Team Human

Playing for Team Human today radical activist, counter-cultural icon, and founder of The Realist magazine, Paul Krassner (1932-2019).Krassner and Rushkoff explore how the combination of fabricated news, scandals and outrage - otherwise known as mind fucking - were once the tools employed by anarchic activists. They discuss how a one-time violin prodigy became the pioneer of the US underground press, and how being an optimist might be our best defence against the challenging times we face. In his opening monologue, Rushkoff shares how we might make the internet a more human-friendly domain through a simple response to the net’s original sin: algorithmic customization. Find out more about Paul Krassner: http://paulkrassner.com Find about all of our guests, listen to past shows & discover live events at http://teamhuman.fmYou can read written versions of Douglas Rushkoff’s show monologues at Medium: https://medium.com/@rushkoff— Support Us — Team Human is made possible thanks to

Playing for Team Human today, founder and principal investigator at Pataphysics Research & virtual reality pioneer, Eric Gullichsen.Gullichsen and Rushkoff look back at how early virtual reality headsets brought them together nearly 25 years ago. Together, they discuss Timothy Leary's commentary and influence on Gullichsen's work in virtual reality and how Leary still influences Guillichsen's work today with Transcranial Ultrasound Neuromodulation. Here, Gullichsen explains his views on treatments created from organic sources versus synthetic ones and how new brain treatments can be administered in a non-invasive fashion. How can innovations serve our humanity instead of serving it up to Silicon Valley?In his opening monologue, Rushkoff discusses how popular public discourse about the Internet is ten-to-twenty years behind what's happening today. He looks at how digital technology has created an environment that has stripped us of our ability to find common ground because we're increasingly living in diff

Playing for Team Human today, Cofounder of Kickstarter & The Creative Independent and author of the newly published book, “This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World,” Yancey Strickler.Strickler joins Team Human to discuss his vision for building a society that looks beyond money and toward optimizing for humans. What are ways we can protect our human weaknesses? How can we appropriately scale a business to fit the needs of humans instead of growth for growth's sake? Further, he discusses his concept of Bentoism, a model created based on the belief, "...that our self-interest isn’t solely defined by what we want and need right now. Our self-interest extends to the considerations of our future selves, the people who rely on us, and the next generation." He discusses how this model can help humans discover what it's like to be self-coherent and situate themselves as both individuals and as a collective."This Could Be Out Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World" is now available: h

Playing for Team Human today, CEO of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, co-founder of Culture Bank, and Innovator in Residence at the Kauffman Foundation, Deborah Cullinan. Also playing for Team Human this week, New York State Assemblyman Ron Kim and Cornell Law Professor Robert Hockett. Plus, hear from Reverend Billy, who explains how Team Human supporters can be sainted at Earth Riot on Sunday, December 15.Cullinan joins Team Human to discuss what it means to place artists and creativity at the center of thriving communities, ways to think about art as an important driver to lasting change, and how difficult it is to imagine a brighter future when our current basic needs are not met. "We need to think of art and creativity as part of a system."New York State Assemblyman Ron Kim and Cornell Law Professor Robert Hockett discuss their proposal to create a new public money infrastructure that lifts up the caring economy, a "public Venmo" They speak about the importance of accessible and free infrastructure to exc

Playing for Team Human today, drummer and session musician, Vinnie Colaiuta.Vinnie joins Team Human to discuss the art of listening, collaborating, and celebrating the imperfection that makes music a human art. Douglas and Vinnie explore the difference between making music together, the biases of music-production technology, what Vinnie has learned from working artists like Frank Zappa, the importance of flow-state, and what it is like to be one of the most in-demand studio musicians.—Vinnie Colaiuta is an award-winning drummer based in Los Angeles. He famously worked for Frank Zappa as his principal drummer for studio and live performances. His performances on Zappa's albums Tinsel Town Rebellion, Joe's Garage and Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar are considered by many drummers to be among the most astounding ever recorded. Joe's Garage was named one of the top-25 drumming performances of all time in a 1993 Modern Drummer article.After leaving Zappa, Colaiuta went on to work with a long list of notable r

Playing for Team Human today, filmmaker and author, Tiffany Shlain.Tiffany joins Team Human to discuss her new book, 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week. By drawing from the ancient ritual of Shabbat she shows how turning off all screens for twenty-four hours each week can help us reclaim our humanity. I This week’s Team Human also includes a short tribute to counter-culture icon, Paul Krassner.You can find out more about Charles’ work at: http://www.tiffanyshlain.comYou can find out more about Paul at: http://paulkrassner.comYou can also find out more about all of our guests, listen to past shows, find out about upcoming live events, and become a contributing subscriber by visiting us at TeamHuman.fmYou can read written versions of Rushkoff’s show monologues at Medium. Team Human is made possible thanks to the generous support of our listeners on Patreon. Your support makes the hours of labor that go into each show possible.You can also help by reviewing the s

Playing for Team Human today, Author and Gift Economy Advocate, Charles Eisenstein.Charles joins Team Human to share how he believes quantification is changing the way we think about climate, ecology and human beings. Less of an interview, this informal conversation was recorded at Bretton Woods@75 where Charles and Douglas were both speakers. They discuss the role work plays in our lives, and explore some of the new ways economic systems might be structured in order to put humans at the center.This week’s Team Human also includes a monologue recorded live from Bretton Woods@75.You can find out more about Charles’ work at: https://charleseisenstein.orgYou can find out more about Bretton Woods@75: https://www.brettonwoods.org/You can also find out more about all of our guests, listen to past shows, find out about upcoming live events, and become a contributing subscriber by visiting us at TeamHuman.fmYou can read written versions of Rushkoff’s show monologues at Medium. Team Human is made possible thanks

Playing for Team Human today, former TIME International Editor, Bryan Walsh & attorney and business woman Adrienne Haynes.Bryan Walsh shares his thoughts on why the end of humankind seems inevitable and the ways we might avoid imminent crisis. In his new book, End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World, Walsh explores how the threats of asteroids, super volcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, disease pandemics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial intelligence might actually be avoided through innovative news ideas and collective action.You can find out more about Bryan Walsh’s work here: https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/bryan-walsh/end-times/9780316449618/On this Episode we launch a brand new segment, “Real People, Doing Real Things.” Joining us for our inaugural slot is attorney & businesswoman, Adrianne Haynes. She joins Team Human to share how she is empowering her local community through the work of her nonprofits, including the Construction Business Institu

Playing for Team Human today, musician, media scholar, and founding Team Human producer Stephen Bartolomei AND community advocate and founder of the Union for Contemporary Art Brigitte McQueen Shew.Douglas opens the show with a monologue about the disorienting construction of the Democratic debates by television networks. He looks at how the television environment fights to assert its dominance in a digital age, how candidates are positioned against one another, and how the stage's aesthetic is optimized for spectacle and audience distraction.Bartolomei explores the surveillance features of a recording studio and how their panoptic construction contrasts a do-it-yourself, basement experience of communal creation. He looks at how musical raw material can undergo a dehumanizing process to be converted into a surveillance commodity and how we should instead work to optimize for connection.Shew explores how art allows us to bridge deeply sewn cultural divides in order to see ourselves in other people an

Playing for Team Human today, Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research and Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Mary L. Gray.Mary L. Gray joins Team Human to share her research into the invisible human workforce that powers the web. In her new co-authored book, Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass, Gray explores the assumptions made about the content moderators, proofreaders and AI-trainers that make the internet seem so smart. Despite the common idea that this low-paid workforce is exploited, this episode shows the ways in which the 'ghost economy’ might actually provide opportunity for those who choose to participate in it.This week’s Team Human also includes a monologue recorded live from Betaworks Studio’s recent event on humane technology, “Human After All - Humanistic Technology for a New Era”.You can find out more about Mary’s work at: https://ghostwork.infoYou can find out more about Betaworks Studios: https://betaworks-st

On June 2nd, 2019 Team Human was invited by VRTO to host a live recording on virtual reality, story telling and time. Joining Douglas on stage, VRTO Founder, Keram Malicki-Sanchez followed by artist, technologist and organizer, Amelia Winger Bearskin.Rushkoff discusses the origins of virtual reality and shares stories of exploring the limits of the medium with Timothy Leary and Terrence McKenna. Together Rushkoff, Malicki-Sanchez, and Winger-Bearskin ask how virtual reality can be used in storytelling, why good VR experiences shouldn't force us to do certain things, and how we might justify the use of virtual reality in the face of existential crises. It is a wide-ranging discussion that aims to challenge the underlying assumptions of VR's central operating system.Keram Malicki-Sanchez founded VRTO in spring 2015. He is also the editor-in-chief of IndieGameReviewer.com since 2008 and founder of FIVARS – the Festival of International Virtual and Augmented Reality Stories. Amelia Winger-Bearskin is an

Playing for Team Human today, San Francisco-based writer and author of Liminal Dreaming: Exploring Consciousness at the Edges of Sleep, Jennifer Dumpert.Jennifer Dumpert joins Team Human to explore the unusual half-waking dream states of hypnagogia and hypnopompia. In her new book, Liminal Dreaming, Dumpert shares her exploration of these dream spaces to show how they can improve sleep, mitigate anxiety and depression and aid creativity. On this episode Douglas and Jennifer explore all forms of the liminal - the spaces in between things - to understand how our ability to deal with these forms of ambiguity make human consciousness so unique. You can find out more about Jennifer's work at UrbanDreamscape.comYou can also find out more about all of our guests, listen to past shows, find out about upcoming live events, and become a contributing subscriber by visiting us at TeamHuman.fmYou can read written versions of Rushkoff’s show monologues at Medium. Team Human is made possible thanks to the generous

Playing for Team Human today, American Journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells.David Wallace-Wells joins Team Human to share why he believes that the climate crisis that is both inevitable and avoidable. In his new book, The Uninhabitable Earth, Wallace-Wells works to deconstruct the myth that humans are insulated from the worst effects of climate change. He does this by showing that the obsession with the science behind climate can often hide the larger humanitarian crises. Together, Douglas and David reveal how living in a hotter and less hospitable world will require more than a techno-solutionist approach. Instead, it will require collective political engagement that begins with the making the possibility of societal collapse comprehensible to the public today.You can find out more about David and his new book The Uninhabitable Earth by following him on Twitter.You can also find out more about all of our guests, listen to past shows, find out about upcomin

Playing for Team Human today, activist, journalist, and science fiction author of the new anthology Radicalized, Cory Doctorow.Cory has a unique way of building stories, metaphors, and scenarios that clarify the underlying dynamics of living in a technologized society. In Radicalized, Cory extrapolates the embedded laws and values defining the present moment to show, not some distant future, but the dystopia that very much exists today. Together, Douglas and Cory explore the question – What do we do with this moment where everything, even truth itself, feels up for grabs? Avoiding nihilism and despair, Cory’s writing and thinking showcase a unique kind of agency and optimism. Is this the moment we flip the script on dystopia? Join Cory and Douglas as they look toward a utopia that engages the collective will and imagination required to overcome crisis and inequality.You can find out more about Cory and his new book, Radicalized, at craphound.com You can also find out more about all of our guests, listen

Returning to play for Team Human today, filmmaker, author, musician, and activist Astra Taylor.Astra joins Douglas for a conversation that wrestles with the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in democracy. It’s a discussion explored in her latest film, What is Democracy? and her new book, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone. (Hudson Books, Indie Bound, Amazon)Do we really have a clear vision and political imagination of what democracy should look like? How can we both recognize the tensions in democracy and create conditions where these contradictions are more constructive than destructive? In what ways are we empowered in our everyday lives to enact democracy?Astra and Douglas explore these questions and more as they make the case that democracy is not a “thing” nor a set of procedures, but rather an “unfolding,” a process. Democracy is a verb!Follow Astra on Twitter here.Hear Astra discuss her work with the Debt Collective on the very first episode of Team Human. Today

Playing for Team Human today and closing out this season of the show; author and New York Times and Wired contributor Clive Thompson. Clive is a keen observer of human beings and the way different media and technological environments change how we see ourselves and our purpose. His latest book, Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World, looks at the ways coders are engaged in not only programing our technologies, but programming our reality. In this free-form Team Human conversation, Douglas and Clive discuss the embedded logic behind the codes that shape our society– looking all the way back to Torah, and then on to contemporary platforms.What values are being coded into our everyday experience? Is there still space for that very human, weird, and eclectic expressions of technology we once celebrated at the dawn of the internet?Rushkoff and Thompson bring both a critical eye and sense of hope to the project of writing human virtue and value back into the programming that shapes our expe

Playing for Team Human today, founder of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle. Kahle is keeping the dream of building a decentralized, open, mind-expanding internet alive. In this Team Human conversation, Brewster and Douglas discuss the faulty dot-com business models and incentives that derailed the net. They look at the mountains of Twentieth Century culture in danger of being lost from the archive. In a historical moment when we feel exploited and distrustful of so much media, Internet Archive presents a refuge for deeper searches, research, and exploration. The Internet Archive’s associated projects including the Wayback Machine, tv.archive.org, the Great 78 Project and openlibrary.org all play a significant role in making sure the internet remains a home for culture and sharing. But don’t take our word for it. Jump in! Dig though the stacks at archive.org. Borrow a book at OpenLibrary. Upload your band’s demo or search your original website on the Wayback Machine. This episode ends with clips f

Gail Bradbrook and Clare Farrell leverage love and grief to build the Extinction Rebellion, a movement that demands immediate action on climate change.“There is an emotional component to waking up to our social, political, economic, and climate predicaments, and a mix of anger, shock, exhilaration, and fear. Yet properly integrated, they can all serve us as we attempt to muster the collective fortitude to confront these interconnected challenges.Playing for Team Human today are two guests who are practicing state-of-the-art activism that acknowledges and leverages these various emotional components. Douglas is joined by molecular biophysics PhD and economic justice campaigner Gail Bradbrook and #bodypolitic fashion designer turned hunger strike activist, Clare Farrell. They’ve begun a movement centered in London but spreading around the world called Extinction Rebellion. They shut down bridges in London last year and are planning to shut down the whole city of London next week (April 15) until government

Playing for Team Human today, professor, scholar, and activist Ananya Roy.Ananya will be showing us how the fight for global social justice, often begins at home.Roy has been working with Occupy Wall Street’s Micah White (Team Human Ep. 04) on a course about housing inequality for the Activist Graduate School, and is a professor of Urban Planning and Social Welfare at UCLA, where she is also director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy. Her book Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the Making of Development unearthed the counter-revolutionary agenda embedded in many so-called “development” programs. She looks at global poverty from a truly global perspective, which sometimes means the inequality in our own back yards and highway underpasses.In this conversation, Ananya and Douglas explore what it means to be a “double agent” as activists, educators, and instigators of social change. Ananya shares wisdom on the ways we might overcome our compromised positions as situated in systems of colonial, raci

Playing for Team Human today; Aaron Gell. Aaron is an editor at large for Medium and an instructor for NYU's Prison Education Project.Aaron will show us how listening and sharing stories can be the key to cultivating empathy. His long-form journalism finds the humanity in even the most compromised and contemptible of characters. In this episode, Douglas and Aaron invite you to eavesdrop into their conversation as they explore the ways stories can connect us. In this moment, when we face existential crisis from many directions, Gell asserts that empathy is an imperative if we are going to preserve our humanity.We’re in this story together. Douglas opens with a monologue on how the end of the Mueller investigation is the opportunity to do a political reset. Being anti-trump is not enough. "Just as Trump’s administration became something of a cult, with subordinates taking increasingly daring and untenable positions in order to win his approval, the anti-Trump movement has become a cult of conspiracy psycho