under the skin
podcast by Russell Brand
adding because last two were with two people he had on (Deeyah and Gabor) i think are addressing key issues
@rustyrockets @DrGaborMate @rustyrockets last two episodes..insight for revolutionary infrastructure
@Deeyah_Khan & @DrGaborMate
on seeing selves/others beyond the trauma.. getting us back/to an undisturbed ecosystem
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/monk51295/status/1059968570757660672
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Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) tweeted at 5:38 AM – 3 Nov 2018 :
If you’re driving, running or relaxing listen to Under The Skin – this is a great episode https://t.co/XM54QFG0lJ @Deeyah_Khan (http://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1058684964693250048?s=17)This Deeyah Khan episode is special. She is an award winning documentary filmmaker who has met and confronted Jihadists and members of the KKK in order to understand what drives them. So much insight, bravery and practical love on difficult topics – religion/race/gender/identity. Also COINCIDENTALLY I barely speak in it.
deeyah starts at 2 min
6 min – how do we satisfy the needs of these young people.. before they become instrumentalized by politicians/populism..t
7 min – they’re all operating out of really basic needs.. not being met.. that says more about us as a society than about these means.. i’m interesting in finding what those needs are..t
11 min – the personal is the political
18 min – i don’t know what we need to do to address that loss.. it doesn’t matter if it (an alt) exists or not.. it’s up to us..t
as it could be.. listen to each voice everyday
a nother way.. not yet tried
37 mi – fascism will not withstand human contact
39 min – guy joining army to express is islamist hate
40 min – there’s a synergy between these men and our politics.. our politicians channeling that anger is absolutely destructive.. most of guys i met are ex military
41 min – the fact that there’s such a high percentage of ex servicemen joining the white supremacists movement is a real concern.. and that people don’t talk about that..t
42 min – most of these men who have served.. feel they were sold a lie..t.. so .. very anti american.. would like to see the american flag burned.. would like to see system dismantled.. because perpetuating a lie..asking of lives of poor/working class for nothing.. in return.. the military breaks you down and asks for absolute loyalty in return for order/certainty/significance/brotherhood.. so when leave all that.. still need that
huge..
43 min – supremacists.. offer a need men are looking for
51 min – we’ve handed those people (poor working class) over.. and that’s on us.. the way the system is structured is detrimental to a lot of people.. the system is underpinning those ineq’s
53 min – the fault doesn’t like with that guy.. it lies w ie: trump
no.. it has to be all of us .. can’t single people out.. you just said so.. exceptions get us to where we are now
54 min – r: systems benefit from polarity
55 min – their real enemy is not each other.. their real enemy is us.. people who want to make it work
57 min – r: i’m interested in power.. and who benefits from it staying as it is..polarization suits the powerful.. do you think this can happen more broadly than individual
58 min – i think so.. human connection is absolutely necessary.. this word hope is very important to me.. i’m not interested in just telling horror stories and the problems.. i won’t to look for potential solutions.. hope to me is power
59 min – once you rob someone of hope.. any desire to resist.. goes away.. so to me.. hope is power.. and act of resistance.. something else is possible if we’re willing to engage w each other..
and too.. if we do a reset.. where the exclusion game is irrelevant
1:11 – we have to find a way to live together.. to me.. this all comes down to human relationships..t
1:12 – because our political leadership have been impotent in articulate a vision of the future that include all of us.. it’s down to the rest of us.. t
begs mech that listens to (and detoxes) every voice.. every day.. ie: tech as it could be..
the truth is.. it’s difficult to have relationships.. even w people you like..
1:13 – we’ve all been thrusted together and expected to figure out how to do it
1:14 – r: if hard for smaller groups.. how to make it work for larger groups..t
ginorm/small ness: too big to know.. to small to label
1:15 – r: to somehow unify extremists.. and re calibrate attention on truly powerful.. t
begs a leap – reset – for all of us – to that sync matters
1:20 – these ideas are already potent.. how do we popularize it? .. somebody like you.. your choosing to go beyond.. everyone doing their version of that.. if they can..
1:22 – i think people underestimate the individual responsibility
1:23 – r: i have a belief in the optimum
1:25 – people are complex/complicated.. why do we have to fit them into these boxes.. locate the humanity in someone else.. in attempt to hold on to my own..
1:27 – i know what it feels like to be stereo typed.. de humanized.. that’s why i can’t do that w even a nazi.. ie: this simplification/caricature of people for my convenience..
1:28 – the more we can get underneath all the noise/static.. the closer we get to solutions..t.. we can’t afford to give up on each other.. we’re all in this together..
deep enough for 7bn to resonate w today – (almaas holes – maté needs)
1:30 – in circumstances that seem impossible ‘we don’t have the luxury to be pessimistic’
1:33 – r: liberation for men from prescriptive roles
1:34 – do you believe it’s doable.. on an individual level
1:35 – r: i think if we can break down ideals and start over again.. re imagine states that include all of us..t
begs a leap – hard to increment to all of us ness
1:47 – r: perhaps we need to reject those polar nouns.. ie: female, male
i agree.. human.. until oppression stops.. for being female.. we don’t get to the place of all being human
hmm.. i don’t agree with that.. that’s why we’re where we are now
1:48 – undeniable that women are suffering around the world.. pay/violence
1:50 – the goal is that we get to a place that we are all just human..t
we have to start there.. nationality: human
(today we have the means to facil that leap)
1:51 – we are only going to win these battles shoulder to shoulder.. man and woman… but you tell me.. how do we involve more men.. ie: conferences about violence.. room is filled w women
conferences are not the answer
1:53 – how do we ensure that people’s full humanity .. dreams/loves.. that that gets to manifest itself in its full glory.. how do we do that together.. w/o demeaning each other.. t.. to me.. the answer has been empathy.. w/in that it’s about stories
begs a means to listen to every voice everyday.. because what we need most is the energy of 7bn alive people
ie: tech as it could be.. via gershenfeld something else law
1:54 – how do we break down those walls.. create pluralistic future
r: i think your willingness to place yourself amongst people you’d have most obvious conflict is a brilliant way of metabolizing our potential to transcend those boundaries.. and have the perspective that love is more powerful than hate.. that you’ll never undo hate w hate
r: i’ve feel a little bit like i’ve taken drugs.. word drugs
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Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) tweeted at 3:08 AM – 10 Nov 2018 :
.@DrGaborMate with a master class on addiction and trauma. Jaw dropping data.
Listen here: https://t.co/KUf7SZoxko
Spotify: https://t.co/k8YBDUsu4v
#UnderTheSkin https://t.co/12jcaCZXEz (http://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1061198852278108161?s=17)6 min – 12 steps don’t talk about pain.. failure to incorporate trauma
9 min – easier to go the disease mode than the pain/trauma mode.. have to look at it w/o judgment and w deep curiosity.. t
11 min – consumerism demands mentality in which i fundamentally believe that i’m insufficient w/o this external fix..t
12 min – society creates artificial needs rather than meeting people’s genuine needs.. because economy relies on that.. t
14 mi – compassion not utopian.. evolutionary/experiential.. mammalians are wired for empathy..
15 min – most of us born open/vulnerable.. when that’s hurt.. trauma
18 min – just as i see anyone open to heroin addiction.. i see sainthood in all of us
22 min – vancouver – worked there for 12 years – portland hotel society.. had not a single patient who hadn’t been sexually abused as a child
23 min – there’s a tremendous relationship between addictions and creativity and mental illness and artists.. writers and painters and musicians and so on..
crazywise ness
and the link i believe (between addictions and creativity).. is sensitivity..
the more sensitive you are the more creative you’re going to be.. but the more sensitive you are the more you’re going to suffer as well.. because you’re going to feel the pain more.. in other words.. you have more of a need to escape from the pain.. and that escape from pain is what drives addictions.. it’s also what drives a lot of mental illness..
24 min – so a lot of them are artists.. very interesting people.. and the thing i appreciated most about them.. they lied/manipulated/cheated.. they had to in order to get their next hit.. but they didn’t pretend to be anybody else than they were.. they’re absolutely willing to be themselves.. they’re liars and – yes doc i stole this – willing to be themselves.. and that’s refreshing.. most of us are over sensed thru a lot of our pathways to social circles.. that people might be nice but nobody’s quite themselves.. and there.. there’s no pretense to be anyone else other than who they are..so that’s tremendously refreshing.. t
26 min – i can acknowledge that part of myself and know that i’d be understood.. only diff between us.. it they had suffered more than me
27 min – i’ve either had less suffering or more help w my suffering.. but morality.. nobody chooses to suffer
28 min – when talk about addiction as brain disease.. maybe.. but as result of suffering
29 min – addiction is an attempt to regulate your inner state to an external behavior.. something about the inner state that’s unbearable..
30 min – the sex addict is not about sex.. it’s about that change you describe.. if the sex addict were about sex.. the solution would be simple.. marry another sex addict.. it’s about that temp state.. regulating that unbearable state..
what the addicts wants is to not be addicted.. and when it’s not craving you’re not addicted.. at end.. when immediately (and short term) think you don’t need it anymore..
32 min – addictions serve a function.. the addict just wants to feel like a human being..t
34 min – we can’t understand why people use until we get what they get from it
35 min – any trauma that hasn’t been worked thru will be passed on to next gen
41 min – we’re failing at treating addiction, mental health, health.. and not because of the science.. not isolated.. have to do w/emotional/spiritual lives.. (i wrote in when body says no)..
42 min – for this society to function it has to separate the soul from the body.. we wouldn’t treat people the way we do if we had souls.. t
45 min – everything is a matter of set and setting
46 min – i realized how my heart had been shut down against love all my life.. my heart had been hurt so early in life that shutting down was the only rational/natural response.. but kept me limited.. so i got why people use it.. addiction is the heart trying to shut down.. just one more modality that we’re foolish not to explore
51 min – r: do you think this could bring about revolution
if you believe you live in a horrible world.. you’re going to be aggressive..t
53 min – that’s what i see.. (when i look at people) i see their trauma..t
54 min – these are traumatized people.. otherwise they couldn’t do it .. they wouldn’t be that split.. and these are the people that our society rewards w power.. that’s the sign of a traumatized society (my next book)..t
58 min – the system wants people who make it palatable
1:04 – ‘nationality’ .. is an addiction.. makes you feel better short term.. rather than an understanding of a common humanity..t
famous people justifying the status quo – ie: pinker.. people who are in denial get a lot of play in the system..t
1:07 – r: how do we popularize these ideas.. g: i wish i had a non glib answer to that.. all any of us can do is use whatever platform we have.. keep looking/refining
1:09 – we have a social structure that induces trauma in a lot of people.. so all this looks perfectly natural.. anthropologists don’t take the assumptions of the culture for granted..ie: human nature is evil/competitive/aggressive/selfish..t
assumption of culture is also that hate is some evil that has to be combatted.. but hate can’t be combatted – so we’re always looking for enemies to fight.. so easy to sell enemies in this culture..t
black science of people/whales
1:10 – first point.. when looking at others.. looking at self
1:11 – the way we treat addiction in this society.. we confuse people w their behavior.. we have to punish the behavior.. no.. we have to understand the human being that just wants to be loved.. and that’s why he’s so addicted.. so how about we treat him w love..t
1:12 – why does society fail at so many things.. we’re not looking at real human beings.. just at behaviors..t
1:14 – in your book.. recovery.. the divided self.. the thing is to get conversive/relations w divided self.. (rather than blame it)
1:16 – my wife is allergic to my romantic eyes/view.. she sees it as a manifestation of me.. she knows there’ll be a downside.. she wants me to just see her
1:18 – you’re not ready to be w your daughter unless she’s pleasing you.. (can’t stand seeing her cry – so offered her chocolate).. but what you do is just be there.. jordan peterson says broken child needs to sit by self.. that makes her feel abandoned.. all she needs from you is to help her hold her anger.. then in future.. she won’t need to fill that hole w whatever
1:20 – what an adult can do a child can’t do.. is take responsibility for self.. that’s why it’s bad to punish kids (time out et al)..
1:23 – hold onto your kids.. h&g.. child w many adults.. human brain needs to attach.. w/o it we don’t survive.. but nature doesn’t tell us who to attach to.. in our culture.. our kids lose contact w adults very early.. result is prolonged immaturity.. resistance to parents..
1:24 – we have to be aware of what we’ve lost
1:25 – r: so if you have a disconnected population where all their energy could be directed toward production (g: and acquisition).. you will create econ success but you will also create dysfunction.. (g: you create addiction.. mental illness.. aggression.. all kinds of unhappiness)..t
huge
1:28 – what we have in jail are the most traumatized people in our society.. and by the way.. if you kill one person you go to jail.. if you kill a million you get a noble peace prize.. and considered a great diplomat.. there’s a bit of a disconnect here.. t
incarceration.. dirty wars.. noble
1:29 – people need compassion not punishment.. ie: harm reduction et al
1:30 – (when asked why.. given that we know so much about what’s not working and what might.. we haven’t changed)..war on iraq.. war on drugs.. are successful for a lot of people of power..t
excellent evidence of war on drugs.. johann hari’s chasing the scream
1:33 – in all addictions.. it’s all the same brain circuits.. denial.. escape.. new forms come but dynamic is old..
solution has to begin at first pre natal visit.. help people heal the trauma
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on russell brand’s under the skin – henry and brad (@HistofViolence):
Brad Evans (@HistofViolence) tweeted at 0:49 AM on Fri, Mar 01, 2019:
Why must we accept the notion that politics is about friends & enemies? Can’t it be about a love and respect for mutual difference? And not based on enmity? Just a thought…. https://t.co/xWMLmBsYDZ
(https://twitter.com/HistofViolence/status/1101388987200163840?s=03)See below Russell Brand interviewing me and my dear friend Brad Evans.
https://t.co/VhRsoLEoRzhttps://t.co/VhRsoLEoRz
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/HenryGiroux/status/110192065539682304117 min – being homeless/poor is a crime.. not having enough food is a crime.. or an assault on one’s character.. you have people suffering w troubles.. they have no language to situate those troubles in ways that they can understand them systemically.. because i’m poor doesn’t mean i’m stupid.. i’m poor because there is a redistribution network at work in capitalism that makes people poor..t.. it’s designed to make people poor.. it prides itself on a culture of cruelty
russell asking if we offer alt’s rather than nostalgia
24 min – two things: 1\ power should always be made visible.. so people have to wake up and get some sense of what’s going on 2\ not go back to centrism/nation-state.. we have to begin to understand ‘democracies in exile’.. how do you imagine a future in which capitalism and democracy are not seen as synonymous ..
25 min – let’s make sure we define all forms of dependency as a weakness.. that’s the cruelty..
27 min – r: do you think the machinery of democracy will ever allow those kinds of convos .. to dismantle the architecture on which they’re dependent.. how bold are we willing to be..t
you can’t act otherwise unless you can think otherwise.. and it seems to me to think the impossible is the first step toward imagining a democracy that is never at its end.. it always have to be fought for..t
imagine deeper.. never at its end.. and doesn’t have to be fought for ie: cure ios city
28 min – the degree to which we can inject a sense of possibility in which the future doesn’t mimic the present.. is the beginning.. not the end.. the beginning.. you have to break the notion that there is no alternative..t
so talking about 3 things 1\ need for new language 2\ need to theorize politics differently 3\ producing institutions that make it possible..t
ie: 1\ idio-jargon 2\ 2 convers as infra 3\ undisturbed ecosystem
31 min – b: fascism thrives when people are passive..t
what world needs most: the energy of 7bn alive people
b: fascism also thrives on people’s outrage.. so how do we think of politics beyond the passive/aggressive.. what does a politics look like that confronts fascism.. all these claims that we have to confront fascism w violence are so self defeating.. t .. leads us to quagmire in which breads more fascism.. that’s the real danger
ie: gershenfeld something else law sans violence
h: that’s exactly what the state wants.. the state legitimizes violence in a way that allows the punishing state to grow/grow/grow.. state violence is a way to defend democracy.. the script gets rewritten so badly..
32 min – h: the other side of this.. how do we talk about ignorance.. ie: fascist politics does everything it can to dumb people down..
in a way that seem to suggest that emotion is more important than reason
?
that dissidence are really troubled and should be killed.. journalists shot.. that anybody who speaks out in some fundamental way is a traitor
two kinds of ignorance 1\ not knowing – which we have to address.. that’s the role we play as public intellectuals
ugh
2\ willful ignorance – refusal to know
35 min – to talk about ignorance.. is not about the people who are oppressed.. but the people who have power eliminate institutions that allow people not to be ignorant.. i don’t understand a politics that doesn’t take passion seriously.. that allows us emotionally to touch each other
so emotion from above..?
38 min – we’re not just talking about emotions in the most limited sense.. we’re talking about the ability to feel.. empathy.. what it means to make a connection.. it’s not simply rational
are you saying rational and reason are two diff things? i’m confused
40 min – only obligation today of citizenship is consumerism.. competition.. and we have this massive opioid crisis.. social atomization.. obligation of citizenship.. rethinking of justice and spiritual happiness.. in ways that my gain is not your loss and vice versa
and no obligations in an undisturbed ecosystem
42 min – people don’t have the language to break thru it because it can’t be normalized..t
begs idio-jargon .. tech as it could be..
how do we talk about the future w respect to this
why talk about the future?..
i love to talk about youth.. i want to raise the question.. what kind of future do you want your children to have
free.. which begs we let go of all the supposed to’s.. of school/work.. and trust us/daily-curiosity ie: cure ios city
what are some *visions we can imagine that are so incompatible w the realities of capitalism.. of every day life.. that we have to challenge this.. we have to tell a diff story.. we need new stories.. rather than people who are so objectified that they don’t even know who they are anymore
wilde not us law.. whales in sea world.. et al
44 min – b: people don’t need to read karl marx to find the world intolerable.. young people full of imagination/spirituality/wonder.. we kind of drag that out of them
kind of ?
45 min – b: children have a lot of answers to the world.. we kind of need to listen to them better in a much more open way.. t.. what you call be spiritual.. i would simply call being human
kind of?
yeah.. via 2 convers as infra.. in order to facil daily curiosity ie: cure ios city
not yet scrambled and carhart harris entropy law: let go of that hard won order
1 yr to be 5 et al
b: we’re not reductive/automated robots.. we can’t just be determined by language alone.. we long for things in life which give meaning to life.. much beyond this capitalist nightmare.. the urgency at the moment is precisely the type of future we’re creating w greater speeds/intensities.. increasingly violently fated
the political that can’t be reduced to the political –
48 min – bertrand russell: ‘3 things matter.. 1\ longing for loving 2\ respect for knowledge 3\ compassion for suffering of others..’ that’s spirituality to me.. i don’t care how good a writer i am or how much i believe in a better world.. if i don’t have love in my life i feel alone.. i feel something has happened to me that is dreadful.. we have to figure out ways to amplify that meaning so that it’s not just having a (?) about you.. what it means to find who you are in the world.. i want to project that model for kids..i want to get up on the stage
why a stage..?
50 min – i realized (on talking academia) best and brightest – princeton.. i began to realize this was a criminogenic culture.. it produces criminals.. the best and brightest gave us nam/iraq/ineq
r: when rationalism and logic lead us there.. makes me realize the significance of spirituality.. earlier in convo you said.. when you connect w someone something passes between us.. my problem w the atheistic model is that when you regard a human being as a mechanical unit.. that is in decay/decline.. to be human implies love/community.. i don’t see that argument working very well.. and when you say the reasons are undefinable.. but my personal feeling is that unless we find a way of bringing them to the forefront we will not be able to compete w appealing tribal ideas such as this new emergent nationalism.. evolution of fascism..
52 min – r: i feel the only way we can countenance/challenge/oppose it is by reaching thru the illusions that our individual/material nature is secondary to these eternal principles.. that we are temporary but these values are permanent and therefore they must be prioritized
?
when i say spirituality is undefinable i mean i don’t think it can be reduced to a prescription.. i think that’s what org’d religion does.. reduces it to a text/formula.. there’s something about the abstractness/willingness of the formula to talk about love.. this more than human that has to be constantly remembered and fought for..
again.. if we go undisturbed ecosystem no need for fighting..
53 min – it’s the formulas that kill us.. the formulas are always wrapped in circles of certainty
b: how do we foreground this new politics.. it’s not easy
it could be.. thinking it has to be.. simple enough for 7bn today.. ie: 2 convers as infra
54 min – b: the forces we are coming up against are also educational forces.. capitalism is a pedagogical force.. teaches you a particular image/narrative of world.. which is held by formidable forms of thinking.. the real challenge for us.. to make leap to spirituality.. there’s never been a greater time to rethink what the political might mean.. unless we do it now w great urgency.. the world will be catastrophic
55 min – spirituality in its essence boils down to something wonderful..and we saw it in 68 – in a slogan – all power to the imagination.. it seems to me the *imagination in some way is so central to questions of spirituality.. questions in which you don’t live in a circle of certainty.. questions in which you are willing to be self reflective..questions in which a culture of questioning is really an act of joy.. and a pedagogical practice that matches the humility that bring to the world in terms of who we are w an indication of what it might mean for a diff kind of future for **everybody.. ***i’m so hooked on this kind of model
*imagination and/or cure ios city as the day.. via self-talk as data
**for everyone.. everyday.. as the day.. or it won’t work
***if only you could hear deeper
(then goes on to describe himself giving a lively/engaging lecture to youth) who come up to you afterwards and say “wow.. you gave me language.. that really feels like it changed my life.. ‘.. that’s politics..
that model..? wtf? you just talked about humility..? dang.
r: wow
? dang guys.. but makes sense i guess.. i’m sitting hear listening to you talk .. you can’t hear me
(then russell goes into ie: of podcast w harari where harari says.. ‘ed should be teaching us to line up w tech (skills).. and the russell says.. i feel like we should be teaching them the opposite.. that they’re not econ units..).. but that’s just the same as henry saying about his lectures to youth.. that he’s modeling a street kid who knows stuff (knowledge/job units) .. doesn’t matter what the stuff is.. it’s not from the youth.. it’s filling them w supposed to’s.. w a language they had to learn from henry.. not the language on their heart.. we have to let go of thinking we have to teach.. what we need to do is listen.. deeper.. to for everyone.. everyday.. as the day.. or it won’t work
57 min – r: unless people have an alternate paradigm around which to org what life is (besides what the agri/industrial/tech revolutions have told us).. i don’t think there is a chance for us and i don’t think it can be formulated as merely oppositional to what exists.. i think it has to be transcendent of it.. this is why i’m obsessed w the language around spirituality.. and the ways of welding/bonding it to the way we org our community..t
psst.. over here: let’s just facil daily curiosity ie: cure ios city.. via 2 convers as infra
if we use tech as it could be.. we can live as we were meant to.. ie: sans training/prep/supposed-to‘s.. et al
58 min – r: when you say that thing about all power to the imagination.. for me that’s almost a .. pulling down imaginations of world that don’t yet exist but could exit..
r: not.. the relentless march of tech.. better start teaching our kids to code..
can say same for language.. have to start teaching kids right words et al..? this is so fractal.. wish/hope you could/can see that
let go of teaching
r: we’re continually responding and it seems like we need to be opposite.. creating alternative models for community..t
indeed.. everyday.. all of us.. or it won’t work.. the day.. everyday.. has to start with 7bn plus people.. talking to themselves.. or it won’t be an undisturbed ecosystem.. it will be contrived/coerced..
r: we’ve let go of radicalism.. of the need to be.. you said before brad.. that it’s going to have to be pretty hard core.. this is the moment in time..
aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…
r: a willingness to look at indigenous ideas.. i feel these ideas exist.. but they don’t exist in the ways we currently organize systems
59 min – first thing you do is *separate ed from training.. training isn’t education.. education means you’re educating people to live in a world in a way that **allows them to govern rather than be governed.. let’s begin there.. ***right
*spot on.. but what you’re describing (described earlier) .. is training.. teaching is training
**you said yourself kids come that way.. and we scrub that out of them.. they don’t need to be taught that
***indeed.. let go man
secondly.. always have to talk about the question of power.. to take control over conditions in which they find themselves.. thirdly.. can’t do it alone fourthly.. have ot have a vision that moves people.. need 2 things.. language of critique and language of possibility
nah..
1:01 – we need to talk about what it means to have a public pedagogy
wow – sinclair perpetuation law much? (not even salary.. just who he is.. teacher/writer..got to make sure new vision fits w that)
i tell my kids.. you put one foot in and one foot out.. you have to create your own radio/tv stations (like russell).. you have to learn how to do all these things.. one foot in institutions trying to change..
ugh.. this is all teaching/training/coercing
1:02 – all law implies violence.. believing in law unquestionably.. is the ultimate fall of lawlessness
1:04 – on yellow vest movement
b: last 15-20 yrs i’ve been reluctant to street protest.. makes no diff.. quickly descends into violence.. much of it seems tired to me.. how do we do it diff
ie: short bp
1:06 – b: if we’re going to rethink politics in 21st cent we need to rethink strategies
rev of everyday life via 2 convers as infra
b: to me historically the greatest changes by far have been catastrophes.. danger today.. what kind of tragedy will it take.. let’s not wait till that happens
hasn’t it already.. ie: suicide/opioid/refugee et al
1:08 – i have a diff take.. diff between demonstrations and movements.. demos can be basis for movements.. i’m always interested when working class comes out.. sight of struggle.. how do we develop a language where pedagogical useful demos.. how now get turned into movement.. now have to talk institutions.. yes demos matter but turn them into movement.. and.. my first response is to have people eat..
1:11 – r: pragmatism quite important
political purity – i’m right you’re wrong
b: so point is .. how do we construct a more open/public convo around this question which doesn’t retreat back into ideas of ideological purity
1:12 – political purity is an identity crisis.. it means you have to define yourself in a way that excludes everybody else.. because the self righteousness makes you feel good
for those of us.. all of us.. who engage in this work.. remember.. in any fascist regime the first people to go are the intellectuals.. don’t kid yourself.. they’re the first to go
dang.. hubris man
it seems to me that when brad and i write the stuff that we do and you (russell) take on a role beyond harmless comedy.. and are really saying things that threaten people.. that’s a risk.. and that risk can have serious consequences in the long run.. always .. how many times have i been fired.. not tenured.. 20 yrs of my life in exile because of what i write
so.. it’s about money and job security?
not dissing your heart.. just saying we have to look deeper.. because if you stop where you’re stopping.. ie: intellect.. we’re just on the same cycle..
1:13 – you have a choice and i hate to put it so simply.. you can live on your knees or standing up.. but if standing up.. don’t think you’re going to be rewarded for it
reward ness is part of the poison man .. let go
r: that is disincentivizing
yeah.. if we think we need incentives.. i’m guessing that’s a red flag.. we’re off/wrong/missing-it
(laughter)
and de politicizing
1:14 – r: we’ve always had this polarity.. is it something we can let go of
it might be the most important thing you’ve said all night.. rethinking politics.. nation states are outmoded.. if we can’t imagine a world that is global with federations.. taking wealth away from richest.. it’s over
ugh
how do we have a crisis in econ but not in ideas
because we can’t hear all the voices..
begs tech as it could be..
1:17 – b: we need to think in more expansive global terms.. local power.. global ethics.. live on a shared planet .. which doesn’t seek to destroy diff..
r: people won’t care about immigration/tax/et-al .. if they had a real meaningful engagement w the power in their lives
ie: gershenfeld something else law
b: the difficulty of history.. there’s no end state.. it’s a constant to retain ethical integrity.. it’s a process.. always mindful of shamefully (dancing) w power
1:24 – (henry going on about things that beg the need to be taught things)
r: you can teach more than we can learn – then shares books- henry’s book – what is means to make the pedagogical the political..
1:28 – what really amazes me is the power of popular culture as a pedagogical practice.. interview gets me hits.. reaches enormous amount of people.. anybody who believe entertainment isn’t teach is full of it..
only because we’re all zombies..
the mech of de politicization.. something about not using your position..
1:30 – b: the moment you try to do something meaningful.. that’s when power listens.. power is not going to pay attention to you if you’ve got nothing *meaningful to say
only to those we’re listening to.. not to be everybody.. it has to be everybody guys.. now you’re acting like how you described pinker in the beginning of this podcast
and by *meaningful.. you must mean.. a threat to their power.. which .. isn’t meaningful to humanity guys
b: there’s a reason why all the great tyrannical regimes fear the artists.. those that have greatest expression
h: that really is fabulous.. russell steps out .. says something’s important.. and power comes down to (squelch) you.. power is about threatening you and seducing you
1:36 – r: on the beauty in each person.. i feel like if we are certain about what we believe in.. we can approach people w a non condemning approach
1:38 – b: many diff forms in which violence manifests itself.. by far the greatest violence i’ve encountered is polite violence.. behind the mask of politeness can be a great deal of institutional violence.. that kind of manifests itself..
b: what do we do w those figures in society that are playing the game because they are seduced by power.. how do we counter those strategic games.. we need to have a diff convo..
we offer them something better.. ie: 2 convers as infra
1:39 – maybe i’m terribly wrong.. we all want to be humble.. but we have to be careful about reducing their agency.. that stems on giving them the benefit of being so polite that we might miss the full nature of the unhumanness which sometimes is quite evil.. ie: people in academia.. smiling w passive aggressiveness.. we have to be careful.. being nice doesn’t mean anything if somebody is putting people in gas chambers.. or black people in prison.. go to any ruling class club and they’re all so gracious and sweet.. i mean they’re criminogenic in their actions some of these people.. the damage/destruction they cause/produce..
smiling ness
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Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) tweeted at 5:27 AM – 23 Mar 2019 :
Fantastic #UnderTheSkin with @rushkoff, download it for your run. I also recommend listening to @iamstephenwest’s Philosophize This! podcast.
️Spotify: https://t.co/yRypg6AUrv
iTunes:https://t.co/CfXFiT6e8C
Desktop: https://t.co/MKA5lSCTBY (http://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1109416435212800000?s=17)1:00 – r: we’ve become afraid of the unreliability of humans..t
d: and that’s why we prefer .. the robot to the human being..t
1:05 – d: the formal cause of a human is soul.. that human beings can maintain ambiguity over time.. they don’t have to resolve things.. we can stay in that liminal space between yes and no that computers can’t..t
1:10 – r: what are we trying to achieve w this progress
1:12 – d: human use of human beings.. norbert weiner: ‘if we teach machines to use us the way we use humans now.. all is loss’..t
human use of human beings.. Norbert Wiener
needed: a focus on non hierarchical listening.. ie: tech as it could be..
1:20 – d: i feel like that fear is animating so much.. playing on our fear of lack of predictability.. of the unknown.. i just want to keep telling them.. you’re safe.. and if they felt genuinely safe.. they wouldn’t need these other signifiers of safety’ ..t
1:27 – d: addiction works not by satisfying you .. but by not satisfying you so you go back.. t
1:28 – r: the craving you actually feel is for a connection..t
d: and they’re telling us that doesn’t exist.. because these scientists are trapped in francis bacon style reductionist science.. breaking it apart.. so you look at the human in terms of their pieces.. but you don’t have any sense of the vital whole..t
1:29 – d: i do think that’s what it comes down to.. standing up to.. that there’s an essential about human..t
almaas holes law.. maté basics
d: francis bacon talking about nature that you hold down and rape.. that’s what science was.. nature will submit to us
1:32 – d: i think we’ll look back and say.. remember when we thought we were individuals.. when we believed in lying.. (didn’t get that we are all connected)
1:34 – d: we can’t codify/blockchain justice.. it’s got to just come from being nice..
assume good et al
1:36 – r: seems that’s embedded now.. that i have to get something out (of everything)
tweets on it:
Connor Turland (@Connoropolous) tweeted at 5:13 PM on Sat, Mar 23, 2019:
Worth every minute of your time, this conversation. Moments brought me close to tears, and feeling closer to myself and to all of you. Thanks @rushkoff and @rustyrockets https://t.co/kilR7qGlXA
(https://twitter.com/Connoropolous/status/1109593953752543232?s=03)
“For me, the scariest part is that we look at human beings in terms of utility value: what are you worth in terms of labor or cash? Makes it hard to just be a human.” New Russell Brand @rustyrockets podcast: https://www.russellbrand.com/podcast/72-the-tribe-vs-the-algorithm-can-we-ever-be-free-again-with-douglas-rushkoff/ … …
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Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) tweeted at 9:00 AM – 17 Dec 2019 :
This week’s guest on #UnderTheSkin is @anilkseth. Anil is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at University of Sussex.
Check out his Tedtalk on the topic consciousness here: https://t.co/Yb9UfkpWio
Listen this Sat 21st Dec only @hearluminary https://t.co/FzuN7ww1nM (http://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1206967289020588034?s=17)
notes from his anil’s on consciousness – Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality
consciousness for each of us is all there is.. w/o it there’s no world/self.. and when we suffer we suffer consciously
2 min – from my research.. consciousness has less to do w pure intelligence and more to do with our nature as living/breathing organisms..
some people say we know nothing about consciousness..
4 min – 2 parts to consciousness
1\experiences of the world around us
brain as a prediction engine – prior expectations/beliefs about the way the world is.. at 7 min – showing how this works with mumbled words.. then hearing again after hearing them regular
8 min – when perceptive predictions are too strong.. similar to what we’d see in psych hallucinations.. if hallucinations are uncontrolled perceptions.. then perception .. controlled hallucination
in fact.. we are all hallucinating all the time.. including right now.. it’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations we call that reality
2\ conscious self
9 min – experience of self also a hallucination
11 min – even experiences of what our body is is a kind of best guess
interoception – experiences of having a body are deeply grounded from out perceptions from within
perception of internal parts of the body isn’t about figuring out what’s there.. it’s about control/regulation (ie: only notice it spleen when something goes wrong) – keeping the physiological barriers w/in survival
14 min – all conscious experiences.. since they all depend on the same mechanisms of predictive perception.. all stem from this basic drive to stay alive.. we experience the world with/thru/because-of our living bodies
embodiment et al
what we consciously see depends on our brain’s best guess of what’s out there.. our experienced world comes from the inside out not just the outside in.. applies to what is and what is not our body.. experiences are more about control/reg..
we predict ourselves into existence
1\ just as we can mis perceive the world we can mis perceive ourselves.. helps w conditions like depression and schizo
2\ what it means to be me cannot be reduced to a software program on a robot.. we are bio flesh/blood animals.. experiences shaped at all levels.. just making computers smarter is not going to make them sentient
3\ our own individual universe.. our way of being conscious.. is just one way of being conscious
16 min – these understanding help us see.. we are a part of and not a part from the rest of nature..
when the end of consciousness comes.. there’s nothing to be afraid of
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be you. 