Many people have observed that the conversation we have been curating on Rebel Wisdom has featured many more men than women. Of course we have regularly been asking ourselves why that is, and whether there is a more ‘feminine’ contribution to the dialogue that is not being heard?

This was the topic I explored with two fascinating women recently, Schuyler Brown and Samantha Sweetwater.

Check out Schuyler's work here, 'The Art of Emergence': https://www.artofemergence.com/ 

And Samantha here: https://www.samanthasweetwater.com/

There has been a lot of focus on the damage that social media is doing to all of us, its users. This growing awareness was partly fuelled by the work of Tristan Harris, through the breakout hit documentary The Social Dilemma.

But there has been less attention on how this new landscape also affects creators, through factors like audience capture and feedback loops that distort truth seeking. 

Tristan Harris is the director of the Centre for Humane Technology, trying to re-envision a healthier relationship with the technological tools we are using: https://www.humanetech.com/

Where are we headed as a species? What is the landscape of risks and challenges that we need to confront over the next decades, and are there a small number of key factors that we need to solve to avoid catastrophe?

These are the questions Daniel Schmachtenberger is laying out in a new two part series on Rebel Wisdom, called 'In Search of the Third Attractor'.

As he describes it, the power of ever increasing technological capacity (exponential tech) means that both destructive and creative capacities are increasing exponentially. Two of the most likely outcomes (attractors) are either some kind of chaotic breakdown, or the development of powerful control systems in response, oppressive authoritarian control.

Given this, what does a third option, a 'third attractor' look like?

Daniel will be speaking at the Rebel Wisdom festival, 'the Last Campfire' in London on November 5th. To check it out and buy tickets, go to: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/r... 

To find out more about the topics Daniel is discussing, check out his work on civilisation, at Civilization Emerging: https://civilizationemerging.com/

And for more on his work around the Sensemaking crisis, check out the Consilience Project: https://consilienceproject.org/

 

TIMECODES:

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM: 00:00:00

BENEVOLENT DICTATORSHIP DOESN'T WORK: 00:06:21

HYPER AGENTS: 00:15:06

GREAT GAME OF POWER: 00:26:55

EGREGORES: 00:34:38

TECHNOLOGY & ETHICS: 00:42:50

TECHNOLOGY CHANGES SOCIETY: 00:49:45

INFRASTRUCTURE, SOCIAL STRUCTURE, SUPERSTRUCTURE: 00:59:49

WISDOM OF GODS: 01:13:14

EDUCATION: 01:30:40

CLOSING THOUGHTS: 01:42:08

Where are we headed as a species? What is the landscape of risks and challenges that we need to confront over the next decades, and are there a small number of key factors that we need to solve to avoid catastrophe?

These are the questions Daniel Schmachtenberger is laying out in a new two part series on Rebel Wisdom, called 'In Search of the Third Attractor'.

As he describes it, the power of ever increasing technological capacity (exponential tech) means that both destructive and creative capacities are increasing exponentially. Two of the most likely outcomes (attractors) are either some kind of chaotic breakdown, or the development of powerful control systems in response, oppressive authoritarian control.

Given this, what does a third option, a 'third attractor' look like?

Daniel will be speaking at the Rebel Wisdom festival, 'the Last Campfire' in London on November 5th. To check it out and buy tickets, go to: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/rebelwisdom/718672 

To find out more about the topics Daniel is discussing, check out his work on civilisation, at Civilization Emerging: https://civilizationemerging.com/ 

And for more on his work around the Sensemaking crisis, check out the Consilience Project: https://consilienceproject.org/ 

Timecodes:

INTRODUCTION: 00:00:00

SENSEMAKING: 00:02:10

THE TWO ATTRACTORS: 00:06:09

EXISTENTIAL HOPE?: 00:09:01

INTERCONNECTEDNESS: 00:14:33

FAILURES OF ACTIVISM: 00:18:33

CATASTROPHIC RISK: 00:25:08

THE POST WW2 SYSTEM: 00:38:40

EXPONENTIAL DESTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY: 00:45:02

NEAR-TERM RISKS: 00:50:48

THE ENERGY TRAP: 00:58:10

PERVERSE INCENTIVES: 01:03:54

PRIVATE GAINS, EXTERNAL LOSSES: 01:09:38

BIOTECH RISKS: 01:14:13

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: 01:19:29

MULTIPOLAR TRAPS: 01:29:03

CORPORATIONS VERSUS INDIVIDUALS: 01:46:54

NEW GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS: 01:53:27

NETWORK DYNAMICS: 01:58:41

SOLVING MULTI-POLAR TRAPS?: 02:06:51

CENTRALISING POWER: 02:17:47

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: 02:33:00

This is part 2 of an exclusive conversation between Jonathan Pageau and John Vervaeke recorded in Toronto recently. 

In it John and Jonathan reflect on the recent ‘War on Reality’ piece with Paul Kingsnorth and Mary Harrington: https://youtu.be/x4kms2jkKbA 

They ask whether we have replaced virtue with value. They also take a turn into the question of the occult, where Jonathan and John talk about whether concepts such as ‘demons’ can be explained as independently existing patterns of reality.

In the conversation Rebel Wisdom has been tracking, what's missing?

Layman Pascal believes we're not paying enough attention to the irrational, the realms of the imaginal and the occult. 

"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 one of the hosts of the podcast The Integral Stage: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaA4zkLRnR3lGm8Y7c5Tvdw

In this conversation with Rebel Wisdom's David Fuller, Ken Wilber reflects on the turbulent dynamics of the last few years, and particularly the trajectory of the figures in what was called the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) including Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin.

This is released shortly after a recent Substack piece by David Fuller called 'What Happened to Jordan Peterson?': https://rebelwisdom.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-jordan-peterson 

Ken Wilber is the creator of Integral theory, it attempts to place a wide diversity of theories and models into one single framework. The basis is a "spectrum of consciousness," from archaic consciousness to ultimate spirit, presented as a developmental model.

This is a follow up to conversations we recorded back in 2019, which were published as:

Ken Wilber: 'Jordan Peterson and the evolution of thought': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDjCnFvz11A 

Ken Wilber: The Intellectual Dark Web, an Integral Conversation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2XK812tSmM

A wide-ranging conversation on the experience of sensemaking during the pandemic, with Zubin Damania (ZDoggMD).

Zubin first came to my attention with a viral video at the start of 2020 where he channelled some righteous anger at the medical establishment's response to the pandemic, and said he hoped that the crisis would be the trigger to “burn this broken system to the ground”. For years he's been arguing for a significant change to the medical system, away from treating people as interchangeable parts in a machine and towards a more holistic vision of what he calls Health 3.0.

During the pandemic we compared notes on what we were seeing, through shared frameworks like Ken Wilber's Integral Theory and Jonathan Haidt's “moral tastebuds”. He argues for nuance and complexity, and dubs his political perspective as “alt-middle”.

0:00 - The Pandemic & the Information Ecology

04:02 - Zubin & Health Care 3.0

08:09 - The USP of Rebel Wisdom, curating a conversation

10:09 - The pandemic was a stress test that we failed

14:03 - The internet leaking out into the real world

16:37 - The religiosity of the Covid debate

19:53 - The rise in conspiracy narratives

22:56 - Questioning our own thinking

29:33 - Public intellectuals going off the rails

32:48 - The hermeneutics of suspicion

39:00 - A culture of bullshit

44:14 - Conspiracies thrive in the gaps of the mainstream

46:31 - The pre/trans of the insurgency after 2018

53:34 - Paradox of being outside the institutions - audience capture

58:27 - Warping effects of the tech platforms accelerated on creators

01:00:37 - Attention hijack as opposite of mindfulness

01:02:41 - The tragic arc of Jordan Peterson

01:06:55 - The return of the repressed

01:14:14 - The return of psychedelic medicine

01:18:57 - The limitations of psychedelics

01:22:51 - Meditation & Awakening

01:29:36 - Ayahuasca

01:32:14 - Culture War 2.0 & the memetic tribes

01:43:06 - Post Pandemic Awakening

01:46:39 - The English Taboo Against Earnestness

01:49:30 - Mutual Appreciation Society

This was a special in person dialogue between the cognitive scientist John Vervaeke and the symbolism expert Jonathan Pageau.

They reflect on what each finds valuable about each other's work, the nature of the conversation that they have been part of, good and bad criticism, the nature of symbolism and much more. 

It was recorded in Toronto during the making of the forthcoming Rebel Wisdom documentary about John Vervaeke's thought. Some behind the scenes pictures, and a second part of this film is available for subscribers on the Rebel Wisdom Substack: LINK HERE

John Vervaeke's YouTube channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpqDUjTsof-kTNpnyWper_Q 

Jonathan Pageau's work can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtCTSf3UwRU14nYWr_xm-dQ 

Timecodes for the conversation:

0:00 - What does Jonathan appreciate about John's work?

3:55 - What does John appreciate about Jonathan's work?

9:35 - What is the nature of the wider conversation you are both part of?

16:10 - The nature of criticism & "civility porn"

24:09 - The need to go beyond the political layer of analysis

26:19 - Paranoia fuelled by the 'Hermeneutics of Suspicion'

35:16 - Dialogue, Curiosity & Wonder

48:25 - How Symbolism breaks the frame and rewires our thinking

54:36 - A parable is to a narrative what a koan is to a question

57:35 - "I want to help people fall in love with Being again"

01:05:23 - The moral of Socrates and Alcibiades

01:12:56 - Patterns of Being; love, faith & beauty

01:21:32 - Freedom cannot be absolute

John Lloyd is a legendary comedy producer, who produced some of the biggest comedy hits of the 80s and 90s, including Not the Nine O Clock News, Spitting Image, and all four series of Blackadder.

After a mid life crisis he realised that his success wasn't making him happy, and this led to a lengthy search for meaning and wisdom. 

This conversation with Rebel Wisdom's David Fuller covered everything from comedy, to the nature of creativity, and the meaning of life. 

They also discuss his relationship with his former flatmate and writing partner Douglas Adams, the creator of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

00:00 Intro05:17 Personal Life11:59 Knowing Nothing16:32 Religion & The Origin of Ideas26:11 Quite Interesting30:01 Depression & Focusing on the Other38:34 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy & Douglas Adams45:29 Religion & Secular Rituals54:02 Science & Spirituality01:02:44 Intelligence, Comedy & Wisdom 01:12:01 Paradigm Shift01:20:17 Closing