Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

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Ep. 41 Richard D. Bartlett "There Is No Enemy Team" Jun 14, 2017

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Playing for Team Human today, master of human connection and consensus, Loomio co-founder Richard Bartlett.

Bartett, hailing from New Zealand, stopped by Douglas's home studio while on a community organizing workshop tour of the US. Bartlett and Rushkoff discuss the challenges of building consensus in an all too often top-down, winner-takes all society. Together we'll learn how Loomio, inspired by the general assemblies of Occupy Wall Street, strives to amplify collaborative power and foster more participatory democratic practice. It's a project that starts with small-scale, human-to-human connection and grows outward from there.
Rushkoff begins today's episode with a monologue premised on a similar theme. Being human is a "team sport" and the more we cave into the divisive fear of these hostile times, the harder it becomes to "occupy a reality" of mutual care and concern.
To learn more about Richard Barlett's work with Loomio visit his blog at http://blog.loomio.org/author/rdbartlett/ Loomio is part of the Enspiral Network. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out Team Human Ep. 23 with Enspiral Director Sylvia Zuur.
Team Human is supported by by listeners like you. Please visit our support page to help keep us going.
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Ep. 39 Daniel Berninger "Fighting for a Human Agenda" May 31, 2017

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Playing for Team Human today is Daniel Berninger. Berninger is a communications technologist who brings his unique, behind-the-scenes insight to a discussion about what distinguishes human-centered technological advancement from today’s all too prevalent machine-focused visions for the future. Berninger, who played an instrumental role in the creation of VoIP, or voice over internet communications technology, offers a critique of systems whose power is inflated by machine agendas. Berninger also takes aim at the bureaucratic glut of institutions and government and their self-serving structures that also threaten to alienate humans. Together, Berninger and Rushkoff find common ground in their celebration of solidarity and the irreducible nature of humanity as key to solving society’s intractable problems.

This show begins with a monologue from Rushkoff on how agendas, be it the "machine agenda" of the tech industry or the conspiracy-driven narratives of today’s establishment political punditry, serve to distort our sense of reality and direct our attention away from the most pressing threats we face today.
Production Note: Today’s show ironically suffered from VoIP and audio technical difficulties. We managed to save the content but the audio fidelity is less than ideal for Team Human. We apologize for the compromised sound and hope you enjoy the content.
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Ep. 38 J.T. Rogers "The Play is the Thing" May 24, 2017

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Just getting a thousand humans into a room together to sit and watch other humans act out something on stage is the miracle. Playwright J.T. Rogers understands why the very act of doing live theater is so hopeful, and applies this hope to intractable problems like the Middle East conflict - with surprising, and Tony-nominated results.

Also, a monologue from Douglas Rushkoff on the Manchester bombing, and what it means when a fatal stampede at a Who concert in Cincinnati can be considered the good old days.
More on J.T. Rogers, including tickets and info for his critically acclaimed work Oslo, at jtrogerswriter.com.
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Ep. 37 William Hogeland "Defaulting to Colonialism" May 17, 2017

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On this week’s Team Human, we discover one of the reasons why knowing history matters. William Hogeland, author of Autumn of the Black Snake, tells the story of how and why the US Army was created - not to defend our borders, but to wipe out indigenous nations. And all that, in an effort to satisfy the growth mandate embedded in our economy by heroes of the neoliberal left like Alexander Hamilton. Make no mistake: Hogeland is a live wire.

The show opens with a related monologue from Rushkoff about why successful businesses should refrain from scaling up. How about staying local, and letting other companies just copy your model? Why and how has the need to scale and colonize new territory become our default?
Purchase Autumn of the Black Snake: Indie Bound -or- Amazon
Read more from Hogeland on the book here.
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Ep. 36 Micah Sifry "What We Do Now! #PDF17" May 10, 2017

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Playing for Team Human is Micah Sifry. Next month Micah will host the 2017 Personal Democracy Forum. On today’s show, Micah and Douglas discuss how the stakes are higher than ever for bringing people into an active civic life and engagement with democracy. Looking beyond the 2016 electoral postmortems and whodunits, Micah and Douglas talk about the power of humans breathing together–conspiring–in real space and time, while also leveraging technologies of connection, to build an actionable progressive agenda.

Listeners of Team Human will find kindred spirits at the Personal Democracy Forum and Civic Hall. If you voted and you've been marching and calling your representatives but are still looking for ways to enhance your civic power and find community, PDF 2017 is ready for you.
Personal Democracy Forum 2017, themed What We Do Now, will be held June 8-9 at the NYU Skirball Center, NYC. Team Human will be recording on location at this year’s PDF. Also check out Team Human Ep. 07 recorded at last year’s PDF featuring Institute For the Future’s Marina Gorbis and Douglas Rushkoff’s PDF keynote speech.
Also on today's show, a monologue from Rushkoff about why so many of us have to drive to work. (Hint: it’s not because the world was created that way.)
A special thanks goes out to listeners who are supporting and sustaining Team Human. Visit Teamhuman.fm for more info.
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Ep. 35 Tessa Lena "Fighting the Robots" May 03, 2017

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Playing for Team Human today is musician Tessa Lena. Tessa's music explores the tension between technology and human agency. In her songs and in this interview, Tessa playfully challenges robotic conceptions of humanity. Tessa offers a compelling argument for power of music to call us out of those automatic, quantified notions of self and society.

Both Lena and Rushkoff pose essential questions; Is technology being used to extend our human potential? Does the embedded economic agenda driving technology inevitably thwart ambitions that focus on people over profit?
Tessa's brand new record Tessa Fights Robots serves as the launching point for a true Team Human conversation about the power of art, music, and play in an increasingly robotic society.
Team Human is supported by listeners. A special thanks to our new supporters as well as all of our monthly sustainers who make each episode possible.
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Ep. 34 Pia Mancini "No Shame! Towards a Cooperative Economy" Apr 26, 2017

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Playing for Team Human today is Pia Mancini. Pia is a visionary democracy activist who co-founded the Net Party in Argentina and DemocracyOS. Today Pia joins Douglas to talk about her new project Open Collective.

Open Collective is platform that helps small, non-traditional organizations to collectivize, raise funds, and manage expenses in a networked and transparent fashion. Open Collective is a useful resource for listeners who are trying to build sustainable funding for their local community group, political organization, and even school club. Pia explains how Open Collectives not only is helping to fund a growing number of unique organizations, but signals a future where transparent, collective partnerships might foster new models of democratic participation and exchange of resources.
Douglas begins today's show with a monologue on shame. How is shame used as an instrument of social control? Rushkoff advances a thesis on how open, transparent social organizing, like what is being fostered by Pia and Open Collective, counters shame and enhances our ability to forge solidarity.
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Ep. 33 David Sax "The Revenge of Analog" Apr 19, 2017

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Playing for Team Human today is author and Bloomberg Businessweek and New Yorker columnist David Sax. Sax’s latest book Revenge of the Analog, Real Things and Why They Matter explores the resurgence of the tactile, human-to-human, brick-and-mortar encounters that characterize the analog experience. How might our rekindled love of vinyl LPs, local book stores, and face-to-face interaction help reground society to the physical realities of land, labor, and our fellow humans? Sax and Rushkoff explore the real world experiences and “flesh and blood consequences" that lie just beyond the glow of our screens and mediated environments.

In today’s show monologue, Rushkoff looks at the extreme political and policy binaries being pushed by the Trump administration. He argues for an embrace of liminal spaces; the continuous, ambiguous, and messy analog work of building peace in these turbulent times.
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Ep. 32 Laszlo Karafiath PhD "Meme Wars" Apr 12, 2017

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Playing for Team Human today, memeticist and social change agent Laszlo Karafiath Ph.D.

Laszlo, memetic engineer for Culture 2, shares his analysis of the weaponized media now paralyzing so much of our thought, and tells us what we have to do - collectively - to build our immunity to thought viruses. Together Karafiath and Rushkoff look at the ways we might redeploy memetic power to foster positive social change.
You can learn more about Karafiath's work at www.purposeandplay.com or follow him on twitter.
Also on today's show - Rushkoff on avoiding the rabbit holes of speculation and distraction in the context of war and the volatile Trump administration. How might we get back to the work of rebuilding society rather than being pulled deeper into the sensationalized narratives unfolding on our screens?
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Ep. 31 R.U. Sirius "Counter What?" Apr 05, 2017

Show notes

A unique episode of Team Human, on today's show Douglas Rushkoff is joined by longtime friend and counterculture legend R.U. Sirius (aka Ken Goffman), founding editor of Mondo 2000. R.U. will help us evaluate the place of the counterculture in the digital landscape. Is counterculture even possible today? Is humanity itself the counterculture as we resist increasingly quantified and abstracted lives? Together R.U. and Rushkoff playfully and thoughtfully examine these questions while asserting those quirky yet challenging expressions of humanity not so easily reduced to code or marketing demographics.

The music on today's show comes from a variety of R.U. Sirius's musical projects. Visit https://rusirius.bandcamp.com/ to listen. Follow Sirius's work at https://stealthissingularity.com/. Musicians are encouraged to connect with R.U.Sirius to collaborate.
Needle drops in this show:Glad-Handed I Politician Punching A Nazi Be My Valerie Solanis Love is the Product President Mussolini Makes the Planes Run On Time
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