Thank you - this essay gave me the language for a feeling that I've been having, but unable to put in words. "Consensus Trance" is well-put!

Also, a big +1 for the "Development in Progress" essay shared by another commenter, that's a great piece.

At the same time, I realize that what I'm saying is idealistic, hand-wavy, impractical. That's a balance I think about and struggle with a lot. We need a revolution for sure.

Thank you for the discussion! And I'm a huge fan of your podcast, it's really transformed my thinking.

I agree - we are definitely running out of time, and some people are just not reachable. But I also feel that conflict - and more generally, competition - are fundamental causes of our current predicament.

And so, we need to supercede violence and conflict to make it out of this mess.

Yeah, +1.

So it seems to me that it's important to call out people's sadism and evilness (like you've done), but also not villainize individuals - since they're in some sense "victims" of their material reality (and their TikTok feeds).

How do you think about that balance?

Robert, do you think this sadism of the right is innate? Or is it emulation in order to fit-in with the group, and a consequence of negatively-skewed information ecosystems?

I like to believe that there's some deeper empathy that's conditioned out of people (and can be conditioned back in). Wdyt?

I just worry that "getting real" is an excuse to cull ambition. We also need to "get real" about the fact that today we're in overshoot of 7 out of 9 planetary boundaries - each of which is a threat to continued habitability of the planet - largely because of factory farming.

But yes, we need both

I think the climate crisis will admit a variety of solutions simultaneously, including supply side innovation and demand side consciousness shifts!

I think this is confusing the line between projections and ambition.

The human world is also on track to continue burning fossil fuels, destroy Earth's last remaining biodiversity, and drive itself to extinction in 1-2 generations. The whole point is to figure out how we can change tracks.

Tristan Harris from @humanetech.bsky.social on Nate Hagens' podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/1T0D...

Audrey Tang's TED Talk: m.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ2N...

Technofeudalism by @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social (or this more accessible Wisecrack YouTube video about the same thing: youtu.be/hNblIGVKgks?...)

The Chaos Machine by @max-fisher.bsky.social (talk by the author: youtu.be/kUU4sEFktjw?...)

The Book: "Stand Out Of Our Light" by James Wilson Williams (related TED Talk: youtu.be/MaIO2UIvJ4g?...)

This is a topic I'm very passionate about. I have some related recommendations here, check them out.

The book "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr, or this talk by the author: youtu.be/lt_NwowMTcg?...