In Search of the Third Attractor, Daniel Schmachtenberger (part 1) - YouTube
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Where are we headed as a species? What is the landscape of risks and challenges that we need to confront over the next decades, and are there a small number of key factors that we need to solve to avoid catastrophe? These are the questions Daniel Schmachtenberger is laying out in a new two part series on Rebel Wisdom, called 'In Search of the Third Attractor'. As he describes it, the power of ever increasing technological capacity (exponential tech) means that both destructive and creative capacities are increasing exponentially. Two of the most likely outcomes (attractors) are either some kind of chaotic breakdown, or the development of powerful control systems in response, oppressive authoritarian control. Given this, what does a third option, a 'third attractor' look like? Daniel will be speaking at the Rebel Wisdom festival, 'the Last Campfire' in London on November 5th. To check it out and buy tickets, go to: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/r... To find out more about the topics Daniel is discussing, check out his work on civilisation, at Civilization Emerging:
https://civilizationemerging.com/
And for more on his work around the Sensemaking crisis, check out the Consilience Project:
https://consilienceproject.org/
In this and other presentations, Daniel Schmactenberger does more to explain why a rapid and radical revolution in human culture is necessary than any other person I know. As it seems to me, he's basically saying (metaphorically speaking) we are living in a highly flammable world, with highly flammable materials all around us, and we're a bunch of mostly mindless children equipped with Bic lighters and matches.
Just watched the second part. Took awhile--part I is 2;45, and part two is 1:45, so a total of 3 1/2 hours--whew! But he has a lot of interesting things to say. However, although he acknowledges ecological harms, he seems to assume that we'll go on, on the trajectory we're on, indefinitely. Given resource constraints and energy constraints, I'm skeptical how long we can go on. I'm afraid his various catastrophes are quite possible--the dystopia might not be, as it might take resources the world hasn't got to monitor and control 8 billion people (but maybe if you got rid of half of them? That moves into catastrophe territory of course, although Schmactenberger seems to see that as coming from some small group rather than a government)...and the Brave New World of his Third Attractor surely would require magical provision of energy and other resources, given that we aren't on the verge of transitioning to it right now.