The Jim Rutt Show

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joscha Bach, an expert in consciousness theories and artificial intelligence, joins Jim to discuss various popular consciousness theories and thinkers, including Global Workspace Theory and Integrated Information Theory. They also explore topics such as GPT-3, learning and memory, intuitive vs analytical intelligence, attention and agents, psychedelics, magical phenomena, and areas worth exploring to improve AI.

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

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

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