Humans On The Loop

Austin Wade Smith, designer and ecologist, discusses convivial ecological institutions, extending legal rights to non-human entities, and reimagining economic systems for regenerative stewardship. They explore the importance of open source commons for collective sensemaking and challenge human-centric views by advocating for a more holistic approach to technology and ecological governance.

Joshua Schrei, writer and teacher, discusses the mythic dimensions of tech innovation and the need for self-mastery in wielding generative language models. They explore living responsibly in a tech-magic world, raising kids amidst the A.I. revolution, and humans' fascination with power beyond understanding.

Neil Theise, discoverer of a new human organ, discusses complexity, nonduality, and interconnectedness of life. Topics include burnout, emergent behaviors, funding challenges in research/art, scientism, and the impact of modern computing pioneers on society. The conversation bridges science and spirituality, urging listeners to stay present and engaged with reality.

Exploring regenerative accelerationism, Greg Landua & Speaker John Ash discuss bending finance for land stewardship. They critique extractive capitalism and advocate for AI solutions. Reflecting on sustainable fisheries in Alaska and redefining trust for biospheric health. Trust in technology is emphasized with new models and decentralized structures for community management.

Jingmai O'Connor, Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles at The Field Museum, shares her passion for Mesozoic flying reptiles and the colorful world of paleontology. She discusses the multifaceted evolution of flight in dinosaurs, including the striking Microraptor and the fascinating dinosaur Yi Qi. O'Connor delves into the importance of soft tissues in fossils and the intersection of kickboxing and scientific inquiry. Her insights reveal the challenges and triumphs faced by those tracking ancient mysteries, making a case for resilience and dedication in the field.

This week I speak with social scientist Nicholas Brigham Adams (Twitter, LinkedIn) about his work at Goodly Labs to create new infrastructure for collective intelligence — new systems for collective fact-checking and sense-making that can help us rise to the occasion of our inherently social, planet-scale challenges.  And the time for this work is definitely NOW.  As paths across social, economic, and ecological networks continue to shrink due to the increasing connectivity of technological systems, humankind migrates from an Earth on which most events seem impossibly distant and irrelevant to an Earth defined by nonlinear, often exponential impacts of seemingly-trivial developments anywhere on the planet.  This is the century — and the decade — in which many of us have no choice but to learn, the easy way or the hard way, the consequences of our increasing vulnerability to and power over one another.  And one of the places this is most vividly apparent is in how truths and untruths ripple at unprecedented speeds across the globe, forcing us into a new and intense cosmopolitanism.  In the 1940s, the message was “Loose lips sink ships.”  Perhaps the message for the 2020s is “Cognitive biases spread mind viruses.”If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve likely read my 2017 science fiction short story “An Oral History of The End of ‘Reality’”, a peek into our present-day post-truth carnival funhouse where AI-assisted forgeries demand vastly more nuanced and sophisticated methods for navigating fundamental uncertainty, far greater humility about our validity claims, and revolutionary tools for thinking together.  We have to learn to communicate the degree and dimension of our confidence and of our doubt — to learn how we can rigorously restore the trust necessary for coordination at scale — and Goodly Labs is, in my opinion, one of the most promising efforts in the world right now in this regard.  2024 is very likely to feel like the end of reality for a lot of us, and the stakes are immense:  fair presidential elections, concerted ecological action, and effective AI steering policy are all domains of existential risk in which we MUST be able to reconstruct some kind of minimally viable consensus reality.  I’d be considerably more worried for our future if I did not know that there are people like Brigham Adams and his amazing team of academics, founders, engineers, and journalists tilting their spears directly at this issue and working around the clock to help midwife that Holy Grail of communications technology:  a sane and healthy global brain.Announcement: The Future Fossils Book Club is back! Join me for to discuss Iron John: A Book About Men by Robert Bly on Saturday 27 January and Saturday 10 February from 12p-2p MST. I’ll send Substack and Patreon supporters the link to both calls soon, and there will be a dedicated private discussion channel in the Discord server.✨ Mostly-Complete List of Citations:Study: On Twitter, false news travels faster than true stories (MIT News)LOGIN 2009 keynote: gaming in the world of 2030 by Charles Stross (transcript)Ready Player One by Ernst ClineThe meaning of life in a world without work by Yuval Noah Harari (read at web.archive.org or 12ft.io)Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanMotivated Numeracy and The Politics-ridden Brain by Stuff To Blow Your Mind (podcast)Coming Into Being by William Irwin ThompsonExplosive Proofs of Mathematical Truths by Simon DeDeo (lecture video)Stewardship of global collective behavior by Joseph Bak-Coleman et al. (paper)OpenAI's anarchist science chief is a techno-spiritual culthead (Athenil)So You Want To Be A Sorceror In The Age of Mythic Powers by Josh Schrei (podcast)Saul PerlmutterOccupy MovementJamie JoyceLynn MargulisDouglas EngelbartAlexander BeinerDouglas RushkoffSteve JobsStewart BrandW. Brian ArthurJim RuttSense8 (television series)✨ Support My Work:• Subscribe on Substack or Patreon for COPIOUS extras, including private Discord server channels and MANY secret episodes!• Make one-off donations at @futurefossils on Venmo, $manfredmacx on CashApp, or @michaelgarfield on PayPal.• Buy the music of Future Fossils (in this episode: “Olympus Mons” & “Sonnet A”) on Bandcamp.• Buy the books we discuss at the Future Fossils Bookshop.org page and I’ll get a cut.• Browse and buy original paintings and prints or email me to commission new work! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

Megan Phipps, Phil Ford, and J.F. Martel discuss cybernetics, the emergence of the cybernetic era, the intersection of capitalism and transformation, transcendence through merging with machines, the role of art in opening up to the non-human, upgrading the body with technology, addressing the impact of technology through innovation or remapping, and express gratitude and anticipation for future conversations.

Cyborg anthropologist Amber Case and systems engineer Michael Zargham discuss the market's fascination with talking appliances, the impact of design on user empowerment, and the need for new terms-of-service agreements. They also explore the concept of reanimism and the importance of investing in art and long-term research. The conversation touches on restoring agency in the digital landscape, the role of trust in technology, and the value of incremental changes in entity governance.

Subscribe and review at Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. Or wherever!This week on the show I speak with physicist Geoffrey West (SFI) and evolutionary biologist Manfred Laubichler (ASU, SFI) about the transformations that our geosphere, biosphere, technosphere, and noosphere are undergoing as the “extended phenotype” of human innovation runs rampant across the surface of Planet Earth.  These two distinguished scientists are some of the most profound thinkers I’ve ever encountered, helping midwife a new understanding of what it means to be human and a planetary citizen. I have wanted Geoffrey West on Future Fossils since well before I even started working for SFI in 2018, so this episode is the consummation of a years-long journey and I cannot be more excited to share it with you!  It feels a little like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters, but we live in an increasingly-intertwingled world, so let’s make the best of it!  I wouldn’t be where I am today without these two fine minds and their important work.  Enjoy…“The consequences of the Anthropocene are the product of innovations, and yet somehow we think the way out is through EVEN MORE innovation. This is a predicament…Innovation has to be looked at critically. One of the interesting things in the history of life is the OPPRESSION of innovation.”– Manfred Laubichler✨ Support Future Fossils & Feed My Kids:• Become a patron on Substack, Patreon, and/or Bandcamp for MANY extras, including a members-only FB Group and private channels on our Discord Server• Donate directly: @futurefossils on Venmo • $manfredmacx on CashApp • @michaelgarfield on PayPal• Browse my art and buy original paintings and prints (or commission new work)• Buy (NEARLY) all of the books we mention on the show at the Future Fossils Bookshop.org page• Show music:  “Sonnet A” from my 2008 Double-Edged Sword EP (Bandcamp, Spotify)• Follow my music and awesome, eclectic playlists on Spotify✨ Special thanks to my friends at Noonautics.org & Gregory Landua of The Regen Foundation for supporting both the show and pioneering research to make the world a better place!✨ Your Anthropocene & Technosphere Syllabus:More Is Different: Broken symmetry and the nature of the hierarchical structure of science.Phil AndersonPopulation growth, climate change create an ‘Anthropocene engine' that's changing the planetManfred LaubichlerScale and information-processing thresholds in Holocene social evolutionJaeweon Shin et al.Policies may influence large-scale behavioral tippingKarine Nyborg et al.Teaching the Anthropocene from a Global Perspective (2014!)Manfred Laubichler & Jürgen RennMore from them:Seminar: Co-Evolutionary Perspectives on the TechnosphereAnthropocene Campus | Technosphere / Co-Evolution, presented by Jürgen Renn and Manfred LaubichlerThe Growth and Differentiation of Metabolism: Extended Evolutionary Dynamics in the TechnosphereSFI Community Event - Panel discussion on the Past, Present, and Future of the AnthropoceneSander van der Leeuw, D.A. Wallach, & Geoffrey West, moderated by Manfred LaubichlerWelcome to the Future: Four Pivotal Trends You Should Be Aware OfEd William on the work of Dror PolegThe Future is Fungi: The Rise and Rhizomes of Mushroom CultureJeff VanderMeer, Kaitlin Smith, & Merlin Sheldrake, moderated by Corey PressmanDoes the Ecology of Somatic Tissue Normally Constrain the Evolution of Cancer?John Pepper at SFIThe Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and NightmaresRe: TESCREAL, coined by Timnit Gebru & Émile TorresComplexity Literacy for a Sustainable Digital Transition: Cases and Arguments From Transdisciplinary Education ProgramsGerald SteinerRelevant episodes from my past life as the host of SFI’s Complexity Podcast:Olivia Judson on Major Energy Transitions in Evolutionary HistoryMelanie Moses on Metabolic Scaling in Biology & ComputationChris Kempes on The Physical Constraints on Life & EvolutionThe Future of the Human Climate Niche with Tim Kohler & Marten SchefferScaling Laws & Social Networks in The Time of COVID-19 with Geoffrey West (Part 1)Geoffrey West on Scaling, Open-Ended Growth, and Accelerating Crisis/Innovation Cycles: Transcendence or Collapse? (Part 2)Reflections on COVID-19 with David Krakauer & Geoffrey WestMichael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

Subscribe and review at Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. Or wherever!This week on Future Fossils we pierce the veil with Adam Aronovich, cultural anthropologist and psychedelic integration therapist, to talk about the strange brew of web-connected healing and web-inflicted paranoia and delusions of grandeur, conspiracy epistemics, how people are being treated as robots, and robots are being treated as people, and engaging reality directly versus engaging through the manipulation of symbols. Among other things! It’s a perfect treat for tricky times…Adam’s Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Re Precision Health Page✨ Support Future Fossils & Feed My Kids:• Become a patron on Substack, Patreon, and/or Bandcamp for MANY extras, including a members-only FB Group and private channels on our Discord Server• Donate directly: @futurefossils on Venmo • $manfredmacx on CashApp • @michaelgarfield on PayPal• Browse my art and buy original paintings and prints (or commission new work)• Buy (NEARLY) all of the books we mention on the show at the Future Fossils Bookshop.org page• Show music: “Autocatalysis” (Live Extended Remix) coming this Friday to my Bandcamp!• Follow my music and awesome, eclectic playlists on Spotify✨ Special thanks to my friends at Noonautics.org for supporting both the show and pioneering research!✨ A mostly-but-not-entirely-complete list of references:An Oral History of The End of RealityMAPS Psychedelic Science 2023“A general model for the origin of allometric scaling laws in biology” by Geoffrey West, James Brown, Brian EnquistNew Religions of the 21st Century (Yuval Noah Harari’s Google Tech Talk)The Matrix (franchise)A Glitch in The Matrix (documentary)Doug Rushkoff “fractalnoia” (FF 67)Stanislav Grof“So You Want To Be a Sorcerer in the Age of Mythic Powers?” on The Emerald PodcastWilliam Irwin Thompson - The Borg or BorgesJorge Luis Borges - On Exactitude in ScienceJean Baudrillard - Simulacra and SimulationsChatGPTDouglas Adams - The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (Encyclopedia Galactica)Simon DeDeo on plural epistemology (interviewed by MG on Complexity Podcast 72)Erik Davis (FF 132)Bruce Damer (FF 109)Ken Adams (FF 209)Shane Mauss (FF 58)What the heck happened to Reality Sandwich?Mondo 2000 + R.U. Sirius This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe