The voices
Sixty-eight ways
into one question
Thinkers and practitioners from many fields, each asked the same thing. Filter by theme, or look for a name you know.
The Science of Futures
How can we consciously shape the future when our present is still so deeply influenced by the stories and systems of the past? In this conversation, futurist Sohail Inayatullah and I explore the power of imagination, the transformation of worldviews, five major shifts facing humanity, and the relationship between spiritual realization and our capacity to co-create a different future.
Probability Spaces
What does it mean to consciously participate in the evolutionary movement of life? In this conversation, Alexander Laszlo and I explore Syntony, the dynamic harmony of life, and how love, consciousness, surrender and agency can help us become living expressions of the Third Attractor.
Indigenous Wisdom
In this conversation, Tiokasin Ghosthorse brings a Lakota perspective on intuition, consciousness, our relationship with Earth and the possibility of rediscovering a way of living that modern civilization has largely lost.
Falling in Love with the Future
What can twenty years of the Transition movement teach us about creating a different future from the ground up? Rob Hopkins and I explore community-led change, local economies and why rebuilding our collective imagination may be one of the most important steps towards a Third Attractor.
Leadership and Complexity
How do we stay open and creative when complexity makes us want to contract into certainty and simple answers? We explore leadership, human development, relationships, AI and why creating a different future requires us to grow our capacity to meet the unknown.
Radical Wholeness
Is an integral approach the Third Attractor? We explore why it has to be taught from the top down and the bottom up, how waking up includes becoming, where AI fits, and five kinds of wholeness a person can practice.
Rationality needs Wisdom
How can effective altruism and inner work meet? We talk about connecting islands of coherence, holding paradoxes without choosing sides, hopes and fears around AI, and why giving even 1% of your income can matter.
Stories create Possibility
Why do stories matter for change? We explore inner parts and ancestral healing, asking the web of life what it wants, listening versus a benevolent dictator, stories of connection, agency and sufficiency, a donut-economy vision, and the dangers of AI.
Walking the Middle Way
The Middle Way as a practical philosophy of judgment: avoiding absolute positions and staying open to revising them. We compare it with the Third Attractor, disagree on metaphysics, and discuss ethics, meditation, community and AI.
A Really Regenerative Future
What would a Third Attractor built on place look like? We look at the law of three, the story of separation between people and nature, Nordic folk schools, collaboration over competition, and how to stay in the work when it is hard.
Darwin Beyond Biology
How can Darwinian evolution guide a pro-social world? We cover multilevel selection, Elinor Ostrom's core design principles for cooperative groups, how they apply to spiritual communities and AI, and where change can start.
The Sapient Cosmos
Can consciousness be the ground of the cosmos rather than a product of the brain? We explore idealism and a will to complexity, evidence from psychedelics and near-death experiences, whether AI could be conscious, where morality comes from, and scientific spirituality.
The Inner Science of World-making
Is the Third Attractor a destination or a navigation tool? We explore holding paradoxes and trade-offs, coherence versus cohesion in groups, unlearning hidden assumptions of modernity such as linear time, and why deconstruction needs constructive world-making, narrative and community.
Why we need Creditism
How would a money system built for life work? We explore creditism: currency issued like votes and deleted when used, universal issuance, bonus in place of profit, reclaiming the commons, how it differs from capitalism and communism, and how to start.
One Policy. Every Country.At Once.
Can nations escape destructive global competition by acting at the same time? We explore Simultaneous Policy: multi-issue packages, a citizen pledge that wins politicians over, why nation-centric thinking stalls it, and how it fits an integral view and the Third Attractor.
How Elders shape tomorrow
What can elders contribute to the Third Attractor? We explore conscious aging as a move from personal to transpersonal identity, shadow work in later life, a contested view of dementia as unguided dissolution of the self, and surrender versus agency.
A Gebserian Deep Dive
A conversation on Jean Gebser's integral consciousness and Bruno Latour's terrestrial attractor. We explore knowing when to make happen and when to let happen, time as an intensifying present, why reversals matter, the Zapatistas, and the social impact of AI.
The Future can't be Engineered
Can a better future be engineered, or only grown from where we are? We discuss complexity science, distributed ethnography where teenagers collect community stories, local experiments in Wales, why stage models of development are problematic, human and AI approaches, and hope without optimism.
Relational Beeing
Can individual freedom avoid chaos? We explore an information field that shapes matter and life, coherence as less scattered awareness, relational being beyond dualism, field circles, islands of coherence before a likely collapse, and AI as a tool rather than a master.
Consciousness is Weird
Is chaos where the future emerges, and is not knowing a strength? We explore imaginal cells, Princeton random event generator research, intention and letting go, whole performers in leadership, healing the split from earlier stages, and AI.
Our schools need a radical Shift
Can a school run on freedom and unconditional love? We look at Arunachala Village School in Tamil Nadu: teachers as older sisters, a school as family, a rolling library, and why change starts with the child inside every adult.
Holacracy and the Metacrisis
How can Holacracy help organizations serve the Third Attractor? We cover its tension-driven governance process, polarity management, and why global coordination failures like the multipolar trap need answers such as the Simultaneous Policy Campaign, plus AI as an amplifier.
The Importance of Arts
Can art help create the Third Attractor? A painter reads it through Iain McGilchrist's hemispheres: wholeness, not knowing, skill and surrender. We also discuss interbeing, jazz as shared creation, why aesthetic engagement matters, and why AI is no threat to human creativity.
Beyond Extraction
Can we restore what economic thinking destroyed? Drawing on the Loess Plateau in China, we explore why ecological function is worth more than material wealth, an ideal community size of 350 to 500 people, ecosystem restoration communities worldwide, and combining top-down and bottom-up action.
We need new Politics
What would a new paradigm in politics look like? We go through principles of integral politics: more perspectives and deep democracy, developmental action logics, presence, spiritual needs and purpose, plus local dialogue tables and why political parties block change.
Good Karma Effect
How can pausing and curiosity change the way we live together? We explore observing people without judgment, a neighbourhood help network built on four simple rules, compassion for hidden struggles, and why change needs both top-down and bottom-up action.
Becoming the Way
Could the Third Attractor be an "I am" statement and not an idea? Drawing on Christian mysticism, we discuss chasing states, the guru principle, how law evolves like traffic systems, local change, and asking what must die first.
Birthing a Regenerative Society
Can humanity learn balance from nature? We discuss the Eco-Civilization movement, stewardship over ownership, balancing individual and collective, leaders as coherence holders, a strong middle class, several kinds of intelligence, citizen assemblies and participatory budgeting, and the paradox of emergence and agency.
Things will get Weirder
Can we co-create a Third Attractor when agency is spread thin across a vast system? We discuss emergence, breakdown and breakthrough in complex systems, institutions for the lower right quadrant, education reform, AI's dangers and promise, and why things will get weirder.
A Momentous Leap
How can Spiral Dynamics help read where humanity stands? We look at orange, green and the pull toward yellow, tools for companies such as a values card game and appreciative inquiry, B Corporations, why communities like Findhorn stall, and rules for autonomous weapons.
Stream of Consciousness
Why do worldview clashes block action on climate and other crises? We explore worldview threat, a stream of consciousness dialogue practice, high quality listening that reduces polarization, holding paradoxes, the need for an integrative narrative, and AI as a call to develop our humanness.
Spirit in Action
Is the real Third Attractor an awakening attractor? We discuss perennial philosophy, Wilber's five ups plus two more, why waking up must include becoming, the oligarchy problem, getting more yogis into politics, and AI as a tool.
The Politics of Waking up
Is the Third Attractor a form of soft power? We explore reconnection and community, islands of coherence, Polis and deep hanging out for decisions, energy democracy in Scotland, differing value systems, and whole brain versus left brain thinking.
Becoming New Humans, Together
How does the Third Attractor look if it is broad and diverse rather than narrow? We explore double binds and Bateson, neo-indigeneity, sortition and digital democracy, whether AI could join planetary life, surrender and agency, and why spirituality needs activism.
Education in Times of Change
Can a shared story hold a culture together without becoming dogma? We explore trust, embodied relationship and holding complexity, how Waldorf education and child development might shape a new culture, the surrender and agency paradox, and AI chatbots and human development.
The Irresistible Future
What if the Third Attractor is an irresistible future? We explore four forces, connection, expression, purpose and growth, as polarities, edgy spaces that build nervous system capacity, non-ordinary states, prompting life rather than dictating, and why change needs community.
Evolutions Purpose
Does the Third Attractor skip a step in cultural evolution? We discuss dialectical development from thesis to synthesis, progressive postmodernism and the culture war, why doomsaying appeals, critiques of metamodernism, hope as a virtue, and AI as a technology, not an emerging mind.
Islands of Coherence
Is the Third Attractor already present? We discuss islands of coherence as leverage points that can flip a system, holding not-knowing instead of doom or false hope, planetary health and non-separation from nature, and heart and mind together in shared group work.
Returning to what is Real
Has Western civilization inverted what is most real? We explore embodiment over abstraction, ways of relating, free will and co-creation, a nature-based religion for shared values, institutions and systems change, and AI as a substitute for God.
The Mental is only the Servant
What if the Third Attractor asks us to step aside from the mental mind? We talk about being a process rather than the crown of evolution, embodiment and ritual, Gebser's integral consciousness, community with all living beings, and primordial trust amid collapse.
Coherence begins before the Meeting starts
How does coherence begin? We explore resonance turning into intersubjective we-space, values such as deep listening and generosity, shadow, inner and outer quadrants, AI and psychedelics as psychotechnologies, and how a conference can be designed so the conversations between talks matter most.
Birthing the Symbiotic Age
Is the Third Attractor something to rediscover rather than invent? We discuss virtues as a constellation, a Sri Lankan village movement, Charter 77 and the parallel polis, building trust locally, and bridging siloed movements without becoming another silo.
We embody the wrong Story
Is the Third Attractor about stepping out of binaries? A conversation on why we embody the wrong ontologies, assemblage thinking, micro narratives collected as patterns rather than one big story, the honeybee waggle dance, collective trauma research, and discernment about AI.
We need to think Seven Generations ahead
What does thinking seven generations ahead mean in practice? We explore a stone bench project for Switzerland's thousand-year anniversary, regional circular economies, steward ownership, entrepreneurship in hard times, and why AI carries the values of Silicon Valley and China.
Designing the Future
Is the Third Attractor another word for enlightenment? We discuss life as one process in formation, coming home before taking responsibility, the limits of communities like Auroville, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, AI without compassion, and whether judging helps.
Impossible Experiences
Can imagining a better future help build one? We discuss sameness and difference as the basis of justice, why free thinking is suppressed, impossible experiences, consciousness as primary, psychedelics and UFOs as gateways, and why AI is a tool, not a mind.
The West lost something Essential
Does the Third Attractor need a deeper look at how the West got here? We discuss privilege, colonial mindsets and prototype communities, simple shared human values, protest alongside building, citizens' assemblies and new economics, and where we differ on the West's role.
Rebuilding a regenerative Society
How can higher education prepare people for a regenerative society? We explore head, heart and body pedagogy, six doors of the Great Transition Handbook, virtue ethics, rupture, reform and interstitial strategies, a relational capability index, and hope amid polarization.
Shared Responsibility in Action
How can communities share resources and trust each other at scale? We explore membership credentials vouched for by groups rather than individuals, community-to-community codes of conduct, a non-monetary sufficiency economy measured by whether an exchange felt cool, live action role play prototypes, and AI.
The Future is Remembered
What makes an attractor attractive? We explore stories charged with imagery, a cosmology that treats the subtle realm as real, a shared cultural operating system, art as a way through political stalemate, and the risk of over-psychologised development.
Something must die for the Future to arrive
What does it take to live in the world we want to create? We talk about a small meditation community on a farm, money, sex and power, valuing work fairly, listening and decisions, natural hierarchy, wildfire preparation with neighbours, and AI.
Hacking Culture
Why is it so hard to see whole systems? We discuss spiral dynamics and why first-tier worldviews respond alike, making the future attractive rather than a sacrifice, systemic education, real-world labs, a broken democracy, and whether a wise integral AI could help or rule.
Civilisational Awakening
How does moving into second tier change what we do? We explore the Third Attractor as the evolutionary impulse, regenerative agriculture and ecological literacy as a way to raise consciousness, boundary conditions and metrics that block change, AI, and the we-space.
Human Potential
Can a Third Attractor be co-created or only allowed? We explore humility and availability, how love changed history from Christian agape to romantic love, background practices, interbeing groups spreading by contagion, and the risks of AI companions.
Navigating the Future with Zen
Can we learn to lean toward difference instead of away from it? We explore conflict mediation and the nervous system, holding polarities until they flip, communities of practice, choosing among decision models, holding uncertainty while staying responsive, integral education, and AI.
We are not ready yet
Can breakdown become breakthrough through politics? We discuss a transnational party built on a different approach to power, healthy needs behind polarised strategies, accountable leadership, weighting votes by maturity, and AI as a possible next level of matter.
Purpose designed Media
Can media be redesigned to support flourishing? We explore the metacrisis as a story, rapidly emergent transpersonal intelligence, narrative, theater, learning and play as universal modalities, small group units, public power, and avoiding social media's mistakes.
A need for Metatheory
Is the Third Attractor something we steward rather than fix in place? We explore grief work, a possible strangeness attractor from AI and synthetic biology, generative enclosures, integral versus metamodernism, and schools built on living and learning.
A Better Solution beats a Better Argument
Can a better solution beat a better argument? We look at the integrative worldview as a Third Attractor, a theory of change built on identity and idea networks, the weak lower right quadrant, a minimal integrative worldview, transformative education, philanthropy, and AI.
Co-Creating the Future
What could make a Third Attractor attractive across Spiral Dynamics stages? We explore awakening as being, consciousness, bliss and co-creation, then walk through the four integral quadrants, from higher mind to systems, with islands of coherence built bottom up and top down.
Civic Enlightenment
Is the Third Attractor an attractor, or more like keeping a bowling ball out of two gutters? We discuss political order and decay, the Nordic tradition of lifelong learning, worldviews without ranking them, and six new branches of government for civil society hubs.
Let's evolve, fast
Do we need to become new humans before building new systems? We compare the attractors to developmental stages, and discuss reclaiming lost parts of the self, coherence and synchronicity, awake versus embodied, natural hierarchy, raising children, and why past communities struggled.
Evolving beyond Individualism
What do the Second Renaissance and the Third Attractor share? We discuss four noble beliefs, waking up, cleaning up, growing up and showing up, conscious communities, cultural change by contagion, a likely dark renaissance, AI risk, and politics.
Creating Heaven on Earth
Can heaven on earth be a practical project? We work through three simple questions and seven gateways, why belief is not needed but commitment is, examples from a penny a day to a home for everyone, and how to act when overwhelmed.
Wise Cities
Can a Third Attractor emerge if it comes from the ego? We explore the ego as an identity and survival function that has gone out of balance, the Wise City project in Mumbai, and AI as a mirror showing how coherent a group is.
Navigating the Great Transition
Is collapse already underway? We discuss tech oligarchs and transhumanism as the second attractor, mutual aid and small quiet networks, civic tools like those of Audrey Tang, AI as helpful and risky, esoteric Christianity, and letting the way find us.
Second Sapiens, Navigating the Great Shift
What does it take to respond when the planet's systems are in collapse? We look at Spiral Dynamics and turquoise science, planetary boundaries already crossed, why the West owes sustainable technology to developing countries, and how to widen a circle of influence.
Reality isn't observed, it is co-created
Can a Third Attractor emerge without one big story? We explore folding multipolar traps into a larger layer, smarter group decision protocols, education, ecology-shaped systems, personal AI agents, and what AI means for trust, work and shared information.
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