Episodes

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 sc...

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 fictiona...

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 lang...

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 poli...

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...

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", ra...

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 mach...

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 ...

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, aes...

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 o...

Mara Zepeda talks to Jim about co-founding a community platform, capital & creativity, alternative investment, extractive growth, empowering cooperatives, and much more... Mara Zepeda talks to Jim about what led Mara to co-found the Switchboard community platform, the ask & offer dynamic, GameB, the interaction of capital & creativity, Jim's entrepreneurial history, alternative investment structures & unjust financial systems, the meat collective, community-based growth vs extractive growth hack...

Tomas Björkman talks to Jim about what made Nordic countries thrive, psychological development, the disappearance & possible re-emergence of the Bildung, and much more... Tomas Björkman talks to Jim about the danger of reifying systems, understanding the Bildung, what made the Nordic countries exceptional, inner development, Scandinavia's retreat centers, cultural modernity, the self-authoring shift & emergent levels in psychological development, influential philosophers & their impact on educat...

Jim talks to Dr. Gregg Henriques about his tree of knowledge & meta-cultural transition, justification theory, meaning, consciousness, integrative pluralism, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Dr. Gregg Henriques about complexity in his tree of knowledge & how it's connects to meta-cultural transition, the power of justification theory, understanding meaning & its connection to western history, GameB, the enlightenment 2.0 & enlightenment gap, mind & matter, Jim's AI deer, t...

Tyson Yunkaport talks to Jim about GameB, indigenous cognition, elders & initiation, growth, spirit, sustainability agents, cryptocurrencies, cultural evolution, and much more... Tyson Yunkaport talks to Jim about GameB, woodworking as a theory of mind & information entanglement, interconnected indigenous cognition, the iceman, taming crocodile, culture & systems designed to check narcissism, context-dependent leadership, the role of indigenous elders & cultural initiation, the commons, close vs...

Tyson Yunkaporta talks to Jim about his Apalech Clan, human domestication, connected bioregions, cultural narcissism, value in ordeal, indigenous instinct, and much more... An important new thinker only comes around every few years. Tyson Yunkaport is that thinker right now. We talk about his amazing new book, Sand Talk, in which he looks at the meta-crisis of our contemporary scene through the dual lenses of complexity science and his Indigenous Australian culture. We talk about: his Apalech Cl...

Colin Wright talks with Jim about the new evolution deniers & its impact on his academic career, sex & gender, nature AND nurture, postmodernism, whiskey, and more... Colin Wright talks with Jim about his critiques of the new evolution deniers & the impact it had on his search for academic faculty positions, the connections & differences between sex & gender, primary vs secondary sex traits, the re-emergence of the blank slate theory, the naturalistic fallacy, embracing nature AND nurture, dange...

Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about the P2P Foundation, markets & commons, alternative collaborative systems, seed to niche to norm, value, the future, and much more... P2P Foundation founder & director Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about being a 'vision coordinator', history & dynamics of peer to peer (P2P) collaboration, P2P in markets & commons, the evolution of commons, licensing, contributive accounting & other alternative collaborative systems, GameB, misconceptions of the tragedy of the commo...

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

Zak Stein talks with Jim about tech in education, what advertising is teaching us, the role of religion in education, self-transcendence, Zak's 13 social miracles, and much more... Zak Stein talks with Jim about the pros & cons of technology in education & the role of the teacher, unrealized education potentials in TV & internet, what advertising is teaching us, the role of religion in education, good vs bad science & religion, emerging eclectic religion & spirituality, spirituality as seen by d...

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Rebel Wisdom founder David Fuller about what the IDW is & how it relates to GameB, common IDW perspectives & its prescient points, the decline of journalism & sensemaking, postmodernism, how Integral theory views the IDW, memetic mediation, coherence & plurality, the IDW's future, online platform limitations, the value of critique, types of audience capture, and more. Episode Transcript JRS: EP24 Bret Weinstein on Evolving Culture Eric Weinstein & Bret Wein...

Howard Rheingold talks with Jim about his involvement in early computing & the internet, collaboration, internet risks, privacy, COVID-19, attention, and much more... Howard Rheingold talks with Jim about his interest & experiences with early computers & the internet, online collaboration & sharing, The Source & Well.com, 'realtime' online tribes, 3 risks to the future of the internet, online privacy, social media power & responsibility, the EFF & other great things the internet enables, digital...

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Jim Coan about social recession, social origins & impacts on humanity, emergent group collaboration, 'selfing' beyond the individual, bioenergetic resource management & its connection to social isolation & depression, physicological weathering & health risks of involuntary isolation, mental impacts leading to less COVID-19 social distancing, dynamics of virtual communication, academia impacts & risks of reopening, and more. Episode Transcript Virginia Affec...

In this Currents episode, Jim talks to John Robb about an article that describes the military-style tactics leading to the capture and burning of a police headquarters in Minneapolis: specialized units, weapons & tactics, and decentralized communications. How the violent use the non-violent. Also: the dangers of police militarization, police reform, the potential for cultural change post protests & pandemic, possible return of the Occupy movement, Minneapolis police abolishment, future protest t...

Zak Stein talks with Jim about existential risks of our education systems, revolutions, attention, educational tech, standards, 4 quadrants of systems, and much more... Zak Stein talks with Jim about the existential risk of oppressive & unjust education systems, the inefficiency of injustice, how Zak sees social justice, Rawls veil of ignorance, creating new types of people, dynamics of revolutions, limitations of cognitive science & neuroscience, the power of attention & imitation in education,...