Debora Spar & Jim have a wide-ranging chat on some of the insights in her book, Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. Debora Spar and Jim have a wide-ranging conversation on some of the insights in her book, Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. They start by focusing on our transition from forager to agricultural life: the creation of property & new family structures, roles & lifestyles of women, polygyny, hoe vs plow cultures, and bastard children. T...
Jan 07, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Clayton Banks talks to Jim about essential tools & digital literacy, why & how he started Silicon Harlem, community dev, the FCC, and much more... Clayton Banks talks to Jim about bridging the digital divide & the importance of internet access, essential tools & digital literacy, prioritizing digital infrastructure, possible COVID-19 impacts on the digital divide, capitalism with empathy, why & how he started Silicon Harlem, key relationships for community development, online meetups & business,...
Jan 04, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Sam Bowles talks to Jim about his book, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution: competition, hierarchy, game theory, and much more... Sam Bowles talks to Jim about his book, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution, co-authored with Herbert Gintis. They start by exploring cooperation in hunter-gatherer living: how human cooperation is different from other species', collaboration needed for big game hunting, egalitarianism & competition, hierarchy myths, impa...
Dec 21, 2020•2 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 100
Barbara Oakley talks to Jim about fluency across domains, understanding-centered learning, education evolution, online learning, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim and Barbara Oakley start by talking about her eclectic background & career, then go on to talk about her article, How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math: how a liberal arts person learned advanced math and became an engineering professor, fluency across domains, understanding-centered learning & the limits of proc...
Dec 17, 2020•49 min
Jason Wiener talks to Jim about prioritizing missions in business, downfalls of profit-maximizing, employee ownership structures, and much more... Practicing business entity attorney Jason Wiener talks to Jim about prioritizing the mission in a business, downfalls of profit-maximizing models & intentions, employee ownership structures, understanding & planning for trade-offs, adaptive vs rigid structures, types of fundraising & their long-term business implications, cooperatives including the ne...
Dec 14, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Morag Gamble talks to Jim about the history & dynamics of permaculture, education, regenerative farming, Crystal Waters EcoVillage, and much more... Morag Gamble talks to Jim about the history & definition of permaculture, the different places & styles in which it can be implemented, the best ways of introducing it to others, seeing permaculture as a mycelial network, emersion over theory, Morag's experience with refugee communities embracing permaculture, redefining human value, Damanhur, conne...
Dec 10, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 98
Emery Brown talks to Jim about anesthesiology as a probe on consciousness, brain networks & relationships, EEG dose calibration, and much more... Emery Brown joins Jim as the first in a series of guests exploring the science of consciousness. They cover anesthesiology as a probe on consciousness, types of brain observation (EEG & fMRI), propofol's impact on brain networks, brain waves in various frequency ranges, phase and frequency, breakdown of long-range networks under anesthesia, coming out ...
Dec 08, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Forrest Landry talks to Jim about his immanent metaphysics theory: the self, choice, interaction, time, soundness, mind vs matter, and much more... Forrest Landry talks to Jim about the value of metaphysics, how his immanent metaphysics compare to past metaphysical theories, his unique definition of self & its relationship with choice, quantum foundations, the nature of choice, interaction & time, observer as an epiphenomenon, limits of perception, soundness vs validity, reifying power & metapho...
Nov 30, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 96
Alexander Bard talks to Jim about Syntheism's new take on theology, religious history, science, Zoroastrianism, Facebook, wokeness, and much more... Alexander Bard talks to Jim about Syntheism's new take on theology, the purpose of & roles in religion, post-contemporary God, the role of science in religious history, Zoroastrian history & its western influence, the digital exodus, the early internet, the failure of Facebook, #metoo, virtue ethics & game theory, damaging wokeness impacts & its phi...
Nov 23, 2020•2 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 95
Shahin Farshchi talks to Jim about self-driving tech: 5 automation levels, safeguards, the consumer market, costs, policy, and much more... Shahin Farshchi talks to Jim about self-driving technology. They cover Waymo's driverless taxi launch, the 5 levels of automation, teleoperation, redundant safeguards, self-driving deployment approaches & challenges, planning for corner cases, consumer market speculations, operating costs, Tesla's aspirations & shadow testing advantage, the simulator in the ...
Nov 19, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 94
Jim talks to Alexander Beiner about his new article on Indigenous Narcissism: western cultural norms, tribalism, social media, ethics, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim and Alexander Beiner have a wide-ranging chat about his recent article on Indigenous Narcissism. They cover western cultural norms, tribalism & belonging, social media as a tribal battlefield, addiction dynamics of social media, voluntary organization decline, the erosion of trust in institutions, ethics, postmodern ...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Brent Cooper talks to Jim about the meta-crisis, critique, politics, GameB, monetary theory, climate policy, meta/post-modernism, and much more... Brent Cooper talks to Jim about his academic & intellectual background, the under-appreciation of sociology, the meta-crisis, useful critique, time-scales & approaches to solving the meta-crisis, Jim & Brent's political perspectives, GameB values, monetary theory, smuggling bad ideas, the cost of war, climate change & the Green New Deal, mapping & uti...
Nov 16, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Alexa Clay talks to Jim about intentional communities: diversity, governance, cult dynamics, longevity, scale, norms, values, rituals, and much more... Alexa Clay talks to Jim about similar characteristics of intentional communities & startups, common personalities & intentions in intentional community, meeting their need for diverse skillsets & demographics, governance approaches, avoiding cult dynamics, planning for generational transition, community scales & boundaries, monetary systems, oppo...
Nov 14, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 92
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 n...
Nov 09, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 91
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 segreg...
Nov 05, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 90
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 ma...
Nov 02, 2020•2 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 89
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...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 88
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 g...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr 1 min
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 n...
Oct 27, 2020•1 hr 27 min
Joscha Bach talks to Jim about his views on popular consciousness theories, thinkers, dynamics, artificial intelligence, and much more... Joscha Bach and Jim start by talking about the difference between mind & brain, and the body & environment's connection to mind & emotions. Joscha then offers his views on some popular consciousness theories & thinkers: consciousness as frequency, Global Workspace Theory, Integrated Information Theory, Functionalism, Daniel Dennet, and Roger Penrose. While cov...
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 87
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, Nad...
Oct 22, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 86
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 par...
Oct 21, 2020•50 min
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, find...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 85
In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Melanie Mitchell & Jessica Flack about the complexity of COVID, randomness, robustness, collective intelligence, misinfo, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Melanie Mitchell & Jessica Flack about their recent Aeon article, Uncertain times. Why R(0) is not a good measure for COVID contagion, network contagion & super spreaders, global non-linear causes & effects, feedback dynamics in complex systems, some hopeful views on COVID-19 impact...
Oct 18, 2020•53 min
In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Steve LeVine about his article, Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy, the US city exodus, and much more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Steve LeVine about his article, Remote Work Is Killing the Hidden Trillion-Dollar Office Economy, cultural hysteresis & homeostasis, the challenge of predicting post-pandemic changes & looking to history, the emerging remote business fluency, designing for virtual serendipity, the big c...
Oct 15, 2020•47 min
Former Sec of Defense William Perry & Tom Collina talk about their book, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race & Presidential Power, and much more... Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry & Tom Z. Collina of the Ploughshares Fund talk to Jim about their book, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump. They cover today's nuclear weapons amnesia, the current nuclear situation, the growing number of nuclear-armed countries, US presidential nuclear powe...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about P2P plurality, agro & regeneration, capitalist impact on social media, blockchains, cosmo-localism, and much more... Michel Bauwens talks to Jim about the forms of P2P (peer to peer) implementations & core elements, cosmo-local production, P2P in agriculture & regenerative processes, artificial rivalrous dynamics, capitalist impacts on social media & sensemaking, political polarization, creating better social media habits, centralized vs distributed & for-profit...
Oct 08, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) talks to Jim about the history & tech of Slashdot while speculating on what social media could learn from it. In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Rob Malda (AKA: CmdrTaco) about the history & creation of Slashdot, its opensource tech, rapid growth & eventual decline, unique moderation system & community involvement, utilization of scarcity, the down-side of open rating systems, the game theory of social media & the evolution of manipulation tactics, moderation trade-...
Oct 08, 2020•45 min
Hanzi Freinacht talks to Jim about political metamodernism, Gameb, sensemaking, conspiracy, top-down vs bottom-up tactics, coherent pluralism, and much more... In a wide-ranging all-new episode, Hanzi Freinacht talks to Jim about the dynamics of political metamodernism & commonalities with Gameb, our meta-crisis & diminished sensemaking capabilities, our culture of alienation, conspiracy theories, collective sensemaking, negative impacts of market economies, top-down vs bottom-up interventions, ...
Oct 05, 2020•2 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Renée DiResta talks to Jim about social media dynamics, foreign influence, disinformation vs misinformation, political ads, conspiracy, and much more... Renée DiResta talks to Jim about her work at the Standford Internet Observatory, identifying foreign social media influence, the challenge of defining state media, her work on the Election Integrity Project, sourcing social media data, foreign vs domestic disinformation & misinformation, the value & danger of political advertising, targeting & v...
Oct 01, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 81
