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The Jim Rutt Show

The Jim Rutt Show

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Crisp conversations with critical thinkers at the leading edge of science, technology, politics, and social systems.

The Jim Rutt Show

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EP 211 Ben Goertzel on Generative AI vs. AGI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 mathe…

EP 199 Yascha Mounk on the Identity Trap

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…

EP 198 Cory Doctorow on Seizing the Means of Computation

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 Ji…

EP 197 Susan Neiman on Why Left Is Not Woke

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 philoso…

EP 196 Pamela Denise Long on Affirmative Action for Freedmen

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…

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

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…

EP 194 Bob Reid on User-Owned Identity

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.…

EP 193 Aydan Connor on Rethinking Food Systems

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 w…

EP 192 David Krakauer on Science, Complexity and AI

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…

EP 191 Alicia Juarrero on Context, Constraints, and Coherence

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, degenerac…

EP 190 Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times

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, a…

Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object

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…

Currents 099: Samuel Scarpino on Preparing for the Next Pandemic

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 pub…

Currents 098: Damien Walter on Science Fiction and the Rhetoric of Story

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…

EP 189 Forrest Landry on Civilization Design

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.…

Currents 097: Frank Lantz on Network Wars and Games

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 creativi…

EP 188 Robert Tercek on Intellectual Property in the Time of AI

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…

Currents 096: Jim & Michael Garfield Talk About Everything

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.…

EP 187 Carlos Perez on A Pattern Language for Generative AI

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 & m…

EP 186 Charles Eisenstein on Climate: A New Story

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 Transiti…

Currents 095: Matt Welsh on the End of Programming

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 comput…

Currents 094: Matthew Pirkowski on Blockchain Consensus Mechanisms

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, cur…

Currents 093: Rafe Kelley on Natural Movement

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…

Currents 092: Peter Wang on The Meaning Crisis and Consequentiality

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: Awaken…

Currents 091: Bruce Damer on Psychedelics as Tools for Discovery

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 Dam…

EP 185 Daniel Suarez on the Near Future of Space Exploration

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 Critic…

EP 184 Dave Snowden on Managing Complexity in Times of Crisis

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, designin…

Currents 090: BJ Campbell and Patrick Ryan on Egregores

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 develo…

Currents 089: Erik Torenberg on Status Games

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 G…

EP 183 Forrest Landry Part 2: AI Risk

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…

Currents 088: Melanie Mitchell on AI Measurement and Understanding

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 u…

EP 182 Brad DeLong on An Economic History of the 20th Century

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 Centu…

Currents 087: Shivanshu Purohit on Open-Source Generative AI

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…

EP 181 Forrest Landry Part 1: AI Risk

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…

Currents 086: Monica Anderson on Bubble City

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.…

Currents 085: Jonny Miller on Self-Unfoldment

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, Hedo…

Currents 084: Mirta Galesic on Global Collective Behavior

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…

EP 180 Lynne Kiesling on the Electrical Grid

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…

Currents 083: Joscha Bach on Synthetic Intelligence

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…

EP 179 Gregg Henriques Part 3: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap

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, th…

Currents 082: Dan Shipper on Practical Applications of GPT-3

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 Da…

EP 178 Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness

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 & Anesth…

EP 177 Gregg Henriques Part 2: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap

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 con…

EP 176 Gregg Henriques Part 1: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap

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 m…

EP 175 Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater on The Language Game

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. T…

EP 174 Fred Beuttler and Mark Stahlman on Trivium University

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 Nationalis…

Currents 081: Layman Pascal Interviews Jim Rutt on Twitter as Collective Intelligence

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 soph…

Currents 080: Joe Edelman and Ellie Hain on Rebuilding Meaning

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 fo…

EP 173 Hanzi Freinacht on Metamodern Self-Help

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 E…

EP 172 Brendan Graham Dempsey on Emergentism

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…

Currents 079: Douglas Rushkoff on Tech Escapism and Critiques of GameB

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 Dougla…

Currents 078: John Ash on AI Art Tools

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. Episod…

Currents 077: Serge Faguet on Consciousness and Post-AGI Ethics

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 (…

EP 171 Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications

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 pr…

Currents 076: Jamie Joyce on The Society Library

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 intellig…

Currents 075: Michael Nielsen on Metascience

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,…

EP 170 John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall on 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"... 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,…

Currents 074: Serge Faguet on Building Metacommunity

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 c…

Currents 073: Owen Cox and Daniel Fraga on Game C

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 motiva…

EP 169 Roar Bjonnes on Growing a New Economy

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, increas…

EP 168 Nate Hagens on Collective Futures

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,…

Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI

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 origi…

EP 167 Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life

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 r…

Currents 071: Liam Madden on Rebirthing Democracy

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 Tra…

Currents 070: Brian Chau on Propaganda & Populism

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 Movem…

Currents 069: Bonnitta Roy and Euvie Ivanova on Collective Intimacy

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 Ro…

EP 166 Lene Rachel Andersen Part 2: Libertism

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…

EP 165 Lene Rachel Andersen Part 1: Libertism

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 bas…

Currents 068: Jonathan Rowson on the Chess Drama

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 forme…

EP 164 John Markoff on the Many Lives of Stewart Brand

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, fail…

EP 163 Benedict Beckeld on Western Self-Contempt

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: Oi…

EP 162 Max Borders on Decentralism

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 & persua…

Currents 067: Zak Stein on Ending 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"... 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 computation…

Currents 066: Matthew Pirkowski on Emergence in Possibility Space

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,…

EP 161 Greg Thomas on Untangling the Gordian Knot of Race

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 w…

EP 160 Curtis Yarvin on Monarchy in the U.S.A.

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 acti…

EP 159 Bobby Azarian on the Romance of Reality

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…

Currents 065: Alexander Bard on Protopian Narratology

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. Episo…

Who Are You EP 01: Seth Jordan on Social Threefolding

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-…

Currents 064: Michael Garfield and J.F. Martel on Art x AI

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…

EP 158 Remzi Bajrami on Flow Currency

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 Rule…

Currents 063: Jessica Flack on nth-Order Effects of the Russia-Ukraine War

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…

EP 157 Terrence Deacon on Mind’s Emergence From Matter

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…

EP 156 James Poulos on Remaining Human

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 transhum…

Currents 062: Stephanie Lepp Interviews Jim Rutt on 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"... 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 potenti…

EP 155 Iain McGilchrist Part 2: The Matter With Things

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, reason…

Currents 061: Nora Bateson on a Return to Earnestness

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 Bat…

EP 154 Iain McGilchrist on The Matter With Things

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 in…

Currents 060: Panos Siozos on Online Education

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 JR…

Currents 059: Samo Burja on RU->UKR 23-MAR-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 nat…

EP 153 Forrest Landry on Small Group Method

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 &…

Currents 058: John Robb on Russia-Ukraine Outcomes

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 Ru…

Currents 057: Timothy Clancy on Russia’s Mid-Game

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…

Currents 056: Julyan Davey on Weaving a Non-Dual Civilization

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, admittin…

Currents 055: Paul Goble on Putin’s Strategic Mistakes

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 agains…

Currents 054: Samo Burja on the Russia-Ukraine War

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 the…

Currents 053: Matthew Pirkowski on Grammars of Emergence

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 dif…

Currents 052: John Robb on War in Ukraine

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 a…

Currents 051: Douglas Rushkoff on the Once and Future Internet

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 so…

Currents 050: Greg Lukianoff on Free Speech

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 su…

EP 152 Gary Bengier on Hard-Science Futures

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…

Currents 049: Ashley Colby & Jason Snyder on Doomer Optimism

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…

EP 151 Daniel Mezick on Ritual and Hierarchy

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…

Currents 048: Welf von Hören on Potential

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…

EP 150 Jeremy Lent on the Web of Meaning

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…

Currents 047: Samuel Scarpino on the Epidemiology of Covid-19

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…

EP 149 Joshua Vial on Enspiral

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 uni…

Currents 046: Henry Elkus & Sam Feinburg on Solving Societal Problems

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 sec…

EP148 Antonio Damasio on Feeling and Knowing

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 Unive…

EP147 John Vervaeke Part 5: 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... 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 Comp…

Currents 045: Dorian Abbot on Protecting Academic Freedom

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 Divers…

EP146 John Vervaeke Part 4: 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... 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 Real…

EP145 John Vervaeke Part 3: 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... 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 -…

EP144 John Vervaeke Part 2: 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... 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 Verv…

EP143 John Vervaeke Part 1: 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... 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…

Currents 044: Zak Stein on Propaganda and the Information War

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…

Currents 043: Lene Rachel Andersen on Bildung

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 Björk…

EP142 Robert Tercek on the Metaverse

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 T…

EP141 Heather Heying on Confronting Hyper-Novelty

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 &…

EP140 Robin Dunbar on Friendship

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 Im…

Currents 042: John Robb on Afghanistan Withdrawal

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…

EP139 Robert Tercek on Education Today

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 Learnin…

Currents 041: Jonathan Rowson on Our Metacrisis Pickle

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 Att…

Currents 040: Jim Rutt Show Changes & Reflections

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…

EP138 W. Brian Arthur on the Nature of Technology

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…

Currents 039: Alexander Beiner on Psychedelic Turf Wars

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…

Currents 038: Connor Leahy on Artificial Intelligence

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 e…

EP137 Ken Stanley on Neuroevolution

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 previ…

Currents 037: Sam Harris on Surviving Our Smartphones

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

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…

EP135 Dennis Waters on Behavior & Culture in One Dimension

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 I…

EP134 Forrest Landry on Non-Relative Ethics

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 phil…

Currents 036: Melanie Mitchell on Why AI is Hard

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 Nati…

Currents 035: Steve Barbour on Mining Bitcoin with Methane

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 a…

EP133 Robert Tercek on Digital Strategies

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 vi…

EP132 Britt Adkins on Celestial Civilization

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 pa…

Currents 034: Samo Burja on the Consilience Project

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…

EP131 Jason Mauck on #FarmWeird

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…

EP130 Ken Stanley on Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

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 Intelligen…

Currents 033: Connor Leahy on Deep Learning

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 langua…

EP129 Stephanie Lepp on Deep Reckonings

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 Zuckerb…

EP128 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 3

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: EP…

EP127 Jonathan Rowson on The Moves That Matter

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…

EP126 Jordan Gruber & James Fadiman on Our Symphony of Selves

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, psyc…

EP125 Samo Burja on Societal Decline: Part 2

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…

Currents 032: Tyson Yunkaporta on Spirits, GameB & Protopias

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…

EP124 Jim Hackett on Ford, Electric Cars & More

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…

Currents 031: Trent Loos on Family Ranching

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

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 Raptu…

Currents 030: Daniel Schmachtenberger on The Consilience Project

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 Schmachtenberg…

EP122 Ashley Colby on Subsistence Agriculture

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 A…

EP121 Broke in America with Joanne Goldblum & Colleen Shaddox

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

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…

EP119 Max Borders on Post-Collapse

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…

EP118 Matt Ridley on How Innovation Works

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…

EP117 Samo Burja on Societal Decline

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, th…

EP116 Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion

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 Nationa…

Currents 029: Vance Crowe on the “Well-Actually” Graph

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 orga…

EP115 Max Borders on America’s Collapse

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 Cynic…

EP114 John Bunzl on his Simpol Solution

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 Mi…

Currents 028: Simon DeDeo on Explaining Explanation

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 Prof…

EP113 Zak Stein on Hierarchical Complexity

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 Zachar…

Currents 027: Charles Hoskinson on Cardano Blockchain Project

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…

EP112 Annie Duke on Bets & Better Decisions

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…

EP111 Anatol Lieven on Climate & Nationalism

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…

EP110 Brad Kershner on Education & Complexity

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 Le…

Currents 026: Bill Ottman on Minds.com

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 Tra…

EP109 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 2

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 managem…

EP108 Bernard Baars on Consciousness

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 & Ane…

Currents 025: Ben Goertzel on Decentralizing Social Media

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…

EP107 Tristan Harris on Our Social Dilemma

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 T…

Currents 024: BJ Campbell on the Woke Religion

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 H…

EP106 Michael Strevens on the Irrational History of Science

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 t…

EP105 Christof Koch on Consciousness

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, panpsychi…

EP104 Joe Henrich on WEIRD People

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 & Recommendati…

Currents 023: Terry Gainer on the January 6th Riot

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 Gene…

Currents 022: Curtis Yarvin on Institutional Failure

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 De…

Currents 021: John Robb on Jan 6th, 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…

EP103 James Ehrlich on ReGen Villages

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 w…

EP102 Debora Spar on Technological Impacts on Culture

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. Epis…

EP101 Clayton Banks on the Digital Divide

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 leade…

EP100 Sam Bowles on Our Cooperative Nature

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…

Currents 020: Barbara Oakley on Teaching Fluency

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…

EP99 Jason Wiener on Alternative Business Structures

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…

EP98 Morag Gamble on Permaculture

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 system…

EP97 Emery Brown on Consciousness & Anesthesia

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 Tapli…

EP96 Forrest Landry on Immanent Metaphysics: Part 1

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, too…

EP95 Alexander Bard on God in the Internet Age

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 Netocrat…

EP94 Shahin Farshchi on Self-Driving Tech

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…

Currents 019: Alexander Beiner on Indigenous Narcissism

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 Episo…

EP93 Brent Cooper on Critique, Consensus & Politics

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 &…

EP92 Alexa Clay on Intentional Communities

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 de…

EP91 Joe Brewer on Applied Cultural Evolution

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…

EP90 Joshua Epstein on Agent-Based Modeling

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'…

EP89 Lene Rachel Andersen on Metamodernity

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 busi…

EP88 Nancy Hillis & Bruce Sawhill on Art & Complexity

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. i…

Currents 018: The Future Thinkers Smart Village

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…

Currents 017: Bret Weinstein on Unity 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 lar…

EP87 Joscha Bach on Theories of Consciousness

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 Dy…

EP86 Nadav Zeimer on Educational Reform

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…

Currents 016: Robin Hanson on Are We Living In A Simulation?

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: Ro…

EP85 Gar Alperovitz on Reinventing Our Systems

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 distinguish…

Currents 015: Jessica Flack & Melanie Mitchell on Complexity

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…

Currents 014: Steve LeVine on COVID-19 Futures

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…

EP84 William Perry & Tom Collina on The Nuclear Button

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 adminis…

EP83 Michel Bauwens on Our Commons Transition

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 Surveillanc…

Currents 013: Rob Malda on the Slashdot Story

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…

EP82 Hanzi Freinacht on Building a Metamodern Future

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…

EP81 Renée DiResta on Social Media Warfare

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 & Recommendation…

EP80 Daniel Schmachtenberger on Better Sensemaking

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 Ha…

EP79 Seth Lloyd on Our Quantum Universe

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 Qua…

Currents 012: Andrew Taggart on Narcissism, Culture & Dying

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, Foun…

EP78 Ran Abramitzky on the Mystery of the Kibbutz

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…

EP77 Kamal Sinclair on Science, Storytelling & VR

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 C…

EP76 Max Borders on the Social Singularity

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…

EP75 Nick Chater: “The Mind Is Flat”

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 proc…

EP74 Daniel Christian Wahl on Regeneration Dynamics

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 Regene…

EP73 James Lindsay on Cynical Theories

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 Impo…

EP72 Joscha Bach on Minds, Machines & Magic

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 Sy…

Currents 011: Robin Hanson on RightTalkism

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 Profes…

EP71 Philip Howard on Computational Propaganda

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 o…

EP70 Art Brock & Ferananda Ibarra on Currencies

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 hundr…

EP69 Rachel Haywire on Free Thinking & Expression

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 & Cu…

Currents 010: Tyson Yunkaporta on Humans As Custodial Species

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…