Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

Latest Episodes:

Enspiral: "Better Work Together" Nov 07, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today: Susan Basterfield and Anthony Cabraal. Susan and Anthony share the open secrets of bottom-up collaboration as we celebrate the publication of Enspiral’s book, Better Work Together. It's a conversation about the power of working together, building on ideas “good enough to try,” and creating a space where it’s “safe to fail.”

Looking for collaborative and participatory ways to create social change? Enspiral has collected and opened up its learnings for all to replicate.

Douglas opens with a monologue about moving beyond “master plan” interventions. What does democracy look like on a human scale?

If you enjoy this episode, check out Episode 23 with Enspiral teammate Silvia Zuur:

https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-23-silvia-zuur/

And Episode 41 with Richard Bartlett:

https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-41-richard-d-bartlett-there-is-no-enemy-team/

You can find Team Human episodes and more from Douglas at Medium.com/@Rushkoff

Music Credits: Mike Watt: beak-holding-letter-man , Herkimer Diamonds , and closing music by R.U. Sirius: President Mussolini Makes The Planes Run On Time

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Jason Schmitt "A Pirate Bay of Knowledge?" Oct 31, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today: Jason Schmitt. Jason looks at the big business of for-profit academic publishing in his new documentary Paywall:The Business of Scholarship. Should the the world's research be locked behind closed doors? Jason makes the case for open access on today's Team Human.

Opening the show, Rushkoff offers a monologue on the state of democracy. While our politicians and their propagandists have lost faith in our ability to vote purposefully, Team Human knows better. There has never been a more crucial time to get involved, not only at the polls next week but in civic life and community action beyond.

Versions of Douglas's monologues can be found at https://medium.com/@rushkoff. We'll also be posting the entire back catalog in a new Team Human Collection at Medium.

Visit Teamhuman.fm for complete access to the shows and patreon.com/teamhuman to sustain this show.

Today we opened with intro music thanks to Mike Watt. The midroll featured Team Human Ep.31 Human Guest and friend R.U. Sirius. The show concluded with a track by Herkimer Diamonds.

Jessica Blank "A Walk In Their Shoes" Oct 24, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today is playwright, actor, director, writer and teacher Jessica Blank. Jessica shares her insights into the process of building empathy through story. Through works such as her documentary plays the Exonerated and Aftermath, Jessica’s characters stare their audience directly in the eye, reach out to their heart, and open a pathway for transformation. This, Jessica explains, is the magic of being in shared space with people embodying real, human stories.

Learn about her creative process, how she finds that opening for empathy, and how we might retrieve those human scale stories that are charged with the empathic power to bring about social change.

Douglas opens the show with a monologue asking, "Is the nationalist, xenophobic, inward-turned America we’ve been projecting to the world as of late the real US?"

On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro, Herkhimer Diamonds “Xmas Underwater” midway through, and our closing music is thanks to Mike Watt.

Team Human is listener supported. To subscribe via Patreon or Drip, go to TeamHuman.fm/support . You can also help by reviewing the show on iTunes.

Check out Douglas's new regular column on Medium.

Fred Turner "Beyond the Master Plan" Oct 17, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today is Fred Turner, professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Stanford University. Fred will be helping us recover the countercultural roots of digital media, while also imploring us to look toward the mundane, existing ways of staking our claim to authority over the world in which we live.

Turner has done extensive research into the countercultural and even psychedelic roots of cyberculture, culminating in his extended biography of Stewart Brand titled From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism.

Turner’s writing and research reaches even further back into the history of cyberculture with The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties where he explores and exposes the deepest origins of our touchscreen society.

In this conversation, Fred and Douglas use these works as a jumping off point to a wide range of topics including a provocative discussion on the ways those early utopian visions of technology were subsumed into an ideology of individualism and ultimately, consumerism.

Is it time to re-embrace the boring? In our quest to be our “authentic selves” at all times, have we forgotten the necessary, and sometimes mundane civic work that is required for concrete change both in our local and global communities? This and much more!

On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro, Herkhimer Diamonds “Xmas Underwater” and our closing music is thanks to Mike Watt.

Team Human is listener supported. To subscribe via Patreon or Drip, go to TeamHuman.fm/support . You can also help by reviewing the show on iTunes.

Nora Bateson "Warm Data" Oct 10, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today is systems thinker, writer, and filmmaker Nora Bateson. Nora will be telling us how to stop looking at things as objects and begin seeing the spaces and connections between them. It’s not too late to bring our species back from the brink! This conversation was recorded backstage in Palo Alto at the Institute For the Future's (IFTF) 50th Anniversary Gala.

I first met at Nora Bateson at a general semantics conference where she was screening her then brand new film An Ecology of Mind about her father Gregory Bateson, one of the principle developers of cybernetic and systems theory. But as I got to know Nora and her work, particularly the book Small Arcs of Larger Circles, I realized she was taking what we think of as systems theory to a whole new and intrinsically human level. I ran into her again at the fiftieth anniversary conference of the Institute For the Future in Palo Alto where she gave an entirely optimistic yet grounded talk on how to bring an awareness of the liminal spaces between systems into account as we attempt to make our world more consonant with the values of life.

Douglas opens today's show with a monologue on Universal Basic Income (UBI) and why, if the goal is economic justice, a universal "allowance" just won't do.

“The vast transfer of wealth from the poor to rich may be complete, but now we can use UBI to funnel even more capital up to the already wealthy and keep the scheme going.”

To learn more about our guest, Nora Bateson, please visit https://norabateson.wordpress.com

You can watch her film here: http://www.anecologyofmind.com/

If you liked this episode, check out Team Human Ep. 07 featuring IFTF executive director Marina Gorbis

On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro, Herkhimer Diamonds “Xmas Underwater” and our closing music is thanks to Mike Watt.

Team Human is listener supported. To subscribe via Patreon or Drip, go to TeamHuman.fm/support . You can also help by reviewing the show on iTunes.

Philip McKenzie and Michael Wood-Lewis "There Goes the Neighborhood" Oct 03, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today a double header of people trying to effect real cultural change in very different ways. Up first is cultural anthropologist, host of the 2 Dope Boys podcast, and consultant Philip McKenzie. Philip makes the case for injecting corporate america with the values of social justice by subverting the machine from within. Following Philip is founder of Front Porch Forum, Michael Wood Lewis. Michael shows us how the net can be used to turn residents back into neighbors. It’s a story about the transformative power of witnessing everyday acts of neighborliness.

For more on Philip McKenzie, visit https://philipmckenzie.com/

Check out Philip’s podcast 2 Dope Boys. Episode 26 features Philip's conversation with Douglas Rushkoff!

http://www.twodopeboyspod.com/blog/2016/9/1/on-point-26-douglas-rushkoff-throwing-rocks-at-the-google-bus

Learn more about Front Porch Forum and Vermont’s “Quiet Digital Revolution.” Visit https://frontporchforum.com/

and check out this trailer for a new documentary on Front Porch forum from https://vermont.twg.io/

Douglas opens this special double feature episode with a monologue on the reversal of culture and counterculture and a unique perspective on the importance of “finding the others,” – not just those like-minded “others” but even those with whom we may disagree.

Nathan Schneider "A Place Where It's Easier To Be Good" Sep 26, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today is platform cooperative activist, journalist, and author of Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy, Nathan Schneider.

With contemporary examples and historical context, Nathan makes the case that the co-op movement is not mere utopian idealism, but a very real and vital economic shift that is being harnessed for social good. It’s a conversation that embraces the co-op transformation as a path to a more just and equitable society and a more participatory approach to life overall.

Douglas opens the show with a reflection on the limits of both our communication technologies and language itself. On Team Human, what matters is not just the content, but the context. Team Human is the “sound of engagement,” the “sound of solidarity.”

If you enjoy this show, you might also like these episodes from our archive:

Episode 68 on the P2P Foundation “The Commons is the Glue” w/ Stacco Troncoso. https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-68-stacco-troncoso-the-commons-is-the-glue/

Episode 03 with Esteban Kelly of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives: https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/episode-03-esteban-kelly-solidarity/

Episode 23 with Silvia Zuur of Enspiral: https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-23-silvia-zuur/

Episode 07 with Marina Gorbis from the Institute for the Future https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/episode-07-marina-gorbis/

Episode 41 Richard D Bartlett from Loomio” https://teamhuman.fm/episodes/ep-41-richard-d-bartlett-there-is-no-enemy-team/

For more on Nathan Schneider visit nathanschneider.info.

Also mentioned on today’s show: Visit the New Economy Coalition https://neweconomy.net/

and the P2P foundation https://p2pfoundation.net/

Photo of Nathan by Emily Hansen

On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro, Herkhimer Diamonds “Xmas Underwater” and our closing music is thanks to Mike Watt.

Sarah Esther Lageson PhD "Giving Each Other Some Slack" Sep 19, 2018

Show notes

What happens when our past becomes indelibly fixed in the online databases that shape our digital identities? Is there ever escape from the internet’s permanent memory for our blemishes and increasingly public misfortunes? Sarah Lageson studies the serious social ramifications and new forms of “digital punishment” meted out by the growth of online crime data. On today’s episode she discusses this topic, the focus of her forthcoming book, Digital Punishment - Uses and Abuses of Criminal Records in the Big Data Age. Her work looks at the way bias and errors in the criminal justice system become embedded within these digital records and how this is exploited by private data brokers. Lageson and Rushkoff then turn to the very human question of how we should treat each other in a society where every mistake or brush with the law becomes glued to our digital identity. At the very least, it’s a future where we’re going to have to cut each other a little slack.

Guest Bio:

Sarah is an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers University-Newark School of Criminal Justice. She studies public access to criminal justice data, error in criminal record databases, and associated issues with punishment, Constitutional rights, and inequality. Sarah’s current research examines the growth of online crime data that remains publicly available, creating new forms of “digital punishment.”

Learn more about Sarah at sarahlageson.com

Douglas opens the show with a monologue about the gamification of social good on Wall Street. Can the market actually be coaxed into rewarding social good over exploitation? Or are funds such as the new ETF “JUST capital” a mere ploy to make investors feel good while exacerbating the problem of inequality?

Today’s show was produced in the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY Queens College. Special thanks to community organizer Josh Chapedelaine who helped facilitate this recording. Luke Robert Mason is our associate producer.

On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro, Herkhimer Diamonds “Xmas Underwater” followed by “Walkabout” from Episode 67 guest, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge‘s Throbbing Gristle plus “Sparlky Eyes” by Episode 68 Guest Stacco Troncoso. Our closing music is thanks to Mike Watt.

You can support the show by visiting Teamhuman.fm/support. Please review Team Human on iTunes.

danah boyd "Seeing New Worlds" Sep 12, 2018

Show notes

Playing for Team Human today, technology and social media scholar, founder of Data & Society Research Institute, and author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, danah boyd.

On today's episode, Douglas and danah talk about stepping outside of our narrow worldviews. How does technology amplify our biases? Where does human agency lie in complex, networked systems? What is the distinction between a "network" versus a "community?" These and many more questions explored in this deep-dive into social media and the relationship of digital technology to our everyday lives.

From Douglas: "This week, my journey to make sense of digital society - and to challenge my own underlying assumptions about the promise and peril of social media - I visited my friend danah boyd. We met up at The Data & Society Research Institute, which she founded in 2014 to explore the social and cultural issues arising from data-centric and automated technologies. What makes her work unique is that it’s based less on thought experiments than on observations from the real world. That’s part of why I waited until danah could make time for an in-person discussion, which we had in a little meeting space at the always busy Data & Society office in Chelsea, Manhattan."

This show cites research by previous Team Human guest and Data & Society fellow Caroline Jack. Check out Episode 29 here.

Learn more about danah and read her work. from http://www.danah.org:

Bio: danah boyd is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, the founder and president of Data & Society, and a Visiting Professor at New York University. Her research is focused on addressing social and cultural inequities by understanding the relationship between technology and society. Her most recent books - "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" and "Participatory Culture in a Networked Age" - examine the intersection of everyday practices and social media. She is a 2011 Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Director of both Crisis Text Line and Social Science Research Council, and a Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian. She received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University, a master's degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Ph.D in Information from the University of California, Berkeley.

danah's Blog: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/

and Twitter: @zephoria

This show features intro music sampled from Fugazi’s Foreman’s Dog courtesy of Dischord records. Musical interludes include new, unreleased music from Herkimer Diamonds courtesy of Majestic Litter: https://majesticlitter.bandcamp.com/. Mid show was Throbbing Gristle's "Walkabout" See Team Human Episode 67 with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Closing the show is a track from Mike Watt’s Hyphenated Man LP.

Recording thanks to Luke Robert Mason. Our Community manager is Josh Chapdelaine.

Alissa Quart "It's Not Your Fault" Sep 05, 2018

Show notes

One of the lies many of us have bought over the years is the American Dream. It seemed to work - at least back in the day of the GI bill and guaranteed mortgages. You work hard, go to college, and things will work out. You’ll be okay.

And now, a lot of us who were privileged enough to be able to follow that path, are finding ourselves unable to reach that place of security anymore. It’s a new precarity - shared by almost everyone in America today - and what our guest Alissa Quart has beautifully documented in work at the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and in her new book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America.

In today’s conversation, Alissa deconstructs the individualist, pull yourself up by the bootstraps myth, and looks at the way the system has failed so many Americans. “It’s not your fault,” emerges as the theme from Alissa’s eye-opening research and reporting.

Today’s show begins with a monologue from Douglas on how the dynamics of cult thinking might help us understand the seemingly irrational commitment to Trump by his supporters. A full transcript of the essay that inspired this talk can be found on Rushkoff’s Medium page.

If you enjoy this episode, you might also like our very first episode with debt resisters Astra Taylor and Thomas Gokey.

Also mentioned in today’s show was Episode 93 guest Palak Shah whose work at the National Domestic Workers Alliance resonates with the many of the topics discussed in this episode.

This show features intro music sampled from Fugazi’s Foreman’s Dog courtesy of Dischord records. Musical interludes include new, unreleased music from Herkimer Diamonds courtesy of Majestic Litter: https://majesticlitter.bandcamp.com/.You also heard a sampled loop from Episode 31 guest and Mondo 2000 creator, R.U. Sirius and closing the show is a track from Mike Watt’s Hyphenated Man LP.

Go to TeamHuman.fm/support to support the show. You can also help by reviewing the show on iTunes.

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