A wide-ranging conversation between Arnold and Daniel of What Is Politics? concerning the prospects for social transformation in this dreamlike age of epistemic fracture. We talk about the impact of declining social cohesion on traditional modes of political organizing; whether the internet can do anything other than make people stupid and crazy; and how lessons from evolutionary biology and anthropology apply to our utterly novel environment. Somewhere along the way, we talk about the biology of the naked mole rat, whose societies resemble the “civilizations” of social insects; the Goldilocks magnitude of crisis, that creates political possibility without starving everyone to death; the methodological horror show of evolutionary psychology that talks about genes “for” complex behavioral traits; how the fragmentation of knowledge by academic discipline enables hierarchy; and how the inverse correlation between social dominance and social comprehension means its best not to use big words when talking to venture capitalists. A good deal of what is discussed here provides a problem statement for which the next episode provides tentative answers.
Sub-Self, Meet Meta-Self: Notes on The Emerging World Mind
Jesus of Nazareth and the Biology of Defeat
The Biological Singularity Is Near pt. 1
Social Complexity after the Machines: Interview with Dr. Shane Simonsen
Metanoia: How Worldviews Change
Vivimancer pt. 1: The Water Carrier (excerpt)
Seeds of the World Tree: Programs of Revolutionary Biology and Evolutionary Politics
#66: A Saboteur's Moon Sheds No Light (excerpt)
The Ashes of the World Tree: On Grieving and Fighting
Metamorphosis pt. 3.3: Your Body Is a Map of the Sky
Metamorphosis pt. 3.2: Integration across Landscapes and Brain Regions
Metamorphosis pt. 3.1: The Rupture in the Fabric of Reality Model of Human Cognition
Metamorphosis pt. 2: The Cognitive Evolutionary Avant-Garde
Metamorphosis pt. 1: The Age of Mutual Incomprehension
The Incompetent Authoritarianism of Vladimir Lenin
Revolutionary Biology pt. 2: The Development and Evolution of Sasquatch
Revolutionary Biology pt. 1: Nature vs. Nurture vs. Synthesis
The Raven Politics of Terra Incognita
Narcissists, Strongmen, and Technocrats pt. 2
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