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, f...
Nov 02, 2020•1 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 &...
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, regene...
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...
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 Pe...
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 incenti...
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 ind...
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 de...
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...
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, t...
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 ...
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 distribu...
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 tactic...
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 interve...
Oct 05, 2020•1 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, targe...
Oct 01, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Daniel Schmachtenberger talks to Jim about sensemaking & how it's impacted by algorithms, addiction, authority, conspiracy, education, and much more... Daniel Schmachtenberger talks to Jim about the increasing importance of sensemaking in our globalized culture, internet algorithm impacts on narrative warfare, digital dopamine hijacking & addiction dynamics, dangerous contemporary authority dynamics, global government vs governance & other coordinating processes, the history of democ...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 38 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Seth Lloyd talks to Jim about the fundamentals of quantum physics, quantum computing, seeing the universe as a quantum computer, and much more... Seth Lloyd starts this episode by talking to Jim about the fundamentals of quantum physics: the quantum vs classical world, quantum interpretations, causality & randomness, the many-worlds theory, entanglement, and coherence. They then go on to talk about the emerging field of quantum computing: its incredible power & potential impacts on encry...
Sep 24, 2020•1 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 79
Andrew Taggart talks to Jim about philosophy, our psychotherapeutic culture, the good life & virtue, narcissism, community living, dying well, and more... In this Currents episode, Jim talks to Andrew Taggart about what philosophy is & once was, the impacts of our psychotherapeutic culture, the good life & virtue, narcissism, friends of utility, changing family dynamics, GameB, close community living, what polling tells us about meaning & happiness, promoting & scaling the go...
Sep 23, 2020•59 min
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 197...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 78
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 &...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 77
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, dange...
Sep 07, 2020•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 76
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 fictiona...
Aug 31, 2020•1 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Daniel Christian Wahl talks with Jim about GameB, recycling, development, eastern perspectives, consciousness, community, and much more... Daniel Christian Wahl talks with Jim about living at a Findhorn eco-village, humanity as a capstone species, regenerative vs sustainable, the three horizons & GameB, night soil in urban & rural contexts, recycling essential resources, personal & collective development, defining science & its challenges, eastern vs western thought & philoso...
Aug 27, 2020•1 hr 45 min•Season 1Ep. 74
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...
Aug 24, 2020•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 73
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, reali...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 72
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...
Aug 11, 2020•40 min
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 tacti...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 71
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 cu...
Aug 03, 2020•1 hr 28 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Rachel Haywire talks to Jim about running for president, acting vs philosophizing, the art right, aesthetics, today's left & right, dark bohemianism, and much more... Rachel Haywire talks to Jim about running for president in the transhumanist party, her Elixer Salon, her Pulling out of the Narrative article, GameB, acting vs philosophizing, taking our work & selves seriously, neo-reactionaries, understanding & working with people who have dark triad traits, NLP, understanding the ar...
Jul 31, 2020•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 69
