Life Itself Podcast

Any movement for civilizational renewal needs its discourse to compound: hypotheses about how renewal happens needs to evolve, questions and suggestions need to be captured and resolved. Right now it often doesn’t. Discussions are scattered across the forum or WhatsApp and frequently repeats itself; offers of help struggle to find a place to land.

​The proposal here is to develop a “reason commons”, a place where shared thinking anchors to a tree of change — rather than a stack of documents. This means that discourse has a foundation to build on and to contribute to. We show how to use AI to connect everyday conversation to that tree with little extra work.

This is episode #1 of a new sub-series Over the Mountains: Finding a Path to the Second Renaissance

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was persuading you he didn’t exist.” In this conversation, we discuss how the greatest trick of the last 50 years was persuading us that the state doesn’t work, that government is dysfunctional, and that only individuals and markets can solve our problems—all while concealing that this narrative was systematically pushed forward. From the post-war era when government was trusted and tax rates on top earners reached 80-90%, to today’s world where young minds go into startups rather than public service, we’ve lived through a reactionary upswing driven by evangelical organizing and big business lobbying. But as the concentration of power in figures like Musk reveals the cracks in this dream, we stand at a moment when the pendulum is ready to swing—not back to the past, but toward something new that acknowledges our collective power.

Chapters:

00:00 – The Problem: Despair and Technology as Savior

00:03 – The Greatest Trick: Fish Don’t See Water

00:14 – When Government Worked: The Other Water

00:26 – The Shift: How We Changed Waters

00:38 – The Campaign: Evangelicals, Business, and Persistence

00:48 – The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

00:51 – Living the Dystopia

00:54 – The Pendulum Swings Back

Speakers

Sylvie Shiwei Barbier is a co-founder of Life Itself, and French-Taiwanese performance artist, entrepreneur and educator.

Rufus Pollock is a co-founder of Life Itself, and an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner.

Rufus interviews Jim Rutt on his life journey to becoming chairman of the Santa Fe Institute and a leading pioneer of ‘Game B’. Rutt shares insight into the failures of the Game A financial system. Rufus and Rutt explore the historical context of our ‘Game A’ system and what characteristics a Game B communities need to survive and grow with integrity.

About the episode

In this Life Itself Podcast, Jim Rutt, a complexity thinker and former tech entrepreneur, recounts his early life hitchhiking across America and his journey to becoming a senior figure in Thomson’s internet transition (1992–1999) and Network Solutions’ $15 billion sale in 2000. Rutt details his early awareness of Game A’s unsustainability and bringing his work on complexity science, markets and social systems to the Santa Fe Institute. Rutt details the founding dialogues with Jordan Hall that led to ‘Game B’ a decentralised societal model to replace Game A—a civilisational mode Rutt and Rufus trace back to the treaty of Westphalia. Rutt describes the intensity of ‘willing to die’ spirit necessary for Game B values to take root & the kinds of meditation structures needed for Game B communities to scale together.

Chapters:

* 00:01:55 – Jim’s Childhood and 1976 Hitchhiking Adventures

* 00:16:23 – Leading Thomson’s Internet Transition (1992–1999)

* 00:18:38 – Realizing Game A’s Unsustainability (1994)

* 00:27:00 – Joining the Santa Fe Institute

* 00:29:25 – Uncovering the Monetary-Finance-Business Nexus (2007–2008)

* 00:29:31 – Reflections on Money and the Debt Regime

* 00:35:35 – Planning for an Uncertain Future

* 00:36:38 – The Treaty of Westphalia and Game A’s Foundations

* 01:40:37 – Introducing Game B

* 02:02:20 – Defining Game A and Game B

* 02:19:00 – The Personal-Institutional Spiral and Game B Communities

About the speakers:

Jim Rutt is the former CEO of Network Solutions. The New York Times once referred to him as “the Internet’s bad boy” due to his reputation for creative mischief. He sold Network Solutions at the peak of the Dot Com boom and then went into scientific research. Jim has been affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute since 2002, serving as Chairman from 2009 thru 2012. Since that time he has been spearheading the Game B movement and host of the Jim Rutt Show. “Dividend Money” Everything Jim Learned about money

The Jim Rutt Show: https://www.jimruttshow.com

Substack: Jim Rutt

“Dividend Money” Everything Jim Learned about money

Rufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.

Find out more about his work on his website: www.rufuspollock.com.

Podcast Production:

Jacob Kishere of SENSESPACE Studio

www.jacobkishere.com

Sylvie Barbier brings sensemaking to bear on the polarization that followed the Kirk assassination and explores the significance of the Kirk memorial in an interview hosted by Jacob Kishere. The dialogue delves into the profound importance of speech, cycle-breaking forgiveness, non-violence, and remembering the sanctity of life.

About the episode:

In this episode of the Second Renaissance Podcast, we make sense of the polarization following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Sylvie speaks to the power and necessity of forgiveness in breaking cycles of retaliation and explores what leadership can look like amid escalating division. We reflect on the nature of speech and the importance of recognizing the power of our words. The conversation closes with an appreciation of the existential importance of becoming joyfully alive in these times.

Chapters:

00:02:11 – Erika Kirk’s Forgiveness of the Killer00:08:00 – Why Our Words Matter00:16:50 – Sacred Anchoring & Breaking Cycles of Violence00:18:50 – Challenges Around “Speech as Violence”00:26:00 – Intention in Speech00:29:00 – Thich Nhat Hanh on Non-Violence & the Seeds of Hatred00:31:00 – Committing to Something Greater & the Joy of Being Alive

Speakers

Sylvie Shiwei Barbier is a French-Taiwanese performance artist, entrepreneur and educator. She co-founded Life Itself to build a wiser future through culture, space and community.

https://lifeitself.org/people/sylvieshiweibarbier

Jacob Kishere is a dialogue facilitator, rapper, philosopher and writer. He is the creator of SENSESPACE podcast, author of Culturepilgrim and co-founder of The Resonant Man Initiative.

www.jacobkishere.com

Discussion about this video

Rufus dives into the life story of the one and only Layman Pascal: exploring his unique childhood, what he found in Wilber’s Integral, his relationship to intentional communities and what it means to live beyond a post-modern world.

About the episode:

In this interview with Layman Pascal and Rufus Pollock, Layman recounts his upbringing and the unique childhood in the Canadian Pacific Northwest that disposed him to become one of the metamodern scenes most interesting thinkers. Layman delves into the experience of the post-modern milieu of the late 1990s and efforts to find ways beyond it. They explore the value and limits of Ken Wilber's integral and the formation of his approach to dialogue and community in 'The Integral Stage' project. He closes envisioning precisely what's needed to move beyond culture war dynamics.

Chapters:

04:43 Layman’s childhood in the Canadian Pacific Northwest

15:00 From college to living in Belize

16:48 Early Spiritual Teachers

27:00 Layman’s experience of the Post-Modern and Post-Post Modern

35:00 Story of Ken Wilber, Integral and The Integral Stage

45:24 going beyond post-modernism

52:53 Rufus’s View on Integral

57:50 Integralist vs Integralites

1:02:00 What Layman looks for in communities

1:08 Culture War & What we need to build coherence

Speakers

Layman Pascal was incarnated on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. He used to be a meditation teacher, yoga instructor & public speaker—but he’s feeling much better now. He is a writer on themes of cultural philosophy, shamanism and organic spiritual development.

www.laymanpascal.substack.com/

Rufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.

Following our interview with Lectica Co-founder Zak Stein, Rufus interviews Theo Dawson, Lectica’s founder and executive director, about her journey into transforming education and the complex and critical science of measuring educational development.

Listen above or watch the episode here:

About the episode:

In this interview Theo Dawson, award-winning educator, scholar, & founder of Lectica Inc. speaks to her rich life story from drop out to conscious birthing doula to working inside of America's premier educational institutions. In her decades long journey, Theo has focused on realising a form of testing that actually supports students—recognising that contemporary 'education' often works in contra to natural learning processes. We 'teach to test' and education as a field often 'memory holes' decades of work to adopt the latest fashion.

Join us to explore development and how Lectica have, over three decades, developed new metrics for student development in K-12 which are also offered to professional organisations.

Corrections:

At 22:39 Theo refers to ‘Dopamine’ but means ‘Opioid’

At 44:58 Theo refers to 'Abstract Mappings' but Means 'Representational Mappings'

Chapters:

1:28 Theo’s story of growing up during the Vietnam War, leaving home and running with draft dodgers.

3:47 Becoming a mother and organising conscious doulas

6:57 How her life brought her to focus on the injustice of limiting education system

12:00 The ‘memory holing’ shadow in education and developmental science

15:00 The contra-Piaget movement in education, new ideas of ‘fairness’ in education

18:00 ‘Teaching to the test’

19:41 How learning really works, the role of the dopaminergic system, and how education undermines natural learning

26:19 Developmental science as very recent

36:00 Hierarchical complexity as development

50:00 The dangerous shift in education

59:29 Points of leverage in systems

01:02:57 A new system of measurement

01:17:00 Higher complexity does not equate to ethical participation

01:24:45 Is there a limit to human development?

Theo Dawson is founder and executive director of Lectica, Inc, a non-profit organization that develops and administers evidence-based, diagnostic, and formative developmental assessments; offers research and assessment services to clients in the private and public sectors; and builds knowledge about learning and its role in the future of society. She received her master's and PhD from University of California at Berkeley and has published widely in the field of cognitive developmental psychology. https://theo-dawson.medium.com/ https://lectica.org/about/cv-theo

Rufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Find out more about his work on his website: www.rufuspollock.com.

Podcast Production:

Jacob Kishere of SENSESPACE Studio

Sylvie Shiwei Barbier Co-founder of Life Itself and Ritual Artist calls upon the necessity of re-imagining and committing deeply to the role of the spiritual warrior. A path of vows, communal bonds, shadow work and ethical restoration.

Listen above or watch the episode here:

About the episode:

In this interview with Jacob Kishere, Sylvie presents new work on why we need spiritual warriorship and what that means in community. Sylvie shares about her undertaking of spiritual warrior vows and we dive into what role mutual accountability takes in creating powerful communities. She foregrounds the importance of both shadow work and contexts for ethical restoration that can heal victim-perpetrator dynamics in culture and community.

This dialogue connects with The Second Renaissance Manifesto and The Life Guild

Chapters:

1:33 Why the spiritual warrior?

3:41 The feminine, the mother, and warrior energy

4:00 The creation of the Life Guild

5:47 Spiritual warrior vs spiritual person

9:10 Boundaries and sovereignty

10:35 Taking spiritual warrior vows

12:48 Receiving and forming bonds of accountability as a spiritual warrior

16:51 Victim and oppressor dynamics, responsibility, and shadow work

18:29 Shadow work must account for, heal, and integrate our experiences as both victims and oppressors

20:50 Call out culture and #MeToo

21:11 We must heal both perpetrators and victims

26:30 Confession without the possibility of forgiveness

29:54 Spiritual community, spiritual bypass, and shadow work

38:23 Why I’m excited about the second renaissance

48:41 Men and women’s work

About Sylvie Shiwei Barbier:

Sylvie Barbier is a French-Taiwanese performance artist, entrepreneur and educator. She co-founded Life Itself to build a wiser future through culture, space and community. https://lifeitself.org/people/sylvieshiweibarbier

About Jacob Kishere:

Jacob Kishere is a dialogue facilitator, rapper, philosopher and writer. He is the creator of SENSESPACE, author of Culturepilgrim and co-founder of The Resonant Man. www.jacobkishere.com

Production by Jacob Kishere & SENSESPACE Studio

In this interview with author Manda Scott we explore Manda’s journey as bestselling fiction author into the realms of the shamanic and her subsequent search for new and ancient narratives that can lead us through and beyond collapse.

Listen above or watch the episode here:

About the episode:

In this interview, award-winning novelist and the host of Accidental Gods Podcast Manda Scott explores humanity’s precarious position at the edge of chaos and transformation. She introduces "thrutopia," a visionary framework for crafting hopeful, actionable paths to flourishing futures amidst the climate crisis and broader metacrisis. Scott highlights how fear paralyzes our ability to act, urging us to embrace empowering narratives that move beyond trauma culture toward a culture rooted in myth, hope, and imagination. Through discussions on participatory democracy, citizens’ assemblies, and regenerative economics, she calls for a cross-generational movement to reimagine systems and mobilize toward sustainable, thriving futures.

Chapters:

01:20 – Ursula K. Le Guin and the Non-Inevitability of Capitalism

04:35 – Defining Thrutopia

06:26 – Overcoming Fear in the Climate Crisis

07:50 – Alternative Futures Already Possible

16:05 – Manda Scott’s Background

21:00 – Economics and the Need for a New Collective Story

25:00 – Achieving Escape Velocity from the Current System

28:45 – Trauma Culture vs. Initiation Culture

46:56 – Participatory Democracy in Thailand

49:27 – The Power of Citizens’ Assemblies

53:00 – Urgency for a Cross-Generational Political Movementecological collapse. 54:00 – The Inner Work Required for Change

56:00 – Understanding the Dark Triad

About Manda Scott:

Manda Scott is an award-winning novelist, podcaster, and visionary thinker renowned for her pioneering work in "thrutopian" fiction, which maps plausible paths from our current crises to flourishing futures we’d be proud to leave for future generations. A former veterinary surgeon with an MA in Regenerative Economics, she blends myth, technology, and radical compassion in her mytho-political thriller Any Human Power. As host of the chart-topping Accidental Gods podcast and co-creator of the Thrutopia Masterclass, Scott inspires writers and creatives to craft stories that bridge divides and foster collective action for a sustainable world.

About Rufus Pollock:

Rufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Find out more about his work on his website: rufuspollock.com.

Production:

Podcast Production by Jacob Kishere & SENSESPACE Studio

In this conversation, Rufus interviews Zak about his early learning journey, exploring the corruption of graduate education, the sacredness of measurement for ancient man and what kind of new wise agency is needed amidst existential risk and all pervasive information warfare.

Listen above or watch the episode here:

About the episode:

In their second interview, Rufus explores Dr. Zak Stein's formative experiences of education, music and standardised testing. They explore the sacred and esoteric history of measurement in the pre-modern world compared with today. Zak Shares on what he learned conducting research into the all-pervasive landscape of propaganda and information warfare for the Consilience Project. They close exploring the possibility of 'a new archetype of wise agency' which, unlike previous monastic wisdom traditions, is deeply responsive and engaged with worldly agency, politics, power and strategy.

This conversation supports the recent book First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come. See detailed notes on the book and our summary here.

Chapters

00:00 Zak’s Early Education Experience

09:46 Zak’s Journey Through Jazz Musicians

14:33 Ken Wilber and Developmental Psychology

17:44 The Creation of Lectica & Entering Harvard Without a GPA

24:02 What Happened to Developmental Psychology at Harvard?

28:00 The Academy Is Broken & the Frame of Institutional Decay

31:47 Government and Industry Cannibalize Graduate Education

39:29 The Problem of Metrication & Civilizational Collapse

45:35 The Magic of Measurement for Ancient Man & Measurement as a Sacred Act

58:18 Consilience Project’s Findings on Psychological Warfare

1:01:00 Rufus: Culture War, Printing Press, and the Modern Age

1:03:45 Information War Erodes the Possibility of Truth

1:20:00 How Can a Second Renaissance Counter Propaganda Culture?

1:22:45 The “Long Game” of Wisdom in the Past vs. the Need for Active Engagement in the Metacrisis

1:24:12 The New Archetype of “Wise Agency”

1:32:00 How Do We Use Power Wisely?

About Zak Stein

Dr. Zachary Stein is co-founder of the Civilizational Research Institute, the Center for World Philosophy and Religion and Lectica, Inc, and is a widely sought after and award winning speaker. Zak is a leading authority on the future of education and contemporary issues in human development. He was trained at the interface of philosophy, psychology, and education, and now works in fields related to the mitigation of global catastrophic risk. Dr. Stein is the author of several books and many peer-reviewed papers, including most recently First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come, by Zak Stein, Marc Gafni and Ken Wilber writing under the name David J. Temple.

About Rufus Pollock

Rufus Pollock is an entrepreneur, activist and author as well as a long-term zen practitioner. He is passionate about finding wiser, weller ways to live together. He has founded several for-profit and nonprofit initiatives including Life Itself, Open Knowledge Foundation, and Datopian. His book Open Revolution is about making a radically freer and fairer information age. Previously he has been the Mead Fellow in Economics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Shuttleworth and Ashoka Fellow. A recognized global expert on the information society, he has worked with G7 governments, IGOs like the UN, Fortune 500s as well as many civil society organizations. He holds a PhD in Economics and a double first in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. Find out more about his work on his website: rufuspollock.com.

Production by Jacob Kishere & SENSESPACE Studio

In this podcast series Jacob Kishere interviews key speakers on themes of education, metacrisis, transformation and the possibility of a Second Renaissance. On May 2-3rd the corresponsing conference 'Education For Flourishing: In a time of Metacrisis and Second Renaissance' will be held in partnership with Life Itself at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

In this first dialogue with conference co-lead and co-founder Boaz Feldman, they lead a broad and deep exploration into these questions & introduce the conference itself.

More information about the conference here: https://www.sfwhgse.com/

About Boaz

Boaz Feldman is a researcher and clinical psychologist, ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, completed over 7 years of silent meditation retreats, led numerous war-zone humanitarian missions, and presented at over 30 international conferences. At Harvard University, he is a Research Scholar (at HGSE), an Education Ambassador (at HCCRC), and the European Director for the Harvard Alumni for Education. http://boazfeldman.com/home/

About Jacob

Jacob Kishere is a professional dialogue facilitator, the rapper, philosopher and writer behind Culturepilgrim and The Resonant Man Initiative. In 2020 he founded SENSESPACE Podcast—a dialogos journey into the heart of wisdom bringing together leading philosophers, artists and practitioners to address a collective phase shift. www.jacobkishere.com

Watch the episode here