The Liminal Learning Portal

If you’re a visionary political thinker and agent, your eye may have been caught by one of the following theorists/activists of the future of democracy over the last decade or so: Integrative Governance(by Margaret Stout & Jeannine M. Love) Holistic Democracy(by Jan Inglis) Musical Democracy(by Nancy S. Love) Deep Democracy(by Arny Mindell) Liquid Democracy Sociocracy One way or another, these suggest “Protopian” forms of governance, where it is assumed that there is some kind of development from monarchy etc. → liberal democracy etc. → deeper and more holistic forms of governance. Democracy isn’t a done deal. It’s not an either-or. It can

I am pleased to announce the Institute for Cultural Evolution has published my “win-win-win” policy recommendation on Big Tech Governance: https://www.culturalevolution.org/…/big-tech-governance/ Here are the “three wins”—one for each major American worldview—that this policy recommendation seeks to achieve: Wins Sought for Each Major Worldview As outlined in my policy recommendation, by: 1) convening an annual congressional regulation summit tasked with crafting regulations that integrate the interests all digital economy stakeholders, 2) increasing the technological literacy of lawmakers, and 3) building on the recent first round of regulatory bills, we hope to provide “wins” for each of America’s major cultural worldviews, as

It’s been a while since I started out in the “saving the world business” and began hanging out with all those pesky hipsters, hippies and hackers—and in doing so, became one of their own. Along the way I’ve made my fair share of experiences, and of course, mistakes, and I’ve wasted a whole lot of time—oceans of wasted time that could have been spent more productively doing something else. Nowadays I’m in such a privileged position that a lot of young people, just starting out on journeys of their own, are coming to me for advice. I see that many

Whenever everyday people start asking themselves the question… Wait a minute, if people of yesteryear did all sorts of things we find barbaric, from keeping slaves to public flogging, what might future civilizations be equally appalled by in our age? … they almost inevitably come up with some version of: “Well, it’s probably something about how we treat non-human animals”. It probably is. Consider the following. 133 Holocausts per Year We all know that tormenting a cat or a dog is a pretty bad thing. Indeed, we regard it as criminal, highly immoral, and certainly as picking on someone weaker

→ If we seek to apply a “metamodern” perspective, and we seek to stimulate a higher probability of Protopia in the world, what kind of green or ecological political thinking (“ecologism”) makes sense? → To respond to this question, we must zoom in on a more practical one: If all of our economy builds on growth, how can it be made to shrink so that an ecologically sustainable state is reached (so-called degrowth)? After Deconstruction, Reconstruction Must Follow Much of my writing focuses on “reconstructing” elements of modern society. For instance, I believe that instead of a welfare state, we should

A letter to my fellow pragmatic dreamers. There is a strong sentiment, almost a movement, across the West and among progressives around the world—even some traditionalists: to reconnect to the ever-present tribal origin; to make life and society come alive again, to make the universe into a more human homestead once again. This is in and of itself an understandable and honorable impulse. If modern life, or modernity, has disconnected us from nature, from our direct surroundings, from one another, from our bodies, from spiritual life, from the cathedral that is always present in earth and skies, the longing for and admiration of

Although I have formerly developed an attempt at a comprehensive and general theory of governance—one that would be usable to diagnose the failures of human coordination across all social units (from tribes to organizations to states and beyond)—this article focuses specifically upon “the future of governance”, what I have come to call its protopian forms. Governance is, in many ways, the most important question of all. In societies that are well-governed, people do well (as far as that’s possible in a world full of challenges). In this article, I skip the wider and more universal framework for analyzing and diagnosing governance, moving

I’m pleased to announce that the Institute for Cultural Evolution has published an audiobook version of my book: Developmental Politics—How America Can Grow Into a Better Version of Itself. Originally published in print format in 2020, Developmental Politics has had a wide influence, and the book’s success has been instrumental in the growth of the Institute for Cultural Evolution as an organization. The audiobook was produced through Audible and professionally narrated by Josh Innerst. You can listen to a sample here: https://www.amazon.com/Developmental-Politics-America-Better-Version/dp/B09ZQ4DFWJ/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1564423446&sr=8-2 The post New audiobook version of Developmental Politics appeared first on Steve McIntosh: Official Website.

I would like to briefly sketch a system of law that could be termed metamodern in contrast to our current, modern one, or protopian—i.e. utopian in the sense “visionary” but not a static, impossible ideal. Let’s start with pointing out the glaring irrationalities of the criminal justice systems of today—in functional liberal democracies, that is. We may leave aside the more obvious case of autocratic or corrupted systems. We may even leave aside the critique of the irrationalities of the hyper-imprisonment practiced in the USA due to what appears to be the confluence of the economic incentives of the “prison-industrial complex” with racial

Solar panels on the Werkspoorfabriek, a large industrial warehouse, in Utrecht Germany can shift its entire electricity system onto solar, wind and batteries by 2030 for less than 1% of its GDP. And the country’s entire energy system can go 100% clean energy by 2035 for less than what it spends on fossil fuels. In 10-15 years, Germany can change everything, permanently ending the era of dependence on expensive, volatile fossil fuel extraction, and leading the way for Europe to do the same. At RethinkX, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine prompting European governments in particular to radically rethink their