Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Jason and Asher replace Rob with a much more humane and humble co-host, Elon Musk, to explore the feasibility of harnessing the entire sun to power AI superintelligence. We come away perplexed that not much of the excellent reporting on the environmental, energy, and financial risks of the AI boom address the googleplex-sized elephant in the room – that both AI success and failure lead to immiseration.
For those of us seeking post-capitalist futures: rather than burning ourselves out Doing — the energy of the capitalist system we are trying to topple — why not try Being, the energy of degrowth?
If Calvo is out at the front, all the same, he’s not there on his own. Colleagues in the field also believe that the ‘machine metaphor’ of body and brain is getting in the way of understanding—even preventing us from seeing what’s in the data we see in front of us.
Admissions of extreme, eco-caused national security threats foreground importance of climate adaptation to bring much needed urgency and agency.
As large systems strain and loosen, smaller systems already begin to form. People create pockets of care, work, learning and shelter that operate by different rules. These efforts remain partial, local and imperfect, yet they matter.
“The Machine is, rather, a tendency within us … [manifesting] today as an intersection of money, power, state power and increasingly coercive and manipulative technologies, which constitute an ongoing war against roots and against limits … and it will not stop until it has conquered and transformed the world.”
The Pacific Northwest (PNW) region is typically defined to include Oregon and Washington, and British Columbia (Canada) and the northernmost section of California are often included, as well. The Pacific Northwest “bioregion”—an area defined by shared natural characteristics, such as watersheds, topography, geography, climate, or ecosystems, rather than by arbitrary human borders—also can be interpreted in different ways.
If we treat dissensus not as division but as an invitation into shared learning, then AI’s arrival could support a vital pedagogical turn: away from assessing mastery of sanctioned truths, and toward the integration of difficult lessons in this era of consequence.
Every inhale signifies participation, every exhale, accountability. Maybe this is the true measure of enough: letting the breath of life circulate freely through all that exists.
This episode explores two powerful beliefs. One is the belief that humans could, and should, live in space: that we’re destined to leave our planet behind and colonize the stars. The other is the belief that we’re not on a planet at all—that the Earth is actually… flat.
The thinking is that claiming Life to be “nothing but” matter is not only a staggering simplification, but also reduces the amazingness of life to mere “dead” physics.
This time of trouble calls for a vibrant forest—a woodland brimming with the stalwart oaks, the slender birches, and the bowing willows. We each offer distinctive gifts and dreams to share in our tenacious striving towards a more resilient tomorrow.
