No matter what Elon Musk thinks, government cannot and should not be run like a business
Those telling you that government can be run like a business are either ignorant or trying to trick you.
Society featured
Iain McGilchrist – Wisdom Over Power: Why Contemplation & Wonder Are Essential for the Future of Humanity
Today Nate is joined by psychiatrist and neurologist Iain McGilchrist for a deep dive on the implications of western society’s over-reliance on analysis and categorization on the quality and expectations of our leadership and governance systems.
Why The War on Dreams Must Inspire Us to Build the Greatest Desire Machines the World Has Ever Seen
Our ability to organise and resist is vital, but I believe now more than ever that our true strength lies in our ability to cultivate longing, to build awesome Desire Machines.
Seeing My Settler Ignorance in the Mirror of This Moment
The pain of this moment offers a profound invitation: to re-educate ourselves, transmute our settler ignorance, and rise together in loving solidarity.
It’s going to take multiple strategies to win under Trump 2.0
We do not all have to be working in the same way to confront urgent challenges of Trump 2.0. But if we foster a robust ecology of change, we may yet see the movement resurgence that we need.
It’s a DOGE Eat DOG World
The old bromide goes: If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. In today’s Washington, the joke would be to buy a DOGE.
The Great Escape
Rather than retreating into the world of brains and their fancy constructs—responsible for initiating a sixth mass extinction that would wipe us out, too—we ought to break free of their grip.
As China and the U.S. race toward A.I. Armageddon, does it matter who wins?
As both China and the U.S. go hurtling ever faster toward Armageddon in the race to dominate in AI, they have both bought into techno-utopian ideologies, lock, stock and barrel. We should all take a deep breath and ask the question: Is accessible, open-source AI really a good thing for anyone?
Trump’s Second Act: Power, Resistance, and the Limits of Governance
In my 2021 book, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival, I traced how social power arose among humans and how it has been used in societies large and small, ancient and modern. Whatever insights that book contains, now is a good time to put them to the test.
Are computers and democracy compatible? Maybe not
Personal computers and the internet were supposed to democratize information and the power to analyze and use it. Instead, they are contributing to the increasing concentration of wealth and power and putting us on the road to authoritarian rule.
Peter Turchin: “The ‘Decline’ of Nations: How Elite Surplus and Inequality Lead to Societal Upheaval”
In this episode, Nate is joined by complexity scientist, Peter Turchin, to discuss his work modeling the key factors that drive patterns of peace, turmoil, and revolution in nations throughout history – and how those connect to the situation in the United States today.
Escaping the system
So rather than take from the world, take yourself out of this system and go responsively and responsibly contribute to living. Go live your whole and healthy life in the edge spaces. And pretty soon there will be no center. (Because we all know it can’t hold…)
