The Kainos Podcast

Join Alexander and Ari on 28 August at 6pm London time for a private community session on AI filmmaking, the aesthetics of the future and the role of art in shifting culture by signing up as a founding member. Each month, we host group sensemaking sessions, invite guests like Iain McGilchrist and Nora Bateson, and learn new practices together. A year ago, my friend Ari Kuschnir produced an AI film of Donald Trump drinking Ayahuasca. He sent it to me and it blew me away. It was funny, nuanced and beautifully crafted, and we teamed up to promote it. It hit a million views in less than a week, and that was just the beginning. Since then, Ari's AI experiments have been viewed by millions of people around the world, and pioneered a hopeful, imaginative art form that presents political realities we know aren't real, but feel in our hearts could be. He’s also collaborated closely with his partner Schuyler Brown and with writer David Sauvage (who also helped me to develop the early Leviathan scripts) to bring these to life. Ari’s films have been played at concerts by the band James, endorsed by actors like Mark Ruffalo and single-handedly toppled corrupt regimes around the world. OK that last bit was made up... …but maybe if we all imagine hard enough...In our recent Substack Live session, Ari and I talked about why we need art that moves beyond postmodern cynicism and toward hope, beauty and helps us imagine the new. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beiner.substack.com/subscribe

Stephanie Lepp is an award-winning producer, storyteller, and speaker, whose work strives to expand hearts and minds. She’s the former Executive Director at the Institute for Cultural Evolution, a non-profit think tank that addresses political polarization at its cultural roots. Before that, she was the Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology, the organization at the heart of the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. Today, she leads Synthesis Media, a non-profit production studio devoted to expanding hearts and minds.Stephanie recently delivered a TED Talk about her project Faces of X, which uses a ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’ model to help people have better conversations about polarising topics like gender, race and class. We did a Substack Live together to discuss what she’s learned from the project, and how to find new territory together without falling into a mushy middle ground. Stephanie will be hosting a participatory Anti-Debate session for Founding Members on Thursday 21 August at 6pm UK time. We’re in the process of finalising our schedule of guests and facilitators for the rest of the year, with a lot of great people coming in from September. Sign up today if you’d like to join in, participate and skill up. Next up I’m having a conversation with creative producer Ari Kuschnir who’s coming on to discuss how he’s pioneering a new kind of hope-centred AI art. Ari’s films have racked up millions of views over the last year, multiple celebrity endorsements and most importantly, thousands of comments from people sharing how they’ve inspired them to imagine new possibilities. We’ll be discussing the role of art after post-modern cynicism, tensions around AI art, and the power of art to help us imagine new realities in a time of chaos. Check out his most recent viral hit which came out just a few days ago. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beiner.substack.com/subscribe

Helena Norberg-Hodge, author and filmmaker, is a leading advocate for the localisation movement and founder of Local Futures. She discusses the pressing need to focus on local communities as a counter to globalization’s negative impacts. Helena explores how monoculture harms mental health and community ties while emphasizing the importance of local economies and food systems. She highlights the power of community action in overcoming bureaucratic challenges and engaging younger generations with elders to foster sustainability and healing.

Iain McGilchrist, a psychiatrist and philosopher renowned for his work on the divided brain, shares profound insights on cultural upheaval and the significance of genuine relationships over technology. He explores the contrasting functions of our brain hemispheres and the limitations of over-relying on logic, advocating for intuitive understanding. The conversation also delves into the interconnectedness of consciousness and matter, the potential for AI consciousness, and the balance between collaboration and competition in society.

I’m on my way to Australia for a tour hosted by Small Giants Academy! We’re kicking off with a preview screening of the upcoming Kainos documentary ‘Crossroads’ and a talk at the Byron Bay Theatre on Saturday 22nd of March - get your tickets here.Having been ‘woke critical’ since 2016, in recent years I’ve felt increasingly vindicated as mainstream culture has pushed back against the institutionalisation of social justice theory. The publication of the Cass Report in 2024 felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back here in the UK, and I wrote a piece about its implications which I think has stood the test of time.However, I’ve felt increasingly uncomfortable with the recent pushback against DEI and other initiatives in the US. Not because I disagree with the need for reform, but because it feels like a new form of authoritarianism that throws the baby out with the bathwater. So I was relieved to read Helen Pluckrose’s recent articles about the rise of the Woke Right, in which she points out that ‘…a stark division is revealed between those who opposed wokeness primarily because it was authoritarian and being institutionalised and those who opposed it because it was the wrong kind of authoritarian and wanted to institutionalise something else…"As a Classical Liberal and one of the masterminds behind the Grievance Studies Affair, Helen is uniquely placed to make these critiques, and we had a great conversation on Substack Live delving into this topic.You can join conversations like this and participate in the Q&A by signing up as a Founding Member, or get early access as a paid member. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beiner.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Tom Morgan, Ed Prideaux, Chuck Lynd, j juniper, Will hodgins, and many others for tuning into my live video with Abi Millar! Join me for my next live video in the app. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beiner.substack.com/subscribe

Nora Bateson, a systems theorist, poet, and filmmaker, shares her insights on navigating uncertainty. She discusses the need to adapt our perspectives as old governance structures fade. The conversation highlights the importance of interdependence in human relationships and advocates for deeper communication in polarized environments. Bateson connects personal struggles to systemic failures, introducing the concept of 'warm data' for relational understanding. Ultimately, she emphasizes embracing complexity and the vital role of trust in building a more beautiful world.

There are just two places left for our breathwork and sensemaking course ‘Breathing in Culture’ which begins on 13 November - join here. Trish Blain and I are also offering a free ‘NonOrdinary Sensemaking’ session around the US election on 14 November which you can sign up for here and read more about at the end of this page.In my recent pieces, I’ve been making sense of the US election through the lens of where we get our news from, exploring the growing split between the legacy and alternative media. This has been a big focus of my work since 2016 and I think this election marks a turning point, one the legacy media may never recover from. But even though we now get our news from social media and alternative journalism, we’re also seeing a cultural backlash against our online lives. Jonathan Haidt made waves this year with The Anxious Generation, which looked at the negative impact of social media and screens on children and adolescents. Many of us have been addicted to our phones for years, and I’ve had a lot of conversations recently with people who feel a sense of emptiness and exhaustion in their online lives; it’s certainly something I’ve felt.  Two of my favourite thinkers on these issues are Peter Limberg and Katherine Dee, who are my guests in this episode. Peter writes a brilliant Substack (Less Foolish) and heads up a platform called The Stoa, while Katherine is an internet historian and journalist who also writes a great Substack (default.blog) and has written for The Spectator, Unherd and Tablet. They’re running a new series together called Internet Real Life, looking at the changing cultural value of ‘being online’ and the new countercultures that are unplugging from the endless cycle of content creation.  They’re also guest teachers on Breathing in Culture (along with Peter Boghossian). Both are full of unique insights into how our online lives are evolving, and how to navigate our fractured media landscape. ‘NonOrdinary Sensemaking: US Election’ with Trish Blain and Alexander BeinerWhether you are thrilled, devastated or somewhere in between about the US election, it’s clear that civil discourse, consensus reality, and non-partisan cooperation have become nearly impossible. And yet, how do we move forward if we can’t work together? In this free session we’ll be offering a space to make sense together using techniques that help us tap into our implicit knowledge, combining Trish Blain’s frameworks with Alexander’s sensemaking techniques to help you reach deeper levels of insight, connect to hope and imagine a ‘Hell, Yeah!’ future in the midst of chaos. To support more audio content and free events on The Bigger Picture, and to access exclusive pieces, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beiner.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode I speak with Nicola Price who runs the breathwork school Inspirational Breathing. Breathwork has exploded in popularity in recent years, with some people calling it ‘the new yoga’. But what is it exactly, and how can we reconnect to ourselves, come up with new ideas and process emotions just by breathing? I’ve been training as a breathwork facilitator with Inspirational Breathing for the past year, and in November we’re launching a new course, Breathing in Culture, where you’ll have the opportunity to dive into this practice, working with a trained facilitator in small groups for weekly breathing sessions, while developing your own personal breathwork practice. Breathwork is the most effective practice I’ve found for ‘breaking frame’, processing my emotions and gaining perspective on my inner world and the culture. Because it’s such a powerful way to expand perspectives, the course also includes sessions with though-leaders like Peter Boghossian, Katherine Dee and Peter Limberg to provide inspiration and new ideas. To draw on Trish Blain’s Four Forces model, the breathwork fills you with life force to provide Growth energy, while the sensemaking sessions provide Purpose to help you to channel and direct that growth into your life. If you want to learn more, have a listen to my conversation with Nicola or check out Breathing in Culture.   This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beiner.substack.com/subscribe

Trish Blain introduces 'consciousness agility', discusses turning wisdom into action, collaborating difficulties, and creativity as a force of reality. The podcast also unveils 'NonOrdinary Impact', a self-discovery process for creative energy and collaboration with others.