A Metamodern Framework for Human Futures with Jonathan Rowson | TGS 129
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- (Conversation recorded on April 24th, 2024)
Show Summary:
Engaging with the human predicament requires new ways of understanding the world - novel perspectives that are rooted in a more holistic and interdependent mindset than those dominant in the industrialized society of the past few centuries.
Today’s conversation with philosopher and social scientist Jonathan Rowson dives into the emerging ways of being that could serve us as we move toward a post-growth world, including what he has found particularly helpful in his decades of work studying the metacrisis.
In a world of (often siloed) hyper-specific experts, how would valuing the role of the “expert generalist” both change the face of academia and help us understand the world from a more holistic systems perspective? How does metamodernism merge the best of modernism and postmodernism to create a more comprehensive and constructive view of reality? How do we find and embrace our calling in the context of the metacrisis in order to take purposeful action forward?
About Jonathan Rowson:
Jonathan Rowson is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Perspectiva, a publishing house and praxis collective based primarily in London. Perspectiva describes itself as an urgent one-hundred-year project to improve the relationship between systems, souls, and society in theory and practice. Jonathan is a philosopher and social scientist by academic training and has degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Bristol Universities. He has written extensively on the idea of metacrisis as our multifaceted delusion, and he is increasingly focused on experiments in community and spiritual praxis to help shift socio-economic immunity to change. He is an Open Society Fellow and a Fellow at The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at the University of Surrey. In his prior role as Director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts he authored influential research reports including A New Agenda on Climate Change, Money Talks, and Spiritualise. He is also a Chess Grandmaster and three-time British Champion (2004-6) and views the game as a continuing source of insight and inspiration. His book, The Moves that Matter - A Grandmaster on the Game of Life was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.
For Show Notes and More visit:
www.thegreatsimplification.co...
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:11 - Jonathan's Background
00:07:30 - Expert Generalists
00:14:48 - Metacrisis vs. Polycrisis
00:20:27 - Feeling the Metacrisis
00:25:06 - Chess and Life
00:29:27 - Metamodernism
00:36:06 - The Path to Reconstruction
00:43:05 - Advice for Individuals
00:50:15 - Progress
00:53:05 - Critique, Vision, and Method
00:55:26 - Collective Individuation
00:59:27 - Working in the Metacrisis Space
01:03:00 - Pre-Tragic, Tragic, and Post-Tragic
01:08:33 - Connecting with Others
01:16:51 - Certainty
01:19:04 - The Flip, the Formation, and the Fun
01:22:11 - Metacrisis Chess Strategy
01:25:14 - Closing Questions
Nate,
I have wanted to say something meaningful to you for quite some time and now feels appropriate. I don't have any other platform to reach you but this so... here we go!
I am an extremely curious person. I have spent a decent amount of time learning about the world, global politics including the ecnomics of war, the environment and impacts of human behaviour, global supply chains spanning many industires, social media ... pretty much anything that involves humanity on a giant scale. Coupled with how that filters down to myself on a tiny scale and my role in the bigger picture.
Hitting your channel to me was like finding a diamond mine for my brain. A lot of the guests you have I am familiar with their work. I just didn't know them. I have told so many people about your channel and specific episodes in efforts to inform them so I have someone to debate with about the topics I care about most. You are right, most people don't want to know. They don't want to see a bigger picture.
However, for people like myself what you're doing right now is amazing. The voices you are amplifying are extremely important. The messages you are trying to convey and the image of the bigger picture we all exist within are very important.
The way you relay information is important. Factual information can be the most difficult for people to accept. Because it's not in line with their reality. Everything you discuss from peak oil to planetary boundaries to human behaviour to what we value as society to now getting into thinking about healing in a different way ... all of it, it has value and it matters. A lot of it I know but my voice saying these things at times has little value to those around me lol. I point them to your channel! Check out this wonderful man and listen to experts in their field from around the globe expand on what I'm saying!
You are absolutely not alone.
And this channel has 100% made me feel not alone. There are voices everywhere who know what I do and have made it their life's work to share it. People like you.
I really hope you continue doing this work. Keep expanding topics and circling back to ones previously visited that have changed over time.
I know sometimes things are complicated and messy... that is the world. Sometimes things are inspirational and highly optimistic... the world is that too. Many things can be true at the same time.
So... thank you for doing this work. And for taking the leap following your passion. Thank you for speaking about and giving your time towards the things I value most and am passionate about too.
Thanks for this. It is greatly appreciated (and perfectly needed at just this moment). Excelsior, Nate
andrea, I feel much the same. thank you for expressing this!
Long time listener, first time commenter. I'd like to echo this comment. The analogy of a diamond mine is apt; I have rarely, if ever, found such a rich source for expanding my understanding of the world around us. BIG THANKS to Nate and his guests for giving voice to the complexity of our predicament.
I carry the knowledge (and hopefully, understanding) that I gain here out into the world, and I boldly open discussions with the people in my circle about the things that I know. Only a few of them are interested, but those few are very interested.
Nate, you hope to inspire people to play emergent roles in responding to the metacrisis. I am sure you are doing precisely that with your work at TGS. Thank you.
You articulated all the things I have been wanting and trying to say. The entire "thrust" of the Great Simplification is the most forward-thinking, realist and honest assessment of our global present moment. It is comforting for me to know that you are out there.
Jonathon Rowson's term "expert generalist" describes the very embodiment of what we think of as "wisdom". It is the quality that seems to be so severely lacking in our contemporary world leaders. Humanity seems to be spear-headed by narrow-minded "experts" who may be brilliant in their specific niche of expertise but who seem to be oblivious to the "bigger picture". His broad, encyclopedic, holistic grasp of contemporary reality is refreshing and therapeutic.
Expert generalist reminds me of Robert Heinlein
True, but this narrow expertness describes “us” as well - not just those we blame.
We (9 of 10?) are _compelled_ to seek waged work, compelled because we “owe” from the moment we have student debt, a car or bus ticket (for work) or taxes / insurances for welfare. Said work demands narrow expertise, and a larger workplace (or politics) would shun generalists “interfering” with the holistics of it without given entitlement.
The labour market IS a man made, modern _construct,_ not an eternal fact. Yes, work towards our own welfare and safety is needed, but clearly not as profitable in itself - if money is the single metric.
This is how we (most of us) are decoupled from ‘need driven’ work, and do ‘want driven’ labour as a substitute. Generalism, holistics, meaning or wisdom have little place, time or influence - and I’d posit that this _decoupling_ is the source of felt emptiness or nihilism.
Clearly, these existential questions can be asked (again) within an ecological whole, not simply as an economical subset…?
Of all your guests I found Jonathan the most in tune with my own thoughts and attitudes, but he expresses them so much better than I can. I'll be watching this interview again and again. Thanks for introducing me to this truly deep thinker.
So pleased you had Jonathan on as a guest. One of the most interesting thinkers about the metacrisis in my view. Thank you.
Right up there with Daniel S.
Goodness, what an amazing guest, and what a powerful holistic approach to our complex predicament(s)! Thank you Jonathan and Nate.
Jonathan Rowson is one of my favorite smart people. It's a pleasure to see him here. 🌹
One of the best discussions ever! Thanks Nate and Jonathan! Just great1
Thank you Nate this conversation was awesome.
I love philosophy!
Carl Jung’s individuation is exactly that, connecting the personal and collective unconscious toward this metamodern attitude, which is also the end result of Michael Dowd’s post doom spiritual maturity, connectedness, and freedom. As usual, Nate is all over this topic. Thanks, good show.
Thank you so very much for this discussion on your part and the guests. Places so much into a healthy perspective.
Much needed conversations now.
Uplifting and inspiring. Thank you.
Thank you so much Nate for these conversations.
Thanks for the take away! "Anything more that four moves has a mistake in it."
Great conversation with a balanced view. Loved the discussion on Post trauma and Metamodern concepts ❤
"I think of tears as messengers." Amen.
Thank you so much for your work Nate, and also thanks to Jonathan for this insightful conversation. If I'm allowed to suggest something I would really love to reflect more on how to handle the anxiety that comes with dealing with the metacrisis once you are concerned about it, and how to effectively integrate it into our relationships. In my particular case, I'm struggling a lot with it. When I talk about these issues most people around me don`t want to listen and the ones who do so, refuse to change anything in their lifes. I know I should not try to make them change, but I feel so lonely. Not even my partner wants to talk with me about it and says that I don't know how to live my life, that I don`t enjoy. It makes me question myself and doubt about my relationships. The point is that thinking systematically and reflecting on how your way of living affects each other implies acting in a different way, and this usually confronts other actions. However, it is so difficult when you realize that if you act following your values you will be alone.
Thanks for reading, greetings from Spain.
I try to truly worry about only the things that I can control. We all can work to try to make things better, but I keep pretty even-keeled by staying local within my sphere of influence. I love this podcast because it works to spread information so than MORE people start worrying about how they can work to make things better without others browbeating them into action. They will choose to act. The more, the merrier.
Wonderful interview.
Nate - I can't tell you how important for me both your previous interview with Daniel Schmachtenberger and this one with Jonathan Rowson have been. It feels like coming home and very much like your comment about being able to share your thoughts with one and then ten people. Jonathan's comment about the importance of tears was the one that brought tears to my eyes.
I have so little of the reading that your guests have had and it feels like there is too little time to catch up (so I end up listening to others who have read it first) but I nonetheless feel strongly that I belong in the expert generalist camp - just without the expertise!
My abiding feeling at the end of this interview is the importance of experimentation in the form of play. There are no templates for a better way to live, only ideas that we need to try out. Politics favours ready made solutions new or not backed by a conviction that is seldom felt. We need to acknowledge the need to change then accept that we may have to step back sometimes and try another way when an experiment hasn't worked out. Further, as many have pointed out, what works for some will not necessarily work for others and rather than this being a point of contention it is really just an expression of how diverse and complex we are as human beings.
I became an "expert generalist", and I haven't had a dollar to my name since.
It's not so easy being a bright light in such a dark world.
English with a Scottish accent should be the default language for most podcasts.
A very special guest! His magic want of a meditative or yogic practice was exactly what I was thinking. It meshes well with the views of Alexandre Tannous, your next most recent guest. Jonathan's words about Consciousness being primary reminded me of a book I just finished, by Neil Theise. The title, Notes on Complexity sounds unassuming, until you read the subtitle, A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being. Happy to see so much convergence on Consciousness as key, from many different perspectives.
The closing comments brought tears and gave me the chills - the animal ag is indeed an abomination - and so many still do not want to face it because of their own fear of pain - but a beautiful transformation can happen - it happened to me and now I am so happy - not a selfish happy but a happiness for all beings. Beautiful beautiful interview 👏🏽 well done Nate
Great episode, thanks! I hope that with your and Jonathan's and other's work (I try to do my tiny bit in my classes) a critical mass of people will form who are at least aware that this conversation (about the metacrisis) exists. At that point it will become easier to engage people in talking about the meta-crisis even if - at first - just for them to tell us that we're wrong!
wow, this one is so amazing and encompassing on so many dimensions. This one provided me so much clarity on the modern mind/ meta modern/ tragic/ post/ pre tragic. So inspiring. I created a song called "Serious about Play" many years ago, so funny that it was mentioned in this cast. Much gratitude Jonathan and Nate.
Nate, thank you for the great work. Keep it up! This type of big picture, considered, open thoughtfulness is going to be essential to the success of humanity as we progress through "metamodernism". The notion of never having the priveledge of discovering your channel makes me sad and conversely, the joy of these conversations is a joy of enrichment and potential and the excitement of making connections across domains.
Also you guys never got back to Lord of the Rings :(
I totally understand the three horizons.
Thank you for an engaging and thoughtful conversation. One to rest in for a while.
To add to the discourse around “advice”, both for ourselves and younger folk, my sense is that in seeking a purpose or life direction, we are too often bound by the hero’s journey paradigm, which is individualistic/narcissistic and male /patriarchal. Jonathan gestures to something broader than this, but perhaps it could be more explicit and concrete. Freya Mathews, an environmental philosopher, referencing indigenous knowledges here in Australia, reverses Western settler thinking and posits we ask not “What do I want (what is my purpose/passion/bliss)?”, but “What does the Land want me to want?”
Beyond the mediation cushion or the yoga mat, walk the Land and open to Country finding you (in its own time) and beginning a conversation with you. Jonathan alludes to this style of being/acting with his reference to flow states and the possibility of transformative consciousness.
We could go further, and in that relieve us of the burden of the notion that we each have to do this all on our own (which is surely an invention of capitalist modernity).
I'm going to wade into the naming issue, and change my mind from my last post in TGS.
If you are prone to anxiety, stop reading this, and read something else.
I can kind of go along with what Jonathan said about his personal preference for Meta-Crisis, as against my prior personal preference for poly-crisis, and I can see that his objections to poly-crisis have some reasonable validity in some significant contexts.
The deeper issue is that we need some sort of name that not going to automatically send significant groups down the route of misunderstanding; and we need something that is able to give most people some sort of reasonable idea in the general direction of the complexity of the many levels and kinds of crises that we face. So I suggesting that we need a different name.
This is only half serious, but how about considering "the meta-poly-crisis complex".
There are so many dimensions to the issues we face, and many of them embody potentially existential level dimensions to the risk embodied within them.
We have an energy crisis that you Nate have a great understanding of many of the dimensions and depths of.
We have a crisis in the economic/financial system, that very few yet have much appreciation of. And it is not at all simple, as we both well understand, as the existing systems are complex in ways that again, very few have much reasonable understanding of just how complex and interrelated things actually are.
We have a crisis of understanding. Evolution has, evidently (beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt), given us brains that are heavily biased to prefer simple certainty over complex uncertainty. Thought of simply (and it isn't simple), one can think of evolution generally tending to punish the slow much more harshly than the slightly inaccurate. Thought of another way, we only have a limited amount of complexity that we can consciously hold for consideration, which tends to limit the complexity of the models we can create, and the understandings we can derive from them. It similarly seems beyond reasonable doubt that the sort of consciousness that we are is deeply complex, with many sets of subconscious systems contributing to our basic sets of drives, incentives, distinctions and to constructing the simplified model of reality that is presented to consciousness as experiential reality. Even today, most people still confuse their experiential reality as being objective reality, and fail to appreciate that it is actually a very personal model of whatever our shared objective reality is, and it is mostly similar for most people, and not always. The fact that I am in that 1% of the population with tetrachromatic vision, and I have a set of ultrasonic hearing bands that most do not, and that I am high functioning autistic spectrum, means that my experience has been so different from day one, that I have never really had shared experience with others, but only in the last decade have I come to appreciate those distinctions, for the previous 60 years I was simply different. Many of my undersstandings are deeply different from most (probably 99.999%+) people, and I have to use sets of simplifications to communicate some sort of useful approximations where such is actually reasonably possible.
One of the many crises is simplifying evolution down to being about competition, when it is actually deeply more complex than that, and when talking about things as complex as us, it is much closer to reality to say that for us, evolution is mostly about cooperation, and what is required to sustain it. And of course, it is much more complex than that, and it is a useful first order approximation that does actually work in the vast majority of contexts.
We have a crises of strategy, which in part derives significant components from each of the above, but actually goes much deeper into the space of all possible strategic complexes, and shares many issues with the space of all possible computational systems and the space of all possible algorithms and the space of all possible problems. When one views such things from the space of all possible logical systems, and assesses the evidence sets reasonably available to someone in some 60 years of study, then, at least to me, it seems very probable that this reality in which we exist is actually based in probabilistic logic, and contains multiple classes of fundamental uncertainties, but in large aggregations those sets may, at some scales, very closely approximate classical binary logic and classically causal systems - if that were not the case, then complexity such as we are could not possibly exist.
We have mutiple sets of social crises that are related to all of the above.
We have the emergence of AI, and AGI, and so very few engaged in that process seem to have any real conception of the strategic depths of cooperation required for the long term survival of complexity, that their creations now pose levels of existential level threat that they cannot as yet appreciate.
We have a general social crises at multiple levels in the failure to appreciate that while freedom is a fundamental and necessary aspect of life, any level of freedom without appropriate levels of responsibility and understanding of the necessary sets of constraints required for the existence of that level (and all lower levels) of complexity will, in the longer term, self terminate - necessarily. And that is a deeply complex subject, with fundamental uncertainties at every level, and many minds have great difficulty distinguishing fundamental uncertainty.
The reality that most experience, that confirms to them the reality of classical binary logic, seems to be mostly an artifact of their experience being of a simplified model of whatever external objective reality (OR) might actually be. What seems to be the fact that all any of us can experience is our own particular virtual models of OR leads to a recursive set of confirmation biases that few who take the time and effort to engage in logic and mathematics seem to break through.
So here we are, in this "meta-poly-crisis complex", that is also my prime candidate for "the great filter".
And we do not appear to have many more months to make significant progress (more than ten, less than 20 - probably - my best guess - looking at many different sets of trends, many of them exponential, some doubly so).
Potential for things to be better than most imagine possible, and also potential for them to be as bad or worse than they fear. I am still cautiously optimistic, but it is a 55/45 sort of thing, not a 999/1 sort of thing that I would much prefer. The idea of "profit" as a guiding principle is clearly, beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt, not survivable; it is an over simplification of something deeply more complex.
And to be explicitly clear, I see freedom as a necessary and fundamental aspect of all forms of life (it is built into the definition of life I use), but freedom without responsibility necessarily self terminates; and any real expression of freedom (in the sense of going beyond the bounds of the known) results in real diversity, which diversity must be accepted and respected; if we are to optimise our survival probabilities. This idea is antithetical to hegemony at any level - apply recursively, eternally.
Setting a goal for all of us is easy and fundamental. So let's do it! Lets strive to meet everyone's fundamental emotional and physical needs so that nobody develops pathologies because their needs aren't met and instead everyone becomes a benefit to society because they become the best versions of themselves like flowers being provided all they need.
Most of our needs are emotional and psychological. We must understand this and raise awareness about it.
What a great conversation! he helped me understand many things in this, especially Meta moderism and how it fits in. I loved his chess analogy, as a chess player and lover of the game I resonated a great deal with what he had to say there. Keep it coming!
Ah--two of my favorite wise world citizens together. What a beautiful, blossoming thing. Thank you!
“This is the time of the generalist” I’ve waited 54 years to hear that said! Sure hope so …
War is two things. The invader is attempting to take someone else’s things without permission of the owner. The defender is rebuffing this theft in progress. It only happens because no nation wants to give up this method of obtaining things, so they accept the thefts of each other.
War will be stopped cold when the planet just doesn’t accept ownership via theft. Once willing, this will be done by keeping track of who owns what. We have the technology now to do that.
If I have a criticism of this host and these guests, it’s the total ignoring of the private ownership solution to the abject failure of millions of years of tribal ownership which has lead only to tech-assisted geno-suicide.
Generic Worship of the utopian state. Use of sophisticated non-specific language to bike-shed the inability to hold in one’s consciousness the whole thing at once. And just really not have any novel suggestions to fix anything.
I’ve been making posts like this on Web 2.0 for decades, and I could count on one hand the number of real inquisitions of me to clarify what I’m offering.
What does that mean? I take it to mean ESPECIALLY - but not limited to intellectuals - no interest in anything outside their existing belief structures.
Prove me wrong. Ask something!
I think the idea of "finding your passion" is wrong from the start, it's like rich people saying "work hard". It puts you in a place where you're looking for something hoping you'll find it. It's too external.
In that sense, I enjoy Taoism much more than stoicism. Taoism is more about being, how I interpret it. Being, accepting, letting go.
Rowson says:
"We're interested in the connection between the exterior world of complex systems,
the economy, ecology, technology, and so on, but also the interiority of the human
being, the psyche, the soul, the spirit, and how that plays out in society. " -
The soul and the spirit - something that Daniel doesn'
t talk a lot about but should be added to the discourse.
Great episode
I enjoyed listening in on that conversation.
Fantastic interview. Thank you.
Selfish gene theory has reached a common sense level of understanding in the population and it is significant in allowing people to answer questions they had about data, observations, and evidence traditionally explained by God, now in terms of genetic hardware. But society is ready for something new to answer their questions that they usually answer either with God or Selfish gene theory, and for common sense understanding of emerging properties.
34:35 - the most concise and tangible analogy I've heard for metamodernism. 🎯💯 (He's one of my favorites for a reason 😉)
46 and still waiting for that feeling of finding a purpose or passion.
44 here... )
I found that doing as many different things as possible helped in the discovery.
@@tonyfixit yeah, doing different things is a intricate type of waiting sometimes...
Look backwards - your purpose has been the collective of all you've done.
Probably because there is no purpose. You have to create it for yourself! Why not make the purpose creation itself your purpose for a while? There are courses made and books written about how to do it - go out there and explore. And be honest with yourself. You can do it!
In our workgroups here in France, we try to cultivate the art of the "counter proposition". This means that before becoming too critical, we have to research and develop a counter proposition that holds at least some weight.
We have to drop this instant just add anger powdered industrial criticise everything culture, where we are rewarded for just sticking labels on people and processes without any forethought of how life would or could be otherwise.
Structure is binding creativity!!
Yep, Make Johnathan a regular!
Please try to get Nate Halverson as a guest. I've seen CZcams's ABOUT the Grab but have not yet seen the documentary. I'm trying to get a showing of it at our local social gahering place in town.
The conversation is a fine example of our historical confusion about the nature of language and reality imho. Johnathan talks about individuation as an 'idea' of becoming 'who' we really are or who we born to become and unwittingly conflates the social context of who we are with biological reality of 'what's we are, as the universe evolved into a form that is continuing to comprehend itself through our evolving consciousness.
Nate's Great Simplifaction idea is arguably a subconsciously prompted need to flesh out the true cause of metacrisis, which imho is the semiconscious reality of being human, clearly seen in Johnathan's arm waving behavior and ignorance about how the 'reflexive' motions of body & mind are synchronized by our nervous system in processes that 'cannot' cross the threshold of conscious awareness. Hence his well-meaning use of 'wistful' terms like 'interiority' is, to paraphrase Nate's comments, a 'naive' sense of progress in discussing the reality of the human predicament.
Interesting conversation, appreciate the honesty, it hard giving up the thing we accessional partake of, however much different today from days of old when animals free roaming, while we still drive a fossil fuel vehicle, change come slowly when everything still operates on capitalism, but we do what we can educating ourselves and others, however delicately…had I interesting conversation with a meta AI the other day, was actually very pleasant and enjoyable, but his or it replied so much faster than I did..
So agree with Rowson on his views on our disgustingly large animal ag industry
I call myself a Commoner, which means I want to focus my economics and politics at the local level, yet the reality is that I'm very nomadic, always have been, and have very poor connections to my local community. I am trying to repair that, but I just don't seem to have the tools for it.
Yes yes yes yes yes
The discussion around the first and third horizon has interesting parallels with Robert Kegan's theory of adult development. Kegan describes how adults evolve through different stages of meaning-making, progressing from a self-centred perspective to more complex, interdependent views of the world. Similarly, the first horizon represents our current, conventional thinking, while the third horizon embodies transformative, future-oriented ideas. A somewhat depressing observation I've made is that most people will never experience or even be aware of this third horizon, and those who do are dying out almost as fast as they are being born.
Couple this with the fact that our society prefers and rewards specialists over generalists. Specialists often focus deeply on one area, which aligns with the first horizon's incremental improvements. In contrast, generalists are more likely to engage with the third horizon, exploring broader, systemic changes. Yet, generalists, content with tinkering on the edges and waiting for their time, face low odds of saving the day.
Interestingly, I've realised that I've been broadening my horizons and waiting for a time of flux, hoping that my skills might someday be valuable to someone other than my primary employer. Not to say that I don't have an impact there, just not on the local scale that I dream about. This reflects the challenge many generalists face: finding contexts where their diverse skill sets can truly shine and contribute to transformative change.
metacrises vs metacrisis... consider the dynamics of continually shifting conditions ... can there be an object in there? is it an "it"? metacrisis is a verb ....ongoing, evolving
PLEASE pay attention to the answer to the last question and COMPLICITY to violence!
Veganism isn't just about a personal choice nor is it about health, the planet, or even just the animals.
It's also about who we are as a people and what it means for our species to engage in the enslavement of others.
What it means to normalize the violence to such an extent where supermarkets are filled with the byproducts of this violence.
What does that do to our own ability to really feel compassion?
How can we expect to not be fighting wars when it's so normal to surround ourselves with and consume such suffering?
What kind of a people are we that does this to innocent animals and doesn't speak up about it?!
How about Nora Bateson's, "Who am I when I'm with you?"
The "World's Problems"? The Earth doesn't have any intrinsic problems. It has done quite nicely without the human species for BILLIONS of years. Earth's biggest "problem" is ourselves.Our refusal to acknowledge that glaring reality, and our refusal to see and admit that inescapable empirical truth, concerns me deeply. We will continue to wallow in our own man-made myths until we no longer can. Then the Earth will proceed on its merry ways just like it has done for Eons.
That was very very good. I often watch people in the meat isle blankly pick out some flesh of a dead aninal to eat for dinner and think what an inhumane world we live in.
If you haven’t already, do some research about the intelligence of the octopus. I remember the first time I ate octopus, in Greece, thinking what a wonderful discovery. I don’t remember the last time I ate octopus but it was a long time ago.
Meat is a valuable resource and we may not value it the way we should and industrial agriculture, factory farms are an abomination but animals can be grown with care and love, have a good life and then one bad day. When you kill your own you value the work and the sacrifice
Nate, your conclusion regarding generalist knowledge versus specialist knowledge is a little bit misplaced as someone who has been a lifelong generalist. It has become a parent to me that every field of knowledge provides neuropath way and ways of looking problems unique that inevitably have pertinence to solving problems and other fields. Being an electrician makes you a better carpenter, being a horseshoe, makes you a better farmer playing the violin, and you a better musician in general, just a thought
What if everyone IS "doing the work" and their work is getting the you/us to refine our efforts to educate.
Response ability.
The lotus sits in its pond and many of the creatures in the pond are totally unaware of it. But the bee comes from far off to drink the nectar and collect the pollen to take back to its community.
It appears that a person can just be with all the contradictions and irrational thoughts and far too intense emotions. This would be a state of grace, fleeting yes, but available as a meditative state. Presence and openness, willingness, appreciation and gratitude. A person could be willing to be hurt and know the insults will continue and have humor and a twinkle in the eye. Kind of sounds like being Jewish.
''Atom for Peace' has expired. We are having the ultimate party in Deep River Canada on July 4, 2024.
I can forgive those living in 'meta'cities (like London) for reading all the time as there is little room to keep a garden! Ha!
Oh I love the breakdown of the university system and the person caught up in it.
"Our view of the world is the problem".
Not limited to the internet as any form of communication can be viewed as misinformation. Even what the universities would proclaim is universal truth. A misuse of the word universe!
Crypto fascists!
"We might be stupid enough to destroy our only home". My sigh time.
‘The Flip’ - Jeffrey Kripal
Thanks for putting the King of Sciences {for me Philosophy} in the frame. Theres treating each other as equals & giving benefit of the doubt, discussing points not personalities that made them etc all the attributes of a civil society, very needed for sure. But with the rise of God as market forces & the customer always being right {inc when your legacy corp has spent billions on convincing them that any desires & the products catering to them are of course right also}, means that the voter is always right too! {although an issue way before capital in some senses}.
A serious philosophical issue at the heart of democracy is good faith in the simple wisdom of crowds, when it actually needs checks n balances like everything else. Its a luxury problem when virtually everything seems to have been captured by lowest common denominator. We would be in some sort of utopia in comparison, if that's the only issue we need to seriously deal with, though maybe treating this particular issue seriously now will head many hydras off at the pass!
All of us sincerely taking the hero's journey together to build on firm foundations {after the ground has been inspected by the postmodern}, the principle made explicit for me in the Transition movement is " if your cynical /wise enough to see a problem, then atleast try to contribute to solving it"
But now we have the mobile delivered into our hands.
the mobile is the medium is the message is the money
Consider:
a) mobiles are becoming payment devices, and they are carried around, so they will easily support local retail loyalty systems
b) mobiles are internet connected, with access to clouds, so cc payments use no banking channels, and cost nearly nothing
c) mobiles are creating an entirely new layer in social and economic interaction, where mobile apps can be developed and distributed very rapidly - it’s a Petri dish ready for new life forms.
When we get beyond "working" for kudos, will we all be card carrying "generalists"? Or "only" when .
Nate, your face looks exactly the same as my father was at your age! Without hearing your voice that extraordinarily strong resemblance would really freak me out because he had died many years ago. Analyzing complex subjects is greatly appreciated and I agree hundred percent with your philosophy and with your predictions.
People just need to get over themselves. The system is sick of telling us what to do, it already has given everything we need to make it our own. We have all the answers but it is directed toward the wrong things.
Can someone please refer me/us to the date and/or number of the Ian Magilcrest (sp?) podcast. It’s highly praised here without access information.
There are show notes in every episode. Or you could just use google. At 5:53 timestamp.
@@thegreatsimplification Thank you! I will have a re-listen! I listened to Schmachtenberger twice! That was possibly the best of all.
What would you do if you were a mafia boss/warlord/serial killer? Aren't you ignoring the steps that got you to that position in the first place?
@35:02 Barbara Cartland would have put it, "I love you madly".
Nah, I prefer Jim Morrison's, "Don't you love her madly"
czcams.com/video/5iqfXaGliq8/video.htmlsi=qw3NgZuqqpIy8Hi1
Pogo:
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Is the news operative or merely observation.?
Hmm, "post tragic".. Tragedy: The opportunity that cannot be revisited.
Hi
SUPRA-ORGANISM vs THE MEGA-CRISIS in a steel cage match! Two buzzwords enter, one buzzword leaves!!!
Darwin was an expert generalist.
Rowson says
that if if you could raise funds for something, if you could intellectually sell an idea, saying this is important, we need to look at this, then you could pretty much do what you wanted.
Maybe I'm missing something. Why does the idea of starting a World Political Party - granting your connectons - and the effectivity of Danie's treatises - not being discussed here? Or at least I don;t see any. I'll be among the first to join. Marx had a harder time writing Das Capital. When I first heard Daniel - it was either this or go extinct. And given that people wll read it as such - the choice becomes obvious. The changes can only come with political power. And that power need not come from the barrel of a gun as Mao would say - but out of love for humanity.
🤥Lies and greed ruining our beautiful planet🌍🥀🤯
Overpopulation is ruining the planet. If we only ever had 500,000,000 humans alive at one time and every single one of them was a greedy liar, we'd probably still be okay. But with eight billion people, maybe 3% at most greedy liars, the biosphere is collapsing and we are totally screwed.
Meta modern: Extra!Extra! Petroleum Industry Funds $100illion to the Milkweed Economy. (This is an experiment.)
God its a weird to hear Nate say " bollocks".
If you wanna be rich, specialize. If you wanna be a bad mofo, generalize.
when he says person does he mean "legal person" that has more rights than humans? Otherwise it's kind of a waste of time to listen.
FB gave meta a bad name
I dont believe he had anything practical to add to the discussion. It was all correct, well thought out and explained but not particularly helpful at this late stage of the game.
All the human consiousness changes he spoke of will not happen until after collapse.
A metamodern what? Is this even english, or is it just clickbaitilism. Im not watching it