The Jim Rutt Show

Latest Episodes:

EP 270 Nancy Jacobson on No Labels and the 2024 Election Oct 30, 2024

Jim talks with Nancy Jacobson, the founder and CEO of the No Labels political organization, in the last of four conversations featuring non-partisan thinkers on the upcoming US presidential election. They discuss No Labels's mission, the Problem Solvers Caucus, the common sense platform, the quality of No Labels volunteers, the power of party leaders, issues with the current parties, Nancy's vote for the 2024 election, what's next for No Labels, and more. Episode Transcript "The Republican Electoral College Advantage," by Jim Rutt No Labels - Books and Reform Proposals JRS EP 219 - Katherine Gehl on Breaking Partisan Gridlock The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy, by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter JRS EP 262 - Cliff Maloney on a Libertarian's Case for Trump Nancy Jacobson is the Founder and CEO of No Labels, a non-profit political organization in Washington D.C. that uses bi-partisan approaches to bring people together to solve today’s toughest political problems. She previously held senior roles on political campaigns for President Bill Clinton, Senator Al Gore, and Senator Evan Bayh.

EP 269 Alex Ebert on the War on Genius Oct 29, 2024

Jim talks with Alex Ebert about his recent essay "Suboptimal Revolution: In Defense of Inefficiencies." They discuss what optimization does, genius vs democracy, negating the spatiotemporal experience of becoming a master, the decision-by-committee problem, intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, dimensional collapse, the app Shazam, what happened to movies, preferred energetic states & the feat of problematizing, status burning, audience capture, the signature of a medium, the human ability to spot good bad things, cognitive sovereignty, the allure of inertia, fighting back against entropy, a million years to do cool stuff in the universe, suboptimal tech, constraints, natural implicit hierarchies, tying effort to sovereignty, and much more. Episode Transcript Bad Guru (Substack) "Suboptimal Revolution," by Alex Ebert Alex Ebert is a platinum-selling musician (Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros), Golden Globe-winning film composer, cultural critic and philosopher living in New Orleans. His philosophical project, FreQ Theory, as well as his cultural analyses, can be followed on his Substack.

EP 268 Brendan Graham Dempsey on the Evolution of Meaning Oct 25, 2024

Jim talks with Brendan Graham Dempsey about the ideas in his new book, The Evolution of Meaning: A Universal Learning Process. They discuss Jim's love for the book, the thinking behind the title, future books in the series, why Brendan avoided the word "religion," the nature of meaning, dissipative systems, Shannon information vs semantic information, relations vs static objects, meaning as adaptive information, the meaning of value, Gregg Henriques's Unified Theory of Knowledge, the meaning of learning, why the world is full of bogus learning, whether complexity increases over time, information overload, John Vervaeke's relevance realization, wisdom, evolution as learning, the meaning & evolution of sacredness, and much more. Episode Transcript The Evolution of Meaning: A Universal Learning Process, by Brendan Graham Dempsey JRS EP 172 - Brendan Graham Dempsey on Emergentism JRS EP 176 - Gregg Henriques Part 1: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap UTOK: The Unified Theory of Knowledge, by Gregg Henriques JRS EP 159 - Bobby Azarian on the Romance of Reality JRS EP 143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer, researcher, organic farmer, and the director of Sky Meadow Institute, an organization dedicated to "promoting systems-based thinking about the things that matter most." He graduated summa cum laude with a BA in religious studies and classical civilizations from the University of Vermont and earned his master's from Yale University, where he studied religion and culture. He is the author of Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics and host of the Metamodern Spirituality Podcast. His primary interests include theorizing developments in culture after postmodernism, productively bridging the divide between science and spirituality, and developing sustainable systems for life to flourish. All of these lead through the paradigms of emergence and complexity, which inform all of his work.

EP 267 Richard Hanania on the Presidential Election and More Oct 23, 2024

Jim talks with Richard Hanania in the third of four interviews with heterodox political thinkers on the upcoming US presidential election. They discuss the danger of "heterodox orthodoxy," Trump's election denial, disagreeing with the Democrats on policy, Jim's critiques of both parties, religion's impact on policy, Republicans as the party of low human capital, the idea of Trump derangement syndrome, the number of people who served under Trump who are not supporting him, guardrails against overthrowing the election, the likelihood that Trump wins, the apparent swing toward Trump among young men, and much more. Episode Transcript Richard Hanania's Newsletter Richard Hanania is a Fellow at the Salem Center for Public Policy at the University of Texas, and a former Research Fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He holds a JD from the University of Chicago Law School and a PhD in Political Science from UCLA. His research interests include the relationship between wokeness and civil rights law, psychological differences between liberals and conservatives, and how to improve public discourse and policymaking by holding experts accountable through prediction markets. He has written in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

EP 266 Marcia Gralha on the Common Core of Psychotherapy and Wokeism in Academia Oct 22, 2024

Jim talks with Marcia Gralha about her and Gregg Henriques's work identifying the common core of psychotherapeutic traditions. They discuss her collaboration with & recent engagement to Gregg, framing psychotherapy, the enlightenment gap, the development of eclecticism, common factors between approaches, the integration movement, approaches to integration, the 3(+1) elements of the Common Core, the quality of the therapeutic bond, cultural legitimization, choosing interventions, rituals, the Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK), disentangling confusions in terms, the persona filter, person-centered therapy, the neurotic loop, character adaptation systems, cognitive therapy & cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), wokeism in academia, a sexual harassment complaint, woke 1.0 vs 2.0, the ability to deal with strong stuff, and much more. Episode Transcript Inside UTOK (Substack) JRS EP59 - Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology JRS EP176 - Gregg Henriques Part 1: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap "The Common Core of Psychotherapy," by Gregg Henriques and Marcia Gralha "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" by Thomas Nagel Marcia Gralha is an independent scholar of the Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) and serves as a content and community curator for the theory. She holds an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Western Carolina University, North Carolina, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL. Marcia has contributed to the development of various UTOK initiatives, including the Annual Conference "Consilience," publications, lectures, workshops, and coaching services. She is also the co-founder of the Nexus project, an initiative dedicated to fostering unification and integrative approaches to psychology in Brazil.

EP 265 Aravind Srinivas on Perplexity AI Oct 17, 2024

Jim talks with Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of the AI-powered search engine Perplexity. They discuss Jim's use of Perplexity, its wide range of use cases, why Google search is limited by fear of mistakes, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), citations, coming up with the idea, leveraging existing tools vs inventing everything, the core product experience, how the orchestration engine works, semantic vector databases, testing Perplexity as a hedge fund strategist, the Perplexity API, Perplexity's moat, maintaining cognitive sovereignty, paid tiers, what the company needs to succeed, having individuals as major investors, debunking rumors of acquisition by NVIDIA, affordances for coders, and much more. Episode Transcript Perplexity Aravind Srinivas is the CEO of Perplexity, the conversational "answer engine" that provides precise, user-focused answers to queries — with in-line citations. Aravind co-founded the company in 2022 after working as a research scientist at OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind. To date, Perplexity has raised over $165 million from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, NVIDIA, and the late Susan Wojciki. He has a PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley and a Bachelors and Masters in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

EP 264 Bret Weinstein and Jim Argue Politics Oct 13, 2024

Jim talks with Bret Weinstein in the second of four episodes featuring heterodox political thinkers on the 2024 presidential election. They discuss Bret's historical voting principles & why they don't apply this time, election interference, what actually happened with Biden's failed debate, current polling & apparent desperation of the Democrats, the long trajectory of feminism & its relationship to the current Democratic party, defections by men, a massive political realignment, hating both teams, voting against the status quo regime, the demographic shift in party alignment, a bias in courage towards religious worldviews, removal from the World Health Organization, understanding the failure of government institutions in Covid, Ukraine aid as a looting mechanism, global warming & solar forcing, the Carrington effect & the migration of Earth's magnetic poles, Trump's narcissism & its effects on decision-making, defeating the duopoly, deliberating until the last minute, and much more. Episode Transcript Bret Weinstein has spent two decades advancing the field of evolutionary biology, earning his PhD at the University of Michigan, before teaching at The Evergreen State College for 14 years. He is currently working to uncover the evolutionary meaning of large-scale patterns in human history, and seeking a game-theoretically stable path forward for humanity, in service of which he has just co-organized the Rescue the Republic rally in Washington, DC. Bret has spoken at venues including the U.S. Congress, the International Covid Summit, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, and the Hannah Arendt Center. With his wife, Heather Heying, he hosts the DarkHorse podcast and co-authored the NYT bestseller A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life.

EP 263 Evan McMullen on Self-Driving Cars Oct 09, 2024

Jim talks with Evan McMullen about the state of self-driving car technology, with a special focus on simulators. They discuss the purpose of simulators, levels of simulation, how the world is modeled, gradually ramping up the complexity of the testing world, Tesla's approach, hardware-in-the-loop testing, Waymo's first-mover advantage, simulating the availability of a human intervener, driverless solutions vs driver aid, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), the question of which theories of ethics to use, international standards for functional safety, a liability shield equilibrium, tool-sharing between companies, open source simulators, NVIDIA's DRIVE Sim & other players, standards for interoperability, incentives for cooperation between companies, hardware accuracy, edge case generation, evaluating current offerings for consumers, vibrational tactile feedback vs heads-up displays, when we'll be able to read a book in self-driving car, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 94 - Shahin Farshchi on Self-Driving Tech JRS EP 124 - Jim Hackett on Ford, Electric Cars & More JRS EP 221 - George Hotz on Open-Source Driving Assistance Evan McMullen is a mechatronics engineer at dSPACE, a leading provider of hardware and software for simulation tools into the auto industry.

EP 262 Cliff Maloney on a Libertarian’s Case for Trump Oct 06, 2024

Jim talks with Cliff Maloney about the November election and his get-out-the-vote campaign, The Pennsylvania Chase. They discuss Cliff's libertarian background, why Pennsylvania is a crucial state, a Republican return to grassroots, the structure of the operation, the effectiveness of door-knocking, choosing the highest-impact doors to knock on, why Cliff is helping the Republicans, Jim's political trajectory, oikophobia, why Jim finds Trump intolerable, Cliff's political background, working for Ron Paul, the loss of the anti-war left, Trump's gut instinct, Trump's deficit record, comparing the foreign policy of Nikki Haley & John McCain, hurricane relief & Ukraine relief, whether support for Ukraine is a good investment, the drug war, returning abortion rights to the states, transgender surgeries for kids, luxury beliefs, Christian nationalism in the Republican Party, woke ideology vs the nuclear family, the unsustainability of American public education, teacher's unions, politics as the adjudication of power, the importance of open disagreements, Thomas Massie, and much more. Episode Transcript Get Out the Vote, by Donald Green and Alan Gerber "Dividend Money: An Alternative to Central Banker Managed Fractional Reserve Banking Money," by Jim Rutt (YouTube) Cliff Maloney is a United States political strategist and commentator. He is nationally known for launching the grassroots program “Operation Win at the Door,” which has now knocked on over 3 million doors and elected 300+ state legislators. His life’s mission is to create a liberty state by targeting the 5,413 state legislative seats in America to elect principled citizen legislators.

EP 261 Nikos Salingaros on What Went Wrong with Architecture Oct 03, 2024

Jim talks with Nikos Salingaros about architectural theory, urbanism, and urban planning. They discuss inherited knowledge, the capability to distinguish between ugly & beautiful buildings, John Vervaeke's 4 kinds of knowing, vertical vs horizontal design, how architecture went so wrong, backward evolution, a Messianic futurism cult, the destruction of living geometry, how the real estate racket works, biophilic design, the correlation between modern architecture & modern art, the human scale, James Gibson, the Fibonacci sequence, deconstructivism, architectural assassins, fractals in architecture, richness, interpretability, medical health, functional ornamentation, information overload, cultural continuity & erasure, the ruse of postmodernism, algorithmic design, the AI revolution in architecture, an opportunity for new entrants, wonderful modern buildings, failed typologies, urban planning, making several systems work together simultaneously, autopoietic systems, urban DNA, Jane Jacobs, the city as a living system, post-war zoning, peer-to-peer urbanism, why it hasn't worked, the "yes in my backyard" movement, the future of architecture, and much more. Episode Transcript A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life The Death and Life of American Cities, by Jane Jacobs How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built, by Stewart Brand "P2P Urbanism," by Nikos Salingaros “Form, Language, Complexity: Unified Architectural Theory” - Syllabus and Course Videos Dr. Nikos A. Salingaros is Professor of Mathematics and Architecture at the University of Texas at San Antonio. An internationally recognized Architectural Theorist and Urbanist, his publications include seven books on architecture and design, two of them co-authored with Michael Mehaffy. Salingaros collaborated with the visionary architect and software pioneer Christopher Alexander over more than twenty years in editing Alexander’s monumental four-volume book The Nature of Order. Salingaros won the 2019 Stockholm Cultural Award for Architecture, and shared the 2018 Clem Labine Traditional Building Award with Michael Mehaffy. Salingaros holds a doctorate in Mathematical Physics from Stony Brook University, New York. He has directed and advised twenty-five Masters and PhD theses in architecture and urbanism.

EP 260 Ben Goertzel and Trent McConaghy on a Crypto Merger for AGI/ASI Oct 01, 2024

Jim talks with Trent McConaghy and Ben Goertzel about the merger of Ben's SingularityNET AGIX token, Trent's Ocean Protocol, and Fetch. They discuss the relative size of the merger, motivations for pulling together the three networks, distinguishing this from a standard corporate merger, how the communities of the projects reacted, leveraging the benefits of scale, changing the ticker symbol, defining AGI vs ASI, forecasts on AGI, considering the arc of self-driving cars, data bottlenecks, the likely shape of superintelligence, what the 3 organizations do, autonomous economic agents, AI creativity, the amount of work happening on crypto networks, the antifragility of crypto, why AGI/ASI emerging from these networks might be plausible, making something work without understanding it, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP217 Ben Goertzel on a New Framework for AGI JRS EP211 Ben Goertzel on Generative AI vs. AGI Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI JRS EP3 Dr. Ben Goertzel – OpenCog, AGI and SingularityNET JRS EP 22 Trent McConaghy on AI & Brain-Computer Interface Accelerationism (bci/acc) "Is It Worth Being Wise?" by Paul Graham "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data," Google Research Dr. Ben Goertzel is a cross-disciplinary scientist, entrepreneur and author. Born in Brazil to American parents, in 2020 after a long stretch living in Hong Kong he relocated his primary base of operations to a rural island near Seattle. He leads the SingularityNET Foundation, the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society which runs the annual Artificial General Intelligence conference. Dr. Goertzel’s research work encompasses multiple areas including artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds, gaming, parapsychology, theoretical physics and more. Trent McConaghy is founder of Ocean Protocol. He has 25 years of deep tech experience with a focus on AI and blockchain. He co-founded Analog Design automation Inc. in 1999, which built AI-powered tools for creative circuit design. It was acquired by Synopsys in 2004. He co-founded Solido Design Automation in 2004, using AI to mitigate process variation and help drive Moore’s Law. Solido was later acquired by Siemens. He then went on to launch ascribe in 2013 for NFTs on Bitcoin, then Ocean Protocol in 2017 for decentralized data markets for AI. He currently focuses on Ocean Predictoor for crowd-sourced AI prediction feeds.

EP 259 Toufi Saliba on a Peer-to-Peer Network for AI Agents Sep 10, 2024

Jim talks with Toufi Saliba about the Toda/IP protocol and HyperCycle, a decentralized network for AI-to-AI communication. They discuss the high-level view of Toda/IP & HyperCycle, enabling communication of value, what Toda adds on top of UDP, time & cost constraints, cryptographic proof in the first handshake, how Toda transfers value in very small quantities, how settlement occurs, who has custody of a dollar, transaction machines, where money is kept & what prevents stealing, an actual non-fungible token, fully decentralized smart contracts, whether or not Toda is analogous to paper money in a gold standard world, Toufi's motivation for building this tech, hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s, the currency for AI, OpenCog's AGI ASI project, why inter-operation with AI is important, wealth creation at the node level, a market in results not compute, how this helps facilitate AGI, the entire world reaching AGI vs a single entity reaching it, why Toufi thinks AGI is close, reasons for thinking decentralized AGI will happen first, how to get involved, the cost of a node, using Moloch's incentives to overthrow Moloch, learning how to run nodes, HyperCycle vs SinguarityNET, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 027: Charles Hoskinson on Cardano Blockchain Project JRS EP217 - Ben Goertzel on a New Framework for AGI Toufi Saliba is the co-author of the Toda/IP protocol and currently serves as the global chair for international protocols for AI security for the IEEE, which is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of all humanity. Toufi has a history of building various AI projects centered around cryptography and cybersecurity. In October 2022, he took on the leadership of Hypercycle.ai, which is focused on developing a general-purpose technology supporting a decentralized network for AI-to-AI communication.

EP 258 Stephen Webb on Where Are the Aliens? Aug 29, 2024

Jim talks with Stephen Webb about his book If the Universe Is Teeming With Aliens... Where Is Everybody?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life. They discuss Jim's obsession with the Fermi paradox, the meaning of the Fermi paradox, the Drake equation, discounting claims about UFOs, a question that everyone can contribute to, Perplexity AI's estimates, optimistic scenarios, anthropic principles, Kardashev civilizations, the principle of mediocrity, getting to the bottom of the UAP phenomenon, problems with the zoo scenario & the interdict hypothesis, the simulation hypothesis, Oumuamua, solar chauvinists, Stapledonian thinking, the signaling problem, 3 types of communications, the dark forest scenario, Dyson swarms, types of planets that would make space exploration hard, what might be special about Earth, the idea that Earth was deliberately seeded by aliens, the Great Filter idea & potential causes of extinction, the Carrington Event, previous filters, the co-evolution of tools & intelligence, where Stephen would place his bets, humanity's huge moral responsibility, and much more. Episode Transcript If the Universe Is Teeming With Aliens... Where Is Everybody?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life, by Stephen Webb JRS EP14 - Astrophysicist Jill Tarter on SETI and Technosignatures Stephen Webb has a passion for learning why the world is the way it is and asking whether it could be any different. He worked at several UK universities, being elected a Member of the Institute of Physics, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and was project lead for the UK Advance HE Collaborative Award in Teaching Excellence in 2022. He is also active in science outreach, and his TED Talk “Where are all the aliens?” has been viewed more than 6.5 million times. In 2023, he retired to devote more time to his writing. He has published numerous books, including an undergraduate textbook on distance determination in astronomy as well as several general and popular science books. His best-known book is Where is Everybody?, an exploration of the Fermi paradox.

EP 257 Malcolm and Simone Collins on Fertility Rates and Pronatalism Aug 27, 2024

Jim talks with Malcolm and Simone Collins about declining worldwide fertility rates and pronatalism. They discuss when fertility started declining, the pre-World-War-I fertility catastrophe, the countries entering fertility freefall, a population-based pyramid scheme, different cultural frameworks' resistances to fertility collapse, the urban monoculture, the rise of an anti-natalist mindset, preparing for a consistent economic decline, the UN's misleading statistic, the debt overhang, whether the downsides are overstated, why this is not a wealthy person problem, guillotines, how the urban monoculture affects the gene pool, equality vs removal of in-the-moment pain, oversensitivity to negative stimuli, causes of the current fertility collapse, declining sperm rates, endocrine disruptors, decrease in sex drive among gen alpha, forgetting of ancestral traditions, tradwives, raising kids as if they were retired billionaires, sumptuary laws as solutions to multipolar traps, fixing cultural norms over fixing real estate prices, valorizing austerity, the correlation between fertility crashes & embracing the Enlightenment, responses to the temptation of infinite pleasure whenever you want it, building pro-natalism as a cohesive movement, the religion of Techno-Puritanism, the Future Police Holiday, becoming gods through intergenerational martyrdom, taking the anti-mystic route, a positive correlation between consequentialism & fertility rates, cultivars, mystery cults vs theological evolution, and much more. Episode Transcript The Pragmatist's Guides to Life Based Camp (Podcast) JRS EP 213 - Robin Hanson on Declining Fertility Rates Pronatalist.org The Infant Development and Environment Study (TIDES) "Reclaiming Our Cognitive Sovereignty," by Jim Rutt Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin JRS EP 143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis The Rise of Christianity, by Rodney Stark Malcolm and Simone Collins are international pronatalist advocates and authors. They are co-writers of The Pragmatist's Guides to Life, a series on relationships, sexuality, governance, and crafting religion. They also co-host a podcast, Based Camp. Their core area of focus is on cultural evolution and predicting the future. Publicly they are generally known as "the elite couple breeding to save mankind."

EP 256 Glenn Loury on Confessions of a Black Conservative Aug 22, 2024

Jim talks with Glenn Loury about his recent memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative. They discuss the problem of self-regard, Glenn's mentorship under Thomas Schelling, his upbringing in the South Side of Chicago, his matriarch aunt Eloise, his best friend Woody, the one-drop rule, the social construction of race, the influence of his uncles, stealing a car for prom, the Illinois Institute of Technology, working at a printing plant, community college classes, discovering the life of the mind at Northwestern University, choosing MIT, macro- & microeconomics, separating from his wife, choosing a department to work in, getting the call from Harvard, walking the line between Economics & African-American Studies, modeling inequality in society, moving out of economic theory & into public intellectualism, "little essays," leading a double life, a torrid love affair ending in arraignment, being conservative, resisting the mournful recitation of historic victimization, a crack-cocaine addiction, resubmitting to the Christian faith, restoring his marriage, his wife's forgiveness, the arc of his political life, and much more. Episode Transcript Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative, by Glenn C. Loury The Glenn Show Glenn C. Loury is Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics at Brown University. He holds the B.A. in Mathematics (Northwestern) and the Ph.D. in Economics (M.I.T). As an economic theorist he has published widely and lectured throughout the world on his research. He is also among America’s leading critics writing on racial inequality. He has been elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economics Association, as a Member of the American Philosophical Society and of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, and as a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

EP 255 Is God Real? (with Jordan Hall) Aug 20, 2024

Jordan Hall tries to convince Jim that the reality of the Christian God is logically necessary. They discuss points of agreement & resonance between their views, relational ontology vs substance ontology, belief as mental operation vs existential commitment, a hierarchical stack of concepts, the complexity lens, the conceptual level on which relationship belongs, relata as contained within relationship, relationship as the most real, the impossibility of imagining being without relationship, oneness & multiplicity & relationality, moving from the philosophical to the theological, hypostasis, the standard model of physics, the coordination of experience with theory, dehumanizing the persons of the Trinity, alternatives to a single universe, unfolding within lawfulness, pure nominalism, the Nicene Creed, whether the Trinity adds information to complexity, whether a cosmic consciousness defies physics, the laws of causation, theology as the discipline of reality, the existential commitment that belief constitutes, fath as livingness, the meaning of a personal God, an ongoing expansion of the relationship with reality, faith vs ideology, 3 forms of belief in Plato, the meaning of pistis, John Vervaeke's religion that is not a religion, refounding life on pistis, whether one can be a Christian without thinking so, Biblical literalism, the prescriptive & annoying stuff, good fiction, great literature as a means of accessing high-dimensional reality, the mediocrity of academic Biblical criticism, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP8 - Jordan "Greenhall" Hall and Game B JRS EP26 - Jordan Hall on the Game B Emergence JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion JRS EP 223 - Jordan Hall on Cities, Civiums, and Becoming Christian Heidegger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being: Relation as Ontological Ground, by James Filler JRS Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object JRS EP 240 - Stuart Kauffman on a New Approach to Cosmology Jordan Hall is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 17th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan’s interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolution of human civilization and technology.

EP 254 John Robb on What Went Wrong with America Aug 19, 2024

Jim talks with John Robb about the ideas in his recent Substack essay, "What Went Wrong With America?" They discuss why there's a need to address what went wrong, tribal conspiracy theories following the Trump assassination, a breakdown in collective sense-making, cohesion, coherence, legitimacy, OODA loops, the importance of orientation, reorienting after career retirement, America's choice to orient on globalism, open borders, the end of America's tribal narrative, Pat Buchanan, the Ross Perot 1992 presidential campaign, how the global orientation shaped the response to 9/11, the current global economic situation, the U.S.'s dependence on sanctions, drone warfare, likely scenarios if China invades Taiwan, prospects for flipping back to a national orientation, improving collective sense-making, the current anti-immigration protests in Europe, and much more. Episode Transcript Global Guerrillas (Substack) JRS EP 247 - Sergey Kuprienko on Drone Warfare in Ukraine John Robb is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP 253 Alexander Bard Part 3: Process and Event Aug 15, 2024

Jim talks with Alexander Bard in the last of three conversations about his and Jan Söderqvist’s recent book Process and Event. They discuss the barred absolute as that which is hidden to us in the world, the barred subject, the mamilla in Lacan, barred absolutes vs the Barred Absolute, dissolving nihilism, accepting death as absolute, trans-determinism, Grand Project A, exodology, paradigmatics, the tyrant's lynch mob, oikophobia, Trumpism as a reaction to oikophobia, attentionalism, the abolition of advertising, consumtariats vs netocrats, the attentionalist paradigm, personal information agents, curators, comparing advertising & slavery, Perplexity, the Messiah Machine, protopianism, metastability, imploitation over exploitation, the necessity of growth, the Ecotopian Garden, the Syntheist Temple, the phallic gaze as the most important driver of motivation, the demographic crisis, bio-feminism, the Great Exodus, bringing life to space, parallel intelligences, inventing an alien civilization, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 163 - Benedict Beckeld on Western Self-Contempt Perplexity JRS Currents 010: Tyson Yunkaporta on Humans As Custodial Species Alexander Bard is a philosopher, artist, songwriter and music producer, author of six books with Jan Söderqvist, living in Stockholm, Sweden. Bard built his career as a philosopher in parallel with a highly successful 25-years-plus career in the international music industry. Bard & Söderqvist’s philosophy concentrates on the relationship between human beings and technology, using human beings as the constant throughout civilization, with technology as the ever faster changing variable. Their work takes inspiration from thinkers like Hegel, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Eastern philosophy and spirituality, in the latter case adding Persia to the well known triad of India, China and Japan. They are convinced philosophy will be the last human activity to ever be affected by AI.

EP 252 Alexander Bard Part 2: Process and Event Aug 13, 2024

Jim talks with Alexander Bard in the second of three conversations about his and Jan Söderqvist's recent book Process and Event. They discuss eventological monotheism vs nomadological iconology, dualism vs monism, substance dualism, Spinoza's monism, graded relationality, emergence vector theory, Syntheism & its concepts, God as the ultimate dream, creating God, 4 dimensions of time, a more complete metaphysics, the problem with oneness, the two-headed phallus, priests & chiefs, the 3 fundamental entities in Hinduism, a congress of grandmothers, Plato & Confucius's idealization of tyrants, libido & mortido, objectification of the mamilla, Julia Kristeva's discovery, the Gnostic delusion, being embodied and en-minded, examples of boy pharaohs & pillar saints, paradigmatics, membranics, archetypology, the geneplex vs the memeplex, 4 paradigms in human history, finding one's paradigmatic role, embedded membranes, trans men & women as new paradigmatic categories, the dialectics of the Hegelian negation & the Nietzschean oscillation, the negation of the negation in identity production, negation in phenomenology, the golden age of 19th century German philosophy, American pragmatists, transcendental emergentism, getting laid, principles rather than laws, studying each emergence vector as its own domain, emergence vector theory in creativity, the stability of physics, cosmological Darwinism, negation & oscillation as the fundamental dialectics of reality & thought, and much more. Episode Transcript "The Last Question," by Isaac Asimov Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, by Julia Kristeva JRS EP 176 - Gregg Henriques Part 1: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap JRS EP 138 - W. Brian Arthur on the Nature of Technology JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life JRS EP 5 Lee Smollin - Quantum Foundations and Einstein's Unfinished Revolution Alexander Bard is a philosopher, artist, songwriter and music producer, author of six books with Jan Söderqvist, living in Stockholm, Sweden. Bard built his career as a philosopher in parallel with a highly successful 25-years-plus career in the international music industry. Bard & Söderqvist’s philosophy concentrates on the relationship between human beings and technology, using human beings as the constant throughout civilization, with technology as the ever faster changing variable. Their work takes inspiration from thinkers like Hegel, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Eastern philosophy and spirituality, in the latter case adding Persia to the well known triad of India, China and Japan. They are convinced philosophy will be the last human activity to ever be affected by AI.

EP 251 Pamela Denise Long on Kamala Harris and Blackness in America Aug 09, 2024

Jim talks with Pamela Denise Long about the nomination of Kamala Harris and what it might mean for American Freedmen. They discuss the meaning & value of the term "Freedmen," what it means to be Black & why it matters, misallocated affirmative action, Barack Obama's ethnicity, the history of Bantu & Nilotic Africans, Kamala Harris as a metaphor, parallels between Harris & Obama, the question of Harris's Blackness, Harris's decision to identify as Black, the influence on public policy, her statements about reparation, her hesitance to commit to direct redress for Freedmen, the context of an increasingly multiracial America, emphasizing the question of resources, remaining tensions between Black and White Americans, when ethnic identification prevents redress to Freedmen, who Denise will vote for in the election, lineage specificity, immigration moderation, the increased number of Black Americans planning to vote, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 196 - Pamela Denise Long on Affirmative Action for Freedmen Dr. Pamela Denise Long is principal project manager and implementation consultant at Youthcentrix. Denise holds an EdD in organizational development, MS in Learning & Cognition, and BHS in allied health. Dr. Long is an award-winning business consultant for implementing trauma-informed diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism, 7th gen American, “Radical Republican,” and media personality featured at Newsweek, FOX News, WVON, The Griot Politics/Black News Channel, and more.

EP 250 Alexander Bard Part 1: Process and Event Aug 08, 2024

Jim talks with Alexander Bard for the first in a series of conversations about his and Jan Söderqvist's recent book Process and Event. They discuss Jim's process for reading the book, metaphysics, narratology, the sociont, dividuals vs individuals, a biochemical definition of individuality, eventology, Alexander's conversion to Zoroastrianism, nomadology, Nietzsche's concept of the eternal recurrence, 4 varieties of time, a defense of armchair philosophy, phallic linear time, the phallic gaze & direction, transcendental emergentism, the tendency to want a single explanation, problems with emergentism, emergence vectors, the ubiquity of uniqueness, the Great Filter, the narratological triad, 3 brains & their proportions in the population, the problem with literal belief in mythos, root of the phallus, the end of the age of mass religion, the barred absolute & whether it's desirable, tribopoiesis, membranes & boundaries, lawful semipermeability, membranics as a dialectical process, tantric labs, coherent pluralism & Zoroastrianism, decentralization, avoiding tyranny, disenfranchising the emergence of big men, boy pharaohs vs pillar saints, and much more. Episode Transcript Process and Event, by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist JRS Currents 065: Alexander Bard on Protopian Narratology JRS EP95 - Alexander Bard on God in the Internet Age JRS Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold Morowitz Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, by Christopher Boehm Alexander Bard is a philosopher, artist, songwriter and music producer, author of six books with Jan Söderqvist, living in Stockholm, Sweden. Bard built his career as a philosopher in parallel with a highly successful 25-years-plus career in the international music industry. Bard & Söderqvist's philosophy concentrates on the relationship between human beings and technology, using human beings as the constant throughout civilization, with technology as the ever faster changing variable. Their work takes inspiration from thinkers like Hegel, Nietzsche, Whitehead, Deleuze, and Eastern philosophy and spirituality, in the latter case adding Persia to the well known triad of India, China and Japan. They are convinced philosophy will be the last human activity to ever be affected by AI.

EP 249 Seth Lloyd on Measuring Complexity Aug 06, 2024

Jim talks with Seth Lloyd about the many ways of measuring complexity. They discuss the difficulty of measuring complexity, the metabolism of bacteria, Kolmogorov complexity, Shannon entropy, Charles Bennett's logical depth, cellular automata, effective complexity & its discovery, the effective complexity of a bacterium, coarse graining, fractal dimensions, Lempel-Ziv complexity, the invention of Morse code, epsilon machines, thermodynamic depth, mutual information, integrated information as a more intricate form of mutual information, panpsychism, whether "consciousness" has a referent, network complexity, multiscale entropy, pragmatic application of complexity measures, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 79 - Seth Lloyd on Our Quantum Universe The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, by Stuart Kauffman Seth Lloyd is professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. Dr. Lloyd's research focuses on problems on information and complexity in the universe. He was the first person to develop a realizable model for quantum computation and is working with a variety of groups to construct and operate quantum computers and quantum communication systems. Dr. Lloyd has worked to establish fundamental physical limits to precision measurement and to develop algorithms for quantum computers for pattern recognition and machine learning. He is author of over three hundred scientific papers, and of Programming the Universe (Knopf, 2004).

EP 248 Timothy Clancy on the Israel-Hamas War Jul 16, 2024

Jim talks with Timothy Clancy about the Israel-Hamas War following Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel. They discuss the sorting-out period that follows the end of an empire, Jerusalem as a perpetual battleground, 3 questions for understanding conflict, a missed opportunity for Jordan to take back the West Bank, what happened on October 7, recovering the sense of security, the scale of the atrocity, strategic limitations of bloodlust, unconditional surrender, grievance, pulling weeds vs addressing root grievances, the civil war between Fatah and Hamas, the story behind Yasser Arafat's rejection of the potential settlement between the Palestine Liberation Organization & Israel, ways to invade a city, the increasing likelihood of a ceasefire, the difference between conventional & asymmetric warfare, the importance of contingencies & constraints, the arms supply from the U.S. to Israel, the increase of Western support for Hamas, alignment with grievance, the role of Indian & Bangladeshi bot farms in increasing Palestine-Israel tensions, the colonial narrative, a system for analyzing grievances, Timothy's prediction for long-term trajectory, contingent factors of the rise of Iran, employment as a cure for grievance, Gaza as a feral city, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 057: Timothy Clancy on Russia's Mid-Game START Researcher Spotlight: Timothy Clancy "Dynamics of Atrocity Scripts in Conflict," by Timothy Clancy "Theory of an Emerging-State Actor: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) Case," by Timothy Clancy Timothy Clancy is an Assistant Research Scientist at START specializing in studying wicked mess problems, including violence and instability, as complex systems. Current research topics include understanding violent radicalization as a system, the terror contagion hypothesis for public mass killings, the emerging-state actor hypothesis for asymmetric and irregular warfare conflicts, and advancing methods for modeling social complexity through computer simulations integrated with AI.

EP 247 Sergey Kuprienko on Drone Warfare in Ukraine Jul 11, 2024

Jim talks with Sergey Kuprienko, CEO and co-founder of Swarmer, about drone warfare in the Russo-Ukrainian War. They discuss the parallels between drones in Ukraine & the advance in aviation during World War I, the history of drone warfare in the conflict, Russia's electronic countermeasures, the niche Swarmer occupies, autonomy for coordinated robots, pilots vs operators, swarm vs swarm warfare, AI vs human decision-making, greener warfare, distribution of ability among drone pilots, current production rates, the kill ratio, Russia's brute-force industrial capacity, the mix of symbolic AI vs machine learning, working with D3 Capital, collective intelligence, computing hardware, the Russian use of smoke as a countermeasure, cybersecurity, extra-military applications, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 244 - Samo Burja on Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War "Don't Bring a Patriot to a Drone Fight—Bring Fighter UAVs Instead," by Paul Maxwell Sergey Kuprienko is the CEO and co-founder of Swarmer, a software company for drone software.

EP 246 A.M. Hickman on Hitchhiking in America Jul 05, 2024

Jim and A.M. Hickman trade stories about the pleasures and tribulations of hitchhiking. They discuss Andy & his wife's recent hitchhiking honeymoon, how he started hitchhiking as a teenager, growing up in Utica, New York, the Adirondacks, multi-generational itchy-foot syndrome, "hobo college," Jim's earliest hitchhiking experience, hitchhiking on the East Coast, crazy happenings, fertilized chicken eggs, a four-year-old driver, psychoactive chemicals, a shift against hitchhiking in the Eighties, post-Covid leeriness, the decline in hitchhiking, finding odd jobs, the low cost of living on the road, Mormon country, ultra-light gear, the diversity of America's traveling homeless, sleeping in a Honda Civic on a freight train, rescuing a fourteen-year-old hitchhiker in Eureka, California, and much more. Episode Transcript Hickman's Hinterlands (Substack) A.M. Hickman is an itinerant geographer from the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. He writes on Substack at Hickman's Hinterlands.

EP 245 Bob Levy on the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court Jul 02, 2024

Jim talks with Bob Levy about the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, in the Supreme Court. They discuss Bob's late-career move to law, never being too old to reinvent yourself, how Bob got involved in a pivotal Supreme Court case in establishing the modern interpretation of the Second Amendment, the text of the Second Amendment, District of Columbia v. Heller, United States v. Miller, United States v. Emerson, the scholarship around framing the Second Amendment as an individual right, the state of play of gun control in D.C. at the time, the handgun ban, handguns in the home for self-defense, the NRA case & a rookie error by the NRA's lawyers, legal strategy in the Heller case, sufficient vs necessary conditions for exercising the right, the meaning of "well-regulated," the specific holdings in Heller, the meaning of fundamental rights, Breyer's dissent against Scalia's opinion, the rational basis standard, McDonald v. City of Chicago, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, "good moral character," the murky precedent of striking down laws that weren't present during the framing era, a strict scrutiny approach, speculations on the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence, ghost guns, and much more. Episode Transcript The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom, by Robert Levy & William Mellor "The Peculiar Story of United States v. Miller," by Brian L. Frye Bob Levy was, for 14 years, chairman of the board of directors at the Cato Institute. He is now chairman emeritus. Bob joined Cato as senior fellow in constitutional studies in 1997 after 25 years in business. The Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies is named in his honor. He has also served on boards of the Federalist Society, the Foundation for Government Accountability, and the Institute for Justice. Bob received his PhD in business from the American University in 1966, then founded CDA Investment Technologies, a major provider of investment information and software. At age 50, after leaving CDA in 1991, Bob went to George Mason law school, where he was chief articles editor of the law review and class valedictorian. He received his JD degree in 1994. The next two years he clerked for Judge Royce Lamberth on the US District Court and Judge Douglas Ginsburg on the US Court of Appeals, both in Washington, DC.

EP 244 Samo Burja on Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian War Jun 27, 2024

Jim talks with Samo Burja about lessons military strategists should take from the Russo-Ukrainian War so far. They discuss why military stockpiles are less useful than previously assumed, the scaling up of drone production, the impossibility of envisioning what tech will be needed, 4 factors that caused Russian miscalculation, offensive vs defensive dominance, the possibility of a U.S. military draft, the changing role of conscription, the high average age in Russia & Ukraine, the rapid evolution of drones, a comparison between drone pilots & snipers, the muted relevance of the air force, empty symbols of military strength, the progress of autonomous drones, the reevaluation of civilian casualties with changing tech, the information complexity of drone warfare, the importance of artillery, the need for a new George Marshall figure in the U.S., a war of production, how the Ukraine War can inform the Taiwan situation, the idea of an amphibious assault, autonomous submersible vehicles, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 243 - Yaroslav Trofimov on Ukraine’s War of Independence JRS EP 221 - George Hotz on Open-Source Driving Assistance Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

EP 243 Yaroslav Trofimov on Ukraine’s War of Independence Jun 25, 2024

Jim talks with Yaroslav Trofimov about his new book Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence. They discuss the reporting that went into the book, Yaroslav's connection to Ukraine, a brief history of Ukraine, the Golden Horde's conquering of modern-day Ukraine, Russia's inheritance of the Tatar-Mongol state, Ukraine's brief period of independence at the end of WWI, the complexity of Ukrainian identity, the Orange Revolution, the Maidan Revolution & its outcome, a period of low-intensity conflict, what caused full-scale war to break out, how Putin drank his own kool-aid, his expectation that there would be little resistance, the widespread underestimation of Ukraine, Russia's initial thrusts, the pivotal battle at Hostomel Airfields, the Bucha massacre, the negotiations in Istanbul, the siege at Mariupol, what made the Ukrainians so tough, the role of Zelensky in inspiring the resistance & rallying international support, the Russian drought, the counter-offensives of August-September 2022, the Republican party's stalling of aid to Ukraine, the arguments for supporting aid, Yaroslav's prognosis, possible endgames, the likelihood of a frozen conflict, and much more. Episode Transcript Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence, by Yaroslav Trofimov No Country for Love, by Yaroslav Trofimov Yaroslav Trofimov is the author of three books of narrative non-fiction and one novel. He has worked around the world as a foreign correspondent of The Wall Street Journal since 1999, and has served as the newspaper’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent since 2018. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2023, for his work on Ukraine, and in 2022, for his work on Afghanistan. His honors include an Overseas Press Club award for coverage of India as well as the Washington Institute gold medal for the best book on the Middle East. His latest non-fiction book, Our Enemies Will Vanish, was a finalist of the 2024 Orwell Prize.

EP 242 Magatte Wade on a Vision for African Economic Development Jun 06, 2024

Jim talks with Magatte Wade about the ideas in her book The Heart of A Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to about African Poverty, and What That Means for Human Flourishing. They discuss the origins of the book's title, the issue with aid, George Ayittey's "cheetahs vs hippos" frame, a leapfrogging strategy, Magatte's childhood in Senegal, recognizing lies about African poverty, business school in France, nine months in Columbus, Indiana, the meaning of African prosperity, criticizing by creating, creating a soft drink company around traditional African ingredients, rules & regulations of forming a business in Senegal, free enterprise in pre-colonial Africa, why fully rejecting the West is a wrong fork, special economic zones, Africa as the greatest victim of socialism, supporting African entrepreneurs, possible results of Africa's coming population boom, charter cities, special economic zones, and much more. Episode Transcript The Heart of A Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to about African Poverty, and What That Means for Human Flourishing, by Magatte Wade Magatte Wade (website) Africa's Bright Future (Substack) Magatte Wade is the Director of the Center for African Prosperity at Atlas Network, the leading organization of African free-market think tanks. She was listed as a Forbes “20 Youngest Power Women in Africa,” a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and a TED Global Africa Fellow. Magatte's passion for the role of free markets in overcoming poverty and the power of enterprise to tackle social issues and promote entrepreneurial education make her a sought-after speaker and thought leader at major conferences, events, and universities around the world.

EP 241 Tor Nørretranders on the User Illusion of Consciousness Jun 04, 2024

Jim talks with Tor Nørretranders about the ideas in his 1991 book The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size. They discuss the dialogue between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein, defining consciousness, primary vs extended consciousness, the origins of the user illusion in computer interface design, the mind as an attempt to create a relevant myth, measuring the human mind in terms of information theory, consciousness as a story of reduction & compression, the physics of information, Maxwell's demon, I & me, Benjamin Libet's experiments on the delay of consciousness, being the spectator of our own acts, delayed auditory feedback, the veto theory, moving free will to the "me," Robert Sapolsky's arguments against free will, the reality of emergence, exformation, a simple translation of The Iliad, Julian Jaynes's theory of the origins of consciousness, why modern lives have less information, the problem with a subtractive approach to happiness, and much more. Episode Transcript The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size, by Tor Nørretranders JRS EP203 - Robert Sapolsky on Life Without Free Will "The Hedgehog's Song," by The Incredible String Band The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes Tor Nørretranders is an independent author, thinker and speaker based in Denmark, serving an international audience. Generally seen as a leading science communicator of Denmark, Tor has involved himself in numerous activities in the public arena, from newspaper journalism through books and magazine articles to hosting and producing television shows on science and the general world view. His lecture tours, gathering tens of thousands of people, have been major events on the Scandinavian scene.

EP 240 Stuart Kauffman on a New Approach to Cosmology May 24, 2024

Jim talks with Stuart Kauffman about cosmology, fundamental physics, and the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and inflation. They discuss how Stuart moved into these fields, the Michelson-Morley experiment, special relativity, cosmic background radiation, the new period of precision cosmology, dark energy, why the universe is expanding faster, the Hubble tension, the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation, entanglement, nonlocality & whether it is fundamental, quantum gravity, why particle physics is collectively autocatalytic, stepping through the delay hypothesis, Planck time, the past hypothesis problem, the life ensemble, dark matter as a Ricci soliton, requirements for the rate of inflation, why cold dark matter may explain the cosmic web, Mach's principle, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP18 - Stuart Kauffman on Complexity, Biology & T.A.P. JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life JRS EP5 - Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution Are Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Inflation a Construction of Space-Time By Matter?", by Stuart Kauffman "Did the Universe Construct Itself?", by Stuart Kauffman & Stephen Guerin "On Quantum Gravity If Non-Locality Is Fundamental," by Stuart Kauffman "Dark Matter as a Ricci Soliton," by Stuart Marongwe & Stuart Kauffman Stuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. Kauffman graduated from Dartmouth in 1960, was awarded the BA (Hons) by Oxford University (where he was a Marshall Scholar) in 1963, and completed a medical degree (MD) at the University of California, San Francisco in 1968. After completing his residency in Emergency Medicine, he moved into developmental genetics of the fruit fly, holding appointments first at the University of Chicago, then at the University of Pennsylvania, where he rose to Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Kauffman held a MacArthur Fellowship from 1987–1992.

EP 239 Alex Fink on Improving Information Quality May 21, 2024

Jim talks with Alex Fink about his company Otherweb, which uses AI to filter out fake news and create a more reliable news ecosystem. They discuss how Alex came to care about this problem, the decline of news media, how advertising wrecked the internet, the idea of an info agent, Otherweb's curation engine, information filtering systems, unhooking the internet from advertising, the fight between AdBlock and Facebook, the decision to disinclude paywalled websites, economic tradeoffs of paywalling, AI in movie production, money-on-money return, initial results of the printing press, watermarking images, fair witnesses, how porn has driven internet innovation, catering to the seven deadly sins, social media addiction, binding the future of the company, public benefit corporations, the stewardship capital model, the crowdfunding process, and much more. Episode Transcript Otherweb The Other Web (Podcast) Alex Fink is a Tech Executive, Silicon Valley Expat, and the Founder and CEO of the Otherweb, a Public Benefit Corporation that uses AI to help people read news and commentary, listen to podcasts and search the web without paywalls, clickbait, ads, autoplaying videos, affiliate links, or any other junk. The Otherweb is available as an app (ios and android), a website, a newsletter, or a standalone browser extension.

EP 238 Sam Sammane on Humanity’s Role in an AI-Dominated Future May 14, 2024

Jim talks with Sam Sammane about the ideas in his new book The Singularity of Hope: Humanity's Role in an AI-Dominated Future. They discuss the hype around generative AI, obstacles to AGI, reinforcement learning, intuition & emotion, human-AI augmentation, rules of thumb, the plausibility of the brain as a quantum computer, Jim's ScriptHelper project, machine-like jobs that will likely be automated, the age of retraining, using AI to self-augment, the digital proletariat, a compassionate approach to rethinking society, a priesthood for investing, AI-augmented drug discovery, a major uplift in education, love as an engine of learning, the danger of considering AI in education as cheating, personal info agents, advances in tuning of LLMs, brain-computer interfaces, roads toward AGI, the pure AI singularity, the limits of our understanding of intelligence, collecting wisdom, and much more. Episode Transcript The Singularity of Hope: Humanity's Role in an AI-Dominated Future, by Sam Sammane Sam Sammane (website) OpenCog Foundation TheoSym JRS EP 222 - Trent McConaghy on AI & Brain-Computer Interface Accelerationism (bci/acc) Sam Sammane envisions a world in which rapid advancements in AI and technology have been harnessed for the greater good, creating a new age of global prosperity. He is a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple successful exits and an academician with a rich blend of expertise in applied physics, digital circuit design, nanotechnology, formal methods, life science, and business. Sam’s book The Singularity of Hope reflects his experiences and thoughts on the evolving relationship between AI, the economy, and the workforce.

EP 237 Simon DeDeo on the Odds of Major Civil Violence May 02, 2024

Jim talks with Simon DeDeo about their wager concerning the likelihood of civil violence and mass killings in America in the next decade. They discuss the terms of the wager, the appropriate orders of magnitude, Alex Garland's Civil War, the American readiness to use violence, honor cultures, the movement from violence to political violence, industrial mass murder, polarization, the one-dimensionality of current elites, basins of attraction, statistical distributions of violence, Rene Girard's theory of mimetic desire, measuring political distance, the constant motion of contemporary American political views, tribalization around red-blue politics, door-holding & just-so stories, sexual signaling, the unreality of woke debates, accumulating factors that could lead to a brushfire, gun rights, the dilettantism of extremist groups, 3 specific scenarios of inciting conflicts, making sense of a post-ideological world, the question of who rules, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 1 - Simon DeDeo on the Evolution of Consciousness JRS Currents 001: Simon DeDeo on University Censorship JRS Currents 028: Simon DeDeo on Explaining Explanation JRS EP 202 - Neil Howe on the Fourth Turning JRS EP 190 - Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times JRS EP 104 - Joe Henrich on WEIRD People JRS EP 230 - James Lindsay on a National Divorce JRS Currents 058: John Robb on Russia-Ukraine Outcomes Simon DeDeo is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also affiliated with the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, where he runs the Laboratory for Social Minds. For three years, from 2010 to 2013, he was an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He and his collaborators study how people use words and signals, and the ideas they represent, to create a world. They have studied a diverse set of systems that includes the French Revolution, the courtrooms of Victorian London, the research strategies of Charles Darwin, the insurgency of modern-day Afghanistan, the emergent bureaucracy of Wikipedia, the creation of power hierarchies among the social animals, and the collusions and conspiracies of petrol stations in the American Midwest. They combine data from the contemporary world, archives from the deep past, statistical tools from cosmology, and models of human cognition from Bayesian reasoning and information theory to understand how cultures grow, flourish, innovate, and evolve.

EP 236 Gregg Henriques on Free Will vs Determinism Apr 23, 2024

Jim talks with Gregg Henriques about his take on the free will versus determinism debate. They discuss the importance of definitions, the enlightenment gap, the complexity lens, why "will" is confusing & choice is a better referent, free choice vs determinism, levels of analysis, description vs explanation, freedom as description, the tree of knowledge system, ontological jumps in evolutionary complexification, a stack of emergences, systems of justification, the concept of agency, layered agency, animal decision-making, Mind2 consciousness, freedom as recursive self-awareness, the emergence of personhood, explicit self-consciousness with awareness of consequence, top-down causation, minimal elements of the debate, why Sapolsky's arguments may be dangerous, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 176 - Gregg Henriques Part 1 (of 3): Addressing the Enlightenment Gap JRS Currents 009: Gregg Henriques on Theory of Meta-Cultural Transition JRS EP 59 - Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology JRS EP 203 - Robert Sapolsky on Life Without Free Will A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap, by Gregg Henriques JRS EP 96 - Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1 (of 3) Dr. Gregg Henriques is Professor of Graduate Psychology at James Madison University in the Combined Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont and did his post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a theoretical psychologist and has developed the “Unified Theory of Knowledge,” which is a consilient scientific humanistic worldview to unify psychology. He is the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology (Springer, 2011), and A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap (Palgrave McMillian, November 2022). His scholarly work has been published in the field’s best journals, and he has developed a popular blog on Psychology Today, Theory of Knowledge, which has received over eight million views. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the 2022 President of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and founded the Theory of Knowledge academic society.

EP 235 Robin Hanson on Beware Cultural Drift Apr 17, 2024

Jim talks with Robin Hanson about the ideas in his essay "Beware Cultural Drift: Thoughts on modernity's monoculture mistake." They discuss drift in fundamental cultural values, the current unprecedented rate of change, boutique multiculturalism, weak selection pressures, drift without selection, understanding small cultures, agency risk, comparing corporate cultures with macro-cultures, the decrease in macro-cultures, the convergence of global elite culture, worldwide norms vs cultural sphere norms, fertility habits & falling fertility, fertility decline as a symptom, 2 kinds of stories cultural elites tell, context-dependent vs learning-based drivers, the connection between deeper goals & subgoals, turning the ship vs getting on lifeboats, joining the opposition, differential reproduction & the fall of Rome, conservatism, totalitarianism, deep multiculturalism, coherent pluralism, getting to the stars, artificial minds, why Robin is pro-cult, pressure to collapse into red-blue tribalism, rates of innovation, and much more. Episode Transcript "Beware Cultural Drift," by Robin Hanson JRS EP2 - Robin Hanson – Decision Making and “The Age of Em” JRS Extra: On COVID-19 Strategies with Robin Hanson JRS Currents 011: Robin Hanson on RightTalkism JRS EP 213 - Robin Hanson on Declining Fertility Rates Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by Robert Nozick Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason’s economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory.

EP 234 Richard Bartlett on an Experiment in Co-Living Apr 09, 2024

Jim talks with Richard Bartlett about the ideas in his essay "What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment." They discuss Jim's visit to a co-living house, community & its recent decline, starting small & iterating, the co-living experiment in Andalusia, pre-registration, co-living plus events, finding the right place, the importance of landscape, the vibe, finances, membrane design, organizing transit, events, the emergent TPOT network, paying community organizers what they're worth, weaving weak links & strong links, social transitivity, curation, selection criteria, containment vs ejection, a pluralistic attitude toward respect, assuming good faith, focusing on what you want to see more of, systems for participation & coordination, the danger of oversystematizing, resentment minimization, just-in-time system design, increasing capacity for hosting, the arrival process, mastering hospitality, biasing toward small-group participation, unscheduled time, what's next, GameB finance, and much more. Episode Transcript Rich Debels (website) JRS EP51 - Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration "What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment," by Richard Bartlett @visakanv on Twitter Richard Bartlett helps people grow high-trust communities and decentralised organizations. He is a co-founder of the tech co-op Loomio, the community building network Microsolidarity, and the non-hierarchical management consultancy The Hum, as well as director of the social impact collective Enspiral.

EP 233 Robert Conan Ryan on Seven Ethical Perspectives Apr 04, 2024

Jim talks with Robert Conan Ryan about seven ethical perspectives and why everyone should know them. They discuss why understanding ethical stances is valuable, a horseshoe spectrum, pragmatism, virtue ethics, consequentialism, deontology, elitist power, deification, social justice, stacking up ethical stances, Aristotle's golden mean, sociopaths in the military, running the polis, coherent pluralism, the multi-perspectival lens, Cornel West's positional complexity, paideia, DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion), liberal universal humanism, pragmatism vs neo-pragmatism, the long run vs the short run, the transaction cost theory of ethics, inclusive entrepreneurship, the Main Street problem, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP54 - Robert Conan Ryan on Boom & Bust Cycles "On making meanings: Curators, social assembly, and mashups," by Barry M. Mitnick & Robert C. Ryan The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul Alinsky Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, by John McWhorter Robert Conan Ryan is a professor of business administration and emerging public intellectual. His current scholarly projects include work with a diverse roster of world-leading strategists, economists, and futurists such as Jordan Hall, Michel Bauwens, Ravi Madhavan, Barry Mitnick, Matthew McCaffrey, and Michael Rectenwald. His current papers tackle competitive industry dynamics; grey market economics; the history of technology; Neo-Schumpeterian economics; artificial vs. natural cognition; paradigmatic strategic design; and, how sensemaking systems evolve and change.

EP 232 Matthew David Segall on Process Philosophy and the Origin of Life Apr 03, 2024

Jim talks with Matthew David Segall about the ideas in his and Bruce Damer's new essay, "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis." They discuss the "philosophy as footnotes to Plato" idea, the hot springs origin of life hypothesis, closing the gap between chemistry & life, Whitehead's idea of concrescence, metaphysics in philosophy, minimum viable metaphysics, why physical law doesn't imply biological organisms, process-relational philosophy, deep-seated cosmic habits, the hero's answer, the type 1a supernova, rigorous speculation, the incalculability of the adjacent possible, the nature of matter, autocatalysis, the tension between the actual & possible, the rate of evolution, getting past the error catastrophe, Prigogine's ideas about dissipative systems, teleology & the second law of thermodynamics, why DNA is not a blueprint, the Fermi paradox, bringing the universe to life, social implications of the origin of life, panpsychism & panexperientialism, integrated information theory, why matter & energy must have an endogenous telos, prehension, life wanting to live better, necessity & openness, questioning falsifiability, and much more. Episode Transcript "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis," by Matthew David Segall & Bruce Damer Footnotes2Plato (Substack) JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life JRS EP 171 - Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by Tom Holland JRS EP 5 - Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind’s Emergence From Matter JRS EP 40 - Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems JRS EP 105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS EP 178 - Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness JRS EP 17 - Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity Process Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Matthew David Segall, Phd, is a transdisciplinary researcher, writer, teacher, and philosopher applying process-relational thought across the natural and social sciences, as well as to the study of consciousness. He is Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Department at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and the Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute.

EP 231 Vance Crowe Interviews Jim Rutt on AI Risk Mar 27, 2024

Vance Crowe interviews Jim about how he maps the problem-space of current and future AI risk. They discuss the beginnings of AI, the era of broad AI, artificial general intelligence, the Wozniak test, artificial superintelligence, the paperclip maximizer problem, the timeline of AGI, FOOM, limitations of current governance structure, bad uses of narrow AI, personalized political propaganda, nanny rails, the multipolar trap, the spark of human ingenuity, Daniel Dennett's proposal to make human impersonation illegal, taking moral ownership of LLM outputs, loss of human cognitive capacity, Idiocracy, economic inequality & unemployment, David Graeber's bullshit jobs idea, Marx's concept of alienation, the flood of sludge, the idea of an AI information agent, epistemological decay, techno-hygiene tactics, GameA's self-terminating & accelerating curve, GameB, the importance of governance capacity, changing our political operating system, and much more. Episode Transcript The Vance Crowe Podcast JRS Currents 029: Vance Crowe on the "Well-Actually" Graph Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, by David Graeber Vance Crowe is a communications strategist who has worked for corporations and international organizations around the world, including the World Bank, Monsanto, and the US Peace Corps. He hosts The Vance Crowe Podcast and is the founder of Legacy Interviews, where he privately records video interviews with individuals and couples to give future generations the opportunity to know their family history.

EP 230 James Lindsay on a National Divorce Mar 12, 2024

Jim talks with James Lindsay about the ideas in his recent essay "National Divorce Is National Suicide." They discuss the meaning of a national divorce (where the United States would split into two countries), different shapes it could take, the possibility of parallel experiments in civilization design, statistics on support for the idea, the proposed Belgian split, steelmanning the opposition, reducing the chances of a Civil War, the divide over gun rights & abortion, the Big Sort, why national divorce would be a disaster, how the media would frame a national divorce, bifurcation of constitutional evolution, whether we're in a historically precedented moment, the idea of an attempted silent takeover of the West, fast & slow options for red state development, malice vs incompetence, amount of immigration between the U.S. and Canada, consequences & origins of intersectionality, competence of a blue state, wokery as a religion, what we should do instead of a divorce, fighting for a more constitutionally centered society, a civic revival, the passing of peak woke, and much more. Episode Transcript New Discourses JRS EP73 - James Lindsay on Cynical Theories "National Divorce Is National Suicide," by James Lindsay Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America, by John McWhorter Dr. James Lindsey is an American-born author, mathematician, and political commentator. He has written six books spanning a range of subjects including religion, the philosophy of science and postmodern theory. He is the co-founder of New Discourses.

EP 229 Jonathan Rowson on the Antidebate Mar 07, 2024

Jim talks with Jonathan Rowson of Perspectiva about a new social practice they're creating, the antidebate. They discuss the nature of debate, the spectacle of endemic polarization, why debate may be irredeemable, multiple ways of knowing, the Oxford Union debates, the debate apocalypse of 2020, the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate, the elitist aspect of debates, longtermism, the dialectic fallacy, presencing confusion, anti-debate as a practice, developing the form & facilitation skills, anti-debate trials to date, the current state of the art, setting a positive tone, choosing the question, the question bomb process, tableauing, why answering the question isn't necessary, swarming, epistemic seduction, drawing on Quaker Speaking, recruiting the enigmatics, prefiguring the culture you want to live in, scalability, disaffection with the ambient internet, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 041: Jonathan Rowson on Our Metacrisis Pickle JRS EP127 - Jonathan Rowson on The Moves That Matter JRS Currents 068: Jonathan Rowson on the Chess Drama JRS EP154 - Iain McGilchrist on The Matter With Things JRS EP155 - Iain McGilchrist Part 2: The Matter With Things "What Our Politics Needs Now: Anti-Debates," with Peter Limberg & Conor Barnes "The Anti-Debate: Experiments in the Art of Sensemaking for a World Gone Slightly Mad" - a film by Katie Teague "Is War Natural? (and other questions)" - YouTube Jonathan Rowson is co-founder and director of the research institute Perspectiva based in London. He is also the former director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts and is a chess grandmaster and three-time British Chess Champion. His books include The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, Chess for Zebras, Spiritualize: Cultivating Spiritual Sensibility to Address 21st Century Challenges, and, The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life.

EP 228 Jeremy Sherman on the Emergence and Nature of Selves Mar 05, 2024

Jim talks with Jeremy Sherman about the ideas in his book Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves. They discuss how Jim found Jeremy's work, Jeremy's relationship with Terrence Deacon, the mystery of purpose, teleology, Aristotle's four causes, the natural history of trying, crypto-Cartesianism, aims, emergent constraints, hylomorphism, regularity, Kolmogorov complexity, the second law of thermodynamics, the struggle for existence, autocatalytic networks, leading theories of the origin of life, the autogen model, the missing link blind spot, selectively permeable membranes, the conditions for evolution, responsiveness, selective interaction, dire irony, templated autogen, the hologenic constraint, testability of the theory, inverse Darwinism, FOMO sapiens, humbly humbling people, and much more. Episode Transcript Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves, by Jeremy Sherman What's Up With A**holes?: How to Spot and Stop Them Without Becoming One, by Jeremy Sherman JRS EP157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind’s Emergence From Matter JRS EP227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life JRS EP135 - Dennis Waters on Behavior & Culture in One Dimension Jeremy Sherman, PhD, describes his work as “cradle to grave”: from the chemical origins of life to humankind’s grave situation. For nearly thirty years, Sherman has been a lead collaborator with Harvard/Berkeley neuroscientist/biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon. Together with other collaborators they have been developing a gap-free explanation for the emergence of telos and semiotics –selves struggling for their own existence (i.e. self-regenerating) from within nothing but physical entropic degeneration.

EP 227 Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life Feb 29, 2024

Jim talks with Stuart Kauffman about the ideas in the recent paper he co-authored with Andrea Roli, "Is the Emergence of Life an Expected Phase Transition in the Evolving Universe?" They discuss the fragmentation of the origins of life field, Pasteur's test of spontaneous generation, primitive soup, Watson & Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA, mutually catalyzing molecules, molecules as combinatorial objects, random catalysis, collectively autocatalytic sets, the origin of metabolism, composability elements, the earliest form of life, Darwin's warm little pond hypothesis, the theory of the adjacent possible, the TAP equation, why small molecule reproduction will be abundant in the universe, the Drake equation, Kantian wholes, the function of a part, autocatalytic closure, constraint closure, cycles of work, downward causation, information conservation vs the error catastrophe, exaptation, the new adjacent possible, why evolution is unendingly creative & mathematically unpredictable, what this implies about economics, Arrow-Debreu competitive general equilibrium, the impossibility of well-founded expectations, why we can't have dominion over the ongoing biosphere, an open-ended experiment to mix fungi with bacteria on sterilized sand, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP18 - Stuart Kauffman on Complexity, Biology & T.A.P. "Is the Emergence of Life an Expected Phase Transition in the Evolving Universe?", by Stuart Kauffman & Andrew Roli "Chemical Evolution: Life is a logical consequence of known chemical principles operating on the atomic composition of the universe," by Melvin Calvin "Autocatalytic chemical networks at the origin of metabolism," by Joana Xavier, Stuart Kauffman, et. al. JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life JRS EP 171 - Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life - Implications JRS EP 138 - Brian Arthur on the Nature of Technology JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind's Emergence from Matter "A third transition in science?", by Stuart Kauffman & Andrea Roli Stuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. Kauffman graduated from Dartmouth in 1960, was awarded the BA (Hons) by Oxford University (where he was a Marshall Scholar) in 1963, and completed a medical degree (MD) at the University of California, San Francisco in 1968. After completing his residency in Emergency Medicine, he moved into developmental genetics of the fruit fly, holding appointments first at the University of Chicago, then at the University of Pennsylvania, where he rose to Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Kauffman held a MacArthur Fellowship from 1987–1992.

EP 226 Hannah Rosenberg on An Answer to Red Pilldom Feb 22, 2024

Jim talks with Hannah Rosenberg about the ideas in her essay "An Answer to Red Pilldom." They discuss the meaning & origins of red pilldom, how Hannah encountered red pilldom in close friendships, the idea that women are submissive, differences between men & women, pair-bonding instincts, balancing mixed instincts, the idea of hypergamy, adulting, how dating apps may skew human interactions, nostalgia for the 1950s trad wife, the actual lives of 1950s housewives, the idea that motherhood is the highest fulfillment for a woman, the idea of a war on masculinity, outlets for aggression, the idea of a "wall" where male attention ends, humanity as a mesh network not a hierarchy, dominance & submission as signals, the idea that men are leaders, women in the Marine Corps, MAGA and wokery as mirror images, why communities of red pilldom exist, not getting caught in history's pendulum swings, and much more. Episode Transcript "An Answer to Red Pilldom," by Hannah Rosenberg Hannah Rosenberg, a tech entrepreneur and educator, holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her journey in the tech industry began as a web developer, leading to the establishment of her own development business in 2014. In 2017, she expanded her career by embracing the role of an educator, imparting her technical expertise to various organizations, including non-profits and her alma mater, the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition to her professional achievements, Hannah's life experiences also play a crucial role. With 40 years of rich personal experience, she is a dedicated mother and has been in a committed marriage for 14 years. Her diverse perspective is further enhanced by extensive travel and having lived in three distinct regions of our beautiful world.

EP 225 Bruce Damer on a New Path for Psychedelics Feb 20, 2024

Jim talks with Bruce Damer about the new Center for MINDS and the ideas in his essay "Downloads from the Modern Dawn of Psychedelics." They discuss alternate ways psychedelics could have been introduced, Aldous Huxley & Humphry Osmond's speculative Outsight project, convergent vs divergent thinking, Bruce's mushroom trip with Terrence McKenna, concrescence into novelty, the stoned ape theory, the unreported influence of psychedelics on breakthroughs, Bruce's coming-out as a psychedelics user, psychedelic-assisted innovation, Bruce's naturally trippy brain, endogenous tripping, the Eleusinian Mysteries, the late Bronze Age collapse, the possibility that hallucinogens powered civilization, alcohol & the poison path, the decline in breakthrough research, the disincentivization of grand thinking, how the Center for Minds is beginning research via surveys, Jim's use of occasional heavy doses of THC, Bruce's set, setting & setup approach, finding the others, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, the state of ketamine research, and much more. Episode Transcript "Downloads from the Modern Dawn of Psychedelics," by Bruce Damer Center for MINDS Center for MINDS Survey Currents 091: Bruce Damer on Psychedelics as Tools for Discovery The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion With No Name, by Brian Muraresku Dr. Bruce Damer is Canadian-American multidisciplinary scientist, designer, and author. In his role as a world-renowned Astrobiologist at the UC Santa Cruz Department of Biomolecular Engineering, Dr. Damer collaborates with colleagues developing and testing a new scenario for the origin of life on Earth and where it might arise in the universe. As a designer he has provided innovative spacecraft architectures to NASA and others which could provide a viable path for the expansion of life and human civilization beyond the Earth.

EP 224 Samo Burja on Geothermal Energy Feb 13, 2024

Jim talks with Samo Burja about the ideas in his recent article "Geothermal Energy Turns Planets Into Power Sources." They discuss the heat beneath the earth's surface, contributors to the heat, technological dependency between fracking & geothermal, the math of electricity, earthquake risk, the limits of current geology, the value of better drilling tech, new approaches to drilling, gyrotrons, plasma torches, whether our civilization actually needs more energy, the local optimum of fossil fuels, bureaucratic incentives in energy, investment of social surplus, scientific welfare, metascience, giving academic tenure to brilliant 25-year-olds, a defense-favoring military epoch, the math of geothermal vs other combinations of energy sources, visions of a clean-energy future, and much more. Episode Transcript "Geothermal Energy Turns Planets Into Power Sources," by Samo Burja JRS EP117 - Samo Burja on Societal Decline JRS EP125 - Samo Burja on Socetial Decline: Part 2 JRS EP222 - Trent McConaghy on AI & Brain-Computer Interface Accelerationism (bci/acc) Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

EP 223 Jordan Hall on Cities, Civiums, and Becoming Christian Feb 08, 2024

Jim talks with Jordan Hall about the ideas in his essay "From City to Civium" and about his recent conversion to Christianity. They discuss scaling laws, superlinear scaling in cities & Metcalf's law, technologies of density, virtualization of space, ephemeralizing of communication, a tipping point in the virtualization of relationality, cities as killers, reaching the limits of the institutional forms that got us out of the 20th century, decoupling of body & mind, returning to the mesoscale, tech hygiene, reciprocal opening, what makes GameB hard, Jordan's experience with civiums, hierarchies of values & their inevitability, regaining functional cultural toolkits, pouring water on plants vs creating from scratch, how civium led to Christianity, distinguishing good & bad in religion, Jordan's lifelong agnosticism, the virtual, becoming an integrated self, ensoulment, egregores, whether egregores have agency, the origin of liturgy & liturgical practices, the challenge of bringing already-embedded individuals into embodied community, visiting & moving to Black Mountain, North Carolina, the ease of meaningfulness in the right context, being invited to church, Jordan's transition to believing in a personal God, a crisis of conscience, the Orthodox sensibility of "beauty-first," a relationship with goodness, understanding the Trinity, relationality as the essence of the triune God, a dimensional opening, faith as a faculty, the idea of being created by God in His image, adopting traditional gender values, the idea of abortion as murder, the hermeneutics of presence, Biblical inerrancy, why the kingdom of God is not theocracy, soul sovereignty, orienting toward a universal Good vs coherent pluralism, post-tragedy, growing community organically, the question of vocation, and much more. Episode Transcript "From City to Civium," by Jordan Hall JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion JRS Currents 032: Tyson Yunkaporta on Spirits, GameB & Protopias "A Journey to GameB," by Jim Rutt JRS Currents 090: BJ Campbell and Patrick Ryan on Egregores Jordan Hall is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 17th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan’s interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolution of human civilization and technology.

EP 222 Trent McConaghy on AI & Brain-Computer Interface Accelerationism (bci/acc) Feb 07, 2024

Jim talks with Trent McConaghy about the ideas in his recent essay "bci/acc: A Pragmatic Path to Compete with Artificial Superintelligence." They discuss the meaning of BCI (brain-computer interfaces) and acc (accelerationism), categories of AI, how much room there is for above-human intelligence, whether AI is achieving parallelism, the risks of artificial superintelligence (ASI), problems with deceleration, AI intelligences balancing each other, decentralized approaches to AI, problems with the "pull the plug" idea, humans as the weak security link, the silicon Midas touch, competing with AI using BCIs, the need for super-high bandwidth, the noninvasive road to BCIs, realistic killer apps, eye tracking, pragmatic telepathy, subvocalization, reaching adoption-level quality, the arc between noninvasive and full silicon, near-infrared sensors, issues around mass adoption of implants, maintaining cognitive liberty, the risk of giving malevolent ASIs the keys to the kingdom, whether humans plus ASIs might compete with ASIs, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP13 - Blockchain, AI, and DAOs "bci/acc: A Pragmatic Path to Compete with Artificial Superintelligence," by Trent McConaghy Ocean Protocol "Nature 2.0: The Cradle of Civilization Gets an Upgrade," by Trent McConaghy Trent McConaghy on Twitter Trent McConaghy is founder of Ocean Protocol. He has 25 years of deep tech experience with a focus on AI and blockchain. He co-founded Analog Design automation Inc. in 1999, which built AI-powered tools for creative circuit design. It was acquired by Synopsys in 2004. He co-founded Solido Design Automation in 2004, using AI to mitigate process variation and help drive Moore's Law. Solido was later acquired by Siemens. He then went on to launch ascribe in 2013 for NFTs on Bitcoin, then Ocean Protocol in 2017 for decentralized data markets for AI. He currently focuses on Ocean Predictoor for crowd-sourced AI prediction feeds.

EP 221 George Hotz on Open-Source Driving Assistance Feb 06, 2024

Jim talks with George Hotz about running Comma, an open-source driving assistance company. They discuss breaking the carrier lock on the iPhone at seventeen, Google's Project Zero, zero days, Mobileye & proprietary perception algorithms, cameras vs lidar, 6 levels of self-driving automation, the reliability of human driving, self-driving cars as "demo complete," why corner cases aren't the issue, integrated world models, the challenge of defining lane lines, recognizing the right part of the road, behavioral cloning, the hugging test, Comma's data set, the small offset simulator, how to install Comma in a car, what it does, why high-precision maps aren't useful, problems with Waymo's approach, "trackless monorails," why current systems still use remote-control driving, hyper-fragile centralized systems, Tesla's approach, against magical inflection points, self-driving as a stepping stone to artificial life, why Comma doesn't do marketing, the regulatory environment, eyes off vs hands off, why self-driving cars are easier than general robotics, liability, functional safety, the Tinygrad machine learning framework, who's using it, and much more. Episode Transcript Comma Tinygrad George Hotz is the founder of comma.ai and the tiny corp. He is working on self driving, robotics, and ML infrastructure with the goal of creating an operating system for silicon-stack life.

EP 220 Lene Rachel Andersen on Polymodernity Jan 30, 2024

Jim talks with Lene Rachel Andersen about the ideas in her book Polymodernity: Meaning and Hope in a Complex World. They discuss the meaning of polymodernism, working with four cultural codes, polymodernism vs metamodernism, the flaw in combining stage theories with cultural history, the problem with postmodernism's deconstruction of guidance & boundaries, 3 factors leading to modernity, the beginnings of alienation, postmodernism as a critique of modernism, the danger of reifying theories, why a post-modern society would fall apart, learning from indigenous prehistoric cultures, the influence of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Lene's relationship to Christianity and conversion to Judaism, being a practicing doubting Jew, long-term consequences of having good narratives that people believe in, Jewish law vs Hammurabi's Code, reading the Pentateuch, using post-modern tech to implement a pre-modern order, Emily Wilson's translation of The Iliad, mining the social learnings of the past with discernment, why religious people have often led the resistance to authoritarian regimes, true encouragement, the bildung rose, the problem with hypermodernism, the eternal misery of hypermodernist success, learning as one of the essences of being human, and much more. Episode Transcript Polymodernity: Meaning and Hope in a Complex World, by Lene Rachel Andersen "Polymodern Economics," by Lene Rachel Andersen The Nordic Secret: A European Story of Beauty and Freedom, by Lene Rachel Andersen JRS EP165 - Lene Rachel Andersen Part 1: Libertism JRS EP89 - Lene Rachel Andersen on Metamodernity God: A Biography, by Jack Miles "In Search of the 5th Attractor," by Jim Rutt Lene Rachel Andersen is an economist, author, futurist, philosopher and Bildung activist. She heads the think tank Nordic Bildung in Copenhagen and is a member of the Club of Rome. After studying business economy for three years, she worked as a substitute teacher before studying theology. During her studies, she wrote entertainment for Danish television until she decided to quit theology, become a full-time writer, and focus on technological development, big history, and the future of humanity. Since 2005, she has written 20 books and received two Danish democracy awards: Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and Døssing Prisen, the Danish librarians’ democracy prize (2012). Among her books are The Nordic Secret (2017, new edition 2024), Bildung: Keep Growing (2020), What is Bildung? (2021), Libertism (2022), and Polymodernity (2023, previously Metamodernity (2019)).

EP 219 Katherine Gehl on Breaking Partisan Gridlock Jan 25, 2024

Jim talks with Katherine Gehl about her and Michael Porter's book, The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy. They discuss Jim's past familiarity with Michael Porter's work, Porter's five forces, the "what the hell is water" phenomenon, the Schoolhouse Rock problem, political industry theory, political payback for unhelpful activities, why political competitors are doing better as "customers" become more dissatisfied, the current American party system as a protected duopoly, nonprofit investments in things that have no chance, non-constitutional problems, the reversible accident of plurality voting, whether more parties are essential, how Ross Perot's 1992 election pressured the two parties to balance the budget, reforming the primary system, final-five voting, Alaska's experiment in final-four voting, instant runoffs, freeing players to make good strategic choices, lowering the barrier to entry for new thinking, and much more. Episode Transcript The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy, by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, by Michael Porter Katherine Gehl is the originator of Final Five Voting (FFV)—a new election system designed to positively transform the incentives driving our dysfunctional politics. In 2020, Gehl published The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy (with co-author Michael Porter of Harvard Business School). Her work applied a competition lens and classic tools of industry analysis to politics for the first time. Today, Gehl leads the national Campaign for Final Five Voting which she co-founded with leaders across the political spectrum.

EP 218 Max Borders on Christopher Rufo’s New Right Manifesto Jan 24, 2024

Jim talks with Max Borders about the ideas in his two-part essay series responding to Christopher Rufo's recent manifesto "The New Right Activism." They discuss the commentary form of the essays, pillar saints vs boy Pharoahs, the Gray Tribe, Rufo as a rockstar gladiator, the white-paper industrial complex, the Gramscian model of capturing the institutions, the tit-for-tat approach to politics, recapturing the power of the state to indoctrinate the youth, the wartime point of view, the means & ends problem, subversive innovation, the University of Austin, public universities as indoctrination factories, a Handmaid's Tale vision of virtue, why Rufo is more Machiavellian than Aristotelian, the danger of rejecting an open society, changing the language & the case study of "equity," defending abstract principles in politics, how Rufos misses the point about real power, re-enlivening the U.S.'s founding principles, and much more. Episode Transcript "Rufo the Reactionary, Part 1," by Max Borders (Substack) "The New Right Activism: A manifesto for the counter-revolution," by Christopher Rufo The Social Singularity, by Max Borders JRS EP76 - Max Borders on the Social Singularity Max Borders is the author of The Social Singularity (2018) and The Decentralist (2021). His latest book is called Underthrow (2023). Currently, he is working on two major projects: a cosmopolitan constitution designed to open the era of open-source law, and a global fraternal society dedicated to the mission, morality, and mutualism of the “Gray Tribe.”

EP 217 Ben Goertzel on a New Framework for AGI Jan 23, 2024

Jim talks with Ben Goertzel about a paper he co-wrote, "OpenCog Hyperon: A Framework for AGI at the Human Level and Beyond." They discuss the way Ben defines AGI, problems with an economically oriented definition, the rate of advancement of a society, the history of OpenCog, mathematical models of intelligence, Jim's early use of OpenCog, a distributed Atomspace, Atomese vs MeTTa languages, knowledge metagraphs, why Ben didn't write a custom programming language for the original OpenCog, type theory, functional logic programming, moving from weirdly ugly to weirdly elegant, technical debt, grounding of Atoms, interfacing Hyperon with LLMs, nourishing a broader open-source community, hierarchical attention-based pattern recognition networks, heuristic induction, cognitive synergy, why scalability requires translating declarative representation into procedural form and vice versa, retrieval-augmented generation, predictive-coding-based learning as an alternative to back-propagation, the possibility of an InfoGAN-style transformer, and much more. Episode Transcript "OpenCog Hyperon: A Framework for AGI at the Human Level and Beyond," by Ben Goertzel et al. Dr. Ben Goertzel is a cross-disciplinary scientist, entrepreneur and author. Born in Brazil to American parents, in 2020 after a long stretch living in Hong Kong he relocated his primary base of operations to a rural island near Seattle. He leads the SingularityNET Foundation, the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society which runs the annual Artificial General Intelligence conference. Dr. Goertzel’s research work encompasses multiple areas including artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds, gaming, parapsychology, theoretical physics and more. He also chairs the futurist nonprofit Humanity+, serves as Chief Scientist of AI firms Rejuve, Mindplex, Cogito and Jam Galaxy, all parts of the SingularityNET ecosystem, and serves as keyboardist and vocalist in the Jam Galaxy Band, the first-ever band led by a humanoid robot.

EP 216 Kevin Dickinson on A Short History of the F-Word Jan 11, 2024

Jim talks with Kevin Dickinson about the ideas in his recent essay "A Short History of the F-Word." They discuss the mystery of the F-word's origins, a damn fucking abbot in the sixteenth century, the hierarchy of curse words, religious profanities, the poet William Dunbar's use of "fukkit," the case of Roger Fuckedbythenavele, folk etymologies, false acronyms, movies with the most fucks, fucks per minute vs absolute number of fucks, a high Ngram watermark in 2017, the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial, senses of fuck, veiling words, John McWhorter's research, the history of fuck in the dictionary, language as fashion, and much more. Episode Transcript Kevin Dickinson at Big Think The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever, by John McWhorter Kevin Dickinson is a staff writer and columnist at Big Think. His writing focuses on the intersection between education, psychology, business, and science. He holds a master’s in English and writing, and his articles have appeared in Agenda, RealClearScience, and the Washington Post.

EP 215 Cody Moser on Inequality and Innovation Dec 19, 2023

Jim talks with Cody Moser about the ideas and findings in his and Paul Smaldino's paper "Innovation-Facilitating Networks Create Inequality." They discuss transient diversity, group performance vs the agent level, taking an agent-based modeling approach, Derex & Boyd's group potion-mixing experiment, no free lunch theorem, random network structures, an inverse correlation between network connectivity & performance, effects of sharing intermediate results, Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, measuring inequality with the Gini coefficient, higher performance in less equal networks, connected caveman networks, ring networks, Ashby's good regulator theorem, exploration vs exploitation, randomly allocating lifetime endowed academic chairs to 25-year-olds, institutional design, generative entrenchment, implications for internet platform design, the parochial pyramid, tribalism at the Dunbar number, and much more. Episode Transcript "Innovation-Facilitating Networks Create Inequality," by Cody Moser & Paul Smaldino Saving Twitter—A Roundtable (Jim Rutt, Bo Winegard, & Cody Moser) "Partial connectivity increases cultural accumulation within groups," by Maxime Derex & Robert Boyd The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper Cody Moser is a PhD student in the Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences. His research examines the origins of individual and institutional behavior where he uses approaches from complex systems and evolutionary dynamics to study collective problem-solving, systems collapse, cultural evolution, and innovation. Before coming to UC Merced, he studied primatology where he worked with capuchin monkeys, dwarf and mouse lemurs, lorises, and aye-ayes. He obtained a B.S. in Anthropology with minors in statistics and biology from Florida State University, a Master’s in Anthropology from Texas A&M University, and worked for two years with The Music Lab in the Harvard Department of Psychology. He is interested in the history and philosophy of science and has written for a number of popular science venues on the applications of research from his field.

EP 214 Douglas Rushkoff on Leaving Social Media Dec 07, 2023

Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about the ideas in his podcast monologue/Substack post "Why I’m Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media." They discuss Douglas's history with social media, the early social internet, Facebook's parasitism of legacy news, the decontextualization of content, The WELL, owning your own words, leaving Facebook in 2013, Jim's social media sabbaticals, the opportunity to create an info agent, the number of daily interruptions, attention-deficit disorder as an adaptive strategy, books versus articles, effects of long-term social media use, the quest for nominal identity, how careful curation improves X, using social media as a professional writer, the organic in-between, strong vs weak social links, the ability of strong links to hold & metabolize, how the internet spawns billionaires, airline subsidies, Girardian mimesis, liberal universal humanism, rebuilding embodied life at the Dunbar number, John Vervaeke's "religion that is not a religion," starting where you are, and much more. Episode Transcript "Why I’m Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media," by Douglas Rushkoff Team Human, by Douglas Rushkoff Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, by Douglas Rushkoff The WELL JRS EP30 - Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual JRS EP 184 - Dave Snowden on Managing Complexity in Times of Crisis JRS EP 190 - Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff’s work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.

EP 213 Robin Hanson on Declining Fertility Rates Dec 05, 2023

Jim talks with Robin Hanson about the ideas in his recent Substack writings on human fertility rates. They discuss why the fertility rate is important, fertility decline as a harbinger of societal decline, how income impacts fertility rate, investing in status markers vs fertility, runaway selection effects, copying elites, absolute vs relative levels of wealth, South Korea's low fertility rate, implications of the decline, losing scale economies, pay-as-you-go retirement plans, innovation as linear to population, effects of declining innovation, likely dominant ethnicities of the future, insular high-fertility religious communities, what happens in a scenario of worldwide population decline, the main trends causing low fertility, high-effort parenting standards, legal protections for religious groups, capstone vs cornerstone marriages, learning from the winners, Robin's childhood cult experience, promoting less crazy insular subcultures, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP2 Robin Hanson – Decision Making and “The Age of Em” Overcoming Bias (Robin's Substack) "16 Fertility Scenarios," by Robin Hanson JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on the Religion That Is Not a Religion Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason’s economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory.

EP 212 Joy Hirsch on How the Brain Responds to Zoom Nov 30, 2023

Jim talks with Joy Hirsch about the findings in her paper "Separable Processes for Live 'In-Person' and Live 'Zoom-like' Faces," which explores how humans respond at the neural level to Zoom calls versus in-person interactions. They discuss the advantages of near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) & how it works, the speed of imaging, brain imaging for social interactions, what fNIRS can do that fMRI can't, previous work on face processing, the design of the experiment, controlling for distance, angles, & presence, the data collection process, longer eye fixation in in-person interactions, increased pupil size compared with Zoom calls, differences in neural activity between groups, EEG findings, decreased neural synchrony in Zoom interactions, what the results might indicate, social media & strength of social links, how this research might be used to make video calls more brain-friendly, and much more. Episode Transcript "Separable Processes for Live 'In-Person' and Live 'Zoom-like' Faces," by Joy Hirsch et. al. Joy Hirsch is the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry, Comparative Medicine, and Neuroscience; and the Director of the Brain Function Laboratory at Yale School of Medicine. The overarching goal of her research is to understand the fundamental neural mechanisms that underlie live interactive social behaviors between individuals. Her laboratory has developed multi-modal two-person neuroimaging technology based on near infrared spectroscopy, fNIRS, configured for real-time live face-to-face and dialogue interactions between humans.

EP 211 Ben Goertzel on Generative AI vs. AGI Nov 28, 2023

Jim talks with recurring guest Ben Goertzel about the ideas in his paper "Generative AI vs. AGI: The Cognitive Strengths and Weaknesses of Modern LLMs." They discuss the exponential acceleration of AI development, why LLMs by themselves won't lead to AGI, OpenAI's integrative system, skyhooking, why LLMs may be useful for achieving AGI, solving LLM hallucinations, why Google hasn't replicated GPT-4, LLM-tuning lore, what differentiates AGI from other forms of AI, conceptualizing general intelligence, Weaver's theory of open-ended intelligence, multiple intelligence, the Turing test & the Minsky prize, what LLMs aren't good at, the danger of defining AGI as whatever LLMs can't do, the derivative & imitative character of LLMs, banality, doing advanced math with GPT-4, why the human brain doesn't form arbitrary abstractions, the duality of heuristics & abstractions, adding recurrence to transformers, OpenCog Hyperon, using a weighted labeled metagraph, orienting toward self-reflection & self-rewriting, the challenge of scalability of infrastructure, acceleration on non-LLM projects, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI "Generative AI vs. AGI: The Cognitive Strengths and Weaknesses of Modern LLMs," by Ben Goertzel "OpenCog Hyperon: A Framework for AGI at the Human Level and Beyond," by Ben Goertzel et. al. Dr. Ben Goertzel is a cross-disciplinary scientist, entrepreneur and author. Born in Brazil to American parents, in 2020 after a long stretch living in Hong Kong he relocated his primary base of operations to a rural island near Seattle. He leads the SingularityNET Foundation, the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society which runs the annual Artificial General Intelligence conference. Dr. Goertzel’s research work encompasses multiple areas including artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds, gaming, parapsychology, theoretical physics and more. He also chairs the futurist nonprofit Humanity+, serves as Chief Scientist of AI firms Rejuve, Mindplex, Cogito and Jam Galaxy, all parts of the SingularityNET ecosystem, and serves as keyboardist and vocalist in the Jam Galaxy Band, the first-ever band led by a humanoid robot.

EP 210 Frank Lantz on the Beauty of Games Nov 20, 2023

Jim talks with Frank Lantz about the ideas in his new book, The Beauty of Games. They discuss Frank's analysis of Benjamin Soule's arcade game Serpentes, reflecting on the enjoyment of games, panicking & choking, levels of understanding, Jim and his wife's experience playing Othello, Hanabi, partnership games, games as an aesthetic form, art vs aesthetics, playing for its own sake, thinking & doing, fulfilling the desire to be a coherent agent in the world, the performance of desire, games as systems, heuristics, strategy in military games, a game as a series of interesting decisions, overindexing on the flow state, going up the ladder of heuristics, maximizing for rate of learning, systems literacy, games as an art form for nerds, and much more. Episode Transcript The Beauty of Games, by Frank Lantz Currents 097: Frank Lantz on Network Wars and Games Donkeyspace (Frank's Substack) Frank Lantz is a game designer with a focus on exploring emerging technology to create new kinds of gameplay. He is the Founding Chair of the NYU Game Center, the co-founder of Area/Code Games (acquired by Zynga in 2011), the co-founder of Everybody House Games and the creator of the game Universal Paperclips. He has taught game design for over 20 years at New York University, Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts and has created numerous influential talks and writings on the subject of games.

EP 209 C. Owen Paepke on the Purple Presidency Nov 07, 2023

Jim talks with C. Owen Paepke in part three of a mini-series on the No Labels potential third-party presidential campaign. They discuss Owen's early chemistry career, being without a political party, the situation of voting against instead of for candidates, the distribution of conservatism between parties over time, the Ross Perot 1992 campaign, the nomination of Antonin Scalia, primaries as the root of all partisan evil, the 2022 elections, the percentage of voters who want neither Biden nor Trump, the value of vetoing spending bills, solving the electrical storage problem, No Labels' commitment to pulling a spoiler candidate, what spoiling means, No Labels' visibility problem, possible candidates, the timing of the convention, the desire to avoid gamesmanship, recent Biden vs Trump polls, and much more. Episode Transcript The Purple Presidency: How Voters Can Reclaim the White House for Bipartisan Governance, by Owen Paepke EP 204 Matt Bennett on the Case Against No Labels EP 206 Ryan Clancy on No Labels C. Owen Paepke is the author of The Evolution of Progress (named best nonfiction book of 1993 by NPR’s Talk of the Nation) and the three-volume series The Seinfeld Election, which was praised by reviewers as “a provocative investigation into the American political divide.” He has written and spoken widely on technology and science policy, including a keynote address on the future of science to the fiftieth-anniversary meeting of the Federation of American Scientists and a speech on the prospects for technological and economic progress at the Smithsonian Institution. He lives in Arizona, where he practiced for many years as an attorney specializing in antitrust and intellectual property, and is a graduate of Stanford and the University of Chicago.

EP 208 Jack Visnjic on Anacyclosis Nov 02, 2023

Jim talks with Jack Visnjic, aka Lantern Jack, about Polybius's theory of anacyclosis and cyclical history. They discuss the origins of the name Lantern Jack, cyclical patterns in history, a one-minute history of the first millennium B.C., public gain vs private gain, Polybius's concept of anacyclosis, great man theory vs processes & institutions, examples of anacyclosis, whether Rome was ever a democracy, critiques of anacyclosis, corruption & collective reaction, imperialistic growth, the Glorious Revolution in 1688, why Spain & France didn't transition to aristocracy, anacyclosis in the modern world, Polybius's influence on the Founding Fathers of the U.S., the impressiveness of the Founding Fathers, mobocracy, fighting to the death over second- and third-order issues, the crisis epoch, factional division as a feature not a bug, and much more. Episode Transcript Ancient Greece Declassified (Podcast) Lantern Jack on YouTube The Invention of Duty: Stoicism as Deontology, by Jack Visnjic JRS EP 190 - Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times Jack Visnjic is a classicist and historian of philosophy interested in uncovering long-term patterns in history. He earned his PhD from Princeton University with a dissertation on the origins of the notion of moral duty. He later expanded that project into a book titled The Invention of Duty: Stoicism as Deontology. For several years he was director of research at the Anacyclosis Institute, a think tank which seeks to understand the trajectory of modern democracy by studying the long history of democracies. And his biggest passion is his podcast Ancient Greece Declassified, through which he strives to make the Classics accessible and relevant to a broad audience.

EP 207 Paul Watson on Adventures in Eco-Activism Oct 31, 2023

Jim talks with Paul Watson about his recent book Hit Man for the Kindness Club: High Seas Escapades and Heroic Adventures of an Eco-Activist. They discuss an early friendship with a family of beavers, cruelty to animals, the Kindness Club, moral commitments, rescuing cattle from a slaughterhouse, less cow farts & more whale poop, the 3 laws of ecology, the issue of eating animals, the growth of the vegetarian/vegan movement, an occupation at Stanley Park, co-founding Greenpeace, the strategy of aggressive non-violence, killing baby Hitler, painting baby seals, creating Whale Wars, history of the whaling moratorium, the absence of enforcement, Canada's Seal Protection Act, Edward Abbey, the Southern Ocean campaigns, escaping arrest in Germany, targeting illegal activities, inventing tree spiking, the importance of good legal defense, funding sources, founding Sea Shepherd, current pursuits, and much more. Episode Transcript Hit Man for the Kindness Club: High Seas Escapades and Heroic Adventures of an Eco-Activist, by Captain Paul Watson Trashing the Planet: How Science Can Help Us Deal With Acid Rain, Depletion of the Ozone, and the Soviet Threat Among Other Things, by Dixy Lee Ray The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey Paul Watson Foundation Neptune's Pirates Captain Paul Watson is a marine wildlife conservation and environmental activist. Watson was one of the founding members and directors of Greenpeace. In 1977, he left Greenpeace and founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. A renowned speaker, accomplished author, master mariner, and lifelong environmentalist, Captain Watson has been awarded many honors for his dedication to the oceans and to the planet.

EP 206 Ryan Clancy on No Labels Oct 26, 2023

Jim talks with Ryan Clancy, the chief strategist for No Labels, in the second of a 3-part series exploring different aspects of the No Labels possible third-party presidential campaign. They discuss the origins & history of the campaign, the idea of an independent unity presidential ticket, increasing polarization, realistic energy policy, avoiding a second Trump term, an open process for nomination to the ticket, proper environmental conditions for running, the problem with fixing democracy by having less democracy, the history of third party runs, vote shrinkage, how to estimate plausibility, a likely final decision point in July, plans for a convention, the odds of a Biden-Harris ticket beating Trump, building transparent exit triggers into the post-convention process, and much more. Episode Transcript No Labels Common Sense policy booklet JRS EP 204 - Matt Bennett on the Case Against No Labels Ryan Clancy has been a speechwriter, a spokesperson and a storytelling partner for some of the world’s most respected leaders and organizations: writing for then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Sir Elton John and Shaquille O’Neal; developing corporate narratives, and executive positioning plans for Fortune 500 companies and CEOs, and investment memos for start-up companies and entrepreneurs; and advising political reform groups and candidates on all facets of fundraising, communications and political strategy. He is currently the chief strategist at No Labels.

EP 205 Matthew Pirkowski on Time Preference and Cooperation Oct 24, 2023

Jim talks with Matthew Pirkowski about the ideas in a recent tweet thread on time preference and its relationship with cooperation. They discuss the definition of time preference, defining parasitism, asymmetrical relationships, mutualism, commensalism, the increase in short-term thinking, a decrease in qualitative change, realization & potential, an increase in uncertainty, the interruption of attentional loops, a gossip protocol, the complexity catastrophe, the maximum number of daily interruptions, short-term money-on-money return, disintegration of network statistics, trustless infrastructure & cognitive chunking, coordinating at a higher level, zero-knowledge proofs, social immune systems, structural prerequisites of parasitism, Bitcoin as a metacentralizing attractor, building the modeling toolkit to understand causal closures within networks, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 094: Matthew Pirkowski on Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms Matthew's tweet thread on time preference & cooperation "Crypto Beyond Capitalism: The Rise of Distributed Valerism," by Matthew Pirkowski Matthew Pirkowski works at the intersection of software, psychology, and complex systems. These interests first took root while studying Evolutionary Psychology and assisting with Behavioral Economic research at Yale’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory. From there Matthew began a career in software engineering, where he applied these interests to the development of software interfaces used by millions around the world, most notably as a member of Netflix’s Television UI team, where he worked on experimental initiatives conceptualizing and prototyping the future of entertainment software. Presently, Matthew is building the underlying modeling architecture at Bioform Labs, a company focused on using the Active Inference toolkit to model organizations as emergent cybernetic organisms. He believes these models can help organizations manage their deployment of and interaction with AI-based agents, as well as more adaptively manage their own emergent complexity.

EP 204 Matt Bennett on the Case Against No Labels Oct 19, 2023

Jim talks with Matt Bennett about his arguments against the third-party political campaign No Labels. They discuss Matt's steelman of the campaign, being politically homeless, nuclear energy & the American left's unrealistic energy policies, the problem with No Labels' theory about moving candidates in their direction, the credibility of winning the election, two theories of preventing another Trump presidency, the 1992 Ross Perot campaign, candidates for the No Labels ticket, growing disgust with the political establishment, the No Labels policy platform, the epistemology of the decision, independents as leaners, Teddy Roosevelt's third-party bid, the difficulty of finding a candidate more appealing than Trump to Trump supporters, the plausibility attractor, consequences of Robert F. Kennedy & Cornel West's decision to run as independents, and much more. Episode Transcript No Labels Policy Booklet Matt Bennett is Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and a co-founder of Third Way. He previously served in the White House as a Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs for President Clinton, where he was the principal White House liaison to governors and covered a wide range of issues, including disaster response, Medicaid, immigration, education and others. Prior to that, he served in Vice President Al Gore’s office. He was Communications Director of the Clark for President Campaign in 2004, and from 2001-2004 was Director of Public Affairs for Americans for Gun Safety. Mr. Bennett appears frequently as a political commentator on television and radio and is quoted frequently in newspapers including The New York Times and The Washington Post. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, Today, Good Morning America, Meet the Press, NPR and almost all major cable political programs. Mr. Bennett practiced law in Washington D.C. from 1993-1997. He earned his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law and has a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

EP 203 Robert Sapolsky on Life Without Free Will Oct 17, 2023

Jim talks with Robert Sapolsky about the ideas in his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. They discuss what motivates his writing about the topic, turtles all the way down, closing off the escape valves, the general critique of determinism, 4 positions on free will, naturalism vs determinism, intent, free will vs agency, Phineas Gage's famous brain injury, disruption of cognitive abilities, the limitations of metacognition, Benjamin Libet's volition experiments, why consciousness research doesn't have to do with free will, free won't, the theory of grit, an update to the marshmallow test, cusp decisions, deterministic chaos, the De Broglie-Bohm theory, New Age quantum bullshit, emergent complexity, downward causality, how attention determines who we become, the noble lie, why rejecting free will doesn't make people less ethical, and much more. Episode Transcript Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, by Robert Sapolsky JRS EP105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS EP 148 - Antonio de Masio on Feeling and Knowing JRS EP 178 - Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness JRS EP108 - Bernard Baars on Consciousness JRS Currents 083: Joscha Bach on Synethic Intelligence Robert M. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. His most recent book, Behave, was a New York Times bestseller and named a best book of the year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant.” He and his wife live in San Francisco.

EP 202 Neil Howe on the Fourth Turning Oct 12, 2023

Jim talks with Neil Howe about the ideas in his new book, The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End. They discuss 3 ways humans have understood time, the break with cyclical time, how linear progress gives rise to social cycles, generational change, how phase of life alters the impact of events, coining the term Millennial, generational cycles, the meaning and nature of saecula, the Great Awakenings, Turnings & commonalities between them, imagining Turnings as seasons, supply & demand for order, collective generational personalities, the current strengthening of families & multi-generational living, opposite experiences in the same phase of living, the growing gender divide, stages of a Fourth Turning, the recent primacy of political differences, extreme mobilization of publics, the acquiring of executive authority, the chances that an endogenous cataclysm kills .1 percent of the U.S. population, commonality through difference, why Fourth Turnings are not horrible accidents, Ekpyrosis, what a new spring might look like, why huge reforms are only enacted in times of crisis, and much more. Episode Transcript The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End, by Neil Howe JRS EP 190 - Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times Neil Howe is the Managing Director of Demography at Hedgeye Risk Management, an independent financial research firm, as well as President of LifeCourse Associates. Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation's leading thinker on today's generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America's future.

EP 201 Tobias Dengel on the Age of Voice Technology Oct 10, 2023

Jim talks with Tobias Dengel about the ideas in his book The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology. They discuss the idea that voice tech will be the biggest shift since mobile, the problem of public babble, positives & negatives of current voice tech, changing norms around speaking to devices, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), using LLMs through a voice interface, improving communication cycles for incapacitated people, smart speakers vs smart mics, problems with the voice-to-voice paradigm, multimodal use cases, using voice interfaces for writing, finetuned LLMs in combination with voice tech, using LLMs to check each other, Jim's method for reducing LLM hallucinations, improving agent performance in customer service, the state of the art in voice-to-text, Baumol's cost disease, the Jevons paradox, a golden age of innovation, Talon hands-free input, the possibility of a pushback against public babble, coming changes in medicine, privacy issues & the industry's violation of trust, the uncanny valley, concurrent communication, a new horizon for video games, low-hanging fruit, interfaces between humans and robots, innovations in model testing & training, selecting models, an arms race between models creating content & models curating content, the info agent opportunity, the human capacity for interruptions, defending attention & flow, whether voice tech will make interruptions better or worse, and much more. Transcript The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology, by Tobias Dengel with Karl Weber Talon JRS EP123 - Jamie Wheal on Recapturing the Rapture Tobias Dengel is president of WillowTree, a TELUS International Company, a global leader in digital product design and development, with 13 offices in North America, South America and Europe, headquartered in Charlottesville VA. The company has been named by Inc. magazine to the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing companies for 11 straight years. WillowTree’s clients include some of the best-known brands in the world, such as T Mobile, Mastercard, Capital One, HBO, Fox, Time Warner, PepsiCo, Regal Cinemas, Charles Schwab, Johnson & Johnson, Lidl, Wyndham Hotels, Hilton Hotels, Holiday Inn, Canadian Broadcasting Corp, Synchrony Bank, Edward Jones Investments, and National Geographic. These industry leaders trust WillowTree to design and develop their websites, apps, internal systems and voice interfaces.

EP 200 Brian Chau on AI Pluralism Sep 28, 2023

Jim talks with Brian Chau about recent advancements in AI and viewing AI's relationship to society and politics through a pluralistic lens. They discuss fixed frames on AI, the horseless carriage fallacy, AI as a million dumb people, how LLMs invert the film archetype, Jim's ScriptHelper project, intuitive recombination, creating a fake political party, why AI threatens the legacy press, the significance of house style, incentivizing pluralism, why AI could power the periphery, the information agent concept, billboard measures in music, AI voice covers, the stultification of consensus, liquid democracy, applying statistical ML to prompt engineering, the need for on-the-ground testing of LLM applications, the problem of nanny rails, corrections in AI regulation, and much more. Episode Transcript AI Pluralism Newsletter JRS Currents 070: Brian Chau on Propaganda & Populism "AI Threatens Legacy Press Because They Rely on Style Over Substance," by Brian Chau Brian Chau is a mathematician by training and is tied for the youngest Canadian to win a gold medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics. He writes software for a living while posting on his spare time. He writes independently on American bureaucracy and political theory and has contributed to Tablet Magazine. His political philosophy can be summed up as “see the world as it is, not as you wish it to be.” Everything else is application.

EP 199 Yascha Mounk on the Identity Trap Sep 26, 2023

Jim talks with Yascha Mounk about the ideas in his new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power. They discuss tribalism among progressives, universalism, the story of Kila Posey, how over-emphasizing ethnic identity fosters zero-sum racial conflicts, how identitarianism led to excess Covid deaths, Foucault's rejection of grand narratives, Edward Said's post-colonialism, Gayatri Spivak's strategic essentialism, being blind to race vs being blind to racism, critical race theory, Derrick Bell's idea of the permanence of racism, how the rejection of universalism escaped college campuses, why progressive organizations are tearing themselves apart, the logic of collective action, how progressive activists have passed off their ideas as those of all non-white people, statistics on police violence, Frederick Douglass's 4th of July speech, cultural appropriation, retaining trust in persuasion, fighting for liberalism, personal & political aspects of the identity trap, and much more. Episode Transcript The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power, by Yascha Mounk "Why the Latest Campus Cancellation Is Different," by Yascha Mounk JRS EP197 - Susan Neiman on Why Left Is Not Woke "A Political Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force," by Roland Fryer, Jr. Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Mounk received his BA in history from Trinity College Cambridge, and his PhD in government from Harvard University. He is a professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, the founder of the digital magazine Persuasion, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, host of the podcast “The Good Fight,” a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of The Great Experiment and The Identity Trap.

EP 198 Cory Doctorow on Seizing the Means of Computation Sep 19, 2023

Jim talks with Cory Doctorow about the ideas in his new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. They discuss Cory's long affiliation with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, destroying Big Tech instead of "fixing" it, why tech lords are not evil geniuses, how Big Tech consolidated, antitrust law, the felony contempt of business model, interoperability, the high-speed shell game of digital, the kill zone, the case of Diapers.com, the falling fortunes of tech workers, defining IP, Grokster, "polite competition," automated notice and takedown, Jim's proposal for content moderation, the flexibility of fair use, Interoperable Facebook, prioritizing individual choice, and much more. Episode Transcript The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, by Cory Doctorow Craphound Pluralistic JRS EP 4 Cory Doctorow - "Radicalized," Race and Resilience Radicalized, by Cory Doctorow Red Team Blues, by Cory Doctorow "Musk and Moderation," by Jim Rutt Interoperable Facebook - EFF Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, a Big Tech disassembly manual; Red Team Blues, a science fiction crime thriller; Chokepoint Capitalism, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the Little Brother series for young adults; In Real Life, a graphic novel; and the picture book Poesy the Monster Slayer. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

EP 197 Susan Neiman on Why Left Is Not Woke Sep 07, 2023

Jim talks with Susan Neiman about the ideas in her latest book, Left Is Not Woke. They discuss the history & meaning of wokeness, the underlying reactionary assumptions of wokeness, making leftism & socialism acceptable terms, how the New Left of the Sixties set leftism back for a generation, disentangling left & woke, the right & tribalism, progressivism as a child of the Enlightenment, normative vs descriptive claims, refuting the idea of reason as an instrument of violence, why Hume doesn't belong to the Enlightenment, the danger of sheer subjectivity, data & empiricism, rates of police killings by race, liberal universal humanism, the term liberalism, identitarianism, the blacklisting of Paul Robeson, the idea that altruism is simply power politics, the appeal to the Stone Age brain, hope vs optimism, and much more. Episode Transcript Left Is Not Woke, by Susan Neiman Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age, by Susan Neiman Susan Neiman is an American philosopher and writer. She has written extensively on the Enlightenment, moral philosophy, metaphysics, and politics. Her work shows that philosophy is a living force for contemporary thinking and action.

EP 196 Pamela Denise Long on Affirmative Action for Freedmen Aug 24, 2023

Jim talks with Pamela Denise Long about the ideas in an open letter from the Coalition of Concerned Freedmen to college presidents, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on race-based affirmative action. They discuss the organizational developmental consultancy Youthcentrix, the Coalition of Concerned Freedmen, the meaning of the freedmen moniker, the different types of manumission, the use of the term Negro, the four points of the Coalition's press release, certification of lineage, the ratio of affirmative action beneficiaries who are freedmen, lineage-specific structuring, merit & restitution, the mismatch issue in higher education, developmental support of students, the left's excoriation of Justice Clarence Thomas, Lincoln Republicanism, the impact of immigration on multi-generational Black Americans, skepticism of a Black-Brown Coalition, the blending of Black and LGBTQIA+ agendas, Denise's view on the Republican presidential primaries, why Republicans should be leading reparations, cash vs institutional reparations, and much more. Episode Transcript Youthcentrix The Coalition of Concerned Freedmen Press Release: Open Letter to College Presidents "Black Leaders Have Sold Out Our Community to the Immigration Lobby," by Pamela Denise Long "Stop Appropriating Black History to Push an LGBTQ Political Agenda," by Pamela Denise Long Pamela Denise Long is a 7th+ generation American, principal consultant of Youthcentrix®, award winning business consultant for implementing trauma-informed diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism, a contributor at Newsweek and political commentator featured on FOX News, Hill TV, Real Clear Politics, The Grio Politics, Breitbart, and more. Denise is National Coordinator for the Coalition of Concerned Freedmen™, the issuer of a recent news release to college presidents regarding lineage based affirmative action.

EP 195 Michael R.J. Bonner on Civilization, Collapse, and Renewal Aug 22, 2023

Jim talks with Michael R.J. Bonner about the ideas in his book In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present. They discuss the meaning of civilization, Gobekli Tepe, why technological change didn't bring about civilization, how civilization produces clarity, beauty, and order, why civilization is preferable to the alternatives, the limits of cities, the dynamics of collapse, Francis Fukuyama's end of history idea, revivals, how interconnectivity leads to fragility, the Bronze Age collapse, the collapse of Rome, cultural pluralism & academic freedom in the 9th century, the paradoxical outcome of the Renaissance, the rediscovery of Aristotle, combining Enlightenment clarity with medieval expansiveness, the evils of postmodernism, the dark side of Romanticism, the basis of religious belief, public ritual vs religious belief, futurism, the limits of skepticism, wokism as a religion, the need for grand narratives, a common humanity, and much more. Episode Transcript In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present, by Michael R.J. Bonner Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott JRS EP 190 - Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End, by Neil Howe JRS Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Joseph A. Tainter JRS EP 106 - Michael Strevens on the Irrational History of Science Dr Michael Bonner is a Canadian communications and public-policy expert with more than a decade of service in federal and provincial government. He is a historian of ancient Iran, holds a doctorate in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford, and is a contributing editor to The Dorchester Review. His new book In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present was published by the Sutherland House in April of 2023.

EP 194 Bob Reid on User-Owned Identity Aug 17, 2023

Jim talks with Bob Reid about identity verification and the financial stack behind his global financial platform Everest. They discuss decentralized user-owned identity, identity as a trillion-dollar opportunity, competing with customers, Know Your Customer, types of identity, the breakout fraud, biometric systems, building societal trust, India's Aadhar system, Justin Trudeau's freeze on protesters' bank accounts, preventing governmental choke points, how to use Everest, the application stack, Facebook's missed opportunity to build identity, the coming fake-identity AI tsunami, real names vs anonymity, levels of verification, preventing exploits, the likelihood of social revolution in Europe, the accuracy of biometrics, the difference between a social graph & identity, paying a contractor with crypto, understanding Automated Clearing House & Single Euro Payments Area, tokenizing securities, why the user needs to control digital identity, and much more. Episode Transcript Everest.org THE Foundation EverWallet metacrisis.xyz Bob Reid is the CEO and co-founder of Everest, a licensed crypto custodian with its own high-speed blockchain, and the world’s first global, programmable stablecoin.

EP 193 Aydan Connor on Rethinking Food Systems Jul 20, 2023

Jim talks with Aydan Connor about improving American food systems and reducing waste. They discuss Aydan's experience in the craft brewing industry, extremification of beer styles, wastefulness in beer production, how Aydan became interested in food systems, the obsession with consumer choice, how the current system prices in waste, food waste ratios in different countries, where in the chain food waste occurs, the requirement of processed food, unintentional communities, maximizing communal freedom of choice, CSAs as a non-solution, creating tighter networks, decentralized processing systems, America's low food expenditure, needed infrastructure & coordination, a network of networks, the scale advantage, the squeeze on wages, diversifying work tasks, tips for reducing domestic food waste, making a plan before you buy food, on-site food safety testing, bulk freezers with nitrogen flushing, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP131 - Jason Mauck on #FarmWeird Aydan Connor has worked as a professional craft beer brewer in the Midwest for eight years, and has participated in the buildout of multiple brewery startups. At the beginning of his career, he was brewing batches as small as 10 gallons. Over the years, he worked directly with packaging equipment of various types, even leading as an operator of a mobile canning line to package onsite for other breweries. Currently, he works as a beer brewer at a regional craft brewery, brewing batches as large as 8,000 gallons. Employing direct knowledge of food processing, he has a vision for intelligent food systems which synthesize basic equipment and facilities technologies in combination with block chain inventory management towards decreasing food waste and increasing quality on any parameter. He believes these systems could act as a generative ground for building communities more awake and aware of the environments in which we can thrive.

EP 192 David Krakauer on Science, Complexity and AI Jul 18, 2023

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with David Krakauer about the ideas in his forthcoming paper "The Structure of Complexity in Machine Learning Science" and how AI may alter the course of science. They discuss data-driven science vs theory-driven science, a bifurcation in science, the protein folding problem, brute force methods, the origin of induction in David Hume, the origin of neural networks in deductive thinking of the '40s, super-Humean models, crossing the statistical uncanny valley, ultra-high-dimensionality, adaptive computation, why genetic algorithms might come back, Chomsky's poverty of the stimulus, the lottery ticket hypothesis, neural nets as pre-processors for parsimonious science, how human expertise constrains model-building, GPT-4's arithmetic problem, cognitive synergy, why LLMs aren't AGIs, incompressible representations, gravitational lensing, the new sciences LLMs will lead to, encoding adaptive history, Jim's ScriptWriter software, discovery engines vs libraries vs synthesizers, the history of science as a history of constraint, Occam's razor & meta-Occam, assembly theory, whether existential risk is a marketing ploy, the Idiocracy risk, using empirical precedent in tech regulation, networks of info agents, the outsourcing of human judgment, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP10 - David Krakauer: Complexity Science Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, by Daniel Dennett JRS Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object David Krakauer's research explores the evolution of intelligence and stupidity on Earth. This includes studying the evolution of genetic, neural, linguistic, social, and cultural mechanisms supporting memory and information processing, and exploring their shared properties. President of the Santa Fe Institute since 2015, he served previously as the founding director of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, the co-director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation, and professor of mathematical genetics, all at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

EP 191 Alicia Juarrero on Context, Constraints, and Coherence Jul 13, 2023

Jim talks with Alicia Juarrero about her new book Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence. They discuss Aristotle's four causes, applying them to complex dynamical systems, the overfocus on efficient cause, naive Newtonianism, nothing-but-ism, reconceptualizing causality in terms of constraints, mereology, constraint regimes, ascribing causal powers to emergent properties, the roots of panpsychism, Searle's comparison of consciousness with digestion, kinds of constraints, the Dysons' notion of analog control, why analog is more efficient, identity as a set of interdependent constraints, surface vs deep dyslexia & early neural nets, the work of Geoffrey Hinton, the species competitive exclusion principle, cardinality vs ordinality, the social evolution of cassava, Rayleigh-Benard convection, dissipative systems, Alicia's disagreement with Michael Polanyi, the architecture of the circulatory system, scaffolding, top-down causality, many-to-one transitions, degeneracy, pluripotentiality, the ship of Theseus, 4E cognitive science, and much more. Episode Transcript Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence, by Alicia Juarrero Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System, by Alicia Juarrero "Downward Causation: Polanyi and Prigogine," by Alicia Juarrero "Why Western Science and Philosophy Cannot Deal with the Relations Between Parts and Wholes," by Alicia Juarrero JRS EP105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object Alicia Juarrero, Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Prince George’s Community College (MD), is the author of Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System (MIT 1999) and co-editor of Reframing Complexity: Perspectives from North and South (ISCE Publishing, 2007), and Emergence, Self-Organization and Complexity: Precursors and Prototypes (ISCE Publishing, 2008).

EP 190 Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times Jul 06, 2023

Jim talks with Peter Turchin about the field he founded, cliodynamics, which applies the scientific method to history. They discuss the meaning & origins of cliodynamics, distinguishing cliodynamics from previous approaches, regularizing historical data, the interface between models & data, average height as a proxy for biological well-being, the Seshat data collection project, observed patterns in collapsing societies, the overproduction of elites, relative vs absolute wage, the wealth pump, relative well-being, a top-heavy social pyramid, defining elites, failed aspirant elites as the raw material for radical movements, why lawyers are the most dangerous profession, the Musk-Zuckerman duel as a sign of increased intra-elite competition, the issue of prediction, the intensification of secessionist sentiment in the U.S., how the British Empire avoided the revolutions of 1848, shutting down the wealth pump, increasing minimum wage, the odds that a revolution would be good for society, and much more. Episode Transcript End Times: Elites, Counter Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, by Peter Turchin Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall, by Peter Turchin War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, by Peter Turchin Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth, by Peter Turchin The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer Peter Turchin is a complexity scientist who works in the field of historical social science that he and his colleagues call Cliodynamics. His research interests lie at the intersection of social and cultural evolution, historical macrosociology, economic history and cliometrics, mathematical modeling of long-term social processes, and the construction and analysis of historical databases. Currently his main research effort is directing the Seshat Databank project (and its offshoot, CrisisDB) which builds and analyzes a massive historical database that enables us to empirically test predictions from theories attempting to explain why and how complex human societies evolved, and why they periodically experience political breakdown.

Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object Jul 05, 2023

Jim talks with Sara Walker and Lee Cronin about the ideas in their Aeon essay "Time Is an Object." They discuss the history of the idea of time, Newton's clockwork universe, the capacity for things to happen, the impossibility of time travel, Einstein's block universe theory, making time testable, conceptions of the arrow of time, irreversibility as an emergent property, the core of assembly theory, measures of complexity, recursive deconstruction, distinguishing random & complex, Kolmogorov complexity, the absence of a useful theory of complexity, counting steps in the assembly pathway, developing theories from measurement, the size of chemical possibility space, the role of memory in the creation of large organic chemicals, memory depth, the assembly index, the origins of life, a sharp phase transition between biotic & non-biotic molecules, life as a stack of objects, a phase transition between life & technology, techno-signatures, error correction in DNA, whether assembly theory is a theory of time, the temporal dimension as a physical feature of objects, implications for SETI & the Fermi paradox, spotting the difference between noise & assembly, the Great Perceptual Filter, looking for complexity in the universe, the probability of life originating, and much more. Episode Transcript "Time is an object," by Sara Walker and Lee Cronin (Aeon) JRS EP5 - Lee Smolin on Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution Professor Sara Walker is an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist. Her work focuses on the origins and nature of life, and in particular whether or not there are universal ‘laws of life’ that would allow predicting when life emerges and can guide our search for other examples on other worlds. Her research integrates diverse perspectives ranging from chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy and the foundations of physics, to computer science, cheminformatics, artificial life, artificial intelligence and consciousness. At Arizona State University she is Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Associate Director of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute Center for Biosocial Complex Systems and Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration. She is also a member of the External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. She is active in public engagement in science, with appearances on "Through the Wormhole", NPR's Science Friday, and on a number of international science festivals and podcasts. She has published in leading research journals and is an internationally recognized thought leader in the study of the origins of life, alien life and the search for a deeper understanding of ourselves in our universe. Leroy (Lee) Cronin is the Regius Professor of Chemistry in Glasgow. Since the age of 9 Lee has wanted to explore chemistry using electronics to control matter. His research spans many disciplines and has four main aims: the construction of an artificial life form; the digitization of chemistry; the use of artificial intelligence in chemistry including the construction of ‘wet’ chemical computers; the exploration of complexity and information in chemistry. His recent work on the digitization of chemistry has resulted in a new programming paradigm for matter and organic synthesis and discovery – chemputation – which uses the worlds first domain specific and universal programming language for chemistry – XDL, see XDL-standard.com. His team designs and builds all their own robots from the ground up and the team currently has 25 different robotic systems operating across four domains: Organic synthesis; Energy materials discovery; Nanomaterials discovery; Formulation discovery. All the systems use XDL and are easily programmable for both manufacture and discovery. His group is organised and assembled transparently around ideas, avoids hierarchy, and aims to mentor researchers using a problem-based approach. Nothing is impossible until it is tried.

Currents 099: Samuel Scarpino on Preparing for the Next Pandemic Jun 27, 2023

Jim talks with Samuel Scarpino about what we've learned from Covid-19 and how to apply those lessons to preparing for the next pandemic. They discuss takeaways from cross-national comparisons, the social misery index, the failure to control the spread in the U.S., the efficacy of border closure, the test-trace-isolate strategy, what the U.S. should be ready to do in the event of the Big One, capacity for rapid test development, how universities responded in the first wave, Covid as a warning shot, local & federal coordination for pandemic preparedness, the effectiveness of ventilation, airport surveillance, wastewater surveillance, novel pathogen tests, the information chain, educating bureaucrats, leaders who can build public trust, vaccine hesitancy, overconfidence in the speed of mRNA vaccine development, the poor implementation of digital contact tracing, instating a constitutional provision for a first-class emergency, the boringness of good governance, putting vaccines in the public domain, pre-planning scenarios, how a preparedness initiative can pay for itself, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 047: Samuel Scarpino on the Epidemiology of Covid-19 Samuel V. Scarpino, PhD, is the Director of AI + Life Sciences at the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University and a Professor of the Practice in Health and Computer Sciences. He holds appointments in the Institute for Experiential AI and the Network Science, Global Resilience, and Roux Institutes. Prior to joining Northeastern in November 2022, Scarpino was the Vice President of Pathogen Surveillance at The Rockefeller Foundation and Chief Strategy Officer at Dharma Platform (a social impact, technology startup). Outside of these roles, he has over 10 years of experience translating research into decision support and data science/AI tools across diverse sectors from public health and clinical medicine to real estate and energy.

Currents 098: Damien Walter on Science Fiction and the Rhetoric of Story Jun 23, 2023

Jim talks with Damien Walter about science fiction and the mechanics of myth. They discuss the roles of pathos & ethos in science fiction, Damien's lifelong fascination with sci-fi, the symbolon of "science fiction," Star Trek vs Star Wars, categorizing Star Wars, Asimov's idea of psychohistory, The Lord of the Rings & the value of myth, the Inklings literary group, the metaphysics of Tolkien, fostering a creator culture, creating as an alternative to consumption, Jim's Script Helper program & opening the door to creativity, the collapse of status competition to money & beauty, the corporate entertainment franchise, collaborative virtual world-making, addictive games & porn, the highjacking of the red pill metaphor, Pavlovian conditioning in games, positioning between the most virtuous & the most evil, the way that evil eats itself, a book recommendation, systems novels, science fiction as philosophy fiction, the novels of Neal Stephenson, and much more. Episode Transcript Damien Walter (website) Damien Walter (Substack) Damien Walter (Medium) The Rhetoric of Story course "The Truth of Myth: JRR Tolkien and the return of the mythos," by Damien Walter JRS EP 188 - Robert Tercek on Intellectual Property in the Time of AI The Humane Use of Human Beings, by Norbert Weiner JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis JRS EP 185 - Daniel Suarez on the Near Future of Space Exploration There Is No Antimemetics Division, by qntm Termination Shock, by Neal Stephenson Damien Walter is a writer and a storyteller who has written for The Guardian, the BBC, Wired, The Independent, Aeon, and others. He teaches The Rhetoric of Story and Writing the 21st-Century Myth to over 35,000 students worldwide, and is the host of the Science Fiction Podcast.

EP 189 Forrest Landry on Civilization Design Jun 22, 2023

Jim talks with recurring guest Forrest Landry about civilization design. They discuss the meaning of the concept, toolkits for problem-solving, why this work matters now, local hill-climbing, preconditions for sustainability, cultivating an epistemic commons, non-relativistic ethics, value ethics, grounding good choices in relationship, the endurance of cities, how metaphysics provides a foundation for ethics, going beyond explore & exploit, accounting for human nature, transmission of cultural dynamics, having a complete value set, 3 dimensions of human relationship, the invention of monogamy, moving away from sexual egalitarianism, making the unconscious conscious, the balance between cooperation & competition, finding the right level of consideration, absolute & relative metrics, subsidiarity, making choices on the basis of desire, societal congruence levels, what folks should do to start building a better civilization, femoral group process, transcendental design, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP31 - Forrest Landry on Building our Future JRS EP96 - Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1 JRS EP109 - Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 2 JRS EP128 - Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 3 JRS EP134 - Forrest Landry on Non-Relative Ethics JRS EP153 - Forrest Landry on Small Group Method JRS EP181 - Forrest Landry Part 1: AI Risk JRS EP183 - Forrest Landry Part 2: AI Risk Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large-scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

Currents 097: Frank Lantz on Network Wars and Games Jun 20, 2023

Jim talks with Frank Lantz, game designer and director of the Game Center at New York University, about Network Wars and the art of game-making. They discuss Frank's first reaction to Network Wars, how the game works, elegance in game design, the simplest possible expression of an idea, Frank's overall score record, high stochasticity in the combat results, the combination of high skill & high variance, the tendency to bend randomness in favor of the player's instincts, learning from poker, whether there are some setups that you can't win, being rewarded for understanding the mechanics, climbing the ladder of heuristics, semi-tractable problems, how games demonstrate the world's complexity, network topology games, deterministic AIs, heuristics of Network Wars, connection games, the prisoner's dilemma, choosing not to optimize, a Presbyterian universe, the idea of human vs human Network Wars, new games with the same underlying dynamics, the doubling cube, games that incentivize creativity, how Network Wars kept Frank sane in a difficult time, games as the art form of problem solving, the power of games to help us understand, and much more. Episode Transcript Network Wars on the App Store Network Wars on Google Play The Beauty of Games, by Frank Lantz (forthcoming) Characteristics of Games, by Richard Garfield & Skaff Elias Frank Lantz is a game designer with a focus on exploring emerging technology to create new kinds of gameplay. He is the Founding Chair of the NYU Game Center, the co-founder of Area/Code Games (acquired by Zynga in 2011), the co-founder of Everybody House Games and the creator of the game Universal Paperclips. He has taught game design for over 20 years at New York University, Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts and has created numerous influential talks and writings on the subject of games. His book The Beauty of Games will be published by MIT Press in October of 2023.

EP 188 Robert Tercek on Intellectual Property in the Time of AI Jun 13, 2023

Jim talks with Robert Tercek about the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike and intellectual property rights in the era of generative AI. They discuss Los Angeles as a union town, Jim's screenwriting helper software, likely impacts of AI on writers, the history of Hollywood union negotiations, the devaluation of human labor & humanity, motion picture companies of the future, the suit against Stable Diffusion, whether copyright laws will present obstacles to model-building, fair use, licensing, whether AIs "copy" works, knockoff Wes Anderson film trailers, AI's threat to social media influencers, the rate of progress toward text-to-video systems, why ChatGPT empowers writers in the near term, the end of copyright extensions & why shorter terms enrich the commons, the U.S. Copyright Office's guidance on non-human-generated works, the Errol Flynn defense, the percentage of jobs destroyed each year, AI for child self-education, and much more. Episode Transcript The Owner's Guide to the Future (Substack) The Futurists Podcast JRS EP142 - Robert Tercek on the Metaverse JRS EP139 - Robert Tercek on Education Today JRS EP133 - Robert Tercek on Digital Strategies "ScriptHelper-001: an experimental GPT-4 based Movie Script Writing Program," by Jim Rutt (Medium) Robert Tercek is a global authority on the process of dematerialization and digital innovation. He is an award-winning author, entrepreneur, and educator. He is highly sought as a keynote speaker at international conferences, and he is the co-host of The Futurists podcast. Tercek is the founder and CEO of General Creativity, a consulting agency that specializes in digital transformation and long-term strategic planning. Previously, he served in senior executive leadership roles at motion picture studios, television networks, and software companies, where he supervised the launch of pioneering digital services that are now used by hundreds of millions of people every day.

Currents 096: Jim & Michael Garfield Talk About Everything Jun 06, 2023

Jim has an extremely wide-ranging discussion with Michael Garfield. They discuss the upcoming book Michael is drafting in public, the exponential scaling of information production, Jurassic Park, mass distributed computation, a new topology for social connectivity, info agents, stereotyping & police violence, a dehumanizing pace of human interaction, Charles Stross's prophetic visions, heuristic induction, strong vs weak social links, restoration of the mesoscale, from the geographic polity to the noetic, the importance of the ground layer, semi-permeable membranes with commons inside them, Pokemon Go & behavioral control, generative AI & intellectual property, creating a commons to benefit culture, circular economies, dividend money & usury, high-temperature search, a future of childlike play, and much more. Michael will be hosting an interactive course with Jeremy Johnson, titled "Jurassic Worlding," beginning on July 18. Those interested should keep an eye on NuraLearning.com. Join the Jurassic Park book club and help Michael research and workshop his next book, Jurassic Worlding: A Palaeontology of The Present, at Michael's Substack. Episode Transcript Michael Garfield on Substack Subconscious (Substack) "The Singularity In Our Past Light-Cone," by Cosma Shalizi Accelerando, by Charles Stross (free online version) "Declaration for The Independence of Cyberspace," by John Perry Barlow John Danaher Interviews Erin Neely on Augmented Reality, Ethics, and Property Rights (Algocracy and Transhumanism Podcast) "The Evolution of Surveillance," by Michael Garfield "Terra Nullius," by Cory Doctorow Future Fossils Reading List Alison Gopnik on Child Development, Elderhood, Caregiving, and A.I. (Complexity Podcast) JRS EP130 - Ken Stanley on Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

EP 187 Carlos Perez on A Pattern Language for Generative AI Jun 01, 2023

Jim talks with Carlos Perez about the ideas in his new book A Pattern Language for Generative AI: A Self-Generating GPT-4 Blueprint. They discuss GPT-4's ability to introspect on its capabilities, Christopher Alexander's idea of a pattern language, pattern language design, Jim's script-writing program, moving beyond ChatGPT to the OpenAI API, managing the context window, chain of thought prompting, the skyhook effect, the value of using tables, creation patterns, input-output pairs, the power of examples, punctuation, cloze prompts, compressing text, the mystery of LLM capabilities, an explanation for state emulation, the system prompt, explainability patterns, meta-levels of language, procedural patterns, design thinking prompts, the idea of a GPTpedia, composite patterns, in-painting vs out-painting, corrective patterns, 6 thinking hats, attribute listing prompts, problem restatements, inverted interaction, multiple-discipline prompts, modularity patterns, ChatGPT plugins, katas & meditations, and much more. Episode Transcript A Pattern Language for Generative AI: A Self-Generating GPT-4 Blueprint, by Carlos Perez "ScriptHelper-001: an experimental GPT-4 based Movie Script Writing Program," by Jim Rutt Artificial Intuition: The Improbable Deep Learning Revolution, by Carlos Perez Deep Learning AI Playbook: Strategy for Disruptive Artificial Intelligence, by Carlos Perez Artificial Empathy: A Roadmap for Human-Aligned Artificial Intelligence, by Carlos Perez Carlos E. Perez is a seasoned software architect and developer with 30 years of experience in bringing software systems from concept to production. He has authored books on Artificial Intuition, Fluency, and Empathy, with a primary focus on applying semiotic methods in Deep Learning. Carlos holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts and has U.S. patents in expert systems and social networks.

EP 186 Charles Eisenstein on Climate: A New Story May 24, 2023

Jim talks with Charles Eisenstein about the environment and the ideas in his book Climate: A New Story. They discuss Charles's involvement with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s presidential campaign, his first encounter with the idea of global warming, the problems with carbon fundamentalism, environmental derangement, the importance of forests to the water cycle, a world of concrete & shit, escaping the mentality of domination, humans as a custodial species, reversing the course of separation, the healing potential of land, developments in regenerative land use, the commodification pressure of our money system, changes in consciousness, the co-evolution of consciousness & systems, diverting resources from the military to restoration, and much more. Episode Transcript Climate: A New Story, by Charles Eisenstein Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Campaign Website JRS Currents 010: Tyson Yunkaporta on Humans As Custodial Species Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, by Charles Eisenstein Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, public speaker, and author who examines the unspoken narratives that direct our society and our lives. His work covers a wide range of topics, including the history of human civilization, consciousness, economics, spirituality, interdependence, ecology, and how myth and story influence culture. He is the author of The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible, Sacred Economics, and The Ascent of Humanity.

Currents 095: Matt Welsh on the End of Programming May 09, 2023

Jim talks with Matt Welsh about the ideas in his essay "The End of Programming," arguing that coding as we know it will soon be obsolete. They discuss ChatGPT's ability to perform logical reasoning, whether it thinks, its utility as a programming aid, skipping code entirely, using language models as computational engines, problem decomposition, streamlining the interface between models and databases, complex customer service, the accessibility of fine-tuning, Jim's LLM scriptwriting project, custom hardware for language models, learning to speak with aliens, democratizing computing abilities, moral conundrums & value-laden choices, training introspection, avoiding an erosion of trust, short-term opportunities for small dev teams, advice for recent college grads, and much more. Episode Transcript "The End of Programming," by Matt Welsh (Communications of the ACM) Fixie.ai Etched.ai GitHub Copilot Matt Welsh is CEO and Co-Founder at Fixie.ai, a startup building a new computing platform based on Large Language Models. Prior to Fixie, Matt was the SVP of Engineering at OctoML, and spent time as an engineering leader at Apple, Xnor.ai, and Google. He was previously a Professor of Computer Science at Harvard, and did his PhD in Computer Science at UC Berkeley.

Currents 094: Matthew Pirkowski on Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms May 04, 2023

Jim talks with Matthew Pirkowski about the kinds of consensus mechanisms that can be used to secure blockchains. They discuss active inference, proof of work vs proof of stake & the relationship between them, auto-catalytic networks, proof of work in emergent nature, what consensus means & why it needs to be protected, integrity of the ledger, an analogy with clocks, accelerating entropy, photosynthesis, exploring vs exploiting tensions in emergent systems, coordinating central points of reference, energetic openness, the relationship between energy & information, resistance to manipulation, postmodernity & symbols untethered to reality, the evolution of evolvability, adaptive drift, a stable foundation for building infrastructure, the tight relationship between information theory & thermodynamics, whether existing cryptocurrencies exist in a Goldilocks zone vs an arbitrary spot in design space, bugs of global reserve currencies, whether investing in Bitcoin is an anti-social act, currency vs wealth, personal stores of abstract potential energy, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 066: Matthew Pirkowski on Emergence in Possibility Space "Dividend Money: An Alternative to Central Banker Managed Fractional Reserve Banking Money," by Jim Rutt (lecture) Matthew Pirkowski works at the intersection of software, psychology, and complex systems. These interests first took root while studying Evolutionary Psychology and assisting with Behavioral Economic research at Yale’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory. From there Matthew began a career in software engineering, where he applied these interests to the development of software interfaces used by millions around the world, most notably as a member of Netflix’s Television UI team, where he worked on experimental initiatives conceptualizing and prototyping the future of entertainment software. Presently, Matthew is building the underlying modeling architecture at Bioform Labs, a company focused on using the Active Inference toolkit to model organizations as emergent cybernetic organisms. He believes these models can help organizations manage their deployment of and interaction with AI-based agents, as well as more adaptively manage their own emergent complexity.

Currents 093: Rafe Kelley on Natural Movement May 02, 2023

Jim talks with Rafe Kelley about the parkour-based movement system he created and teaches, Evolve Move Play. They discuss electromagnetic pulses, combining parkour & martial arts, the importance of nature exploration for children, the historical roots of parkour, using limbs to overcome obstacles, what makes parkour natural, rough play as an antidote to infantilization, healthy play culture, humans as arboreal animals, the quantification of extreme sports, love & amateurism, ekstasis, building selves worth esteeming, the professionalization of sexuality, dangers of AI porn, building alternative communities, building virtues, values, and norms, EMP as virtue development, parkour as an exemplar of GameB, procedural, perspectival, and participatory knowing, the embodiment of virtue, music & community-building, and much more. Episode Transcript Evolve Move Play Workshops JRS Currents 010: Tyson Yunkaporta on Humans As Custodial Species Sand Talk, by Tyson Yunkaporta Rafe Kelley - TreeRunner (YouTube) Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott Rafe Kelley is the creator of the Evolve Move Play method. A method incorporealatoring elements of play, natural parkour [treerunning], rough-housing, movement games, athletic development, body integrity and antifragility practices for resilience, working with fear and its repatterning, rewilding, ecological knowledge and anthropology, systems theory and motor learning perspectives of skill acquisition. Besides the personal physical feats of high degree and the hard work of art formation involved in EMP, Rafe is passionate about community fostering. He has created what is one of the best movement and related fields podcasts to these ends; and hosts retreats to foster human connection on top of many workshops taught.

Currents 092: Peter Wang on The Meaning Crisis and Consequentiality Apr 27, 2023

Jim talks with Peter Wang about his idea that meaning comes from making consequential choices. They discuss the immediacy of consequences, the modeling of causal loops, the subjective aspect of causality, two hundred varieties of shampoo, the intersubjective realm, middle-class consumer culture, the desire to be a live player, examples from Succession and Mad Men, the manufacture & commodification of desire, alternative systems of meaning, levels of patterns, false consequence, atomized individualism & the roots of the meaning crisis, the Ruttian meaning of life, negative vs positive freedom, Krishnamurti's choiceless awareness, the new ability to create networked tribes, the liminal, clockwork oranges, facing the Hofstadter terror, taking our place in the mandala of the universe, and much more. Episode Transcript "Meaning of Life" - Peter Wang on the Lex Fridman Podcast JRS EP16 - Anaconda CTO Peter Wang on The Distributed Internet JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis "Freedom 2.0 / Towards a New Physics of Human Systems," by Peter Wang Mental Models w/ Peter Wang - The Stoa series The Gervais Principle, by Venkatesh G. Rao Krishnamurti's Core Teachings A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess Peter Wang is the co-founder and CEO of Anaconda and one of the most impactful leaders and developers in the Python community. He is also a physicist and philosopher.

Currents 091: Bruce Damer on Psychedelics as Tools for Discovery Apr 25, 2023

Jim talks with Bruce Damer about genius and the use of psychedelics for creative thinking. They discuss the roots of genius, the discovery of fire, Einstein's four great discoveries, building blocks of genius, endotripping vs exotripping, set, setting, & setup, the danger of over-relying on LLMs for knowledge, geniuses in the scanner, crosstalk in the brain, the prepared mind, Bruce's lifelong experience of endotripping, rapid retripping, lucid dreaming, getting psilocybin from Terence McKenna, ayahuasca, Steve Jobs's LSD experience, external constraints, Bruce's epiphany about the origins of life, hypothesizing as a non-rational process, the stoned ape theory, psychedelics in Eleusis, human brain sizes & assisted birth, hypnagogic trip states, casualties of the early psychedelic era, a call for serious practitioners, a proposal for string theorists, Charles Manson & the importance of screening for wisdom, the increasing need for genius, and much more. Episode Transcript Bruce Damer (personal website) "It's High Time for Science" (lecture by Bruce Damer at ESPD 55) The BIOTA Institute JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life JRS EP 171 - Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications Lucid News Canadian-born Dr. Bruce Damer has spent his life pursuing two questions: how did life on Earth begin? and how can we give that life (and ourselves) a sustainable pathway into the future and a presence beyond the Earth? A decade of laboratory and field research with his collaborator Prof. David Deamer at UCSC and teams around the world resulted in the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life, published in Scientific American in 2017 and the journal Astrobiology in 2020. The scenario has now passed its first key experimental tests in the laboratory and at volcanic hot springs around the world and has emerged as a leading contender for a general theory of abiogenesis. Implications of the work are now spreading through evolutionary biology, philosophy, AI and the search for life beyond Earth. New work with collaborators has proposed the urability framework, how life can start on many different worlds, and addresses some aspects of the Fermi Paradox.

EP 185 Daniel Suarez on the Near Future of Space Exploration Apr 20, 2023

Jim talks with Daniel Suarez about his science-fiction imaginings in the near future of space exploration, Delta-V and Critical Mass. They discuss the inspiration for the novels, the beginning of a renaissance in private space exploration, characters in the series, space law, choice-making at the beginning, the nature of explorers, the research process, a frontier economy, experiments with money systems, the Age of Exploration, the debate over asteroid mining, robots vs humans in space missions, speed of light lags, the meaning of delta-V, the nexus of Luxembourg City, carbonyl metallurgy, climate change & economic disruptions, mining operations on the moon, the Shackleton crater, how space exploration is of benefit to Earth, space station design, space-based solar energy, cryptocurrency on the moon, money vs wealth, bringing the universe to life, the responsibility of stewardship, the minimum dose of gravity, and much more. Episode Transcript Delta-V, by Daniel Suarez Critical Mass, by Daniel Suarez "Dividend Money: An Alternative to Central Banker Managed Fractional Reserve Banking Money, "by Jim Rutt (lecture) A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960, by Milton Friedman The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space, by Gerard K. O'Neill Daniel Suarez is a New York Times bestselling author, TEDGlobal speaker, and former systems analyst whose unique brand of high-tech fiction explores the causes and impacts of rapid technological change. The author of seven novels, he has a track record of anticipating what's next, and his latest book, Critical Mass brings readers on a daring journey to the new frontier of private space exploration. Second book in the Delta-v series, Critical Mass realistically portrays humanity's urgent transition from an Earthbound to a spacefaring civilization -- and brings home why that's critical to our future.

EP 184 Dave Snowden on Managing Complexity in Times of Crisis Apr 18, 2023

Jim talks with Dave Snowden about the document he co-authored, "Managing Complexity (And Chaos) In Times of Crisis." They discuss the Cynefin framework, its development into a complexity-informed framework, distinguishing complex from complicated, emergence, enabling constraints vs governing constraints, openness in complex systems, short-term teleology vs top-down causality, lines of flight, six sigma, Taylorism, distributed decision-making, the meaning of crisis, preparing for unknowable unknowns, plagues & heat deaths, false learnings of Covid, the order of origin of language & semiotics, building informal networks, exaptation, the right level of granularity, setting Draconian constraints, preserving optionality, anticipatory thinking, comprehensive journaling, LLMs & the recent open letter, the need for ethical awareness, scales of group decision-making, documenters & doers, the aporetic, Covid as a boon to complexity work, cadence vs velocity, ritual in American football, designing strategic interventions with stories, vector theory of change, constructor theory, making the cost of virtue less than the cost of sin, dispositional management, an upcoming book, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP11 - Dave Snowden and Systems Thinking "Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis," by Dave Snowden and others The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold J. Morowitz JRS EP138 - W. Brian Arthur on the Nature of Technology JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Dave Snowden divides his time between two roles: founder Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge and the founder and Director of the Centre for Applied Complexity at the University of Wales. His work is international in nature and covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy, organisational decision making and decision making. He has pioneered a science based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory. He is a popular and passionate keynote speaker on a range of subjects, and is well known for his pragmatic cynicism and iconoclastic style.

Currents 090: BJ Campbell and Patrick Ryan on Egregores Apr 11, 2023

Jim talks with BJ Campbell and Patrick Ryan about understanding the present moment through the concept of egregores. They discuss the meaning of the term, its roots in early occultism, social media as the fertile ground, an analogy with neural nets, measuring egregores with grammar velocity, LLMs as a Broca's area for tech, how guns have won the culture war, translating word frequency distributions into psychological profiles, one grand egregore vs multiple competitive egregores, NPC speedrunning, experiments in influence automation, QAnon & piggybacking on reality, egregore update rates, Shiri's scissor, LLMs as necromancy, multipolar traps, the impedance matching problem, an apex predator egregore, and much more. Episode Transcript Handwaving Freakoutery (Substack) JRS Currents 024: BJ Campbell on the Woke Religion "Sort by Controversial," by Scott Alexander BJ Campbell is a licensed professional civil engineer and practicing hydrologist who consults in the land development and environmental industries. In addition to his Substack Handwaving Freakoutery, he writes for Open Source Defense, Quillette, and Recoil Magazine. Patrick Ryan is a seasoned programmer with over 20 years of experience in the full web stack development field, a career which concluded at Hulu. He is also an AI warfare specialist and provided valuable assistance to Zach Vorheis, a Google whistleblower, during the Department of Justice's anti-trust case against Google. His knowledge and experience are sought after by diverse organizations, including defense, think tanks, and policy outfits. He has provided guidance on measuring existential risk where AI warfare and infrastructure weakness intersect, as well as for a White House Coronavirus Task force.

Currents 089: Erik Torenberg on Status Games Apr 06, 2023

Jim talks with Erik Torenberg about the ideas in his Substack series on navigating the status games of today. They discuss status as reputation allocation, cyclical change in status mobility over time, status in the world of social media, beliefs as fashions, the status games of adolescent girls, therapy as a status signal, status games around changes of gender, the metaphysics of trauma, luxury beliefs, college as the biggest differentiator in belief, universalism & the ban on cousin marriage, the U.S.'s anomalously high religious population, the arms race for crazy ideas, the societal value of status mobility, sincere irony, the Israeli kibbutz system, cryptocurrency initiatives in GameB, the religion that's not a religion, money & beauty, heretics vs apostates, cancel culture as a status pump-and-dump scheme, the peak & coming decline of wokism, Trump as a boon for wokism, and much more. Episode Transcript Game B, Liquid Democracy, and Complex Systems with Jim Rutt - Village Global's Venture Stories "Status, Vulnerability, and Status Vulnerability," by Erik Torenberg (Substack) "Beliefs are Fashions," by Erik Torenberg (Substack) The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, by Joseph Henrich JRS EP104 - Joe Henrich on WEIRD People Erik Torenberg is the Founder and the Co-founder/General Partner at Village Global. Before building On Deck, Erik was a member of the founding team at Product Hunt and the Founder of rapt.fm.

EP 183 Forrest Landry Part 2: AI Risk Apr 04, 2023

Jim continues his conversation with recurring guest Forrest Landry on his arguments that continued AI development poses certain catastrophic risk to humanity. They discuss the liminal feeling of the current moment in AI, Rice's theorem & the unknowability of alignment, the analogy & disanalogy of bridge-building, external ensemble testing, the emergence of a feedback curve, the danger of replacing human oversight with machine oversight, Eliezer Yudkowsky's AI risk work, instrumental convergence risk, inequity issues, deepening multipolar traps, substrate needs convergence, environmental degradation, developing collective choice-making among humans, economic decoupling, the Luddite movement, fully automated luxury communism, the calculation problem, the principal-agent problem, corruption, agency through autonomous military devices, implicit agency, institutional design, the need for caring, hierarchy & transaction, care relationships at scale, using tech to correct the damages of tech, love as that which enables choice, institutions vs communities, techniques of discernment, enlivenment, empowering the periphery, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 181 - Forrest Landry Part 1: AI Risk Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large-scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

Currents 088: Melanie Mitchell on AI Measurement and Understanding Mar 30, 2023

Jim talks with Melanie Mitchell about her critique of applying standardized exams to LLMs and the debate over understanding in AI. They discuss ChatGPT and GPT-4's performance on standardized exams, questioning the underlying assumptions, OpenAI's lack of transparency, soon-to-be-released open-source LLMs, prompt engineering, making GPT its own skyhook to reduce hallucinations, the number of parameters in GPT-4, why LLMs should be probed differently than humans, how LLMs lie differently than humans, Stanford's holistic assessment for LLMs, a College Board for LLMs, why the term "understanding" is overstressed today, consciousness vs intelligence, the human drive for compression, working memory limitations as the secret to human intellectual abilities, episodic memory, embodied emotions, the idea that AIs don't care, calling for a new science of intelligence, the effects of differing evolutionary pressures, whether a model of physics could emerge from language learning, how little we understand these systems, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 036: Melanie Mitchell on Why AI is Hard Complexity: A Guided Tour, by Melanie Mitchell Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, by Melanie Mitchell AI: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Substack) "Did ChatGPT Really Pass Graduate-Level Exams?" (Part 1), by Melanie Mitchell Currents 087: Shivanshu Purohit on Open-Source Generative AI Holistic Evaluation of Language Models (HELM) - Stanford "The Debate Over Understanding in AI's Large Language Models," by Melanie Mitchell and David Krakauer Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Co-Chair of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. Mitchell has also held faculty or professional positions at the University of Michigan, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the OGI School of Science and Engineering. She is the author or editor of seven books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems, including her latest, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans.

EP 182 Brad DeLong on An Economic History of the 20th Century Mar 29, 2023

Jim talks with Brad DeLong about his book Slouching Toward Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century. They discuss how everything changed around 1870, the idea of a polycrisis, Friedrich von Hayek's affirmation of the market system, the calculation problem, Karl Polanyi's response, a quantitative index of technological knowledge, the pace of growth, the necessity of a grand narrative, Malthusianism, the lead-up to the Industrial Revolution, the invention of the industrial research lab, the Edison-Tesla fight, science as an institution, the transition away from force & fraud dominance, theories about the rise of global empires, communities of engineering practice, causes of World War I, Max Weber's German chauvinism, 30 glorious years of social democracy, the Macintosh launch commercial & the neoliberal turn, the evaporation of cultural conservatism, the liminal age, and much more. Episode Transcript Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, by Brad DeLong Local And Global Networks Of Immigrant Professionals In Silicon Valley, by AnnaLee Saxenian Brad DeLong is a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury during the Clinton Administration. He is a New York Times instant bestselling author, for Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, which was called: “magisterial” by Paul Krugman, "required reading” by Larry Summers, “immense scope and depth” by Diane Coyle, and “impressive… written with wit and style and a formidable command of detail” by Ryan Avent. He has been too online since 1995, now in the form of a SubStack, formerly at TypePad.

Currents 087: Shivanshu Purohit on Open-Source Generative AI Mar 24, 2023

Jim talks with Shivanshu Purohit about the world of open-source AI models and a significant open-source LLM coming soon from Stability AI and EleutherAI. They discuss the reasons for creating open-source models, the release of Facebook's LLaMA model, the black box nature of current models, the scientific mystery of how they really work, an opportunity for liberal arts majors, OpenAI's new plugin architecture, the analogy of the PC business around 1981, creating GPT-Neo & GPT-NeoX, the balance between data & architecture, the number of parameters in GPT-4, order of training's non-effect on memorization, phase changes due to scaling, Stability AI and EleutherAI's new collaboration & its specs, tradeoffs in price & size, the question of guardrails, reinforcement learning from human feedback, the missing economic model of generative AI, necessary hardware for the new suite, OpenAI's decreasing openness, Jim's commitment to help fund an open-source reinforcement learning dataset, the status of GPT-5 & other coming developments, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 038: Connor Leahy on Artificial Intelligence JRS Currents 033: Connor Leahy on Deep Learning ChatGPT Plugins Documentation Shivanshu Purohit is head of engineering at Eleuther AI and a research engineer at Stability AI, the creators of Stable Diffusion.

EP 181 Forrest Landry Part 1: AI Risk Mar 23, 2023

Jim talks with recurring guest Forrest Landry about his arguments that continued AI development poses certain catastrophic risk to humanity. They discuss AI versus advanced planning systems (APS), the release of GPT-4, emergent intelligence from modest components, whether deep learning alone will produce AGI, Rice's theorem & the impossibility of predicting alignment, the likelihood that humans try to generalize AI, why the upside of AGI is an illusion, agency vs intelligence, instrumental convergence, implicit agency, deterministic chaos, theories of physics as theories of measurement, the relationship between human desire and AI tools, an analogy with human-animal relations, recognizing & avoiding multipolar traps, an environment increasingly hostile to humans, technology & toxicity, short-term vs long-term risks, why there's so much disagreement about AI risk, the substrate needs hypothesis, an inexorable long-term convergence process, why the only solution is avoiding the cycle, a boiling frog scenario, the displacement of humans, the necessity of understanding evolution, economic decoupling, non-transactional choices, the Forward Great Filter answer to the Fermi paradox, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 153 - Forrest Landry on Small Group Method Forrest Landry on Twitter JRS Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI JRS EP25 - Gary Marcus on Rebooting AI JRS Currents 036: Melanie Mitchell on Why AI is Hard EP137 Ken Stanley on Neuroevolution "Why I Am Not (As Much Of) A Doomer (As Some People)," by Scott Alexander Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large-scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

Currents 086: Monica Anderson on Bubble City Mar 16, 2023

Jim talks with Monica Anderson about her paper "Bubble City Design Proposal: A Twitter Alternative Which Is Not a Social Medium." They discuss the origins of the Bubble City idea, its architecture, quenching the flood of social media information, only seeing the messages you want, research bots, the difference between a bubble and a Slack channel, fine-tuning bubbles, law enforcement, filtering, the place of curators, federating feeds into the system, how the system supports itself financially, how identity is handled, viscosity, the Pacer speed control, the clickbait problem, trusted streams, Google Wave, how LLMs are changing programming, version changes to Bubble City, Understanding Machine One, a call for fundraising, and much more. Episode Transcript "Bubble City Design Proposal: A Twitter Alternative Which Is Not a Social Medium," by Monica Anderson Experimental Epistemology Monica Anderson is an independent AI researcher and ex-Googler operating from Silicon Valley. Her company Syntience, Inc. has researched computer-based Natural Language Understanding since Jan 1, 2001.

Currents 085: Jonny Miller on Self-Unfoldment Mar 14, 2023

Jim has a wide-ranging conversation with Jonny Miller about self-development and emotional resilience. They discuss being a natural human, self-help as deconditioning, self-unfoldment, ecologies of practices, giving power back to the individual, Jamie Wheal's hedonic engineering, pushing outside the window of tolerance, emotional anti-fragility, facilitated breath repatterning, affirming anger, principles of decision-making, decision paralysis, self-destructive patterns in relationships, common barriers to communication, surrendering to grief, conditions of play, preserving unscheduled time, critiquing "mental health," the importance & decline of friendship, sparring in schools, the resistance to unproductive activity, video games & disembodiment, the Nervous System Mastery course, and much more. Episode Transcript Nervous System Mastery Course JRS EP123 - Jamie Wheal on Recapturing the Rapture Curious Humans Podcast with Jonny Miller - Jamie Wheal on The Meaning Crisis, Hedonic Engineering & Forging a Culture of Post-Traumatic Growth Curious Humans Podcast with Jonny Miller - New Frontiers of Breathwork: Translating the Language of the Breath & Cultivating Nervous System Resilience with Ed Dangerfield Art of Accomplishment Podcast with Joe Hudson JRS EP148 - Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing Curious Humans Podcast with Jonny Miller - How to Human: Exploring Soul Initiation, Mythopoetic Identity & The Spiritual Adventure with Depth Psychologist & Wilderness Guide Dr. Bill Plotkin Jonny Miller is a Nervous System Specialist and host of the Curious Humans podcast. He’s spent cumulatively thousands of hours researching, training & mentoring high-performers and professionals — from the CEO of a rocket ship company to startup founders recovering from burnout as well as busy parents, early-stage solopreneurs & school-teachers.

Currents 084: Mirta Galesic on Global Collective Behavior Mar 07, 2023

Jim talks with Mirta Galesic about the ideas in her co-authored paper "Stewardship of Global Collective Behavior." They discuss the meaning of collective behavior, a crisis in network structures, the analogy of the printing press, consequences of person-to-person communication, the capacity for collective forgetting, unpredictable developments in chatbots, bottom-up vs top-down influence, advertising-driven information ecosystems, emergent knobs in social media design, ChatGPT's political bias, the widespread trust in algorithms, suggestions for reforming Twitter, information decay, viscosity, opportunities & dangers of mass surveillance data, the Twitter Files, free speech & cultural evolution, and much more. Episode Transcript "Stewardship of Global Collective Behavior," by Mirta Galesic et al. "Beyond collective intelligence: Collective adaptation," by Mirta Galesic et al. "Collective moderation of hate, toxicity, and extremity in online discussions," by Mirta Galesic et al. The Jim Rutt Show Chatbot "Musk and Moderation," by Jim Rutt Mirta Galesic is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and External Faculty at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, Austria, as well as the Vermont Complex Systems Center, UVM. She is also an Associate Researcher at the Harding Center for Risk Literacy and a non-resident system thinking expert at the United States Institute of Peace. She studies how simple cognitive mechanisms interact with social and physical environments to produce seemingly complex social phenomena. Her projects focus on developing empirically grounded computational models of social judgments, social learning, collective problem solving, and opinion dynamics. She is also interested in how people understand and cope with the uncertainty and complexity inherent in many everyday decisions.

EP 180 Lynne Kiesling on the Electrical Grid Mar 03, 2023

Jim talks with Lynne Kiesling about the electrical grid and what could and should change in its architecture in the years to come. They discuss electricity as a product, the move away from centralized control rooms, energy storage as the holy grail, base load vs peak load, distributed & intermittent energy resources, moving power to & from the grid, temporal patterns of supply & usage, varying demand to meet supply, programming thermostats, digitization of the electric grid, how rooftop solar systems coordinate with the grid, distributed energy resource management systems, advancements in storage, cyberattacks & solar flares, the Transactive Energy Service System (TESS), machine learning in energy bidding, the challenge of testing complex systems, the Olympic Peninsula Testbed Project, responding to events like the Great Texas Freeze of 2021, institutional design in a new technological landscape, wholesale power generation, power law distributions, and much more. Episode Transcript Transactive Energy Service System (TESS) JRS EP90 - Joshua Epstein on Agent-Based Modeling Lynne Kiesling is an economist focusing on regulation, market design, and the economics of digitization and smart grid technologies in the electricity industry. She is a Research Professor in the School of Engineering, Design and Computing at the University of Colorado-Denver, and Co-Director of the Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics. Lynne also provides advisory and analytical services as the President of Knowledge Problem LLC, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Masters of Science in Energy and Sustainability program at Northwestern University. In addition to her academic research, she is currently a member of the U.S. Department of Energy's Electricity Advisory Committee, has served as a member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Smart Grid Advisory Committee, and is an emerita member of the GridWise Architecture Council. Her academic background includes a B.S. in Economics from Miami University (Ohio) and a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University.

Currents 083: Joscha Bach on Synthetic Intelligence Feb 28, 2023

Jim talks with Joscha Bach about current and future developments in the generative AI space. They discuss the skepticism of the press, small productive applications, questions about intellectual property rights, confabulation in human thinking, nanny rails, 3 approaches to AI alignment, Aquinas's 7 virtues, issues of consciousness-like agency, love as an answer to the alignment problem, the difficulty with fairness, serving shared sacredness, dealing with entropy, integrated information theory & its incompatibility with the Church-Turing thesis, neural Darwinism, a point where extrapolation & interpolation become the same, building an AI artist, free will, the capacity of human memory, consciousness as a conductor, the scaling hypothesis in AGI, making the system learn from its own thoughts, computation as a rewrite system, neurons as animals, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP72 - Joscha Bach on Minds, Machines & Magic JRS EP87 - Joscha Bach on Theories of Consciousness JRS EP 178 - Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness JRS EP108 - Bernard Baars on Consciousness JRS EP105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI JRS EP137 - Ken Stanley on Neuroevolution Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist working for MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He earned his Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, and has built computational models of motivated decision making, perception, categorization, and concept-formation. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI and in the augmentation of the human mind.

EP 179 Gregg Henriques Part 3: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap Feb 24, 2023

Jim talks with Gregg Henriques in the third and final part of a series on his book A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap. They discuss the concept of justification, replacing "justice" with "justification," behavioral investment theory, John Vervaeke's recursive relevance realization, 6 principles of animal mindedness, making a living, animals as functional behavioral investors, evolution of mental behavior in 4 stages, the P − M => E learning control theory, emotion vs valence, framing an architecture of human mind, layers of working memory, 3 types of mind, what it is like to be, the 2-step model of consciousness, the Aristotelian soul, integrated information theory, global worskpace theory, the unknown mechanisms of neurocognitive causation, Unified Theory of Knowledge, the influence matrix, Vervaeke's 4P/3R meta-theory, integrating independent meta-theories, Timothy Leary's interpersonal circumplex, the origin of gender roles, the 5-part map of mind, what a person is, JII (justification, influence, influence) dynamics & the unconscious, 4 functional contexts of justification, bullshit as a problem of social epistemology, evolution of the culture-person plane, whether post-modernism is really an epoch, the entire structure in recap, and much more. Listeners may be interested to know that Gregg is organizing a conference. Consistent with his book, it is called Consilience: Unifying Knowledge and Orienting Toward a Wisdom Commons. It will be held online March 17 and 18th. It is a Zoom event, and free to the public. Jim will be talking about Game B, and will be joined by Jordan Hall. John Vervaeke will give the keynote. And there will be over 40 presentations by many folks who have been featured on the Jim Rutt Show. Links below: Register for the conference. UTOK Conference 2023 – Clip Conference Flyer Episode Links: Episode Transcript JRS EP105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS EP108 - Bernard Baars on Consciousness Consciousness Explained, by Daniel Dennett JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis The Elusive I - Part 1 - The Cognitive Science Show (YouTube) Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, by Frans de Waal Dr. Gregg Henriques is Professor of Graduate Psychology at James Madison University in the Combined Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont and did his post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a theoretical psychologist and has developed the “Unified Theory of Knowledge,” which is a consilient scientific humanistic worldview to unify psychology. He is the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology (Springer, 2011), and A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap (Palgrave McMillian, November 2022). His scholarly work has been published in the field’s best journals, and he has developed a popular blog on Psychology Today, Theory of Knowledge, which has received over eight million views. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the 2022 President of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and founded the Theory of Knowledge academic society.

Currents 082: Dan Shipper on Practical Applications of GPT-3 Feb 22, 2023

Jim talks with Dan Shipper about practical uses of GPT-3 and ChatGPT at the personal scale. They discuss how Dan started playing with these tools, the feeling of new generative AIs, GPT-3 vs ChatGPT, writing a screenplay using ChatGPT, using GPT-3 to analyze journal entries, circumventing the context window limitation, GPT-3 as a journaling tool, how ChatGPT does embedding, the coming market for chatbot personas, the value of guardrails, the monetary cost of using GPT-3, solving the organizational problems of note-taking, Stephen Reid's knowledge-graph of this podcast, the invention of the graphic web browser & the frozen accidents of HTTP & HTML, meta-prompts & data pipelines, how Yohei Nakajima eliminates repetitive tasks using LLMs, and much more. Episode Transcript Chain of Thought (Every) "Can GPT-3 Explain My Past and Tell My Future?", by Dan Shipper GPT Index LangChain "Chat GPT 'DAN' (and other 'Jailbreaks')" Character.AI JRS Knowledgegraph, by Stephen Reid Dan Shipper is the CEO and co-founder of Every, a daily newsletter on business, AI, and personal development read by almost 75,000 founders, operators, and investors. Previously he was the CEO and co-founder of Firefly, an enterprise software company that he sold to Pegasystems. He writes a weekly at column at Every called Chain of Thought where he covers AI, tools for thought, and the psychology of work.

EP 178 Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness Feb 21, 2023

Jim talks with Anil Seth about his book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. They discuss the curious non-experience of general anesthesia, defining consciousness, the difference between consciousness & intelligence, experiential vs functional aspects, the hard problem vs the real problem, measuring consciousness, consciousness vs wakefulness, Lempel-Ziv complexity, zap & zip, consciousness as multidimensional, psychedelic states of consciousness, integrated information theory & phi, Scott Aaronson's expander grids, quantum IIT, accounting for conscious contents, the Bayesian brain, paying attention, Adelson's checkerboard, the perception census, prediction error minimization, active inference, the two bridges experiment, aspects of self, the rubber hand illusion, somatoparaphrenia, separating self from personal identity, whether advanced mammals have personal identity, being a beast machine, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP97 - Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia JRS EP148 - Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing The Perception Census Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness, a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator, and Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press). With more than two decades of research and outreach experience, Anil’s mission is to advance the science of consciousness and to use its insights for the benefit of society, technology and medicine. An internationally leading researcher, Anil is also a renowned public speaker, best-selling author, and sought-after collaborator on high-profile art-science projects.

EP 177 Gregg Henriques Part 2: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap Feb 16, 2023

Jim talks with Gregg Henriques in part two of a series on his book A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap. They discuss limitations of the standard natural science perspective, the enlightenment gap, BM3, mental behaviorism, justification systems theory, discovering the tree of knowledge system, the evolution of complexification, the emergence of mindedness, resolving a contradiction between Freud & Skinner, the periodic table of behavior, 3 branches of psychology, the history of information processing, the unworkability of Cartesian dualism, top-down causation, Lawrence Cahoone's systematic metaphysics, distinguishing physicalism & naturalism, behavior as the central concept of the natural sciences, complicated vs complex, Chalmers's hard problem, cybernetics & the cognitive science revolution, 4E cognitive science, internal talk & individual variation, and much more. Listeners may be interested to know that Gregg is organizing a conference. Consistent with his book, it is called Consilience: Unifying Knowledge and Orienting Toward a Wisdom Commons. It will be held online March 17 and 18th. It is a Zoom event, and free to the public. Jim will be talking about Game B, and will be joined by Jordan Hall. John Vervaeke will give the keynote. And there will be over 40 presentations by many folks who have been featured on the Jim Rutt Show. Links below: Register for the conference. UTOK Conference 2023 - Clip Conference Flyer Episode Links: Episode Transcript JRS EP 176 - Gregg Henriques Part 1: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold Morowitz The Orders of Nature, by Lawrence E. Cahoone Dr. Gregg Henriques is Professor of Graduate Psychology at James Madison University in the Combined Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont and did his post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a theoretical psychologist and has developed the “Unified Theory of Knowledge,” which is a consilient scientific humanistic worldview to unify psychology. He is the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology (Springer, 2011), and A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap (Palgrave McMillian, November 2022). His scholarly work has been published in the field’s best journals, and he has developed a popular blog on Psychology Today, Theory of Knowledge, which has received over eight million views. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the 2022 President of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and founded the Theory of Knowledge academic society.

EP 176 Gregg Henriques Part 1: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap Feb 15, 2023

Jim talks with Gregg Henriques about his book A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap. They discuss the book's audacious attempt to explain the universe, definitions of metaphysics & whether it's needed, 4 bins for the history of the universe, the tree of knowledge system, psychology's ontological confusion, the Enlightenment gap, one-world naturalism & the mind-body problem, scientific knowledge's relationship with subjective knowledge, the metamodernist synthesis, psychology's disagreement about its own building blocks, the absence of a meta-paradigm, John Vervaeke's recursive relevance realization, definitions of mind, empiricism, mapping the internal/external relationship, the unified theory of knowledge, the meaning of biopsychosocial, 3 meanings of mind, Global Workspace Theory, justification systems theory, question-answer dynamics, positive & negative space in communication, justification dynamics, motivated reasoning, and much more. Listeners may be interested to know that Gregg is organizing a conference. Consistent with his book, it is called Consilience: Unifying Knowledge and Orienting Toward a Wisdom Commons. It will be held online March 17 and 18th. It is a Zoom event, and free to the public. Jim will be talking about Game B, and will be joined by Jordan Hall. John Vervaeke will give the keynote. And there will be over 40 presentations by many folks who have been featured on the Jim Rutt Show. Links below: Register for the conference. UTOK Conference 2023 - Clip Conference Flyer Episode Links: Episode Transcript A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap, by Gregg Henriques JRS EP59 - Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology JRS Currents 009: Gregg Henriques on Theory Of Meta-Cultural Transition JRS EP116 - Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion JRS EP 172 - Brendan Graham Dempsey on Emergentism The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas S. Kuhn JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis JRS EP108 - Bernard Baars on Consciousness JRS EP 159 - Bobby Azarian on the Romance of Reality The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, by Terrence W. Deacon Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, by Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt Ego Defenses And The Legitimation Of Behavior, by Guy E. Swanson Dr. Gregg Henriques is Professor of Graduate Psychology at James Madison University in the Combined Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Vermont and did his post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a theoretical psychologist and has developed the “Unified Theory of Knowledge,” which is a consilient scientific humanistic worldview to unify psychology. He is the author of A New Unified Theory of Psychology (Springer, 2011), and A New Synthesis for Solving the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap (Palgrave McMillian, November 2022). His scholarly work has been published in the field’s best journals, and he has developed a popular blog on Psychology Today, Theory of Knowledge, which has received over eight million views. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the 2022 President of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, and founded the Theory of Knowledge academic society.

EP 175 Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater on The Language Game Feb 10, 2023

Jim talks with Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater about their new book The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World. They discuss the game of charades & its relevance to the evolution of language, the false myth of a pure language, language as self-organizing system, Captain Cook's encounter with indigenous South Americans, pidgins & creoles, gesture & vocalization, language & tool construction, the communication iceberg metaphor, misunderstandings in relationships, the now-or-never bottleneck, language understanding vs language production, genetic capacity for sequence-action-sequence tasks, chaotic improvisation as the core, the complaint that the young are ruining the language, the unbearable lightness of meaning, the miracle of sloppiness, order & disorder, word order & frozen accidents, language evolution without biological evolution, ChatGPT as a demonstration of how far learning from experience can get you, a poetry Turing test, and much more. The Language Game has been featured on Behavioral Scientist's Notable Books of 2022. Morten and Nick’s previous co-authored book Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing (MIT Press 2016) was named the Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2017. Episode Transcript JRS EP75 - Nick Chater: “The Mind Is Flat” The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World, by Morten Christiansen & Nick Chater Simpler Syntax, by Peter Culicover & Ray Jackendoff Syntactic Nuts: Hard Cases, Syntactic Theory, and Language Acquisition, by Peter W. Culicover Morten H. Christiansen is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, Professor in Cognitive Science of Language at the School of Communication and Culture and the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, Denmark, as well as a Senior Scientist at the Haskins Labs. His research focuses on the interaction of biological and environmental constraints in the evolution, acquisition and processing of language. He was awarded the Cognitive Psychology Section Award from the British Psychological Society in 2013 and a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in 2006. Christiansen was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, as well as elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the Cognitive Science Society. Christiansen is the author of over 250 scientific papers and has edited four books and authored two monographs. Nick Chater is a Professor of Behavioral Science at Warwick Business School. His research focuses on the cognitive and social foundations of rationality, with applications to business and public policy. He has (co-)written more than two hundred research papers and six books. His research has won awards including the British Psychological Society's Spearman Medal (1996); the Experimental Psychology Society Prize (1997); and the Cognitive Science Society's life-time achievement award, the David E Rumelhart Prize (to be awarded in 2023). His book, The Mind is Flat, won the American Association of Publishers PROSE Award in 2019, for Best book in Clinical Psychology. Nick is a fellow of the British Academy, the Cognitive Science Society and the Association for Psychological Science. He is a co-founder of the research consultancy Decision Technology; has served on the advisory board of the Behavioural Insight Team (popularly known as the 'Nudge Unit'); and been a member of the UK government's Climate Change Committee. He co-created, and was resident scientist on, eight series of the BBC Radio 4 show The Human Zoo.

EP 174 Fred Beuttler and Mark Stahlman on Trivium University Feb 03, 2023

Jim talks with Fred Beuttler and Mark Stahlman about their new online graduate program, Trivium University. They discuss the trivium & the quadrivium, instilling a better sense of grammar, the current digital paradigm, five paradigms in communication technology, the outsourcing of memory, retrieving scribal ways of thinking, why we need another university, re-centering professor-student interaction, cost disease in higher education, three spheres in geopolitics (East, West, and digital), the replacement of globalism, shaping a new generation of leaders, alphabetic vs logographic thinking, the Ukraine War as conflict between 3 spheres, what it means to be human, averting the geopolitical dangers of the Davos attitude, Net Assessment, setting Great Conversation over Great Books, averting World War III, and much more. Episode Transcript Trivium University Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism, by Shadi Bartsch The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics For an Age of Commerce, by Deirdre McCloskey Mark Stahlman is a biologist, computer architect and ex-Wall Street technology strategist. He is the President of the not-for-profit Center for the Study of Digital Life (CSDL, 501(c)3, digitallife.center) and its educational project Trivium University (Triv U, trivium.university). He is also CEO of Exogenous, Inc. (EXO, exogenousinc.com), a strategic risk analysis group and on the editorial staff of its publication, the Three Spheres Newsletter (TSN). He studied for but did not complete advanced degrees in Theology (UofChicago) and Molecular Biology (UW-Mad). He has been widely interviewed and published, including teaching online courses (available on YouTube via 52 Living Ideas). Fred W. Beuttler, Ph.D. is a fellow at the Center for the Study of Digital Life (CSDL), as well as one of the founding administrators of CSDL’s new Trivium University. He also teaches history at the University of Chicago’s Graham School for Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies. From 2015 to 2019 he was the Associate Dean of Liberal Arts Programs at the Graham School, overseeing a masters in liberal arts, the “great books” certificate program for adults, and the Fortnight in Oxford. From 2010 to 2015 he was Director of General Education at Carroll University, in Wisconsin. In 2012 and 2013 he was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Germany, where he taught American political history. Prior to his return to academia, he was Deputy Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives, in Washington, DC, from 2005 to 2010, where he coauthored and edited a number of histories of House committees. He received a BA at the University of Illinois, an MA from Trinity International University, and his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago, with a dissertation entitled, “Organizing an American Conscience: The Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion, in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, 1940-1968.”

Currents 081: Layman Pascal Interviews Jim Rutt on Twitter as Collective Intelligence Feb 03, 2023

Layman Pascal interviews Jim about the principles and strategies that could transform Twitter into infrastructure for collective intelligence. They discuss Jim's motivation in engaging the topic, Musk's current lack of strategic intent, the least bad unfairness, avoiding point of view moderation, distinguishing between style and content, decorum, user-controlled filters, GameB's erroneous ban from Facebook, principles of fair enforcement, setting thresholds between private & public domains, whether Twitter is a public utility, advantages & risks of open-sourcing Twitter's code, two kinds of censorship, culpability around links, replacing the ad model with a subscription service, a connection with liquid democracy, issues with de-platforming, modulating viscosity, social media choices as socially consequential, adding groups, risks of the downvote, gradient rating systems, emergent engineering & why no one's using it, identity authentication, likely near-future problems, automating sophisticated moderation, experimenting with character limits, wild-card content, a community disinformation immune system, optimizing for time well spent, and much more. Episode Transcript "Musk and Moderation," by Jim Rutt (Quillette) "Saving Twitter—A Roundtable," featuring Jim Rutt (Quillette) JRS Currents 080: Joe Edelman and Hellie Hain on Rebuilding Meaning weco.io Hylo Coordinape MetaGame Layman Pascal is a public speaker, nondual theologian and yoga & meditation teacher based in Victoria, British Columbia. His family has lived in the coastal islands for five generations. He is a writer on themes of cultural philosophy, shamanism and organic spiritual development.

Currents 080: Joe Edelman and Ellie Hain on Rebuilding Meaning Jan 30, 2023

Jim talks with Joe Edelman and Ellie Hain about their new movement, Rebuilding Meaning, and two recent talks introducing ideas towards a better world. They discuss tools for building toward more meaningful lives, the meaning of meaning, looking behind the void, the litany of shit, exercises in eliciting meaning, coherent pluralism, containers vs meanings, how religions lost their grounding, values articulacy, the importance of aesthetics, using language learning models to extract meaning profiles, values vs virtues, sobering up from internet optimism, the decay of spaces, when focus shifts from meaning to incentives, funnels, tubes, & spaces, piling up strangers vs creating spaces, metrics of meaning, meaning cards, space trains, the example of science, Carl Rogers's concept of congruence, designing good ideal selves, spreading the message, and much more. Episode Transcript Rebuilding Meaning (website) JRS EP34 - Joe Edelman on the Power of Values "Exit the Void: A Movement for Meaning," by Ellie Hain "Rebuilding Society on Meaning," by Joe Edelman A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life, by Heather E. Heying and Bret Weinstein JRS EP 173 - Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodern Self-Help Joe Edelman developed the meaning-based organizational metrics at Couchsurfing.com, then co-founded the Center for Humane Technology with Tristan Harris, and coined the term “Time Well Spent” for a family of metrics adopted by teams at Facebook, Google, and Apple. Since then, he's worked on the philosophical underpinnings for new business metrics, design methods, and political movements. The central idea is to make people's sources of meaning explicit, so that how meaningful or meaningless things are can be rigorously accounted for. His previous career was in HCI and programming language design. Ellie Hain is an artist, researcher, and cultural strategist working on new imaginaries and ideologies for the post-industrial age.

EP 173 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodern Self-Help Jan 17, 2023

Jim talks with Hanzi Freinacht about his book 12 Commandments: For Extraordinary People to Master Ordinary Life. They discuss the book as a response to Jordan Peterson & his "12 rules" books, metamodernism, fostering sober crazy people, magical thinking in highly developed personalities, integrations of science & spirituality, stabilizing higher phenomenological states, lower average states as a phenomenon of late-stage Game A, living in a mess moderately, fucking like a beast, sincere irony, quitting, doing the walk of shame, reverse death therapy, Carl Roger's idea of congruence, healing with justice, burning your maps, the pernicious belief that our maps are complete, killing your guru & finding the others, Jung's golden shadow, playing for forgiveness, and much more. Episode Transcript 12 Commandments: For Extraordinary People to Master Ordinary Life, by Hanzi Freinacht JRS EP36 - Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism JRS EP53 - Hanzi Freinacht on the Nordic Ideology JRS EP82 - Hanzi Freinacht on Building a Metamodern Future JRS EP 172 - Brendan Graham Dempsey on Emergentism JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Hanzi Freinacht is a political philosopher, historian and sociologist, author of The Listening Society, Nordic Ideology, and the upcoming books The 6 Hidden Patterns of History and Outcompeting Capitalism. Much of his time is spent alone in the Swiss Alps.

EP 172 Brendan Graham Dempsey on Emergentism Jan 09, 2023

Jim talks with Brendan Graham Dempsey about his book Emergentism: A Religion of Complexity for the Metamodern World. They discuss the meaning crisis & its symptoms, reciprocal narrowing, the pre-modern & the modern, the emergence of reductionism, the meaning of complexity & emergence, sacralizing the scientific creation narrative, Prigogine's theory of dissipative systems, the universe as a process of endless complexification, marrying Bobby Azarian's Unifying Theory of Reality & Gregg Henriques's Unified Theory of Knowledge, consciousness vs sentience, Integrated Information Theory vs John Searle's biological functionalism, the odds that intelligent life evolved only once in our galaxy, tying complexification to the God concept, making the "religion that is not a religion" accessible through mythopoeia & storytelling, the Omega Point, whether approaching the Omega Point implies pushing for a techno-Singularity, Emergentist ethics & practices, and much more. Episode Transcript Emergentism: A Religion of Complexity for the Modern World, by Brendan Graham Dempsey "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis," by John Vervaeke - YouTube series JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold Morowitz The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity, by Bobby Azarian JRS EP 159 - Bobby Azarian on the Romance of Reality JRS EP105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life JRS EP 171 - Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications JRS EP40 - Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer whose work focuses on the meaning crisis and the nature of spirituality in metamodernity. He is the host of the Metamodern Spirituality podcast and the writer behind the six-volume (and counting) Metamodern Spirituality Series. He earned his BA in Religious Studies from the University of Vermont and his MA in Religion and the Arts from Yale University. He lives in Greensboro Bend, Vermont, where he runs the holistic retreat center Sky Meadow.

Currents 079: Douglas Rushkoff on Tech Escapism and Critiques of GameB Jan 05, 2023

Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about the ideas in his essay series, "What's a Meta For?" They discuss Facebook's renaming to Meta, the semantic web, ChatGPT, a Turing test recalibration period, Rocco's Basilisk, the conversion of the real world into a meta-world, Elon Musk as techno-monarch, the limitations of his understanding of free speech, returning Twitter to the people who use it, Zuckerberg's Caesar obsession, Rushkoff's criticisms of GameB, the dangers of an abstracted "omega point," understanding the complex binding energies of GameA, dominant political isms as a result of industrialism, GameB's schism over personal vs institutional change, the need to actually deliver, coherent pluralism, what being a member of GameB will mean, dangers of a totalizing narrative, not knowing what GameB is, cultivated insecurity, rejecting the metaverse, GameB's resilient response to critiques, and much more. Episode Transcript Douglas Rushkoff (website) "What's a Meta For?" by Douglas Rushkoff (part 1 and 2) Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, by Douglas Rushkoff Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, by Douglas Rushkoff JRS Currents 051: Douglas Rushkoff on the Once and Future Internet Character.AI "If I Were CEO of Twitter," by Douglas Rushkoff "The Liminal Web: Mapping An Emergent Subculture Of Sensemakers, Meta-Theorists & Systems Poets," by Joe Lightfoot Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, by Christopher Boehm The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber & David Wengrow Doomer Optimism JRS Currents 049: Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder on Doomer Optimism Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff’s work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.

Currents 078: John Ash on AI Art Tools Jan 03, 2023

Jim talks with John Ash about his use of AI art tools and their implications for society... Jim talks with John Ash about his use of AI art tools and their implications for society. They discuss the basics of how the latest models work, using AI to communicate complexity, removing noise from noise, style transfer, pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge, expressing complex ideas through images, iterative de-noising in human conversation, stochastic gradient descent, receptivity to meaning, latent spaces, a high-order taxon of creative iteration, songwriting, finding the ideal number of iterations, stylistic interpolation, Cognicism, attribution & sourcing, citations in ChatGPT, the coming debates about ownership & permission, why the first court ruling will probably be about porn, the world as a giant interconnected neocortex, propaganda bots, owning our cognition, stochastic terrorism, future shock, solving internal alignment before we solve AI alignment, and much more. Episode Transcript Al Actress Performs a Mesmerizing Tale of Duality ("Atheus and the Golden Braid"), by Speaker John Ash - YouTube Play.ht The Congress (IMDb) Deep Reckonings, by Stephanie Lepp JRS EP129 - Stephanie Lepp on Deep Reckonings John Ash is a thought leader in AI-assisted technologies, decentralized sensemaking, a writer, a visual and musical artist, and a steward for the ideas around Cognicism.

Currents 077: Serge Faguet on Consciousness and Post-AGI Ethics Dec 29, 2022

Jim continues his conversation with Serge Faguet, this time focusing on the nature of consciousness and its implications for the wise and ethical use of AI systems...Jim continues his conversation with Serge Faguet, this time focusing on the nature of consciousness and its implications for the wise and ethical use of AI systems. They discuss a technological Singularity, the evolution & significance of consciousness, integrated information theory (IIT) vs. John Searle's arguments, whether current AIs exhibit consciousness, applying the golden rule to AIs, AI alignment, consciousness as solution to the combinatoric explosion of inference, the importance of systems thinking, an upcoming workshop on free will, virtue ethics without religion, building a decentralized nondogmatic religion, gender parity in GameB, Serge's move from entrepreneurship to full-time community-building, and much more. Serge looks forward to receiving any feedback or expressions of interest at first.last@gmail or (better) first_last on Telegram. Episode Transcript Serge Faguet (website) Serge Faguet on Twitter Serge Faguet on Medium JRS Currents 074: Serge Faguet on Building Metacommunity "In Search of the 5th Attractor," by Jim Rutt (Medium) Integrated information theory (Wikipedia) Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, by Max Tegmark JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind’s Emergence From Matter Wider Than the Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness, by Gerald M. Edelman "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" by Thomas Nagel JRS EP 170 - John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion Serge Faguet is a Russian-Ukrainian entrepreneur and prolific thinker. He has founded multiple tech companies including multi-billion-dollar B2B online travel company Emerging Travel Group, concierge medicine care delivery company Novami, AI drug discovery company Multiomic Health, automated clinical trial recruitment company Nexus and Web2 ⇒ Web3 onboarding product Identix. A proponent of biohacking, his vision is to build a large-scale commercial data/biobank that gathers healthcare data to make major progress for increasing productivity, longevity, and quality of life. As a philosopher-entrepreneur, Serge believes that we need to adopt a syncretic approach to innovation and use entrepreneurial ideation to enact enduring material change and eventually construct a more hospitable future for all of humanity. Serge is interested in implementing the principles of Web3 and crypto to build decentralized institutions, govern ourselves, and control our own data. His greatest passions lie in inspiring others to discover their authentic selves through communal collaboration and encouraging political action by creating a healthier, more self-aware society.

EP 171 Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications Dec 20, 2022

Jim continues his discussion with Bruce Damer on the origins of life... Jim continues his discussion with Bruce Damer on the origins of life. They discuss Darwin's "warm little pond" hypothesis, hydrothermal fields as selection engines, wet-dry cycling, proto-cells, competing theories, implications of the hypothesis, niche construction theory, the origin of life as mostly collaborative, the Probability Interaction Memory (PIM) model, effects of crowding together, sharing results, the emergence of memory, PIM as a general principle of emergence, Covid-19 as an example of amplification, applying PIM to civilizational health, the loss of face-to-face community membranes in late-stage capitalism, "hearthology," applying PIM to the search for artificial general intelligence (AGI), collaborations with Ben Goertzel & Google's AI group, protocellular systems as general learning systems, creating a genesis engine, the Fermi paradox & the Drake equation, the new concept of urability, the low probability of sustaining life long enough to reach complexity, new data from Mars & exoplanet atmospheres, the possibility that Earth is extremely rare, bringing the galaxy to life, creating hundreds of thousands of warm little ponds using asteroids, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life BIOTA Institute JRS EP140 - Robin Dunbar on Friendship JRS Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI The Open Cognition Project (OpenCog) Tierra (Wikipedia) Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, by Stephen Jay Gould SETI Institute Canadian-born Dr. Bruce Damer has spent his life pursuing two questions: how did life on Earth begin? and how can we give that life (and ourselves) a sustainable pathway into the future and a presence beyond the Earth? A decade of laboratory and field research with his collaborator Prof. David Deamer at UCSC and teams around the world resulted in the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life, published in Scientific American in 2017 and the journal Astrobiology in 2020. The scenario has now passed its first key experimental tests in the laboratory and at volcanic hot springs around the world and has emerged as a leading contender for a general theory of abiogenesis. Implications of the work are now spreading through evolutionary biology, philosophy, AI and the search for life beyond Earth. New work with collaborators has proposed the urability framework, how life can start on many different worlds, and addresses some aspects of the Fermi Paradox.

Currents 076: Jamie Joyce on The Society Library Dec 12, 2022

Jim talks with Jamie Joyce about the organization she founded and directs, The Society Library... Jim talks with Jamie Joyce about the organization she founded and directs, The Society Library. They discuss the Library's mission, its ontological structure, offering diverse interfaces, methods for overcoming limitations & biases, operating with integrity, contextualizing information deeply, intellectual honesty, intellectual independence, intellectual inclusion, the example of flat-Earth theory, earnest service, contrasting with Wikipedia, bias on Wikipedia, the work's positive effect on analysts, hiring librarians, the Pro-Truth Pledge, a collection on nuclear energy, working with is & ought, possibilities for automation, citations & UX design, and much more. Episode Transcript The Society Library JRS Currents 061: Nora Bateson on a Return to Earnestness Pro-Truth Pledge Jamie Joyce is the Founder and Executive Director of The Society Library, a 501(c)3 collective intelligence organization which works on developing tools, resources, and methods to address epistemic issues in the United States. Her work includes modeling societal-scale deliberation, developing decision-making models, building libraries of knowledge, and offering educational curricula to fact-checks and university students. Jamie is also a 2022 Collective Intelligence Fellow at the Foresight Institute.

Currents 075: Michael Nielsen on Metascience Dec 05, 2022

Jim talks with Michael Nielsen about the ideas in his and Kanjun Qiu's recent essay, "A Vision of Metascience: An Engine of Improvement for the Social Processes of Science"... Jim talks with Michael Nielsen about the ideas in his and Kanjun Qiu's recent essay, "A Vision of Metascience: An Engine of Improvement for the Social Processes of Science." They discuss the meaning of metascience, a vivid example in Genovese maritime insurance, attracting intellectual dark matter, creation & limitations of the h-index, frozen accidents in our scientific operating system, what allowed the original DARPA to be so productive, funding-by-variance, failure audits, changing the unit of evaluation from papers to software, at-the-bench fellowships, science funders as detectors & predictors, endowed professorships by age 25, eliciting the secret thesis, metascience as an imaginative design practice, bottlenecks to decentralized improvement, the Open Science Collaboration, pre-registered study designs, metascience entrepreneurship, the arXiv preprint server, and much more. Episode Transcript "A Vision of Metascience: An Engine of Improvement for the Social Processes of Science," by Michael Nielsen and Kanjun Qiu Michael Nielsen (website) JRS EP12 - Brian Nosek – Open Science and Reproducibility Michael Nielsen is a scientist who helped pioneer quantum computing and the modern open science movement. His main current projects are in metascience, programmable matter, and tools for thought. He is the recent co-author of a book-long essay, "A Vision of Metascience", outlining the ways in which the institutions of science can become self-improving. All his work is united by a broader interest in tools that help people think and create, both individually and collectively. He is a research fellow at the Astera Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area.

EP 170 John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on The Religion That Is Not a Religion Dec 02, 2022

Jim talks with John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall about Vervaeke's concept of "the religion that is not a religion"... Jim talks with John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall about Vervaeke's concept of "the religion that is not a religion." They discuss the need to create a home for ecologies of practices, Jordan and John's ongoing collaboration, the meaning crisis & our wisdom famine, meaning of life vs meaning in life, the category error of prioritizing propositions, limitations of the Axial Age religions, the two worlds mythology, a series of major conceptual involutions, the arising of social engineering, recursion & multi-part toolmaking, challenging the idea that the sacred is supernatural, the imaginal vs the imaginary, disambiguating notions of truth, defining sacred experience, the important & the dangerous, interpreting epiphanies, the ecological notion of rationality, living in the collapse of 19th-century epistemology, the Cartesian promise of certainty, defining religio & equivocation, relevance realization & fundamental connectedness, parallel interventions, the need for both meditative & contemplative practices, folk psychotechnologies, ecologies for communities, religion as the essence of culture, creating birth & death rituals, breastfeeding as religious practice, the question of scaling, creating developmental sequences & pedagogical continuity, embedding Metcalf's law, how practices that increase relationship propagate themselves, the combinatorial feedback loop afforded by shit being fucked, a final sales pitch for young men, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1 (of 5): Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - John Vervaeke (YouTube series) JRS EP26 - Jordan Hall on the Game B Emergence Return to the Source Retreats John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students’ Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century Crisis, which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. Jordan Hall is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 17th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan’s interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolutio...

Currents 074: Serge Faguet on Building Metacommunity Nov 28, 2022

Jim talks with Serge Faguet about emerging transnational networks of cooperation...Jim talks with Serge Faguet about emerging transnational networks of cooperation. They discuss the mismatch between rates of technological development & cooperation abilities, building a good Singularity, uniting an already-existing movement, "the right way to live" as a root of evil, coherent pluralism as a basis for metacommunity, taking responsibility for the world, a coming fork in humanity's future, bringing the universe to life, examples of decentralized community-building, opportunities for applying large language models, technological tools for communities, psychological issues & the insanity of society, TikTok as pure monetization without virtue, the possibility of unlimited energy, omni-consideration, a coming point where money is irrelevant, radical abundance, why we'll have to think about AI as sentient, disappointing dynamics in drug approval, reforming by playing a different game, charter cities, a call to action, and much more. Serge looks forward to receiving any feedback or expressions of interest at first.last@gmail or (better) first_last on Telegram. Episode Transcript Serge Faguet (website) Serge Faguet on Medium The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, by K. Eric Drexler Serge Faguet is a Russian-Ukrainian entrepreneur and prolific thinker. He has founded multiple tech companies including multi-billion-dollar B2B online travel company Emerging Travel Group, concierge medicine care delivery company Novami, AI drug discovery company Multiomic Health, automated clinical trial recruitment company Nexus and Web2 ⇒ Web3 onboarding product Identix. A proponent of biohacking, his vision is to build a large-scale commercial data/biobank that gathers healthcare data to make major progress for increasing productivity, longevity, and quality of life. As a philosopher-entrepreneur, Serge believes that we need to adopt a syncretic approach to innovation and use entrepreneurial ideation to enact enduring material change and eventually construct a more hospitable future for all of humanity. Serge is interested in implementing the principles of Web3 and crypto to build decentralized institutions, govern ourselves, and control our own data. His greatest passions lie in inspiring others to discover their authentic selves through communal collaboration and encouraging political action by creating a healthier, more self-aware society.

Currents 073: Owen Cox and Daniel Fraga on Game C Nov 25, 2022

Jim talks with Owen Cox and Daniel Fraga of the Technosocial podcast about their critique that the GameB movement has underestimated the importance of sex and violence... Jim talks with Owen Cox and Daniel Fraga of the Technosocial podcast about their critique that the GameB movement has underestimated the importance of sex and violence. They discuss the attempt to deal logically with illogical forces, the origins of the Game C joke, the limits of analytical systematization, coherent pluralism, whether GameB is a neo-Benthamism, sex & conflict as spiritual practice, how limits create pleasure clusters, Twitter wars as unacknowledged kink, the social operating systems of Kibbutzes, a norm against pornography, being sophisticated about sexual norms & whether it's possible in a movement designed for everyone, building night-club-style dynamics in GameB, social conviviality, the sublimation of war & violence, allowing ritualized violence, designing social containers that take hidden motivations into account, the end of American hegemony, investigating the moral question of energy usage, Game B's need for more artists & social designers, building more institutions for weirdos, and much more. Episode Transcript Technosocial Podcast (YouTube) Ontological Design: Subject is Project, by Daniel Fraga Game~B Film Game-B.org Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, by René Girard Parallax Sangha - Sweeny vs Bard Ep. 1: Shamanism in the digital age There is an occult axis connecting technology and our darkest desires. Creativity cannot be thought through without including psychoanalysis. Philosophy must not escape from pain, violence and sexuality: it must include them. These are the backdoors to the future. That's what interests Owen Cox and Daniel Fraga, hosts of the Technosocial podcast. Technosocial is a space for thinking about the fringes of the internet and exploring how technology is reshaping society. Only from this excess does "Project" become possible.

EP 169 Roar Bjonnes on Growing a New Economy Nov 14, 2022

Jim talks with Roar Bjonnes about the ideas in his new book co-authored with Caroline Hargreaves, Growing a New Economy: Beyond Crisis Capitalism and Environmental Destruction... Jim talks with Roar Bjonnes about the ideas in his new book co-authored with Caroline Hargreaves, Growing a New Economy: Beyond Crisis Capitalism and Environmental Destruction. They talk about a quote from Naomi Klein, interlocking crises, COP27, the collective cognition problem, replacing the real economy with a financial economy, the idea of inherent selfishness, 4 integrated circles, the carbon pulse, nature as a machine, the misnomer of de-growth, why the U.S. is a debtor economy, dividend money, how the Eurozone made the rich richer, Greece's high military spending, private corporate ownership as a driver of inequality, Doughnut economics, reforming co-op laws, where government ownership comes in, what would happen if finance collapsed, a global jubilee, an approach to eliminating public debt, increasing alternative energy responsibly, resacrilizing economics, rehypothecating collateral, how nation-states should manage their economies, a refutation of comparative advantage, caps on wealth & income, the coming storm, and much more. Episode Transcript Growing a New Economy: Beyond Crisis Capitalism and Environmental Destruction, by Roar Bjonnes & Caroline Hargreaves Systems Change Alliance JRS EP150 - Jeremy Lent on the Web of Meaning The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, by Jeremy Lent JRS EP100 - Sam Bowles on Our Cooperative Nature JRS EP168 - Nate Hagens on Collective Futures "Dividend Money: An Alternative to Central Banker Managed Fractional Reserve Banking Money" - Jim Rutt @ Santa Fe Institute (YouTube) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, by Karl Polanyi Roar Bjonnes is the co-founder of Systems Change Alliance, a long-time environmental activist, and a writer on ecology and alternative economics, which he terms eco-economics. He was the editor of the American Common Future magazine in the mid-90s, a magazine that featured some of the first articles taking a critical look at green capitalism and the sustainable development model. He is the co-author of the book Growing a New Economy, which critiques the multiple crises caused by growth-capitalism and outlines the macro-economic framework for a new eco-economy. World-renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben called the book “a hopeful account of the possibilities contained in our current crisis.”

EP 168 Nate Hagens on Collective Futures Oct 31, 2022

Jim talks with Nate Hagens about his new book co-authored with DJ White, Reality Blind: Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures, volume 1... Jim talks with Nate Hagens about his new book co-authored with DJ White, Reality Blind: Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures, volume 1. They discuss Nate's Reality 101 course, the core fundamental drivers of our current situation, writing "through an alien lens," steering away from optimism and pessimism, the tradeoff between accuracy and helpfulness, telling the truth & letting the chips fall, the buildup of underground carbon, the carbon pulse, a bank account of ancient sunlight, invention of the Newcomen atmospheric engine, the Jevons paradox, exponential growth in a finite world, disliking the word "degrowth," how humanity became a heat engine, gene agendas, advertising as the most deleterious invention, fast fashion, hypernovelty, trophic pyramids, the sixth great extinction, building a post-carbon life, energy as the currency of life, energy return on investment, why we don't want free energy, thinking about the future probabilistically, predicting a drop in the resource economy, hitting the reset button on finance, consumer abundance as a peacock's tail, and much more. Episode Transcript Propaganda, by Edward L. Bernays The Century of the Self (documentary by Adam Curtis) Dr. Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF) an organization focused on educating and preparing society for the coming cultural transition. Formerly in the finance industry at Lehman Brothers and Salomon Brothers, since 2003 Nate has shifted his focus to understanding the interrelationships between energy, environment, and finance and the implication this synthesis has for human futures. Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens, in which he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, government, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us.

Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI Oct 18, 2022

Jim talks with Ben Goertzel about the ideas in his recent essay "Three Viable Paths to True AGI"... Jim talks with Ben Goertzel about the ideas in his recent essay "Three Viable Paths to True AGI." They discuss the meaning of artificial general intelligence, Steve Wozniak's basic AGI test, whether common tasks actually require AGI, a conversation with Joscha Bach, why deep neural nets are unsuited for human-level AGI, the challenge of extrapolating world-models, why imaginative improvisation might not be interesting to corporations, the 3 approaches that might have merit (cognition-level, brain-level, and chemistry-level), the OpenCog system Ben is working on, whether it's a case of "good old-fashioned AI," where evolution fits into the approach, why deep neural nets aren't brain simulations & attempts to make them more realistic, a hypothesis about how to improve generalization, neural nets for music & the psychological landscape of AGI research, algorithmic chemistry & the origins of life problem, why AGI deserves more resources than it's getting, why we may need better parallel architectures, how & how much society should invest in new approaches, the possibility of a cultural shift toward AGI viability, and much more. Episode Transcript "Three Viable Paths to True AGI," by Ben Goertzel (Substack) JRS Currents 025: Ben Goertzel on Decentralizing Social Media JRS EP3 - Dr. Ben Goertzel – OpenCog, AGI and SingularityNET JRS EP87 - Joscha Bach on Theories of Consciousness JRS EP25 - Gary Marcus on Rebooting AI OpenCog Hyperon "Algorithmic Chemistry," by Walter Fontana JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life Dr. Ben Goertzel is a cross-disciplinary scientist, entrepreneur and author. Born in Brazil to American parents, in 2020 after a long stretch living in Hong Kong he relocated his primary base of operations to a rural island near Seattle. He leads the SingularityNET Foundation, the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society which runs the annual Artificial General Intelligence conference. Dr. Goertzel’s research work encompasses multiple areas including artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds, gaming, parapsychology, theoretical physics and more. He also chairs the futurist nonprofit Humanity+, serves as Chief Scientist of AI firms Rejuve, Mindplex, Cogito and Jam Galaxy, all parts of the SingularityNET ecosystem, and serves as keyboardist and vocalist in the Jam Galaxy Band, the first-ever band led by a humanoid robot.

EP 167 Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life Oct 13, 2022

Jim talks with Bruce Damer about the origins of life... Jim talks with Bruce Damer about the origins of life. They discuss what Earth was like 4 billion years ago, how the oceans formed, the new concept of urability, the distinction between supporting life & bringing it into being, the source of organic building blocks, combinatorial selection, the ocean vents theory vs the warm little pond hypothesis, the Murchison meteorite, wet-dry cycling, the water problem, using stromatolites & other natural analogs to test conjectures, finding the oldest evidence of life in a hot spring setting, shouting matches as evidence of paradigm shifts, what warm pools were made of, a one-pot solution that's testable at every stage, the source of vesicles, why the ocean is implausible as a starting point, chemical gardens, the great search for the origins of emergence, semipermeable membranes, "the ignoble sludge of the Progenitor," the jacuzzi origin of life, the origin of life as a communal unit, the ratchet to greater complexity, thermal change in near-real time, the error catastrophe in evolutionary computing, actual experiments being performed, the Fermi paradox & astrobiological implications, a hot spring on Mars, urability scores, the Drake equation, where complexity theory meets biology, the rarity of complex life & the responsibility that comes with it, bringing the universe to life, and much more. Episode Transcript Bruce Damer's TEDx talk: The Origin & Purpose of Life JRS EP40 - Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems The BIOTA Institute "The Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life," by Bruce Damer & David Deamer JRS EP18 - Stuart Kauffman on Complexity, Biology & T.A.P. "The Water Paradox and the Origins of Life" (Nature), by Michael Marshall "Urability: A Property of Planetary Bodies That Can Support an Origin of Life," by David Deamer and Bruce Damer Canadian-born Dr. Bruce Damer has spent his life pursuing two questions: how did life on Earth begin? and how can we give that life (and ourselves) a sustainable pathway into the future and a presence beyond the Earth? A decade of laboratory and field research with his collaborator Prof. David Deamer at UCSC and teams around the world resulted in the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life, published in Scientific American in 2017 and the journal Astrobiology in 2020. The scenario has now passed its first key experimental tests in the laboratory and at volcanic hot springs around the world and has emerged as a leading contender for a general theory of abiogenesis. Implications of the work are now spreading through evolutionary biology, philosophy, AI and the search for life beyond Earth. New work with collaborators has proposed the urability framework, how life can start on many different worlds, and addresses some aspects of the Fermi Paradox.

Currents 071: Liam Madden on Rebirthing Democracy Oct 10, 2022

Jim talks with Liam Madden, a congressional candidate in Vermont who strongly resonates with the GameB ethos... Jim talks with Liam Madden, a congressional candidate in Vermont who strongly resonates with the GameB ethos. They discuss Liam's decision to run as a Republican, Vermont's primary laws, personal responsibility & community as reciprocal values, stewarding complex & godlike technologies, the Consilience Project, the sacredness of life, the meaning crisis, Ted Kaczynski's critiques, ending war mentality, multipolar traps, fixing the machinery of democracy, liquid democracy, ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, election finance reform, qualified democracy, the possibility of a constitutional convention, an alternative to universal basic income, monetary reform, ending the growth imperative, creating a Public Service Corps, risks of exponential technology, how the campaign is going so far, what Liam would need to win, Jim's endorsement, and much more. Episode Transcript Rebirth Democracy (Liam's website) @LiamAwakening on Twitter Game-B.org The Consilience Project Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition, by Charles Eisenstein Nate Hagens (website) Daniel Schmachtenberger (website) JRS EP32 - Jason Brennan on Irrational Democracy & Academia Liam Madden is a Marine Corps veteran who became the leader of America's largest antiwar organization of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and winner of the Institute for Policy Studies Human Rights Award. As an entrepreneur Liam won M.I.T.'s Solve award for organizations innovating solutions to climate change. His work has been covered by 60 Minutes, the NY Times, & most other major media. Liam is an independent who won a Congressional primary election on a platform centered around reforms to the two-party system.

Currents 070: Brian Chau on Propaganda & Populism Oct 06, 2022

Jim talks with Brian Chau about seeing the world as it is, not as we wish it to be... Jim talks with Brian Chau about seeing the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. They discuss the firehose of bullshit, how modern-day propaganda works, QAnon & Pizzagate, the idea of egregores, adapting our biases against a drastically increased sample size, paranoia about child safety & kidnapping, why the vast majority of Americans are populist, the perception that our institutions are bankrupt, the golden rule of institutions, the CDC's banning of Covid tests, status as the ability to efficiently align with power, mainstream media as status engine, why populism is growing & where it might lead, the Edelman Trust Barometer, the difficulty of converting public sentiment into actual policy, and much more. Episode Transcript From the New World (Substack) "All Hail the Firehose of Bullshit" by Brian Chau "Playing Both Sides: Russian State-Backed Media Coverage of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement" - Stanford Internet Observatory JRS Currents 024: BJ Campell on the Woke Religion JRS EP 161 Greg Thomas on Untangling the Gordian Knot of Race The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff JRS Currents 050: Greg Lukianoff on Free Speech "'SADLY, PORN': Propaganda for a Future that Forgot History," by Brian Chau Brian Chau is a mathematician by training and is tied for the youngest Canadian to win a gold medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics. He writes software for a living while posting on his spare time. He writes independently on American bureaucracy and political theory and has contributed to Tablet Magazine. His political philosophy can be summed up as “see the world as it is, not as you wish it to be.” Everything else is application.

Currents 069: Bonnitta Roy and Euvie Ivanova on Collective Intimacy Oct 03, 2022

Jim talks with Euvie Ivanova and Bonnitta Roy about a recent Twitter exchange exploring intimacy as "both the problem and the solution"... Jim talks with Euvie Ivanova and Bonnitta Roy about a recent Twitter exchange exploring intimacy as "both the problem and the solution." They discuss the context of the exchange, today's shallowness & loneliness epidemics, Bonnitta's recent retreat at the Monastic Academy, intimacy as the breakdown of self-other boundaries, somatic markers of the truth-sense, porous membranes, "actual thought rather than simulated thinking," Euvie's experience of collective intimacy at an Emerge conference, Dunbar numbers & nested group coherences, embodied conceptualization & why it's needed now, Jim's experience at early GameB meetings, intimacy & risk-taking, the limits of pro-sociality, speaking dangerous ideas, regaining bodily play, attachment as a feature not a bug, why intimacy isn't attachment, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP17 - Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity Currents 018: The Future Thinkers Smart Village The Pop-Up School (Substack) by Bonnitta Roy Earth Mother (Substack) by Euvie Ivanova Future Thinkers Monastic Academy Diana Fosha (Wikipedia) Euvie Ivanova is a media producer, speaker, educator, and mama. She is the co-founder of FutureThinkers.org, a podcast and community dedicated to the evolution of society, technology, and consciousness towards a regenerative future. She is currently in the early stages of building a regenerative village in Canada. Bonnitta Roy teaches insight practices for individuals who are developing meta-cognitive skills, and hosts collective insight retreats to help groups break away from limiting patterns of thought. Her teaching highlights the embodied, affective and perceptual aspects of the core self, and the non-egoic potentials from which subtle sensing, intuition and insight emerge. In 2021 she started the POP-UP School to bring her teaching to a larger audience. Through her company, C-LABS, Bonnitta is developing applications that can visualize changing patterns as teams work through complex problems. Her research shows how simple but powerful protocols that underlie these patterns can be used to represent various dispositional states of human systems. Bonnitta is the author of the popular Medium publication Our Future at Work. She is an associate editor of Integral Review where you can also find her articles on process approaches to consciousness, perception, and metaphysics.

EP 166 Lene Rachel Andersen Part 2: Libertism Sep 30, 2022

Jim talks with Lene Rachel Andersen in the second of a two-part series about her new book Libertism: Grasping the 21st Century, picking up where they left off in the book's 18 sub-patterns of being... Jim talks with Lene Rachel Andersen in the second of a two-part series about her new book Libertism: Grasping the 21st Century, picking up where they left off in the book's 18 sub-patterns of being. They discuss selfish genes & memes, Rene Girard's mimetics, the responsibility of replication in the era of electronic media, TikTok's threat to an open society, the sacred as highest organizing principle, culture bildung & the challenge of transfer, training empathy, schismogenesis, coherent pluralism, tolerating & understanding other people's values, culture capitalism, danger of the growth imperative, the possibility of AI arbitrage in virtual currencies, bank debt & money-on-money return, the need for functional post-capitalist operating systems, exponential growth & the possibility of an environmental singularity, limits to growth, whether answers will come from politics, the possibility of phase transition, the AGI timeline & danger scenarios, benefits of liberal democracy, bimodality in democracies, starting a political party, the vertical axis in politics, balancing between the three major political ideologies, and much more. Episode Transcript EP 165 Lene Rachel Andersen Part 1: Libertism Libertism: Grasping the 21st Century, by Lene Rachel Andersen Metamodernity: Meaning and Hope in a Complex World, by Lene Rachel Andersen JRS EP89 – Lene Rachel Andersen on Metamodernity JRS Currents 043: Lene Rachel Andersen on Bildung JRS EP59 – Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow EP 153 Forrest Landry on Small Group Method Lene Rachel Andersen is an economist, author, futurist, philosopher and Bildung activist. She heads the think tank Nordic Bildung in Copenhagen and is a member of the Club of Rome. After studying business economy for three years, she worked as a temp teacher before studying theology. During her studies, she wrote entertainment for Danish television until she decided to quit theology, become a full-time writer, and focus on technological development, big history, and the future of humanity. Since 2005, she has written 18 books and received two Danish democracy awards: Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and Døssing Prisen, the Danish librarians’ democracy prize (2012). Among her books are The Nordic Secret (2017), co-developed and edited by Club of Rome member Tomas Björkman, Metamodernity (2019), and Bildung (2020).

EP 165 Lene Rachel Andersen Part 1: Libertism Sep 22, 2022

Jim talks with Lene Rachel Andersen in the first of a two-part series about her new book Libertism: Grasping the 21st Century... Jim talks with Lene Rachel Andersen in the first of a two-part series about her new book Libertism: Grasping the 21st Century. They discuss rediscovering the word libertism, hypermodernity vs. metamodernity, combining experience from different epochs in fruitful ways, distinguishing metamodernity from metamodernism, why culture is ours and we can change it, gardening rather than designing, random variation in populations, catering to & learning from the outliers, reasoned free speech on the internet, why people with reach have a responsibility to speak up, evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS's), how the steam engine destroyed craftsmanship, the welfare state as an ESS, the species exclusion principle, coherent pluralism, loops within loops in complex systems, why the bunker-builders will all die of cholera, regenerative agriculture, soil as the real basis of our civilization, finding inflection points, the global climate as a chaotic system, the meaning crisis, how language created the inner/outer duality, providing the services of religion without the metaphysical baggage, participating in the loops of nature, different historical conceptions of the sacred & why we need all of them, religion & social infrastructure, scale-free networks & hubs of meaning-making, whether AI & capitalism can coexist, and much more. Episode Transcript Libertism: Grasping the 21st Century, by Lene Rachel Andersen Metamodernity: Meaning and Hope in a Complex World, by Lene Rachel Andersen JRS EP89 - Lene Rachel Andersen on Metamodernity JRS Currents 043: Lene Rachel Andersen on Bildung "Notes on Metamodernism" (2010), by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker JRS EP36 - Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism JRS EP59 - Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, by Douglas Rushkoff Lene Rachel Andersen is an economist, author, futurist, philosopher and Bildung activist. She heads the think tank Nordic Bildung in Copenhagen and is a member of the Club of Rome. After studying business economy for three years, she worked as a temp teacher before studying theology. During her studies, she wrote entertainment for Danish television until she decided to quit theology, become a full-time writer, and focus on technological development, big history, and the future of humanity. Since 2005, she has written 18 books and received two Danish democracy awards: Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and Døssing Prisen, the Danish librarians’ democracy prize (2012). Among her books are The Nordic Secret (2017), co-developed and edited by Club of Rome member Tomas Björkman, Metamodernity (2019), and Bildung (2020).

Currents 068: Jonathan Rowson on the Chess Drama Sep 22, 2022

Jim talks with Grandmaster chess player and philosopher Jonathan Rowson about the recent drama between Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann in the Champions Chess Tour...Jim talks with Grandmaster chess player and philosopher Jonathan Rowson about the recent drama between Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann in the Champions Chess Tour. They discuss Rowson's chess background, the bare facts of the kerfuffle, Niemann's persona & career trajectory, present evidence for whether Niemann cheated & the reasonable odds that he won fairly, how Carlsen might know whether he cheated, Carlsen's special information access, theories about how cheating in chess might be accomplished, the risk of paranoia in chess & chess culture, and much more. JRS Currents 041: Jonathan Rowson on Our Metacrisis Pickle The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life, by Jonathan Rowson Jonathan Rowson is co-founder and director of the research institute Perspectiva based in London. He is also the former director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts and is a chess grandmaster and three-time British Chess Champion. His books include The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, Chess for Zebras, Spiritualize: Cultivating Spiritual Sensibility to Address 21st Century Challenges, and, The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life.

EP 164 John Markoff on the Many Lives of Stewart Brand Sep 19, 2022

Jim talks with John Markoff about his new biography, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand... Jim talks with John Markoff about his new biography, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand. They discuss the meme of Brand as a Zelig, his role as a catalyst, the Pace Layers model, why Brand wasn't a pure libertarian, a Hemingwayesque boyhood, a commitment to conservation, relentless networking, the influence of Frederic Spiegelberg, involvement with psychedelics, his work at a logging outfit, a strong negative reaction to tribalism & why tribal resonances are never the edge, Brand's reading habits, North Beach bohemianism, periods of womanizing, Al Hubbard & the roots of the human potential movement, the Sequoyah Seminar, military service, the International Foundation for Advanced Study, working as organizer with Kesey & the Merry Pranksters, Brand's resistance to being "on the bus," creation & significance of the Whole Earth Catalog, influence of Buckminster Fuller, failure of the Whole Earth Software Catalog, creation of The Well, the Ecopragmatist Manifesto & Brand's defense of nuclear energy, the Global Business Network, the Long Now Foundation & getting people to think long-term, and much more. Episode Transcript Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand, by John Markoff The Long Now Foundation Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, by Eric Hoffer The Well The Art Of The Long View: Planning For The Future In An Uncertain World, by Peter Schwartz How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built, by Stewart Brand "The Maintenance Race," by Stewart Brand John Markoff is an affiliate fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human Centered Artificial Intelligence and a staff historian at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. He has written about technology and science since 1977. From 1988 to 2016 he reported on technology, science, and Silicon Valley for the New York Times. His work has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize four times, and in 2013 he was awarded a Pulitzer in explanatory reporting. Markoff is the co-author of The High Cost of High Tech, Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, and Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw. He is the author of What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry and Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots. He and his wife live in Palo Alto, CA.

EP 163 Benedict Beckeld on Western Self-Contempt Aug 25, 2022

Jim talks with Benedict Beckeld about his new book Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Decline of Civilizations... Jim talks with Benedict Beckeld about his new book Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Decline of Civilizations. They discuss the meaning of oikophobia—hatred of one's homeland—its recurrence throughout history, the prevalence of oikophobia in the U.S., a continuum from xenophobia to oikophobia, finding the Aristotelian golden mean, oikophobia in academia, the development of self-criticism in ancient Greece and in Rome, the relationship between oikophobia & decadence, the conquest of Rome by Christianity, how freedom & religion regulate oikophobia, the Enlightenment & its relation to progressivism, the noble lie, the "religion that is not a religion," two opposite oikophobic tendencies, the double-edged sword of liberty, liberation without progressivism, the civilizational problem of boredom, and much more. Episode Transcript Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Decline of Civlizations, by Benedict Beckeld The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper JRS EP 160 - Curtis Yarvin on Monarchy in the U.S.A. JRS EP 143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, by John Vervaeke (YouTube series) The Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom Benedict Beckeld is a philosopher and writer who holds a PhD in Philosophy and Classical Philology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. His latest book is Western Self-Contempt: Oikophobia in the Decline of Civilizations (2022), published by Cornell University Press.

EP 162 Max Borders on Decentralism Aug 15, 2022

Jim talks with recurring guest Max Borders about the ideas in his new book The Decentralist: Mission, Morality, and Meaning in the Age of Crypto... Jim talks with recurring guest Max Borders about the ideas in his new book The Decentralist: Mission, Morality, and Meaning in the Age of Crypto. They discuss happiness as a common ground, a eudaimonistic sensibility, the marshmallow experiment & deferred gratification, how inflation affects behavioral discount rates, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, von Mises's praxeology, reconciling individual & collective agency, coherent pluralism, Chomsky's syndicalism, Enlightenment liberalism, practices of morality, Bitcoin's deflationary tendency, Holochain, recessions as times of healing, guided mutation in crypto, DAO contracts, stacks of authority, asymptotic anarchy, the doctrine of subsidiarity, imagining high-trust societies, the tension between welfare & moral responsibility, breaking up the state's monopoly on policing, compulsion & persuasion, the 3 governors, masculinity & femininity X eros & thanatos, 6 moral spheres & approaching them coherently, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 119 - Max Borders on Post-Collapse "Understanding Addiction as a Pathology of Temporal Horizon," Warren Bickel et al. JRS EP 160 - Curtis Yarvin on Monarchy in the U.S.A. "Curtis Yarvin: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly," by Max Borders "Dividend Money: An Alternative to Central Banker Managed Fractional Reserve Banking Money" by Jim Rutt (lecture) The Network State, by Balaji Srinivasan JRS EP 153 - Forrest Landry on Small Group Method The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State, by Bruce L. Benson JRS EP148 - Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing Max Borders is the founder and Executive Director of Social Evolution—a non-profit organization dedicated to liberating humanity through innovation. Max is also co-founder of the Future Frontiers event. He is the author of After Collapse and The Social Singularity.

Currents 067: Zak Stein on Ending Nihilistic Design Jul 25, 2022

Jim talks with recurring guest Zak Stein about the Consilience Project's article "Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design"... Jim talks with recurring guest Zak Stein about the Consilience Project's article "Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design." They discuss how technologies actualize & encode values, 2nd- & 3rd-order effects of technologies, the "invisible hand" approach to design, effects of cars on culture, landscapes, & sexuality, the work of historian of technology Lewis Mumford, how smartphones affect structures of communication & cognition, how the bathroom scale changed the meaning of health, clock time & capitalism, the deskilling tradeoff of technology, how Facebook became a case study in nihilistic design, the difficulty of predicting nth-order effects, monitoring & predicting psychosocial externalities, Jim's role in early social-media design choices, axiological design, our accidental planetary computational stack, developing co-responsibility in tech, whether banning advertising could change everything, 5 propositions towards axiological design, thinking about tech & its users in the whole context, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP113 - Zak Stein on Hierarchical Complexity Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design," by The Consilience Project Currents 063: Jessica Flack on nth-Order Effects of the Russia-Ukraine War Free: The Future of a Radical Price, by Chris Anderson The End of Protest: A New Playbook for Revolution, by Micah White Zachary Stein is a writer, educator, and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. He studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published two books. Social Justice and Educational Measurement was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book, Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. He’s a scholar at the Ronin Institute, Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and scientific advisor to the board of the Neurohacker Collective, as well as a co-founder of The Consilience Project.

Currents 066: Matthew Pirkowski on Emergence in Possibility Space Jul 22, 2022

Jim continues his discussion with Matthew Pirkowski on ideas of emergence and how they can be applied to today's meta-crisis... Jim continues his discussion with Matthew Pirkowski on ideas of emergence and how they can be applied to today's meta-crisis. They discuss the meaning of emergence, treating potential as ontologically real, exaptation & meta-adaptation, path dependency in the history of science, the naivety of closed systems, the apparent tension between energy efficiency & energy production, how GameA status signaling limits solution space, slack in metabolism & civilization, how greater energy inputs could synchronize with regenerative agriculture, carbon tax as a signal, the infosphere substrate of human self-organization, inertia vs conertia, artifactual membranes old & new, humanity's giant exaptic leap into a new possibility space, destabilization & continuity of creative expression, the tradeoff between exploration & exploitation, unifying mathematics, thermodynamics, & free energy mathematics, systems as model-generating agents, the representation of values & the lack of telos in online interaction spaces, an invitation to collaborate, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 053: Matthew Pirkowski on Grammars of Emergence Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter, by Terrence Deacon JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind's Emergence From Matter The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold Morowitz JRS EP 159 - Bobby Azarian on the Romance of Reality The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, by W. Brian Arthur Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature, by Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future, by Vaclav Smil Energy and Civilization: A History, by Vaclav Smil "On the Phenomenology of Hyper-Connectivity," by Matthew Pirkowski Matthew Pirkowski works at the intersection of software, psychology, and complex systems. These interests first took root while studying Evolutionary Psychology and assisting with Behavioral Economic research at Yale’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory. From there Matthew began a career in software engineering, where he applied these interests to the development of software interfaces used by millions around the world, most notably as a member of Netflix’s Television UI team, where he worked on experimental initiatives conceptualizing and prototyping the future of entertainment software. Presently, Matthew consults on systems architecture, advises companies within the startup space, and writes about topics related to the evolution of human socioeconomic, technological, and representational systems–in particular the emergence and impact of cryptoeconomic protocols, as outlined in his Crypto Beyond Capitalism essay series. He spends most of his free time maintaining, restoring, and growing food on 6 recently acquired acres of Oregon woodlands.

EP 161 Greg Thomas on Untangling the Gordian Knot of Race Jul 18, 2022

Jim talks with Greg Thomas about American democracy & the problems created by racial essentialism & racialization... Jim talks with Greg Thomas about American democracy & the problems created by racial essentialism & racialization. They discuss the Jazz Leadership Project, jazz as metaphor, the connection between racism & the concept of race, the slave trade's role in producing racial essentialism, Bacon's Rebellion & subsequent divide-and-conquer legislation, justifications for exploitation, the horrors of chattel slavery, a mutual love of Stanley Crouch & Fifties jazz, transcending race & including culture, Albert Murray's "omni-American identity," 3 foundational American archetypes, the developmental challenge of overcoming tribalism, legacy media's structural bias toward conflict, why Ibram X. Kendi & Robin DiAngelo's anti-racist books reify race, the blues as tragicomic & affirmative, varieties of racism, the impact of not thinking & acting in racial terms, appropriation as the way culture works, searching for something better than the past, and much more. Episode Transcript "Resolving the Race(ism) Dilemma" (event) The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy, by Albert Murray The All-American Skin Game, or, The Decoy of Race, by Stanley Crouch Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life, by Karen & Barbara Fields Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost its Mind, by Jamie Wheal Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, by James P. Carse "Why race-based framings of social issues hurt us all," by Greg Thomas American Humor: A Study of the National Character, by Constance Rourke Greg Thomas is CEO of the Jazz Leadership Project. He curates and facilitates business workshops and humanities programs for a range of organizations, including JPMorgan Chase, Verizon, NYPD, TD Bank, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Google. He’s written on jazz and democratic life for Areo, New Republic, The Root, New York Daily News, The Developmentalist, and his blog, Tune In To Leadership. Greg is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Cultural Evolution and an Advisor to The Consilience Project. As an educator, he has presented on virtual platforms such as Rebel Wisdom and The Stoa, and served as a lead instructor for courses on Cultural Intelligence and “Stepping Up: Wrestling with America’s Past, Reimagining Its Future, Healing Together.” He’s also a co-producer of the annual “Shaping an Omni-American Future” event. Greg has lectured at institutions such as Columbia, Hamilton, Ben Gurion University, and Harvard.

EP 160 Curtis Yarvin on Monarchy in the U.S.A. Jul 07, 2022

Jim talks with Curtis Yarvin about his proposal to replace our current government with a monarchy, part of an ongoing exploration of problems with and alternatives to democracy... Jim talks with Curtis Yarvin about his proposal to replace our current government with a monarchy, part of an ongoing exploration of problems with and alternatives to democracy. They discuss a regime-change thought experiment beginning with liquid democracy, the goals of democracy & the feeling of being in charge, why our government doesn't actually have an executive branch, democracy's broken steering linkage, the negative characterization of "politics," optimizing liquid democracy to take & hold power, delegation as power projection, why the French people didn't revolt against the Jacobins, forces that led to Trump's election, the relationship between binding & power, the Yellow Vest protests, the problem of finding a philosopher-king, democracy as a claim to legitimacy, our minimal level of political activation, Julius Caesar's innovation, joyous regime change, monarchy as a unifying force, polarization as a product of institutional design, monarchic regimes in recent history & their relevance, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 022: Curtis Yarvin on Institutional Failure Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, by Albert Jay Nock The Origins of Contemporary France, by Hippolyte Taine (Project Gutenberg) Curtis Yarvin is author of the Gray Mirror Substack. He previously wrote the blog Unqualified Reservations under the pen-name Mencius Moldbug. As Moldbug, he was the founder of the anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic movement known as Neo-Reaction (NRX).

EP 159 Bobby Azarian on the Romance of Reality Jul 06, 2022

Jim talks with Bobby Azarian about the ideas in his new book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity, which Jim calls "the most Jim Rutt Show-ish book ever"... Jim talks with Bobby Azarian about the ideas in his new book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity, which Jim calls "the most Jim Rutt Show-ish book ever." They discuss the meaning & limits of reductionism, why the universe may not be moving toward an increasingly disordered state, life as a channel for dissipating energy, dissipative adaptation, self-organization as Darwinian process, the Fermi paradox, an evolutionary arms race of complexity, biology as knowledge creation, the emergence of agency, the Bayesian Brain Hypothesis, how symbolic thought opens up design space, the probability of complex life, teleology at local & universal scales, Teilhard de Chardin's omega point, global workspace theory, phenomenal vs access consciousness, whether the internet is a global brain, applying the weak & strong anthropic principle to multiverse theory, cosmological natural selection, life as central to reality, and much more. Episode Transcript The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity, by Bobby Azarian JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind's Emergence From Matter JRS EP 105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS EP 18 - Stuart Kauffman on Complexity, Biology & T.A.P. JRS EP 116 - Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, by Stuart Kauffman The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by John Barrow & Frank Tipler JRS EP 108 - Bernard Baars on Consciousness JRS EP 5 - Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution Bobby Azarian is a science journalist and a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD from the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. He has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, Scientific American, BBC, Slate, and Aeon. His blog Mind in the Machine hosted by Psychology Today has over 8 million views. He worked on the Emmy-nominated show Mind Field, and he is the author of the new book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself To Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity.

Currents 065: Alexander Bard on Protopian Narratology Jun 30, 2022

Jim talks with Alexander Bard, continuing a series of encounters between GameB and the Dark Renaissance movement... Jim talks with Alexander Bard, continuing a series of encounters between GameB and the Dark Renaissance movement. They discuss the Grand Narrative Trilogy Bard has been writing with Jan Söderqvist, the kinds of stories we tell about ourselves, why Hiroshima remains the signal event of modern history, fostering symbiotic intelligence, the difference between the GameA & the GameB mythos, imploitation vs exploitation, 3 historical roots of GameA, why AI & not humans may conquer space, jettisoning the Gnostic dualism of Greek philosophy, protopianism over utopianism, voluntary communist protopias, increasing well-being while reducing energy consumption, designing membranes & protocols, reclaiming "gated community," a designed opposition between GameB & the Dark Renaissance, reversing the ban on pathos, the Zoroastrian approach to contingency & ethics, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP95 - Alexander Bard on God in the Internet Age An Initiation to Game~B The Stoa: Game B Meets the Dark Renaissance w/ Jim Rutt, Zak Stein, Alexander Bard, and Cadell Last Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age, by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist Digital Libido: Sex, Power and Violence in the Network Society, by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist Netocracy: The New Power Elite and Life After Capitalism, by Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist Alexander Bard is a philosopher, futurologist, and political and spiritual activist, based in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the author of five books: The Netocrats, The Global Empire, The Body Machines, Syntheism – Creating God in The Internet Age, and Digital Libido – Sex, Power and Violence in The Network Society with his co-writer Jan Söderqvist. Bard is a radical process philosopher, merging Hegel and Nietzsche with Whitehead and Deleuze, using humanity as the constant and technology as the variable while working toward the deepest possible understanding of human history, contemporary society, and the intensely technology-driven future that humanity is facing. Bard has also enjoyed a highly successful 25-year-career as a producer and artist in the international music industry, followed by ten years as a tough love, reality-checking judge on TV shows “Swedish Idol” and “Sweden’s Got Talent”, and is an outspoken and provocative YouTube and Twitter celebrity.

Who Are You EP 01: Seth Jordan on Social Threefolding Jun 16, 2022

This is the first, experimental episode of Who Are You, a subseries of the Jim Rutt Show in which Jim has an unplanned conversation with a mystery guest nominated and elected by listeners... This is the first, experimental episode of Who Are You, a subseries of the Jim Rutt Show in which Jim has an unplanned conversation with a mystery guest nominated and elected by listeners. In this episode he meets Seth Jordan, a writer focusing on the social ideas of Rudolf Steiner. They discuss Steiner’s view of society, the differences between complicated & complex & between operating systems & organisms, the contingency of human systems & methods of nudging, starting with human nature, a tripartite picture of government functions, breaking society into political, economic, and cultural realms & whether they should be kept separate, the dominance of culture by the economic realm, organizing at the meso-scale, the Amish & other intact local cultures, giving full autonomy to educators, the post-WWI creation of the nation-state & the advantages of separating nation from state, making participation a reality, moving from “me” to “we,” honoring cross-cultural autonomy, separation of church & state, the challenge of community coherence, and much more. Episode Transcript The Whole Social (Substack) Transforming Society: Seeds for a New Social Understanding (course) JRS EP65 - Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity JRS EP66 - Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Knowledge Capital and Ideology, by Thomas Piketty Game~B Film Towards Social Renewal, by Rudolf Steiner Seth Jordan has been working with Steiner’s social ideas, often called “social threefolding,” since 2007 when he co-founded and directed Think OutWord, a peer-led training for young adults in threefolding that ran intensive workshops and conferences for 8 years. Seth has organized and taught throughout the USA, Europe, Scandinavia, and the Philippines, and in recent years he's consolidated much of that work into a 12 lesson distance-learning course called "Transforming Society" (educaredo.org/transforming-society). Seth writes regularly about current events from a threefolding perspective at The Whole Social (thewholesocial.substack.com).

Currents 064: Michael Garfield and J.F. Martel on Art x AI Jun 13, 2022

Jim talks with Michael Garfield and J.F. Martel about the intersection of AI and art... Jim talks with Michael Garfield and J.F. Martel about the intersection of AI and art. They discuss DALL-E & Midjourney, whether conscious agency is necessary for art, artifice vs discernment, Jung's synchronicity, AI art as dreaming, discernment & consecration, the modern vs the algorithmic self, the CIA's role in funding abstract expressionism, the imaginal aspect & Walter Benjamin's historicity, Borges's Library of Babel & problems with infinity, biological reproduction as the central technological issue, the tension between prediction and understanding, art's inherent unpredictability, garage bands, noise & play in artistic creativity, returning to the analog world, and much more. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, by J.F. Martel Weird Studies (podcast) Future Fossils (podcast) "AI Art Isn't Art," by Erik Hoel "An Oral History of The End of 'Reality'," by Michael Garfield "The Work of Art in the Age of Biocybernetic Reproduction," by W.J.T. Mitchell Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, by Douglas Rushkoff "The Future Is Noisy," by Michael Garfield JRS EP130 - Ken Stanley on Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned "Harnessing Chaos and Predicting the Unpredictable with A.I." (video lecture), Michelle Girvan @ SFI Artist and philosopher Michael Garfield helps people navigate our age of accelerating weirdness and cultivate the curiosity and play we'll need to thrive in it. As host and producer of both Future Fossils Podcast & The Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Podcast, Michael acts as interlocutor for a worldwide community of artists, scientists, and philosophers — a practice fed by and and feeding back into his fifteen years of synthetic and transdisciplinary "mind-jazz" performances in the form of essay, avant-guitar, and live painting. Bearing the standard for a new generation of mystic-scholars and refusing to be enslaved by a single perspective, creative medium, or intellectual community, Michael walks through the walls between academia and festival culture, theory and practice — speaking and performing everywhere from Moogfest to Burning Man, SXSW to Boom Festival, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to Long Now's Ignite Talks to The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors while raising two kids. J.F. Martel is a Canadian writer, filmmaker, and podcaster. He is the author of Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, published in 2015 by Evolver Editions. In addition to making several dramatic short films, he has worked as screenwriter and director on numerous television documentary programs for French and English broadcasters, in Canada and abroad. With musicologist Phil Ford, Martel co-hosts Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast. His Twitter handle is @jf_martel.

EP 158 Remzi Bajrami on Flow Currency Jun 09, 2022

Jim talks to Remzi Bajrami about the ideas in his book Common Planet: A New Game of Life... Jim talks to Remzi Bajrami about the ideas in his book Common Planet: A New Game of Life. They discuss what GameB means to him, three classes of players, whether property or profit is the engine of GameA, the source of value, the value of careful labor, the generator function of money-on-money return, historical origins of GameA, the good GameA has done, one meaning of anarchism, rules without rulers, why socialists & capitalists have both been playing GameA, why Universal Basic Income isn't enough, how money supply works in GameA, moving from circulation to flow currency, advantages of a central ledger, addressing the calculation problem, unpacking proof of value, how collective decisions would be handled, participating by choice rather than by force, and much more. Episode Transcript Common Planet: A New Game of Life, by Remzi Bajrami Game~B Film Game-B.org The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, by David Graeber Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber JRS EP 153 - Forrest Landry on Small Group Method

Currents 063: Jessica Flack on nth-Order Effects of the Russia-Ukraine War Jun 06, 2022

Jim talks with Jessica Flack about nth-order effects of the war in Ukraine... Jim talks with Jessica Flack about nth-order effects of the war in Ukraine. They discuss the meaning of second- and nth-order effects, black swans, Gaussian vs fat-tailed distribution models of extreme social events, factoring in Ukraine's wheat & Russia's fertilizer production, agency & reflexivity, how perceptions of events as extreme can amplify second-order effects, the "hot hand phenomenon" in sports, the black swan of war in Europe, swift coordination against Putin as an effect of collective intelligence failures around Covid, Russia's "escalate-to-de-escalate" doctrine, arena selection & lessons China might take from the war, the possibility of a bipolar war between democratic-leaning & authoritarian countries, network effects of excluding Russia permanently, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP48 - Jessica Flack on Complex Systems Dynamics JRS Currents 015: Jessica Flack & Melanie Mitchell on Complexity JRS Currents 058: John Robb on Russia-Ukraine Outcomes "Robustness mechanisms in primate societies: a perturbation study," by Jessica Flack, David Krakauer & Frans de Waal JRS Extra: On COVID-19 Opportunities with Jessica Flack Jessica Flack is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Flack directs SFI's Collective Computation Group (C4). Flack was formerly founding director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Flack received her PhD from Emory in 2003, studying cognitive science, animal behavior and evolutionary theory, and BA with honors from Cornell in 1996. Flack's work has been covered by scientists and science journalists in many publications and media outlets, including Quanta Magazine, the BBC, NPR, Nature, Science, The Economist, New Scientist, and Current Biology. Flack's research focuses on collective computation and its role in the emergence of robust structure and function in nature and society. A central philosophical issue behind this work is how nature overcomes subjectivity inherent in information processing systems to produce collective, ordered states.

EP 157 Terrence Deacon on Mind’s Emergence From Matter May 16, 2022

Jim talks to Terrence Deacon about the ideas in his book Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter... Jim talks to Terrence Deacon about the ideas in his book Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter. They discuss the story of zero, integrating absence into physical theories, systems that generate entropy to stave off entropy, the history of emergence & the risk of mysterianism, reframing emergence as removal & constraint, orthograde vs contragrade processes, 3 layers of emergence, the special case of end-directed (teleodynamic) processes, a simple model of autogenesis, contrasting & integrating Shannon, Boltzmann, and Bateson, moving toward sentience, nested teleodynamic processes, feeling as primary to consciousness, rethinking the nervous system in non-computational terms, consciousness as a self-undoing process, inverting the hard problem, and much more. Episode Transcript Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, by Terrence W. Deacon JRS - EP10 David Krakauer: Complexity Science JRS - Currents 053: Matthew Pirkowski on Grammars of Emergence JRS - Currents 015: Jessica Flack & Melanie Mitchell on Complexity JRS - EP148 Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature, by Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, & Alvin Toffler The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold J. Morowitz JRS - EP105 Christof Koch on Consciousness Professor Terrence W. Deacon has held faculty positions at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, Boston University, and the University of California, Berkeley. His laboratory research has combined human evolutionary biology and neuroscience, with the aim of investigating the evolution of human cognition. This work extends from cellular-molecular neurobiology and cross-species fetal neural transplantation to the study of semiotic processes underlying animal and human communication, especially language. These topics are explored in his 1997 book, The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain. Currently, his theoretical interests have focused on the problem of explaining emergent phenomena, in such unprecedented transitions as the origin of life, the evolution of language, and the generation of conscious experience by brains. His 2012 book, Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, explores how the interrelationships between thermodynamic, self-organizing, evolutionary, and semiotic processes are implicated in the production of these emergent transitions.

EP 156 James Poulos on Remaining Human May 05, 2022

Jim talks with James Poulos about the ideas in his new book Human Forever: The Spiritual Politics of Digital War... Jim talks with James Poulos about the ideas in his new book Human Forever: The Spiritual Politics of Digital War. They discuss his decision to publish the book on the blockchain, going beginner's-mind on media & communications theory, the meaning of Gnosticism, responsibility as worship & its transfer to machines, returning worth to the human, a short introduction to Marshall McLuhan, raising the first fully digital generation, expert engineers vs ethereal ethicists, "peak woke" & the collapse of wokeness, religion as "the only permanent state of mankind," resisting the temptation to call down apocalypse, the hubris of messiah-hood, Hebraic British Protestant theology & its incongruence with American civilization, how queerness & transgender identity became culturally dominant, the left's abandonment of liberalism for a new post-human religion, differentiating transhumanism & human-maxing, and much more. Human Forever: The Digital Politics of Spiritual War, by James Poulos Human Forever mailing list The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves, by James Poulos "Reclaiming Our Cognitive Sovereignty," by Jim Rutt James Poulos creates and advises brands and ventures at the intersection of technology, media, and design. He is the Cofounder and Editor of The American Mind at the Claremont Institute and the Founder and Publisher of RETURN at New Founding. He is the author of Human, Forever and The Art of Being Free, and his writing has appeared in The Claremont Review of Books, Le Figaro, National Affairs, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among many other publications. He lives on the edge of Los Angeles.

Currents 062: Stephanie Lepp Interviews Jim Rutt on Musk and Moderation May 02, 2022

In this episode, Jim Rutt is a guest on his own show! He's interviewed by Stephanie Lepp about the ideas in his Quillette essay "Musk and Moderation"... In this episode, Jim Rutt is a guest on his own show! He's interviewed by Stephanie Lepp about the ideas in his Quillette essay "Musk and Moderation." They discuss where things stand with Musk's recent purchase of Twitter, Jim's 41-year background in online community moderation, strengthening & clarifying Twitter's decorum moderation, loosening point-of-view moderation, the "green sprouts" issue & the importance of tolerating fringe ideas, an appeal protocol for rulebreakers & stepping through an imagined violation by Trump, the meaning & plausibility of Twitter as a "fair and effective marketplace of ideas," a crowd-sourced fact-checking system, defining the metrics of a thriving marketplace of ideas, whether stricter moderation is needed at the start, using theory-practice-theory loops in complex domains, Elon Musk as a potential bridge from GameA to GameB, a direct invitation to Musk, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP129 - Stephanie Lepp on Deep Reckonings Your Undivided Attention bonus episode — A Bigger Picture on Elon & Twitter The Social Dilemma Deep Reckonings featuring Mark Zuckerberg Stephanie Lepp is a producer whose work strives to hold up a mirror — inviting us to grow from what we see. She's the Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology, the organization at the heart of the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. Her project Deep Reckonings — a series of explicitly-marked deepfake videos that imagine morally courageous versions of our public figures — won two Webbys and has been exhibited worldwide. Deep Reckonings was also the subject of her first appearance on The Jim Rutt Show, in episode 129. Be in touch with Stephanie on Twitter: @stephlepp.

EP 155 Iain McGilchrist Part 2: The Matter With Things Apr 18, 2022

Jim has a second talk with Iain McGilchrist about the ideas in his book The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World... Jim has a second talk with Iain McGilchrist about the ideas in his book The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. They discuss whether the continuity of time matters on the human scale, randomness as a real attribute of the universe, differentiating between unpredictability & randomness, deterministic chaos, the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, consciousness as an ontological primitive vs a biological process, separating consciousness from intelligence, animacy as a matter of degree, a non-reductionist view of purpose, finite vs infinite games & intrinsic vs extrinsic purpose, the purpose(s) of a white-tailed deer, the meaning of teleology, a drive toward increased complexity in life, the self-domestication of humans, relating the many-worlds idea to right-hemisphere damage, reasons to reject arguments from infinity, the odds of extraterrestrial intelligence, the lesson of paradoxes, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 154: Iain McGilchrist on The Matter With Things The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, by Iain McGilchrist JRS EP5: Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution JRS EP11: Dave Snowden and Systems Thinking Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, by James P. Carse Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He now lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland, where he continues to write, and lectures worldwide. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains.

Currents 061: Nora Bateson on a Return to Earnestness Apr 11, 2022

Jim talks with Nora Bateson about ecologies of communication and the value of earnestness... Jim talks with Nora Bateson about ecologies of communication and the value of earnestness. They discuss simple irony, dramatic irony, post-irony, & meta-irony; irony & the ecology of communication, the mistake of pitting earnestness directly against irony, questioning forms of cynicism vs despairing cynicism, the conditions for morale, full honesty as a starting point, rebuilding the meso-scale, the institutional systems of industrialization that developed around the 1870s, the invention of normalcy, building intersubjective consciousness of Game-A malware, free will as veto power, teaching individuals earnestness & making earnestness welcome, considering "aliveness" of information over qualitative-/quantitativeness, the seduction of optimality, the danger of systems holdback, the necessity of conceptual confusion in a time of transformation, and much more. Episode Transcript EP30 Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual Warm Data Labs Nora Bateson is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden. Her work asks the question, “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?” An international lecturer, researcher and writer, Nora wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson. Her work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems. Her book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles, released by Triarchy Press, UK, 2016, is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity.

EP 154 Iain McGilchrist on The Matter With Things Apr 04, 2022

Jim talks with Iain McGilchrist about his new book, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World... Jim talks with Iain McGilchrist about his new book, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. They discuss issues created by having one word for "know," the separation, asymmetry, & function of brain hemispheres, deprogramming pop-cultural right-brain/left-brain caricatures, the need for two kinds of attention, vigilance vs focus, ambiguity vs certainty, both/and vs either/or, pessimism vs optimism, arrogance vs humility, opponent processes & cross-inhibition between hemispheres, depth in space, time, and emotion, function of frontal cortices, lateralization of emotions, reductionism vs complexity, process philosophy, critiquing machine models of life, correspondence theory vs coherence theory, the error of truth as correctness, judgment & its replacement by bureaucracy, reclaiming imagination, the role of intuition in science, comparing the Renaissance & the Enlightenment, a complexity view on building a new social OS, appreciating C.S. Peirce, traditions as the currents of coherent innovation, differentiation within unity, relevance realization, discrete vs continuous time, Searle's analogy between digestion & consciousness, the problem of consciousness arising from non-consciousness, inanimacy as the limit case of animacy, Edelman's idea of primary consciousness, whether intelligence can exist without consciousness, integrative information theory, ontology of values, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis JRS EP106 - Michael Strevens on the Irrational History of Science Game-B.org The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, by Stuart Kauffman Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb JRS EP5 Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution Primary consciousness (Wikipedia) JRS EP105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution by Samuel Bowles, by Herbert Gintis Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Baltimore, and a former Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He now lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland, where he continues to write, and lectures worldwide. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains.

Currents 060: Panos Siozos on Online Education Mar 28, 2022

Jim talks with Panos Siozos, CEO and co-founder of LearnWorlds, a platform for online education, about alternative routes in education delivery... Jim talks with Panos Siozos, CEO and co-founder of LearnWorlds, a platform for online education, about alternative routes in education delivery. They discuss how Panos transitioned from science to entrepreneurship, why adult lifetime learning is important right now, an increasing overlap between skills & hobbies, remote learning for brick-and-mortar schools, creating an online school as opposed to just courses, testing & assessment features, working with attention spans, increasing decomposition of degrees into certificates, nonlinear & social aspects of online education, the value of teacherly authority, the SCORM standard, and much more. Episode Transcript LearnWorlds.com JRS EP 139 - Robert Tercek on Education Today Education in a Time Between Worlds: Essays on the Future of Schools, Technology, and Society, by Zachary Stein JRS EP57 - Zak Stein on Education in a Time Between Worlds JRS EP60 - Zak Stein on Educational Systems Collapse JRS EP62 - Zak Stein on Education, Tech & Religion Panos Siozos has a PhD in Educational Technology from the Computer Science Department, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He holds a BSc from the same department. He has extensive work experience as a computer science educator and as a software engineer and IT manager. He has taken part as a researcher in many EU-funded research projects, and has worked in the European Parliament as a policy adviser for research and innovation issues (2009-2014). He is currently "tasting his own medicine," having co-founded LearnWorlds.com, an ed-tech SaaS startup.

Currents 059: Samo Burja on RU->UKR 23-MAR-2022 Mar 24, 2022

Continuing his series of expert interviews on the Russia-Ukraine War, Jim talks again with Samo Burja about the state of the Russian advance one month in... Continuing his series of expert interviews on the Russia-Ukraine War, Jim talks again with Samo Burja about the state of the Russian advance one month in. They discuss Putin's maximum acceptable atrocity level, the complex relationship between public opinion and intervention, Russia's need for a symbolic victory, meaning & impact of the West's surprisingly coherent network counterattack, importance of the white-collar bureaucratic class's Twitter addiction, conditions that might move the situation toward settlement, a never-ending ceasefire, the symmetry of Russian and Ukrainian forces, what might happen if Zelensky were killed, the Russian failure to engage in 5G warfare, whether the balance between offense and defense has shifted, whether collective network response might become an effective war deterrent, what China & other nations are taking away from the conflict so far, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 054: Samo Burja on the Russia-Ukraine War Institute for the Study of War Report - "Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, March 23" Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

EP 153 Forrest Landry on Small Group Method Mar 22, 2022

Jim talks with Forrest Landry about his Small Group Method and the obstacles to scaling it up... Jim talks with Forrest Landry about his Small Group Method and the obstacles to scaling it up. They discuss why studying group processes is important, the difficulty of doing new things with old structures, 3 classes of decision-making structures (consensus, meritocracy, & democracy), advantages & disadvantages of each, how to use each model as a check against the other two, treating internal & external work as separate, votes of no confidence, democracy as a red button to suspend consensus, the uncanny valley between small- and large-scale governance process, a good governance architecture that emerges past 200 people, how to involve an entire community in choice-making, layered governance architecture as a complex organism, why new cryptocurrencies, voting reforms, & other incremental improvements misunderstand the problem, underestimating the value of the earth, moving beyond creating & exploiting niches, outlining the characteristics of a solution, proto-Bs as theory-practice-theory loops, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP31 - Forrest Landry on Building our Future JRS EP96 - Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1 JRS EP134 - Forrest Landry on Non-Relative Ethics Forrest's Website (https://mflb.com/) @ForrestLandry19 on Twitter "On the Nature of Human Assembly," by Forrest Landry The Rules for Rulers - YouTube Ephemeral Group Process (EGP) Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large-scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

Currents 058: John Robb on Russia-Ukraine Outcomes Mar 21, 2022

Continuing his series of expert interviews on the Russia-Ukraine War, Jim talks again with John Robb, this time about the likelihood of a settlement... Continuing his series of expert interviews on the Russia-Ukraine War, Jim talks again with John Robb, this time about the likelihood of a settlement. They discuss the pressures currently pushing both sides against negotiating, why Russia is opposed to Ukraine joining the EU, the likelihood of an ongoing stalemate, why WWI is a better analogue for this war than WWII, the current balance of forces in Ukraine & absence of data on Ukrainian losses, Russia's failure to take advantage of drones and smart weapons, why Russia has underachieved compared with analyst predictions, the downside of closed societies & nepotism, transition points that could change willingness to settle, Putin's "maximum acceptable atrocity" restraint, the possibility of nuclear escalation, a new network mechanism for collective security, the overblown narrative of Russian disinformation capacity, why Russia hasn't destroyed Ukraine's communications infrastructure, strategic implications of global network warfare, coming rapid improvements in drone tech, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 052: John Robb on War in Ukraine JRS Currents 054: Samo Burja on the Russia-Ukraine War The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper Institute for the Study of War's Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

Currents 057: Timothy Clancy on Russia’s Mid-Game Mar 16, 2022

Continuing his series of expert interviews on the Russia-Ukraine War, Jim talks with Timothy Clancy about forecasting the conflict through mid-May... Continuing his series of expert interviews on the Russia-Ukraine War, Jim talks with Timothy Clancy about forecasting the conflict through mid-May. They discuss five likely mid-game scenarios, Ukraine as a Go board, how urban combat has changed in the 21st century, the "belt" strategy, Grozny Rules, creating feral cities, Putin's unknown "maximum acceptable atrocity" limit, the danger of extreme swings in analysis, a quicksand strategy for Ukraine & why it could be good for the West, Ukraine as a risk to Putin's control of Russia, how Putin has provided a common point of unification for Ukraine & NATO, simulation factors for Ukrainian insurgency, overwhelming violence's galvanizing effects, the Goode ratio, limited usefulness of the historical record & unpredictability of new tech, the right level of international friction to avoid going up the escalation ladder, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 055: Paul Goble on Putin’s Strategic Mistakes JRS Currents 054: Samo Burja on the Russia-Ukraine War JRS Currents 052: John Robb on War in Ukraine InfoMullet (blog) InfoMullet (Twitter) Dialectic Simulations Timothy Clancy has an MSc from WPI in Insurgency Dynamics & Simulation Science. As a Ph.D. candidate, he is preparing to defend his dissertation on the life-cycle of violence and instability of non-state actors as a complex system of studied simulations. His published research includes a simulation model of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and another of violent radicalization leading to terrorism as a social contagion. Timothy runs a blog, InfoMullet.com or @InfoMullet on Twitter or Facebook, that provides more context for complex current events. Through the InfoMullet he’s tracked regional conflicts relevant to the current Russian invasion as far back as the Second Chechnyan war through Georgia, Syria, Libya, and most recently Armenia v. Azerbaijan. He also provides focused coverage on uprisings and non-state actor conflict including EuroMaidan protest movements which 8 years ago this February led to the collapse of the Yanukovych regime, Russian annexation of Crimea, and the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014. His consulting firm Dialectic Simulations Consulting helps clients ranging from Fortune 1000 to government agencies and military commands solve some of their toughest problems with simulations.

Currents 056: Julyan Davey on Weaving a Non-Dual Civilization Mar 09, 2022

Jim has a talk with Julyan Davey inspired by Julyan's essay series "Weaving a Non-Dual Civilisation"... Jim has a talk with Julyan Davey inspired by Julyan's essay series "Weaving a Non-Dual Civilisation." They discuss the "sublimewe" modality as a means of shifting into a GameB mindset, incorporating the intersubjective world into our models, interweaving inner & outer work, initiation camps for the GameB paradigm, a non-Jungian application of the shadow, how GameA dynamics self-perpetuate, questioning the primacy of trauma, non-trauma reasons for taking on GameA value structures, methods for sharing value systems, an example case named Tim, cognitive defending, extractive intentionality, social influence & performativity, identifying with Instagram, violent infrastructure & Graeber's structural violence, 8 kinds of capital & how they get depleted, the inner engine of money-on-money return, transformative vs control culture, building sovereignty & coherence at the same time, admitting ignorance, the real possibility of GameB spaces, and much more. Episode Transcript "Weaving a Non-Dual Civilisation" (essay series), by Julyan Davey Forrest Landry, "Aphorisms of Effective Choice" (PDF) "What is sublimewe?" Find out more about how to get involved in the sublimewe project here. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy, by David Graeber Game-B.org "8 Forms of Capital," AppleSeed Permaculture "Shaping Transformative Cultures," by Julyan Davey Julyan is a writer and transformational facilitator whose work explores the cultural foundations necessary for a life-affirming human civilisation. He works with sublimewe, which is a we-space technology for facilitating a shift in culture within groups, as well as Possibility Management, which provides adulthood initiations to build a culture of responsibility. He has a background doing transformative conflict work in the social movement Extinction Rebellion, where he first confronted the need for a deeper cultural shift.

Currents 055: Paul Goble on Putin’s Strategic Mistakes Mar 04, 2022

Continuing his series of expert interviews on the unfolding situation in Ukraine, Jim talks with Paul Goble, a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious issues in Eurasia... Continuing his series of expert interviews on the unfolding situation in Ukraine, Jim talks with Paul Goble, a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious issues in Eurasia. They discuss Putin's view of Russia as neglected & ignored, Russians' difficulty making ethnic distinctions between Ukrainian & Russians, Putin's unintentional unification of Ukraine & NATO, what Putin & most analysts got wrong about the military balance, Putin's misplaced faith in superior firepower, the ethnic makeup of the Russian military, why the backlash from the West was stronger than Putin expected, the West's unprecedented non-kinetic response to the invasion, effects & non-effects of the Western sanction regime, Russia's infosphere & increasingly closed internet, why Russian anti-war sentiment will increase, challenging bets against a continued Ukrainian resistance, Ukrainian resistance to the Soviet Red Army in 1945-1955, high effectiveness of low-tech resistance, Putin's coming claim of victory & why it would be Pyrrhic, what Putin would do in reaction to violence against him, the likelihood that NATO's increased coherence will continue, why China will probably not move on Taiwan in the near term, and much more. Episode Transcript Window on Eurasia (Paul's blog) "Putin’s Strategic Mistakes in Ukraine have Devastating Consequences for Russia, Pastukhov Says," by Paul Goble JRS Currents 054: Samo Burja on the Russia-Ukraine War JRS Currents 052: John Robb on War in Ukraine Paul Goble, a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious issues in Eurasia for the US government and US international broadcasting, currently blogs at Windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com. Prior to retiring from the US government in 2004, he worked in the intelligence community, the State Department and US international broadcasting. Since then, he has taught in Estonia at the University of Tartu and Audentes University in Tallinn, at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku, and the Institute of World Politics in Washington. The editor of eight volumes on ethnic and religious issues, he is the author of more than 100 articles and chapters and more than 1,000 op-eds in US and European publications. He has been decorated by the governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for his work in promoting the restoration of Baltic independence. He lives in Staunton, Virginia, and can be reached at paul.goble@gmail.com.

Currents 054: Samo Burja on the Russia-Ukraine War Mar 01, 2022

Jim has a timely talk with Samo Burja about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what it might mean moving forward... Jim has a timely talk with Samo Burja about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what it might mean moving forward. They discuss the consequences of a (likely) Russian victory, Russia's bet on new arctic ports & liquid natural gas, a final decoupling of Russia from Europe, the stalemate scenario, Ukraine's dearth of young men, its remarkable job so far at maintaining morale, the likelihood of escalation of mass artillery & casualties, incompatibility between atomized individualism & willingness to resist, rational & less rational reasons why Russia hasn't taken out Ukraine's hospitals, power plants, and internet, a scenario in which Russia settles for Luhansk and Dinetzk, what a true Russian defeat would look like, significance of the Russian advance through Crimea, Samo's main critique of the Ukrainian government, the key fact that Russia has not yet used a third of their forces, the ineffectual negotations in Belarus, the always-looming risk of nuclear escalation & whether the nuclear taboo will hold, an unlikely escalation path via Polish involvement, why a strong German military would be bad for the EU, how a Russian victory would embolden China to invade Taiwan & China's tacit support of the Russian invasion, a bet between Jim & Samo on whether China invades Taiwan within the next 3 years, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 052: John Robb on War in Ukraine EP117 Samo Burja on Societal Decline EP125 Samo Burja on Societal Decline: Part 2 Currents 034: Samo Burja on the Consilience Project Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

Currents 053: Matthew Pirkowski on Grammars of Emergence Feb 28, 2022

Jim talks with Matthew Pirkowski about new frameworks in the study of emergence... Jim talks with Matthew Pirkowski about new frameworks in the study of emergence. They discuss the concept's roots in the work of J.S. Mill, 19th-century tensions between reductionism & vitalism, Terrence Deacon's ententional properties, ententionality as a result of constraints, giving reality status to relations, pruning rules as key to emergence, possibility space as unconstrained, chirality, spin glasses, viewing the Ukraine-Russia conflict in terms of preference regimes, communication speeds & emergence in the French Revolution, viscosity in political systems, Ilya Prigogine's dissipative structures, using waste as energy, emergence without emergencies, complexity catastrophe & viscosity, social media platforms as memetic reactors, race-to-the-bottom dynamics in social media, the possibility of non-trivial positivity within volatile online spaces, knowing communities by their fruits, grammars of differentiation vs grammars of integration, the project of synthesizing hyper-specialized languages, and much more. Episode Transcript Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, by Terrence W. Deacon The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex, by Harold J. Morowitz Emergence: From Chaos To Order, by John H. Holland "Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart A. Kauffmann" The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, by Stuart A. Kauffman Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence, by John H. Holland JRS - Currents 051: Douglas Rushkoff on the Once and Future Internet JRS - Currents 049: Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder on Doomer Optimism Matthew Pirkowski works at the intersection of software, psychology, and complex systems. These interests first took root while studying Evolutionary Psychology and assisting with Behavioral Economic research at Yale's Comparative Cognition Laboratory. From there Matthew began a career in software engineering, where he applied these interests to the development of software interfaces used by millions around the world, most notably as a member of Netflix's Television UI team, where he worked on experimental initiatives conceptualizing and prototyping the future of entertainment software. Presently, Matthew consults on systems architecture, advises companies within the startup space, and writes about topics related to the evolution of human socioeconomic, technological, and representational systems–in particular the emergence and impact of cryptoeconomic protocols, as outlined in his Crypto Beyond Capitalism essay series. He spends most of his free time maintaining, restoring, and growing food on 6 recently acquired acres of Oregon woodlands.

Currents 052: John Robb on War in Ukraine Feb 25, 2022

Jim has a forward-looking talk with recurring guest John Robb about the meaning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine... Jim has a forward-looking talk with recurring guest John Robb about the meaning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They discuss the likelihood that the event is a major historical hinge, Russia & China's different rule set, costs & benefits of strong national cohesion, Putin's hard-power intentions, short-term unfolding of the Russian campaign, likely effects on China's relations with Taiwan, whether modern societies are willing to engage in insurgency, Putin's legacy drive, Russia's trajectory going forward, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS Currents 042: John Robb on Afghanistan Withdrawal JRS Currents 021: John Robb on Jan 6th, 2021 JRS Currents 005: John Robb on Protest Tactics & Reforms JRS Extra: Memetic Warfare & Pandemic Responses with John Robb JRS Extra: Key COVID-19 Decisions with John Robb John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

Currents 051: Douglas Rushkoff on the Once and Future Internet Feb 24, 2022

Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about where the internet came from, where it might go, & how to move from dystopian despair to productive engagement... Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about where the internet came from, where it might go, & how to move from dystopian despair to productive engagement. Loosely following the syllabus for (Re-)Designing the Internet, a course Douglas co-teaches at CUNY with Jeff Jarvis, they discuss the internet as a read-write medium, reclaiming control of attention, journalism's move to Substack, language as VR, the Sixties dream of a thriving unimind, Allan Kaprow's creation of happenings, the DIY pre-internet, the shift from shareware to for-profit tech, John Perry Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace," how net libertarianism created a free zone for corporate capture, the move from helping people find exploits to finding exploits in people, tuning interfaces for or against reactivity, the early internet as a place where people sounded smarter than in real life, the meaning of human-centered design, the value of viscosity in political & communication systems, denaturalizing design choices, the increasing evidence that the kids aren't alright, Facebook's Meta pivot as an act of desperation, how web 3.0 & blockchain technologies reify predatory speculation, Canadian banks' recent suspension of truckers' accounts, distributed tech's discovery problem, certain web communities as "Graeberian prisons of structural violence," the potential for affirming the best in one another, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP 6 - Douglas Rushkoff on Memetics, Money + TeamHuman Team Human podcast Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, by Douglas Rushkoff The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff The Well The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff JRS EP52 - Steven Levy on Facebook: The Inside Story Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the just-published Team Human, based on his podcast, as well as the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks and the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus. He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. Rushkoff’s work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.

Currents 050: Greg Lukianoff on Free Speech Feb 21, 2022

Jim talks with Greg Lukianoff, president & CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and co-author, with Jonathan Haidt, of The Coddling of the American Mind... Jim talks with Greg Lukianoff, president & CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and co-author, with Jonathan Haidt, of The Coddling of the American Mind. They discuss FIRE's mission of non-partisan free speech advocacy, recent high-profile cases & repeat offenders in higher-ed censorship, the history of university speech codes, the concept of harm, problems of progress, lack of viewpoint diversity in higher ed, bad-faith uses of harm-claiming, understanding the scale of modern censorship, free speech as a foundational value of Western civilization, Georgetown professor Ilya Shapiro's recent controversial tweet, abuse of the white supremacy label, overemphasis in progressive circles on the morality of inoffensiveness, what the 1969 Barbara Papish case reveals about decreased support for free speech, lack of leadership among university presidents, the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, what parents can do to help children understand the importance of free speech, counterintuitiveness of free speech rights, and more. Episode Transcript theFIRE.org The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff Olympics ad with Enes Kanter Freedom Freedom from Speech, by Greg Lukianoff MIT Free Speech Alliance JRS Currents 045: Dorian Abbot on Protecting Academic Freedom "What does MIT stand for? Faculty, alumni want answers." (theFIRE.org) The Chicago Statement "Five ways university presidents can prove their commitment to free speech," by Greg Lukianoff The University of Austin "Is the University of Austin Just a PR Stunt?" - The Argument podcast, NY Times Alumni Free Speech Alliance Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. Most recently, he co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt. This New York Times best-seller expands on their September 2015 Atlantic cover story of the same name. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke?, a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus. Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. In 2008, he became the first-ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Award, and he has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.

EP 152 Gary Bengier on Hard-Science Futures Feb 07, 2022

Jim talks with Gary Bengier about his science fiction novel Unfettered Journey, depicting a hard-science view of a possible world 140 or so years in the future... Jim talks with Gary Bengier about his science fiction novel Unfettered Journey, depicting a hard-science view of a possible world 140 or so years in the future. They discuss the need for sci-fi that addresses real problems & that is grounded in real science, the coming impact of bioscience, AI, & robotics, why robots may take longer to become ubiquitous than many think, Gary's sci-fi take on ubiquitous robots, a future of lots of stuff & not much human labor, what happens when robots make robots, capitalism's obsoletion point, neural chips, estimating AI progress, whether AGI is necessarily linked to consciousness, intentionality as the mark of mentality, the Fermi paradox, the novel's level-based social hierarchy, self-consciousness vs consciousness, symbol use, semantics (not syntax) as central to the human mind, the devil's offer of surveillance systems, reimagining the Adam & Eve story minus God, and much more. Episode Transcript Unfettered Journey, by Gary Bengier Unfettered Journey Appendices: Philosophical Explorations on Time, Ontology, and the Nature of Mind, by Gary F. Bengier Gary's appearance on the Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Podcast Game~B Film "Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages" (McKinsey report) The Chinese Room Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life, by Stephen Webb The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, by Terrence W. Deacon "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," by Eugene Wigner After a career in Silicon Valley, Gary pursued passion projects, studying astrophysics and philosophy. He’s spent the last two decades thinking about how to live a balanced, meaningful life in a rapidly evolving technological world. This self-reflective journey infuses his novel with insights about our future and the challenges we will face in finding purpose. Before turning to writing speculative fiction, Gary worked in a variety of Silicon Valley tech companies. He was eBay’s Chief Financial Officer, and led the company’s initial and secondary public offerings. Gary has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and an MA in philosophy from San Francisco State University. He has two children with Cynthia, his wife of forty-three years. When not traveling the world, he raises bees and makes a nice Cabernet at the family’s Napa vineyard. He and his family live in San Francisco.

Currents 049: Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder on Doomer Optimism Feb 04, 2022

Jim talks with Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder about the growing movement of Doomer Optimism... Jim talks with Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder about the growing movement of Doomer Optimism. They discuss Ashley's coinage of the term, doomer optimism as an open-source structure of feeling, avoiding pathologies of despair & naive optimism, balancing philosophy with action, cosmopolitan localism, healthy skepticism, theory-of-change pluralism, building local capacity toward the meso-scale, the social power of skill-building, Tucker Max's surprise embrace of the movement & what to do when movements take unexpected turns, doomer optimism's mainstream potential, recentering the hard-won knowledge of longtime homesteaders & builders, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP122 - Ashley Colby on Subsistence Agriculture Doomer Optimist Podcast Doomer Optimist Substack "A Journey to GameB," by Jim Rutt "The Liminal Web: Mapping An Emergent Subculture Of Sensemakers, Meta-Theorists & Systems Poets," by Joe Lightfoot Both/And Podcast "Doomer Optimism: What I See Coming, & How I'm Preparing," by Tucker Max Ashley Colby is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University. In her book she explores subsistence food production as a potentially revolutionary act. She is interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. Ashley is a qualitative researcher, so she tends to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She is now focused on doing anything she can to foment local, decentralized networks of people who can get us to the next iteration of society, and fast. Dr. Jason Snyder has an educational background in applied economics and geography, and is currently teaching in the Department of Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University with a special interest in local food systems. He is also a beginning homesteader in the Appalachian hills, a meditation enthusiast, a podcaster (Both/And, Doomer Optimism), and a proponent of societal transition towards a more resilient and regenerative system state.

EP 151 Daniel Mezick on Ritual and Hierarchy Jan 31, 2022

Jim talks with Daniel Mezick about two books on leadership & social coherence, Michael Suk-Young Chwe's Rational Ritual & Christopher Boehm's Hierarchy in the Forest... Jim talks with Daniel Mezick about two books on leadership & social coherence, Michael Suk-Young Chwe's Rational Ritual & Christopher Boehm's Hierarchy in the Forest. They discuss ritual as a mechanism for large-scale coordination, mimicry in beer choice and Super Bowl ads, fragmentation of audiences through microtargeting, the relationship between common knowledge & ritual, China's management of common knowledge, America's weak-sauce rituals, meetings as games, how egalitarianism increases group decision quality, role-based vs position-based leadership, anti-puffing-up mechanisms, social values of hunter-forager groups, how weapons may have enabled egalitarianism, personal sovereignty as careful authorizing, Jim's guest selection algorithm, authority information as social glue, rapid adaptability of informal authority systems, Graeber & Wengrow's critique of Boehm, egalitarianism as a game, making role-based leadership scalable, leadership invitation, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP41 - Daniel Mezick on the Agile Organization Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge, by Michael Suk-Young Chwe Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, by Chris Boehm Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, by Rene Girard @Jim_Rutt on Twitter Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity - A Platform for Designing Business Architecture, by Jamshid Gharajedaghi Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture, by Johan Huizinga JRS EP140 - Robin Dunbar on Friendship The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, by Jane McGonigal Coaching executives and teams in Agile since 2006, Daniel Mezick leads Improving Agility. Daniel has guided dozens of organizations in the art and science of Agile improvement. An author and co-author of three books on organization change, Daniel is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences and events. He is the originator of OpenSpace Agility, an engagement model for enabling authentic and lasting organizational improvement. He is also an Advisory Board member and co-Founder of The Open Leadership Network, a certification body and community of practice dedicated to implementing Open patterns and practices inside business enterprises worldwide.

Currents 048: Welf von Hören on Potential Dec 27, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Welf von Hören, co-founder of the recently beta-launched Potential app... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Welf von Hören, co-founder of the recently beta-launched Potential app. (Listeners who download the app can use the invitation code "jimruttshow".) They discuss Potential's goal of upgrading the human capacity for omni-considerate choices, the co-evolutionary relationship between increasing individual capacity & improving institutions, the risk of creating "more efficient destroyers of the universe," GameB's three-part model of sovereignty, online as the primary conditioning environment, asymmetry between the human mind & AI-driven platforms, bridging the intention-action gap, the decision to be a public-benefit for-profit corporation, aligning the value proposition with the user's best interests, how the app actually works, a more monastic digital environment, enabling communities of practice, facing the moral challenges of data collection, and much more. Episode Transcript Potential app (invite code: "jimruttshow") "Sovereignty is the Way," by Welf von Hören "Advancing Human Sovereignty," by Daniel Schmachtenberger "Reclaiming Our Cognitive Sovereignty," by Jim Rutt A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life, by Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying The Stoa Rebel Wisdom Welf von Hören is an applied philosopher, designer and entrepreneur. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Potential, a public benefit corporation dedicated to making technology that’s aligned with our best interest. He’s an expert for the intersection between Humane and Persuasive Technology.

EP 150 Jeremy Lent on the Web of Meaning Dec 20, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Jeremy Lent about his latest book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Jeremy Lent about his latest book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe. They discuss the dominant worldview in today's advanced economies, its lack of scientific basis, how worldviews shape the direction of history, myths of selfishness & separation, how viewing nature as resource leads to self-reinforcing feedback loops, money-on-money return, origins of capitalism & colonialism, the extractive mindset as a European development, a complex-systems approach to spirituality, "natural attractors" as spirits, discovering Taoism, wu wei & yu wei, animate vs conceptual consciousness, integrated consciousness, yu wei as multipolar trap, problems with using GDP as a metric, improving the relationship between I & self, a democracy of consciousness, contemplative & embodied practices as a way of moving the brain toward new attractors, false ideas about evolution e.g. the selfish gene, how cells began cooperating, how humans might do the same, changing our social operating system, stepping off the hedonic treadmill, fixing transnational corporations, and much more. Episode Transcript The Web of Meaning (website) The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning, by Jeremy Lent Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350, by Janet L. Abu-Lughod JRS EP148 - Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, by Jill Bolte Taylor Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff & Mark Johnson Neural Darwinism (Wikipedia) Selfish gene (Wikipedia) JRS EP116 - Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion B corporation (Wikipedia) JRS - EP107 Tristan Harris on Our Social Dilemma Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. Born in London, England, Lent received a BA in English Literature from Cambridge University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and was a former internet company CEO. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering an integrated worldview that could enable humanity to thrive sustainably on the Earth. He lives with his partner in Berkeley, California. Lent also writes topical articles exploring the deeper patterns of political and cultural developments at Patterns of Meaning.

Currents 047: Samuel Scarpino on the Epidemiology of Covid-19 Dec 15, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Samuel Scarpino on Covid-19 epidemiology and disease surveillance... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Samuel Scarpino on Covid-19 epidemiology and disease surveillance. They discuss some of the biggest surprises in Covid research since its beginning, the importance of understanding the evolutionary trajectory of the virus, the oscillation pattern of case rates, wastewater-based epidemiology, current bottlenecks in gene sequencing, the latest evidence about Omicron's contagiousness & severity, obstacles created by HIPAA protections, how to build a data system that will be ready for the next pandemic, the role of interdisciplinary complex-systems research centers, a disaster scenario that keeps Scarpino up at night, herd immunity, social contact data from phones & what it would cost to process it all, how much more the US spends on weather data & defense than on pandemic data, and much more. Episode Transcript Pandemic Prevention Institute - Omicron & Other Covid-19 Variants The Complex Alternative: Complexity Scientists on the COVID-19 Pandemic, ed. David Krakauer and Geoffrey West Transmission: SFI insights into COVID-19 Samuel V. Scarpino, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of Pathogen Surveillance at The Rockefeller Foundation's Pandemic Prevention Institute. In addition, Dr. Scarpino is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and holds appointments in the Network Science Institute, Institute for Experiential AI, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Global Resilience Institute, and Roux Institute at Northeastern University. Scarpino has 10+ years of experience translating research into decision support and data science/ML tools across diverse sectors from public health and clinical medicine to real estate and energy. From 2017 to 2020, he was Chief Strategy Officer and head of data science at Dharma Platform–a social impact–technology startup. Scarpino has nearly 100 publications in academic journals and books. His expert commentaries on science and technology have appeared in publications such as: Nature, Science, PNAS, and Nature Physics. His research has been covered by the New York Times, Wired, the Boston Globe, NPR, VICE News, National Geographic, and numerous other venues. For his contributions to complex systems science, he was made a Fellow of the ISI Foundation in 2017, an External Faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute in 2020, and an External Faculty member of the Vermont Complex Systems Center in 2021. Scarpino earned a Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 2013 and was a Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellow from 2013 – 2016.

EP 149 Joshua Vial on Enspiral Dec 13, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Joshua Vial, co-founder of the multifaceted social-impact support network Enspiral... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Joshua Vial, co-founder of the multifaceted social-impact support network Enspiral. They discuss Enspiral's origin story, its organizational structure, tradeoffs between exploration & exploitation, coherent pluralism, how to do a company without bosses, keeping product & consulting companies separate, the origins of Loomio in Occupy Wall St. consensus processes, how to invite external investors without shitshow VC culture, building to sell vs building to keep, Enspiral as intentional-contributor collider, face-to-face vs virtual collaborations, effects of international growth, the Golden Pandas livelihood pod, unsettling permission-seeking habits in communities, management theories as picking grounds for practices, Dev Academy & cutting out "ball-chasing" in education, Web3 as a chance for citizens to win, DAOs as possible next unit of human culture, worthy social-impact projects in the blockchain space, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP51 - Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration Game-B.org Microsolidarity JRS EP140 - Robin Dunbar on Friendship The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, by Scott Page Loomio P’s in a pod: Purpose, Proximity & Product — the journey of the Golden Pandas Enspiral Handbook Better Work Together (book) Dev Academy GitCoin ecodao Regen Network Cosmos DEVxDAO Joshua Vial is an entrepreneur, programmer and educator with a passion for business, technology and social change. He has been running technology businesses since 2004 and launched Enspiral in 2010. In 2013 he co-founded Enspiral Dev Academy and has been focused on teaching and accelerated education since then.

Currents 046: Henry Elkus & Sam Feinburg on Solving Societal Problems Nov 29, 2021

Jim talks with Henry Elkus and Sam Feinburg, founders of the global problem solving organization Helena...Jim talks with Henry Elkus and Sam Feinburg, founders of the global problem solving organization Helena. They discuss how Helena identifies society's big problems, the group's origin story, how they attracted a large membership of people who are first-class in their domains, facilitating The Covid Network to quantitatively prioritize supply distribution, creating the Shield Project to address dire vulnerabilities in the electrical grid, Energy Vault's method of gravity energy storage, over-siloing of issue areas & problem-solving modalities, why it's important to proliferate both social & hard technologies, and much more. Episode Transcript Helena.org EMP Commission Report (2008) Henry Elkus is Founder and CEO of Helena. He cares immensely about creating systems that can be leveraged to enact global, scalable, and systemic change. Henry dropped out of Yale in his second year to lead Helena full time. Sam Feinburg is the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director of Helena. He cares deeply about building a fairer and stronger civilization for all in the presence of growing catastrophic and existential risks.

EP148 Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing Nov 22, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with neuroscientist Antonio Damasio about his latest book, Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with neuroscientist Antonio Damasio about his latest book, Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. They discuss the importance of separating intelligence from the nervous system, feeling as the inaugural event of consciousness, distinguishing consciousness from mind, the permeability of intellectual & affective processes, debunking William James's "stream of consciousness" metaphor, interoception, proprioception, & exteroception, how anesthesia works, attention as the cursor of consciousness, introducing vulnerability into AI, and much more. Episode Transcript Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, by Antonio Damasio JRS EP97 - Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia Antonio Damasio is Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy, and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Trained as both neurologist and neuroscientist, Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of brain processes underlying emotions, feelings, and consciousness. His work on the role of affect in decision-making has made a major impact in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. He is the author of several hundred scientific articles and is one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era (see Damasio, A. Feelings and Decisions. In: R. Sternberg, S. Fiske, D. Foss (Eds.), Scientists Making a Difference: One Hundred Eminent Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions, 2016). He is one of the most cited scientists worldwide.

EP147 John Vervaeke Part 5: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Nov 15, 2021

John Vervaeke joins Jim for the final episode of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis... John Vervaeke joins Jim for the final episode of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. They discuss relevance's lack of essence, sacredness as inexhaustibility, separating cognitive indispensability from metaphysical necessity, religio & the perennial problems, whether Enlightenment++ principles can offer a place to stand, the need for new symbols of self-transcendence, reverse-engineering Enlightenment, mindfulness practices as serious play, the "religion of no religion," signal detection theory, a "collective dynamic Socrates," rationality's malleability, active open-mindedness, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis JRS EP30 - Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual Nora Bateson's Warm Data Labs The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper "A Journey To GameB," Jim Rutt What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought, by Keith Stanovich John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students' Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century Crisis, which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

Currents 045: Dorian Abbot on Protecting Academic Freedom Nov 04, 2021

Jim has a timely discussion with geophysicist Dorian Abbot, whose public lecture was recently canceled by MIT—Jim's alma mater—due to Dorian's views on affirmative action... Jim has a timely discussion with geophysicist Dorian Abbot, whose public lecture was recently canceled by MIT—Jim's alma mater—due to Dorian's views on affirmative action. They discuss the (unrelated) scientific content of the canceled lecture, Abbot's & Ivan Marinovic's proposed Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) framework, the Chicago Principles, the Kalven Report, mainstream support for merit-based hiring decisions, the relationship between liberal humanism & academic freedom, results of a secret-ballot poll of MIT faculty, how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) functions in current hiring systems, the goal of a university, what listeners can do to fight for academic freedom, a proposal for a Center for a Free Society at the University of Chicago, and much more. Episode Transcript "The Diversity Problem on Campus," Dorian Abbot & Ivan Marinovic "The Political Problem on Campus," Dorian Abbot, Sergiu Klainerman, & Ivan Marinovi (the latest op-ed) Pew Research Center report on diversity and hiring "Academic Freedom and Cancel Culture," Eric Kaufmann Change.org Petition MIT Free Speech Alliance Dorian Abbot is an associate professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. He uses mathematical and computational models to understand and explain fundamental problems in Earth and Planetary Sciences. He has worked on problems related to climate, paleoclimate, the cryosphere, planetary habitability, and exoplanets.

EP146 John Vervaeke Part 4: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Nov 01, 2021

John Vervaeke joins Jim for the fourth of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis... John Vervaeke joins Jim for the fourth of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. They discuss Nietzsche as a prophet of the meaning crisis, the politicization of the quest for meaning, recreating religion, the deep functionality of Christianity, meaning cultivation, Newell & Simon's error, the essentialism heuristic, combinatorial explosions, the no-free-lunch theorem, relevance realization as the engine of general intelligence & its role in religio, secular wonder, "I" & "me," transjectivity & flow, the sense of sacredness, the importance of meta-meaning systems, the function & dangers of symbols, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis "Relevance Realization and the Emerging Framework in Cognitive Science," John Vervaeke, Timothy Lillicrap, Blake Richards Nelson Goodman (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Awakening from the Meaning Crisis EP33 - The Spirituality of RR: Wonder/Awe/Mystery/Sacredness "A Secular Wonder," Paulo Costa (paywalled) John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students' Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century Crisis, which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

EP145 John Vervaeke Part 3: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Oct 25, 2021

John Vervaeke joins Jim for the third of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis... John Vervaeke joins Jim for the third of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. They discuss altered states of consciousness, phenomenology as clue to functionality, fluency, weakening egocentrism, ecologies of practice, the Solomon effect, complexification, Buddhism's intervention in parasitic processing, a corrective reading of dukkha, Alexander the Great & post-Alexandrian domicide, Stoicism as therapy, eros & agape, St. Augustine's grand synthesis, Thomas Aquinas's solidification of two-worlds mythology, Galileo's murder of the universe, the Enlightenment & Romanticism, genocidal implications of the True Self, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis JRS EP144 - John Vervaeke Part 2: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis "From housing to homemaking," Brian Walsh How the West Really Lost God, by Mary Eberstadt JRS EP106 - Michael Strevens on the Irrational History of Science Spinoza, by Michael Della Rocca John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students' Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century Crisis, which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

EP144 John Vervaeke Part 2: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Oct 18, 2021

John Vervaeke joins Jim for the second of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke's popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis... John Vervaeke joins Jim for the second of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke’s popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. They discuss virtue & virtuosity, Plato's man-monster-lion model, hyperbolic discounting, agent & arena, Plato's parable of the cave, the continuity between Plato & Aristotle, personality vs character, Erich Fromm's idea of having vs being, modal confusion, reversal theory, mindfulness as meta-modal optimization, opponent processing, hierarchical complexity, mystical experiences & putting transformation above metaphysics, the danger of reifying consciousness, global workspace theory, the g factor, integrated information theory, an emerging consensus about the function of consciousness, and much more. Episode Transcript JRS EP143 - John Vervaeke on Awakening from the Meaning Crisis: Part 1 John Vervaeke on Twitter Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis, by John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, & Filip Miscevic "Hyperbolic Discounting," George Ainslie et. al. (paywalled) Anagoge Spiritual bypassing Plato's Critique of Impure Reason, by D.C. Schindler To Have or to Be?: The Nature of the Psyche, by Erich Fromm Piaget's stages of cognitive development JRS EP97 - Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor Why I Am Not a Buddhist, by Evan Thompson JRS - EP105 Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS - EP108 Bernard Baars on Consciousness "Applying global workspace theory to the frame problem," Murray Shanahan and Bernard Baars "The Chinese Room," John Searle John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students' Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century Crisis, which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

EP143 John Vervaeke Part 1: Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Oct 11, 2021

John Vervaeke joins Jim for the first of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke's popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis... John Vervaeke joins Jim for the first of a five-part series examining the ideas put forward in Vervaeke's popular YouTube series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. In this episode they focus on defining core concepts, including meaning, non-reductive science, symptoms of the meaning crisis, attention, shamanism, psychotechnology, ritual, serious play, participatory vs perspectival knowing, the flow state, mindfulness, the Bronze Age collapse & transition into the Axial Age, two-worlds mythologies, faith as loving commitment, the perniciousness of romantic comedies, kairos & its relation to Game B, the Socratic revolution, Socrates's imprecation to "know thyself," lying & bullshit, availability bias, salience vs transformation, and much more. Episode Transcript John Vervaeke on Twitter Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis, by John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, & Filip Miscevic Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi JRS EP27 - Jamie Wheal on Flow & the Future of Culture JRS EP123 - Jamie Wheal on Recapturing the Rapture Sam Harris's Waking Up app On Bullshit, by Harry Frankfurt John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness. In addition, he teaches a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students' Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century Crisis, which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

Currents 044: Zak Stein on Propaganda and the Information War Oct 07, 2021

Zak Stein & Jim have a wide-ranging talk inspired by two recent Consilience Project essays on the information war & propaganda... Zak Stein & Jim have a wide-ranging talk inspired by two recent Consilience Project essays on the information war & propaganda. They discuss the culture wars as a case of mutually assured destruction, distinguishing education from propaganda, developing widespread resistance to propaganda, epistemic nihilism, key indicators of propaganda, the function of thought-terminating clichés, a typology of propaganda, leaders' failure to educate rather than propagandize regarding Covid vaccines, modulating noise & chaos in the information ecosystem, redirecting technological innovation toward new goals of educational development, and much more. Episode Transcript Zak’s Website JRS: EP57 Zak Stein on Education in a Time Between Worlds JRS: EP60 Zak Stein on Educational Systems Collapse JRS: EP62 Zak Stein on Education, Tech & Religion JRS: EP 113 Zak Stein on Hierarchical Complexity "It's a MAD Information War" - The Consilence Project "WE DON'T MAKE PROPAGANDA! THEY DO!" - The Consilience Project JRS: EP143 Robert Tercek on the Metaverse "The science literacy paradox: Why really smart people tend to have the most biased opinions" On Bullshit, by Harry G. Frankfurt Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, by Jacques Ellul Zachary Stein is a writer, educator, and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. He studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published two books. Social Justice and Educational Measurement was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book, Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. He’s a scholar at the Ronin Institute, Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and scientific advisor to the board of the Neurohacker Collective, as well as a co-founder of The Consilience Project.

Currents 043: Lene Rachel Andersen on Bildung Sep 30, 2021

Lene Rachel Andersen & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about the meaning of Bildung & the growing Bildung movement, inspired by last week's Global Bildung Festival... Lene Rachel Andersen & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about the meaning of Bildung & the growing Bildung movement, inspired by last week's Global Bildung Festival. They discuss easily transferable "horizontal" knowledge vs. emotional, social, & bodily development, the need to confront exponentially increasing rates of change, appropriate learning for appropriate ages, the wasted effort of teaching math to young children, participatory knowing in childhood play, how to expand our sense of responsibility, ten concentric circles of belonging, humans as a custodial species, applying Kant's categorical imperative to food choices, highlights of the Bildung Festival, and more. Episode Transcript Bildung: Keep Growing by Lene Rachel Andersen The Nordic Secret by Lene Rachel Andersen and Tomas Björkman JRS: EP67 Tomas Björkman on The Nordic Secret John Vervaeke, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis (lecture series) Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta Many of the lectures mentioned are available on the Global Bildung Network YouTube page. Further reading: "What is Bildung?" (paper by Lene Rachel Andersen) Global Bildung Network The Global Bildung Manifesto Nordic Bildung European Bildung Network North American Bildung Bildung América Latina Bildung on Medium Lene Rachel Andersen is an economist, author, futurist, philosopher and Bildung activist. She heads the think tank Nordic Bildung in Copenhagen and is a member of the Club of Rome. After studying business economy for three years, she worked as a temp teacher before studying theology. During her studies, she wrote entertainment for Danish television until she decided to quit theology, become a full-time writer, and focus on technological development, big history, and the future of humanity. Since 2005, she has written 18 books and received two Danish democracy awards: Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and Døssing Prisen, the Danish librarians’ democracy prize (2012). Among her books are The Nordic Secret (2017), co-developed and edited by Club of Rome member Tomas Björkman, Metamodernity (2019), and Bildung (2020).

EP142 Robert Tercek on the Metaverse Sep 27, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with returning guest Robert Tercek about competing visions of the metaverse... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with returning guest Robert Tercek about competing visions of the metaverse, centralized vs. decentralized models, the importance of interoperability standards, differences between VR & AR, digital twins, digitization of the supply chain, AI-enabled creation of artificial worlds, Unity’s democratizing approach to 3D creation tools, the metaverse's potential for social harm, Marc Andreessen’s statements about “Reality Privilege,” whether the metaverse will be an extension of digital feudalism, mental-health externalities of social media, keeping “useless humans” occupied versus a world where everyone can be useful, meaning & craftsmanship in digital worlds, the challenge of 3D search, the illusion of “free” services, and more. Episode Transcript EP 133 – Robert Tercek on Digital Strategies EP 139 – Robert Tercek on Education Today Mark Zuckerberg’s interview in The Verge WSJ article about effects of Instagram on teenage girls (paywalled) Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow, by Yuval Noah Harari The Social Dilemma (documentary film) Sources for unpacking the metaverse: Matthew Ball’s website Jon Radoff (Medium) GS1US.org Robert Tercek is an award-winning author and one of the world’s leading authorities on dematerialization and the virtual economy. He has supervised the launch of new digital services that are used by hundreds of millions of people every day, including the first streaming video on mobile phones, the largest live educational program on the web, and some of the earliest games on a variety of platforms, including PCs, the web, and mobile.

EP141 Heather Heying on Confronting Hyper-Novelty Sep 14, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with evolutionary biologist Heather Heying about her & Bret Weinstein’s new book, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with evolutionary biologist Heather Heying about her & Bret Weinstein’s new book, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life. They discuss hyper-novelty & its challenges, niche-switching as the human niche, the naturalistic fallacy, the Ancient Beringians’ entry into the Americas, the hubris of reductionism & neo-cornucopianism, humans as the blankest slates, metaphoric & literal campfires, scaling laws in social groups, theory of mind, social media’s flattening effects including flattened affects, social media sabbaticals, the Sucker’s Folly, human population explosion, the Personal Responsibility Vortex, Proto-B communities, the lineage view of evolution, understanding exponentials & fat-tail events, culture as evolutionary adaptation (the Omega Principle), humanity’s Fourth Frontier, and more. Episode Transcript Heather’s Website DarkHorse Podcast JRS: EP24 - Bret Weinstein on Evolving Culture JRS: Currents 17 - Bret Weinstein on Unity 2020 JRS: EP140 - Robin Dunbar on Friendship Heather Heying is an evolutionary biologist who applies the toolkit of evolutionary theory to problems large and small. She is a professor in exile, cohost of the DarkHorse Podcast alongside her husband Bret Weinstein, and the author of numerous essays.

EP140 Robin Dunbar on Friendship Aug 30, 2021

Jim talks to Robin Dunbar (of Dunbar's number) about his new book, Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships... Jim talks with evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar, discoverer of Dunbar's number, about his latest book, Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships. They cover the importance of friendship, the loneliness epidemic, loneliness as a signal rather than a disease, oxytocin & endorphins, physical touch, synchrony & other ways of triggering the endorphin system, new data sources in the study of social networks, the social brain hypothesis, theory of mind/mind-reading, limitations of our mind-simulating capacities, the discovery of the Dunbar number(s), examples of the pattern from Navy Seals to Christmas cards, the mystery behind the scaling law of three, the seven pillars of friendship, costs & benefits of diversity, why friendships end, and more. Episode Transcript Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships Dunbar’s number Framingham Heart Study “Toward a Neurology of Loneliness” - by John Cacioppo & others Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, an Emeritus Fellow of Magdalen College, and an elected Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Anthropological Institute. His principal research interests focus on the evolution of sociality (with particular reference to primates and humans). He is best known for the social brain hypothesis, the gossip theory of language evolution and Dunbar’s Number (the limit on the number of relationships that we can manage). His publications include 15 authored or edited academic books and nearly 550 scientific journal articles. In addition, he has published a great deal of science print journalism in newspapers and magazines, and 11 popular science books.

Currents 042: John Robb on Afghanistan Withdrawal Aug 19, 2021

John Robb & Jim meet for a timely discussion about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan... John Robb & Jim meet for a timely discussion about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the current mess at the Kabul airport, how the Taliban are controlling the flow of evacuations, likely backroom negotiations, dynamics of the intelligence and command failures that led us here, the U.S.’s failure to switch from guerilla warfare to maneuver warfare, the overreliance on diplomacy, OODA loops & shears, tempo change, how the Taliban could force the U.S. into an overland retreat & whether they will, the brutality of nation-building, Afghanistan & Iraq as foreign-policy distractions, further examples & consequences of “assumption rot”, and more. Episode Transcript JRS - Currents 021: John Robb on Jan 6th, 2021 John’s Patreon: Global Guerillas Report John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP139 Robert Tercek on Education Today Aug 16, 2021

Robert Tercek & Jim continue their conversation in this wide-ranging chat about learning & education... Robert Tercek & Jim continue their conversation in this wide-ranging chat about learning & education. They discuss the dematerialized economy, technological unemployment risk, underestimating software automation, AI as a career superpower, changing cost & quality of college, what education is for, Bryan Caplan’s challenge to the value of college, COVID & online education, online educational resource curation, VR learning potential, the metaverse discovery problem, why higher ed hasn’t vaporized, microcredentials & the push for alternative credentialing, 2 vaporized-education business proposals, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP133 Robert Tercek on Digital Strategies Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?” (Oxford University) Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money by Bryan Caplan JRS: EP32 – Jason Brennan on Irrational Democracy & Academia Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts Virtual Film School Open Badges Robert Tercek is an award-winning author and one of the world’s leading authorities on dematerialization and the virtual economy. He has supervised the launch of new digital services that are used by hundreds of millions of people every day, including the first streaming video on mobile phones, the largest live educational program on the web, and some of the earliest games on a variety of platforms, including PCs, the web, and mobile.

Currents 041: Jonathan Rowson on Our Metacrisis Pickle Aug 09, 2021

Jonathan Rowson & Jim continue their conversation by exploring Jonathan's recent essay, Tasting the Pickle: Ten flavours of meta-crisis and the appetite for a new civilization... Jonathan Rowson & Jim continue their conversation by exploring Jonathan's recent essay, Tasting the Pickle: Ten flavours of meta-crisis and the appetite for a new civilization. They cover contextualizing our entangled meta-crisis, finding better language, limits of intellect & usefulness of felt experience in sensemaking (tasting the pickle), dividing vs distinguishing, mapping the pickle, saving humanity & spreading life, the "is it too late" question & our collective action problem, hidden aspects of the pickle, unifying vs pluralistic views, spiritual bypassing, metaphysical speculation, defining "meta", 10 flavors of the pickle, and more. Episode Transcript Jonathan's Website JRS: EP127 Jonathan Rowson on The Moves That Matter Dr. Iain McGilchrist Jim's article, In Search of the 5th Attractor Jonathan Rowson is co-founder and director of the research institute Perspectiva based in London. He is also the former director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts and is a chess grandmaster and three-time British Chess Champion. His books include The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, Chess for Zebras, Spiritualize: Cultivating Spiritual Sensibility to Address 21st Century Challenges, and, The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life.

Currents 040: Jim Rutt Show Changes & Reflections Aug 02, 2021

Jim Rutt Show producer, Jared Janes & Jim announce some changes to the podcast... Jim Rutt Show producer, Jared Janes & Jim announce some changes to the podcast, preview upcoming guests, talk about the Jim Rutt Show (JRS) origin story, Jim's guest prep process, the evolution of JRS, its impact on Jim's reading habits, reading fiction, civilization collapse, contemporary influencers & counter cultures, curation as a service, what Jim likes the most about the podcast, core JRS themes, the art of yarning, stand out episodes & collaborations that came from the podcast, meditation, and more. Episode Transcript Mentioned Future Guests – Robin Dunbar, Heather E Heying, Robert Tercek, John Vervaeke, Antonio Damasio Mentioned Episodes – JRS: EP136 Harvey Reid on Troubadour Music, JRS: EP75 Nick Chater: “The Mind Is Flat”, JRS: EP116 Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion, JRS: EP51 Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration, JRS: EP37 Jared Janes on Spirituality Mentioned Guests – Tyson Yunkaporta JRS Episodes, Gregg Henriques JRS Episodes, Max Borders JRS Episodes, Michel Bauwens JRS Episodes, Daniel Schmachtenberger JRS Episodes, Simon DeDeo JRS Episodes, Zak Stein JRS Episodes, Samo Burja JRS Episodes, Mark Burgess JRS Episodes John Vervaeke's Series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Roam Research Jim Rutt on Medium Bobby Akart Ursula K. Le Guin Robert A Heinlein War and Peace Denis Villeneuve The Consilience Project Waking Up App from Sam Harris

EP138 W. Brian Arthur on the Nature of Technology Jul 26, 2021

W. Brian Arthur & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about his book, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves... W. Brian Arthur & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about his book, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves. They talk about the surprisingly little work on the nature of technology, invention vs innovation, understanding technology as harnessed phenomena, human purpose, the fluid relationship between economies & tech, technology as building on existing components, multi=level evolutionary dynamics in tech, theory of invention & problem solving, domains of technology, relationship between tech & science, tech density & modularity, geographic clusters of tech, knowledge vs deep craft, and more. Episode Transcript The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves W. Brian Arthur is an economist and complexity thinker. He is best known for his work on network effects locking markets in to the domination of a single player. He is also one of the pioneers of the science of complexity—the science of how patterns and structures self-organize. He is a member of the Founders Society of the Santa Fe Institute and in 1988 ran its first research program. He has served on SFI's Science Board for 18 years and its Board of Trustees for 10 years, and is currently External Professor at SFI. He held the Morrison Chair of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford from 1983 to 1996. He has degrees in operations research, economics, mathematics, and electrical engineering.

Currents 039: Alexander Beiner on Psychedelic Turf Wars Jul 18, 2021

Alexander Beiner & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about Beiner’s recent essay “Who’s in Charge of Psilocybin?”... Alexander Beiner & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about Beiner’s recent essay “Who’s in Charge of Psilocybin?”. They discuss the state of play regarding psilocybin’s legality, its effectiveness in therapeutic contexts, therapeutic versus personal-growth uses, the value and limitations of clinical trials, metaphors for psychedelics risk, the differences between synthesized and natural-grown psilocybin, COMPASS Pathways’ big patent grab and its threat to psilocybin access, the battle for narrative control around psychedelics, money-on-money return as an engine of Game A, psychedelic sensemaking, psychedelics as a Game B psychotechnology, an LSD-fuelled skiing trip, an idea for a business, and much more. JRS: Currents 019: Alexander Beiner on Indigenous Narcissism Who’s In Charge of Psilocybin? Psilocybin: From Serendipity to Credibility? (paper by James Rucker and Allan Young) Ayahuasca’s ‘afterglow’: improved mindfulness and cognitive flexibility in ayahuasca drinkers Porta Sophia - Psychedelic Prior Art Library (open source patent library) Beiner’s debate with Compass Pathways co-founder Lars Wilde Carey Turnbull’s nonprofit Freedom to Operate Usona Institute Multidisclipinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Alexander Beiner is a writer, facilitator and cultural commentator. As a co-founder of Rebel Wisdom, he leads on Rebel Wisdom’s written content and live experiences, and is particularly focused in finding new ways of having in-person conversations around the most essential and challenging ideas. He is also one of the directors of Breaking Convention, Europe’s largest conference on psychedelic science and culture. His work on psychedelic culture has been published in the 2016 book Neurotransmissions, as well as The Guardian. He also writes fiction and plays traditional Irish music.

Currents 038: Connor Leahy on Artificial Intelligence Jul 15, 2021

Connor Leahy continues his conversion with Jim in this wide-ranging chat about Artificial Intelligence... Connor Leahy continues his conversion with Jim in this wide-ranging chat about his new GPT-J model, the background & approach of Aleph Alpha, attention in AI, our food maximizer & AGI risk, narrow algorithm impacts, proto-AGI, risk thresholds & timelines, safeguard complexities, slow vs fast AI take-off, Connor's brilliantly strange Counting Consciousness series, biological blockchain & the hard problem of trust, the AI consciousness diversity question, and more. JRS: Currents 033: Connor Leahy on Deep Learning Multimodality: attention is all you need is all we needed Eliezer Yudkowsky's Tweet on AI risk JRS: EP137 Ken Stanley on Neuroevolution Counting Consciousness, Part 1 EleutherAI Connor Leahy is an AI Researcher at German startup Aleph Alpha and founding member of the loose AI research collective EleutherAI. Eleuther is best known for their ongoing efforts to produce a full open source GPT-3 sized language model. Connor currently researches large, general purpose language models and how to align them to human values.

EP137 Ken Stanley on Neuroevolution Jul 13, 2021

Ken Stanley & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about one of his co-authored papers, "Designing neural networks through neuroevolution"... Ken Stanley & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about one of his co-authored papers, "Designing neural networks through neuroevolution". They cover neuroevolution dynamics, resistance to evolutionary thinking in AI, the evolutionary timescale, understanding genetic algorithms, neural networks & their role in neuroevolution, Ken's unifying NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) method, scaling NEAT, the importance of diversity in innovation, novelty search, indirect encoding, Hybercube-based NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (HyperNEAT), co-evolutionary dynamics, the evolution of learning, and much more. Episode Transcript Ken's Website Designing neural networks through neuroevolution JRS: EP130 Ken Stanley on Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned Ken Stanley leads a research team at OpenAI on the challenge of open-endedness. He was previously Charles Millican Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida and was also a co-founder of Geometric Intelligence Inc., which was acquired by Uber to create Uber AI Labs, where he was head of Core AI research. He received a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 and received a Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Texas at Austin. He is an inventor of the Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT), HyperNEAT, novelty search, and POET algorithms, as well as the CPPN representation, among many others.

Currents 037: Sam Harris on Surviving Our Smartphones Jul 10, 2021

Reason.fm co-founder Sam Harris talks to Jim about his TEDx talk, "The Genius You Need to Listen to Is Yourself"... Reason.fm co-founder Sam Harris talks to Jim about his TEDx talk, "The Genius You Need to Listen to Is Yourself". They cover technology attention highjacking, putting our phones away, social media algorithms, playing games you can win, utilizing rules, natural social interactions, online dating dynamics, time blocking, the value of boredom, where humanity is heading, and much more. Episode Transcript TEDx: The Genius You Need to Listen to Is Yourself Jim's Ep on Sam's Growth Mindset Podcast Reason.fm (formerly Syncify) Reclaiming Our Cognitive Sovereignty The Social Dilemma

EP136 Harvey Reid on Troubadour Music Jul 06, 2021

Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, and music educator Harvey Reid talks to Jim about his book, The Troubadour Chronicles: A History, A Celebration and A Manifesto... Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, and music educator Harvey Reid talks to Jim about his book, The Troubadour Chronicles: A History, A Celebration and A Manifesto. They talk about Harvey's musical background, what a troubadour is, solo performance & collaborations, Jim & Harvey's favorite troubadours & performances, Bob Dylan, musical education's failure to support troubadours, over-emphasis on sight-reading & notation, music tablature, tunning variation, multi-cultural troubadour history, technical evolutions in music, Robert Johnson Recordings, COVID impacts on music, visionary black musicians, embracing the improper, and much more. Episode Transcript Woodpecker Multimedia The Troubadour Chronicles Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Harvey's Favorite Troubadour Performances John Prine Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer and music educator Harvey Reid has honed his craft since the 1970's in countless clubs, festivals, streetcorners, cafes, schools and concert halls across the nation. He has been called a "giant of the steel strings" and "one of the true treasures of American acoustic music," and is considered to be one of the modern masters and innovators of the acoustic guitar, autoharp and 6-string banjo. He has absorbed a vast repertoire of American contemporary and roots music and woven it into his own colorful, personal and distinctive style. His 32 recordings on the Woodpecker record label showcase his mastery of many instruments and styles of acoustic music, from hip folk to slashing slide guitar blues to bluegrass, old-time, Celtic, ragtime, and even classical. Full Bio Here

EP135 Dennis Waters on Behavior & Culture in One Dimension Jul 01, 2021

Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Dennis Waters about his book, Behavior and Culture in One Dimension: Sequences, Affordances, and the Evolution of Complexity... Jim has a wide-ranging talk with Dennis Waters about his book, Behavior and Culture in One Dimension: Sequences, Affordances, and the Evolution of Complexity. They chat about the challenges of interdisciplinary work in academia, value in understanding sequences, emergent behavior, constraint dynamics, instructive & descriptive sequences, emergent patterns, why "talk is cheap", co-evolution, the Fermi paradox, origins of life, energetic costs, rate independence vs dependence, laws vs rules, self-referentiality, the importance of language & writing, DNA & RNA, open-endedness, coherent pluralism, the Cambrian explosion, the role of interactors, Dennis' view of AGI plausibility, and much more. Episode Transcript Behavior and Culture in One Dimension Santa Fe Institute Facebook Page The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves JRS: EP40 Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems Dennis P. Waters received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the Watson Engineering School at Binghamton University, where his advisor was Howard Pattee. Rather than travel the academic road, Waters became a serial entrepreneur, founding and selling several technical publishing businesses. Since retiring from business, Waters has returned to the research project that inspired his Ph.D., how one-dimensional patterns of DNA, language, and computer code orchestrate the behavior of the three-dimensional world in which we live.

EP134 Forrest Landry on Non-Relative Ethics Jun 28, 2021

Forrest Landry & Jim continue their exploration of metaphysics by diving deep into the Non-Relative Ethics that arise from Forrest’s Immanent Metaphysics... Forrest Landry & Jim continue their exploration of metaphysics by diving deep into the Non-Relative Ethics that arise from Forrest’s Immanent Metaphysics. They cover ethical philosophies, defining effective choice, ethics vs morality, the relationship of choice & ethics, defining self beyond the human, localization in perception, the uncertainty of choice & limits of reason, the role of integrity, prioritizing symmetry & continuity, value, purpose, meaningfulness, Forrest's view on the meaning crisis, ethical practice, autism & sociopathy, perception & expression relationship, three essential rights, cooperation, wants, needs, desires, feeling & thinking towards choices, and much more. Episode Transcript Non-Relative Ethics Immanent Metaphysics Forrest's past JRS Episodes John Vervaeke Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large-scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

Currents 036: Melanie Mitchell on Why AI is Hard Jun 26, 2021

Jim talks to Melanie Mitchell about her recent paper, "Why AI is Harder Than We Think"... Melanie Mitchell & Jim talk about her recent paper, "Why AI is Harder Than We Think". They cover AI fantasies, self-driving cars, prediction failures, AI winters & summers, Melanie's four fallacies, common sense, theory of mind, defining understanding, embodied cognition, the role of emotions in intelligence, the future of AI, and more. Episode Transcript "Why AI is Harder Than We Think" JRS: EP33 Melanie Mitchell on the Elements of AI Complexity: A Guided Tour Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans JRS: EP25 Gary Marcus on Rebooting AI JRS: Currents 015: Jessica Flack & Melanie Mitchell on Complexity Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Co-Chair of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. Mitchell has also held faculty or professional positions at the University of Michigan, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the OGI School of Science and Engineering. She is the author or editor of seven books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems, including her latest, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans.

Currents 035: Steve Barbour on Mining Bitcoin with Methane Jun 24, 2021

Steve Barbour talks to Jim about his company, Upstream Data Inc. — a company that uses natural gas to mine bitcoin... Steve Barbour talks to Jim about his company, Upstream Data Inc. — a company that uses natural gas to mine bitcoin. They cover the dynamics of excess natural gas release, how methane is normally vented or burnt up, Upstream's environmental impact, mining hardware setup & efficiency, cost per kilowatt, customer RIO, bitcoin uses, monetary theory, 2nd & 3rd generation cryptocurrencies, inflationary currencies, zero-sum environmental thinking, and more. Episode Transcript Upstream Data Inc. Steve on Twitter Bitmain Steve Barbour is a mechanical engineer and owner of Upstream Data Inc., an oilfield services business focused on bitcoin mining and power generation for upstream oil and gas facilities. Steve is a strong advocate for bitcoin and believes it represents a paradigm shift in monetary technology. He was born and raised in St. John's, Newfoundland and currently resides in Calgary, Alberta with his lovely wife Morgan.

EP133 Robert Tercek on Digital Strategies Jun 21, 2021

Robert Tercek has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about his book, Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World... Robert Tercek talks to Jim about his book, Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World. They cover the usefulness of the vapor metaphor, centralization vs decentralization, the impact of closed application ecosystems, value in intangible assets, hardware vs software profitability, the telling story of Tower Records, rapid consumer market changes, big tech bundling strategies, the birth of mobile games, Epic Games vs Apple, digital goods, race to the VR metaverse, digitized smart cities, future TV evolutions, interactive TV & Twitch, switchboards vs platforms vs markets vs ecosystems, and much more. Episode Transcript RobertTercek.com Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World CodeMiko Robert Tercek is an award-winning author and one of the world’s leading authorities on dematerialization and the virtual economy. He has supervised the launch of new digital services that are used by hundreds of millions of people every day, including the first streaming video on mobile phones, the largest live educational program on the web, and some of the earliest games on a variety of platforms, including PCs, the web, and mobile.

EP132 Britt Adkins on Celestial Civilization Jun 17, 2021

Britt Adkins & Jim on the space industry: prioritization, funding, misconceptions, meaning, cultural & political impact, policy, and much more... Britt Adkins has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about the space industry. They explore prioritizing space funding & common misconceptions, power of the overview effect, global vs celestial community, cultural & political impacts, public participation strategies, physical / psychological adaptation to space & other planets, scaling humanity, urban planning in space, orbital debris & waste, environmental design dynamics, cultural commons in space, policy challenges & the Outer Space Treaty, diversity in the space industry, Elon Musk worship, off-earth self sufficiency, and much more. Episode Transcript Britt on Twitter Celestial Citizen Celestial Citizen Podcast Podcast: The Habitat HI-SEAS Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men Britt is the first space urban planner and founder of Celestial Citizen. She is passionate about the intersection of urban planning, engineering, science, and social justice as humans look to build new societies in space. Britt also hosts the Celestial Citizen podcast where she looks to spark unique conversations about the human factors that will be essential to our long-term survival and evolution into a spacefaring civilization. She's currently dually-enrolled at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy pursuing a Master of Urban Planning, and at the Colorado School of Mines, where she will be receiving a Master of Science in Space Resources. She also graduated from the MIT-Wellesley Double Degree program where she received the S.B. in Urban Studies & Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. from Wellesley College in Architecture.

Currents 034: Samo Burja on the Consilience Project Jun 15, 2021

Samo Burja joins Jim to talk about the Consilience Project: a project that aims to create positive cultural change in unique ways... Samo Burja joins Jim to talk about the Consilience Project: a project that aims to create positive cultural change in unique ways. They cover its founding goals & approaches, big tech's ability to amplify negative externalities, the rise of Trump, memetic noise & virality, how digital cultures change, types of articles, sense-making, meaning-making, choice-making & social norms, de-energizing society & carbon accounting, unique ways the Consilience team collaborates & operates, new/upcoming articles, and much more. Episode Transcript Consilience Project Samo on Twitter JRS: Currents 030: Daniel Schmachtenberger on The Consilience Project JRS: EP125 Samo Burja on Societal Decline: Part 2 JRS: EP117 Samo Burja on Societal Decline Democracy and the Epistemic Commons Taiwan's Digital Democracy Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

EP131 Jason Mauck on #FarmWeird Jun 14, 2021

Jason Mauck talks to Jim about starting Constant Canopy and the dynamics, technologies & economics of innovative farming strategies... Jason Mauck talks to Jim about what lead him to farm, how & why he started Constant Canopy, agriculture innovation dynamics & economics, finding crop combinations, turning manure into methane, utilizing Biochar, acquiring a meat-packing business, building direct-to-consumer meat distribution & strategy, farm integration models (livestock, agro, food, entertainment...), robotic berry picking, and much more. Episode Transcript Jim's Mauck Me Episode Jason on Twitter Constant Canopy Mauck Me Podcast Jason is obsessed with narrowing the gaps of agriculture. An apostle of relay cropping, Mauck, is blazing a new path using cash and cover crops in unison. One middle at a time, the maverick grower is uncovering clues and running wide open toward greater farming efficiency. Jason works 3,000 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat, in addition to 25,000 hogs per year. His company, Constant Canopy, is developing cutting-edge farming methods and currently holds the Indiana state record for the highest yield per acre for soybeans and has developed scalable systems for corn yields that surpass most high-test plots.

EP130 Ken Stanley on Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned Jun 07, 2021

Ken Stanley and Jim talk about his wide-ranging book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective... Ken Stanley and Jim talk about his wide-ranging book Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective. They cover the no free lunch theorem, exploitations vs exploration, the myth & issues of objectives, the room of all images & adjacent possible, the problems & dynamics of deception, the power of serendipity, gradients of interestingness, intuition & novelty search, social change & innovation, emergent education & AI insights, incrementalism, risk & reward, Ken's unique journal idea, and much more. Episode Transcript Ken's Site Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective JRS: EP25 Gary Marcus on Rebooting AI Ken Stanley leads a research team at OpenAI on the challenge of open-endedness. He was previously Charles Millican Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida and was also a co-founder of Geometric Intelligence Inc., which was acquired by Uber to create Uber AI Labs, where he was head of Core AI research. He received a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 and received a Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Texas at Austin. He is an inventor of the Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT), HyperNEAT, novelty search, and POET algorithms, as well as the CPPN representation, among many others.

Currents 033: Connor Leahy on Deep Learning Jun 04, 2021

Connor Leahy has a wide-ranging chat with Jim about the state & future of Deep Learning... Connor Leahy has a wide-ranging chat with Jim about the state & future of Deep Learning. They cover the history of EleutherAI, how GPT-3 works, the dynamics & power of scaling laws, ideal sampling rates & sizes for models, data sets, EleutherAI's opensource GTP-Neo & GTP-NeoX, PyTorch vs TensorFlow, TPU's vs GPU's, the challenge of benchmarking & evaluations, quadradic bottlenecks, broad GTP-3 applications, Connors thoughts on Jim's proposed GPT-3 research project, untapped GPT-3 potential, OpenAI's move away from opensource, alignment, AI safety, the unknown future, and much more. Episode Transcript Connor on Twitter Jared Kaplan The Pile CoreWeave Connor Leahy is an AI Researcher at German startup Aleph Alpha and founding member of the loose AI research collective EleutherAI. Eleuther is best known for their ongoing efforts to produce a full open source GPT-3 sized language model. Connor currently researches large, general purpose language models and how to align them to human values.

EP129 Stephanie Lepp on Deep Reckonings May 31, 2021

Stephanie Lepp & Jim have a wide-ranging talk on her two-time Webby Award winning video series, Deep Reckonings... Stephanie Lepp & Jim have a wide-ranging talk on her two-time Webby Award winning video series, Deep Reckonings. They start by covering the history & intentions of Deep Reckonings, deep fake technology, our post-truth crisis, and the pros & cons of irony. They then go on to talk about the Deep Reckonings videos: how she chose people to include, reflections on the Mark Zuckerberg video, the challenge of remaining in good faith, free speech & censorship, GameB, Joe Rogan & Alex Jones, reflections the Brett Kavanaugh video, analyzing Jim's own Robin DiAngelo deep reckoning script, capitalism, how the video scripts changed Stefanie, materialism, the role of conviviality in moving away from GameA, Potlatch, and more. Episode Transcript Stephanie's Site Reckonings Podcast Deep Reckonings JRS: EP52 Steven Levy on Facebook: The Inside Story Mark Zuckerberg Deep Reckoning Brett Kavanaugh Deep Reckoning Stephanie Lepp is a storyteller, producer, and strategist interested in exploring worldview transformation, the relationship between personal and social change, and sense-making in a post-truth world. She's a member of the Guild of Future Architects and two-time Webby Awards winner, and her work has been recognized by institutions such as the Mozilla Foundation and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

EP128 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 3 May 27, 2021

Forrest Landry & Jim continue their exploration of Forrest's Immanent Metaphysics by diving deep into its Incommensuration Theorem (ICT)... Forrest Landry & Jim continue their exploration of metaphysics by diving deep into a theorem that arises from Forrest's Immanent Metaphysics called Incommensuration Theorem (ICT). They start by defining the key concepts of ICT: symmetry & continuity, domains & their three elements, what it means to know something, measurement & comparison, sameness & difference, content & context, access control limits, time & causality, the principle of identity, and the nature of epistemic processes. Then, using these concepts, they go into what ICT says about possible relationships of continuity & symmetry, everyday & scientific implications of those revealed relationships, quantum interpretations from the view of ICT, and much more. Episode Transcript Incommensuration Theorem (ICT) Dialog Bell's theorem Superdeterminism Gödel's theorem JRS: EP96 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1 JRS: EP109 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 2 JRS: EP31 Forrest Landry on Building our Future Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

EP127 Jonathan Rowson on The Moves That Matter May 24, 2021

Jonathan Rowson & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about his book, The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life... Jonathan Rowson & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about his book, The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life. They cover chess as a meta metaphor, partial vs full info, randomness, freedom, concentration vs flow states, chess player ratings, mastery, embodied intuition, AI, fundamental dimensions of chess, utilizing time, climate change, wisdom, the strong vs the weak, religion & fundamental reality, metaphysical & ontological modesty, purpose, meaning, and much more. Episode Transcript Jonathan's Site Perspectiva The RSA What is Emerging JRS: EP67 Tomas Björkman on The Nordic Secret JRS: EP112 Annie Duke on Bets & Better Decisions Two Concepts of Liberty by Isaiah Berlin Aeon article on Flow & Concentration Paper on Flow & Macroeconomic Design The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness The Consilience Project Tasting the Pickle Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense Jonathan Rowson is co-founder and director of the research institute Perspectiva based in London. He is also the former director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts and is a chess grandmaster and three-time British Chess Champion. His books include The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, Chess for Zebras, Spiritualize: Cultivating Spiritual Sensibility to Address 21st Century Challenges, and, The Moves That Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life.

EP126 Jordan Gruber & James Fadiman on Our Symphony of Selves May 17, 2021

Jordan Gruber & James Fadiman talk with Jim about their new book, Your Symphony of Selves: Discover and Understand More of Who We Are... Jordan Gruber & James Fadiman talk to Jim about their book, Your Symphony of Selves: Discover and Understand More of Who We Are. They cover our multiple selves, self vs mood, arguing with ourselves, David Bowie, history of the single-self assumption, connecting with our younger selves, self-switching benefits & methods, authenticity, contextuality, connections to mental illness, psychedelics & meditation, integrating selves, cultural differences, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Your Symphony of Selves: Discover and Understand More of Who We Are The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Jordan Gruber, J.D., M.A., Renaissance Wordsmith—writer, collaborative writer, ghostwriter, editor, and coach—has created and sculpted authoritative volumes in forensic law, financial services, psychology, and health and wellness. A graduate of Binghamton University and the University of Virginia School of Law, he founded the Enlightenment.Com website. He has recently co-authored Your Symphony of Selves (on healthy multiplicity) with James Fadiman, as well as The Bounce (on rebound exercise) with Joy Daniels. He lives in Menlo Park, California, with his wife and family. James Fadiman is an American psychologist and writer. He is acknowledged for his extensive work in the field of psychedelic research. He co-founded, along with Robert Frager, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, which later became Sofia University, where he was a lecturer in psychedelic studies.

EP125 Samo Burja on Societal Decline: Part 2 May 10, 2021

Samo Burja & Jim continue their convo about Great Founder Theory: history, bureaucracy vs delegation, competition, ambition, empire theory, and much more... Samo Burja & Jim continue their conversation about his book, Great Founder Theory. They talk about Samo's interest in exploring why there's never been an immortal society, lack of historical Greece documentation, defining functional bureaucracy & delegation, competition pros/cons & dynamics, skill distribution & capitalization, measuring & defining skills over time scales, utilizing & nurturing ambition, what empire theory exposes about societies & institutions, inevitable oligarchy, rivalrous vs non-rivalrous systems, insights from Chinese history, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Part 1: EP117 Samo Burja on Societal Decline Great Founder Theory The Free World: Art & Thought in the Cold War The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods & the Theory of Groups Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

Currents 032: Tyson Yunkaporta on Spirits, GameB & Protopias May 07, 2021

Tyson Yunkaporta joins Jim for another wide-ranging yarn that covers DMT & machine elves, survivance, ego death, selling souls, and much more... Tyson Yunkaporta joins Jim for another wide-ranging yarn that starts off with DMT & machine elves. They cover Jim's misspent youth, police violence, nuance vs Occam's razor, Tyson's impressions of GameB & the sensemakers, Tyson's unpublished Survivance essay, Jim's recent emu encounter & live intentional ego death, utilizing drugs, selling our souls to social media, debt jubilee & the road to GameB, ProtoBs as a dynamic exploration, utopia vs protopia, the value of cognitive dissonance, and much more. Episode Transcript Tyson's Podcast, The Other Others Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World JRS: Currents 010: Tyson Yunkaporta on Humans As Custodial Species JRS: EP66 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Knowledge JRS: EP65 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy JRS: Currents 030: Daniel Schmachtenberger on The Consilience Project JRS: EP123 Jamie Wheal on Recapturing the Rapture EmancipationParty.org Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He lives in Melbourne and is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

EP124 Jim Hackett on Ford, Electric Cars & More May 03, 2021

Former Ford CEO, Jim Hackett & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about the history & future of electric cars, the automotive industry, and much more... Former Ford CEO, Jim Hackett & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about the history & future of electric cars. They cover Ford & Edison's first electric car, the current state of the electric cars, understanding scaling & natural systems, business change vs death, the evolution of car models & sizes, all-electric car plausibility, carbon taxes, electric range & charging time, electricity demand & smart grids, the history of Ford's Mustang Mach-e, the road to self-driving cars, safety & trust, startup car companies, the importance of user experience design, Apple, Ford & IDEO, the future of Ford, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP94 Shahin Farshchi on Self-Driving Tech JRS: EP44 Steve LeVine on EV Battery Tech Santa Fe Institute Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business Jim Hackett is an American businessman. He was the president and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Company from May 2017 to October 2020.

Currents 031: Trent Loos on Family Ranching Apr 29, 2021

Trent Loos talks to Jim about his multi-generational Nebraska-based ranching operation... Trent Loos talks to Jim about his multi-generational Nebraska-based ranching operation. They cover the deep history of the family ranch, types of animals, dealing with predators, pork production & breeding, the decline in quality of industrial pork, beef production and breeds, grass vs grain-fed beef, old-time animal trailing, 4-H fairs and auctions, slaughterhouse labor shortages, food economics & cultural norms, super CSA's, soil health & livestock, generational knowledge, and much more. Episode Transcript Trent Loos Podcast Jim's on Trent's Podcast Trent Loos is a sixth-generation United States Rancher that is documenting life in the business of food production while protecting the environment.

EP123 Jamie Wheal on Recapturing the Rapture Apr 26, 2021

Jamie Wheal talks to Jim about his new book, Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind... Jamie Wheal talks to Jim about his new book, Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind. They talk about the world losing its mind & the meaning crisis, the pros & cons of modernism, the danger & dynamics of rapture ideologies, alignment beyond agreement, dehumanization, commonalities of political poles, hyper-capitalist incentives & impacts, social media & free speech, idealizing fame, victimization, post-modernism vs wokeism, moving towards the post-tragic, civic nationalism, coherent pluralism, and GameB. They finish the episode by talking about Jamie's alchemic cookbook: breathing, drugs, sex, religion, altered states, meditation, death, rebirth, mystery, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Stealing Fire JRS: EP27 Jamie Wheal on Flow & the Future of Culture Recapture the Rapture Flow Genome Project Beforeigners Zak Stein JRS Episodes Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse Jamie Wheal is the Executive Director of The Flow Genome Project and leading expert in the neurophysiology of human performance. His work combines a background in expeditionary education, wilderness medicine, and surf rescue, with over a decade of advising high-growth companies on strategy, execution, and leadership. Jamie's coaching ranges from Fortune 500 companies like Cisco, Google, and Nike, to the U.S. Naval War College, and Red Bull. You'll find him speaking on the intersection of science and human potential to diverse, high-performance communities like Young President's Organization, Summit Series, TED, and MaiTai Global. At the Flow Genome Project, he leads a team of the world’s top scientists, athletes, and artists dedicated to mapping the genome of the peak-performance state known as Flow. He lives on the Colorado River with his wife Julie, their two kids Lucas and Emma, and a righteous Golden Retriever named Cassie.

Currents 030: Daniel Schmachtenberger on The Consilience Project Apr 22, 2021

Daniel Schmachtenberger & Jim talk about his newly launched project, The Consilience Project... Daniel Schmachtenberger & Jim talk about his newly launched project, The Consilience Project. They start by covering some background for the project: why start it, primary focuses, cultural renaissance, the role of education & press, eroding knowledge commons, rapidly changing culture & scales, and learning from history. They then talk about the project's approaches & strategies: bottom-up problems-solving processes, understanding externalities, identifying core problems, content strategy, narrative navigation, post-tribalism, epistemic commons, meta news, fighting confirmation bias, modern memetic dynamics, social media moderation, out-group reading, civic virtue, post-modernism, science, 1st 2nd & 3rd person epistemologies, the target audience, being a media role model, community building, and much more. Episode Transcript The Consilience Project JRS: EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking JRS: EP7 Daniel Schmachtenberger and the Evolution of Technology Past Zak Stein JRS Episodes JRS: EP84 William Perry & Tom Collina on The Nuclear Button Consilience article, "Democracy and the Epistemic Commons" Consilience article, "Challenges to Making Sense of the 21st Century" Consilience article, "Were Pallets of Bricks Planted at Black Lives Matter Protests?" The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote JRS: EP107 Tristan Harris on Our Social Dilemma First Things Journal Daniel is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science. Motivated by the belief that advancing collective intelligence and capacity is foundational to the integrity of any civilization, and necessary to address the unique risks we currently face given the intersection of globalization and exponential technology, he has spoken publicly on many of these topics, hoping to popularize and deepen important conversations and engage more people in working towards their solutions. Many of these can be found here.

EP122 Ashley Colby on Subsistence Agriculture Apr 19, 2021

Ashley Colby & Jim talk about her book, Subsistence Agriculture in the US, moving to Uruguay, starting the Rizoma Field School, and much more... Ashley Colby & Jim start this episode by talking about her book, Subsistence Agriculture in the US: Reconnecting to Work, Nature and Community. They cover Gemeinschaft vs Gesellschaft, Dual Process Theory, bottom-up change, arriving at paradox & the purist failure, creating social capital, food producer demographics & insights, modern industrial alienation, the value of shadow structures, the urban chicken movement, subsistence agriculture motivations, practical environmentalism, & doomer optimism. They finish the episode by talking about how & why Ashley started the Rizoma Field School, moving to Uruguay, and her plans for a future online marketplace to help the subsistence agriculture movement. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Ashley's book, Subsistence Agriculture in the US Rizoma Field School Ashley on Twitter Ashley Colby is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University. In her book she explores subsistence food production as a potentially revolutionary act. She is interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. Ashley is a qualitative researcher so she tends to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She is now focused on doing anything she can to foment local, decentralized networks of people who can get us to the next iteration of society, and fast. The most urgent of these initiatives is SuLoFair, a cooperative startup whose mission is to accelerate local economies.

EP121 Broke in America with Joanne Goldblum & Colleen Shaddox Apr 12, 2021

Joanne Goldblum & Colleen Shaddox talk to Jim about their book, Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty... Joanne Goldblum & Colleen Shaddox talk to Jim about their book, Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty. They cover the "give a man fish" fallacy, poverty quicksand, two vs one-parent households, nurture vs nature, poverty's impact on children, poverty definition & demographics, rural vs urban poverty, water access issues & pricing, malnutrition, low-cost food plan, time poverty, National Diaper Bank Network, affordable housing & zoning laws, building codes & tiny homes, gov. commitment to social welfare / security / health, UBI vs guaranteed income, a national jobs guarantee, minimum wage, poverty advocates & activists, and more. Episode Transcript

EP120 James Ehrlich on ReGen Villages Part 2 Apr 08, 2021

James Ehrlich & Jim continue their conversation on ReGen Villages: smart houses & neighborhoods, regulatory hurdles, status/progress, and much more... James Ehrlich & Jim continue their conversation on ReGen Villages. They cover smart houses in dumb neighborhoods, defining smart, what COVID exposed about cities, ReGen Village dynamics & their permacultural core, rural jobs, UBI, rural regulatory challenges, village funding & costs, electric self-sufficiency approach, media & making ReGen Villages sexy, protecting villages with kindness, ReGen Villages status & progress, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP103 James Ehrlich on ReGen Villages ReGen Villages James Ehrlich is Founder of ReGen Villages a Stanford University spin-off company realizing the future of living in regenerative and resilient communities, with critical life support of organic food, clean water, renewable energy and circular nutritional flows at the neighborhood scale. James is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Stanford University School of Medicine Flourishing Project, Faculty at Singularity University, Senior Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center and (Obama) White House Appointee for Regenerative Infrastructure. Ehrlich founded ReGen Villages as a Dutch (EU) impact-profit company in 2016, with its patented VillageOS™ operating system software to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to define, design and autonomously manage regenerative neighborhoods that promote healthy long-term outcomes for residents and wider communities. ReGen Villages are planned for global replication and scale in collaboration with established industrial partners, universities, governments and sovereign wealth and pension funds, enabling an optimistic post-COVID green transition.

EP119 Max Borders on Post-Collapse Apr 05, 2021

Max Borders & Jim continue their last conversation on his book, After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals... Max Borders & Jim continue their last conversation on his book, After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals. They cover fully automated luxury communism, utilizing traditional economics & markets, Elinor Ostrom's commons, institutional experimentation, post-scarcity economics, Joseph Pine's experience economy, bottom-up collaboration, masculine & feminine, eros & thanatos, the law of flow, Holacracy, limitations of electoral democracy, state secession, cellular democracy, global collective action, common vs civil law, Polyarchy, guild credentialism, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals JRS: EP115 Max Borders on America’s Collapse JRS: EP76 Max Borders on the Social Singularity Signals and Boundaries by John Holland Antifragile by Nassim Taleb JRS: EP111 Anatol Lieven on Climate & Nationalism Max Borders is a futurist, a theorist, a published author and an entrepreneur. He is the author of The Social Singularity and the founder and Executive Director of Social Evolution—a non-profit organization dedicated to liberating humanity through innovation. Max is also co-founder of the Voice & Exit event and former editor at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

EP118 Matt Ridley on How Innovation Works Mar 30, 2021

Matt Ridley talks to Jim about his latest book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom... Matt Ridley talks to Jim about his latest book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom. They cover innovation vs invention, improbable order, the value of technological innovation, the importance of the steam engine, innovation as a team sport, the history of vaccination, fossil fuel's role in the industrial revolution, negative impacts of patents, the light bulb & simultaneous invention, water chlorination, the Haber–Bosch process, the green revolution, GMO's, innovation opposition, nuclear power, the western innovation famine, Matt's bet against Elon Musk's hyperloop technology, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations How Innovation Works The Red Queen Genome Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dan Dennett Matt Ridley's books have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages and won several awards. He joined the House of Lords in February 2013 and has served on the science and technology select committee and the artificial intelligence select committee. He was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal in 2010, and was a columnist for the Times 2013-2018. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

EP117 Samo Burja on Societal Decline Mar 23, 2021

Samo Burja talks to Jim about his book, Great Founder Theory: theories & limits of history, institutions, design vs evolution, declining empires, and much more... Samo Burja talks to Jim about his freely available book, Great Founder Theory. They cover long-lasting societies, theories & limits of history, cultures that prioritize documentation, long-term priorities, institutional organization, social technologies, design vs evolution, what makes a great founder, times of slow change, market reform dynamics, censorship, social coordination costs, social media reformation, centralized vs decentralized declining empires, closed vs open academic journals, pre-registered research, post-modernism, noble lies, technology & society connections, institutional decline, the overproduction of elites, prioritizing functionality & maintaining institutions, psychology's impact on advertising & culture, live vs dead players, borrowed vs owned power, the succession problem & possible solutions, the dangers of risk aversion, political transitions, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Samo's Website JRS: EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking The Nature of Technology by Brian Arthur Jim's article, "In Search of the 5th Attractor" GameB Samo's article, "The Centralized Internet Is Inevitable" JRS: EP12 Brian Nosek – Open Science and Reproducibility JRS: EP94 Shahin Farshchi on Self-Driving Tech The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen Samo Burja is the founder and President of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that specializes in institutional analysis for clients in North America and Europe. Bismarck uses the foundational sociological research that Samo and his team have conducted over the past decade to deliver unique insights to clients about institutional design and strategy. Samo’s studies focus on the social and material technologies that provide the foundation for healthy human societies, with an eye to engineering and restoring the structures that produce functional institutions. He has authored articles and papers on his findings. His manuscript, Great Founder Theory, is available online. He is also a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute. Samo has spoken about his findings at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Y Combinator’s YC 120 conference, the Reboot American Innovation conference in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. He spends most of his time in California and his native Slovenia.

EP116 Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion Mar 15, 2021

Doug Erwin talks to Jim about his book, The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity... Doug Erwin talks to Jim about his book, The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. They cover the unprecedentedly rapid evolution of life seen during the Cambrian explosion (approx 540 million BCE), archeological dating techniques & accuracy, micro-evolution vs macro-evolution, environmental potential, ecological opportunity and challenges, genetic/developmental contexts, continental landmass locations, pre-Cambrian multicellularity, ocean oxygen levels, snowball earth epoch, predation as an evolutionary driver, changes in species physical sizes, development of circulatory systems and neurons, brain evolution, niche construction & ecosystem engineering, evolutionary investment strategies, Cambrian taxonomic diversity, the Fermi paradox, and much more. Episode Transcript Doug Erwin is currently Senior Scientist and Curator of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D. C, and has been since 1990 and has been a Senior Scientist since 2004. His primary research interests are in evolutionary novelty and innovation across biological, cultural and technological domains; the evolution of animal regulatory genomes; the origin and early evolution of animals; and the end-Permian mass extinction. Various field projects have taken Doug repeatedly to China, South Africa and Namibia, and he has done geological field work in various other regions as well. Erwin received an A.B. from Colgate University in 1980 and a Ph. D from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1985. He is the author or editor of a number of books. At SFI, he has been a Resident faculty member (part-time), Chair of the Science Steering Committee, Chair of Faculty, and is now a member of the External faculty.

Currents 029: Vance Crowe on the “Well-Actually” Graph Mar 12, 2021

Jim talks to Vance Crowe about what led him to work at Monsanto, how he discovered & uses the "Well_Actually" Graph, GameB, VR & much more... In this currents episode, Jim talks to Vance Crowe about what led him to work at Monsanto & the dynamics of its public narrative, how he discovered the "Well_Actually" Graph, limitations of PR firms & communications training, the value of skeptics & deep understanding, navigating the "Well-Actually" Graph, disagreeable nerds, GameB & alignment beyond agreement, VR as a strong-link medium, and more. Episode Transcript The Vance Crowe Podcast The Red Queen by Matt Ridley Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dan Dennett JRS: EP72 Joscha Bach on Minds, Machines & Magic JRS: EP87 Joscha Bach on Theories of Consciousness Joscha's talk on Computational Meta-Psychology Oculus Quest 2 Wander Oculus App Vance Crowe is a communications consultant that has worked for corporations and international organizations around the world. Vance helps organizations realize why the general public doesn’t agree with their perspective and offers new ways to communicate effectively, resolve disagreements, and build rapport with critics and stakeholders. He is the former Director of Millennial Engagement for Monsanto, previously worked as a Communications Strategist for the World Bank Group, as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer stationed in Kenya, as a Communications Coordinator at a National Public Radio affiliate in Northern California, and as a deckhand on an eco-tourism ship that traveled the Western Hemisphere. He holds a degree in communications from Marquette University and a master’s degree in cross-cultural negotiations from the Seton Hall School of Diplomacy.

EP115 Max Borders on America’s Collapse Mar 08, 2021

Max Borders with Jim on his new book, After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals: GameB, complexity, climate, wokism... Max Borders talks to Jim about his new book, After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals. They cover the definition of collapse, the potential role of debt in triggering a collapse, what a post-collapse scene might be like, cryptocurrencies, GameA vs GameB, complex vs complicated systems, the risks of scientism, climate change and its priority, the commons, mitigating negative externalities, the role of emergence, the negatives of funding moonshots, the cult of Elon Musk, Evonomics & the invisible hand, crony capitalism, negative impacts of wokism, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP76 Max Borders on the Social Singularity After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals Cardano JRS: EP56 Art Brock on Holo Tech Eric Weinstein JRS: EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories Max Borders is a futurist, a theorist, a published author and an entrepreneur. He is the author of The Social Singularity and the founder and Executive Director of Social Evolution—a non-profit organization dedicated to liberating humanity through innovation. Max is also co-founder of the Voice & Exit event and former editor at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

EP114 John Bunzl on his Simpol Solution Mar 01, 2021

John Bunzl talks to Jim about the multi-faceted approach to global cooperation he created, Simpol - The Simultaneous Policy... John Bunzl talks to Jim about his Simpol approach to global cooperation. They cover simultaneous implementation, connections to GameB, feasible viable support, the first-mover disadvantage, regulatory chill, the veto issue, destructive global competition, utilizing competition & cooperation, global problems, the myth of sovereign nations, wokism vs trumpism, the dead-ends of corporate social responsibility & the global justice movement, the failure of political targets, three core tactics of the Simpol solution, policy creation process & trade-offs, nation vs word-centric consciousness, biological & evolutionary connections, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Simpol.org The Simpol Solution Book National Popular Vote The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter Competitive Advantage by Michael Porter Bret Weinstein JRS: EP111 Anatol Lieven on Climate & Nationalism John Bunzl is a global political activist and businessman. In 2000, he founded Simpol, a way for citizens to use their votes to drive politicians towards global cooperation. It has supporters in over 100 countries and enjoys the support of a growing number of Members of Parliament around the world. He has authored or co-authored a number of books including Monetary Reform – Making it Happen!, People-centred Global Governance – Making it Happen!, and Global Domestic Politics. He has published numerous articles on global governance in the Journal of Integral Theory & Practice. He has lectured widely, including to The Schumacher Society, The World Trade Organisation, The Lucis Trust, and various universities.

Currents 028: Simon DeDeo on Explaining Explanation Feb 25, 2021

Jim & Simon DeDeo on his recent paper, "From Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning"... In this currents episode, Jim talks to Simon DeDeo about his recently co-authored (with Zachary Wojtowicz) paper, "From Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning". They cover its connection to AI & human development, description vs power in explanation, the value & challenge of using multiple conceptual lenses, the difference between powerful & unifying explanations, co-explanation, the Aristotelian aspect of this work, conspiracies, the value & complexity of simplicity, choosing explanation approaches, understanding their vices, and more. Episode Transcript Simon & Zach's paper, "From Probability to Consilience..." JRS: EP1 Simon DeDeo – The Evolution of Consciousness JRS Currents 001: Simon DeDeo on University Censorship JRS: Extra: On Post-COVID-19 Impact with Simon DeDeo Simon DeDeo is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also affiliated with the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, where he runs the Laboratory for Social Minds. For three years, from 2010 to 2013, he was an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He and his collaborators study how people use words and signals, and the ideas they represent, to create a world. They have studied a diverse set of systems that includes the French Revolution, the courtrooms of Victorian London, the research strategies of Charles Darwin, the insurgency of modern-day Afghanistan, the emergent bureaucracy of Wikipedia, the creation of power hierarchies among the social animals, and the collusions and conspiracies of petrol stations in the American Midwest. They combine data from the contemporary world, archives from the deep past, statistical tools from cosmology, and models of human cognition from Bayesian reasoning and information theory to understand how cultures grow, flourish, innovate, and evolve.

EP113 Zak Stein on Hierarchical Complexity Feb 22, 2021

Zak Stein & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about the history & dynamics of hierarchical complexity & human development... Zak Stein & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about hierarchical complexity: its history, horizontal vs vertical development, the chunking property in development, emergence & evolution, success vs understanding, child development, the development advantage of youth, representational thinking & abstraction, the connection of social complexity & hierarchical development, limitation of measures of general intelligence, core dynamics of the levels of the model of hierarchical complexity, Lectica assessments use in education & business, key leadership skills, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Zak's Website JRS: EP57 Zak Stein on Education in a Time Between Worlds JRS: EP60 Zak Stein on Educational Systems Collapse JRS: EP62 Zak Stein on Education, Tech & Religion JRS: EP36 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism Lectica board of directors Zachary Stein is a writer, educator, and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. He studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published two books. Social Justice and Educational Measurement which was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book, Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. He’s a scholar at the Ronin Institute, Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and scientific advisor to the board of the Neurohacker Collective and other technology start-ups.

Currents 027: Charles Hoskinson on Cardano Blockchain Project Feb 17, 2021

Charles Hoskinson & Jim on blockchain history, his history with the Ethereum project & what led him to found Cardano, a 3rd gen project, and much more... In this currents episode, Charles Hoskinson talks with Jim about the history of blockchain projects, his history with the Ethereum project and what led him to found Cardano, a 3rd gen project. They cover interoperability & decentralization, other projects & protocols, transactions per second considerations & dubious relevance, downside of proof of work & mining, Cardano's innovation via robust theory & strong engineering, Bitcoin inefficiency & scaling issues, the challenge of deeply understanding Cardano, comparing programming languages for blockchains, network effects, ecosystem considerations & their impact on tech adoption, addressing social media radicalization & moderation issues, and much more. Episode Transcript Ethereum Cardano IOHK JRS: Currents 026: Bill Ottman on Minds.com JRS: EP56 Art Brock on Holo Tech Daryl Davis Charles Hoskinson is a technology entrepreneur and mathematician. He attended Metropolitan State University of Denver and University of Colorado Boulder to study analytic number theory before moving into cryptography through industry exposure. His professional experience includes founding three cryptocurrency-related start-ups – Invictus Innovations, Ethereum and IOHK – and he has held a variety of posts in both the public and private sectors. He was the founding chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation’s education committee and established the Cryptocurrency Research Group in 2013. His current projects focus on educating people about cryptocurrency, being an evangelist for decentralization and making cryptographic tools easier to use for the mainstream. This includes leading the research, design and development of Cardano, a third-generation cryptocurrency that launched in September 2017.

EP112 Annie Duke on Bets & Better Decisions Feb 15, 2021

Annie Duke & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about how key themes in her last two books lead to making better bets & decisions... Annie Duke & Jim talk about some of the key themes in her last two books. They cover how she became a championship level poker player, the deep differences between poker and chess, the complexity of poker & winning strategies, "resulting" and outcome bias, skill vs luck, "thinking in bets", making better decisions, system 1 vs 2 thinking, optionality, the 10/10/10 methodology, grit & quit dynamics, hindsight & recency bias, the value of peers & coaching, Nick the Greek, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Annie's book, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts Annie's book, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices Annie's Website Annie Duke is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than $4 million in tournament poker. During her career, Annie won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. She retired from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. She is also a member of the National Board of After-School All-Stars and the Board of Directors of the Franklin Institute. In 2020, she joined the board of the Renew Democracy Initiative.

EP111 Anatol Lieven on Climate & Nationalism Feb 11, 2021

Anatol Lieven & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about his latest book, Climate Change and the Nation State: The Realist Case... Anatol Lieven & Jim talk about his latest book, Climate Change and the Nation State: The Realist Case. They cover motivating populations to take actions on climate change, the key role of nations & nationalism, the huge problem of residual elites, funding alternative energy, western government incompetence & political failures, individuality, Bernie & the green new deal, the carbon tax, nuclear power, natural gas, carbon removal & geoengineering, naive progressivism, the strangeness of the American culture wars, intelligent immigration, the importance of building social solidarity, getting clear on international priorities, global impacts of climate change, reducing air travel, Anatol's sensible approaches to climate change, and much more. Mentions & Recommendations Episode Transcript Anatol's book, Climate Change and the Nation State Anatol Lieven is a professor in Georgetown University in Qatar. He is a visiting professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London, a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC and a member of the academic board of the Valdai discussion club in Russia. He also serves on the advisory committee of the South Asia Department of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He holds a BA and PhD from Cambridge University in England. He's currently working on the relationship between nationalism and progress in modern history. From 1985 to 1998, Anatol Lieven worked as a British journalist in South Asia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and is author of several books on Russia and its neighbours including Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power? and Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry. From 2000 to 2007 he worked at think tanks in Washington DC. A new edition of his book America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism was published in 2012.

EP110 Brad Kershner on Education & Complexity Feb 08, 2021

Brad Kershner & Jim on his book, Understanding Educational Complexity: Integrating Practices and Perspectives for 21st Century Leadership... Brad Kershner talks to Jim about his book, Understanding Educational Complexity: Integrating Practices and Perspectives for 21st Century Leadership. They cover how Brad defines complexity, key contextual aspects of education, the four quadrants of Integral Theory & how he used them when observing schools, identifying & working with strange attractors, leadership, driving change in complexity, turbulence vs perturbation, position-based vs role-based leadership, complex vs complicated systems, mixed-age education, enabling creativity in teaching, and the importance of autonomy. They finish the episode by talking about theories of psychological development: Kegan levels, Integral Theory, hierarchical complexity, avoiding stage simplification, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Brad's Early School Brad's YouTube Lectures JRS: EP100 Sam Bowles on Our Cooperative Nature Jim's article, In Search of the 5th Attractor Zak Stein JRS Episodes Theo L. Dawson & other Lectica Board Members Hanzi Freinacht JRS Episodes Brad Kershner is a school leader and independent scholar, and the author of Understanding Educational Complexity: Integrating Practices and Perspectives for 21st Century Leadership. His research, teaching, and writing cover a wide range of interdependent topics, including education, leadership, parenting, race, technology, metamodernism, integral theory, meditation, developmental psychology, complexity, and sociocultural emergence.

Currents 026: Bill Ottman on Minds.com Feb 06, 2021

Bill Ottman & Jim have a wide-ranging talk on the state of social media and his open-source social platform, Minds.com... In this currents episode, Bill Ottman & Jim have a wide-ranging talk on the state of social media and his open-source social platform (Minds.com). They talk about what makes Minds different than other social networks: open-source, community-owned, profit-shared, decentralized, free speech, privacy, decentralized reputation, moderation process, monetization & incentives, tokens, AWS & decentralizing the back-end, Ethereum, and more. They also chat about Jim's recent Facebook banning, GitHub censorship, Reddit's move away from open-source, power & corruption, radicalizing dynamics of censorship, doxing, Google’s demands on the Minds app, possible government platform regulation, the media influence on big tech, Twitter & Facebook opportunities, some relevant stories from Jim’s CEO days at Network Solutions, the GameStop short squeeze, and more. Episode Transcript Developers.Minds.com Jim on Minds Daryl Davis Letter.wiki The Santa Clara Principles Cardano Casandra on Apache Mark Zuckerberg Speaks About Free Speech at Georgetown Joe Rogan Podcast with Tim Pool, Jack Dorsey & Vijaya Gadde Mastodon Bill Otman is the Co-creator & CEO of Minds.com.

EP109 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 2 Feb 04, 2021

Forrest Landry & Jim build on the foundation they built in his last JRS episode to continue to flesh out Forrest's Immanent Metaphysics... Forrest Landry & Jim build on the foundation they built in his last JRS episode to continue to flesh out Forrest's Immanent Metaphysics. They explore the self, subject/object relationship, perception, the nature of choice & process, causality & determinism, realism vs idealism, dualism, the foundational triplicate, the three modalities, statement & implications of Forrest's three axioms, their associated modalities, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP96 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1 JRS: EP31 Forrest Landry on Building our Future Immanent Metaphysics Landing Page (MFLB.com/1296) Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

EP108 Bernard Baars on Consciousness Feb 01, 2021

Bernard Baars talks to Jim about some of the key ideas in his book, On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity... Bernard Baars talks to Jim about some of the key ideas in his book, On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity. They start by covering some of the history of the scientific study of consciousness & its taboo reputation in science, the philosopher's zombie, and the limits of philosophy to study consciousness. They then go into some of the specifics of Bernards global workspace theory (GWT): limited capacity, conscious content & perceived objects, the aspects of the theater metaphor, dynamics of attention, animal consciousness, global access, contrastive analysis, unconscious & conscious interaction, upcoming integrated information theory (IIT) vs. GWT experimentation, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Bernard's book, On Consciousness Bernard on Twitter JRS: EP105 Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS: EP97 Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia Consciousness Explained by Dan Dennett The Mystery Of Consciousness by John Searle Bernard Baars is Co-founder & Editor in Chief of the Society for MindBrain Sciences, a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA., and currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global workspace theory, a theory of human cognitive architecture and consciousness. He is recipient of the 2019 Hermann von Helmholtz Life Contribution Award by the International Neural Network Society recognizing work in perception proven to be paradigm changing and long lasting.

Currents 025: Ben Goertzel on Decentralizing Social Media Jan 29, 2021

In this Currents episode, Ben Goertzel & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about the urgent need for decentralized tech platforms. They cover Jim's recent banning from Facebook & how it might have happened, the danger of kafkaesque algorithms & the challenge of building AI's that explain their decisions, the challenges around creating alternatives to big tech, politics power & corruption, game theory for today’s social platforms, Signal vs Telegram, moving Gameb off Facebook, alternative app frameworks, the David vs Goliath history of tech, the radicalization problem of alternative platforms & some possible solutions, generic vs specialized solutions, the role of AI in future platforms, and much more. Episode Transcript SingularityNET Blog OpenCog JRS Extra: On Post COVID-19 Impacts with Ben Goertzel JRS: EP3 Dr. Ben Goertzel – OpenCog, AGI and SingularityNET JRS: EP52 Steven Levy on Facebook: The Inside Story Ben's Interview with Charles Hoskinson Dr. Ben Goertzel is Chief Scientist of robotics firm Hanson Robotics and financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings; Chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC; Chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Society and the OpenCog Foundation; Vice Chairman of futurist nonprofit Humanity+; Scientific Advisor of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Advisor to the Singularity University and Singularity Institute; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series. His research work encompasses artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, data mining, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds and gaming and other areas. He has published a dozen scientific books, 100+ technical papers, and numerous journalistic articles.

EP107 Tristan Harris on Our Social Dilemma Jan 28, 2021

Tristan Harris & Jim on his hugely successful documentary, The Social Dilemma: social media good, harms, regulation, bold interventions, and much more... Tristan Harris talks to Jim about his hugely successful documentary, The Social Dilemma. They start by identifying the good aspects of social media, the obvious harms & exploitation tactics, AI-enabled race to the bottom dynamics, digital regulation approaches, the big tech oligarchs, combating cultish dynamics, AI-powered algorithmic influence, the conflict bias & its impact on our agency, establishing positive psychological habits, the unintuitive relationship between education & confirmation bias, and more. They finish the episode by speculating on the impacts of bold social media interventions like banning advertising, making them only legal for adults, or outlawing recommendation engines. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations The Social Dilemma Your Undivided Attention Podcast JRS: EP38 Tristan Harris on Humane Tech JRS: EP81 Renée DiResta on Social Media Warfare Tristan Harris is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of the Center for Humane Technology, and the Co-Host of the podcast, “Your Undivided Attention.” He was called the “closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience” by The Atlantic magazine, Tristan was the former Design Ethicist at Google. He is a world expert on how technology steers us all, leaving Google to engage the issue publicly. Tristan spent over a decade understanding subtle psychological forces, from his childhood as a magician, to working with the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, to his role as CEO of Apture, which was acquired by Google. His work on the attention economy started in 2013, when he created a slide deck within Google that went viral, warning about the technology industry’s arms race to capture human attention and the moral responsibility companies have for the ways they restructure society. Tristan’s work has been featured on TED, The Atlantic, 60 Minutes, The New York Times, The Associated Press, Wall Street Journal. and many more. Tristan has briefed Heads of State, technology company CEOs, and members of U.S. Congress about the attention economy.

Currents 024: BJ Campbell on the Woke Religion Jan 27, 2021

BJ Campbell has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about article, "Social Justice is a Crowdsourced Religion", reflects on the future of wokeism, and much more... In this Currents episode, BJ Campbell has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about his article, "Social Justice is a Crowdsourced Religion": the history of the wokeism & how it can be seen as a religion, what makes religions efficacious, the falsification problem, woke scientific contradictions, protestant similarities, woke prevalence, its rapid ideological evolution, network-based self-organization, why wokeism should accept the religion title, the nature of mass movements & true believers, memetic tribes, the rapid growth of wokeism, its good initial intentions, and more. Episode Transcript Handwaving Freakoutery Handwaving Freakoutery on Substack Open Source Defense JRS: EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories JRS: Currents 021: John Robb on Jan 6th, 2021 The True Believer by Eric Hoffer EP38 Tristan Harris on Humane Tech Peter Limberg's article, The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0

EP106 Michael Strevens on the Irrational History of Science Jan 25, 2021

Michael Stevens talks to Jim about some of the ideas & stories in his book, The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science... Michael Stevens talks to Jim about some of the ideas & stories in his book, The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science: what the great method debate is & how Popper & Kuhn added to the topic, falsification & scientific progress, the messy history of testing Einstein's theories, understanding the theoretical cohort, Michael's iron rule, science vs natural philosophy, Francis Bacon's view on science, scientific convergence, the Tychonic principal, theory vs experimentation, Newton's trendsetting approach to science, the war against beauty in science, why science was born in western Europe, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Michael's Website Michael's book, The Knowledge Machine Michael Strevens is Professor of Philosophy at New York University, where since 2004 he has taught and thought about the nature of science, complex systems, the psychology of philosophy, the role of physical intuition in scientific discovery, and the nature of explanation and understanding, among other things. He was born and raised in New Zealand, graduated with a PhD in philosophy from Rutgers University, and has previously taught at Iowa State University and Stanford University. In 2017, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in New York City.

EP105 Christof Koch on Consciousness Jan 21, 2021

Christof Koch & Jim have a wide-ranging conversation about the science of consciousness and his book, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread But Can't Be Computed... Christof Koch and Jim have a wide-ranging conversation about the science of consciousness. They start by exploring some key topics brought up in his book, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread But Can't Be Computed: defining conscious experience, the importance of feeling, the historical value of Cartesian dualism, the challenge of materialism to explain mental phenomena, emergent consciousness, neural correlates of consciousness & enabling factors, ways of understanding qualia, and consciousness vs intelligence. They finish this episode by talking about integrated information theory (IIT): origins & dynamics, consciousness substrates & what it could mean for AI, small & large phi, uniting consciousnesses, IIT vs. global workspace theory (GWT) experimentation, panpsychism, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Christof's book, The Feeling of Life Itself JRS: EP97 Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia Christof Koch, PhD is a neuroscientist best known for his studies and writings exploring the brain basis of consciousness. Trained as a physicist, Koch was for 27 years a professor of biology and engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He is now Chief Scientist, MindScope Program at the Allen Institute in Seattle, leading a large-scale, high through-put effort to build brain observatories to map, analyze and understand the visual system of the mouse. Dr. Koch is interested in the biophysics of the brain, in brain-machine interfaces, in the neurophysiology of cortex, in conscious experiences and what they can tell us about the mind and the brain. He published his first paper on the neural correlates of consciousness with the molecular biologist Francis Crick thirty years ago.

EP104 Joe Henrich on WEIRD People Jan 19, 2021

Joe Henrich talks to Jim about some of the key insights from his book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar & Particularly Prosperous. Joe Henrich talks to Jim about some of the key insights from his book, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar & Particularly Prosperous. They cover who the WEIRD people are & what impact their WERDness has on academic research, the impact of literacy on cognition, nature & nurture, the unique characteristics of WEIRD people, individualist vs relational dispositions, guilt vs shame cultures, how events in Middle Ages driven by the Catholic Church lead to WEIRDness, kin-based institutions & cultures, non-kin organizations in societies & their impacts, differing views on justice, individualism's role in innovation & wealth, wholistic vs analytical thinking, moral universalism, free will, possible WEIRD genetic drivers, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Joe's book, The WEIRDest People in the World Joe's paper, The weirdest people in the world? JRS: EP100 Sam Bowles on Our Cooperative Nature Joe on Twitter Jonathan Haidt Dr. Henrich is currently a Harvard Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. Before moving to Harvard, he was a professor of both Economics and Psychology at the University of British Columbia for nearly a decade, where he held the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition and Coevolution. In 2013-14, Dr. Henrich held the Peter and Charlotte Schoenenfeld Faculty Fellowship at NYU’s Stern School of Business. His research deploys evolutionary theory to understand how human psychology gives rise to cultural evolution and how this has shaped our species’ genetic evolution. Using insights generated from this approach, Professor Henrich has explored a variety of topics, including economic decision-making, social norms, fairness, religion, marriage, prestige, cooperation and innovation. He’s conducted long-term anthropological fieldwork in Peru, Chile and in the South Pacific, as well as having spearheaded several large comparative projects.

Currents 023: Terry Gainer on the January 6th Riot Jan 18, 2021

Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief, Terry Gainer talks to Jim about his views on the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol... In this Currents episode, Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief, Terry Gainer talks to Jim about his views on the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. He discusses shortcomings in preparations, intelligence, and operations, highlights failure to adjust as new information came in, describes issues with the chain of command that impacted both preparation and response, the role of "optics" in protest preparations, how macro failure arose from several smaller ones, examines claims of police & military collusion with the rioters, positive aspects of the law enforcement response, and much more. Episode Transcript Terry Gainer began his law enforcement career as a police officer in the Chicago Police Department and rose through the ranks, including serving as a homicide detective and after gaining a law degree, Chief Legal Officer. He served as Deputy Inspector General, Deputy Director, and Director of the Illinois State Police. In 1998, Terry was named Executive Assistant Chief of Police for the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department. In 2002 he was selected as Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police. From January 2007 to May 2014, Terry served as the 38th United States Senate Sergeant at Arms. While serving as Sergeant at Arms, Mr. Gainer was appointed a commissioner on the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, and served as Special Envoy for Middle East Regional Security, to advance the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute by assisting in strengthening security institutions.

Currents 022: Curtis Yarvin on Institutional Failure Jan 14, 2021

Jim talks to Curtis Yarvin about his recent article, "2020, the year of everything fake": presentism, history, COVID-19 response failures, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Curtis Yarvin about some key points in his recent article, "2020, the year of everything fake". They start by talking about the ability &/or inability to take the world seriously, presentism, history, political formulas & their connection to governmental failure, the fall of the soviet union, and the stupidity quotient. They then explore aspects of the US institutional failures related to the COVID-19 response: virus origin, vaccines, conflicting incentives, lockdowns, and US governmental ops capacities today & in the past. They go on to talk about the Manhattan Project, oligarchy vs monarchy, and Curtis wraps the episode up by reciting a speech from 1933 to demonstrate how much has changed. Episode Transcript Curtis' site, Gray Mirror 2020, the year of everything fake The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson Nicholson Baker's article, The Lab-Leak Hypothesis JRS: Currents 002: Brian Hanley on Releasing the Vaccines Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott Curtis Yarvin (AKA Mencius Moldbug) is widely credited with founding neoreaction (NRx). Yarvin describes NRx as a political philosophy and intellectual movement dedicated to providing secure, responsible, and effective government. Yarvin further says a central thesis of neoreaction is that accomplishing this goal requires a critical re-evaluation of “democracy” from the perspective of political engineering and informed by a study of the great political thinkers of the past.

Currents 021: John Robb on Jan 6th, 2021 Jan 12, 2021

John Robb talks to Jim about the Jan 6th events at the US Capitol: intel & ops failures, opensource insurgency, social media, Trump, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to John Robb about the Jan 6th events at the US Capitol. They cover the intelligence & operations failures, the event as an example of domestic opensource insurgency, heterogeneous motivations & intentions among the protesters, self-organizing network tribal dynamics of the right & left, the conspiracy attractor for the insurgents, the criticality of this cultural moment, current & past US election distrust, consensus vs dissent on social media, Trump's role, the shifting political field & strategies, the Parler shutdown, big tech power & alternatives, and much more. Episode Transcript John’s Patreon: Global Guerrillas Trump's Jan 6th Speech John's Past JRS Episodes John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP103 James Ehrlich on ReGen Villages Jan 11, 2021

James Ehrlich talks to Jim about ReGen Villages: community types, de-urbanization & rural living, materialism, agriculture, and much more... James Ehrlich talks to Jim about what makes a ReGen Village, potential community organization types, how ReGen Villages could learn from each other, utilizing machine learning, working with existing government regulations, the importance & urgent need for ReGen Villages, the COVID-19 impact on demand, city living & de-urbanization, misconceptions of rural living, climate change, healthy living with less, materialism, funding villages, the future of pre-fab construction, plans for ReGen Village agriculture, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations ReGen Villages James on Twitter Business Insider article on Regen Villages James Ehrlich is Founder of ReGen Villages a Stanford University spin-off company realizing the future of living in regenerative and resilient communities, with critical life support of organic food, clean water, renewable energy and circular nutritional flows at the neighborhood scale. James is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Stanford University School of Medicine Flourishing Project, Faculty at Singularity University, Senior Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center and (Obama) White House Appointee for Regenerative Infrastructure. Ehrlich founded ReGen Villages as a Dutch (EU) impact-profit company in 2016, with its patented VillageOS™ operating system software to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to define, design and autonomously manage regenerative neighborhoods that promote healthy long-term outcomes for residents and wider communities. ReGen Villages are planned for global replication and scale in collaboration with established industrial partners, universities, governments and sovereign wealth and pension funds, enabling an optimistic post-COVID green transition.

EP102 Debora Spar on Technological Impacts on Culture Jan 07, 2021

Debora Spar & Jim have a wide-ranging chat on some of the insights in her book, Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. Debora Spar and Jim have a wide-ranging conversation on some of the insights in her book, Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. They start by focusing on our transition from forager to agricultural life: the creation of property & new family structures, roles & lifestyles of women, polygyny, hoe vs plow cultures, and bastard children. They then go on to cover highlights of the industrial revolution: fossil fuels & steam power impacts, the idea of progress, factory life, women's changing cultural expectation, class dynamics, washing machines & other impactful household appliances, freeing dynamics of automobiles & female birth control. They finish this chat by talking about more recent technological inventions & their potential impacts: in-vitro fertilization & genetic technologies, surrogacy, online dating, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations DeboraSpar.com Debora's book, Work Mate Marry Love Debora on Twitter Debora Spar is the MBA Class of 1952 Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Senior Associate Dean of HBS Online. Her current research focuses on issues of gender and technology, and the interplay between technological change and broader social structures. She served as the President of Barnard College from 2008 to 2017. During her tenure at Barnard, Spar led initiatives to highlight women’s leadership and advancement, including the creation of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies and the development of Barnard’s Global Symposium series. Before joining Barnard, Spar spent 17 years on the HBS faculty as the Spangler Family Professor as well as the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development. She is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as a director of Value Retail LLC and Thermo Fisher Scientific, as well as a trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Spar earned her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and her B.S. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

EP101 Clayton Banks on the Digital Divide Jan 04, 2021

Clayton Banks talks to Jim about essential tools & digital literacy, why & how he started Silicon Harlem, community dev, the FCC, and much more... Clayton Banks talks to Jim about bridging the digital divide & the importance of internet access, essential tools & digital literacy, prioritizing digital infrastructure, possible COVID-19 impacts on the digital divide, capitalism with empathy, why & how he started Silicon Harlem, key relationships for community development, online meetups & business, internet costs & limitations, 5G tech potential & conspiracies, internet service competition & regulation, the power of the FCC, the racial disparity of computer access, keeping the digital divide non-partisan, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Clayton on Twitter Silicon Harlem Clayton Banks is the Co-Founder of Silicon Harlem. The mission of Silicon Harlem is to transform Harlem and other urban markets into Innovation and Technology Hubs. Under his leadership, Silicon Harlem has been able to partner with the Department of Education for New York City to establish an after school STEM based startup accelerator, collaborate with the NYC Mayor’s office to assess wireless broadband in upper manhattan and coordinate a virtual startup incubator for tech-based entrepreneurs. Banks has established a comprehensive next-generation technology conference in Harlem, the Silicon Harlem tech conference is focused on envisioning the technological future of urban markets and how innovation can move a community forward. Prior to Silicon Harlem, Banks has been a pioneer in the cable and communications industry for over two decades.

EP100 Sam Bowles on Our Cooperative Nature Dec 21, 2020

Sam Bowles talks to Jim about his book, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution: competition, hierarchy, game theory, and much more... Sam Bowles talks to Jim about his book, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution, co-authored with Herbert Gintis. They start by exploring cooperation in hunter-gatherer living: how human cooperation is different from other species', collaboration needed for big game hunting, egalitarianism & competition, hierarchy myths, impacts of weapons, how far cooperation goes back in history, the size & make-up of cooperative groups, altruism, and prerequisites for group selection. They then talk about collaboration in cultures more broadly: the wonder of nationalism, the pros of external threat, cultural progress, leadership, paradoxes of the prisoner's dilemma, differences in cultural cooperation, the "civilizing force of markets", game theory, punishing free-riders, the limitations of unconditional generosity, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Sam's Site Sam's book, A Cooperative Species Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm Samuel Bowles, (PhD, Economics, Harvard University) is Research Professor at the Santa Fe Institute where he heads the Behavioral Sciences Program. He taught economics at Harvard from 1965 to 1973 and since then at the University of Massachusetts, where he is now emeritus professor and at the University of Siena from 2002 to 2010 where he continues to occasionally teach. Bowles’ current research also includes theoretical and empirical studies of political hierarchy and wealth inequality and their evolution over the very long run. His most recent book is The Moral Economy: Why good laws are no substitute for good citizens. Other recent books include A Cooperative Species: Human reciprocity and its evolution, The new economics of inequality and redistribution, and Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions and Evolution. He has also served as an economic advisor to the governments of Cuba, South Africa and Greece, to U.S presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy and Jesse Jackson, to the Legislature of the State of New Mexico, to the Congress of South African Trade Unions, and to South African President Nelson Mandela. With the CORE Project he has produced a new free online introductory etext, The Economy.

Currents 020: Barbara Oakley on Teaching Fluency Dec 17, 2020

Barbara Oakley talks to Jim about fluency across domains, understanding-centered learning, education evolution, online learning, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim and Barbara Oakley start by talking about her eclectic background & career, then go on to talk about her article, How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math: how a liberal arts person learned advanced math and became an engineering professor, fluency across domains, understanding-centered learning & the limits of procedural understanding, cultural-based education differences, slow educational evolution, online education, primary vs secondary biological learning, the direct instruction education method, the role of confidence in learning, comparing learning sports to learning math, and more. Episode Transcript Barbara's article, How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math Khan Academy JRS: EP59 Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology Barbara Oakley loves to bring fresh perspectives into her books by applying knowledge and experience from many different disciplines, as well as from “real world” experiences. She's a professor of engineering, has also worked in many different places, and is doing very different things: serving as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers up in the Bering Sea, teaching in China, going from US Army private to Regular Army Captain, and working as a radio operator at the South Pole Station in the Antarctic.

EP99 Jason Wiener on Alternative Business Structures Dec 14, 2020

Jason Wiener talks to Jim about prioritizing missions in business, downfalls of profit-maximizing, employee ownership structures, and much more... Practicing business entity attorney Jason Wiener talks to Jim about prioritizing the mission in a business, downfalls of profit-maximizing models & intentions, employee ownership structures, understanding & planning for trade-offs, adaptive vs rigid structures, types of fundraising & their long-term business implications, cooperatives including the new multi-stakeholder form, adapting existing ownership structures, for-benefit corporations, land trusts, the types of businesses Jason has worked with, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Jason's Website Jason on Twitter and Jason Wiener|p.c. twitter JRS: EP68 Mara Zepeda on Innovative Collaboration Jason Wiener comes to this work with a wide range of experience as an entrepreneur, litigator, activist, organizer and worker-owner. With more than fifteen years of experience as an attorney – his expertise and experience brings an innovative approach to solving client issues. Jason’s work has charted a new and grander course for the potential of democratized economic structures to re-calibrate the hazardous course set by “business as usual.” He has published more than six scholarly law review articles on international, human rights and renewable energy topics and speaks regularly about worker-owned and cooperative business model, non-extractive finance, the future of work, the contemporary and teal practice of law, distributed solar policy and sharing economy legal issues. Jason has been an adjunct professor in Colorado State University’s Global Sustainability and Social Enterprise program, where he taught an MBA course on business law and ethics. He has also been a guest lecturer at the University of Colorado Law School’s Entrepreneurial Law Clinic and at the Watson Institute.

EP98 Morag Gamble on Permaculture Dec 10, 2020

Morag Gamble talks to Jim about the history & dynamics of permaculture, education, regenerative farming, Crystal Waters EcoVillage, and much more... Morag Gamble talks to Jim about the history & definition of permaculture, the different places & styles in which it can be implemented, the best ways of introducing it to others, seeing permaculture as a mycelial network, emersion over theory, Morag's experience with refugee communities embracing permaculture, redefining human value, Damanhur, connected education, working with trauma, regenerative farming, supplying regenerative food to cities, gardening at all scales, the burden of debt, the history & structure of The Crystal Waters EcoVillage, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations The Permaculture Education Institute JRS: EP30 Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual Joel Salatin For the past 25 years, as a Global Permaculture Ambassador, Morag Gamble has led programs in 22 countries. Local food systems and permaculture education have seen her teach in communities and universities around the globe – most recently at Schumacher College in England – and leading a Food Politics course at Griffith University. Morag lives amidst an award-winning permaculture education garden in a UN recognised permaculture village, and works with city farmers, school farmers, community gardeners, and educators. She sees the direct social and ecological impact of industrial farming on marginalised farming communities around the world – in Indonesia, India and most recently in East Africa.

EP97 Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia Dec 08, 2020

Emery Brown talks to Jim about anesthesiology as a probe on consciousness, brain networks & relationships, EEG dose calibration, and much more... Emery Brown joins Jim as the first in a series of guests exploring the science of consciousness. They cover anesthesiology as a probe on consciousness, types of brain observation (EEG & fMRI), propofol's impact on brain networks, brain waves in various frequency ranges, phase and frequency, breakdown of long-range networks under anesthesia, coming out of anesthesia, brain networks function & redundancy, non-linear effect of anesthesia dose impacts, EEG's use for anesthesia dose calibration, subjective awareness in anesthesia, the motor center component of anesthesia, simulating anesthesia impacts, the power of state-space global coherence theory, Emery's hopes for the future of his work, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Emery's Neuroscience Statistics Research Laboratory Emery N. Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT; the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School; and a practicing anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. His experimental research has helped define the neuroscience mechanisms of how anesthetics work. His statistics research has developed a broad range of statistical and signal processing methods to improve neuroscience data analysis. He is a fellow of the IEEE, the American Statistical Association, the Institute for Mathematical Statistics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor Brown is the recipient of the Dickson Prize in Science and an honorary Doctorate of Science degree from U.S.C. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.

EP96 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1 Nov 30, 2020

Forrest Landry talks to Jim about his immanent metaphysics theory: the self, choice, interaction, time, soundness, mind vs matter, and much more... Forrest Landry talks to Jim about the value of metaphysics, how his immanent metaphysics compare to past metaphysical theories, his unique definition of self & its relationship with choice, quantum foundations, the nature of choice, interaction & time, observer as an epiphenomenon, limits of perception, soundness vs validity, reifying power & metaphor, mind vs matter, mind from brain, consciousness & time, process, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP31 Forrest Landry on Building our Future Forrest's Immanent Metaphysics Landing Page JRS: Currents 016: Robin Hanson on Are We Living In A Simulation? Forrest's paper, The Hard Problem Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

EP95 Alexander Bard on God in the Internet Age Nov 23, 2020

Alexander Bard talks to Jim about Syntheism's new take on theology, religious history, science, Zoroastrianism, Facebook, wokeness, and much more... Alexander Bard talks to Jim about Syntheism's new take on theology, the purpose of & roles in religion, post-contemporary God, the role of science in religious history, Zoroastrian history & its western influence, the digital exodus, the early internet, the failure of Facebook, #metoo, virtue ethics & game theory, damaging wokeness impacts & its philosophical history, Bard's digital future, the priest & the king, the boy king, managing membranes & scales, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Alexander's book, Syntheism JRS: EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories Jordan Hall Alexander's book, Digital Libido Signals and Boundaries by John Holland Alexander Bard is a philosopher, futurologist, and political and spiritual activist, based in Stockholm, Sweden. He is the author of five books: The Netocrats, The Global Empire, The Body Machines, Syntheism – Creating God in The Internet Age, and Digital Libido – Sex, Power and Violence in The Network Society with his co-writer Jan Söderqvist. Bard is a radical process philosopher, merging Hegel and Nietzsche with Whitehead and Deleuze, using humanity as the constant and technology as the variable while working toward the deepest possible understanding of human history, contemporary society, and the intensely technology-driven future that humanity is facing. Bard has also enjoyed a highly successful 25-year-career as a producer and artist in the international music industry, followed by ten years as a tough love, reality-checking judge on TV shows “Swedish Idol” and “Sweden’s Got Talent”, and is an outspoken and provocative YouTube and Twitter celebrity.

EP94 Shahin Farshchi on Self-Driving Tech Nov 19, 2020

Shahin Farshchi talks to Jim about self-driving tech: 5 automation levels, safeguards, the consumer market, costs, policy, and much more... Shahin Farshchi talks to Jim about self-driving technology. They cover Waymo's driverless taxi launch, the 5 levels of automation, teleoperation, redundant safeguards, self-driving deployment approaches & challenges, planning for corner cases, consumer market speculations, operating costs, Tesla's aspirations & shadow testing advantage, the simulator in the loop business model, sensors, policy & liability, ride-sharing companies advantage, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Lux Capital Applied Intuition Shahin on Twitter Shahin empowers visionary founders aiming to accelerate humanity and build a fantastic future through feats of engineering. He built brain-machine interfaces for his PhD in Electrical Engineering, hybrids at General Motors, founded a wireless vital sign monitoring company, and as a Partner at Lux, has funded chip (Nervana), rocket (Relativity), satellite (Planet), robotics (Covariant.ai), and driverless car (Zoox) companies. Lux is a $2.4B VC that invests in tomorrow’s transformational companies across healthcare and technology.

Currents 019: Alexander Beiner on Indigenous Narcissism Nov 17, 2020

Jim talks to Alexander Beiner about his new article on Indigenous Narcissism: western cultural norms, tribalism, social media, ethics, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim and Alexander Beiner have a wide-ranging chat about his recent article on Indigenous Narcissism. They cover western cultural norms, tribalism & belonging, social media as a tribal battlefield, addiction dynamics of social media, voluntary organization decline, the erosion of trust in institutions, ethics, postmodern cultural influence & dynamics, indigenous perspectives, cultures as operating systems, integral theory & the messiness of progress, fixing vs replacing systems, bottom-up vs top-down cultural innovation, the GameB approach, and more. Rebel Wisdom Alexander's article, Indigenous Narcissism: Social Media, Belonging & WEIRDness The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich Joe Henrich Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault Hanzi JRS Episodes Tyson Yunkaporta JRS Episodes Santa Fe Institute Emancipation Party The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson Jim's article, A Journey To GameB Alexander is a writer, facilitator and cultural commentator. In 2012, he co-founded a meditation school, Open Meditation. He has also worked in some of the world's top events agencies developing immersive live experiences. He is one of the organizers of Breaking Convention, Europe’s largest conference on psychedelic science and culture. His work on psychedelic theory has been published in the 2016 book 'Neurotransmissions', as well as ‘The Guardian’. He also writes fiction and plays traditional Irish music.

EP93 Brent Cooper on Critique, Consensus & Politics Nov 16, 2020

Brent Cooper talks to Jim about the meta-crisis, critique, politics, GameB, monetary theory, climate policy, meta/post-modernism, and much more... Brent Cooper talks to Jim about his academic & intellectual background, the under-appreciation of sociology, the meta-crisis, useful critique, time-scales & approaches to solving the meta-crisis, Jim & Brent's political perspectives, GameB values, monetary theory, smuggling bad ideas, the cost of war, climate change & the Green New Deal, mapping & utilizing metamodernism, the diversity of postmodernism, the danger of cherry-picking from systems, the value in disagreement, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Brent's Blog JRS: EP90 Joshua Epstein on Agent-Based Modeling JRS: EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories Chris Kavanagh Decoding the Gurus Podcast Embrace the Void Podcast Sam Hoadley-Brill Convergence for Consensus Building Jim's presentation on Dividend Money Andrés Bernal JRS: EP84 William Perry & Tom Collina on The Nuclear Button Mapping Metamodernism for Collective Intelligence Hanzi JRS episodes JRS: EP67 Tomas Björkman on The Nordic Secret JRS: EP89 Lene Rachel Andersen on Metamodernity Brent Cooper is an independent political sociologist and metamodern philosopher who runs The Abs-Tract Organization, a nonprofit think tank and media project that specializes in abstraction, a mental, social, physical, and material process that defines the expanding complexity of society.

EP92 Alexa Clay on Intentional Communities Nov 14, 2020

Alexa Clay talks to Jim about intentional communities: diversity, governance, cult dynamics, longevity, scale, norms, values, rituals, and much more... Alexa Clay talks to Jim about similar characteristics of intentional communities & startups, common personalities & intentions in intentional community, meeting their need for diverse skillsets & demographics, governance approaches, avoiding cult dynamics, planning for generational transition, community scales & boundaries, monetary systems, opportunity in crisis, norms & values, harnessing ritual, what we can learn from Amish traditions, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Alexa's book, The Misfit Economy Utopia Inc article on Aeon GameB What is Damanhur? Enspiral Community Canvas Alexa on Twitter Alexa Clay is the co-author of the best selling book The Misfit Economy, named one of the best business books to read by the World Economic Forum, TechRepublic, The Telegraph and Huffington Post. With degrees from Brown University and Oxford, she is the leading expert on subcultures and innovation from unlikely places. Alexa believes the underworld is filled with natural-born-innovators and they have more in common with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or Exxon, than you might think. Today, she is working to create more inclusive innovation ecosystems in cities and regions across the U.S.

EP91 Joe Brewer on Applied Cultural Evolution Nov 09, 2020

Joe Brewer talks to Jim about applied cultural evolution, planetary human impact, regenerative agro, collapse, ethics, social capital, and much more... Joe Brewer talks to Jim about the power & elements of applied cultural evolution, carrying capacity & human impacts on the planet, industrial vs regenerative agriculture, the likelihood of large-scale collapse & mass extinction events, the transition to regenerative living, human potential & responsibility, cultural evolution ethics, disastrous neoliberal & economic incentives & impacts, nested & bioregional resilience & trade, dynamics of the erosion of social capital, possible regenerative societal designs, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Joe's book, The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth JRS: EP50 Joe Brewer on Earth Regeneration Stockholm Resilience Centre's planetary boundaries Jordan Hall's Civium Project Joe Brewer is the Executive Director for the Center for Applied Cultural Evolution. He is a complexity researcher trained in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences. His work focuses on the converging global challenges that currently threaten the future of humanity. He helped create the Cultural Evolution Society — a scientific organization devoted to advancing the scholarly field of research in this integrative domain. Joe has also helped launch Evonomics magazine to promote the applications of evolution and complexity to the field of economics. He recently started a study group called Earth Regenerators to build a community of practice around the restoration of planetary health while safeguarding humanity’s future. Joe was formerly a member of the Center for Complex Systems Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and was a research fellow with George Lakoff at the Rockridge Institute in Berkeley.

EP90 Joshua Epstein on Agent-Based Modeling Nov 05, 2020

Joshua Epstein talks to Jim about agent-based modeling, differential equations, computational archeology, COVID-19 failures, and much more... Joshua Epstein talks to Jim about Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) as a powerful tool in the social sciences. They start with the history of Sugarscape, an early ABM framework, the dynamics of ABM systems, types of agents, ABM vs models based on systems of differential equations, predicting vs explaining systems, Axelrod's demonstration of emergent racial segregation, computational archeology, the role of parameters in ABM, inverse evolutionary techniques, Josh's agent zero dynamics, the role of emotion in agents, COVID-19 response failures & lack of competent leadership, R0 misconceptions, superspreaders, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Josh's book, Agent_Zero Josh's book, Generative Social Science Josh's book, Growing Artificial Societies Paper on Population growth & collapse in the Kayenta Anasazi Thomas Schelling's paper, Some Fun, Thirty-Five Years Ago Joshua Epstein is Professor of Epidemiology in the NYU College of Global Public Health, and founding Director of the NYU Agent-Based Modeling Laboratory, with affiliated appointments at The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the College of Arts & Sciences. Prior to joining NYU, he was Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins, and Director of the Center for Advanced Modeling in the Social, Behavior, and Health Sciences, with Joint appointments in Economics, Applied Mathematics, International Health, and Biostatistics. Before that, he was Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and Director of the Center on Social and Economic Dynamics. His research interest has been modeling complex social dynamics using mathematical and computational methods, notably the method of Agent-Based Modeling in which he is a recognized pioneer. For this transformative innovation, he was awarded the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2008, an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Amherst College in 2010, and was elected to the Society of Sigma XI in 2018.

EP89 Lene Rachel Andersen on Metamodernity Nov 02, 2020

Lene Rachel Andersen talks to Jim about how metamodernity addresses our complex problems, postmodernism, meaning-making, education, and much more... Lene Rachel Andersen talks to Jim about the growing number of complex challenges we face today, the need for cultures to evolve, our cultural history & the need to integrate pre-modern norms back into culture, the value & danger of postmodernism, metamodernism vs metamodernity, the aesthetic & academic history of metamodernism, wokism, fascism vs maoism, appropriate meaning-making, education & the urgent need for historical perspectives, human development, better goals & metrics for our future, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Lene's book, Metamodernity Lene's Website Metamodernity article by Lene JRS: EP67 Tomas Björkman on The Nordic Secret Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta JRS: EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories Lene Rachel Andersen is a member of the Club of Rome. She has a BA in business economy and studied theology 1993- 97. From 1993 to 2001, she wrote comedy and entertainment for Danish media and went to the US a number of times; she went there a Dane and returned as a European. Since 2005, she has worked as an independent futurist, author, philosopher, and publisher. For her books, she has received the Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and the Danish librarians’ Døssing Prize (2012); among her titles are Democracy Handbook (2010), Globalt gearskift (2014), Testosteroned Child. Sad. (2017), and The Nordic Secret (2017), Bildung: Keep Growing, and Metamodernity.

EP88 Nancy Hillis & Bruce Sawhill on Art & Complexity Oct 30, 2020

Nancy Hillis & Bruce Sawhill talk to Jim about the similarities of complexity science & art: emergence, order & chaos, luck, and much more... Nancy Hillis & Bruce Sawhill talk to Jim about the commonalities & dynamics of complexity science & art: innovation & imitation, breaking rules, inseparability, phase transitions, combinatorics & restraints, aesthetics, process vs result orientation, simplicity, paradox, uncertainty, emergence, navigating the edge of order & chaos, known unknowns & unknown unknowns, making space for luck, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Nancy's Website & Blog Personal Airline Exchange Bruce's paper, Phase Transitions in Logic Networks Bruce's paper, Self-Organized Criticality and Complexity Theory Bruce Sawhill is CTO and Co-Founder of Personal Airline Exchange, a startup per-seat on-demand air travel service for short flights between small airports in extended urban areas. He earned his B.S. degree in Physics, his B.A. in Music (organ performance and composition), and his PhD in Physics all from Stanford University, He was a postdoc at the Santa Fe Institute, working with Chris Langton and Stuart Kauffman. Bruce is currently writing a book with his partner Nancy Hillis, MD on the connections between evolutionary biology, complex adaptive systems, and creativity in the arts. In addition to his CTO duties, he gives regular organ recitals and swims long distances in the ocean without a wetsuit. Bruce and Nancy make their family home in Santa Cruz, CA. Nancy Hillis, MD is an artist, speaker, Stanford-trained psychiatrist and author of the best-selling self-help book The Artist’s Journey: Bold Strokes To Spark Creativity. as well as The Artist's Journey Creativity Reflection Journal. Nancy guides artists to create their deepest, most authentic art through her signature approach, which combines art and psychiatry. She’s helped thousands of artists transform their work from the inside out, operating from the conviction that artistic creation has as much to do with psychology as it does with paint and canvas. Nancy studied under renowned psychiatrist, Irvin Yalom, MD at Stanford and has been featured in Inc. magazine and The New York Observer. Her book The Artist's Journey: Bold Strokes To Spark Creativity was named one of the Top 100 Creativity Books Of All Time by BookAuthority. Nancy lives in Santa Cruz, CA with her partner and daughter.

Currents 018: The Future Thinkers Smart Village Oct 29, 2020

Jim talks to Euvie Ivanova & Mike Gilliland about their Future Thinkers Smart Village: region, scaling, governance, economics, fundraising, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Future Thinkers co-founders Euvie Ivanova & Mike Gilliland about their new Smart Village. They cover details about their selected bioregion, their short & long-term building & scaling plans, governance approaches, the economic models for residents & emphasis on remote working, regenerative agriculture goals & ideas, the ownership model for the village, their current fundraising strategy & investment priorities, open philosophy on types communal living, accessibility to surrounding communities & services, internet connectivity, childcare and schooling, their current fundraising structure & needs, and much more. Episode Transcript Staunton Makerspace Future Thinkers Podcast Future Thinkers Smart Village is a rural innovation lab & education center that combines technological innovation, education & personal development programs, regenerative agriculture, and community – located in a beautiful mountain valley the heart of the Kootenays, BC, Canada.

Currents 017: Bret Weinstein on Unity 2020 Oct 27, 2020

Jim talks to Bret Weinstein about his banning from Facebook, censorship on Twitter, the aspirations for his Unity 2020 movement, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Bret Weinstein about the possible explanations for his banning from Facebook, social media & ideological bubbles, the history & goals for Bret's Unity 2020 movement & its ballot access strategy, the tyranny of "the lesser of two evils", election game theory, what he's learned from Unity 2020 supporters, types of non-voters, 2020 voters & candidates, post-election strategies to break our political duopoly, a non-ideological groundswell & Jim's idea for 'parametric social democracy', Twitter's censorship of Unity, and more. Episode Transcript Unity 2020 Website Bret's Website Bret's DarkHorse Podcast JRS: EP24 Bret Weinstein on Evolving Culture Bret Weinstein has spent two decades exploring the frontiers of evolutionary biology. He is currently working to uncover the evolutionary meaning of large scale patterns in human history, and seeking a game-theoretically stable path forward for humanity. His scholarly research is focused on evolutionary trade-offs. He has worked on the evolution of senescence and cancer, species diversity gradients, and the adaptive significance of human morality and religion. He has written for The Wall Street Journal and testified to the U.S. Congress regarding questions of freedom of expression on college campuses. He is the host of Bret Weinstein’s DarkHorse Podcast.

EP87 Joscha Bach on Theories of Consciousness Oct 26, 2020

Joscha Bach talks to Jim about his views on popular consciousness theories, thinkers, dynamics, artificial intelligence, and much more... Joscha Bach and Jim start by talking about the difference between mind & brain, and the body & environment's connection to mind & emotions. Joscha then offers his views on some popular consciousness theories & thinkers: consciousness as frequency, Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, Functionalism, Daniel Dennet, and Roger Penrose. While covering these theories & thinkers they talk about GPT-3, learning & memory, what it means to understand, intuitive vs analytical intelligence, dreaming vs reality, attention & agents, psychedelics, magical phenomena, areas worth exploring to improve AI, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Joscha on Twitter JRS: EP72 Joscha Bach on Minds, Machines & Magic Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist working for MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He earned his Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, and has built computational models of motivated decision making, perception, categorization, and concept-formation. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI and in the augmentation of the human mind.

EP86 Nadav Zeimer on Educational Reform Oct 22, 2020

Nadav Zeimer talks to Jim about being a high school principal, our educational failures, dynamics of his proposed academic platform, and much more... Nadav Zeimer talks to Jim about his background & how it informs his work as a high school principal, the educational system's failure to build the right skills, consumption vs information literacy, COVID-19 impacts on education, what digital nativism & media creation means to Nadav, hands-on non-digital learning, out-dated education incentives, Nadav's academic platform & crediting system dynamics & incentives, centralized vs decentralized accreditation, learning vs memorizing, changing the role of teachers, credit experts & catalysts, tactics for preventing cheating, pass & fail system, Nadav's idea for education-based basic income, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Nadav's book, Education in the Digital Age Zak Stein JRS Episodes G-House Pirates 2006 Documentary Nadav Zeimer works at the intersection of technology and education. He excelled as a software engineer in Silicon Valley prior to becoming an award-winning physics/robotics teacher, turnaround principal, and public speaker. As a teacher, Nadav integrated podcasting into his curricula and was selected to lead a school design team. Seven consecutive years of breakthrough student outcomes followed, along with widespread recognition for his digital media-centered approach to school reform. Based on nearly two decades of experience, he has launched an open-source, blockchain ledger of “gold standard” high school credits. Nadav is the author of Education in the Digital Age: How We Get There offers an evaluation of how digital technology and economics are poised to transform education by examining the concept of academic capital.

Currents 016: Robin Hanson on Are We Living In A Simulation? Oct 21, 2020

Jim talks to Robin Hanson about whether we live in a simulation or not, why it matters if we do, simulation types, the Fermi paradox, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Robin Hanson about whether we live in a simulation or not, why it would matter if we do, his view of Nick Bostrom's simulation logic, Boltzmann brains & other possible simulation types, the appeal of simulating magic, the quantum Hilbert space, simulation accuracy, cost, & sizes, simulation theory induced paranoia, the value of & justifications for simulations, evolutionary universes, the Drake equation & Fermi paradox, impacts of increased pressure for human coordination, GameB, Robin & Jim's estimated simulation probabilities, and more. Episode Transcript Robin's Blog' Robin's Simulation post, Sim Argument Confidence JRS: EP79 Seth Lloyd on Our Quantum Universe Robin’s book, The Age of Em JRS: EP2 Robin Hanson – Decision Making and “The Age of Em JRS: Currents 011: Robin Hanson on RightTalkism JRS: Extra: On COVID-19 Strategies with Robin Hanson Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason’s economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory.

EP85 Gar Alperovitz on Reinventing Our Systems Oct 19, 2020

Gar Alperovitz talks Jim about system dynamics of ownership, control, politics, economics, US unions, governance, evolution, and much more... Gar Alperovitz talks to Jim about what his definition of systems & their relationship to ownership & control, economic & political components in systems, GameB, the legitimacy crisis & systems collapse, the failure mode of the political process, pervasive corporate influences, theory & experimentation, the past dynamics & current decline of US unions, finding appropriate levels of governance, complexities of worker ownership, race-to-the-bottom dynamics, materialism, municipalities as testbeds, openness to systemic change, Gar's four types of systemic evolution, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Gar's Website Gar's book, What Then Must We Do? TheNextSystem.org JRS: EP78 Ran Abramitzky on the Mystery of the Kibbutz Gar Alperovitz is a founding principal of The Democracy Collaborative and has had a distinguished career as a historian, political economist, activist, writer, and government official. For 15 years, he was the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, and is a former Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University; Harvard’s Institute of Politics; the Institute for Policy Studies; and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He is also the president of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives. Gar is the author of critically acclaimed books on the atomic bomb and atomic diplomacy. As a well-known policy expert, he has testified before numerous congressional committees and lectures widely around the country.

Currents 015: Jessica Flack & Melanie Mitchell on Complexity Oct 18, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Melanie Mitchell & Jessica Flack about the complexity of COVID, randomness, robustness, collective intelligence, misinfo, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Melanie Mitchell & Jessica Flack about their recent Aeon article, Uncertain times. Why R(0) is not a good measure for COVID contagion, network contagion & super spreaders, global non-linear causes & effects, feedback dynamics in complex systems, some hopeful views on COVID-19 impact, the importance of noise & randomness in complex systems, understanding & planning for fat-tailed distributions, designing for robustness, emergent engineering, funding robustness, collective intelligence, science distrust, misinformation, humility, authority, trust, and more. Episode Transcript Aeon article, Uncertain times JRS: EP33 Melanie Mitchell on the Elements of AI JRS: EP48 Jessica Flack on Complex System Dynamics JRS: Extra: On COVID-19 Opportunities with Jessica Flack Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Co-Chair of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. Mitchell has also held faculty or professional positions at the University of Michigan, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the OGI School of Science and Engineering. She is the author or editor of seven books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems, including her latest, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans. Jessica Flack is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Flack directs SFI’s Collective Computation Group (C4). Flack was formerly founding director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Flack received her Ph.D. from Emory in 2003, studying cognitive science, animal behavior and evolutionary theory, and B.A. with honors from Cornell in 1996. Flack’s work has been covered by scientists and science journalists in many publications and media outlets, including Quanta Magazine, the BBC, NPR, Nature, Science, The Economist, New Scientist, and Current Biology.

Currents 014: Steve LeVine on COVID-19 Futures Oct 15, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Steve LeVine about his article, Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy, the US city exodus, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Steve LeVine about his article, Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy, cultural hysteresis & homeostasis, the challenge of predicting post-pandemic changes & looking to history, the emerging remote business fluency, designing for virtual serendipity, the big city COVID-19 exodus, GameB, the Civium Project, the plausibility of cities dying, dangers of the US culture war, vaccines, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP44 Steve LeVine on EV Battery Tech Steve LeVine is Editor at Large at Medium, writing on tech, economic, geopolitical and demographic trends. He formerly founded and directed the Future newsletter at Axios, and prior to that was Washington Correspondent for Quartz, the mobile-first startup. Steve is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Foresight, Strategy and Risks Initiative and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches in the graduate-level Security Studies Program. Previously, Steve was a foreign correspondent for 18 years in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan and the Philippines, running a bureau for The Wall Street Journal, and before that writing for The New York Times, the Financial Times, and Newsweek. He is also an author of two books.

EP84 William Perry & Tom Collina on The Nuclear Button Oct 12, 2020

Former Sec of Defense William Perry & Tom Collina talk about their book, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race & Presidential Power, and much more... Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry & Tom Z. Collina of the Ploughshares Fund talk to Jim about their book, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump. They cover today's nuclear weapons amnesia, the current nuclear situation, the growing number of nuclear-armed countries, US presidential nuclear powers, first-use policies, the danger of 'launch on warning', three ways of blundering into nuclear war, nuclear game theory, the New START Treaty, William & Tom's proposed nuclear operations improvements, the plausibility of abolishing nuclear weapons, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations William & Tom's book, The Button Ploughshares Fund New START Treaty William J. Perry served as the U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in the Carter administration and then as Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration. He oversaw the development of the strategic nuclear systems that are currently in our arsenal. His new offset strategy ushered in the age of stealth, smart weapons, GPS, and technologies that changed the face of modern warfare. In 2007, Dr. Perry collaborated with George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and Henry Kissinger to publish several ground-breaking editorials in the Wall Street Journal that linked the vision of a world free from nuclear weapons with urgent but practical steps that could be taken to reduce nuclear dangers. Perry’s 2015 memoir, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, is a personal account of his lifelong effort to reduce nuclear dangers. He founded the William J. Perry Project to educate the public on these dangers. In 2020 Perry co-authored THE BUTTON: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump. He is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at Stanford University. Tom Z. Collina is Director of Policy at Ploughshares Fund. He is the co-author with William J. Perry of THE BUTTON. Tom has thirty years of Washington, DC, experience in nuclear weapons, missile defense, and nonproliferation issues, and has held senior positions at the Arms Control Association, the Institute for Science and International Security, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. He has been directly involved with efforts to end U.S. nuclear testing, limit ineffective anti-missile programs, extend the Nonproliferation Treaty, and secure Senate ratification of the New START Treaty. He has published widely in major magazines and journals and has appeared frequently in the national media, including the New York Times, CNN, and NPR. He has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and regularly briefs congressional staff. Tom has a degree in International Relations from Cornell University.

EP83 Michel Bauwens on Our Commons Transition Oct 08, 2020

Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about P2P plurality, agro & regeneration, capitalist impact on social media, blockchains, cosmo-localism, and much more... Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about the forms of P2P (peer to peer) implementations & core elements, cosmo-local production, P2P in agriculture & regenerative processes, artificial rivalrous dynamics, capitalist impacts on social media & sensemaking, political polarization, creating better social media habits, centralized vs distributed & for-profit vs for-benefit business ops, blockchain design ethos', P2P from a historical perspective, de-growth misunderstandings, dangerous impacts of cities, cosmo-localism, Michel's commons transition strategy, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP63 Michel Bauwens on P2P & Commons Michel’s book, Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto P2PFoundation.net P2PFoundation Blog JRS: EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking The Social Dilemma on Netflix Surveillance Capitalism with Shoshana Zuboff The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival JRS: EP56 Art Brock on Holo Tech The Structure of World History by Kōjin Karatani JRS: EP65 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity Jordan Hall's Civium Project Michel Bauwens is the founder & director of the P2P Foundation and works in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property. Michel is also research director of CommonsTransition.org. He has (co-)published various books & reports in english, dutch and french, such as, ‘Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy’, and P2P, A Commons Manifesto. Michel has been a candidate for the European Parliament, for the Flemish Green Party but as an independent candidate. He is currently working on prototyping a MOOC on commons-based economics.

Currents 013: Rob Malda on the Slashdot Story Oct 08, 2020

Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) talks to Jim about the history & tech of Slashdot while speculating on what social media could learn from it. In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) about the history & creation of Slashdot, its opensource tech, rapid growth & eventual decline, unique moderation system & community involvement, utilization of scarcity, the down-side of open rating systems, the game theory of social media & the evolution of manipulation tactics, moderation trade-offs, the advantages of having a niche audience, implementing innovations inspired by Word of Warcraft, the sheer complexity of the moderation problem, what led to Slashdot's downfall, and more. Episode Transcript Rob's podcast, Geeks in Space JRS: EP71 Philip Howard on Computational Propaganda JRS: EP81 Renée DiResta on Social Media Warfare Rob Malda, also known as CmdrTaco, is an American Internet content author, and former editor-in-chief of the website Slashdot. After that, he spent his time writing, consulting, and working at the Washington Post’s Labs for a couple years. Today, he’s interested in news aggregation, community moderation, and pretty much all the nerdy techy subject matter he covered at Slashdot.

EP82 Hanzi Freinacht on Building a Metamodern Future Oct 05, 2020

Hanzi Freinacht talks to Jim about political metamodernism, Gameb, sensemaking, conspiracy, top-down vs bottom-up tactics, coherent pluralism, and much more... In a wide-ranging all-new episode, Hanzi Freinacht talks to Jim about the dynamics of political metamodernism & commonalities with Gameb, our meta-crisis & diminished sensemaking capabilities, our culture of alienation, conspiracy theories, collective sensemaking, negative impacts of market economies, top-down vs bottom-up interventions, liquid democracy & other governance innovations, optimizing for emergence, coherent pluralism, the value of ritual & social norms, localism, building coherence & action orientation, prioritizing mental health, changing minds, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Metamoderna.org JRS: EP36 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism JRS: EP53 Hanzi Freinacht on the Nordic Ideology Gameb.wiki JRS: EP78 Ran Abramitzky on the Mystery of the Kibbutz Jim's Talk on Dividend Money Hanzi Freinacht is a political philosopher, historian & sociologist, author of The Listening Society, Nordic Ideology, and the upcoming book The 6 Hidden Patterns of World History. As a writer, Hanzi combines in-depth knowledge of several sciences and disciplines and offers maps of our time and the human condition with his characteristically accessible, poetic and humorous writing style – challenging the reader’s perspective of herself and the world. He epitomizes much of the metamodern philosophy and can be considered a personification of this strand of thought.

EP81 Renée DiResta on Social Media Warfare Oct 01, 2020

Renée DiResta talks to Jim about social media dynamics, foreign influence, disinformation vs misinformation, political ads, conspiracy, and much more... Renée DiResta talks to Jim about her work at the Standford Internet Observatory, identifying foreign social media influence, the challenge of defining state media, her work on the Election Integrity Project, sourcing social media data, foreign vs domestic disinformation & misinformation, the value & danger of political advertising, targeting & virality strategies, foreign influencer strategies that include hiring domestic journalists, election interference tactics & the 2016 US election, Renee's view on the 2020 election, the evolution of social media policy, participatory virality, potential impacts of deep fakes & GTP-3, information nihilism, the plurality of COVID-19 narratives & the Virality Project, conspiracy theory dynamics, how we can use social media better, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Renee's Website The Social Dilemma on Netflix JRS: EP38 Tristan Harris on Humane Tech JRS: EP52 Steven Levy on Facebook: The Inside Story JRS: EP71 Philip Howard on Computational Propaganda Renée DiResta is the Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She investigates the spread of malign narratives across social and other media networks. Her areas of research include disinformation and propaganda by state-sponsored actors, and health misinformation and conspiracy theories. Renee has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations, and is an Ideas contributor at Wired and The Atlantic. Her tech industry writing, analysis, talks, and data visualizations have been featured or covered by numerous media outlets. She is a 2019 Truman National Security Project security fellow, a 2019 Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust, and a Council on Foreign Relations term member. She is also co-author of The Hardware Startup: Building your Product, Business, and Brand.

EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking Sep 28, 2020

Daniel Schmachtenberger talks to Jim about sensemaking & how it's impacted by algorithms, addiction, authority, conspiracy, education, and much more... Daniel Schmachtenberger talks to Jim about the increasing importance of sensemaking in our globalized culture, internet algorithm impacts on narrative warfare, digital dopamine hijacking & addiction dynamics, dangerous contemporary authority dynamics, global government vs governance & other coordinating processes, the history of democracy, the essential role of education, sensemaking with hyperobjects in global complexity, the danger of certainty & challenge of acting in uncertainty, conspiracy theory & combating bias, valuing disagreement, building sensemaking institutions, new forms of public education, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP7 Daniel Schmachtenberger and the Evolution of Technology JRS :EP63 Michel Bauwens on P2P & Commons JRS: EP36 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism JRS: EP53 Hanzi Freinacht on the Nordic Ideology Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science. Motivated by the belief that advancing collective intelligence and capacity is foundational to the integrity of any civilization, and necessary to address the unique risks we currently face given the intersection of globalization and exponential technology, he has spoken publicly on many of these topics, hoping to popularize and deepen important conversations and engage more people in working towards their solutions. Many of these can be found here.

EP79 Seth Lloyd on Our Quantum Universe Sep 24, 2020

Seth Lloyd talks to Jim about the fundamentals of quantum physics, quantum computing, seeing the universe as a quantum computer, and much more... Seth Lloyd starts this episode by talking to Jim about the fundamentals of quantum physics: the quantum vs classical world, quantum interpretations, causality & randomness, the many-worlds theory, entanglement, and coherence. They then go on to talk about the emerging field of quantum computing: its incredible power & potential impacts on encryption, simulation vs other computation types, impacts on linear algebraic problems & machine learning, computational substrates, superconduction & topological systems, seeing the universe as a quantum computer & why it's so complex, quantum gravity, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Seth's book, Programming the Universe Seth Lloyd is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), director of the WM Keck Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory at MIT, director of the Program in Quantum Information at the Institute for Scientific Interchange, and Miller Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He earned his A.B. degree in Physics from Harvard University, his Masters of Advanced Study in Mathematics and M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. in Physics from Rockefeller University. Seth teaches and performs research in quantum information theory and complex systems. His research focuses on the role of information in physical and mechanical systems, with an emphasis on quantum mechanical systems. He was the first to propose a technologically feasible design for a quantum computer, and has worked with groups at MIT and other institutions around the world to construct and operate quantum computers using quantum optics, nuclear magnetic resonance, quantum dots, and superconducting systems.

Currents 012: Andrew Taggart on Narcissism, Culture & Dying Sep 23, 2020

Andrew Taggart talks to Jim about philosophy, our psychotherapeutic culture, the good life & virtue, narcissism, community living, dying well, and more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Andrew Taggart about what philosophy is & once was, the impacts of our psychotherapeutic culture, the good life & virtue, narcissism, friends of utility, changing family dynamics, GameB, close community living, what polling tells us about meaning & happiness, promoting & scaling the good life at the right times in the right ways, possible COVID-19 impacts, what it means to die well, and much more. Episode Transcript Andrew's Website Andrew's article, The Uninvited Confession, The New Confessional JRS: EP75 Nick Chater: “The Mind Is Flat” The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake by David Brooks The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey Andrew Taggart is a Practical Philosopher, Ph.D., Rinzai Zen Buddhist, Founder of Askole, public speaker, and critic of total work.

EP78 Ran Abramitzky on the Mystery of the Kibbutz Sep 21, 2020

Ran Abramitzky talks to Jim about the kibbutz movement's history, social & economic impact, family life, other egalitarian projects, and more... Ran Abramitzky talks to Jim about his book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: history of the kibbutz movement, social and economic impact in Israel, group governance, family life, the role of coherence & homogeneity, economic forces vs egalitarianism, kibbutz life as social insurance, educational dynamics, changing governmental relationships after 1977, and the wider variety of contemporary kibbutzim. They finish the conversation by exploring other egalitarian living projects and what can be learned from the kibbutz movement: the costs & benefits of equality, the importance of ideological coherence, religious vs secular community challenges, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Ran's Stanford Profile Page Ran's book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World Kibbutz Movement: A History: Origins and Growth by Henry Near Ran Abramitzky is a Professor of Economics and the Senior Associate Dean of the Social Sciences at Stanford University. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is the former co-editor of Explorations in Economic History. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, as well as National Science Foundation grants for research on the causes and consequences of income inequality and on international migration. His book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World was awarded by the Economic History Association the Gyorgi Ranki Biennial Prize for an outstanding book on European Economic History. He has received the Economics Department’s and the Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University.

EP77 Kamal Sinclair on Science, Storytelling & VR Sep 14, 2020

Kamal Sinclair talks with Jim about fiction & science, the power of storytelling, new media & tech, VR, augmented & mixed reality, and much more... Kamal Sinclair talks with Jim about being an art doula, the role of fiction in science, the power of storytelling, impacts of new media & technology, mind & perception, the Question Bridge project's view into the lives of black men, storytelling in VR, the challenges of creating & funding VR content, the promise of augmented & mixed reality, artistic impacts of postmodernism, archetypes vs stereotypes, the Guild of Future Architects, the upcoming Collective Wisdom Platform, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Kamal on Twitter JRS: EP23 Jeff Gomez on Narrative & Cultural Change JRS: EP75 Nick Chater: “The Mind Is Flat” JRS: EP65 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta Meow Wolf Kamal Sinclair, is the Executive Director of the Guild of Future Architects and Senior Consultant to Sundance Institute’s Future of Culture Initiative. She also serves as External Advisor to MacArthur Foundation’s Journalism & Media Program, Creative Advisor to For Freedoms, MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality, Starfish Incubator, and Eyebeam. Previously, she was the Director of Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Labs Program, which supports artists working at the convergence of film, art, media and technology. She also consults for the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms program on a research project aimed at furthering equality in emerging media, which resulted in “Making a New Reality.”

EP76 Max Borders on the Social Singularity Sep 07, 2020

Max Borders talks to Jim about singularities, social innovation, dysfunctional politics, democracy, vaccines, decentralization, cryptocurrency, and much more... Max Borders talks to Jim about how he sees the role of the futurist, optimism, the characteristics of singularities, types of social innovation, collective intelligence, signaling systems & incentives, our dysfunctional &/or out-dated politics, analyzing our democracy, re-embracing local experimentation, fractal governance, dangers of scientism, anti-vaxxers, fast-tracking COVID-19 vaccines, decentralization, non-hierarchical collaboration, financial incentives, cryptocurrency, multiple sovereignties, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Social Evolution Max's book, The Social Singularity Jim's article, An Introduction to Liquid Democracy JRS: EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories Meditations On Moloch Elinor Ostrom's 8 Principles for Managing A Commmons JRS: Currents 002: Brian Hanley on Releasing the Vaccines Brian Robertson of Holacracy Morning Star Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux Max Borders is a futurist, a theorist, a published author and an entrepreneur. He is the author of The Social Singularity and the founder and Executive Director of Social Evolution—a non-profit organization dedicated to liberating humanity through innovation. Max is also co-founder of the Voice & Exit event and former editor at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

EP75 Nick Chater: “The Mind Is Flat” Aug 31, 2020

Nick Chater talks to Jim about his flat mind theory, depth psychology, the grand illusion, memory, emotion, confabulation, and much more... Nick Chater talks with Jim about his bold argument that the human mind is a lot flatter than we think. That what we think of as “answers from our mental depths” are an illusion. When we report on our “depths” what we say sounds like an explanation – but really it is a terrible jumble that we are making up as we go along. Nick uses the examination of fictional characters to illuminate his flat mind theory while attacking depth psychology. He uses cognitive science research findings to support his theory. Some of the topics we discuss include: the grand illusion & visual processing, perceptual processing & memory, object perception, dynamics of memory, attention, the illusion of background processing, principals &/or heuristics in human cognition, the generality of intelligence, defining emotion, confabulation, the mind to culture process, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Nick's book, The Mind Is Flat Nick's 'The Mind is Flat' Online Course Nick on Twitter Nick Chater joined Warwick Business School (WBS) in 2010, after holding chairs in psychology at Warwick and UCL. He has over 200 publications, has won four national awards for psychological research, and has served as Associate Editor for the journals Cognitive Science, Psychological Review, and Psychological Science. He was elected a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society in 2010 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012. Nick is co-founder of the research consultancy Decision Technology; and is on the advisory board of the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insight Team (BIT), popularly known as the ‘Nudge Unit’.

EP74 Daniel Christian Wahl on Regeneration Dynamics Aug 27, 2020

Daniel Christian Wahl talks with Jim about GameB, recycling, development, eastern perspectives, consciousness, community, and much more... Daniel Christian Wahl talks with Jim about living at a Findhorn eco-village, humanity as a capstone species, regenerative vs sustainable, the three horizons & GameB, night soil in urban & rural contexts, recycling essential resources, personal & collective development, defining science & its challenges, eastern vs western thought & philosophy, impacts of language, escaping the hedonistic treadmill, self & community actualization, Jordan Hall's Civium Project, bioregionalism, urban farming, projecting global population post-COVID, Jim & Daniel's perspectives on consciousness, developmental psychology, cultural development & Hanzi metamodernism, acting locally & globally, community building, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP43 Daniel Christian Wahl on a Regenerative Future Daniel's book, Designing Regenerative Cultures Tyson Yunkaporta JRS Episodes: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 Tyson's book, Sand Talk Daniel's interview with Johnnie Freeland Three Horizons by Bill Sharpe Future Stewards Consciousness Explained Better by Allan Combs The Ancient Origins of Consciousness by Todd Feinberg & Jon Mallatt Daniel's interview with Pedro Tarak of 'Sistema B' JRS: EP63 Michel Bauwens on P2P & Commons Daniel is an international consultant and educator specializing in biologically-inspired whole systems design and transformative innovation. He is a biologist (University of Edinburgh and University of California), holds an MSc in Holistic Science (Schumacher College) and a PhD in Design (CSND, University of Dundee, 2006). Daniel has worked with local and national governments on foresight and futures, facilitated seminars on sustainable development for the UNITAR affiliated training centre CIFAL Scotland, consulted companies like Camper, Ecover and Lush on sustainable innovation, and has co-authored and taught sustainability training courses for Gaia Education, LEAD International and various universities and design schools. He is also a member of the International Futures Forum, a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA), co-founder of Biomimicry Iberia, and brought Bioneers to Europe in 2010. Daniel currently works for Gaia Education and the SMART UIB project of the Universidad de las Islas Balears. Triarchy Press published his first book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, in 2016.

EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories Aug 24, 2020

James Lindsay talks with Jim about the history of social progress, illiberalism from postmodernism & its impact on science & culture, and much more... James Lindsay talks with Jim about his parody scholarly article project, intentions of his latest book, liberalism as a process, history of social progress, illiberalism from the left, the history of postmodernism & its impact on science, cultural & economic power dynamics, postmodern principals & themes, the postmodern applied turn, identity politics, strategic essentialism, post-colonialism, fighting reason & empiricism, research justice, the scope of postmodern cultural influence, queer theory, sex & gender, critical race theory & intersectionality, IQ's impact on cognitive bias, personal responsibility vs victimization, the challenges of fighting illiberal postmodernism, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations James on Twitter James & Helen Pluckrose's book, Cynical Theories James' book, How to Have Impossible Conversations James' book, Everybody Is Wrong About God The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill Michel Foucault Jacques Derrida Heather E Heying Dr. James Lindsey is an American-born author, mathematician, and political commentator. He has written six books spanning a range of subjects including religion, the philosophy of science and postmodern theory. He is the co-founder of New Discourses and is motivated to rationally improve health “equity” without throwing out the baby with all this critical bathwater.

EP72 Joscha Bach on Minds, Machines & Magic Aug 17, 2020

Joscha Bach talks to Jim about AI, human vs animal intelligence, GPT-3, realism, emergence, magic, hybrid AI approaches, cybernetics, and much more... Joscha Bach talks to Jim about better understanding ourselves via AI, narrow vs general AI incentives, AGI & human-level intelligence, philosophy of AI, limitations of the human brain, GPT-2 & 3, understanding language, layers of meaning, brains columns & mini columns, human vs animal intelligence, matter vs information, physics, realism, spirt as OS, layers of interacting emergence, evolution & memetics, dualism, causally closed minds, rational magic, idealism, human cooperation & delayed maturity, symbolic cognition, compounding impacts of learning capacity, cognitive modularity in AI, cybernetics, Dietrich Dörner's impact on Joscha's work, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Joscha on Twitter JRS: EP3 Dr. Ben Goertzel – OpenCog, AGI and SingularityNET William Perry Joscha's book, Principles of Synthetic Intelligence Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist working for MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He earned his Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, and has built computational models of motivated decision making, perception, categorization, and concept-formation. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI and in the augmentation of the human mind.

Currents 011: Robin Hanson on RightTalkism Aug 11, 2020

Jim talks to Robin Hanson about social signaling & their tribal roots, politics, fighting RightTalkism, rationality, social media, wokeism, and more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Robin Hanson about RightTalkism & our word fixation, social signaling, corporate speech, police reform, education & IQ, legalism vs Confucianism in China, Protestant & Catholics wars, floating abstractions, the tribal roots of our words, political duality, how to fight RightTalkism, saying "I don't know", rational talk vs action, social media, James Lindsey, wokeism & cancel culture, theory vs empiricism, abstract vs concrete speech, and more. overcomingbias.com Robin's book, The Elephant in the Brain Robin's book, The Age of Em JRS: EP2 Robin Hanson – Decision Making and “The Age of Em” The Atlantic article, Beware of Corporate Promises JRS: EP32 Jason Brennan on Irrational Democracy & Academia Jim's article, An Introduction to Liquid Democracy Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason’s economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory.

EP71 Philip Howard on Computational Propaganda Aug 10, 2020

Philip Howard talks with Jim about organized & paid disinformation, tech & politics, the lie machine, journalism, privately-held data, and much more... Philip Howard talks with Jim about the impacts of organized & paid digital disinformation, the interconnection of technology & politics, foreign election influence, how narrow targeting compares to older direct marketing strategies, political advertising, political lies, visual misinformation, the broad range of manipulation tactics, the lie machine, misinformation marketing companies, avoiding marketing aversion, the bot to person threshold, open-API social networks, digitally-based political strategy, computational journalism, the value of public broadcast, the dynamics of privately-held data, advertising vs subscriber business models, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Philip's book, Lie Machines Rally Point Alpha Facebook Group JRS: EP38 Tristan Harris on Humane Tech Philip N. Howard is the Director of the Oxford Internet Institute and is a professor of sociology, information and international affairs. He is the author, most recently, Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives.

EP70 Art Brock & Ferananda Ibarra on Currencies Aug 03, 2020

Art Brock & Ferananda Ibarra talk with Jim about the dynamics of currencies as seen in education, culture, reputation, relationships, markets, and much more... Art Brock & Ferananda Ibarra talk with Jim about the dynamics & characteristics of currencies, credentials, competence, reputation, the broad range of non-monetary currencies, relational-backed social currency, pros & cons of scarcity & measuring, time banks, how mutual credit systems work, financial collapses, fiat currency, speculative vs resource-backed markets, currency plurality, designing currencies, non-numeric currency, amazon ratings, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations JRS: EP56 Art Brock on Holo Tech Commons Engine Holochain HoloFuel JustOne Organics Jim's Talk on Dividend Money Arthur Brock is the Chief Architect of Holochain and spends his time building targeted currencies which shape the social dynamics of our emerging post-industrial economy. He has created more than a hundred designs for multi-currency systems and his software company has built and deployed dozens of those systems. Ferananda Ibarra’s works focuses on Organizational Development (Teal, Deliberately Developmental Organizations, Self-management, Distributed and P2P philosophies and applications), Collective Intelligence and Regenerative Economies (very focused in currency design and implementation). She is a Co-Founder of Holochain, the Chief-Harmony Officer (CHO) in Unified Field Corporation for the brand JustOne Organics, and Co-Director of CommonsEngine.org.

EP69 Rachel Haywire on Free Thinking & Expression Jul 31, 2020

Rachel Haywire talks to Jim about running for president, acting vs philosophizing, the art right, aesthetics, today's left & right, dark bohemianism, and much more... Rachel Haywire talks to Jim about running for president in the transhumanist party, her Elixer Salon, her Pulling out of the Narrative article, GameB, acting vs philosophizing, taking our work & selves seriously, neo-reactionaries, understanding & working with people who have dark triad traits, NLP, understanding the art right, aesthetics, the complex dynamics of today's political left & right, H. L. Mencken, antisemitism, defending cosmopolitanism, dark bohemianism & scaling volatility, anarchism, sex & gender, Slate Star Codex, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Rachel's books, The New Art Right & Acidexia Rachel's Blog Peter Limberg's Stoa MAPS Rachel's article, Pulling out of the Narrative Rachel on Twitter Curtis Yarvin Tyson Yunkaporta JRS Interviews: EP65, EP66 & Currents 010 Rachel's article, The Sociopath’s Coma Rachel Haywire is an author and entrepreneur based in New York City. She is also a futurist and musician who ran for President of the United States as an independent candidate. Her interests range from VR to philosophy to aesthetic movements.

Currents 010: Tyson Yunkaporta on Humans As Custodial Species Jul 28, 2020

Jim talks to Tyson Yunkaporta about what makes us a custodial species, time, increase vs growth, complex systems intervention, domestication, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Tyson Yunkaporta about seeing humanity as a custodial species, our unique capacities, creation myths, the significance of the human hand, haptic cognition, tool making & syntactic language, our singing instinct, in-between space & interactions, GameB, information velocity, currency, humanity getting off track, seeing time as an arrow & the lie of progress, the illusion of time, interest's future discounting, increase vs growth, unplanned outcomes in complex systems intervention, ritual as an abstract metaphor, wisdom & turnaround, the danger of our domestication, and more. Episode Transcript Tyson’s book, Sand Talk JRS: EP65 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity JRS: EP66 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Knowledge Jim's currency talk, Dividend Money The Land Is the Source of the Law by C.F. Black Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He lives in Melbourne and is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

EP68 Mara Zepeda on Innovative Collaboration Jul 27, 2020

Mara Zepeda talks to Jim about co-founding a community platform, capital & creativity, alternative investment, extractive growth, empowering cooperatives, and much more... Mara Zepeda talks to Jim about what led Mara to co-found the Switchboard community platform, the ask & offer dynamic, GameB, the interaction of capital & creativity, Jim's entrepreneurial history, alternative investment structures & unjust financial systems, the meat collective, community-based growth vs extractive growth hacking, the rarity of great community managers, the importance of deep listening, the CARE (Engagement Response Framework), the history & goals of Zebras Unite, dynamics of empowering cooperatives & hybrid cooperatives, working through bureaucracy, dynamics of angel investment, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Mara's Website The Gift by Lewis Hyde JRS: EP51 Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration The Meat Project on Switchboard Inclusive Capital Collective Article, Sex & Startups Hearken Jason Wiener law Second Muse Capital Jim’s Staunton Makerspace Bylaws Mara Zepeda is the co-founder and CEO of Switchboard, speaks about and leads workshops on education, trust, social networks, and the future of business internationally, and has spent her career at the intersection of community building, economic empowerment, and education, directing programs at Harvard University; as a reporter with National Public Radio; and as an alumni board member of her alma mater, Reed College. She is the founding board president of Business for a Better Portland and XXCelerate. She is also a co-founder of Zebra movement. Mara graduated with honors from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism with a focus on digital media, business, and network theory.

EP67 Tomas Björkman on The Nordic Secret Jul 20, 2020

Tomas Björkman talks to Jim about what made Nordic countries thrive, psychological development, the disappearance & possible re-emergence of the Bildung, and much more... Tomas Björkman talks to Jim about the danger of reifying systems, understanding the Bildung, what made the Nordic countries exceptional, inner development, Scandinavia's retreat centers, cultural modernity, the self-authoring shift & emergent levels in psychological development, influential philosophers & their impact on education, the role of romanticism, the role of Freemasonry, the spread of the folk-Bildung in Scandinavia, expanding our circles of belonging, the importance of personal responsibility, the disappearance & possible re-emergence of the Bildung, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Tomas' Website Lene Rachel Andersen & Tomas' book, The Nordic Secret Robert Kegan Tomas' book, The World We Create Tomas Björkman is an author and social entrepreneur supporting sustainable development for individuals, organizations, and society. He's interested in expanding consciousness, new narratives, complexity and behavioral economics, the concept of Bildung, the importance of technological and personal development going hand in hand, and the power of vulnerability and authenticity.

Currents 009: Gregg Henriques on Theory Of Meta-Cultural Transition Jul 18, 2020

Jim talks to Dr. Gregg Henriques about his tree of knowledge & meta-cultural transition, justification theory, meaning, consciousness, integrative pluralism, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Dr. Gregg Henriques about complexity in his tree of knowledge & how it's connects to meta-cultural transition, the power of justification theory, understanding meaning & its connection to western history, GameB, the enlightenment 2.0 & enlightenment gap, mind & matter, Jim's AI deer, the hard problem of consciousness, mysticism, Gregg's ingredients for integrative pluralism, importances of core values, and much more. Episode Transcript Gregg's Site JRS: EP59 Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology Gregg's article, The 11th Problem of Consciousness John Vervaeke Jim's article, A Journey To GameB Dr. Gregg Henriques is currently utilizing his Unified Theory of Psychology to systematically study character and well-being, social motivation and emotion, and to develop a more unified approach to psychotherapy. Dr. Henriques (Full Professor) has been a core faculty member in James Madison University’s Combined-Integrated Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral Program. He arrived at JMU in 2003, and directed the C-I doctoral program from 2005 to 2017. In addition to providing administrative oversight of the program, he also engages in clinical supervision and teaches courses on social and personality psychology, integrative psychotherapy and history and systems. In 2011 he outlined his approach in a book, A New Unified Theory of Psychology, (Springer, 2011). For the past several years, he has authored a Psychology Today blog called Theory of Knowledge, which offers weekly blog posts on a wide variety of topics related to his view for a more unified field. Dr. Henriques also has expertise in the assessment and treatment of severe psychopathology, particularly depression and suicide, and is currently a licensed clinical psychologist in Virginia.

EP66 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Knowledge Jul 16, 2020

Tyson Yunkaport talks to Jim about GameB, indigenous cognition, elders & initiation, growth, spirit, sustainability agents, cryptocurrencies, cultural evolution, and much more... Tyson Yunkaport talks to Jim about GameB, woodworking as a theory of mind & information entanglement, interconnected indigenous cognition, the iceman, taming crocodile, culture & systems designed to check narcissism, context-dependent leadership, the role of indigenous elders & cultural initiation, the commons, close vs open systems, roles & checks for sociopaths, complex vs complicated systems, humanity as a custodial species, finding balance & managing change, the money on money growth mindset, Avatar depression, debt jubilee dynamics, UBI, knowledge in rocks, spirit as metaphor, integrated information theory, flat earthers, operating protocols for sustainability agents, adaptation, holon interiors & exteriors, Holochain & cryptocurrencies, cultural evolution, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Tyson's book, Sand Talk Part 1: Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity Hierarchy in the Forest by Chris Boehm JRS: EP63 Michel Bauwens on P2P & Commons EmancipationParty.org The Ghost in the Machine by Arthur Koestler Joe Brewer & Daniel Christian Wahl JRS: EP56 Art Brock on Holo Tech Jim's article, In Search of the 5th Attractor Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He lives in Melbourne and is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

EP65 Tyson Yunkaporta on Indigenous Complexity Jul 13, 2020

Tyson Yunkaporta talks to Jim about his Apalech Clan, human domestication, connected bioregions, cultural narcissism, value in ordeal, indigenous instinct, and much more... An important new thinker only comes around every few years. Tyson Yunkaport is that thinker right now. We talk about his amazing new book, Sand Talk, in which he looks at the meta-crisis of our contemporary scene through the dual lenses of complexity science and his Indigenous Australian culture. We talk about: his Apalech Clan & personal background, impacts of smartphones, defining civilization, growth vs increase paradigms, managing change via myths & norms, contextual dynamics of pronouns, the interconnection of culture & bioregions, language & cognition, the impermanent nature of race, collapse, the great filter theory, dangers of cultural narcissism & the value of facing ordeal, crime & punishment, safety vs protection, the value of conflict & violence, human domestication via civilization, relationality vs fight & flight, human potential, 'the art of yarning' & stories as maps, our indigenous instincts, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Tyson's book, Sand Talk Robin Hanson's JRS Episode Part 2: Tyson on Indigenous Knowledge Tyson Yunkaporta is an academic, an arts critic, and a researcher who is a member of the Apalech Clan in far north Queensland. He carves traditional tools and weapons and also works as a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University in Melbourne. He lives in Melbourne and is the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World.

EP64 Colin Wright on The New Evolution Deniers Jul 09, 2020

Colin Wright talks with Jim about the new evolution deniers & its impact on his academic career, sex & gender, nature AND nurture, postmodernism, whiskey, and more... Colin Wright talks with Jim about his critiques of the new evolution deniers & the impact it had on his search for academic faculty positions, the connections & differences between sex & gender, primary vs secondary sex traits, the re-emergence of the blank slate theory, the naturalistic fallacy, embracing nature AND nurture, dangers of postmodernism, critical race theory, religion & dogma, religious behavior without the supernatural, Colin & Jim's appreciation of whiskey, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Colin's Quillette article, The New Evolution Deniers Colin's Publication History Quillette article, What Explains the Resistance to Evolutionary Psychology? Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett John Vervaeke Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist, Quillette assistant editor, and lover of whisk(e)y, fitness, and ideas.

EP63 Michel Bauwens on P2P & Commons Jul 06, 2020

Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about the P2P Foundation, markets & commons, alternative collaborative systems, seed to niche to norm, value, the future, and much more... P2P Foundation founder & director Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about being a 'vision coordinator', history & dynamics of peer to peer (P2P) collaboration, P2P in markets & commons, the evolution of commons, licensing, contributive accounting & other alternative collaborative systems, GameB, misconceptions of the tragedy of the commons, competing with Game A, from seed to niche to norm, experimentation vs speculation, understanding value, commodity vs contribution value, the myth of neutral technology, the pace of societal change, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations P2P Foundation JRS: EP51 Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration Michel's book, Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto Jim's Staunton Makerspace Bylaws Free, Fair, and Alive by David Bollier Elinor Ostrom's 8 Principles for Managing A Commmons P2P Foundation Blog CommonsTransition.org Farm Hack & WikiHouse P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival Rethinking the World by Peter Pogany Michel Bauwens is the founder & director of the P2P Foundation and works in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property. Michel is also research director of CommonsTransition.org. He has (co-)published various books & reports in english, dutch and french, such as, ‘Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy’, and P2P, A Commons Manifesto. Michel has been a candidate for the European Parliament, for the Flemish Green Party but as an independent candidate. He is currently working on prototyping a MOOC on commons-based economics.

Currents 008: Christopher Conselice: Finding Extraterrestrial Intelligence Jul 05, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to astrophysicist Christopher Conselice about his recent paper that estimates the number of communicating intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. Topics include: the history of the 'life off earth' question, current methods of looking for extraterrestrial intelligence, how Chris builds on and modifies the Drake equation, supernovas & star formation, possible communication methods, estimating intelligent civilization lifespans, SETI and METI, dangers and benefits of contacting intelligence, technology signatures, astronomy's future, the Fermi paradox, and more. Episode Transcript

EP62 Zak Stein on Education, Tech & Religion Jun 29, 2020

Zak Stein talks with Jim about tech in education, what advertising is teaching us, the role of religion in education, self-transcendence, Zak's 13 social miracles, and much more... Zak Stein talks with Jim about the pros & cons of technology in education & the role of the teacher, unrealized education potentials in TV & internet, what advertising is teaching us, the role of religion in education, good vs bad science & religion, emerging eclectic religion & spirituality, spirituality as seen by developmental psychology, perennial philosophy, self-transcendence & integration, concreate utopias & Zak's 13 social miracles, good-faith social discourse, religious transhumanism, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Part 1: EP57 Zak Stein on Education in a Time Between Worlds Part 2: EP60 Zak Stein on Educational Systems Collapse Zak’s Website Zak’s book, Education in a Time Between Worlds Stages of Faith by James Fowler A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber A Sociable God by Ken Wilber Dr. Marc Gafni The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James EmancipationParty.org Zachary Stein is a writer, educator, and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. He studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published two books. Social Justice and Educational Measurement which was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book, Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. He’s a scholar at the Ronin Institute, Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and scientific advisor to the board of the Neurohacker Collective and other technology start-ups.

Currents 007: David Fuller on the IDW Jun 24, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Rebel Wisdom founder David Fuller about what the IDW is & how it relates to GameB, common IDW perspectives & its prescient points, the decline of journalism & sensemaking, postmodernism, how Integral theory views the IDW, memetic mediation, coherence & plurality, the IDW's future, online platform limitations, the value of critique, types of audience capture, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP24 Bret Weinstein on Evolving Culture Eric Weinstein & Bret Weinstein on The Rubin Report NYT's article, Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web Trump and a Post-Truth World by Ken Wilber Bret Weinstein's DarkHorse Podcast Eric Weinstein's The Portal Podcast Peter Limberg's article, The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 The Sensemaking Series, Rebel Wisdom

EP61 Howard Rheingold on Our Digital Past & Future Jun 22, 2020

Howard Rheingold talks with Jim about his involvement in early computing & the internet, collaboration, internet risks, privacy, COVID-19, attention, and much more... Howard Rheingold talks with Jim about his interest & experiences with early computers & the internet, online collaboration & sharing, The Source & Well.com, 'realtime' online tribes, 3 risks to the future of the internet, online privacy, social media power & responsibility, the EFF & other great things the internet enables, digital collective action examples, innovative COVID-19 responses, the dynamics & power of attention, tribal sensemaking, education & journalism, the commons & cooperation, advertising, direct audience support, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Howard's Website Howard's Patreon Microelectronics and the Personal Computer by Alan Kay Howard's book, Tools for Thought Howard's book, The Virtual Community Howard's book, Net Smart Rally Point Alpha Elinor Ostrom's 8 Principles for Managing A Commmons Howard's TED Talk: The new power of cooperation Howard Rheingold is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities.

Currents 006: Jim Coan on Our Social Recession Jun 19, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Jim Coan about social recession, social origins & impacts on humanity, emergent group collaboration, 'selfing' beyond the individual, bioenergetic resource management & its connection to social isolation & depression, physicological weathering & health risks of involuntary isolation, mental impacts leading to less COVID-19 social distancing, dynamics of virtual communication, academia impacts & risks of reopening, and more. Episode Transcript Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory Jim Coan's appearance on CBC Radio Expecting Students to Play It Safe if Colleges Reopen Is a Fantasy Dr. James Coan is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Virginia. Dr. Coan has consulted for clinicians, businesses and researchers, working with groups as diverse as the Oregon Social Learning Center, the Anna Freud Center, the Kurt Lewin Institute, and the Community of Democracies. He has appeared as an expert for several episodes of National Geographic’s Brain Games, is a fellow of the Mind and Life Institute, produces the podcast Circle of Willis, and serves as Chief Scientific Advisor at Movius Consulting.

Currents 005: John Robb on Protest Tactics & Reforms Jun 17, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to John Robb about an article that describes the military-style tactics leading to the capture and burning of a police headquarters in Minneapolis: specialized units, weapons & tactics, and decentralized communications. How the violent use the non-violent. Also: the dangers of police militarization, police reform, the potential for cultural change post protests & pandemic, possible return of the Occupy movement, Minneapolis police abolishment, future protest tactics, and more. Episode Transcript John's Patreon The Siege of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis Jordan Halls article, Defund (and redesign) everything. John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP60 Zak Stein on Educational Systems Collapse Jun 15, 2020

Zak Stein talks with Jim about existential risks of our education systems, revolutions, attention, educational tech, standards, 4 quadrants of systems, and much more... Zak Stein talks with Jim about the existential risk of oppressive & unjust education systems, the inefficiency of injustice, how Zak sees social justice, Rawls veil of ignorance, creating new types of people, dynamics of revolutions, limitations of cognitive science & neuroscience, the power of attention & imitation in education, educational tech dangers, four quadrants of systems, complexity science, the difficult problem of official knowledge & educational standards, teacherly authority, changing how people think, rethinking digital affordances, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Part 1: EP57 Zak Stein on Education in a Time Between Worlds Zak’s Website Zak’s book, Education in a Time Between Worlds JRS: EP36 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene The Feeling of What Happens by António Damásio Four Quadrants of Integral Theory Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein Zachary Stein is a writer, educator, and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. He studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published two books. Social Justice and Educational Measurement which was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book, Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. He’s a scholar at the Ronin Institute, Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and scientific advisor to the board of the Neurohacker Collective and other technology start-ups.

EP59 Gregg Henriques on Unifying Psychology Jun 11, 2020

Dr. Gregg Henriques talks to Jim about his unified theory of psychology; clinical vs scientific, postmodernism, justification theory, Gameb, shadow work, and much more... Dr. Gregg Henriques talks to Jim about the many facets of his unified theory of psychology -- basic vs human psychology, the value of folk psych, the field of psychology compared to other academic fields, clinical vs scientific psych & what can be learned from the medical field, pros & cons of unifying theories, postmodern influences, systems justification, behavioral investment theory as seen on Jim's farm, the influence matrix & its connection to modern culture & Gameb, Gregg's tree of knowledge & justification hypothesis, psychological shadow work, cultural justification, our urgent need for unified psychology, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Gregg's Site Gregg's book, A New Unified Theory Of Psychology Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm Jessica Flack Origins of the Modern Mind by Merlin Donald The Emergence of Everything by Harold Morowitz The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier Dr. Gregg Henriques is currently utilizing his Unified Theory of Psychology to systematically study character and well-being, social motivation and emotion, and to develop a more unified approach to psychotherapy. Dr. Henriques (Full Professor) has been a core faculty member in James Madison University’s Combined-Integrated Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral Program. He arrived at JMU in 2003, and directed the C-I doctoral program from 2005 to 2017. In addition to providing administrative oversight of the program, he also engages in clinical supervision and teaches courses on social and personality psychology, integrative psychotherapy and history and systems. In 2011 he outlined his approach in a book, A New Unified Theory of Psychology, (Springer, 2011). For the past several years, he has authored a Psychology Today blog called Theory of Knowledge, which offers weekly blog posts on a wide variety of topics related to his view for a more unified field. Dr. Henriques also has expertise in the assessment and treatment of severe psychopathology, particularly depression and suicide, and is currently a licensed clinical psychologist in Virginia.

Currents 004: Michael Vassar on Passive-Aggressive Revolution Jun 09, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Michael Vassar about how he defines the passive-aggressive revolution & the ways it could manifest in the US, how the George Floyd protests impact the revolution, police bureaucracy vs bad actors, potential investigative & prosecution rights for private citizens, Trump's church photo op, the pandemic economic response, Trump voter types, white nationalism, and more. Episode Transcript Michael Vassar is an American futurist, activist, and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief science officer of MetaMed Research. He was president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute until January 2012. Vassar advocates safe development of new technologies for the benefit of humankind. He has co-authored papers on the risks of advanced molecular manufacturing with Robert Freitas, and has written the special report "Corporate Cornucopia: Examining the Special Implications of Commercial MNT Development" for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Task Force.

EP58 Jake Bornstein on Leadership & Clarity Jun 08, 2020

Jake Bornstein talks to Jim about Game A vs Gameb, exploration vs exploitation, uncertainty & clarity, leadership, decentralization, psycho-tech, and much more... Jake Bornstein talks to Jim about what he learned from his eclectic career, understanding value, competing with Game A, collapse-first vs construction-first approaches to systems change, how Talentism works with & impacts Game A, corporate exploration vs exploitation, the cognitive science behind Talentism's processes, non-adaptive responses to uncertainty in business, finding clarity & foundations of conflict, driving cultural change through leadership, decentralization, Jake's view on Gameb, making room for confusion, Gameb leadership qualities & meta-skills, personal & social psycho-technologies, life as a practice, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Talentism Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky Behave by Robert Sapolsky Jeffery Martin JRS: EP22 Sara Kindsfater-Yerkes on the Evolution of Business JRS: EP51 Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration Jake Bornstein is obsessed with unleashing human potential, seeing coordination toward shared goals as the main problem facing humanity, and has shaped his career around the unique intersection of systems thinking, cognitive science and the practicalities of executive decision making. He currently delivers this as a senior executive coach and facilitator with the firm Talentism, working with over 100 c-suite executives and fund partners through hypergrowth, pivots, M&A, executive restructurings, and the day-to-day challenges of leadership. Prior to his work with Talentism, he was a facilitator at the Integral Center in Boulder Colorado, founder of his own consulting firm Mandala Consulting, the director of the non-profit Slow Money (applying the principles of Slow Food to finance), and an Investment Associate at Bridgewater Associates, working directly with Ray Dalio on special research projects, and building trading systems for international currency markets. He currently lives in Amsterdam with his wife and adorable dog, and when not working, enjoys skiing, exploring the world, and long conversations into the night with friends new and old.

Currents 003: Joe Norman on Localism & Scales of Cooperation Jun 02, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Joe Norman about appropriately-sized community collaboration, family & local organization, government & market dysfunctions, cooperation-based sacrifice, bad actors & sociopaths, unique dynamics of local markets, localism as a complex ecosystem, emergence, the limits of diversification & trade, multi-scale localism, wicked societal risks, the politicization of masks, and more. Episode Transcript Joe's Community Tweet Jim's article, A Journey To GameB Joe Rogan Podcast with Joel Salatin Joe Norman is an applied complexity scientist with a focus on transforming insights gleaned from complex systems science into practical and implementable strategies and tactics for grappling with an increasingly uncertain and dynamic world. Joe is an Affilate at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, MA, an instructor at the Real World Risk Institute, and founder of Applied Complexity Science, LLC. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife where they are focusing their energy on homesteading and local agriculture on an old mill property that has been an actively running homestead for over 130 years.

EP57 Zak Stein on Education in a Time Between Worlds Jun 01, 2020

Zak Stein talks to Jim about, societal change, intergenerational transmission, the nature of education, teacherly authority, parenting, schooling, and much more... Zak Stein has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about our culture's dwindling capacity to understand & address today's increasingly complex problems. Zak starts by defining this moment as a time between worlds & draws its connection to societal transformation. They go on to talk about the meta crisis, intergenerational transmission, negative educational impacts of reductive human capital theory, the culturally integrated & interdependent nature of education, education vs information, the importance & broad reach of teacherly authority, postmodern influences on academia & educational reform, regenerating parental education, pharmacological impacts on schooling, raising vs designing children, the developmental necessity for unsupervised play, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Zak's Website Zak's book, Education in a Time Between Worlds The Future of Human Nature by Jürgen Habermas Zachary Stein is a writer, educator, and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. He studied philosophy and religion at Hampshire College, and then educational neuroscience, human development, and the philosophy of education at Harvard University. While a student at Harvard, he co-founded what would become Lectica, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to the research-based, justice-oriented reform of large-scale standardized testing in K-12, higher-education, and business. He has published two books. Social Justice and Educational Measurement which was based on his dissertation and traces the history of standardized testing and its ethical implications. His second book, Education in a Time Between Worlds, expands the philosophical work to include grappling with the relations between schooling and technology more broadly. He writes for peer-reviewed academic journals across a range of topics including the philosophy of learning, educational technology, and integral theory. He’s a scholar at the Ronin Institute, Co-President and Academic Director of the activist think-tank at the Center for Integral Wisdom, and scientific advisor to the board of the Neurohacker Collective and other technology start-ups.

EP56 Art Brock on Holo Tech May 28, 2020

Arthur Brock talks to Jim about Holochain -- agent-centric design, key management, data integrity, validation, zomes, DNA, hApp's, search, HOT token, and much more... Arthur Brock & Fernanda Ibarra talk to Jim about how Holochain works, its agent-centric design & how it's different from Etherium and Blockchain, key management, intrinsic data integrity, decentralized validation, micro-service development architecture, zomes, DNA, hApp's, UI development, distributed hash tables & searchability, gossip protocols & indexing, data & hosting incentives, the costs of Holochain's platform change, writing Holochain apps, Holo hosting, Holo ports, HoloFuel, HOT token, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Holochain Free, Fair, and Alive by David Bollier JRS: EP52 Steven Levy on Facebook: The Inside Story Holo Arthur Brock is the Chief Architect of Holochain and spends his time building targeted currencies which shape the social dynamics of our emerging post-industrial economy. He has created more than a hundred designs for multi-currency systems and his software company has built and deployed dozens of those systems. Initially, Arthur put his experience in Artificial Intelligence to use at GM, Chrysler & Hughes, but shifted his focus to building intelligence into social architectures rather than to computers. He started student-run schools and award-winning, employee-run businesses and discovered the engine that runs these types of organizations involve specific patterns of incentives and feedback.

Currents 002: Brian Hanley on Releasing the Vaccines May 26, 2020

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Brian Hanley about his view on the economic impact & recovery of COVID-19, the dramatic social impacts emerging, his views & experience with vaccine creation, vaccine risks & effectiveness, his proposal for rolling out vaccines immediately, immunity dynamics, and more. Episode Transcript Brian Hanley is the founder and chief scientist for Butterfly Sciences. Brian holds a Microbiology PhD from UC Davis with honors completed in under three years. Brian guest lectured for the MBA program at Santa Clara University for 6 years and has years of operations experience in the USA and Central Asia in startups and early-stage companies. He has publications in epidemiology, biotechnology, economics and a portfolio of patents in addition to chapters on biodefense and terrorism in DHS/West Point sponsored books. Since founding Butterfly Sciences, Brian has developed gene therapies for HIV treatment and new approaches to flow-cytometry diagnostics. Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash

EP55 Jack Murphy on Leaving the Left May 25, 2020

Jack Murphy talks to Jim about The Liminal Order, attacks on masculinity, gender, post-modernism, impacts of social justice, racism, Trump, localism, and much more... Jack Murphy talks to Jim about his professional & political background, why he started The Liminal Order, his book, Democrat to Deplorable, the left's attack on masculinity, Jack's view on the manosphere & men's rights movement, the toxic masculinity meme, gender equality vs equity, post-modernism, the authoritarian left, Gameb, identity politics, the negative impacts of social justice, systemic & implicit racism, Trump's personality, new masculinity, localism, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations The Liminal Order Jack's book, Democrat to Deplorable The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 The Stoa Jesse Singal's article, Psychology’s Favorite Tool for Measuring Racism Isn’t Up to the Job Jack's essay, Smashing kids in the face... Jack Murphy is the founder of the Liminal Order, a writer, speaker, podcaster, and author of “Democrat to Deplorable: Why Nine Million Obama Voters Ditched the Democrats and Embraced Donald Trump.”. Jack has a B.A. in Economics from George Mason University and a Master’s degree from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. At GU he studied International Finance and International Affairs.

EP54 Robert Conan Ryan on Boom & Bust Cycles May 18, 2020

Robert Conan Ryan talks with Jim about Neo Schumpeterianism: boom & bust cycles, 6 paradigms, organic vs digital, meaning-making, utopias, and much more... Robert Conan Ryan talks with Jim about Neo Schumpeterian economic theory, booms & busts dynamics, leverage cycles, golden ages, nuclear power propaganda & legislation, 5 paradigms of Neo Schumpeterianism & the emerging 6th organic paradigm, organic vs digital dynamics, the cultural dimension of revolution, culturally constructed & leveraged economies, dematerialization, transhumanist trends, meaning-making process & constructed institutional impact, the value of utopian cycles & revolution synthesis, organic paradigm speculations on Gameb, solar punks, & p2p collaboration. Robert's focus on building multidisciplinary, integral cycle/wave theory, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Carlota Perez Joseph Schumpeter Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez Robert Conan Ryan is a professor of business administration and emerging public intellectual. His current scholarly projects include work with a diverse roster of world-leading strategists, economists, and futurists such as Jordan Hall, Michel Bauwens, Ravi Madhavan, Barry Mitnick, Matthew McCaffrey, and Michael Rectenwald. His current papers tackle competitive industry dynamics; grey market economics; the history of technology; Neo-Schumpeterian economics; artificial vs. natural cognition; paradigmatic strategic design; and, how sensemaking systems evolve and change. Dr. Ryan holds a PhD in Business Administration, University of Pittsburgh with emphasis on strategic management, business ethics, and organizational learning and human cognition. He has worked extensively outside of academia as: an independent music consultant and performance coach; indy rock guitarist; music promoter; dj and hip hop beatmaker; general sub-contractor and painter; chef; furnituremaker; pharmaceutical market forecaster; and, banking project manager. He has special enthusiasm for the emerging industries of aquaponics and of medical cannabis.

Currents 001: Simon DeDeo on University Censorship May 14, 2020

In this inaugural Currents episode, Jim talks to Simon DeDeo about speech censorship at elite Anglosphere universities, differing generational perspectives on personal liberty, the coddled mind & postmodern neo-Marxist theories, Simon's platonic cocktail party model, hospitality as a norm, College incentives, alternate metaphors for collective education, and more. Episode Transcript Simon on Twitter Jonathan Haidt Jordan Peterson Simon DeDeo is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also affiliated with the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, where he runs the Laboratory for Social Minds. For three years, from 2010 to 2013, he was an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He and his collaborators study how people use words and signals, and the ideas they represent, to create a world. They have studied a diverse set of systems that includes the French Revolution, the courtrooms of Victorian London, the research strategies of Charles Darwin, the insurgency of modern-day Afghanistan, the emergent bureaucracy of Wikipedia, the creation of power hierarchies among the social animals, and the collusions and conspiracies of petrol stations in the American Midwest. They combine data from the contemporary world, archives from the deep past, statistical tools from cosmology, and models of human cognition from Bayesian reasoning and information theory to understand how cultures grow, flourish, innovate, and evolve.

EP53 Hanzi Freinacht on the Nordic Ideology May 11, 2020

Hanzi Freinacht talks to Jim about his book, Nordic Ideology; code, depth, complexity, cultural changeability, attractor points, game change, protopia, and much more... Hanzi Freinacht, political philosopher, historian, sociologist, & author talks with Jim about effective value memes, cultural code, what it means to have high depth, dynamics of cognitive complexity, the changeability of culture & systems, social engineering, compulsion vs seduction, prioritizing subjective states, cultural attractor points & bad attractors, game acceptance vs denial & how they impact game change, relative utopias, a brief overview of Hanzi's six types of politics, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Part 1: EP36 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism Metamoderna.org Hanzi's book, Nordic Ideology Hanzi’s book, The Listening Society Jordan Hall's Deep Code Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark Hanzi Freinacht is a political philosopher, historian & sociologist, author of The Listening Society, Nordic Ideology, and the upcoming book The 6 Hidden Patterns of World History. As a writer, Hanzi combines in-depth knowledge of several sciences and disciplines and offers maps of our time and the human condition with his characteristically accessible, poetic and humorous writing style – challenging the reader’s perspective of herself and the world. He epitomizes much of the metamodern philosophy and can be considered a personification of this strand of thought.

Extra: Memetic Warfare & Pandemic Responses with John Robb May 07, 2020

Jim talks to John Robb about Defeat Disinfo, memetic armies, emerging economic implications of COVID-19, wicked risks, the break up of US, and more... In this short extra episode, Jim talks to John Robb about the implication of Defeat Disinfo & how social platforms might respond, memetic armies & street fights, weak political responses to the pandemic, the emerging economic implications of COVID-19, the long-term complexity perspective, wicked risks & robust response methodologies, potential regional US border controls, leaky quarantines, possible break up of The United States, and more. Episode Transcript John Robb's post, August 2019 GG Report: Street Battles Jim's article, Blood in the Streets: Red vs Blue John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP52 Steven Levy on Facebook: The Inside Story May 04, 2020

Steven Levy talks with Jim about his new book, Facebook: The Inside Story. Which covers the people, circumstances & philosophies that define Facebook. Steven Levy has a wide-ranging conversation with Jim about his new book, Facebook: The Inside Story. They cover Steven's multi-year access to Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg while researching the book, Facebook’s initial denial of impact on the 2016 election, hate speech vs free speech, engagement metric incentives, micro-targeting & political advertising, early days of the company, key players & collaborators, Harvard, telling Zuckerberg personality traits & interests, acquisitions, real-name identity dynamics, company operations & structure, Facebook's COVID-19 opportunities, the future, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Steven's Website Steven's book, Facebook: The Inside Story Steven's book, In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives Steven's book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution Steven Levy is Wired’s editor at large. The Washington Post has called him “America’s premier technology journalist.” His previous positions include founder of Backchannel and chief technology writer and senior editor for Newsweek. Levy has written seven previous books and his work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Harper’s Magazine, Macworld, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and Premiere. Levy has also won several awards during his thirty-plus years of writing about technology, including for his book Hackers, which PC Magazine named the best sci-tech book written in the last twenty years; and for Crypto, which won the grand e-book prize at the 2001 Frankfurt Book Fair.

EP51 Richard Bartlett on Self-Organizing Collaboration Apr 27, 2020

Richard Bartlett talks to Jim about his experiences with decentralized work & organization, Gameb, group size dynamics, big change movements & much more... Richard Bartlett talks to Jim about his experiences with decentralized work & organization, transitioning from game a to Gameb, models for financial solidarity, technology-first vs psychology-first approaches to collaboration, dyad vs crew vs congregation dynamics, competency-based networks, practices vs principles, moving podcasts towards community, activism vs actionism, decision-making methods & conflict management, post-COVID network change potential, fundamentals focus in big change movements, intentions vs competencies, the power of modularity, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Rich on Twitter Enspiral The Hum Rich's book, Patterns for Decentralised Organising Joshua Vial Rich's article, Microsolidarity Part 2 Riane Eisler JRS: EP48 Jessica Flack on Complex System Dynamics Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm Jim's article, A Journey To GameB Rich's article, How To Weave Social Fabric Rich's article, I Will If You Will Microsolidarity Practice Week Richard D. Bartlett co-founded the digital tool Loomio and a decentralization consulting company, The Hum. He writes about how we work together, at any scale, from relationships to organizations to social change. He publishes on Medium.com, was a contributing author for Better Work Together, curates a comprehensive list of resources for decentralized organizations, and his first unfinished book (Patterns for Decentralised Organising) covers solutions to common failure points of groups – current draft available here. His most recent project, Microsolidarity is a plan for weaving purposeful networks where people support each other with deep mutual aid.

Extra: Key COVID-19 Decisions with John Robb Apr 23, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to John Robb about network decision making & consensus vs dissent dynamics, COVID as a decision making test, herd immunity vs social distancing, key population dynamics, John’s big tech solution & its main roadblocks, reflections on UBI & stimulus, the value of simple solutions, the failed US political response & potential fixes, regional compacts & local responses, managing the backside of the curve, broad testing feasibility, and more. Episode Transcript John’s Global Guerrillas Report John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP50 Joe Brewer on Earth Regeneration Apr 20, 2020

Joe Brewer talks to Jim about homeostasis in living systems, future collapse, fat-tail risks, evolutionary transitions, collaboration, bioregionalism, and much more... Joe Brewer talks to Jim about the memetics of regeneration & its connection to homeostasis in living systems, eco pessimism & Joe's view of future collapse, foodchain fragility, fat-tail risks, the role of emotions in existential risk, understanding manufacturing disruptions, potential silver linings in collapse, incremental vs transformation change, permaculture, evolutionary transitions, the complexity of human collaboration, bioregionalism & trade, efficiency risks, the commons, regional-scale economies, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Joe's Earth Regenerators Study Group Bill Baue's Paper, Compared to What? Overshoot by William Catton Jr. The Limits to Growth Forcast Stockholm Resilience Center's Planetary Boundaries Elinor Ostrom's 8 Principles for Managing A Commmons Chatham House on High-impact, Low-probability Events Detroit: The 'Shrinking City' That Isn't Actually Shrinking Allegheny Mountain Institute Blacksheep Regenerative Resource Management Planet at risk of heading towards “Hothouse Earth” state Cultural Evolution Society Joe Brewer is the Executive Director for the Center for Applied Cultural Evolution. He is a complexity researcher trained in the cognitive and evolutionary sciences. His work focuses on the converging global challenges that currently threaten the future of humanity. He helped create the Cultural Evolution Society — a scientific organization devoted to advancing the scholarly field of research in this integrative domain. Joe has also helped launch Evonomics magazine to promote the applications of evolution and complexity to the field of economics. He recently started a study group called Earth Regenerators to build a community of practice around the restoration of planetary health while safeguarding humanity’s future. Joe was formerly a member of the Center for Complex Systems Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and was a research fellow with George Lakoff at the Rockridge Institute in Berkeley.

Extra: COVID-19 Transformations with Nora Bateson Apr 17, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Nora Bateson about how the pandemic is changing our relationship to time & mortality, recontextualizing the essential, non-linear future speculation, opportunities & dangers, the fragility of efficiency, changing how we work & travel, our political priorities, prioritizing community, family, locality, health and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP30 Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual Nora Bateson is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden. Her work asks the question, “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?” An international lecturer, researcher and writer, Nora wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson. Her work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems. Her book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles, is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity.

Extra: COVID-19 Network Epidemiology with Michelle Girvan Apr 14, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Michelle Girvan about the network dynamics of COVID-19 spread, fat-tailed risks, unintuitive network insights, social distancing dynamics, efficiency vs robustness, challenges of modeling the backside of the curve, the need for testing, economic analysis, potential corporate roles, the Network Epidemiology Online Workshop Series, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: Extra: On COVID-19 Strategies with Robin Hanson JRS: Extra: On COVID-19 Opportunities with Jessica Flack Network Epidemiology Online Workshop Series COMBINE Network Biology at UMD on YouTube Michelle Girvan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also a member of the External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research operates at the intersection of statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, and computer science and has applications to social, biological, and technological systems. More specifically, her work focuses on complex networks and often falls within the fields of computational biology and sociophysics. While some of the research is purely theoretical, Girvan has become increasingly involved in using empirical data to inform and validate mathematical models.

EP49 Laurence Gonzales on Deep Survival Apr 13, 2020

Laurence Gonzales talks to Jim about his book “Deep Survival” a look at survival in extreme conditions from a cognitive science & “you are there” POV, and more... Author Laurence Gonzales talks to Jim about his book “Deep Survival” a fascinating look at survival in extreme conditions from both a cognitive science and “you are there” narrative perspective. Includes: multiple survival stories, the value of being cool in survival situations, preparing for an emergency, his perceive & believe heuristic, dangerous group dynamics, fighting stress with humor, learned helplessness, using emotion & reason properly in stressful situations, negative emotional capture, the value of failure, deep fatigue & rest, the value of being helpful, normal accidents, the nature of being lost, positive mental attitude, formal survival training, surviving survival, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Laurence's Website Laurence's book, Deep Survival Laurence's book, Flight 323 JRS: EP46 Daniel Schrag on Climate Dynamics JRS: Extra: On COVID-19 Potentials with Bonnitta Roy\ Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman The Kekulé Problem Essay by Cormac McCarthy Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow Laurence Gonzales is the author of numerous books and has won many awards, including two National Magazine Awards and the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He was also awarded the Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Society in 2018 and won the Eric Hoffer Award in both 2018 and 2019. Laurence is also a keynote speaker, lecturer & editor. In 2015 he received the Miller Distinguished Scholarship from the Santa Fe Institute and in 2016 was given an appointment as a Miller Scholar there. Scholars are internally nominated and may have backgrounds in the humanities, arts, or sciences.

Extra: On COVID-19 Opportunities with Jessica Flack Apr 13, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Jessica Flack about stressing & testing cultural organization styles, optimizing for wholistic robustness, acting-oriented sensemaking, a department of wicked risks, top-down vs bottom-up response dynamics, liminal spaces, speculative market safeguard techniques, long-term thinking, safety nets, inequality, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP48 Jessica Flack on Complex System Dynamics Hedonometer Long-Term Stock Exchange Jessica Flack is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Flack directs SFI’s Collective Computation Group (C4). Flack was formerly founding director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Flack received her Ph.D. from Emory in 2003, studying cognitive science, animal behavior and evolutionary theory, and B.A. with honors from Cornell in 1996. Flack’s work has been covered by scientists and science journalists in many publications and media outlets, including Quanta Magazine, the BBC, NPR, Nature, Science, The Economist, New Scientist, and Current Biology.

Extra: On COVID-19 Strategies with Robin Hanson Apr 09, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Robin Hanson about possible dosage related effects on exposure and the related trade-offs of viral dose & deliberate infection strategies, the need for more investment in robustness, capacity vs flexibility, optimizing for adaptability, our lack of leadership, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP2 Robin Hanson – Decision Making and “The Age of Em” Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason’s economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory.

Extra: On Post-COVID-19 Impact with Simon DeDeo Apr 07, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Simon DeDeo about what moving out of social isolation could be like, social norms for risk management, the wide diversity of COVID reactions, making sense personally & collectively, homeostasis & hysteresis, post-COVID impacts on data privacy, travel, free time, education, and more. Episode Transcript Simon's post on Getting the quarantine end game right... JRS: EP1 Simon DeDeo – The Evolution of Consciousness Simon DeDeo is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also affiliated with the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, where he runs the Laboratory for Social Minds. For three years, from 2010 to 2013, he was an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He and his collaborators study how people use words and signals, and the ideas they represent, to create a world. They have studied a diverse set of systems that includes the French Revolution, the courtrooms of Victorian London, the research strategies of Charles Darwin, the insurgency of modern-day Afghanistan, the emergent bureaucracy of Wikipedia, the creation of power hierarchies among the social animals, and the collusions and conspiracies of petrol stations in the American Midwest. They combine data from the contemporary world, archives from the deep past, statistical tools from cosmology, and models of human cognition from Bayesian reasoning and information theory to understand how cultures grow, flourish, innovate, and evolve.

EP48 Jessica Flack on Complex System Dynamics Apr 07, 2020

Jessica Flack talks to Jim about causality in complex systems, theoretical biology, emergence, agent-based modeling, social policing, & much more... Professor Jessica Flack talks to Jim about micro vs macro causality in complex systems, coarse-graining, primate power hierarchies, downward causation, robustness, free will as a feeling, consciousness theories, theoretical biology, laws in adaptive systems, the non-spookiness of emergence, her work's philosophical connections, question asking vs answering, social engineering dynamics, Lord of The Rings & The Foundation Trilogy, agent-based modeling, social policing & punishment, how mature complexity science really is, Jessica's reflection on her experiences with primates, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Collective Computation Group @ SFI Jessica's paper, Coarse-graining as a downward causation mechanism The Feeling of What Happens by António Damásio Geoffrey West The Emergence of Everything by Harold Morowitz Jessica on Edge.org JRS: EP1 Simon DeDeo – The Evolution of Consciousness Jessica's paper, Policing stabilizes construction of social niches in primates Networks: An Introduction by Mark Newman Jessica Flack is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Flack directs SFI's Collective Computation Group (C4). Flack was formerly founding director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation in the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Flack received her Ph.D. from Emory in 2003, studying cognitive science, animal behavior and evolutionary theory, and B.A. with honors from Cornell in 1996. Flack's work has been covered by scientists and science journalists in many publications and media outlets, including Quanta Magazine, the BBC, NPR, Nature, Science, The Economist, New Scientist, and Current Biology.

Extra: On COVID-19 Potentials with Bonnitta Roy Apr 02, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Bonnitta Roy about what it means to ‘stay with the trouble’, habitual behavior, the value of reflection, consumerism, scarcity & abundance, resourcefulness, the allure of going back to the rat race, system dependence vs interconnection, lack of community in the capitalist system, Game B, the downsides & narrow capabilities of monetary efficiency, and more. Episode Transcript Referenced Quote Bonnitta Roy teaches insight practices for individuals who are developing meta-cognitive skills, and hosts collective insight retreats for groups interested in breaking away from limiting patterns of thought. She teaches a masters course in consciousness studies and transpersonal psychology at the Graduate Institute. Her teaching highlights the embodied, affective and perceptual aspects of the core self, and the non-egoic potentials from which subtle sensing, intuition and insight emerge. Through her company, APP-AI, Bonnitta is developing applications that can visualize changing patterns as teams work through complex problems. Her research shows how simple but powerful protocols that underlie these patterns can be used to represent various dispositional states of human systems. Bonnitta is the author of the popular Medium publication Our Future at Work. She is an associate editor of Integral Review where you can also find her articles on process approaches to consciousness, perception, and metaphysics.

Extra: On Post COVID-19 Impacts with Ben Goertzel Apr 01, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks to Dr. Ben Goertzel about the economic & cultural impacts we could expect after the peak of COVID-19, the end of the tech backlash, income inequality, homeostasis & hysteresis, business travel bets from Jim & Ben, in-person vs virtual events, potential opportunities, cryptocurrency & blockchain, answering the cultural wakeup call, dynamics of centralized responses in decentralized systems, and more. Episode Transcript SingularityNET Blog EP3 Dr. Ben Goertzel – OpenCog, AGI and SingularityNET Dr. Ben Goertzel is Chief Scientist of robotics firm Hanson Robotics and financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings; Chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC; Chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Society and the OpenCog Foundation; Vice Chairman of futurist nonprofit Humanity+; Scientific Advisor of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Advisor to the Singularity University and Singularity Institute; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series. His research work encompasses artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, data mining, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds and gaming and other areas. He has published a dozen scientific books, 100+ technical papers, and numerous journalistic articles.

Bonus: Jim on The Stoa, COVID & Game B Mar 30, 2020

On this Bonus episode, Jim hosts a talk & Q&A on The Stoa. He reflects on the impacts & opportunities created by COVID-19, Game A vs Game B, complexity, & much more... In this bonus episode, Jim hosts a talk & Q&A on The Stoa. Peter Limberg sets the context for this talk and they then go on to reflect on the impacts & opportunities created by COVID-19, homeostasis vs hysteresis, flaws of Game A thinking, Game B in the developing world & evolution vs revolution, parasitizing Game A, complex systems design, meta-narratives, the evolution of media, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Game B The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0 The Stoa: John Vervaeke - The Meaning Kairos Jim's article, A Journey To GameB Jim's article, In Search of the 5th Attractor Extra: On COVID-19 & Complexity with Jordan Hall EP30 Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual EP8 Jordan “Greenhall” Hall and Game B Situational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition Rally Point Alpha The Stoa was once a covered portico where Stoics met to philosophize. Now it’s a digital space, where we can gather and talk about what matters most right now, at the razor’s edge of this pandemic.

Extra: On COVID-19 & UBI with Bob Reid Mar 27, 2020

In this short extra episode, Co-Founder & CEO of Everest Bob Reid talks with Jim about the core elements of an effective UBI, short vs long term UBI approaches for the US, the Everest platform’s UBI capabilities & implementation timelines, biometrics, fraud, security, feasibility, and more. Episode Transcript Everest.org Extra: On COVID-19 & Complexity with Jordan Hall Bob Reid: GM, BitTorrent, Partner Kai Labs (blockchain consultancy), CEO & Co-founder VelocityBits, Strategy & Biz Dev DivX, CEO Skyclix, leads teams, 2 IPOs, 2 acquisitions.

Extra: On COVID-19 & Complexity with Jordan Hall Mar 25, 2020

In this short extra episode, Jim talks with Jordan Hall about the lessons we are learning with respect to complex system dynamic response capabilities including: our current sensemaking & limitations, distributed decision-making, finding warning signals in cultural noise, potential prevention & preparedness measures, bottom-up resilience, cultural change-management, exponential vs linear thinking, applying agile processes at the cultural scale, modernizing digital, physical, & operational infrastructure, and more Episode Transcript Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance EP26 Jordan Hall on the Game B Emergence EP8 Jordan “Greenhall” Hall and Game B Jordan is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 17th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan’s interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolution of human civilization and technology.

Extra: On COVID-19 with John Robb Mar 24, 2020

In this short extra episode Jim talks with John Robb about how prepared we were for a pandemic like this, manufacturing, the economic & health impacts, CA & NY trends, impacts of ignoring quarantine, what is needed for a societal recovery, the political response, UBI vs bailouts, and more. Episode Transcript John’s Global Guerrillas Report EP19 John Robb on Asymmetric & Networked Conflict & Strategy John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He’s started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John’s insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP47 Mark Burgess on the Physics of Money Mar 23, 2020

Mark Burgess talks with Jim about money through the promise theory lense -- banks, debt, interest, deflation, stockpiling, entropy, crypto, and much more... Author, founder & scientist Mark Burgess talks with Jim about promise theory, the many functions of money, its network transfer & physical components, spacetime’s connection to money’s ability to store value, the role of banks, memory & debt, interest & the logic of never-ending growth, deflation & negative interest rates, micro vs macro perspectives on money, geopolitics & foreign exchange, monetary velocity & impacts of stockpiling, currency demurrage, entropy in money, trust, the emerging monetary system in China, Mark’s views on cryptocurrencies & smart contracts, how he sees the future of work & DevOps being connected to money, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Mark’s Website EP28 Mark Burgess on Promise Theory, AI & Spacetime Mark's Money Book, Money, Ownership, and Agency And the Weak Suffer What They Must? by Yanis Varoufakis The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis Debunking Economics by Steve Keen Stabilizing an Unstable Economy by Hyman P. Minsky The Money Illusion by Irving Fisher Jim’s Lecture on Dividend Money Mark’s first book, Promise Theory: Principles and Applications Mark Burgess is a theoretician and practitioner in the area of information systems, whose work has focused largely on distributed information infrastructure. He is known particularly for his work on Configuration Management and Promise Theory. He was the principal Founder of CFEngine, ChiTek-i, and now co-founder and chief innovation officer at Aljabr Inc. Mark is emeritus professor of Network and System Administration from Oslo University College. He is the author of numerous books, articles, and papers on topics from physics, Network and System Administration, to fiction. He also writes a blog on issues of science and IT industry concerns. Today, he works as an advisor on science and technology matters all over the world.

EP46 Daniel Schrag on Climate Dynamics Mar 16, 2020

Daniel Schrag talks with Jim about global collective action, climate models & data collection, geoengineering, long-term thinking, our uncertain future, and much more... Professor Daniel Schrag talks with Jim about Geology’s connection to climate change, the dynamics & scope of abrupt climate changes, global collective action, the value & limits of climate models, thermal inertia in the ocean, the potential impacts of ocean acidification, climate data collection, pros & cons of geoengineering, short-term vs long-term thinking & action, hyperbolic discounting, Dan’s view on sustainable energy generation & storage, the challenges & cost of building a decarbonized infrastructure, our uncertain future, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Daniel Shrag’s Harvard Website The Logic of Collective Action by Mancur Olson Argo, Global Climate Observing System Murray Gell-Mann Daniel Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University, and Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. He also co-directs the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dan’s interests include climate change, energy technology, energy policy, and digital technology policy. He is currently working on understanding how tropical ocean dynamics relates to decadal climate variability and climate prediction.

EP45 Beth Pyles on Faith, Peace & Community Mar 09, 2020

Beth Pyles talks to Jim about why she left trial law to become a pastor, affluenza, spirituality & religion, peacemaking, foreign intervention, and much more... Beth Pyles talks to Jim about small community living, why she left trial law to become a pastor, the dynamics affluenza & the hedonistic treadmill, how she views meaning & faith, spirituality vs religion, metaphysics, Presbyterianism vs Methodism, the value of community in religion & faith, hell & the devil, her peacemaking experiences in Iraq, the Kurdish people, US foreign intervention, remote warfare & its impact on veterans, questions that will define our future, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Christian Peacemaker Teams McDowell Presbyterian Church McDowell Presbyterian on Facebook Xenia A Kebab Grille Seymour Hersh Beth Pyles practiced law as a trial lawyer in West Virginia for twenty-two years before responding to the call to ministry, attending Princeton Theological Seminary, from where she graduated with an M. Div. in 2005. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), serving McDowell Presbyterian Church in Highland County, Virginia since 2005 in a part-time pastorate, which allowed her time to spend two months a year in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) from 2005 – 2010. CPT is a faith-based violence reduction organization with teams in Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Colombia, and part-time presences in northern Canada and on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

EP44 Steve LeVine on EV Battery Tech Mar 02, 2020

Steve LeVine talks with Jim about battery tech's role in sustainable transportation, his writing process for The Powerhouse, EV predictions, and much more... Steve LeVine talks with Jim about why battery innovation is so important for sustainable transportation, the challenges & promises of transitioning to electric vehicles, how Steve researched & wrote his book (The Powerhouse), key milestones for electric vehicle range & costs, Tesla’s advantages, Volkswagen's electric aspirations, why charlatans are so common in battery R&D, the pace of progress in battery tech, the history & future of Argonne National Labs, the dynamics & socialization of US R&D, Steve’s predictions for the future of the electric car & battery markets, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Steve’s book, The Powerhouse The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder Argonne National Labs BloombergNEF Jeffrey Chamberlain Stevelevinebooks.com EP42 Jessika Trancik on Tech & Research vs Climate Change Bernie’s Green New Deal Follow Steve on Medium Steve's latest article, The Geopolitics of Aliens Steve LeVine is Editor at Large at Medium, writing on tech, economic, geopolitical and demographic trends. He formerly founded and directed the Future newsletter at Axios, and prior to that was Washington Correspondent for Quartz, the mobile-first startup. Steve is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Foresight, Strategy and Risks Initiative and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, where he teaches in the graduate-level Security Studies Program. Previously, Steve was a foreign correspondent for 18 years in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan and the Philippines, running a bureau for The Wall Street Journal, and before that writing for The New York Times, the Financial Times, and Newsweek. He is also an author of two books.

EP43 Daniel Christian Wahl on a Regenerative Future Feb 24, 2020

Daniel Christian Wahl talks with Jim about bioregional regeneration, Game B, complexity theory, epistemic modesty, questions vs answers, money, spirituality, and much more... Daniel Christian Wahl talks with Jim about catalysis, Game B, geo therapy vs geoengineering, the short-term perspective of fossil fuels & limited resources, viewing population projections in relation to climate impact, the difference between sustainable & regenerative, the bioregional approach, diversity in ecosystems, how Daniel was influenced by systems thinking & complexity theory, epistemic modesty, questions vs answers, why humanity is worth sustaining, the Fermi paradox, seeing our future from the ‘three horizons’ perspective, abundance vs scarcity mindsets, what conviviality is, the roles of money & its impact on regenerative action, Daniel’s view on spirituality & the quest for meaning, personal vs collective action, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Daniel’s Website The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann Shifting our Mental Model – “ Sustainability ” to Regeneration by Bill Reed SDG Training of Multipliers, the SDG Flashcards and the SDG Canvas Holochain Game B EP37 Jared Janes on Spirituality Regenerating the wealth of the Earth’s commons Regenerative culture and the future of Mallorca Designing Regenerative Cultures Videos of regenerative projects from around the world Daniel is an international consultant and educator specializing in biologically-inspired whole systems design and transformative innovation. He is a biologist (University of Edinburgh and University of California), holds an MSc in Holistic Science (Schumacher College) and a PhD in Design (CSND, University of Dundee, 2006). Daniel has worked with local and national governments on foresight and futures, facilitated seminars on sustainable development for the UNITAR affiliated training centre CIFAL Scotland, consulted companies like Camper, Ecover and Lush on sustainable innovation, and has co-authored and taught sustainability training courses for Gaia Education, LEAD International and various universities and design schools. He is also a member of the International Futures Forum, a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA), co-founder of Biomimicry Iberia, and brought Bioneers to Europe in 2010. Daniel currently works for Gaia Education and the SMART UIB project of the Universidad de las Islas Balears. Triarchy Press published his first book, Designing Regenerative Cultures, in 2016.

EP42 Jessika Trancik on Tech & Research vs Climate Change Feb 17, 2020

MIT professor & researcher Jessika Trancik talks with Jim about the dynamics & state of renewable energy tech & policies, decarbonization, carbon taxes, climate despair, and much more... MIT professor & researcher Jessika Trancik talks with Jim about energy return on investment (EROI), the power of learning curves, the feasibility of an all-electric society, base vs intermittent renewable energy, ‘energy storage plus’, the role & power of soft technologies, ‘soft costs’ of energy production, less known clean energy tech, the challenge of energy distribution & diversification, our collective action problem, discussion of carbon taxes, Jessika’s research priorities, the decarbonization-first perspective & achievable policy targets, how renewable tech innovation could impact the developing world, climate despair, the state & future of solar, wind, storage, nuclear, carbon removal & more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Trancik Lab Jessika on Determinants of technology improvement Jessika’s TEDx, How To Make Technology Solve Big Problems? Jessika’s Course, Understanding & Predicting Technological Innovation... Moore’s law Jessika Trancik is an Associate Professor in the Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. She received her B.S. in materials science and engineering from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Her research group studies the dynamic costs and environmental impacts of energy technologies to inform technology design and policy.

EP41 Daniel Mezick on the Agile Organization Feb 13, 2020

Daniel Mezick talks with Jim about agile process & organizations, how agile scrums work, openspace tech, change management, leadership, authority, complex systems, and much more... Daniel Mezick talks with Jim about how he got into business consulting & agile processes, what an openspace organization is & how it scales with business size/type, Jim’s experience with agile, how an agile scrum is structured, the value of DevOps & product managers, types of agile processes & common pitfalls, learned helplessness, what openspace technology is & how it works, managing ambiguity & change management, inviting vs delegating as a leader, understanding authority & its connection to complex system functionality, boundary management, semiotics, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Daniel’s book, The Openspace Agility Handbook Jeff Sutherland The Agile Imposition Revisited Extreme programming (XP) Daniel’s book, Inviting Leadership Signals and Boundaries by John H. Holland Daniel’s book, The Culture Game Peirce on Signs: Writings on Semiotic by Charles Sanders Peirce Daniel Mezick leads NewTech, a business management consultancy keenly focused on Agile transformation and Business Agility. He coaches executives and teams on how to get rapid, effective and lasting improvement. In his books and workshops, he teaches very specific ways to quickly and predictably get real and lasting results, by encouraging self-management at scale.

EP40 Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems Feb 10, 2020

Eric Smith talks with Jim about geochemistry & the origins of life, monetary systems & dynamics, interdisciplinarity linguistics, sustainability, civil society, and much more... Multidimensional thinker Eric Smith has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about the origins of life, monetary systems, language & sustainability. Eric starts by sharing how geochemistry informs the origin of life topic, the dynamics of autocatalytic processes, how little we know about biological systems & what this might tell us about the Fermi paradox. The conversation then goes into the importance of institutions & a dynamic perspective on monetary systems, the subprime mortgage crisis, money substitutes & crypto. They then finish this chat by talking about Eric’s interest in linguistics & what it can learn from modern probability, key areas of focus for ecosystem sustainability, the challenge of reconciling ‘small local’ & ‘global policy’ approaches to sustainability, the role of civil society, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Eric's book, The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth The Theory of Money and Financial Institutions by Martin Shubik Slapped by the Invisible Hand: The Panic of 2007 by Gary Gorton Stabilizing an Unstable Economy by Hyman Minsky Jim's talk on Dividend Money Linas Vepstas on Learning Language... Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken FRONTLINE Doc, In the Age of AI D. Eric Smith received the Bachelor of Science in Physics and Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Physics from The University of Texas at Austin in 1993, with a dissertation on problems in string theory and high-temperature superconductivity. From 1993 to 2000 he worked in physical, nonlinear, and statistical acoustics at the Applied Research Labs: U. T. Austin, and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. From 2000 he has worked at the Santa Fe Institute on problems of self-organization in thermal, chemical, and biological systems. A focus of his current work is the statistical mechanics of the transition from the geochemistry of the early earth to the first levels of biological organization, with some emphasis on the emergence of the metabolic network.

EP39 John Koza on Bleeding Edges Feb 03, 2020

Jim talks to the multi-talented thinker & creator John Koza about his secure lottery ticket tech, his genetic programming work, how & why he created the National Popular Vote bill, and much more... Multi-talented thinker & creator John Koza & Jim start by talking about what led him to create secure lottery ticket tech early in his career. They then go on to talk about how he got interested in genetic algorithms, his pioneering work in genetic programming, how powerful it is, and some of its stand-out applications. Lastly, John tells Jim what led him to create the National Popular Vote bill, how it works, its current state support, how it addresses the prisoner’s dilemma, the role partisanship plays, responses to common concerns about the bill, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations John's book, Genetic Programming Human-Competitive Awards National Popular Vote Every Vote Equal Book Answering Myths Page John R. Koza is Chair of National Popular Vote and a member of the Board of Directors. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Michigan in 1972. He published a board game involving Electoral College strategy in 1966. From 1973 through 1987, he was co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Scientific Games Inc. where he co-invented the rub-off instant lottery ticket used by state lotteries. In the 1980s, he and attorney Barry Fadem were active in promoting adoption of lotteries by various states through the citizen-initiative process and state legislative action. Between 1988 and 2003, he taught a course on genetic algorithms and genetic programming at Stanford University, where he was a consulting professor. He is lead author of the book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote and originator of the National Popular Vote legislation. Koza has visited 29 states on behalf of National Popular Vote.

EP38 Tristan Harris on Humane Tech Jan 27, 2020

Tristan Harris & Jim talk about his background in design ethics, dangers of ad targeting, game theory, time well spent, the global information war, trends to be optimistic about, and much more... Tristan Harris & Jim start by talking about how Tristan’s career & education in design ethics are informed by being a magician in his youth. They then go on to talk about his experience at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, the history of psychologically informed business, the power of personalized digital/AI targeting, how algorithms can radicalize us & erode societal trust, the game theory of an attention economy, the breakdown of sense-making, impacts of ad-supported business models & possible alternatives, applying the fiduciary model to advertising & potential impacts taxing ads, political & social issues that come from rapid tech innovation, what’s needed for business to orient towards time well spent, the global information war & how we might protect societies from it, deep fakes, social media anonymity, what Tristan is optimistic about and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Center for Humane Technology Tristan’s Podcast, Your Undivided Attention B.J. Fogg Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson Tristan’s Congressional Testimony This Person Does Not Exist Tristan’s shout-outs of positive examples: Siempo, Headspace, Waking Up, Calm.com, Letter.wiki, vTaiwan, Artery, Hipcamp Tristan Harris is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of the Center for Humane Technology, and the Co-Host of the podcast, “Your Undivided Attention.” He was called the “closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience” by The Atlantic magazine, Tristan was the former Design Ethicist at Google. He is a world expert on how technology steers us all, leaving Google to engage the issue publicly. Tristan spent over a decade understanding subtle psychological forces, from his childhood as a magician, to working with the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, to his role as CEO of Apture, which was acquired by Google. His work on the attention economy started in 2013, when he created a slide deck within Google that went viral, warning about the technology industry’s arms race to capture human attention and the moral responsibility companies have for the ways they restructure society. Tristan’s work has been featured on TED, The Atlantic, 60 Minutes, The New York Times, The Associated Press, Wall Street Journal. and many more. Tristan has briefed Heads of State, technology company CEOs, and members of U.S. Congress about the attention economy.

EP37 Jared Janes on Spirituality Jan 23, 2020

Jared Janes talks with Jim about spiritual language, altered states vs traits, suffering, the confabulated self, embodiment, concentration practices, metaphysics, and more... Meditator & thinker Jared Janes talks with Jim about why he still uses the word ‘spiritual’, altered states vs altered traits, the equation & dynamics of suffering, understanding our own intentions, the confabulating mind, embodied intuition, the value & limits of conceptuality, what the self is & its usefulness, attention & awareness, the pleasure of concentration, metaphysics, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Jared’s Website Jared on Twitter Waking Up by Sam Harris The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young The Mind is Flat by Nick Chater The Feeling of What Happens by António R. Damásio GameB Culadasa (John Yates, Ph.D.) Jared Janes is a podcast producer/host (The Jim Rutt Show, Both/And, & Impactful), a management consultant, and a committed meditator. He’s been a daily meditator for over five years, has completed multiple meditation courses from different traditions, attends multiple meditation retreats each year, and personally coaches meditators in his spare time. Before podcasting & consulting he built a career in digital operations & management, started & ran a nonprofit, played a video game semi-professionally, and spent his spare time learning about personal performance, science & philosophy.

EP36 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodernism Jan 20, 2020

Hanzi Freinacht talks with Jim about postmodernism, value memes, cognitive complexity, societal code, the promises/dangers of metamodernism, and much more... Hanzi Freinacht, political philosopher, historian, sociologist, & author has a wide-ranging talk with Jim that starts by exploring what postmodern views are, how many postmodernists there might be & how they act. They, then go on to cover effective values memes & how they arise/interact, the dynamics of the model of hierarchical complexity, societal code, the progression from modern to post-modern & metamodern perspectives, how code & cognitive complexity interact, whether post-modernism is valuable, similarities of metamodernism & GameB, the promises & dangers of running metamodern code, why spirituality is important & its value/dynamics, Jim’s experience & ideas about mystical states, the yoga bourgeoisie, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Hanzi’s book, The Listening Society Hanzi’s book, Nordic Ideology Jordan Hall Am I dreaming? by James Kingsland Metamoderna Site Part 2: EP53 Hanzi Freinacht on the Nordic Ideology Hanzi Freinacht is a political philosopher, historian & sociologist, author of The Listening Society, Nordic Ideology, and the upcoming book The 6 Hidden Patterns of World History. As a writer, Hanzi combines in-depth knowledge of several sciences and disciplines and offers maps of our time and the human condition with his characteristically accessible, poetic and humorous writing style – challenging the reader’s perspective of herself and the world. He epitomizes much of the metamodern philosophy and can be considered a personification of this strand of thought.

EP35 Ken McCarthy on the History of Online Business Jan 16, 2020

Ken McCarthy talks with Jim about the commercial shift of the internet, the evolution of internet media, online market potential, the high cost of free, and much more... Internet pioneer Ken McCarthy talks with Jim about why & how he first got on the internet in 1993, what it was like to be in tech in the 90’s, the walled gardens of the early internet, the birth of email, Well.com, the pre-commercial internet, brand vs direct response advertising & how they made their way to the internet, Ken’s online businesses, the early days of AOL, the timeline of internet media, the state of podcasting today, understanding market potential & targeting, dangers of sleazy marketing & ad-supported business models, the high cost of free services, Facebook & Google’s ad supremacy & what the future holds for them, publishing business models, the .com crash, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Ken's Site Ken on Twitter JazzontheTube.com Webcomhistory.com Ryan Holiday I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max Skylighter Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson How to get the right help to people fast when they need it - An Internet story How to use superior marketing to beat bullies Ken McCarthy was one of the earliest and most effective evangelists of the movement to commercialize the Internet. Ever click on a banner ad? Ever calculate a click-through rate? Ever send an email with commercial intent? These things had an origin. Ken had a hand in all of them and was literally present at their creation. Ken was also one of the first to see the potential of and use the then-new pay-per-click ad platforms back when clicks were uniformly priced at a dime each. He was one of the earliest advocates of Google AdWords which had a lot of trouble gaining traction, let alone comprehension, in its first year.

EP34 Joe Edelman on the Power of Values Jan 13, 2020

Joe Edelman talks with Jim about values, social norms & ideological commitments, pluralism & coherence, ‘time well spent’, ethical advertising, and much more... Joe Edelman, philosopher, social scientist & designer starts this conversation with Jim by talking about how meaningfulness is connected to values, social norms & ideological commitments. Then, they go on to talk about the pros & cons of pluralism & coherence in today’s digital world, why Joe coined the phrase/metric ‘time well spent’ & its influence so far, pros & cons of ad-supported tech & potential changes to existing models, the trend of more private social media spaces, how to view the Overton window today, the future of ethical advertising, the promise of Notion.so, the goals of Turtleocracy, the Turtling game, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations On Values, Norms & Ideological Commitments On Values Jolly Human System Classes Joe’s Site Joe Edelman is a philosopher, social scientist, and designer who believes the current political moment demands a change in the way human systems are designed. A change that will require a clearer understanding of individual and group dynamics. Joe’s work has provided the basis for an online school called Human Systems and he has learned directly from people like Alan Kay, Terry Winograd, and Bill Verplank at Interval Research, Casey Fenton at CouchSurfing (where he developed the metrics which guided the company), and Howie Shrobe and Marvin Minksy at MIT. He also continues to learn from his ongoing passionate conversations with Tristan Harris, Nathan Vanderpool, and Anne Selke.

EP33 Melanie Mitchell on the Elements of AI Jan 06, 2020

Melanie Mitchell & Jim talk about the many approaches to creating AI, hype cycles, self-driving cars, what can be learned from human intelligence, and much more... Professor & Author Melanie Mitchell and Jim have a wide-ranging talk about her work in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). They explore the differences between deep learning, symbolic techniques & hybrid systems, AI springs/winters & hype cycles, self-driving cars, strong (general) vs weak (narrow) intelligence, the black-box element of human & artificial intelligence, limitations of neural nets, the potential of evolutionary approaches to AI, embodied & social cognition, whether consciousness is needed for intelligence, reinforcement learning, common sense & understanding in AI, the value of metaphors & analogies in intelligence, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Melanie’s Book, Introduction to Genetic Algorithms Complexity Explorer Courses Melanie’s Book, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans Rod Brooks’ Twitter Thread on Evolutionary AI The Feeling of What Happens by António Damásio The Cyc Platform Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff Melanie's Book, Complexity: A Guided Tour Melanie’s Recommended Papers on Analogy & Metaphor Papers on Analogy and Similarity, The Copycat project, Seeing the Meaning, Deep Visual Analogy-Making, Beyond imitation, Visalogy Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Co-Chair of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. Mitchell has also held faculty or professional positions at the University of Michigan, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the OGI School of Science and Engineering. She is the author or editor of seven books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems, including her latest, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans.

EP32 Jason Brennan on Irrational Democracy & Academia Dec 30, 2019

Author & Professor Jason Brennan talks with Jim about teaching business school, libertarianism, poor incentives/outcomes in democracy & academia, and much more... Author & Research Professor Jason Brennan talks with Jim about teaching in business school after studying philosophy, what a bleeding heart libertarian is, the ignorance & irrationality of voters, how well group identity predicts personal values, whether political engagement leads to rational politics, political discrimination, social signaling, epistocracy & other alternatives to democracy, what course evaluations actually measure in academia, grading inconsistencies & their unintended outcomes, college advertising & tuition costs, the moral grandstanding of tenure, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Jason’s book, Against Democracy Jason’s book, Cracks in the Ivory Tower Jason’s posts on the Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog Adam Smith’s, The Theory of Moral Sentiments Jim’s Letter.wiki with Max Borders, On Libertarianism & Anarchism Northwestern study, Nonvoters in America 2012 Christopher Achen’s book, Democracy for Realists Jason Brennan is Robert J. and Elizabeth Flanagan Family Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. He is also Research Professor at the University of Arizona’s Freedom Center and Department of Political Economy and Moral Science. He specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics. Jason is the author of 10 books, including Cracks in the Ivory Tower, with Phil Magness; When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice; and Against Democracy.

EP31 Forrest Landry on Building our Future Dec 16, 2019

The multi-talented Forrest Landry talks with Jim about what motivates him, ethics & metaphysics, meaning & sense-making, collective action, collapse, and much more... Forrest Landry, philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher talks with Jim about his company (Magic-Flight), what motivates his work, how he defines ethics, metaphysics & its connection to realism, free will & choice, the nature of time, how he defines & utilizes meaning, value & purpose, interaction between complicated & complex systems, human/ecological sustainability, core dynamics of collective intelligence, the challenges of sense-making, choice-making & implementation, civilizational collapse, the Fermi paradox, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations The Epistemic Sandwich EP5 Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution EP11 Dave Snowden and Systems Thinking Center for Humane Technology Game B Forrest's TEDx, The Accident of Unconsciousness More about Forrest Forrest's paper, On The Nature of Human Assembly Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher focused on metaphysics, the manner in which software applications, tools, and techniques influence the design and management of very large scale complex systems, and the thriving of all forms of life on this planet. Forrest is also the founder and CEO of Magic Flight, a third-generation master woodworker who found that he had a unique set of skills in large scale software systems design. Which led him to work in the production of several federal classified and unclassified systems, including various FBI investigative projects, TSC, IDW, DARPA, the Library of Congress Congressional Records System, and many others.

EP30 Nora Bateson on Complexity & the Transcontextual Dec 09, 2019

Nora Bateson talks with Jim about her recent book, her father & grandfather’s academic impact, thinking transcontextually, Game B, warm data labs, and much more... Nora Bateson, award-winning filmmaker, writer, educator, and President of the International Bateson Institute talks with Jim about the work of the International Bateson Institute, her father (Gregory Bateson) & grandfather’s (William Bateson) academic histories & the impact they had on her work, complex systems, the dangers of mental monocropping, what it means to think transcontextually, cross-cultural collaboration & awareness, some of her observations on Swedish culture & the role of the state, conviviality in modern culture, the generational component of Game B, what’s emerging in her warm data labs, liminality, leadership as a Jazz solo, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Nora’s book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles Nora’s movie, An Ecology of Mind David Graeber’s book, Bullshit Jobs Nora Bateson is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and educator, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute, based in Sweden. Her work asks the question, “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?” An international lecturer, researcher and writer, Nora wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson. Her work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems. Her book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles, is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity.

EP29 Michael Mauboussin on The Success Equation Dec 02, 2019

Michael Mauboussin talks with Jim about his latest book, SFI, investment, using variance & complexity, luck & skill, bias, IQ vs RQ, forecasting, and more... Michael Mauboussin, Director of Research at BlueMountain Capital Management, Author, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University talks with Jim about how he came to be the Chairman of the Board at the Santa Fe Institute, his perspective on investing & its challenges, the Colonel Blotto game, using variance & complexity in game theory, defining luck & skill and their relative importance in several domains, outcome bias, the importance of understanding sample size, intelligence quotient (IQ) vs. rationality quotient (RQ), bad and good forecasting by experts, increasing the variance when you are behind, looking for weak games, how age impacts skill in people & organizations, deliberate practice, time management, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Michael’s new book, The Success Equation Michael’s paper, Who Is On The Other Side Is There Anything Good about Men? By Roy F. Baumeister Success Equation Simulation: Polya Urn Model Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke Narrative Economics by Robert J. Shiller Superforecasting by Philip E. Tetlock Expert Political Judgment by Philip E. Tetlock Full House by Stephen Jay Gould The Sports Gene by David Epstein Range by David Epstein Michael’s Website Michael J. Mauboussin is Director of Research at BlueMountain Capital Management. Prior to joining BlueMountain, he was Head of Global Financial Strategies at Credit Suisse and Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. He is also the author of three books, including More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, named in the The 100 Best Business Books of All Time by 800-CEO-Read. Michael has been an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School since 1993, and received the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2009 and 2016. He is also chairman of the board of trustees of the Santa Fe Institute, a leading center for multi-disciplinary research in complex systems theory.

EP28 Mark Burgess on Promise Theory, AI & Spacetime Nov 25, 2019

Author, founder & scientist Mark Burgess talks with Jim about his career, physics skill set, CFEngine, Promise Theory, AI, free will, spacetime, and much more... Author, founder & scientist Mark Burgess talks with Jim about why he made the switch from theoretical physics to computer science, the widely applicable skill set of physicists, what led him to create CFEngine, computer immunology, how he came up with Promise Theory & its connection to physics & network science, the relativity of systems, consistency in large-scale systems, what physics can teach computer science about uncertainty, the limits of Turing machines & deep learning, free will, Promise Theory’s connection to agile & Daniel Mezick’s work, dynamic subordination, logic vs emotion, spacetime, quantum gravity, how scale presents interesting solutions to the Fermi Paradox, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Mark’s Website Kubernetes, Chef, & Docker Mark's Promise Theory Geoffrey West EP27 Jamie Wheal on Flow & the Future of Culture The Feeling of What Happens by António R. Damásio Mark’s Smart Spacetime EP5 Lee Smolin on Quantum Foundations & Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben Star Trek Episode, Wink of an Eye Mark Burgess is a theoretician and practitioner in the area of information systems, whose work has focused largely on distributed information infrastructure. He is known particularly for his work on Configuration Management and Promise Theory. He was the principal Founder of CFEngine, ChiTek-i, and now co-founder and chief innovation officer at Aljabr Inc. Mark is emeritus professor of Network and System Administration from Oslo University College. He is the author of numerous books, articles, and papers on topics from physics, Network and System Administration, to fiction. He also writes a blog on issues of science and IT industry concerns. Today, he works as an advisor on science and technology matters all over the world.

EP27 Jamie Wheal on Flow & the Future of Culture Nov 21, 2019

Jamie Wheal talks to Jim about flow, intrinsic & extrinsic motivation, group flow, GameB, the future of ecstatic state tech, cult leaders, and much more... Author Jamie Wheal talks with Jim about working with the Navy SEALs, what characterizes flow, intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation, the Eleusinian Mysteries, Plato, Aristotle & Pythagoras, soft-leadership & dynamic hierarchies, group flow, if courage & integrity can be taught & what that means for Game B, coherent pluralism, spiritual bypassing, the dangers & promises of ecstatic state technology, the realities of collapse, what we might learn from the Amish, cult leaders & the dynamics of their power, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Stealing Fire Flow Genome Project The Flow Profile Jim’s Interview on Zion 2.0 Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm Jim’s article, In Search of the 5th Attractor Article In-Group Empathy Paper Devil's Playground Jamie Wheal is the author of the global bestseller and Pulitzer Prize nominated Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs and Maverick Scientists are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work and the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of ultimate human performance. Since founding the organization in 2011, it has gone on to become the leading voice of evidence-based peak performance in the world, counting award-winning academics, legendary professional athletes, special operations commanders, and Fortune 500 business leaders among the hundreds of thousands of people in its global community.

EP26 Jordan Hall on the Game B Emergence Nov 19, 2019

Jordan Hall & Jim outline Game B's advantage over Game A, explore embodied wisdom, meaningfulness, Game B transitions & life, parasitizing Game A, and much more... Jordan Hall and Jim have another wide-ranging conversation about Game B. They start with a quick overview of Game A and then move on to talk about the emerging collaboration of Game B & how it happened, its competitive advantage over Game A, liminal spaces, embodied wisdom, sovereignty & sense-making, the pre-B phase, changing our lives to be Game B oriented, meaningfulness, the transition to Game B, parenting & working in Game B, the importance of conviviality & multidimensional health, policing & justice in Game B, the dynamics of coherence, the hard problem of scaling Dunbar’s number, parasitizing Game A to boot up Game B, the role of locality & remote collaboration, the value of failure, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations EP8 Jordan “Greenhall” Hall and Game B Neurohacker Collective Daniel Schmachtenberger Game B Google Doc John Vervaeke’s ‘Awakening from the Meaning Crisis’ Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich Joe Edelman Rally Point Alpha Guy Sengstock Jordan is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 17th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan’s interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolution of human civilization and technology.

EP25 Gary Marcus on Rebooting AI Nov 14, 2019

Author & CEO Gary Marcus talks with Jim about his book, Rebooting AI, driverless cars, AI learning & intelligence, hybrid AI models & AI bias, and much more... Scientist, author & entrepreneur Gary Marcus talks with Jim about his latest book, Rebooting AI. In this wide-ranging conversation they cover the gullibility gap, the illusory progress gap, the robustness gap, driverless car progress & safety, how narrow AI is today, model building, the free-lunch theorem, nativism in animals & humans, how Jim’s experience with war games demonstrates the learning limitations of AI, Cyc & ConceptNet, symbolic algorithms, potential of graph neural nets, why Gary thinks hybrid models are the future of AI, challenges of evolutionary AI approaches, data mining & AI echo-chambers, AGI, and much more. Automated Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Robust.AI What AI Can Learn From Romeo & Juliet NELL: Never-Ending Language Learning Solving Rubik’s Cube with a Robot Hand Ernest Davis Gary on Twitter Gary’s Website Gary Marcus is a scientist, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. He is Founder and CEO of Robust.AI, and was Founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company acquired by Uber in 2016. He is the author of five books, including The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and The New York Times bestseller Guitar Zero, as well as editor of The Future of the Brain and The Norton Psychology Reader. He has published extensively in fields ranging from human and animal behavior to neuroscience, genetics, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, and artificial intelligence, often in leading journals such as Science and Nature, and is perhaps the youngest Professor Emeritus at NYU. His newest book, co-authored with Ernest Davis, Rebooting AI: Building Machines We Can Trust aims to shake up the field of artificial intelligence.

EP24 Bret Weinstein on Evolving Culture Nov 11, 2019

Bret Weinstein & Jim talk about unsustainable culture, dangerous algorithms, GameB, complexity, trade-offs, social media, today's left, Darwinian religion, and much more... Bret Weinstein and Jim talk about the evolutionary & game-theoretic dynamics that have led humanity to an unsustainable place, the impact of today’s algorithms & how they’re connected to human evolution, the recent shift of corporate values, how Game B should view complex systems, design vs. navigation, trade-offs from a theoretical biology perspective, approaches to keeping online collaboration & networks net-positive, how the political left has changed & how Jim & Bret relate to it, the biological perspective & its connection to the is–ought problem, the role of gender in today’s culture, new atheism, and the implications of seeing religion as a result of Darwinian evolution. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Haber–Bosch process Daniel Schmachtenberger Well.com Rally Point Alpha The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett Bret's DarkHorse Podcast Bret’s YouTube Channel Bret’s Website Bret on Twitter Bret’s Patreon Page Bret Weinstein has spent two decades exploring the frontiers of evolutionary biology. He is currently working to uncover the evolutionary meaning of large scale patterns in human history, and seeking a game-theoretically stable path forward for humanity. His scholarly research is focused on evolutionary trade-offs. He has worked on the evolution of senescence and cancer, species diversity gradients, and the adaptive significance of human morality and religion. He has written for The Wall Street Journal and testified to the U.S. Congress regarding questions of freedom of expression on college campuses. He is the host of Bret Weinstein’s DarkHorse Podcast.

EP23 Jeff Gomez on Narrative & Cultural Change Nov 05, 2019

Jim talks with CEO Jeff Gomez about working on movies, games & media, transmedia storytelling, fandom, working with the US gov, propaganda, Game B, and much more... CEO Jeff Gomez and Jim have a wide-ranging talk about Jeff’s work with massive movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, his work with transmedia storytelling & worldbuilding, how nerdy Jim really is, how narrative & story differ & the role the audience plays, fandom, the perennial Star Wars vs Star Trek question, the far reaches of fan fiction, Jeff’s work in Collective Journey & its broader connection to the internet & politics, the hero’s journey & its ‘Hollywood’ization’, how Jeff’s interest in narrative led him to work on transmedia & geopolitics with the Department of Defence & other government agencies, understanding & fighting malicious cultural propaganda, the connection between Putin & Trump/Bannon strategy, Extinction Rebellion, speculation about the future of Gen Z & tribalism, social coherence, Jeff’s advice for the Game B community about using narrative, personal development & media literacy, and online vs in-person relationships & collaboration. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Starlight Runner Jordan Hall Jeff on Twitter Jeff on LinkedIn Jeff on Facebook Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner, is a leading expert in the fields of brand narrative, story world development, creative franchise design, and transmedia storytelling. He specializes in the expansion of entertainment properties, premium brands, and socio-political themes into highly successful multi-platform communications and international campaigns. As a producer accredited by the Producers Guild of America, Jeff also develops the story worlds of films, TV shows, videogames, toys, books, comics, apps, virtual reality projects, and theme park attractions. Jeff’s pop culture work has impacted such blockbuster properties as Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, James Cameron’s Avatar, Hasbro’s Transformers, Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man and Men in Black, Microsoft’s Halo, and Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

EP22 Sara Kindsfater-Yerkes on the Evolution of Business Oct 31, 2019

Consultant Sara Kindsfater-Yerkes & Jim talk about leadership today, HR teams, embracing change, team engagement, honesty, gender dynamics, being offended, and much more... Business Consultant Sara Kindsfater-Yerkes and Jim start this episode by reflecting on working together in their earlier careers. They then go on to talk about today’s multi-generational workforce, commonalities of Gen Z & Boomers, workplace mindsets, recruitment strategies & HR teams, shifts in today’s leadership approaches, hierarchical vs flat organizations, building company cultures that embrace change, nourishing employee engagement & intellectual honesty, the James Demore & Uber scandals, the Me Too Movement, women & men in the workforce, the word “fuck” as an intensifier, and the risks & rewards of being potentially offensive in the workplace. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations bluSKY Strategy Vohtr Sara’s Email Sara Kindsfater-Yerkes is a hands-on expert in transforming cultures, guiding strategic change, and developing leaders and teams. As a Consultant and Coach at bluSKY Strategy, a company she founded, Sara works with leaders who want to infuse their organizations with startup innovation, a customer-first mindset, and operational agility. Her clients span the private sector and federal agencies — coaching HR and IT leaders in managing the impact of emerging technology, building a best in class workforce, implementing lean thinking, and creating cultures of change and agility.

EP21 Roman Yampolskiy on the Outer Limits of AI Oct 28, 2019

AI expert Roman Yampolskiy & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about simulation theory, types of intelligence, AI research & safety, the singularity, and much more... This conversation with Jim and Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy–author, tenured associate professor, founding director of Cyber Security Lab–starts by covering the vast variance of possible minds. They then go on to talk about Boltzmann brains, the implications of an infinite universe, simulation theory’s limits & if we could find its glitches, symbolic vs deep learning & the role of language understanding in AI, the Turing test, limitations of human intelligence, limits of AI safety, the singularity & if it would happen fast or slow, the paper clip maximizer, impacts of narrow AI, pros & cons of open-source AI development, game theory applied to AI, AGI timeframes, and the Fermi paradox. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations The Space of Possible Mind Designs Types of Boltzmann Brains Glitch in the Matrix: Urban Legend or Evidence of the Simulation? Leakproofing the Singularity Predicting future AI failures from historic examples Open AI Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach Roman’s Google Scholar Page Dr. Roman V. Yampolskiy is a Tenured Associate Professor in the department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Speed School of Engineering, University of Louisville. He is the founding and current director of the Cyber Security Lab and an author of many books including Artificial Superintelligence: a Futuristic Approach. Dr. Yampolskiy is a Senior member of IEEE and AGI; Member of Kentucky Academy of Science, and Research Advisor for MIRI and Associate of GCRI. His main areas of interest are AI Safety, Artificial Intelligence, Behavioral Biometrics, Cybersecurity, Digital Forensics, Games, Genetic Algorithms, and Pattern Recognition.

EP20 Pamela McCorduck on Her Life & Times with AI Oct 24, 2019

Author Pamela McCorduck talks to Jim about her new book, the humanities & sciences divide, her friendships with AI pioneers, risks of AI, feminism, and more... Author Pamela McCorduck talks with Jim about themes of her latest book, This Could Be Important: My Life and Times with the Artificial Intelligentsia. They talk about C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures thesis that explores the divide between the humanities & sciences, Pamela’s professional & personal friendships with AI pioneers (Julian Feldman, Allen Newell, Marvin Minsky, Ed Feigenbaum, Raj Reddy & Herb Simon), how language is related to AI, symbolic vs. deep learning, drinking sherry with Herb Simon, how her writings on AI were perceived by publishers, scientists & creatives, Arno Penzias’ strong views on AI, potential risks & rewards of future AI, computational art, and the progress of feminism in academia & culture at large. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Pamela’s The Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence & Japan's Computer Challenge to the World C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures Pamela’s Machines Who Think Pamela’s Aaron’s Code Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Pamela McCorduck is the author of eleven published books, four of them novels, seven of them non-fiction, mainly about aspects of artificial intelligence. She’d first met AI when she was an undergraduate English major at Berkeley, and became steeped in the culture at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon Universities. In 1979 she published the first modern history of artificial intelligence, Machines Who Think, a book said to have influenced a generation of young AI researchers. Her latest book, This Could Be Important: My Life and Times with the Artificial Intelligentsia, is memoir, social history, and group biography of the founding fathers of AI, and describes the friendships, professional and personal, that laid the foundation for her continuing fascination with AI. McCorduck lived for 40 years in New York City until family called her back to California where she now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

EP19 John Robb on Asymmetric & Networked Conflict & Strategy Oct 21, 2019

Author, inventor, tech analyst, engineer, and military pilot John Robb talks to Jim about drone attacks, internet-age networks, geopolitics, AGI, and much more... This conversation with Jim and John Robb–author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot–starts by covering the impact of the recent drone attack on a Saudi fuel processing center, and the current US political situation. They then go on to talk about how John compares resistance and the insurgency networks, the dynamics of tribes, institutions & markets in this internet age, the role open-source dynamics play, coherence vs. corruption, how Extinction Rebellion & Game B fit in this picture, the neo-fascism of China & its impact on corporations, the Honk Kong protests, unleashing intelligence agencies on domestic terrorism, how autonomous robotics could impact future military engagements, and much more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations John’s Global Guerrillas Report George Colony of Forrester September Special GG Report: Disrupting Saudi Arabia Rally Point Alpha Facebook Page Jordan Hall’s Situational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition Article The_Donald on Reddit Peter Turchin David Ronfeldt Societal Evolution Framework Bruce Sterling’s Short Story, Maneki Neko Daniel Schmachtenberger Jim's article, In Search of the 5th Attractor Article John is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, technology analyst, astro engineer, and military pilot. He's started numerous successful technology companies, including one in the financial sector that sold for $295 million and one that pioneered the software we currently see in use at Facebook and Twitter. John's insight on technology and governance has appeared on the BBC, Fox News, National Public Radio, CNBC, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek. John served as a pilot in a tier-one counter-terrorism unit that worked alongside Delta and Seal Team 6. He wrote the book Brave New War on the future of national security, and has advised the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NSA, DoD, CIA, and the House Armed Services Committee.

EP18 Stuart Kauffman on Complexity, Biology & T.A.P. Oct 17, 2019

Professor, MacArthur Fellow & author Stuart Kauffman talks with Jim about complexity, biology & the origins of life, social/technical evolution, and much more... Professor, MacArthur Fellow and author Stuart Kauffman talks with Jim about the major themes of his career: complexity, auto-catalytic chemical sets, protocells and the origins of life, the problem of the error catastrophe, human evolution, social and technical evolution, the Fermi Paradox and much more. Stuart also introduces his new T.A.P. equation and his view that it drives creativity and complexity across many scales. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Stuart's A World Beyond Physics: The Emergence and Evolution of Life Stuart's The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution Stuart's At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century Brian Arthur’s The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves Article on Autocatalytic Sets and the Origin of Life by Mike Steel, Wim Hordijk & Jotun Hein Stuart Kauffman is a professor at the University of Calgary with a shared appointment between biological sciences and physics and astronomy. He is also the leader of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics (IBI) which conducts leading-edge interdisciplinary research in systems biology. Dr. Kauffman is also an emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, a MacArthur Fellow and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Originally a medical doctor, Dr. Kauffman's primary work has been as a theoretical biologist studying the origin of life and molecular organization. Thirty-five years ago, he developed the Kauffman models, which are random networks exhibiting a kind of self-organization that he terms "order for free." Dr. Kauffman was the founding general partner and chief scientific officer of The Bios Group, a company (acquired in 2003 by NuTech Solutions) that applies the science of complexity to business management problems. He is the author of The Origins of Order, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization, Investigations, and Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion.

EP17 – Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity Oct 14, 2019

Bonnitta Roy teaches insight practices for individuals who are developing meta-cognitive skills, and hosts collective insight retreats for groups interested in breaking away from limiting patterns of thought. She teaches a masters course in consciousness studies and transpersonal psychology at the Graduate Institute. Her teaching highlights the embodied, affective and perceptual aspects of the core self, and the non-egoic potentials from which subtle sensing, intuition and insight emerge. Through her company, APP-AI, Bonnitta is developing applications that can visualize changing patterns as teams work through complex problems. Her research shows how simple but powerful protocols that underlie these patterns can be used to represent various dispositional states of human systems. Bonnitta is the author of the popular Medium publication Our Future at Work. She is an associate editor of Integral Review where you can also find her articles on process approaches to consciousness, perception, and metaphysics. Introduction to Bonnitta Roy and Process Thinking 10 minutes Consciousness, Causality + Complexity 7 minutes Process Philosophy, Course Graining + Duration 23 minutes Numinous Causality + The Evolution of the Universe 18 minutes Language, Mycorrhizae + Natural Farming Techniques 11 minutes Collapse, Migration + Game B 27 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Bonnitta Roy Keynames for EP17: Jim Rutt, Santa Fe Institute, Bonnitta Roy, Integral Review, Our Future at Work, Alfred North Whitehead, David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Edward Lorenz, Stephen J. Gould, Stuart Kauffman, Harold J. Morowitz, "The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth", Lee Smolin, Peter N. Peregrine, David Krakauer, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Peter Byck, "One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts", Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm, Jared Diamond, Thomas Malthus, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Mark Blyth, Christopher Alexander, Robin Dunbar, Jordan Hall, Jordan Greenhall Keywords for EP17: Jim Rutt, Bonnitta Roy, complexity science, process thinking, insight practices, consciousness, metaphysics, religion, complex philosophy, process philosophy, reification, Newtonian physics, model building, pattern recognition, causality, complexity, organizational design, deterministic chaos, determinism, Lorenz attractor, three-body problem, emergence, evolution, developmental fields, course graining, duration, cosmology, astrophysics, Big Bang, temporal vs. spatial, network theory, functional relationships, DNA, RNA, evolutionary computation, panspermea, numinous causality, evolution of the universe, energy flux, evolution of language, Cambrian explosion, evolution of cognition, evolution of consciousness, Singularity, mycorrhizae, emergent patterns, stack of dependencies, population growth, population decline, Malthusian barrier, Gaussian function, Black Death, coherence, decoherence, migration, climate change, decomposability, living structure, pattern language, hunter gatherer, Dunbar number, fissioning, Game B, fake needs, conviviality, design for action

EP16 Anaconda CTO Peter Wang on The Distributed Internet Oct 07, 2019

Peter Wang is Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Anaconda, the leading Python tools and data analytics company. Peter holds a B.A. in Physics from Cornell University and has been developing applications professionally using Python since 2001. Before co-founding Anaconda (formerly Continuum Analytics) in 2011, Peter spent seven years designing and developing applications for a variety of companies, including investment bankers, high-frequency trading firms, oil companies, and others. Peter also developed Chaco, an open-source, Python-based toolkit for interactive data visualization. Introduction to Peter Wang, Anaconda + New Python Tools 20 minutes Deep Fakes, Virtuality + Speciation 15 minutes Gatekeepers, Sensemaking + The Cycle of Glut 21 minutes Nonrivalrous Economics + Building a Better Facebook 7 minutes Beaker Browser, Dat Project + The Distributed Internet 21 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Peter Wang Keynames for EP16: Jim Rutt, Santa Fe Institute, Peter Wang, Anaconda, Python, TensorFlow, RAPIDS, Nvidia, Numba, Dask, PyTorch, Chainer, CuPy, PyData, StackOverflow, Github, Indeed, LinkedIn, David Krakauer, Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves to Death", Eric Weinstein, Donald Trump, WordPress, Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society", Facebook, Netflix, Meetup.com, John Vervaeke, Joe Edelman, Emerge Podcast, Jordan Hall, Robin Dunbar, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Markus Persson, Notch, Minecraft, Will Wright, SimCity, Peter Thiel, Uber, Intel, Sun NeWS, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Twitter, Wikipedia, Jupyter Notebook, Facebook Libra, Ralph Merkle, Dropbox, Beaker Browser, beakerbrowser.com, Dat Project, datproject.com, Slack Keywords for EP16: Jim Rutt, Peter Wang, Anaconda, Python, data analytics, scientific computing, web technologies, computer programming, software development, vector computing, computer languages, open source, python version three, deep learning, machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence, AI, visualization, tensor wrappers, gift economy, code sharing, curation, authentication, deep fake, malware, generative adversarial networks, GANs, speciation, Facebook, weak link vs. strong link, Five Star Movement, Game B, mediation, curation, gatekeepers, sensemaking, the enlightenment, trust, Dunbar number, Unix, TCP-IP, ACTP, HTTP, OpenSSL, web rings, heartbleed bug, Java, nonrivalrous economics, intellectual property, copyright, client/server, peer-to-peer, distributed internet, distributed web, IPFS, CRDT, Merkle chain, file sharing

EP15 Futurist David Brin on The Case for Optimism Sep 30, 2019

David Brin is best-known for shining light — plausibly and entertainingly — on technology, society, and countless challenges confronting our rambunctious civilization. His bestselling novels include The Postman (filmed in 1997) plus explorations of our near-future in Earth and Existence. Other novels are translated into over 25 languages. His short stories explore vividly speculative ideas. Brin's nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the American Library Association's Freedom of Speech Award for exploring 21st century concerns about security, secrecy, accountability and privacy. As a scientist, tech-consultant and world-known author, he speaks, advises, and writes widely on topics from national defense and homeland security to astronomy and space exploration, SETI and nanotechnology, future/prediction, creativity, and philanthropy. Urban Developer Magazine named him one of four World's Best Futurists, and he was cited as one of the top 10 writers the AI elite follow. Introduction to David Brin and The Case for Optimism 20 minutes Is the World Improving? Zero Sum vs. Positive Sum 12 minutes Ritualized Combat in Science, Sports, Markets, Courts, Democracy 14 minutes "The Transparent Society" + The Surveillance Society 20 minutes The Fermi Paradox or "The Great Silence" + Uplift 7 minutes SETI, METI, NASA, NIAC + The Drake Equation 11 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring David Brin Keynames for EP15: Jim Rutt, David Brin, "The Postman", "The Transparent Society", "Existence", "Earth", "Chasing Shadows", "Elevation", "Star Wars on Trial", "The Loom of Thessaly", "Uplift War", Santa Fe Institute, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Arnold J. Toynbee, Matthew Woodring Stover, Karl Popper, "The Open Society and Its Enemies", Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations", "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Karl Marx, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Bill Clinton, Steven Pinker, Peter Diamandis, XPRIZE, Dean Kamen, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, NASA, Fox News, Donald Trump, Junker, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Facebook, Gutenberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Paul Tsongas, Warren Rudman, Martin Luther King Jr., Bull Connor, China, Estonia, Charlie Brooker, "Black Mirror", Contrary Brin, davidbrin.blogspot.com, Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, Sierra Club, Robin Hanson, "The Circle", Enrico Fermi, Jill Tarter, SETI, Nick Bostrom, METI, Liu Cixin, "The Three-Body Problem", Frank Drake, Douglas Vakoch, Joe Norman, NASA Innovative and Advanced Concepts, NIAC Keywords for EP15: Jim Rutt, David Brin, science fiction, SciFi, artificial intelligence, AI, optimism, Hollywood, propaganda, Star Trek, Star Wars, Captain Kirk, competition, evolution, progress, cheating, rules, umpires, regulated capitalism, intense regulation, oligarchy, supply side, zero sum, positive sum, consumer surplus, abundance, XPRIZE, innovation, competition vs. cooperation, media evolution, ritualized combat, sensemaking, attention economy, Tea Party, feudalism, slavery, emancipation, land redistribution, entitlements, surveillance, law enforcement cameras, social credit, snitching, "sousveillance", facial recognition, radical transparency, The Enlightenment Experiment, The Fermi Paradox, The Drake Equation, extraterrestrial, aliens, The Precautionary Principle, extremophiles, space colonization, NIAC grants

EP14 Astrophysicist Jill Tarter on SETI and Technosignatures Sep 23, 2019

Jill Tarter received her Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree with Distinction from Cornell University and her Master’s Degree and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley. She served as Project Scientist for NASA’s SETI program, the High Resolution Microwave Survey, and has conducted numerous observational programs at radio observatories worldwide. Since the termination of funding for NASA’s SETI program in 1993, she has served in a leadership role to secure private funding to continue the exploratory science. Currently, she serves on the management board for the Allen Telescope Array, an innovative array of 350 (when fully realized) 6-m antennas at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, it will simultaneously survey the radio universe for known and unexpected sources of astrophysical emissions, and speed up the search for radio emissions from other distant technologies by orders of magnitude. Jill is a frequent speaker for science teacher meetings and at museums and science centers, bringing her commitment to science and education to both teachers and the public. Many people are now familiar with her work as portrayed by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. Introduction to Jill Tarter and the SETI Institute 9 minutes Building a Better Drake Equation 12 minutes The SETI Protocol and the False Positive of 1998 12 minutes Binary Stars and Adding Neural Networks to Signal Detection 6 minutes Extremophiles, Exoplanets, and Technosignatures 7 minutes Breakthrough Listen, Laser SETI, PANOSETI 6 minutes METI, Funding for SETI, What SETI Needs 13 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Jill Tarter, Ph.D. Keynames for EP14: Jim Rutt, Jill Tarter, SETI Institute, SETI Research, SETI@home, NASA, "Contact", Santa Fe Institute, Enrico Fermi, Frank Drake, Stuart Kauffman, Philip Morrison, Lynn Margulis, International Academy of Astronautics, IAA, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Bill Broad, The New York Times, Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Seth Shostak, SETIleague.org, Laurance Doyle, Arthur C. Clarke, Karl Schroeder, David Wolpert, Freeman Dyson, Robin Hanson, Jason Wright, Nikolai Kardashev, Breakthrough Listen, Parkes Observatory, Robert Ferguson, LaserSETI, PANOSETI, Stu Boyer, Buckminster Fuller, Gordon Moore, David Brin, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker Keywords for EP14: Jim Rutt, Jill Tarter, SETI, astronomy, astrophysics, Fermi Paradox, spectrometry, Drake Equation, aliens, extraterrestrials, outer space, planets, livable planets, exoplanets, stars, binary stars, Bayesian probability, Kepler space telescope, evolution, evolutionary theory, DNA, symbiosis, Greenbank, Project Phoenix, Rio Scale, Rio Scale 2.0, neural networks, machine learning, extremophiles, radiodurans, Dyson shells, Dyson sphere, Tabby's Star, technosignatures, biosignatures, megastructure, TRAPPIST-1, WISE Satellite, Kardashev Type, Allen Telescope Array, Square Kilometer Array, MeerKAT, FAST telescope, radio telescope, spigot telescope, TMT, LSST, Moore's Law, METI

EP13 Trent McConaghy: Blockchain, AI and DAOs Sep 16, 2019

Trent McConaghy is the Founder of Ocean Protocol. He has 20 years of deep technology experience with a focus on machine learning, data visualization and user experience. He was a researcher at the Canadian Department of Defense and in 1999, he co-founded Analog Design Automation Inc. and was its CTO until its acquisition by Synopsys Inc. In 2004, he co-founded Solido Design Automation Inc., once again in the role of CTO. Trent has written two critically acclaimed books on machine learning, creativity and circuit design and has authored or co-authored more than 40 papers and patents. He lives in Berlin, Germany. Introduction to Trent McConaghy + Blockchain Technology 10 minutes The DCS Triangle, BigChainDB + Interplanetary File System (IPFS) 14 minutes Smart Contracts + Decentralized Finance 5 minutes Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) 5 minutes The Ocean Protocol Platform for Decentralized Data Exchange 13 minutes MOBI and the Ontology Problem with Shared Data 5 minutes AI on Ocean Protocol + SingularityNet 3 minutes Blockchain Governance, Ethics + Token Engineering 13 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Trent McConaghy Keynames for EP13: Jim Rutt, Trent McConaghy, Santa Fe Institute, Analog Design Automation, Ocean Protocol, Synopsys, Solido Design Automation, Siemens, "Why Nations Fail", James A. Robinson, Daron Acemoglu, Ascribe, "Code", Lawrence Lessig, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Algorand, Dfinity, Cosmos Network, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, Litecoin, Zcash, Robin Dunbar, SingularityNet, Ben Goertzel, Ralph Merkle, David Krakauer, Facebook, Google, Amazon, IBM, Toyota, BMW, Docker, TensorFlow, Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, AWS, EC2, Golem, David Holtzman, W. Brian Arthur, "The Nature of Technology" Keywords for EP13: Jim Rutt, Trent McConaghy, audio, podcast, interview, Ocean Protocol, blockchain, cryptocurrency, encryption, Bitcoin, Ethereum, DCS triangle, BigChainDB, decentralized autonomous organizations, DAO, Interplanetary File System, IPFS, AI, AGI, mobility open blockchain initiative, MOBI, smart contracts, Moore's Law, incentives, data security, data privacy, engineering ethics, IP, IP security, transparency, public ledger, DCS Triangle, Decentralized - Consistent - Scalable, MongoDB, load balancing, double spend problem, BigChainDB, permissionless, censorship resistant, Interplanetary File System, IPFS, CRDT, distributed databases, replication, Byzantine fault tolerant protocols, BFT protocols, sharding, Dunbar number, smart contracts, decentralized finance, peer-to-peer lending, Merkle tree, nanotechnology, antifragile, data economy, big data, big AI, tokens, autonomous vehicles, federated learning, ontology, TCP/IP vs. OSI, IP, copyright, IP blockchain, data extraction, AI algorithms, blockchain governance, hard fork, token engineering

EP12 Brian Nosek – Open Science and Reproducibility Sep 12, 2019

Brian Nosek is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science (COS) that operates the Open Science Framework. COS is enabling open and reproducible research practices worldwide. Brian is also a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 2002. Brian co-founded Project Implicit, an multi-university collaboration for research and education investigating implicit cognition — thoughts and feelings that occur outside of awareness or control. Brian investigates the gap between values and practices, such as when behavior is influenced by factors other than one's intentions and goals. Research applications of this interest include implicit bias, decision-making, attitudes, ideology, morality, innovation, and barriers to change. Nosek applies this interest to improve the alignment between personal and organizational values and practices. Introduction to Brian Nosek and the Center for Open Science 9 minutes Registered Reports = Publication + Funding 23 minutes Open Science, Open Source, Open Data, Open Code 14 minutes Peer Review, Open Access, OSF Preprints 8 minutes The Reproducibility Project and Experimental Design 11 minutes The Implicit Association Test and Project Implicit 6 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Brian Nosek Keynames for EP12: Jim Rutt, Brian Nosek, Santa Fe Institute, Center for Open Science, University of Virginia, "Nature", "Human Behavior", "eLIFE", GitHub, Open Science Framework, OSF, Thomson-Reuters, Westlaw, Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines, TOP Guidelines, National Institutes of Health, NIH, National Science Foundation, NSF, Rebecca Sachs, MIT Brain and Cognitive Science, Eli Broad, Broad Institute, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, OSF Preprints, arXiv, bioRxiv, PeerJ, CogPrints, Reproducibility Project, Charles R. Ebersole, Daniel J. Simons, Philip Zimbardo, Stanford prison experiment, Stanley Milgram, Milgram experiment, Project Implicit, Mahzarin Banaji, Anthony Greenwald, Blindspot Keywords for EP12: Jim Rutt, Brian Nosek, audio, podcast, interview, reproducibility, irreproducibility, confirmation, replication, verifiability, failure to replicate, selective reporting, science governance, scientific papers, scientific publications, scientific journals, open source, open science, open source science, open access publication, open data, open code, registered reports, psychological experiments, incentives, motivation, process transparency, information integrity, reward badges, peer review, publication bias, confirmation bias, research articles, research reports, TOP guidelines, medical research, scientific research, biomedical research, open source software, software code, citations, core operating facilities, FAIR data, ontology, data integration, paywalls, preprints, preprint server, experimental design, implicit bias, blindspot, implicit association test

EP11 Dave Snowden and Systems Thinking Sep 09, 2019

Dave Snowden is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge. His work is international in nature and covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy and organizational decision-making. He has pioneered a science-based approach to organizations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience, and complex adaptive systems theory. He is a popular and passionate keynote speaker on a range of subjects, and is well-known for his pragmatic cynicism and iconoclastic style. Dave holds visiting Chairs at the Universities of Pretoria and Hong Kong Polytechnic University as well as a visiting fellowship at the University of Warwick. He is a senior fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at Nanyang University and the Civil Service College in Singapore. Introduction to Dave Snowden and Cynefin 13 minutes Complicated vs. Complex + Apex Predator Theory 14 minutes Agent-Based Modeling + "Anticipatory Triggers" 9 minutes Artificial Intelligence + Chomsky Bashing 9 minutes Practical Applications for Managers 9 minutes Downward Causality + Red Team 6 minutes SenseMaker Software 6 minutes Mapping the Present 8 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Dave Snowden Keynames this Episode: Jim Rutt, Dave Snowden, Santa Fe Institute, SFI, Cognitive Edge, Cynefin, SenseMaker, University of Pretoria, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University of Warwick, IBM, DARPA, Harvard Business Review, HBR, Stuart Koffman, Walter Freeman, Ralph Stacey, Luis Lobo-Guerrero, David Chandler, René Thom, Clayton Christensen, Extinction Rebellion, Thomson-Reuters, Murray Gell-Man, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Vilfredo Pareto, Nassim Taleb, David Wolpert, Gary Marcus, Ben Goertzel, Josh Tenenbaum, Ogletree Deakins, Noam Chomsky, Jacques Lacan, Ayn Rand, "Nudge", "Thinking, Fast and Slow", Daniel Kahneman, Baxter, VECO, Rikolto, Myers-Briggs, Andy Clark Keywords this Episode: Jim Rutt, Dave Snowden, audio, podcast, interview, decision-making, strategy, design, knowledge management, business management, process engineering, management science, complexity, cognitive neuroscience, order, chaos, disorder, constrained, enabling constraints, competence induced failure, symbiosis, populism, Ebola, contagion, Apex Predator, global warming, Hong Kong protests, China strategy, coevolutionary fitness landscapes, agent-based model, simulation, correlation, causation, downward causality, Gaussian distribution, Pareto distribution, artificial intelligence, AI, general artificial intelligence, AGI, symbolic AI, deep learning, anticipatory triggers, counterterrorism, 9/11, No Free Lunch Theorem, Alpha Go, abstraction, epigenetics, intelligence, autism, evolutionary biology, philosophy of mind, behavioral economics, diversity, dissent, red team, narrative, business scan, employee survey, employee evaluation, employee review, assessments, 360-degree assessments, cultural evolution, agile development, Six Sigma, astrology

EP10 David Krakauer: Complexity Science Sep 03, 2019

David Krakauer is President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute. David’s research focuses on the evolutionary history of information processing mechanisms in biology and culture. This includes genetic, neural, linguistic and cultural mechanisms. The research spans multiple levels of organization, seeking analogous patterns and principles in genetics, cell biology, microbiology and in organismal behavior and society. Introduction to David Krakauer and the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) 5 minutes Complexity, Reductionism, Emergence + Causality 15 minutes Time, Entropy + Selection 7 minutes Cutting Edge Complexity + Theory of Circuits 7 minutes The Evolution of Intelligence and Stupidity 9 minutes Order, Discipline, Policing + Trust 9 minutes Effusive Memetics + Constitutions as Code 10 minutes How Complexity Science has Changed the World 8 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring David Krakauer Keynames this Episode: Jim Rutt, David Krakauer, Santa Fe Institute, SFI, Henri Poincaré, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Hendrik Lorentz, Dave Snowden, Stephen Wolfram, Sherlock Holmes, D.H. Peregrine, Arthur Eddington, Charles Darwin, Geoffrey West, Murray Gell-Mann, Charles Bennett, David Deutsch, Alan Turing, Trent McConaghy, Joshua Grochow, Werner Heisenberg, Seth Lloyd, Jessica Flack, Bryan Daniels, Eddie Lee, Facebook, Dan Rockmore, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, John Holland, Simm City, Minecraft, Frances Arnold, James Webb Space Telescope Keywords this Episode: Jim Rutt, David Krakauer, audio, podcast, interview, complexity, complex systems, evolution, evolution of intelligence, adaptive phenomenon, scaling theory, network theory, genetic algorithms, nonlinear dynamics, celestial mathematics, chaos studies, reductionism, emergence, Rule 120, causality, top-down causality, billiard ball causality, complex causality, machine learning, energy flux, single-cause systems, time, nature of time, arrow of time, entropy, selection, Red Queen dynamic, symmetries, encoded contingencies, energetics, information science, information transfer, computation, evolutionary computing, algorithm, Kolmogorov Complexity, Turing Machines, halting problem, theory of circuits, prediction, knowledge, artificial intelligence, AI, artificial general intelligence, AGI, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, rule systems, God algorithm, quantum systems, policing, enforcement, robustness, consensus-generating mechanisms, trust, corruption, blockchain, crypto-currency, biomimickry, constitution, meme, memetic, effusive memetics, adaptation, network theory, evolutionary algorithms, quantum computation, prediction markets, climate science, climate models, Fermi Paradox

EP9 Joe Norman: Applied Complexity Aug 27, 2019

Joe Norman is an applied complexity scientist with a focus on transforming insights gleaned from complex systems science into practical and implementable strategies and tactics for grappling with an increasingly uncertain and dynamic world. Joe is an Affilate at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, MA, an instructor at the Real World Risk Institute, and founder of Applied Complexity Science, LLC. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife where they are focusing their energy on homesteading and local agriculture on an old mill property that has been an actively running homestead for over 130 years. Introduction to Joe Norman and Complex Systems 5 minutes Complexity Science 4 minutes Wholes and Their Components 11 minutes Irreducibility 3 minutes Emergence 5 minutes JJ Gibson, Conscious Cognition and Perception Learning 9 minutes Complex Systems and Ensembles 7 minutes Climate Science, Freeman Dyson and Methane Ice 7 minutes GMOs and the Precautionary Principle 15 minutes Transcripts for The Jim Rutt Show featuring Joe Norman

Special Episode: Zachary Vorhies Aug 21, 2019

Zachary Vorhies recently resigned as a senior software engineer at YouTube. Employed by Google since 2008, Vorhies collected a large cache of documents that he claims demonstrates that Google intentionally skews search results to drive a political agenda. Vorhies shared these documents with James O'Keefe of Project Veritas, which released a video about the documents on August 14, 2019. Vorhies' candid interview with Jim Rutt was conducted five days later on August 19, 2019. Meet Zack Vorhies, "The Snowden of Google" 12 minutes Machine Learning Fairness and the Fairness Bias 8 minutes Did Google Commit Perjury Before U.S. Congress? 7 minutes Why Doesn't Google AutoComplete match Search Patterns? 11 minutes Has Google Interfered in U.S. and Foreign Elections? 5 minutes "My Breaking Point" - Google and Covfefe 7 minutes

EP8 Jordan “Greenhall” Hall and Game B Aug 19, 2019

Jordan is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 17th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan's interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolution of human civilization and technology. Introduction: Thinking vs. Simulated Thinking 7 minutes Game A is Over 25 minutes Game Theory and Fragility 11 minutes Complexity and Collapse 6 minutes Superempowerment 11 minutes Why The Tech Isn't Going to Save Us 8 minutes Game B and the Vulcan Spartans of Highland County 20 minutes The Beauty of Game B 6 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Jordan Hall

EP7 Daniel Schmachtenberger and the Evolution of Technology Aug 12, 2019

Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science. Motivated by the belief that advancing collective intelligence and capacity is foundational to the integrity of any civilization, and necessary to address the unique risks we currently face given the intersection of globalization and exponential technology, he has spoken publicly on many of these topics, hoping to popularize and deepen important conversations and engage more people in working towards their solutions. Many of these can be found here. Introduction and the Evolution of Technology 11 minutes We've Exceeded the Limits of Growth 8 minutes Tinkering with Liberal Democracy is Not a Solution 10 minutes Self Interest, Free Riders, Defectors and Tony Soprano 13 minutes Building a Non-Terminating Civilization + The Charismatic Sociopath 18 minutes Anti-Rivalrous Behavior, Maslow's Hierarchy and "Game B" 7 minutes The Open Source Society 15 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Daniel Schmachtenberger

EP 6 Douglas Rushkoff – Memetics, Money + TeamHuman Aug 05, 2019

Douglas Rushkoff is the host of the Team Human podcast and author of Team Human as well as a dozen other bestselling books on media, technology, and culture, including, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed, Media Virus, and the novel Ecstasy Club. He is Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens. Introduction to Douglas Rushkoff 8 minutes "Team Human," Timothy Leary and the Long Boom 11 minutes The Rise of the Attention Economy 16 minutes Memes and Memetics 9 minutes Figure and Ground; Money as an Operating System 8 minutes Alternative Monetary Systems 7 minutes "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus" 12 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Douglas Rushkoff

EP5 Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution Jul 26, 2019

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has been since 2001 a founding and senior faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His main contributions have been so far to the quantum theory of gravity, to which he has been a co-inventor and major contributor to two major directions, loop quantum gravity and deformed special relativity. Lee also contributes to cosmology, through his proposal of cosmological natural selection — a falsifiable mechanism to explain the choice of the laws of physics. He has also contributed to quantum field theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, theoretical biology, and the philosophy of science and economics. He is the author of more than 150 scientific papers and numerous essays and writings on science. Lee also has written four books which explore philosophical issues raised by contemporary physics and cosmology. These are: Life of the Cosmos (1997), Three Roads to Quantum Gravity (2001), The Trouble with Physics (2006), and Time Reborn (2013). Most recently, he coauthored The Singular Universe and The Reality of Time with Roberto Mangabeira Unger. Introduction to Lee Smolin and The Perimeter Institute 4 minutes Einstein's Unfinished Revolution 20 minutes The Pilot Wave Theory 8 minutes Quantum Physics after Bohm 10 minutes The Multiverse and the Many-Worlds of Murray Gell-Mann 12 minutes Quantum Foundations 6 minutes The Life of the Cosmos and the Fermi Paradox 10 minutes Entanglements, Noise and The Completion 10 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Lee Smolin

EP4 Cory Doctorow – “Radicalized,” Race and Resilience Jul 19, 2019

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, blogger, and co-editor of Boing Boing. He is the author of Radicalized and Walkaway, science fiction for adults; a young adult graphic novel called In Real Life; the nonfiction business book Information Doesn't Want to Be Free, and more. Cory works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, and the co-founder of the U.K. Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles. Introduction to Cory Doctorow and "Radicalized" 8 minutes "Unauthorized Bread," Techo-Utopians vs. Techno-Cassandras 20 minutes Adversarial Interoperability + Walled Gardens 15 minutes "Model Minority," Racial Violence + Responsibility 7 minutes "Radicalized," Healthcare, Guns, InCel + AntiVax 17 minutes "Masque of the Red Death," Survivalism + Resilience 23 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Cory Doctorow Image: JonathanWorth.com/Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

EP3 Dr. Ben Goertzel – OpenCog, AGI and SingularityNET Jul 15, 2019

Dr. Ben Goertzel is Chief Scientist of robotics firm Hanson Robotics and financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings; Chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC; Chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Society and the OpenCog Foundation; Vice Chairman of futurist nonprofit Humanity+; Scientific Advisor of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Advisor to the Singularity University and Singularity Institute; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series. His research work encompasses artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, data mining, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds and gaming and other areas. He has published a dozen scientific books, 100+ technical papers, and numerous journalistic articles. Index to The Jim Rutt Show featuring Ben Goertzel Introduction, Artificial Intelligence and General Artificial Intelligence 14 minutes OpenCog and Cognitive Synergy 12 minutes Language Understanding 17 minutes Robotics, AGI and "The Artificial Toddler" 6 minutes SingularityNET - The Singularity Network 17 minutes AI and AGI in Complex Systems 18 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Ben Goertzel

EP2 Robin Hanson – Decision Making and “The Age of Em” Jul 08, 2019

Robin Hanson is an Associate Professor of Economics, and received his Ph.D in 1997 in social sciences from Caltech. He joined George Mason's economics faculty in 1999 after completing a two-year post-doc at U.C Berkely. His major fields of interest include health policy, regulation, and formal political theory. Index to The Jim Rutt Show featuring Robin Hanson Introduction and "The Age of Em" (00:00:00 - 00:36:00) = 36 minutes Rates of Change (00:36:00 - 00:39:00) = 3 minutes The Fermi Paradox (00:39:00 - 00:59:00) = 20 minutes "The Elephant in the Brain" (00:59:00 - 01:14:00) = 15 minutes Political Decision Making Section (01:14:00 - 01:26:00) = 12 minutes Should We Publish Tax Returns? (01:26:00 - 01:37:00) = 11 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Robin Hanson

EP1 Simon DeDeo – The Evolution of Consciousness Jul 07, 2019

Simon DeDeo is an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also affiliated with the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, where he runs the Laboratory for Social Minds. For three years, from 2010 to 2013, he was an Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He and his collaborators study how people use words and signals, and the ideas they represent, to create a world. They have studied a diverse set of systems that includes the French Revolution, the courtrooms of Victorian London, the research strategies of Charles Darwin, the insurgency of modern-day Afghanistan, the emergent bureaucracy of Wikipedia, the creation of power hierarchies among the social animals, and the collusions and conspiracies of petrol stations in the American Midwest. They combine data from the contemporary world, archives from the deep past, statistical tools from cosmology, and models of human cognition from Bayesian reasoning and information theory to understand how cultures grow, flourish, innovate, and evolve. Index to The Jim Rutt Show featuring Simon DeDeo Introduction to Simon DeDeo (00:00:00 to 00:11:00) = 11 minutes Noise vs. Signal: The Fermi Paradox (00:11:00 to 00:23:00) = 12 minutes Social Media and Blocklists (00:23:00 to 00:48:00) = 25 minutes Remembrances of Murray Gell-Mann (00:48:00 to 00:56:00) = 18 minutes Cultural Evolution (00:56:00 to 01:13:00) = 17 minutes Consciousness (01:13:00 to 01:30:00) = 17 minutes Science Fiction (01:30:00 to 01:38:00) = 8 minutes Transcript of The Jim Rutt Show featuring Simon DeDeo

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