Team Human

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

Playing for Team Human today, author and social critic Walter Kirn. Walter and Douglas engage in a two-part conversation that questions the so-called “evolution” of technology. Just how much of our humanity are we willing to surrender to our devices? Why do we deem our own replacement by computer programs to be the inevitable path of progress? And whose progress are we actually talking about?We’ve broken this conversation into two parts. Tune in next week for Part 2. Visit walterkirn.com to learn more about his work including his latest book, Blood Will Out. Check out Kirn’s most recent column in Harper's. Douglas begins the conversation citing this recent interview with Kirn in Playboy.Today’s show inaugurates our launch on Patreon. Visit patreon.com/teamhuman to support the show. Your subscription not only earns premium gifts, but also grants you access to the TeamHuman Slack channel, where we discuss the issues raised on the show, hold production meetings, and entertain ideas for new guests and features. J

This week, a special holiday episode featuring conversations with Astra Taylor and Thomas Gokey of the Debt Collective plus worker cooperative organizer Esteban Kelly.  We launched Team Human a little less than a year ago with little fanfare or promotion. Steadily we’ve assembled a formidable team of listeners via word of mouth, retweets, and person-to-person conversation. We’d like to take this week to introduce our more recent listeners to two conversations that set the tone for Team Human. Today’s show begins by going all the way back to very first Team Human interview with Astra Taylor and Thomas Gokey, co-founders of Strike Debt, Rolling Jubilee and most recently the Debt Collective. The Debt Collective is a direct action campaign that leverages the collective power of debtors, united together, against exploitative for-profit education and lending institutions in the US. Astra and Thomas give Team Human listeners a template for hacking real world systems and tapping into the power of solidarity

Playing for Team Human today is permaculturalist Adam Brock, author of Change Here Now. Adam joins Douglas for a conversation about how humanity is integrally connected to natural ecosystems. “Nature is a textbook,” Adam explains, and so by paying close attention to ecological systems, we can better understand ourselves as part of a greater whole. It’s a theme that serves as the springboard into a conversation not only about the ways we grow food, but also about community, trust, and the deeper sense of connection that comes from a permaculture mindset.Rushkoff opens today’s show with a monologue about Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods and how scaling up in the digital economy threatens to leave humans behind. Rushkoff's most recent book Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity was just released in paperback with new expanded material last week.Adam Brock's new book Change Here Now is available at Amazon and Indie Bound.Adam founded www.thegrowhaus.

Playing for Team Human is Ramesh Srinivasan, professor and author of Whose Global Village? Rethinking How Technology Shapes Our World. Today, information travels around the globe in an instant, and connection to far away people and places is merely a click away. Yet the prevalence of filter bubbles, the rise of political extremism, and the consolidation of network power into the hands of behemoth companies like Facebook and Google portend a growing disconnection in society. Ramesh Srinivasan looks beyond the slogans and "empty metaphors" often used to brand these technologies as inclusive, free, and liberating. On today's episode, Srinivasan and Rushkoff challenge the notion that technology automatically builds community as it is deployed globally. It’s a conversation that critically assesses the presumptions of Western technocrats who see growing data and digital connectivity as the end itself for building a more just world. For more information about Ramesh’s work and his latest book, Whose Global

Playing for Team Human today, master of human connection and consensus, Loomio co-founder Richard Bartlett.Bartett, hailing from New Zealand, stopped by Douglas's home studio while on a community organizing workshop tour of the US. Bartlett and Rushkoff discuss the challenges of building consensus in an all too often top-down, winner-takes all society. Together we'll learn how Loomio, inspired by the general assemblies of Occupy Wall Street, strives to amplify collaborative power and foster more participatory democratic practice. It's a project that starts with small-scale, human-to-human connection and grows outward from there. Rushkoff begins today's episode with a monologue premised on a similar theme. Being human is a "team sport" and the more we cave into the divisive fear of these hostile times, the harder it becomes to "occupy a reality" of mutual care and concern.To learn more about Richard Barlett's work with Loomio visit his blog at http://blog.loomio.org/author/rdbartlett/ Loomio is part of the Ens

Playing for Team Human today is Daniel Berninger. Berninger is a communications technologist who brings his unique, behind-the-scenes insight to a discussion about what distinguishes human-centered technological advancement from today’s all too prevalent machine-focused visions for the future. Berninger, who played an instrumental role in the creation of VoIP, or voice over internet communications technology, offers a critique of systems whose power is inflated by machine agendas. Berninger also takes aim at the bureaucratic glut of institutions and government and their self-serving structures that also threaten to alienate humans. Together, Berninger and Rushkoff find common ground in their celebration of solidarity and the irreducible nature of humanity as key to solving society’s intractable problems.This show begins with a monologue from Rushkoff on how agendas, be it the "machine agenda" of the tech industry or the conspiracy-driven narratives of today’s establishment political punditry, serve to distort

Just getting a thousand humans into a room together to sit and watch other humans act out something on stage is the miracle. Playwright J.T. Rogers understands why the very act of doing live theater is so hopeful, and applies this hope to intractable problems like the Middle East conflict - with surprising, and Tony-nominated results.Also, a monologue from Douglas Rushkoff on the Manchester bombing, and what it means when a fatal stampede at a Who concert in Cincinnati can be considered the good old days.More on J.T. Rogers, including tickets and info for his critically acclaimed work Oslo, at jtrogerswriter.com. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s Team Human, we discover one of the reasons why knowing history matters. William Hogeland, author of Autumn of the Black Snake, tells the story of how and why the US Army was created - not to defend our borders, but to wipe out indigenous nations. And all that, in an effort to satisfy the growth mandate embedded in our economy by heroes of the neoliberal left like Alexander Hamilton. Make no mistake: Hogeland is a live wire.The show opens with a related monologue from Rushkoff about why successful businesses should refrain from scaling up. How about staying local, and letting other companies just copy your model? Why and how has the need to scale and colonize new territory become our default?Purchase Autumn of the Black Snake:  Indie Bound -or- AmazonRead more from Hogeland on the book here.Team Human is supported thanks to listeners. Visit teamhuman.fm to pledge your support. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Playing for Team Human is Micah Sifry. Next month Micah will host the 2017 Personal Democracy Forum. On today’s show, Micah and Douglas discuss how the stakes are higher than ever for bringing people into an active civic life and engagement with democracy. Looking beyond the 2016 electoral postmortems and whodunits, Micah and Douglas talk about the power of humans breathing together–conspiring–in real space and time, while also leveraging technologies of connection, to build an actionable progressive agenda. Listeners of Team Human will find kindred spirits at the Personal Democracy Forum and Civic Hall. If you voted and you've been marching and calling your representatives but are still looking for ways to enhance your civic power and find community, PDF 2017 is ready for you. Personal Democracy Forum 2017, themed What We Do Now, will be held June 8-9 at the NYU Skirball Center, NYC. Team Human will be recording on location at this year’s PDF. Also check out Team Human Ep. 07 recorded at last year’

Playing for Team Human today is musician Tessa Lena. Tessa's music explores the tension between technology and human agency. In her songs and in this interview, Tessa playfully challenges robotic conceptions of humanity. Tessa offers a compelling argument for power of music to call us out of those automatic, quantified notions of self and society.Both Lena and Rushkoff pose essential questions; Is technology being used to extend our human potential? Does the embedded economic agenda driving technology inevitably thwart ambitions that focus on people over profit?Tessa's brand new record Tessa Fights Robots serves as the launching point for a true Team Human conversation about the power of art, music, and play in an increasingly robotic society.Team Human is supported by listeners. A special thanks to our new supporters as well as all of our monthly sustainers who make each episode possible. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Playing for Team Human today is Pia Mancini. Pia is a visionary democracy activist who co-founded the Net Party in Argentina and DemocracyOS. Today Pia joins Douglas to talk about her new project Open Collective. Open Collective is platform that helps small, non-traditional organizations to collectivize, raise funds, and manage expenses in a networked and transparent fashion. Open Collective is a useful resource for listeners who are trying to build sustainable funding for their local community group, political organization, and even school club. Pia explains how Open Collectives not only is helping to fund a growing number of unique organizations, but signals a future where transparent, collective partnerships might foster new models of democratic participation and exchange of resources.Douglas begins today's show with a monologue on shame. How is shame used as an instrument of social control? Rushkoff advances a thesis on how open, transparent social organizing, like what is being fostered by Pia and O

Playing for Team Human today is author and Bloomberg Businessweek and New Yorker columnist David Sax. Sax’s latest book Revenge of the Analog, Real Things and Why They Matter explores the resurgence of the tactile, human-to-human, brick-and-mortar encounters that characterize the analog experience. How might our rekindled love of vinyl LPs, local book stores, and face-to-face interaction help reground society to the physical realities of land, labor, and our fellow humans? Sax and Rushkoff explore the real world experiences and “flesh and blood consequences" that lie just beyond the glow of our screens and mediated environments.In today’s show monologue, Rushkoff looks at the extreme political and policy binaries being pushed by the Trump administration. He argues for an embrace of liminal spaces; the continuous, ambiguous, and messy analog work of building peace in these turbulent times. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Playing for Team Human today, memeticist and social change agent Laszlo Karafiath Ph.D.Laszlo, memetic engineer for Culture 2, shares his analysis of the weaponized media now paralyzing so much of our thought, and tells us what we have to do - collectively - to build our immunity to thought viruses. Together Karafiath and Rushkoff look at the ways we might redeploy memetic power to foster positive social change. You can learn more about Karafiath's work at www.purposeandplay.com or follow him on twitter.Also on today's show - Rushkoff on avoiding the rabbit holes of speculation and distraction in the context of war and the volatile Trump administration. How might we get back to the work of rebuilding society rather than being pulled deeper into the sensationalized narratives unfolding on our screens? Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.