The Jim Rutt Show

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: Origins and Growth by Henry Near Ran Abramitzky is a Professor of Economics and the Senior Associate Dean of the Social Sciences at Stanford University. His research is in economic history and applied microeconomics, with focus on immigration and income inequality. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He is the former co-editor of Explorations in Economic History. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, as well as National Science Foundation grants for research on the causes and consequences of income inequality and on international migration. His book, The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World was awarded by the Economic History Association the Gyorgi Ranki Biennial Prize for an outstanding book on European Economic History. He has received the Economics Department’s and the Dean’s Awards for Distinguished Teaching. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University.

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 Consultant to Sundance Institute’s Future of Culture Initiative. She also serves as External Advisor to MacArthur Foundation’s Journalism & Media Program, Creative Advisor to For Freedoms, MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality, Starfish Incubator,  and Eyebeam. Previously, she was the Director of Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Labs Program, which supports artists working at the convergence of film, art, media and technology. She also consults for the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms program on a research project aimed at furthering equality in emerging media, which resulted in “Making a New Reality.”

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 Releasing the Vaccines Brian Robertson of Holacracy Morning Star Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux Max Borders is a futurist, a theorist, a published author and an entrepreneur. He is the author of The Social Singularity and the founder and Executive Director of Social Evolution—a non-profit organization dedicated to liberating humanity through innovation. Max is also co-founder of the Voice & Exit event and former editor at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

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 process, and more. Episode Transcript Mentions & Recommendations Nick's book, The Mind Is Flat Nick's 'The Mind is Flat' Online Course Nick on Twitter Nick Chater joined Warwick Business School (WBS) in 2010, after holding chairs in psychology at Warwick and UCL. He has over 200 publications, has won four national awards for psychological research, and has served as Associate Editor for the journals Cognitive Science, Psychological Review, and Psychological Science. He was elected a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society in 2010 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012. Nick is co-founder of the research consultancy Decision Technology; and is on the advisory board of the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insight Team (BIT), popularly known as the ‘Nudge Unit’.

Daniel Christian Wahl, an expert in regeneration dynamics and sustainable development, dives into captivating topics like humans as a capstone species enhancing ecological health. He discusses the Three Horizons framework for navigating the future, the importance of recycling nutrients for sustainable farming, and the shift from individualism to community-focused living. Wahl emphasizes the evolution of consciousness in regenerative cultures and the need for diverse perspectives on consciousness that blend Eastern and Western thoughts to tackle global challenges.

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 Impossible Conversations James' book, Everybody Is Wrong About God The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill Michel Foucault Jacques Derrida Heather E Heying Dr. James Lindsey is an American-born author, mathematician, and political commentator. He has written six books spanning a range of subjects including religion, the philosophy of science and postmodern theory. He is the co-founder of New Discourses and is motivated to rationally improve health “equity” without throwing out the baby with all this critical bathwater.

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 Synthetic Intelligence Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist working for MIT Media Lab and the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He earned his Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, and has built computational models of motivated decision making, perception, categorization, and concept-formation. He is especially interested in the philosophy of AI and in the augmentation of the human mind.

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 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.

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 of the Oxford Internet Institute and is a professor of sociology, information and international affairs. He is the author, most recently, Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives.

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 hundred designs for multi-currency systems and his software company has built and deployed dozens of those systems. Ferananda Ibarra’s works focuses on Organizational Development (Teal, Deliberately Developmental Organizations, Self-management, Distributed and P2P philosophies and applications), Collective Intelligence and Regenerative Economies (very focused in currency design and implementation). She is a Co-Founder of Holochain, the Chief-Harmony Officer (CHO) in Unified Field Corporation for the brand JustOne Organics, and Co-Director of CommonsEngine.org.