Future Fossils

This week I talk with environmental philosopher and Santa Clara Clara Assistant Professor Kimberly Dill, an old friend of mine from Austin, Texas whom I met at Bouldin Creek Coffee over lemon maté sours and a deep dive into Eastern nondual traditions while she was in school studying arguments against free will under acclaimed analytic philosopher Galen Strawson. She has since grown into a formidable scholar and ethics instructor in her own right and positively exudes a studious, diligent, caring, and starry-eyed vibe at all times…an utterly unique and finely-honed heart and intellect who stands out from the rest of my belovedly strange cohort of Austin festival-going slacker friends.I’ve been chasing her down to be on the podcast for years and am delighted she and I finally managed to link up to record this potent dialogue on the relationality of humankind and the wild world in which we are inextricably entangled, the substantive differences between our simulations and the originals they fail to fully reprodu

This week I go solo and get reflective on age, noise, loss, mystery, stars and angels, dreams and seasons, modern science and the retrieval of magic...Read the ✨ EXTENSIVE ✨ show notes, and join the Future Fossils community, at Patreon. cataract (n.) early 15c., "a waterfall, floodgate, furious rush of water," from Latin cataracta "waterfall," from Greek katarhaktes "waterfall, broken water; a kind of portcullis," noun use of an adjective compound meaning "swooping, down-rushing," from kata "down" (see cata-). The second element is traced either to arhattein "to strike hard" (in which case the compound is kat-arrhattein), or to rhattein "to dash, break." Its alternative sense in Latin of "portcullis" probably passed through French and gave English the meaning "eye disease characterized by opacity of the lens" (early 15c.), on the notion of "obstruction" (to eyesight). (from etymology.com)Episode Art & Music:Aldebaran by Michael Garfield (2020) (prints available)Pavo: Music for Mystery by Michael Garfield

Subscribe wherever you dig podcastsRate and review the show at Apple PodcastsBrowse my newsletter, original art, prints, merchandise, NFTs, etc.Dig into the complete, extensive show notes (and join our online community) at PatreonThis week on the show I chat with the storied, insightful, multidimensional Roland Harwood (Twitter | LinkedIn | Liminal | Participatory City Foundation) — a “compulsive connector,” generalist, “failed astronaut,” pianist, Founder, CEO, Trustee, impresario of international collective intelligence projects, and generally fascinating person. In a conversation that already feels somewhat archaeological (it was recorded in November 2021 and references discussions that have already developed significantly over the last year), we explore the martial art of living in transition, of thriving in the in-between spaces, of dealing with the unpredictable and the fundamental uncertainty of our lives. We also rap on the subjects of innovation, global weirding, organizational evolution, technology,

Rate and review the show at Apple PodcastsDig into the complete, extensive show notes at PatreonThis week we’re joined by Lauren Seyler, Assistant Professor of Biology at Stockton University (Lab Website, Twitter @darkmicrobio, Google Scholar), who studies the microscopic living world that flourishes in dark places: the mud of coastal marshes, inside rocks, and in sediments at the bottom of the sea. She’s also co-authored a number of publications on how scientists can work ethically with Indigenous peoples, and applies her scientific research to questions of astrobiology: the search for life and intelligence in outer space.In this episode, we discuss the life/non-life boundary, evolution as thermodynamics, anaerobic microbes as the invisible labor supporting all life on Earth, the origin of life: in the light, or in the dark?, the wonderful world of -omics, individual vs. Institutional agency and the necessary revolution of consciousness required for effective collective action at planetary scale, power and r

This week on Future Fossils, we sync up with globe-trotting (Singapore-based) futurist Parag Khanna, author of several internationally best-selling books on the shifting landscape of human geography and technological evolution. My acquaintance with Parag dates back all the way to 2011 when I found his Hybrid Reality Institute, and started writing for his BigThink blog, thanks to the writing of Jason Silva — I knew this was a party I couldn’t miss, even though I was then, as now, deeply ambivalent about the contours of the futures he and his colleagues were making visible with their rigorous research. This spirit has defined my entire adult life: if you want to help steer something in a better direction, you might just have to get your hands down into the murk and engage with it deeply enough to be in the position to make a difference. So when his agent contacted me about interviewing him about his latest book, 2021’s Move: The Forces Uprooting Us, I knew it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. But let me be clear

Complete, EXTENSIVE show notes at Patreon.com/michaelgarfield!As guest 0xZakk says at the very end of this conversation, most of the construction projects throughout the history of civilization have been coercive. What does it look like when we actually build things in a really cooperative way? This episode was recorded in November 2021 when the cryptocurrency markets were insanely bullish and the world relatively stable…but releasing it now, in July 2022, seems more aptly-timed than I could have anticipated.The United States Supreme Court has failed the great majority of American citizens not just once but several shocking and historic times in one week, hacking away at women’s reproductive rights, the EPA, and gun safety all at once. The Supreme Court majority was largely appointed by presidents that lost the popular vote, our nation is embroiled in hearings about a violent coup attempt spearheaded by the former President, and people on both sides of the constructed political divide seem more desperate than

Find the complete show notes for this episode on Patreon. This episode was recorded live in Austin, Texas at the West China Tea House in partnership with EFF-Austin, a non-profit committed to the establishment and protection of digital rights and defense of the wealth of digital information, innovation, and technology. Founded in 1991 as a local sub-chapter of The Electronic Frontier Foundation and run as an independent organization, EFF-Austin promotes the right of all citizens to communicate and share information without unreasonable constraint — as well as the fundamental right to explore, tinker, create, and innovate along the frontier of emerging technologies. In this episode, I talk with Kevin Welch and David Hensley about why digital rights matter to our analog lives; whether and how the genies of rampant technological innovation can be forced back into the bottle; how to think about the inherent tensions between individuals and institutions; what esoteric traditions and superhero movies may have to te

or, “Why Isn’t There A Science of X?”or, “Alchemy is to Chemistry as Astrology is to…?”“If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will.”“It’s time for a new era, for someone to figure out what the implications of our results are for human culture, for future study, and — if the findings are correct — what they say about our basic scientific attitude.”– Robert G. Jahn“We have been very open with our data. But how do you get peer review when you don’t have peers?”– Brenda Dunne“The culture of science, at its purest, is one of freedom in which any idea can be tested regardless of how far-fetched it might seem.”– Benedict Carey, writing on the PEAR Lab for The New York TimesFull show notes available at Patreon.com/michaelgarfield Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonu

Don't waste another minute here. Go read the full show notes on Patreon!Be forewarned: This latest episode is some extremely heady stuff. But thankfully, it's also full of heart and soul...Back in February, Jonathan Rowson posted two clips (here and here) from his latest in-progress writing tlimito Twitter, where it succeeded in baiting a bunch of the folks with whom I regularly interact as members of the so-called "Liminal Web" into reflecting on the value of partitioning a global boil of loosely-associated "sensemakers," "meta-theorists," and "systems poets" into well-meaning but ultimately dubious cultural taxonomies.I had plenty to say about this (here, here, and here) from my awkwardly consistent stance of being both enthusiastic and skeptical about apparently everything. But so did numerous other brilliant and inspiring people, including Bonnitta Roy, Stephanie Lepp, Ashley Colby, and Jason Snyder – all of whom I've wanted on the show for a while (with the exception of Stephanie, with whom I had a great

I don't even know where to start with this amazing episode. Henry Gee is the Senior Editor of Nature, the author of many cool science books including his latest, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth; an accomplished musician; a riveting storyteller and humorous fellow; the Founding Editor of Nature's Futures sci-fi series; and a total joy in conversation. We met to discuss his brilliant tour of evolutionary history past and future, and did, but also occupied a fair bit of our two hours together sharing stories about paleontologists, talking music, gabbing about our love of science fiction, and being ridiculous.I've decided to not bother editing this one because (1) I'm finally getting bold enough to give not-editing a shot; and (2) it was SO VERY ENJOYABLE that I am not sure I could survive a second listen without a second conversation already on the calendar. Consequently, you don't get the normal intensely-detailed show notes, but among the many things we discusses are: synthesizers; feathered dinosaurs;

Find the complete show notes and support the show at Patreon.This week on Future Fossils, Orpheus is in the building for a soulful and visionary conversation with Grammy-winning blues singer-songwriter Mike Mattison and inveterate English professor Ernest Suarez of Catholic University, co-authors of the new book Poetic Song Verse: Blues-based Popular Music and Poetry.  Their book explores the history of the complicated love affair between literature and rock, tracing the tangled roots back through slave work songs and Beat poetry into the age of the mythic rockstar through the definitive contributions of acts such as Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder, and with inspiration from The Merry Pranksters, Walt Whitman, and many more.This is the story of the cultural air we're all breathing and taking for granted. As a lifelong disciple of songwriting and poetry, I DEVOURED this book and this DELIGHTED in this conversation; and in the tense atmosphere

Microbiologist, independent scholar, ritualist, equestrian therapist, and overall badass Siv Watkins joins the show this week to discuss right relationship with the world of the invisibly small: mood-altering gut flora, the COVID-19 pandemic, Lyme disease, AIDS, and other chronic ailments…as well as with the all-encompassing tapestry of microbial life from which we evolved and within which we exist from birth to death. It’s turtles all the way down! Tag an anti-natalist friend and have them give it a listen…Learn more about and register for Siv's 2022 course on Thinking Like A Plague.Find the complete, extensive show notes — and support the show for superb extras — on Patreon. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

Get the AMAZING full show notes on Patreon (free public post).Jim Rutt joins us this week to explore the pre- and post-history of “GameB”, an antidote to the social script of rampant ecocidal profit maximalization. Of course, Jim himself is an optimizer par excellence, a true Boomer if there ever were one who saw the wave of personal computing coming in and rode it like a champion surfer from one tech company to the next. What is the relationship between making it big by connecting people and fighting the entropic onslaught of externality production? We take it back to the middle of the 20th Century to find out: from kid gangs in the DC Beltway to MIT to writing computer models of the atmosphere of Jupiter, car salesman and college textbook peddler, suddenly we’re talking about building planet-wide networks of gravity wave detection telescopes and mutually non-commensurable village sex cults? Rivalry and non-rivalry in companies and governance. Holocracy and sociocracy. Are we prophets or fools? Or perhaps mo

This week I talk with four brilliant people working in and around the study of complex systems about the World Wide Web’s co-evolution with cryptocurrencies and other distributed ledger technologies: the promise AND the peril; the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s a hugely complicated topic and there wasn’t enough time in this panel for Complexity Weekend (recorded on 14 November 2021) for everyone to get on the same page, much less come to a final agreement about anything — but the real value of discussions like these lies in the tension between perspectives, and the intertidal zone is fertile, here, indeed.You can watch the unedited panel recording on YouTube (but I recommend listening instead, as the work that went into editing this was immense).For the COMPLETE show notes, including copious additional learning resources, find this episode on Patreon.More About Our Guests:Park BachRESEARCHER AT FIGMENT.IO; LIBRARIAN AT GITCOINCoordination Problems • Initial Conditions • Emergent Intent • Group PrioritySidd

 This week on Future Fossils, metamodern magick ritual artist, yogini, songwriter, and delicious weirdo Scout-Lieder Wiley and I ask: “How are you supposed to repair the darkness if you don’t own the darkness?” And we have much fun and profound exploration besides, into the performance of expertise, the virtue of naïveté, integral theory without the jargon, being unfinished, speaking the unspeakable, heyoka medicine, astrology, the enneagram, the tarot, hermes the scientist versus hermes the communicator, the “flaveregore”, a speculative science dao that can and will fund taboo research, how the street finds its own uses for things, time binding and prediction and tarot and algorithmic policing, the divine value of boredom, and more.Scout on Twitter | FacebookFind the COMPLETE show notes for this episode here.✨ Housekeeping• If you want to see these conversations thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon and please leave a good review on Apple Podcasts! As a patron you get extra podcasts each month, book club

The longest-incubated episode of Future Fossils ever! "Vanthropologist" Chris Ryan and I discuss his book, Civilized To Death: The Price of Progress, and the conflict between human beings and our institutions. What is the bright side of collapse? What syntheses of wilderness and culture can we foster in the years to come? This was a blast...✨ Housekeeping• If you want to see these conversations thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon and please leave a good review on Apple Podcasts! As a patron you get extra podcasts each month, book club calls, and early access to new writing, art, and music.• Meet great people and have awesome conversations in our Discord Server & Facebook Group, which is going to convert to patrons-only in January 2022.• When you’d rather listen to music, follow me on Bandcamp or Spotify. (Here are my listening recommendations.)✨ Music & Art by Michael Garfield• Intro music from the Martian Arts EP. • Outro music: "Seeing Like A State" available soon to Patreon and Bandcamp suppo

Last autumn, as part of the Complexity Weekend hackathon, I hosted a live panel discussion with four unique and fascinating minds. We discussed archaeoacoustic design as a form of extended cognition, the continuity between the ancient and postmodern worlds, biomimicry, and many more interesting threads at the intersection of complex systems research and creative innovation.I’m doing this again tomorrow (11/14) for a panel on complex systems science and the evolution of Web3 — more info here. Hope you can join us!Dig into the complete show notes for this episode on Patreon. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

This week, in a powerful panel discussion at the Psilocybin Summit, we reflect on the lessons of magic mushrooms with three of the smartest, wisest trippers I’ve ever met: Penn State author and English professor Richard Doyle, Inner Traditions author and mythologist Sophie Strand, and Imperial College London ecologist and psychedelics researcher Sam Gandy.We talk about the history of the superb trip preparation algorithm “ecodelic,” how psychoactive plants and fungi are once again calling for the innovation of new language, and the urgency of helping people reconnect to the sacred wilderness that ecodelics reveal is not simply “outside.” It's brief but glorious.If you want to see these conversations thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon and leave a good review on Apple Podcasts!Dig up the full show notes at https://www.patreon.com/posts/58002643/. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. This is a p

This week I talk to philosopher C. Thi Nguyen (objectionable.net | @add_hawk) of the University of Utah, author of Games: Agency as Art and many fascinating papers on social knowledge and the psychology of games, transparency in society, and the philosophy of science — the very philosophical concerns with which I’m obsessed and to which I have devoted much of this show. I met him at Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute this July and immediately knew I had to have him on for what turned out to be one of my favorites yet. Get ready to unravel what you think you know about the ways you come to your decisions, allocate your trust, and sort the chaos of experience…Due to some inexplicable technical nonsense I can't add the full liner notes here, so please find extensive additional resources (including all of the papers, books, and podcasts we mention) at Patreon (where, by the way, your membership grants you extra podcasts each month, book club calls, and early access to new writing, art, and music).✨ Support th

This week we're joined by robotics engineer, electronic music producer, and Future Fossils co-founder Evan “Skytree” Snyder — who has recently been asked to help design the sounds made by the next wave of Amazon warehouse robots. In this first part of our discussion, we explore the evolutionary and psychological considerations for designing human-compatible robot sounds, talk brilliant birds and their mimicry of people and machines, and riff on the manipulative utility of cuteness for both good and evil.In part two, available to Patreon supporters later this week, we talk about Evan’s work to reconstruct the soundscapes of The Age of Dinosaurs, his experiments with using radioactive mineral samples to control modular synthesizers, and his reflections on the use of sound for deep-time communication with future humans and/or extraterrestrials…✨ Go Deeper• If you value this show and would like to see it thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon and please leave a good review on Apple Podcasts! As a patron you ge