Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The news hasn’t improved since I started working on this article. Still, while doing so, I’ve found myself in the company of others — and that’s reminded me of something. When you make yourself go out into the world, however scary it might seem, and act to make it better, the world does sometimes shift. The atoms really do move.
This week’s Frankly marks the second installment of Nate’s recurring series, Uncomfortable Questions in Unsettled Times, where he poses questions about our shared future…Today’s episode is prompted by the Iran situation and what happens when geopolitics stops feeling distant and starts arriving as supply chain disruptions, rising prices, fear, and renewed stories about enemies and allies.
Justice is neither owned nor taken away. It is a state of being, a condition that arises whenever life is allowed to exist in its own way. When that truth is remembered, the language of rights will fall silent, and what remains will be the only thing that ever mattered: the unbroken relationship among all that exists.
At the time, I was learning engineering methods for controlling systems and optimizing outcomes, powerful techniques that I thought could alone solve society’s mounting problems. But I quickly realized my team with Fathom was a system that belied ambitions of control.
In this episode, Nate speaks with primatologist and author Dr. Christine Webb about human exceptionalism – the deeply embedded belief that humans are separate from and superior to the rest of nature. Webb argues this worldview is not a universal human trait but rather a product of a few dominant cultures, and that it lies at the root of many of our most pressing global challenges.
All we can do now is stop being dumb enough to think our brains are capable of outsmarting ecology, and aim for lifestyles that are less obviously catastrophic—relying heavily on proven examples from the distant past.
We believe that more historians and archaeologists can step into a public, reflective role, helping societies explore narratives beyond either progress and growth fetishism on the one hand, or nostalgic and fortress mentalities on the other.
In this episode, we run a special fantasy-football style draft to take a look at immortality projects, some horrendous, but some with positive effects.
In this week’s Frankly, Nate begins a new series called “Staying Human,” which focuses on what he sees as a precondition for everything else: recovering a sense of personal agency.
A lot of nonsense is being communicated about the war with Iran.
Legendary activist Joanna Macy called this moment the Great Unraveling—a time when our ecological, political, economic, and social systems crumble. And yet, she also insisted that we stand on the threshold of a Great Turning: a profound transition toward a more just and sustainable world.
I want to stress that you will enjoy everything about localizing your life. You will be happier and healthier. You will have more time for the things that are important to you. After an initial investment in some things, your life will be less costly. You will need less income. You will take pride in the work that you do and in the community that you help build. And you will have that community.
