Team Human

Playing for Team Human today is Erin Barnes co-founder of ioby. Ioby (in our backyards) is a “crowd-resourcing” platform for citizen-led, neighborhood-focused projects. Rather than just raise money, ioby mobilizes civic engagement by putting resources in the hands of local leaders who want to steward positive change in their neighborhoods. Erin shares with Douglas how ioby harnesses the power of solidarity and real world connection. In doing so, ioby not only ignites civic participation, but also flips the script on the NIMBY mentality (not in my backyard). Ioby demonstrates the positive potential of local communities playing an active role in shaping public spaces and creating public good.Visit ioby.org to learn about the many diverse community efforts and start your own project today!Opening today’s show, Rushkoff looks at the reversal of subject and object, figure and ground. Have we lost perspective on the two?The music you hear in the intro and outro is thanks to Fugazi and Dischord Records. In

What can we learn from a mere handful of dirt? For Nikki Silvestri, soil is both a metaphor and the literal “fertile” ground through which complexity and diversity thrive. Having worked on issues of food systems, sustainability, and public health, Silvestri describes soil as the link through which to engage in the work of building community, resilience, and social equity. Today, in her conversation with Douglas Rushkoff, Silvestri offers a unique approach to systems thinking, grounded in a deep sense of humility in the face the immensely complex natural systems that thrive just below our feet. Nikki Silvestri is the founder of Soil and Shadow and the the former executive director of Green for All and the People's Grocery. Visit http://www.nikkisilvestri.com and https://www.soilandshadow.com/ to learn more about Nikki and her work.Today Douglas launches the show with a monologue on the Republican tax plan and the ulterior motives behind who it targets. Team Human intro and outro music are thanks

Playing for Team Human today are Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen from the Small Planet Institute. Lappé and Eichen are out on the road with a mission to reinvigorate “civic courage” and inclusive participation in democracy. Their latest book Daring Democracy Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want offers a diagnosis of what has come to ail our democracy and recommends the necessary cures, offering concrete examples of ballot initiatives, reforms, and collective organizing happening across the country. Counter to a despairing narrative on the current state of democracy in the U.S., Lappé and Eichen argue that people are indeed rising to take the reigns. Inspired by examples of deep organizing and the convergence of movements in places such as Democracy Spring, Democracy Awakening, and Occupy Wall Street, Lappé and Eichen see power shifting back into the people’s hands. Their analysis of how we got to where we are, coupled with their passion and optimism for change, is both contagiou

Today on Team Human, we share a conversation with author, musician, humorist, and culture hacker Hugh Gallagher. Gallagher began his professional writing career thanks in part to a college entrance essay that went viral in the 90s, earning the distinction of being an early, if not the first, internet comedy meme. With lines like, “I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice... I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes…” Gallagher broke the mold, winning a national writing award, a beer with John Kennedy Jr., and a gig writing for Rolling Stone. Douglas and Gallagher look back on Gen X culture hacking, discuss the professional career landscape for creatives, and talk about the inspiration behind Hugh’s latest novel Lifted, a work of digital fiction available via Radish Fiction. It’s a freewheeling Team Human conversation that embraces stepping out of binaries and defaults, and embracing the fringes.All

Net impresario Tim O’Reilly now recognizes how the short-term focus of digital business is draining the real economy. Its algorithms have been programmed to extract value from us all. For O’Reilly, however, the solution is not to eliminate algorithms, but to write better ones. If there’s an argument to made for technosolutionism, O’Reilly makes as good a case as there is. Rather than confronting O’Reilly on their differences, Rushkoff engages him, pushes gently, finds common ground, and looks to develop a shared approach to our economic woes. Also, Rushkoff opens the show with a question: while the advance of technologies and our eagerness for the new may be inevitable, where in the process of on-boarding might we fold in human values? Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Playing for Team Human today is Neal Gorenflo from Shareable.net. Neal joins Douglas to spread the word about Shareable’s latest resource, Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons. Sharing Cities is an inspiring collection of 137 case studies and policies across a wide spectrum of issues that show how empowered communities are building citizen-run, democratic solutions using commons thinking.Whether it be the grassroots artist organization Club Cultural Matienzo (CCM) that formed in Buenos Aires to build a cultural commons for the local arts scene in wake of a tragic nightclub fire, or land stewardship activists in Brooklyn reclaiming public space for urban farming and community gardening, Sharing Cities is filled with projects and policies ready to replicated and implemented in your community.You can Contribute to Shareable for a hard copy or E-Book copy, or download a free pdf of Sharing Cities from Shareable.net:https://www.shareable.net/contribute (the free PDF is bottom right on this page)An exc

A high school basketball team organizes a canned food drive. A church volunteer group restocks the local pantry with donations from Walmart. Both examples are seemingly positive portrayals of American civic engagement… So what’s wrong with this picture?Playing for Team Human today is Andy Fisher, author of Big Hunger: the Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups. In the book, Fisher tackles the big question of why chronic hunger and food insecurity persist despite the efforts of food banks, pantries, and charity. Fisher’s suggests that our effort to solve hunger with charity is missing a crucial component that would transform stopgap measures into long-term solutions. Join Douglas and Andy as they take a critical look at the what Fisher calls the “non-profit industrial complex," while looking toward a future where social equity figures into the equation of ending hunger in America. Purchase Big Hunger from your favorite local book seller or at bighhunger.org.Special thanks to

What is a robot? Are robots our friends? Does the term “friend” even apply? So begins this week’s episode of Team Human with cyborg anthropologist Amber Case. Amber and Douglas look at how algorithmically programmed systems of automation and control might just be turning us into the robots. Case’s recent book, Calm Technology Design For the Next Generation of Devices proposes another way. How might we flip the script on systems that compress and atomize our every move? How might we use our technology to slow down rather than speed up – to resolve to sharper human detail rather than a pixelated blur. And finally, how might we use technology, including this podcast, to advance a slow-motion, empathetic, and deep state of calm? Rushkoff begins with a monologue on the Jewish high holidays. Is prayer a distraction to the real world work of justice that must be done, or is there something deeper and more communal to retrieve?Learn more about Amber Case here: http://caseorganic.com/Our intro theme is Foreman’s

Playing for Team Human today is Post Carbon Institute fellow Richard Heinberg. Richard is the co-author of Our Renewable Future and most recently, the manifesto, There’s No App For That. On today’s show Richard and Douglas challenge the idea that technological “progress” is a panacea for solving systems-level crises like climate change. Richard’s work calls on us to look at the fundamental ethical problems underlying climate issues such as overshoot, unsustainable growth, and inequality. Heinberg then challenges us to step out from hiding behind our technologies and acknowledge the deliberate moral intervention that is urgently needed if we are to foster a more resilient and more just community and ecosystem.Check out Richard’s manifesto, There’s No App For That at http://noapp4that.org and you can begin with this video primer, “Hello Humanity, It’s me, technology. We need to Talk”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALugeRQbXAMRead why Richard thinks Climate Change isn’t our Biggest Environmental

On today's episode of Team Human, Douglas is joined by Professor Steve Fuller. Fuller teaches Sociology at the University of Warwick. In his recent book, Humanity 2.0, Fuller embraces a future vision in which technological and medical advancement will enable humans to evolve beyond our current physical and mental limitations. Steve will use this concept to teach us what distinguishes transhumanist from posthumanist projects, and why such thinking should be taken seriously. While Rushkoff and Fuller may come from very different perspectives, they share common ground in questioning whether living as gods – longer, faster, stronger, smarter – will serve humanity or merely further existing inequality, injustice, and environmental catastrophe.To open this show, Rushkoff looks at the ways being human is a team sport. It's a future vision that recognizes collaboration, not competition, as the cornerstone of evolution. We'll explore how this squares with the transhumanist project and more.If you enjoy this conversati

For this week's Team Human, Douglas is out on the road in Austin, Texas where he caught up with longtime friend and cyberculture pioneer, Jon Lebkowsky. Jon and Douglas first look back on the promise of the early cyber revolution, and then look forward to the ways in which those quirky fringe elements might be folded back into the work of promoting justice, solidarity, and even a bit of ambiguity... Whether manifested in platform cooperatives, consensus building tools like Loomio, or in the spirit of Occupy, Lebkowsky and Rushkoff retrieve the thread of radical potential as it has evolved from those early days of the internet.Douglas begins today's show discussing his recent meeting with a group of billionaires whose fears of future social unrest have left them scrambling for apocalypse strategies to protect their wealth and lifestyle. Find out what the "insulation equation" is as Douglas challenges these executives to forgo the Walking Dead scenarios and join team human!Today's episode features intro music t

When was the last time you found yourself truly bored? Have you forfeit those nooks and crannies in the day when you used to let your mind wander aimlessly in a daydream?On today's episode of Team Human, Douglas is joined by Manoush Zomorodi, host of the popular WNYC Studios podcast, Note to Self. On Note to Self, Manoush initiated a series of listener experiments aimed at breaking the influence of our digital devices and networks on our lives. Those social experiments led her to uncover the creative power of boredom, detailed in her brand new book Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self .On today's show, Douglas and Manoush wander together, as they interrogate the always-on media environment. In an era of constant entertainment, constant emergency, and constant distraction, must we fight for the mental space to just be bored? We'll learn why boredom matters and more...This episode begins with a monologue on the news media's recent reporting o

This week is a special episode of Team Human. We are sharing an excerpt of a panel discussion recorded on location at IBM Watson in New York from August 2015, hosted by Douglas Rushkoff and produced by our friends at Virtual Futures in London. Douglas was joined by philosopher-sociologist Steve Fuller, tech entrepreneur and ethicist Martine Rothblatt, IBM Watson researcher Michael Karasick, and philosopher of technology, Dan O'Hara.Patreon subscribers have exclusive access to the full, unedited video with an engaging question and answer session at https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman. Start your monthly subscription today to support the show and get access to the Team Human Slack Channel as well as other subscriber rewards. July and August rewards are shipping this week!Enjoy this discussion and please review Team Human on iTunes or your preferred podcast platform and help spread the word about the show!Thanks Luke Robert Mason for sharing the audio! Music on today's show is Mike Watt, Stephen Bartolomei, and Fu

Consider a text message in which you are deciding where to meet for dinner with a friend. As you go back and forth in that stream of abbreviated communication, you suggest, “Let’s eat Italian,” to which your friend responds “Fine.” The one-word text sends you into a state of alarm. Did they mean “fine” as in “great,” or “fine” as in “Fine, you win, we can eat where you’d like”? Somewhere in this chain of communication trust, has been lost. Playing for Team Human today are William Softky and Criscillia Benford, a husband and wife team who are looking deep into the biophysical and mathematical underpinnings of establishing trust in communications. They’ve just published a paper titled “Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust” in the journal, Neural Computation. In this conversation, Softky and Benford join Douglas Rushkoff to dive deep into experiences of digital disorientation and even screen addiction. What’s really going on in our brains as we consume more and more digital stimuli? Have our nervous sys

Elizabeth Stewart, founding executive director of Civic Hall Labs, empowers technologists who put people first, amplifying the “civic” of civic tech. On today’s show, Stewart joins Douglas Rushkoff for a conversation about technology innovations whose value is measured in their contribution to the public good. It’s a type of thinking that asserts the means of tech innovation to be just as important as its ends. We’ll learn about Elizabeth's work and how Civic Hall labs is fostering participatory, human-centered collaborations to solve difficult societal challenges.Throughout this conversation Elizabeth highlights a number of tremendous resources for Team Human listeners engaged in building technology for public good. Start at CivicHallLabs.org for more info. One project you’ll find is Pro Bono Tech which connects local New York City area digital professionals to public sector organizations needing help. The program provides a useful model for starting a pro bono tech program in your own town or city. Als

Playing for Team Human today is Alexandra Juhasz. Juhasz brings her extensive and diverse work as a filmmaker, media critic, and feminist activist to the Team Human round table.On today's show, Douglas and Alexandra explore the dangers of a media landscape that amplifies the grotesque and sensational. They also look at how human agency and autonomy are threatened on our hypercommercialized media platforms.Drawing on her commitment to feminist values, Alex encourages an embrace of the "situatedness of our humanity" and the vitality of difference. Such is the "tiny magic" necessary to build real world change while widening our embrace of a full-spectrum of humanity.Juhasz recently joined the CUNY faculty at Brooklyn College as professor of film and department chairperson. Visit http://alexandrajuhasz.com/ to learn more about her media-making and pedagogy.The Femtechnet manifesto and whitepaper are also great places to learn more about feminist technology as we consider its power to animate the mission of Team H

Think back to the last time your eyes were opened wide, your mouth agape, and the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end as you took in a profound or inspiring sight… On today's episode of Team Human, Douglas is joined by Michael Frederickson, lead technical director at Pixar Animation, to talk about this deeply human experience of awe.It's a conversation that spans the “awful” to the "awesome" and all those ambiguous spaces in-between. Rushkoff and Frederickson dig into questions of technology and storytelling, the narrative arc, and the evolutionary, even empathetic value of having our minds blown.Rushkoff tees off this episode with a monologue inspired by the unresolved and sometimes unsettling world of David Lynch and his new Twin Peaks series. Is art meant to solve our riddles or pose new ones? Join Team Human this week, as we revel in life's liminal spaces and surrender to the power of awe.Music in today's show thanks to: Mike Watt, R.U. Sirius, Ambiguous Midroll by Stephen Bartolomei, and show clo

Playing for Team Human is systems thinker, currency designer, and social hacker Arthur Brock. Art joins Douglas to talk about how currency is less a thing you own and more a way of sharing. It’s a conversation that poses a crucial question of both money and cryptocurrencies alike–how might we design new exchanges that embody values of social and environmental betterment, rather than extraction and exploitation? Rushkoff begins today’s show with a monologue about Instagram’s recent addition of an algorithm that removes mean comments from users’ threads. While on the surface the idea appears to be an attempt by Instagram to quell trolling, Rushkoff questions both the means and intentions. Is Instagram merely building an algorithmically programmed version of “see no evil, hear no evil”… or worse? Team Human is produced each week thanks to listener subscriptions. Join us on patreon at patreon.com/teamhuman. There you’ll find a variety of subscription levels with exclusive patron rewards. The music

With the birth of the internet and advance of digital networks, we’ve been promised everything from creative cooperation and digital democracy, to the end of work and a new abundance of leisure time. It’s a promise of a techno-utopia that persists today. Playing for team human today, Dr. Richard Barbrook challenges this imaginary future by unearthing the neoliberal underpinnings of Silicon Valley’s vision of progress. Rushkoff and Barbrook engage in a conversation that both uncovers the economic forces driving the evolution of technology while simultaneously acknowledging the utility of our tech tools as evidenced in the recent organizing around Labour underdog, Jeremy Corbyn. Rushkoff opens with a monologue challenging his own initial enthusiasm for Universal Basic Income. Is UBI just another gaming of the system in order to perpetuate consumption in an vastly unequal society?Team Human is supported entirely by listeners. Visit https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman to become a supporter and receive a v

This week on Team Human, the conclusion of Douglas's soul-searching conversation with friend and author Walter Kirn. Together, Kirn and Rushkoff explore how disingenuously promoted concepts such as “creative destruction” are used to replace human civilization with a business plan.What would it mean to maximize human virtues of compassion or intelligence instead of machine virtues like speed and extraction? Is there a higher power, and do we need one in order to value one another?Check out Walter Kirn's latest essay in Harper's, Apocalypse Always, out this week!Thanks to our new supporters on Patreon. Visit patreon.com/teamhuman to join the team. The complete, uninterrupted conversation between Walter and Douglas is available to Patrons on the Team Human Patreon blog. Visit the patreon page for more exclusive content.Music in today’s show: Mike Watt: beak-holding-letter-man , Joshua Sitron and the Team Human Band, R.U. Sirius: President Mussolini Makes The Planes Run On Time, Fugazi: Forema