This week I'm speaking with Mette Böll (Boell). Mette is a biologist by training, specializing in the evolution of complex social systems, mammalian play behavior and philosophy of nature. Mette has a Ph.D. in organizational ethology from the Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, and holds additional degrees in contemplative leadership and the philosophy and history of science. She uses her training in these diverse areas to research how moods and feelings are transmitted in social relations and how the resulting relational fields in turn shape the larger systems human beings are parts of, with a particular focus on education. We talk about the study of social fields, generative vs. degenerative fields, the relationship between fields and systems, how generative fields create ‘magical classrooms’, the characteristics of a generative field, how the combination of systems science and systems sensing can help educate people to respond to the complex challenges of our world, and what generative fields in the K-12 education setting looks like, and the need to empower young people and get out of their way. Mette also shares inspiring stories from the early prototypes of this work in the American education system. Center for Systems Awareness

This week I'm speaking with Christopher Life. Christopher Life is the founder of OneNation, a new American political party dedicated to installing an all-win paradigm and rebirthing our democratic systems. Christopher and I talk about systems change as the next great social issue, the two party system as a hegemonic duopoly, OneNation as a generative alternative to the current system, omni-win vs win-lose, how the omni-win vision is the center of the shift needed to remake all the systems of society, win-lose thinking as a psycho-technology that is no longer adaptive, how empire uses polarization to maintain power, the need to create new collective intelligences and to experiment with new decision making systems, how OneNation will pull the disenfranchised and disengaged into a new political conversation, and the plan to make all-win cool and win-lose lame. Freakonomic Duopoly Episode Bill Moyers Stages of Social Change OneNation Party USA

This week I'm speaking with Daniel Schmachtenberger. Daniel is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue. The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal. Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science. Motivated by the belief that advancing collective intelligence and capacity is foundational to the integrity of any civilization, and necessary to address the unique risks we currently face given the intersection of globalization and exponential technology, he has spoken publicly on many of these topics, hoping to popularize and deepen important conversations and engage more people in working towards their solutions. Many of these can be found here. We talk about the current state of the phase shift, whether we are past the point of no return for social collapse, Daniel’s three generator functions of existential risk, the definition of an adequate social architecture that avoids existential risk, how technology creates asymmetric advantage that debases the planetary life support system, why we need to create technology that leads to ‘metastability’, the pollution of the epistemic commons, why we need to define problems in a comprehensive way where the solutions don’t create worse problems, the vows Daniel made as a teenager, what progress is being made at solving the generator functions of existential risk, the auto-poetic nature of trauma, and the necessity of a mature relationship between certainty and uncertainty.

This week I am joined by Danilo Vaz, Stratis Karad, Jocelyn, and Felipe Duarte to explore all things Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). We talk about  what DAOs are and why they are significant, where the space is at (and what it’s evolving into), how DAOs might allow for teal/horizontal/distributed organizations to scale, what are some of the most exciting DAOs currently active, the need for wacky proposals, and more. Participants Danilo Vaz (@emergir_co) - Fascinated by everything Complexity related, from fungi mycelium, to cultural evolution, to distributed computer networks. He’s worked as a community manager at DAOstack during the project’s ICO. Co-host of DAOCast. Statis Karad (@stratiskarad) -  Passionate about free thought, free speech and free market. Marketing & bizdev at DAOstack, and co-host of DAOCast. Jocelyn (http://kattfantastiskt.nu/) - Artist interested in sociotechnical artifacts; her current work explores imagination processes, magic, and code. She works with electronic literature, installations, and performances within the contexts of decentralized organizations, female narratives, and the human love affair with the Internet. Felipe Duarte (@facilitator23) - Originally an artist and activist, his experience on the ground during the social upheavals of Brazil have shifted his reflections towards society and organizations. Participant in the Genesis Alpha DAO and to becoming the Organiser of DAOfest. Related Episodes Richard Bartlett - Occupy Wall Street as Bootstrapping Collective Intelligence Jordan Greenhall - Anti-Rivalry, QAnon, and SOCIs (Oh my!) Max Borders - The Coming Social Singularity Moritz Bierling - Metamodern Politics + Holochain = 🔥💞🌎🤸

Joe Edelman is a philosopher, social scientist, designer, and founder of Human Systems, a global community for those redesigning institutions and social spaces so as to better support meaningful lives and human values. In this conversation we  discuss why designing systems in alignment with human values is the way forward for social transformation, the difference between advancing values and practicing values, the anti-rivalrous nature of values, how to name your values with the same specificity that you name your goals, why the breakdown of systems is a wonderful opportunity for redesign, the relationship between meaningfulness and values, and what this all has to do with the possibility of social collapse. Notes on the Show, Including the Referenced Political Compass with Bonnitta Roy, Jordan Hall, et all

In this conversation Tom Murray and I explore Tom’s model of ‘Wisdom Skills’. In this model Wisdom Skills are made up of both the movement of complexification and development (ascending), and the movement of simplicity and subtraction (descending).  We explore the relationship between simplicity and complexity in the development of wisdom, sort out some confusions about the relationship between spirituality and human development, why spiritual teachers ‘do bad things’, why development without deconstruction is problematic, why spirituality is more ‘down and in’ rather than ‘up and out’, how deconstruction releases complexity and opens possibility, why development is dangerous without spiritual clarity, and how this model allows us to talk bout spiritual realization without unnecessary metaphysical claims. To read a draft of Tom's work in progress on the "wisdom skills" material we discussed. send him an email at tommurray.us@gmail.com. The title of the manuscript is "Metamodernism, Complexity, Simplicity, and Spirituality." The other paper we mentioned is "Knowing and Unknowing Reality: A Beginner's and Expert's Developmental Guide to Post-Metaphysical Thinking" (here) Tom's Wisdom Skills Model (image) and Progressive Summarization of his Metaphysics Paper Other links to Toms work include:  Tom's home page: www.tommurray.us A list of Tom's papers: www.perspegrity.com The StageLens technology for developmental assessment:  www.stagelens.com

Today I'm speaking with Bayo Akomolafe. Bayo is a an academic, poet and philosopher who dedicates his life to mediating between the spiritual and the scientific. He is the Executive Director and Chief Curator for The Emergence Network, and the author of ‘These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to my Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home‘. We talk about what emergence is and why it is such a relevant idea for our time, the scandal at the heart of modernity, why it's a good idea to be uncertain about the possibility of systems collapse, why the urgency of our times is an invitation to slow down, the problems with spiritual tourism, why identity politics can often seem so broken, how the social justice movement is mistakenly using modernist constructs of power, how inclusion can reinforce the structures of exploitation and oppression, and why we cannot ‘out-think the crisis’. Bayo's Profile on Emerge The 25 Billion Ton Biomass at the Bottom of the Ocean

Today on the show I'm speaking with Bonnitta Roy about her presentation 'Six Ways to Go Meta'. We cover such topics as what  it mean to ‘go meta’, why the anthropocene is driving humans to discover new ways of ‘going meta’, how deconstructing our experience through meditation creates a clean palette to experiment with new ways of going meta, how previous guests like Adam Robbert, Jordan Greenhall, Nora Bateson, and Rob Burbea fit into Bonnitta’s meta-meta-model, and why it’s vital that we create new educational forms that help create and discover new human minds. Six Ways to Go  Meta Presentation Danny J's New Single - Rob the Infirmary

Today's conversation is with Zak Stein. Zak is a writer, educator and futurist working to bring a greater sense of sanity and justice to education. This recording was made in person at Zak's house in Northern Vermont. We chat about why the meta-crisis is fundamentally an educational crisis, a metamodern vision for the future of education, the difference between education and schooling, how to build an education system that can prepare humans for an unknowable and rapidly changing future, the postmodern erosion of ‘teacherly authority’, the relationship between education, passion, curiosity, and eros, and the possibility of education becoming a collective movement of soul-making.  Previous episode with Zak Stein Education in a Time Between Worlds (Amazon Link)

An inside baseball podcast about podcasting with Jason Snyder and Jared Janes of the Both/And podcast. We chat about what we are seeing in the emerging [metamodern/metasystematic/metarational] subculture, skillful disagreement, and how podcasting can be a practice of personal growth and transformation. Jared and Jason's Favorite Episodes so far: Both/And #6 with Euvie Ivanova - http://bothand.libsyn.com/6-thriving-in-modernity-with-euvie-ivanova Both/And #11 with David Collins - http://bothand.libsyn.com/11-simply-awake-with-david-collins