From Plato to AI: Are we losing our minds?
Each step in human evolution has brought inventions that threaten to weaken our innate abilities.
Society featured
Political Collapse: Lessons From Fallen Empires
Our investigation of the disastrous society-wide collapses of four premodern polities, China’s Ming Dynasty, the South Asian Mughal Empire, the High Roman Empire, and Renaissance Venice led to the discovery of an unexpected historical pattern.
Can We Escape Modern Civilization? Human Nature Odyssey meets Crazy Town
In a farmhouse attic turned podcast studio in Corvallis, Oregon, I joined Crazy Town podcast hosts Jason Bradford, Rob Dietz, and Asher Miller to discuss whether it’s possible to escape our modern civilization and its various components (industrialism, imperialism, capitalism) or whether we’re completely trapped.
Daniel Christian Wahl: “Bioregional Futures: Reconnecting to Place for Planetary Health”
This week, Nate is joined by Daniel Christian Wahl, a leader and activist in regenerative living, for an exploration into what our lifestyles and communities could look like if we aligned human systems—like agriculture, economy, and community planning—with the natural ecosystems of a specific bioregion to create more sustainable and harmonious ways of living.
Being with Cows: Excerpt
It was the cows themselves who had impressed on me so deeply this alignment with rhythms borne not of the mind but some deeper undercurrent, a trust that the quietness brings all into its own order.
Democracy Rising 33: A Democratic Revolution in Rojava
How the Rojavan democracy was made to happen should be of deep interest to everyone seeking a democracy built and nurtured from the bottom up.
The Land of Bows then Tenements
But the question remains, will New Yorkers invest that activist energy into cultivating sustainable ways to do more with less, while more equitably redistributing the shrinking pie, or simply force the redirection of goods from other parts of the world that have less power or force of will?
MM #18: What Can I Do?
Faced with the towering set of concerns raised in this series, and the glaring unsustainability of modernity—which is not only familiar and comfortable, but seemingly essential for modern survival—it is natural that a top-of-mind question for many is: What Can I Do?
Social Engineering, The Consumer Culture And US Foreign Policy
Social engineering is when a small group of people advance their own interests by using widespread, “industrial scale” messaging that goes out to large numbers of people, with the purpose to influence and shape their thinking, beliefs, values and decision making.
Sustainability Education, Learning and Culture: Part 1
The question is to what extent has pedagogical practice perpetuated and endorsed a culture of heedless exploitation to the detriment of all else, with the justification of it being for the common good of humanity.
Designing for Health: Applying Healthy Human Culture
Designing for Health helps us track health and unhealth in the different levels of any system (our community, organisation, society, family…). It helps us creating relationships, communities and societies where all beings can thrive.
MM #17: Being Human
Here, I attempt to paint a picture of how we might think of ourselves as humans on this planet, as integral members of the community of life.
