spectacle of the UFC erected right on the South Lawn of the White House, Rushkoff explores the stark contrast between human connection and authoritarian propaganda.

He dives deep into why social Darwinism completely misunderstands the natural world, how nature actually favors cooperation, and why treating life like a prison yard game makes us all weaker.

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

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Adam McKay: We've Already Left the Holocene Jul 01, 2026

Show notes

"The most useful framework is that our country’s been invaded. But like all great invasions, it involves new techniques." - Adam McKay

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up, The Big Short, Succession) dissects the urgent cultural, political, and planetary moment we are living through.

McKay brings a massive unified theory exploring how our prehistoric evolutionary limits - and the constraints of Dunbar’s Number - are colliding with a collapsing Holocene and modern corporate media systems designed to abstract us from reality.

From Leonardo DiCaprio's ad-libbed line that broke the crew on the set of "Don’t Look Up" to a clear-eyed diagnosis of the macro "Hail Mary" phase of climate adaptation, Rushkoff and McKay chart a path through doomerism. Together, they argue that surviving a post-Holocene world requires breaking the digital illusion, reclaiming pro-social local networks, and finding the holy act of mutual connection on the deck of the Titanic.

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

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Formulas Against the False Self: Mitch Horowitz on Left-Hand Path Magic Jun 24, 2026

Show notes

Mitch Horowitz returns to Team Human for a fiery, provocative exploration of his new book, Esoterika: Formulas Against the False Self.

Rushkoff and Horowitz grapple over one of the most foundational concepts in modern mindfulness: The Serenity Prayer. While Rushkoff shares his recent journeys into radical porousness, learning how to surrender, accept grace, and metabolize the world’s heavy energies, Horowitz brings a hammer to premature consolation. Is the dictate to accept the things you cannot change keeping you trapped in a mechanical, flattened existence?

Horowitz argues we possess more agency over our realities than therapeutic culture wants us to believe. By exploring applied Nietzscheanism, the true mechanics of Left-Hand Path magic, and the urgent necessity of cutting cruel people out of our lives, this conversation challenges you to strip away performative love and light and reclaim your childhood wishes.

Order Esoterika: https://www.amazon.com/Esoterika-Formulas-Against-False-Self/dp/1722507624/

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

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The Shoggoth in the Machine: AI, ARGs, and the Future of Play (w/ Reed Berkowitz) Jun 19, 2026

Show notes

How do we keep the machine from pulling us into another world, or escaping into ours?

Rushkoff is joined by OG game designer, hacker, and Director of Curiouser Institute Reed Berkowitz to explore the liminal space between reality, fiction, and artificial intelligence.

From the early days of late-80s text-based worlds and San Francisco’s cyberdelic rave culture to the complex modern landscape of AI development, Douglas and Reed compare notes on what they thought the internet would become - and what it actually grew into.

✨ Learn more about Reed’s work: http://www.curiouserinstitute.com

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

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The Trap of Living Forever (And the Bliss of Letting Go) Jun 16, 2026

Show notes

Rushkoff contrasts the blissful, terrifying reality of voluntary dissolution with our pyramid-building civilization. From the ancient pyramids of Egypt to tech billionaires injecting themselves with young blood, humanity has built a world based on accumulation, extraction, and freezing time.

He argues true power doesn't come from maintaining a rigid, permanent self-hood or uploading your consciousness to a server. True vitality comes from our capacity to affect and be affected by others: to flow with the universe’s infinite chain, accept our temporary nature, and find the others to dance with.

🌍 Support Team Human to keep us independent, gain ad-free access to the show, exclusive livestreams with Rushkoff, live events, and more: https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

Download Groucho:

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Stop Chasing the Matrix: How to Live Fully in a Collapsing World (w/ Sarah Wilson) Jun 11, 2026

Show notes

If building a better future looks like a miserable exercise in self-denial, nobody is going to join.

Rushkoff sits down with author and activist Sarah Wilson to discuss her new book, 'I Eat the Stars"

Together, they discuss why environmental and activist movements have been weighed down by guilt, and why the alternative to industrial capitalism has to look, feel, and be better than the status quo.

From trading excessive belongings for time-freedom to prioritizing deep local community, it turns out that simplifying is a hell of a lot more fun than chasing a zillion dollars on the stock market.

🌍 To support Team Human, get ad-free versions of the show, and join our private Discord community, visit: https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman

🤝 Team Human is proudly supported by Groucho. You can take 50% off your first month by using promo code "teamhuman": https://mygroucho.club/teamhuman

Download Groucho:

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Keep up with Sarah Wilson:

Newsletter: https://sarahwilson.substack.com/

Wild with Sarah Wilson: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wild-with-sarah-wilson/id1548626341

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