Plutopia News Network

Jack McFadden, Senior Talent Buyer at Austin City Limits Live, joined the Plutopia News Network livestream on May 12. This episode is a rebroadcast of that session. We discuss rock and roll, music venues, and the public performance challenges presented by Covid-19.

Plutopians Jon Lebkowsky and Scoop Sweeney discuss the history of Plutopia, the Chuckwagon riot, protests, COINTELPRO, sensemaking, narrative wars, information overload, filter bubbles, and the Plutopian non-conspiracy!

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Technology muse and influential connector Jerry Michalski joins Jon and Scoop to discuss his latest project, Open Global Mind, “a project to build communities and platforms that will help us make sense of the world — together.”

A favorite Jerry quote sums up his trajectory: “People want to connect. They also want to make a living. Pretty simple. If they can do both at the same time, even better. How do people form community or a communion; how do they get this feeling of connectedness to other people? What kind of technology does it take; does it even work through technology? The answer is yes.” (via The Edge)

Recording of an April 14, 2020 talk by Dan Reecer, Community & Growth Manager for Polkadot, a next-generation blockchain network founded by the former co-founder and CTO of Ethereum, Gavin Wood. Polkadot will begin its phased launch process in Q2 2020, aiming to solve many of the current issues hindering blockchains from adoption at a global scale, including connection between blockchains, scalability, and rapid upgradability.

Dan graduated with a bachelor and master degree from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in Information Systems and International Business. He has had a marketing and operations-focused career, with four years at Eli Lilly & Company working in pharmaceutical brand marketing in Oncology, Immunology, and Alzheimer’s. He transitioned his career to blockchain out of curiosity for the technology’s potential, which led him to Austin for his first job with another blockchain project called Wanchain. He led Marketing and Business Development globally for this organization, before opting to join Polkadot’s historic launch under the Web3 Foundation based in Zug, Switzerland. Dan lives in Austin, is an avid traveler, and is a competitive tennis player.

The “tech boom” became the “advertising boom” in the 2010s. Our online privacy has been sacrificed in the process. Web 3.0 is a movement and next phase of Internet development where control, privacy, and power will be restored back to the individual and away from Big Tech.

In this talk, Dan discussed what Web 3.0 is, why it’s important, how you can participate and contribute, and the role the upcoming launch of Polkadot will play. He will also briefly discuss Polkadot’s live experimental network, Kusama, and Substrate, a software development kit for building bespoke blockchains that can be standalone or easily plug into Polkadot’s network.

EFF-Austin is sustained via the contributions of supporters like you. Donate via the Paypal link on the EFF-Austin website at the top of the main page.

Relevant links:

* Polkadot 2019 year in review by Gavin Wood – https://polkadot.network/polkadot-2019-year-in-review/

* Follow Polkadot on Crowdcast for ongoing webinars – https://www.crowdcast.io/polkadot

* Follow Polkadot on Twitter – https://twitter.com/polkadotnetwork

* Polkadot Lightpaper – https://polkadot.network/Polkadot-lightpaper.pdf

Tiffany Lee Brown (aka magdalen, aka T) is a writer and interdisciplinary artist who lives off in the woods somewhere in Oregon. T has been a Tarot card reader for thirty years, and created the collaborative Burning Tarot deck starring the denizens of Black Rock City, Nevada — at the Burning Man festival. In response to the Covid crisis, she has opened her Tarot reading practice to the public. See tiffanyleebrown.com for the Burning Tarot “fake podcast.”

And how about Plazm!?

Jane Hirshfield is an award-winning poet, translator, essayist, and editor. She’s written nine books of poetry. Her latest book, Ledger, “poses meticulous equations of the self coping with doubt, hunger, age, and death.” (Donna Seaman, Booklist). Maria Popova at Brainpickings.org describes her as “a poet of optimism and of lucidity.” In our Plutopia conversation, we discuss the transformatiave nature and purpose of poetry. As part of our conversation, Jane reads her poems “I want to be surprised” and “Today another universe.”

Links:

“A poem about finding life while we shelter in place” in the San Francisco Chronicle

“Before the Collapse,” a review of Ledger by Jake Marmer in Tablet

“On writing poems facing into the broken world,” a conversation with Kaveh Akbar in The American Poetry Review.

“Think you don’t like poetry? Try Jane Hirshfield’s Ledger” an excellent review by Elizabeth Crane, in Vox.

Photo by Curt Richter

Erik Davis is the author of High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. The book covers the emergence of a new psychedelic spirituality that arose from the American counterculture of the 1970s. He focuses specifically on the thinking and work of Terence MacKenna, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Anton Wilson — three explorers at the weirder fringes of 70s culture.

Erik is a writer, journalist, and historian. He’s written about technology, culture, rock and roll, and esoteric mysticism. He’s given talks at universities, media art conferences, and festivals around the world.

“A meeting is not all pure transaction for the task at hand. It is also transaction of how we are, who we are, and how we are together.”

Nancy White is an international practitioner in understanding and practicing online and face to face group facilitation. Her broad focus includes distributed work, strategic planning, social learning, communities and networks. She’s involved in Liberating Structures, an alternative way to approach and design how people work together. Nancy is expert in structuring and conducting online meetings, which are more of a big deal in the era of Covid, social distancing, sheltering in place.

In our conversation, we discuss Covid in Seattle, and a whole lot about meeting effectively online and understanding how virtual connection can help you in your day to day life.

Resources

* Mike Parker of Liminal Coaching and Nancy present a special guided relaxation called “Drift to Peace” that will help you decrease stress, reduce tension, and focus your mind on planning and possibility.

* Mail list for those having to faciliate online: https://groups.io/g/f4c-response.

* Crowdsourced online facilitation resource doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NyrEU7n6IUl5rgGiflx_dK8CrdoB2bwyyl9XG-H7iw8/edit?ts=5e6fc9e3#

* List of events to learn how to do Liberating Structures online https://ls.qiqochat.com/events

* Nancy’s blog, loaded with ideas: http://www.fullcirc.com

Danny Sands is a physician who’s worked in a variety of capacities in the healthcare IT industry for over 25 years. Danny is passionate about, and dedicated to, healthcare transformation. He holds an academic appointment at Harvard Medical School and maintains a primary care practice at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  In his practice, he makes extensive use of health IT — much of which he helped to introduce.

Jon L. met Danny via their common association with the late visionary Dr. Tom Ferguson, who dedicated himself to Participatory Medicine, defined as a movement where networked patients shift from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health, and in which providers encourage and value them as full partners. Danny and Jon were among the co-founders of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

Steven Levy is editor-at-large for Wired Magazine. He’s an author and journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, privacy, and artificial life. His latest book is Facebook: the Inside Story. We discuss the book, and we also discuss Steven’s recent interview with epidemiologist Larry Brilliant about Covid-19.