Socrates

Chapter 2: The Story of Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 2: The Story of Story

The limits of my language means the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein

Humanity has searched for meaning since its beginning. And we find it in story. The story that we tell ourselves. Thus, a world devoid of meaning becomes meaningful. But this meaning is given by and designed for us. And it is created in language.

The truly unique feature of human language is not its ability to transmit practical information about animals, rivers, stones, and trees. This feature is present in the languages of many other species such as whales, dolphins, apes, elephants, birds and bats, even bees. What makes human language unique is its ability to transmit information about things that don’t exist in the physical world at all – like gods, money, law, ethics, corporations, and so on. In other words, what makes our language unique is its ability to tell fictional stories. That is why ours is a fictive language. And this fact is very important for the two key features of our civilization:

1. Large-scale cooperation: Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons rarely cooperated in groups larger than 150 [Dunbar’s number]. This placed a rather low upper limit on what they could accomplish. Homo Sapiens, however, when given a powerful enough story, can exhibit cooperation among millions of strangers working towards the same goal. And what we can accomplish is of unlimited scale. Both positive and negative examples abound in history from wars and genocides through sports events, religious rituals, social movements, construction projects such as the Great Wall of China, or technological and scientific ones such as the Large Hadron Collider and space exploration.

2. Fast [cultural] evolution: What this means is that when we change the story, we change the culture. When enough people switch the story they believe in we have a revolution. For example, in 1789 the population of France switched almost overnight from the story of the divine right of the king to the story of the sovereignty of the people. [“Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”] Now known as the French Revolution, this phenomenon shows how cultural revolutions, in contrast to genetic ones, are very fast. This is the main reason why humanity has outstripped all other species in evolutionary terms – because we are using culture, not genes, to evolve faster. Every revolutionary paradigm switch – be it the French Revolution or the Scientific Revolution or the Industrial Revolution, is accompanied by a respective cultural switch in story about what the dominant paradigm could or should be. That new story is in turn told by coining new language about new political or legal rights, scientific concepts, or business metaphors such as the invisible hand, evolution, survival of the fittest, etc. New stories require new language and thus the expansion of story necessitates the expansion of language and the expansion of language creates opportunities for new stories.

In short, without our fictive language, we can’t have a story. And without a human story, our human civilization will not exist. So, the story of story is the story of our language. Keneth Burke said it best:

Language does our thinking for us.

Chapter 1: The Definition of Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Chapter 1: The Definition of Story

We started our thought experiment with Kenneth Burke’s definition of story as “equipment for living.” Burke offers a great start but it is Jeff DeChambeau who really brings all the essential elements together in defining story as “information processing technology.” And, whether we realize it or not, it is among the oldest, most powerful, and longest-lasting technologies we have. But let us break it apart and take a closer look to see how and why DeChambeau’s definition works so well.

The first thing we ought to note is that story is about information. It started around the Cognitive Revolution 70,000 years ago when we had no writing and story was the vehicle that carried information from one person to another, one generation to another. Then we invented writing and moved from the oral to the written word. Story got even more powerful because we could suddenly send information both across space and time. Even today, in the age of 24-hour-news, social media, YouTube videos, and audio podcasts, the most popular and powerful memes still come wrapped in some kind of story. Because story was and continues to be the best vehicle for capturing, carrying, and transmitting information.

The second is that story is about processing – i.e. organizing said information in a way that provides new insight we did not have before. In other words, a story can take data and make sense of it. So it turns information into knowledge. Because there is a point to using story, a lesson to be learned. It is for this reason that Walter Benjamin notes: “The value of information does not survive the moment in which it was new. It lives only at that moment; it has to surrender to it completely and explain itself to it without losing any time. A story is different. It does not expend itself. It preserves and concentrates its strength and is capable of releasing it even after a long time.”

The third part is that it is technology because story is a conceptual tool created by Homo Sapiens. For example, Kevin Kelly defines technology as “anything useful invented by a mind”. For Angus Fletcher “technology is any human-made thing that helps to solve a problem.” As any good tool, we can apply story to many a problem to help us understand, make sense of and deal with it. No story, no way to organize information, no way to process it, no way to make sense of, remember, or understand. Because story is ultimately about understanding and solving problems. [More on that in Chapters 6, 7, and 9.]

Story also has very specific features, characteristics, and structure that make it both powerful and unique. And it is neither simple narrative nor mere propaganda.

For example, story is different from narrative just like chronicles are different from history. Because chronicles and annals are simply a sequence of random chronological occurrences, without any connection, common theme, or thread. This is why they are so boring, tedious, hard to follow, and hard to remember. To turn a narrative into a story we need a unifying theme, a greater point of view, a moral, a lesson, a vision or a promise that will allow us to not only remember and organize but also process and understand what has occurred, why, and what could or should be next.

That is why Hayden White argued that the moment we brought story to narrative is the moment we gave birth to history. In the words of David Campbell “history proper requires the narration of events so that they are ‘revealed as possessing a structure, an order of meaning, that they do not possess as a mere sequence.” For both White and Campbell, it is only after embracing a meaningful structure that history proper breaks from the ranks of the ancient annals and chronicles, and claims its modern-day place among the other sciences.

Story is also different from propaganda because story is about the audience, not about the storyteller. Thus the storyteller is not the hero – the audience is. This is a critical point to understand. A story is not about the storyteller’s ego or agenda. It is about the audience – informing, entertaining, enriching, and teaching them something worthwhile. So a good story is not merely entertaining but transformational. It is a promise for something the audience longs for. That is why your press release is not a story. Neither is your latest news, greatest achievements, biggest product launch, volunteer work, and charity donations. Those are all about you. Those are all propaganda.

Finally, a classic story has a particular structure – i.e. it has a beginning, middle, and end. So, while the characters, places, or even the objectives can change, the structure remains mostly the same:

The Beginning: Shit happens. [That is why, for example, hard-boiled detective story-teller Raymond Chandler noted: “Trouble is my business”]

The beginning sets the problem and creates intrigue – i.e. it hooks the audience to the plot and whets their curiosity as per how the problem might be resolved. It spells out the who, what, why, when, and where?

The Middle: Shit happens to [good] people like us.

This is the struggle – where all the drama of the story unfolds, while our protagonists – who are in some important ways very much like us, struggle to overcome the problem. What was the struggle? What was done to overcome it?

The End: What we learn from shit.

This is the resolution – what did we learn from this particular story.

In short, the structure of a story is basically a roller coaster where we go down and up and down and up again. As David Sloly noted in his TEDx talk:

“Stories are like roller coasters – they’re only any good if they’re coming up and down.”

Part  I: Story

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ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

Part  I: Story

People always find it easier to be a result of the past rather than a cause of the future. Unknown

Are we just billiard balls in a predetermined cosmic game of pool?

Or are we free to choose our future?

My thesis in this book is that our future is indeed determined. But not by some unbreakable and deterministic law of nature. No. Our future is determined by a story that we have created. Because ours is a civilization of story. And we are Homo Narrative – a species of story. So much so that today humanity lives and dies not by facts but by and for our stories. And this has gone so far that at present the fate of actual, non-fictional entities – such as animals, rivers, trees, mountains, oceans, and even our planet, is determined by stories – such as money, religion, law, corporations, nations, and international organizations.

In other words, in our civilization, what is real and we can touch, see, feel and smell, is ruled by what is fictional and doesn’t necessarily exist outside of the shared human imagination. All future possibilities – what is and what is not possible, are not determined by past events or facts on the ground. They are determined by the stories we attach to those because we are story-telling animals. And that is true for us individually – as persons, or collectively – as organizations, businesses, nations, and even for our civilization. We all build our future upon the story we tell ourselves.

Whether it is Climate Change, Brexit, or the election of President Trump we have witnessed many powerful examples where neither the facts nor the events of the past made a sufficient difference to the future outcome. What did and does make the difference is the stories attached. Therefore, if we want a different outcome, we ought to focus on changing the respective stories within which those facts and past events fit. Because only after one has embraced a new story will she be able to reinterpret the same old facts and events in a new way and thereby take a different action.

I claim that our story determines our future. But I am not claiming that anything is possible. Geographical, biological, physical, and economic forces do create constraints. But those constraints leave sufficient space for us to choose our future and not be bound by determinism. Yes, human choices are limited and human freedom is freedom within constraints. So it is not our freedom from external conditions but our attitude towards those conditions that embodies our free will. And attitude is derived from story: a positive story creates a positive attitude and a negative story – a negative one.

The same applies to events. Yes, the past does exert a choke-hold on us all. But we can break free if we can change the story.

In the next 16 chapters I will demonstrate how the above claim is true at every level: individually – as private persons; collectively – as corporations and organizations; and globally – as a civilization. No matter the level, new outcomes come only after the large-scale dissemination of new stories. For as long as the dominant story remains the same, no meaningful change can or will occur.

In short, my thesis is that it doesn’t matter if you are an individual, a company, a nation, or an international organization – change your story, change your future. Because our stories are our compass to the future. But they don’t just point the way. They frame what’s left and what’s right, what’s back and what’s forth, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s possible and what’s not possible. They frame our space of possibility and motivate us to act or not to act. That is why we have to get into the story if we want to break free of the story. As Brenee Brown notes:

When we deny our stories they define us. When we own our stories we get to write a brave new ending.

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

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It is harder and harder to make sense of life. Everything is changing, all the time, at a faster and faster pace. Our civilization is struggling to keep up with exponential technology and disruptive change. Our age-old institutions, politics, economics, ethics, religion and laws, even our environment, are so fundamentally challenged, that we risk collapse. Our stories have gotten so divorced from reality, so divisive, so inflexible and so inept to adapt to and explain our present, let alone guide us towards a better future, that we often feel like helpless passengers on a Titanic spaceship Earth. No wonder Aristotle observed that “When the storytelling goes bad in a society, the result is decadence.”

But why is this the case? And, perhaps more importantly, how is it that bad storytelling can keep, if not bring, a whole society down? Is that not simply overstating the power of story?

Literary theorist Kenneth Burke famously noted: “Stories are equipment for living. Human beings need storytelling in order to make certain sense out of life.” If that is true then our equipment for living has gone obsolete. And unless we upgrade it we are going to go obsolete too.

It was this process that Fred Polak had in mind in 1961 while observing: “Any student of the rise and fall of cultures cannot fail to be impressed by the role played in this historical succession by the image of the future. The rise and fall of images precede or accompany the rise and fall of cultures. As long as a society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive.” (Polak, 1961)

That is why we desperately need a new story. A story that will not only help us make sense of the world today but also unite us as a species of human beings. A story that will motivate us to stop bickering and resolve our common problems. A story that will inspire us to achieve our common goals and guide us towards a better future for all sentient beings on our planet.

We have to rewrite the story. Our story. The human story. Because the old stories that brought us thus far are no longer useful. They’ve lost their vision and grandeur. They’ve become petty and short-sighted. They’re stuck in a past that never was at the expense of a future that can be. They divide us and keep us bickering while our civilization is facing unprecedented diversity and depth of existential challenges. Those stories are not simply our history. They are now our chains. And unless we break them, they will be our death sentence.

So, if it is true that old stories or bad stories can bring us down, then, it is worth exploring if or how new stories, good stories can bring us up.

The human story that brought us into the 21st century was written and rewritten several times. The latest major update was perhaps during the industrial revolution. It is time to rewrite it again. We need a new story. A brave story. An unreasonable story. A story that can inspire, unite and motivate us to break free from the past and create the best possible future.

This is what this book is about. It will examine how the current human story came to be, how it works, what’s its impact and importance, and why we are currently witnessing it fall apart – politically, economically, philosophically, ecologically, and even socially. It will then argue that to survive and thrive in a world of exponential technology and disruptive change, we must rewrite our human story – individually, collectively, and globally. Finally, it will end by proposing a framework for as well as several possible new versions of our human story.

Needless to say, this is a pretty ambitious goal. Thus this thought experiment may fail because many of the ideas I will be putting here are not yet fully formed. Some are raw. Others are probably wrong. Or bad. But as a guest on Singularity.FM once said: “Big ideas are born bad.” So I will not shy away from sharing my bad ideas with you. And, hopefully, among the gravel and the dust, there might be some nuggets too. But you be the judge as per how big or bad my ideas are. Either way, while I feel I am not quite ready for this journey, it is a journey I must begin. Because, whether I succeed or fail, I know I would be better for trying. Hopefully, you can benefit from it too.

And, if, in the end, there is enough good in this book to make a difference – to you, the world, or anyone at all – great. If not, then, at least I can say I tried. Either way, thank you for coming along.

 

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future

an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov

 

I make no claim to predicting the future. I make up stories. Stories are better than predictions: predictions tell us that the future is inevitable. Stories tell us that the future is up for grabs.

Cory Doctorow

 

Suggested Table of Contents:

Part I: Story

  1. The Definition of Story
  2. The Story of Story
  3. The Power of Story
  4. The Power of the Storyteller
  5. The Importance of Story [Narratives and MTP’s]
  6. The Biology of Story

Part II: Our Story

  1. The Human Story
  2. The Science Story
  3. The Technology Story
  4. The Capitalism Story
  5. The Technological Singularity Story [AI]

Part III: ReWriting the Human Story [this is the part I am least ready for]

  1. The Danger of a Single Story  [and the Power of Many]
  2. The End of Story
  3. Uncivilized Art: Stories Beyond [Trans]Humanism
  4. More chapters…

 

Nikola Danaylov @ Frankfurt AI Meetup

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This is the video recording of my presentation and consequent Q&A at last week’s Frankfurt AI Meetup. It seems to have struck a chord with a few people and the feedback I got afterward has invigorated me to restart my efforts on ReWriting the Human Story. You can read most of the articles I used to put together my talk here: Technology is a Magnifying Mirror, Not a Crystal Ball; Magic, Manic and Monstrous: How Facebook is Programing Us; Technology is Not Enough; Technology is the How, not the Why or What. Hope you enjoy it.

Gus Hosein on Privacy: We’ve been well-meaning but stupid

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Dr. Gus Hosein is a 20+year-veteran of Privacy International. So to say that he knows a lot about privacy will be an understatement. But his knowledge is not merely academic. Gus and his scrappy team of privacy crusaders have fought the long and hard war while putting everything on the line, over and over again. A war where on a good day you might feel like David facing off Goliath. And yet, time and time again, Privacy International has taken on seemingly lost battles and scored victories from the jaws of defeat. I don’t know about you but to me, these are the kinds of people I want to hang out around, talk to, model, and learn from. The kind of people I want to interview. And Gus is as good an example of the kind as I can ever think of. So I hope you enjoy and learn from our conversation as much as I did.

During this 2-hour interview with Gus Hosein, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why he’s a failed mathematician with an interest in cryptography; how he ended up in policy; figuring out the role that tech plays in our life and the future; good timing, gumption and [stoic] fate; the mission and funding of Privacy International; why progress is made of partial victories; the definition of privacy and why we should care about it; the importance of being able to tell your own story; surveillance, national monitoring centers, and IMSI catchers; 5G, quantum encryption and the weakest link of the system; my persistent attempt to get to a new place or reach a new insight during my Singularity.FM interviews; the boring projection of our better selves and the benefits of struggle; why people should be free to be human – i.e. imperfect.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Gus Hosein is his raw and off-the-cuff unique definition of privacy:

[Privacy is] The ability to establish the conditions by which we are seen, perceived, understood, and how we project ourselves.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Gus Hosein?

Dr. Gus Hosein has worked at the intersection of technology and human rights for over twenty years. He developed national, regional, and global campaigns on communications privacy. He worked on national security and anti-terrorism policy and led global advocacy against border registration, biometric collection, tracking of migration, travel profiling, and mass surveillance of financial data flows. He led research and co-authored a book on identity systems and policy, Global Challenges for Identity Policy. He founded regional and global networks of civil society organizations to work on technology and rights.

Hosein has acted as an external evaluator for UNHCR, advised the UN Special Rapporteur on Terrorism and Human Rights, and has advised a number of other international organizations. In March 2020, he was invited to join the UK Government’s Ethics Advisory Board for the NHSX Covid-19 contact tracing app.

Gus has held visiting fellowships at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Columbia University, and University College London. He was a Visiting Scholar at the American Civil Liberties Union and an advisor to their Technology and Liberty Project. He holds a B.Math (Hons) from the University of Waterloo and a Ph.D. from the University of London.

He’s previously been on the boards of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (advisory), medconfidential, the Omidyar Network Digital Identity Portfolio (advisory), Simply Secure and Tactical Tech.

In 2018 Gus was awarded the International Champion of Privacy award by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Gus shared number 42 of Silicon.com’s list of top 50 agenda-setters in 2005.

Gus is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA).

Francesca Ferrando on Philosophical Posthumanism

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Though admittedly posthumanist, Francesca Ferrando‘s Philosophical Posthumanism is the best book on transhumanism that I have read so far. I believe that it is a must-read for transhumanists and non-transhumanists alike. In fact, one can argue that Ferrando’s book ranks right up there with the very best not only on the transhuman, but also on the human and the posthuman. The reason for that is simple: Philosophical Posthumanism cracks open, deconstructs, and demystifies all the major historical -isms. Furthermore, it not only lays bare words such as technology but also shows us how all the puzzle pieces fit together in the historical, ideological, theological, philosophical, etymological, scientific and decidedly political realms, like nothing else that I have read before. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Ferrando and invest the time and the effort to read her book.

During this 2-hour interview with Francesca Ferrando, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why I believe Philosophical Posthumanism is a must-read; why the etymological and other roots of a movement matter; child sociology and social mythology; our shared love for Ancient Greek mythology; the definitions of humanism, transhumanism, and posthumanism; why post-modernism is like the Quantum Mechanics of the humanities; the false distinction between human and transhuman; why the Hedonistic Imperative is merely a new version of the White Man’s Burden; theism and techno-solutionism; Martin Heidegger and the definition, poiesis and ontological power of technology.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Francesca Ferrando?

Francesca Ferrando teaches Philosophy at NYU-Liberal Studies, New York University. A leading voice in the field of Posthuman Studies and founder of the Global Posthuman Network, she has been the recipient of numerous honors and recognitions, including the Sainati prize with the Acknowledgement of the President of Italy.

Ferrando has published extensively on these topics culminating with her latest book Philosophical Posthumanism (Bloomsbury 2019) and, in the history of TED talks, she was the first speaker to give a talk on the topic of the posthuman. Those are just some of the reasons why the US magazine “Origins” named Francesca Ferrando among the 100 people making a change in the world.

Kim Stanley Robinson on Climate Change and the Ministry for the Future

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Kim Stanley Robinson has an asteroid named after him. The reason for that is simple: Stan, as he’s often known among people who know him, is one of the best known contemporary authors of classic [hard] science fiction. He has written 20 books that have been translated into 25 languages and has won pretty much all literary awards in his genre that you can think of. His latest novel is The Ministry for the Future and it deals with global warming – arguably the main challenge that humanity is facing today. I can keep going but I hope you agreed with me the moment you read his name – Stan is a perfect guest for my podcast.

During this 2 1/2-hour interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: how he fell in love with literature after reading Huckleberry Finn; being Mr. Mom as well as an avid hiker in the Sierra Nevada mountains; the biggest threat humanity is facing today; the literary image of non-human animals in his books; nuclear weapons and AI; the definition of science fiction; the Emeritus syndrome; why AI is science and why it needs philosophy; climate change, the anti-narrative and the importance of story; why the future discount rate is a philosophical and not a scientific argument; how we can still make a good Anthropocene; The Ministry for the Future as an example of resisting dystopia; Maria Farrel as a living prototype of his main protagonist; political violence and eco-terrorism; Steven Pinker and the narcissism of small differences; humanity’s Manifest Destiny and Transhumanism; futurism and Peter Turchin’s cliodynamics; veganism and rapid decarbonization.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson is:

Science needs judicious, humane and philosophical direction

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

 

Who is Kim Stanley Robinson?

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of about twenty books, including the internationally bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, Aurora, Shaman, Green Earth, and 2312. Robinson was sent to the Antarctic by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program in 1995 and returned to their Antarctic media program in 2016.

In 2008 Kim Stanley Robinson was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine. He works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. His work has been translated into 25 languages and won a dozen awards in five countries, including the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”

Matthew Cole on Vegan Sociology, Ethics, Transhumanism and Technology

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Dr. Matthew Cole is the only vegan sociologist that I know of. His unique point of view on veganism, especially its implications with respect to ethics, transhumanism, and the application of technology, has already left a mark on the way I perceive the small challenges of being vegan as an opportunity for personal discipline and growth. I have learned a lot from him and I hope you take this interview as an opportunity to challenge and reconsider your personal choices with respect to non-human animals. Alternatively, if you are dead-set that you are a predator, and consuming animals is the only conceivable alternative that is compatible with your identity, then perhaps you ought to skip this episode altogether. Sadly, I believe it would be a missed opportunity but, at the end of the day, you should make your own choices.

During this 2-hour interview with Dr. Matthew Cole, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: the story of how he became a vegan sociologist; unemployment and basic income; playing guitar in a thrash metal band; the original vegan society definition of veganism; breaching experiments and social norms; the media representation and image of veganism; Dr. Who and my 6 reasons why I went vegan; transhumanism, nature and human exceptionalism; David Pearce’s Hedonistic Imperative; the importance of social structures and personal humility in everything we do; Matthew’s free open course on why non-human animals are victims of harm.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Dr. Matthew Cole is:

Coming up with technical fixes rather than ethical reform, revolution, rebellion . . . Every time that technology tries to stand in for ethics, we do ourselves a disservice, […] we deny ourselves the opportunity for growth. Sex Robots and Vegan Meat, Page 298

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Matthew Cole?

Matthew Cole is a Lecturer in Criminology at The Open University. His work focuses on how nonhuman animals are socially constructed as objects for human use, and the harms that flow from those constructions. These interests have led him to investigate how children are socialised to simultaneously care for other animals, while accepting the normality of exploiting them, as food, entertainment, and so on. Matthew also researches the history and representation of veganism, not least for veganism’s potential to deconstruct and disrupt the business as usual of exploiting other animals.

Nikola Danaylov on Ex Human: the Lessons of 2020

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I want to help out new podcasters as much as I can. So, when they ask me for an interview, I’m almost always looking for a reason to say “Yes.” Here is my 2nd interview for Alexander Padalka’s Ex Human on the lessons of 2020. I hope you find it is worth your time.

During this 40 min conversation, we cover a variety of topics such as:  what made 2020 so special; why we should all be grateful for what we have; how our stories skew our views of the evidence; self-driving cars and the definition thereof; space exploration and establishing permanent bases on the Moon and Mars; Hugo Dreyfus’ 1st Step Fallacy and AI; violence, human nature, love, and hate; focusing on what we can, instead of what we can’t change;  the practice and process of not giving up; a suggested book-reading list for 2021; why we should ask not for fewer challenges but for a stronger character.

Thomas Homer-Dixon on Climate Change and Commanding Hope

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Thomas Homer-Dixon is one of Canada’s most celebrated intellectuals. Luckily, he was also one of my Professors at the University of Toronto whose class on complexity has left an indelible mark on me. So when I heard that after a long break Homer-Dixon is publishing a new book on climate change I simply had to ask him for an interview. Commanding Hope: The power we have to renew a world in peril is an absolute must-read, especially if you care about the future health of our biosphere and find yourself losing hope or totally despairing. I have to admit that for many years now I have felt quite depressed about the severity and speed of climate change, not to mention the lack of any meaningful actions to limit, if not reverse it. Turns out that Tad’s book was just the medicine I needed.

During this 1.5-hour interview with Thomas Homer-Dixon, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: my stand-out undergraduate lesson on complexity; why he is a curious person concerned about the world his children will inherit; The Ingenuity Gap and The Upside of Down; why he goes by Tad and not Thomas; his reputation as Dr. Doom; Commanding Hope, defining it and the different types thereof; epistemic fragmentation and the biggest threats to humanity; mass violence and attacking the rules of the game; artificial intelligence and human stupidity; the inspiring story of Stephanie May; Greta Thunberg as an example of the adjacent possible; Tolkien’s distinction between Amdir and Estel.

My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Prof. Homer-Dixon is:

Despair is only for those who know the future without any doubt. We do not.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Thomas Homer-Dixon?

Thomas Homer-Dixon is director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Road University, and he holds a University Research Chair in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada. Between 2009 and 2014, he was founding director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation and prior to that the Director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto.

Born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, he received his B.A. in political science from Carleton University in 1980 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in international relations, defense and arms control policy, and conflict theory in 1989.

He then moved to the University of Toronto to lead several pioneering research projects investigating the links between environmental stress and violence in poor countries.

Since joining the University of Waterloo in 2008, his research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century, including economic instability, climate change, and energy scarcity. He also studies how people, organizations, and societies can better resolve their conflicts and innovate in response to complex problems. His work is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on political science, economics, environmental studies, geography, cognitive science, social psychology, and complex systems theory.

He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on topics ranging from environmental security to international relations and complexity theory. In 1999 he received the University of Toronto’s Northrop Frye Teaching Award for integrating teaching and research.

Dr. Homer-Dixon’s books include The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, which won Canada’s 2006 National Business Book Award, The Ingenuity Gap, which won the 2001 Governor General’s Non-fiction Award, and Environment, Scarcity, and
Violence, which won the 2000 Caldwell Prize of the American Political Science Association.

His academic writing has appeared in leading journals, including Ambio, International Security, Journal of Peace Research, and Population and Development Review. He has written for nonacademic audiences in Foreign Policy, Scientific American, The New York Times, and the Financial Times. He now writes regularly for the Toronto Globe and Mail in Canada.

A widely sought speaker, Dr. Homer-Dixon has delivered addresses on his research to academic and general audiences around the world. He has also consulted to senior levels of government in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Maria Farrell on Technology, Ethics, Stories and the Prodigal Techbro

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Maria Farrell is the author of some of my most favorite op-ed pieces of 2020. She is very smart, gutsy, genuine, feisty, generous, and Irish. Her writing is sharper, it penetrates deeper and she’s not afraid to go further than most others. I have already learned a lot from her and have become a total fan. So it was a blast to have her on my podcast and I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.

During this 2.5-hour interview with Maria Farrell, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why she is a reader who eventually became a writer for crooked timber and elsewhere; the image and mythology of Conor McGregor as the Fighting Irish; the biggest issues that humanity is facing today;  stories as tools we think with; futurism as an interest of those happy with the present; what Feminism can teach us about our smartphones; how China is selling Autocracy as a service; why the internet must be more than Facebook; whether technology is a magnifying mirror; the importance and impact of story; why I wasn’t welcome at Google and CISCO; Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History; why the Agrarian Revolution is history’s greatest fraud; the Prodical Techbro phenomenon; my interview with Tristan Harris; the Tragedy of the Commons as a false narrative; why no one is coming to save us from ourselves.

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron on Patreon.

Who is Maria Farrell?

Maria Farrell is a writer and keynote speaker on technology and the future. An Irish citizen now based in London, Maria has worked in tech policy for twenty years in Europe, the US, and the UK. She was an Internet policy specialist at the International Chamber of Commerce, Paris, the UK’s Confederation of British Industry and The Law Society of England and Wales in the early 2000s, before being appointed deputy head of corporate affairs and policy officer at ICANN, based in Brussels, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. She then led communications and a government advisory project at infoDev, the World Bank/IFC program on technology and development.

Maria has been an invited speaker at the Royal Society, Chatham House and Royal Institute in London, European Forum Alpbach, and Estonia’s NATO cyber-security summer school. She opened the 2018 European Data Protection conference in the European Parliament. She weaves storytelling into speeches about how we can imagine and build technological and political futures we actively choose to live in, and not the dystopia currently on offer.

A graduate of University College Dublin, the Dublin Institute of Technology, and the London School of Economics, Maria taught politics and policy on Oxford University’s doctoral program in cybersecurity from 2014 – 2018. She is now completing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths University, London, and uses her fiction skills to write near-future stories and scenarios for technology clients who want to know how the future will really feel.

She has written for The Guardian, Slate, Medium, the Conversationalist, the Irish Times, and Irish Independent, and appeared as a tech expert on BBC, Sky News, NBC, and TRT.