17. The Liminal Web and Communitas (w/ Joe Lightfoot)

Joe Lightfoot talks to Brendan about the "Liminal Web," a term he coined for an emerging online community of metatheorists, systems poets, and sensemakers. Discussion quickly moves from mapping this online subculture to exploring its possible futures for deepening connection and embodiment. What are the potentials of purely virtual communitas? Are there in-person communal structures into which this online momentum might be transferred? What are the ingredients of successful communities more generally? What makes this loose network different than other would-be changemakers of the past? Where is it all going, and what is its significance?  

0:00 Introduction 

2:01 The Liminal Web 

4:55 Mapping Mapmakers: A Perspective on the Perspective-Takers 

7:48 A Certain Kind of Engagement 

9:45 Materializing the Meta-Tribe IRL 

25:38 Charitability, Development, and Exclusion 

35:57 Post-Postmodern Systems Change 

42:22 The Importance of Being Earnest: Heroic Humility and the Dao of Service 

56:26 Dancing Dialecticians and the Ever-Receding Absolute 

1:01:25 Sacred Simplicity Beyond Complexity