Peace, AI, Money, Ecology on deck, and some live events and recorded offerings
Hi everyone, I am gearing up to write some in-depth essays about some urgent topics: Artificial Intelligence, Peace, and the accelerating economic and ecological crises. Each seems more urgent than the others, and each will require considerable time and thought to do well. I want them to reach not just the general reader, but also influencers and policy-makers, so I will spend extra time making sure they are solid. So, while I’m researching and writing them I won’t be publishing the short pieces I’ve been posting the last few weeks.
In the meantime, here are some things for you to enjoy, first recordings then upcoming live events.
An interview with a lovely and erudite couple, Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas. Part 1 was about AI, money, and abstraction. Part 2 was about the Tao Te Ching and Godel’s Theorem.1
Here is one from a couple years ago that I never shared, a conversation with my friend professor Jem Bendell on disruption and societal collapse.
Interview with Rinat Strahlhofer for the We Know Show. “How to stay healthy and human in a tech obsessed world.”
Recording of the program I did last month with the exquisite David Lorimer. “What is the next story?”
Upcoming events:
March 22-25 online: The Earthcare Summit. Lots of great speakers besides me, including my son Jimi and my brother John. John tells much better jokes than I do. (Registration page, all-access pass sales page).
March 31, Boulder CO: The Economics of Regeneration. In-person event hosted by Y On Earth.
April 1, Boulder CO: The Next Five Years. Special evening hosted by the Mystery Collective. Tickets not available yet. I’ll repost next week.
April 3-5, Austin TX: The Independent National Convention. This event is part of a movement to transform American politics—to unite independents, to depolarize the country, to change the electoral system, to find common ground. I’ll be on a couple panels, for example “Love and Politics.” You can get $50 off with this promo code: $50OFFMOREBEAUTIFULWORLD. Register here.
April 27-30 online: Re-imagining Education conference. I’ll be doing a session with Marie Goodwin on Deschooling.
May 5-7 online: The Engendering Love Summit: Healing Conversations on Femininity, Masculinity, and Fluidity. I think there will be quite a diversity of opinion here. Info here.
Later in the interview I noticed I misspoke when I was describing the distinction between a theory and a model in mathematics. I said “theorem” rather than “theory”.
I really appreciate what you said about the imperative of re-claiming our human connection to the process of cultivating and preparing food in part 1 your conversation with Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas. I whole heartedly agree with what you said about how the process of making the production and cooking of food into standardized industrialized commodities means that our health and well being will end up suffering.
This is the reason why I share posts like this https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/amaranth-seed-trail-of-tears-and
I want to offer people sign posts on a path to re-localize and decentralized food production, inviting them to form an intimate connection with the land and nurture food culture locally through embracing the creative process in the garden and in the kitchen.
I think that Sandor Katz said it best when he wrote:
"Reclaiming our food and our participation in cultivation is a means of cultural revival, taking action to break out of the confining and infantilizing dependency of the role of consumer (user) and taking back our dignity and power to become producers and creators. Though affluent people have more food choices than the people of the past could ever dream of, and one persons labor can produce more 'food' today than ever before, the large scale, commercial methods and systems that enable these phenomena are destroying our Earth, destroying our health, and depriving us of dignity. With respect to food, the vast majority of people are completely dependent for survival upon a fragile global infrastructure of monocultures, synthetic chemicals, biotechnology, and transportation.
Moving towards a more harmonious way of life and greater resilience requires our active participation. This means finding ways to become more aware of and connected to the other forms of life that are around us and that constitute our food---plants and animals--- as well as bacteria and fungi--- and to the resources, such as water, fuel, materials, tools and transportation, upon which we depend. We can become creators of a better world, of better and more regenerative food choices, of greater awareness of resources, and of community based upon sharing. For culture to be strong and resilient, it must be a creative realm in which skills, information, and values are engaged and transmitted; culture cannot thrive as a consumer paradise or spectator sport. Daily life offers constant opportunities for participatory action. Seize them."
― Sandor Ellix Katz (Author of "The Art of Fermentation" )
The Independent National Convention sounds very interesting. And disheartening because that one paragraph talks about uniting independents, depolarizing the country, and finding common ground and then divides and polarizes people into haves and have nots in the process of finding common ground only among the haves.