Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
What we are lacking is an inspiring vision of our lives, collective futures, and spiritual reality in a world in which we cannot keep growing forever. As much as we need policy wonks, scientists, and campaigners, now is the time for religious thinkers, philosophers, and writers to apply themselves to social change.
Rebuilding trust in the federal government will come neither easily nor quickly. Until it’s restored, America’s constitutional democracy will remain at risk.
“Were you happy?” Yes, we were until you came along. We had it worked out and were living comfortably. Now the question comes a bit too late. What we had before is gone, and we can’t simply return to it. The damage is done.
AI boosters keep postponing the advent of artificial general intelligence.
Scientists are uncovering how the hidden effort of talking affects everything from everyday conversations to spotting deception and fake news.
You might think, as I did, that that emergence is coming out of something and leaving difficulty behind, but I discovered, as I wrote this piece, it is in fact about becoming a different kind of creature for a world turned upside down. The Labyrinth is a training ground for a re-entry.
In today’s episode, Nate sits down with Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman to discuss the concept of moral ambition, which he defines as the desire to be one of the best, measured by different standards of success: not by big payouts or fancy honorifics, but by the ability to tackle the world’s biggest problems.
A lesson for me is that these people pay too much attention to their brain chatter and not enough to the actual universe full of sunsets and stars. We could all learn from this: consult the actual universe, not what you would wish to be true.
In the age of the Limits to Growth report, Illich challenged audiences to look beyond the quantitative account of limits which presses the case for technocracy, and to engage in a reflection on the desirability of chosen limits, the ways in which they serve to create the conditions of possibility for lives worth living and worlds worth living for.
Last month, I had the honor and privilege of being invited to participate in the launch of Transition Town Warri. While the explicit purpose of my trip to Nigeria was simply to co-facilitate an introductory Transition Launch Training, as I’ve done many times before, it ended up being much more than that.
In this week’s Frankly, Nate reflects on intraspecies predation (ours) and the impact psychopathic actors have on the mean and median of human behavior – in the past all the way up to our modern society.
Join us for the free, online event: Beyond the Brink on November 13. Considering the unsettling present we all find ourselves in, we’ll ask Rob Hopkins, and Jacqui Patterson to help us do what feels impossible: imagine a brighter future.
