Daniel Schmachtenberger: “Bend not Break #3: Sensemaking, Uncertainty, and Purpose”
Episode 31
August 10, 2022
(Conversation Recorded on July 28, 2022.)
On this episode we meet with founding member of The Consilience Project, Daniel Schmachtenberger.
In Part 3 of their series, Schmachtenberger and Hagens explore metanarratives. Why are they threatening to various sections of society?
Further, Schmachtenberger helps us understand how we can take in the systemic meta-crisis facing humanity in ways that grant us agency, rather than despair.
About Daniel Schmachtenberger
Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue.
The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal.
Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science.
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:40 - Daniel Schmachtenberger info + TGS episodes part 1 and part 2
06:30 - Overview of Nate’s story: Animated videos, Economics for the Future - Beyond the Superorganism
11:17 - Evolutionary Psychology
11:43 - How psychology varies across cultures
12:01 - Varying levels of violence, value of education across cultures
13:04 - Dumb American geography videos
14:30 - How algorithms keep people on social media sites
15:20 - Humans prefer certainty, uncertainty is difficult
16:08 - One Marshmallow/Two Marshmallow experiment
17:01 - Supernormal stimuli
17:50 - People dying of obesity are also dying of nutrient deficiency
21:45 - Sensemaking
24:31 - Chinese model of government
26:07 - Reductionism
27:12 - Iatrogenic
27:35 - Chronic diseases require understanding the body’s system
30:45 - Orangutans, Indonesia and paper bags
33:20 - Consensus Bias
33:30 - Environmental degradation on indigenous lands and communities
35:27 - David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti
37:15 - Delusion of Consciousness
40:20 - Vedic Bhagavad Gita chapter 2 verse 48
43:38 - Psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness
44:28 - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - Catastrophizing
49:02 - Doomerism
50:15 - Sometimes ‘cheering up’ makes people feel worse
55:01 - Decentralized technology, tabletop CRISPR
55:39 - Bucky Fuller - egg analogy
58:25 - Discrete Phase Shifts
59:27 - Trolley Problem
1:02:30 - CAFOs
1:03:38 - Diet For a New America
1:06:51 - Marc Gafni