https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=soIkDRUV7PE
Welcome to Voices with Viveki. I’m joined by Gary Sheng. Gary reached out to me not that long ago because he was very interested in my work because he found a lot of resonance between my work and the very important work he’s doing at Civics Unplugged. And so welcome Gary. Why don’t you tell us about what you’re doing at Civics Unplugged please. Yeah thanks so much John for having me. So after graduating from Duke in 2015, I got a full-time job as a software engineer at Google and you know it’s easy for me to admit now because I’m kind of over that hump but or the meaning the lack of meaning hump but my two main goals when going to New York were basically to go to fun parties and to climb the corporate ladder right almost like ruthlessly and 2016 right we all know what happened there were a few major elections in the world and it really shattered my understanding of just my confidence in how I understood the world. And so I think like a lot of people whose understanding of their own understanding like a lot of people whose understandings got shattered because of you know extraordinary events that they couldn’t predict they turned to where a lot of people were learning. I’d like to say that the default civic education for people today is Twitter which is like the worst place that you can develop a civic educational because like the greatest civic education is a moral education it’s a character developing education it’s one where you where well to borrow your own language is like you develop personhood through real deep contextualized relationships and dialogue. And so the joke that I made the last time we chatted was that 140 characters is the kind of the exact opposite of an authentic dialogue which is why I’m just I’m kind of obsessed with your dialogue series because well my mind goes a lot of places and we’ll get to that but for many months after the 2016 election I was just like scouring Twitter and following a bunch of people that had a lot big followings looking at articles that they were reading not really understanding just how much it was polluting my you know maybe use this word differently information ecology in my own brain right and I felt like I was like oh this is it right this is and I felt like I was like oh this is it right there’s this there’s good and there’s this evil right how do I fit in how do I you know fight this evil and ultimately I was able to work with some you know big activists that that wanted help from from smart people and in the course of from the spring of 2017 to the spring of 2018 and I don’t know if we talked about this actually I was able to help this this group get a billion impressions on Facebook with spending zero dollars yeah and so you know a big part of at least how I’ve been informed by your work is you know feedback loops mind viruses memetic almost warfare and at some point I just I just like I actually the way that I accidentally opened my mind to just or just started to realize just how polluted my information ecology was was I wanted to study the other sides how they thought so I could be better at at the warfare and it turned out that as soon as I started to listen to the media that they were putting out there just to just to just to get their perspective I was like this actually makes a lot of sense like or like I get it like like a lot of it is by the way I checked out well I’m actually in the middle of reading Zach Stein’s education I’m messing up the title in between worlds right and I yeah in a time between two worlds and I it’s funny last night I was actually googling your two names together I was like hmm these two people should talk and I’m happy yeah turns out so I listened to one of those which is um it was it was pretty fabulous but um back back to kind of back to back to my journey uh I I started to to to realize just how dangerous the um dangerous almost like the the world system is if you don’t have I guess psycho technologies to real just to just to even understand how to navigate right right like what is I mean there’s so much there’s so much that you have to process in order to and even you have to develop ways of processing information not just I remember you saying in one of your recent conversations that it’s not just information access it’s about how you process that information which is a difference and and I and I’m you know living proof that you know once you change the way that you process information you’re able to see things a lot a lot more clearly so I the way I see it is that you know the reason why I stopped doing that whole Facebook social media I’ve stopped playing that game well one because I realized it was a game where you’re actually uh it’s a zero sum uh like everyone loses sort of game right and um it was actually and I was losing as well right I was I was becoming more reactive I was becoming uh I was becoming skeptical of everyone around me right include including my like it was it was changing my fundamental orientation right as a person right and I didn’t like what I was seeing in the mirror like and and that I guess I’m still I’m proud of myself for even acknowledging that because um you know I think we should talk about you know the like the value systems that like social media perpetuates and how like we I mean GDP is a single metric right number of followers single metric these actually change the way that you see the world right in a way that is extremely dangerous and unnatural so I I did the hard thing I cut that cold turkey and I this wasn’t like a this wasn’t just like um serial where I just started doing research like I said I started to inadvertently open my mind and then you know thousands of hours of exploration later um well one of the amazing things that I’m glad to have stumbled on was your awakening from the meaning crisis series which deeply informed what I would do next after google which I was so I was doing this all while I was a full-time software engineering lead on google cloud and your your series uh really helped me well make sense of uh what I went through like I I like I think because people really need to make sense of themselves in the grand in some sort of meta narrative um it’s very easy for people to prey on people that don’t have that don’t know where they fit into yeah the world right yeah well said so um so I can pause there before talking I because because I thought I just felt like the backstory would be helpful for well for you and for uh viewers no no that that was very helpful um and thank you for what you said and I’m glad to know that my series uh was so uh helpful to you so it sounds like you get this sort of Socratic aporia everything comes into question deep state of wonder and then you do this pivot and and so what comes after the pivot what did you move into right so um so we kind of like to joke that we are um a a spiritual movement or civic religion that is not a religion disguised as a civic leadership program because like it’s and and one thing that I’ve I’ve realized a lot is that you you have to get people to come with what they already find meaningful or they think that they find meaningful like right right and then they so it’s like you come for the kind of tactical oh like I now know how to do this as a leader but like then you’re like oh like I’m in community now yes other really good people that I get to dialogue with and I get to grow with and I get to be vulnerable with and like I actually get to shape my identity through uh this vulnerable exchange authentic exchange where um it’s funny because I was I was I have uh I guess participatory knowledge and perspectival knowledge of the power of dialogue and and your series actually helped me understand um that that wasn’t a fluke and that that and that other other other people like uh it’s almost like so obvious now that that that dialogue is the way that that you it’s like this conversation already is so far from like what other people may assume a dialogue is like let me get my word in and then like there’s information that it’s like this is this is already really rewarding for me um in a uh like it’s already it’s I’m already feeling very uplifted but anyways um that’s great so so the main narrative that we um explain and this it’s true but there’s so much more to that is that like democracy is in crisis in America right and and there’s been movements uh there’s been like lots of people that have been trying to reform our democracy build it anew for decades right and well I mean as long as our as our political system has been or democracy has been around which I could argue has never really been a democracy for for everyone uh you I don’t think you can point to a single time in American history where it’s actually been a great experience for for every every type of person um but but uh I think the veterans of the democracy reform movement in America will be the first to admit it’s extremely monolithic right it’s um it’s lacking in um uh all sorts of diversity especially young people especially young women and and we and a lot a lot of this was actually unintentional like we we never had any quotas but when we’re recruiting for our our first leadership development fellowship in January of this year we ended up getting 80 uh young women uh majority that doesn’t surprise me majority non-white well I well what the internet right and uh like leadership development programs I don’t know if you’ve have you ever heard of boy state for example no I haven’t so it’s like this it’s it’s become really famous for creating simulations of of elections right so like they basically they randomly assign people into two parties right then they have like the whole point is for people to decide who who gets elected right and I’m and there’s a documentary by the way and I’m like watching this and I’m like ah like you know what that immediately made me think of was you talking about um phylo nikea versus what’s the other one phylo sophia right yeah right yes exactly right right and like the fact that the simulation ends after you’ve won the election is like are you kidding me right like this is actually people’s civic again so civic education let’s recap is well I didn’t say this is government government approved education which um why would the government teach you how to make it better or change it or overthrow any part of it right right or it’s twitter which is all about information warfare or it’s um extremely heralded organizations like boy state and I think there’s benefit because it’s like it actually is like oh like oh okay this is what it like it’s actually kind of ruthless and um right some of it’s like a lot of it’s just about charisma it’s like I think that’s important to understand but and so it’s not about like okay we shouldn’t do this it’s like what else right there needs to be other sorts of um I don’t even want to say simulation it’s just like other experiences that they’re like oh okay this is what the social fabric should feel like right right right right um and so what would I uh what I what I um so ultimately what well well there’s no one of the things that we’re trying to do at civics unplugged is equip young people to be the the inspiring democracy builders that are are missing um right but the thing that we didn’t plan for was that the the way that we have organized our kids to will be kind of like intrinsically motivated to stay organized is like well it’s your project as well right it’s like um have you are you familiar with maybe a dumb question uh with ben franklin’s juntos no no no so I don’t know how at what frequency he gathered like a group of um his like like kindred spirits almost but like at a recurring frequency he would gather a group of people to talk about uh issues that they’re facing and issues that the the civil society is facing and actually try to uh like take on challenges together right right cool and so what what we’ve done at civics unplugged is uh uh stand up juntos for our kids um so so we so we had we had this training period from january to july but now it’s literally like until like infinity they are now they’re in juntos among other things um they’re in juntos and like it was maybe I should be surprised or not just like this pure dynamic of so I would I like I helped stand up these groups initially just to to show them okay this is how you would facilitate here’s how you how you you know here’s how you get through the agenda once they got it very quickly and now they’re just self-sustaining groups of peers uh wow that that the whole point is just to talk about whatever is meaningful and then like have take on optional time to debug an issue that they’re facing right right and and this is it’s helpful for you and any viewers to hear that they’re not getting any sort of thing like this anywhere else in their life right which yeah yeah I think there’s like a level of you know they’re filtering their experience when they’re talking to their their parents even their siblings even their even their friends which are friends of uh convenience often right to kind of uh you know there’s all these types of types of and and these are these are these might be their first friends of good right right right right yeah yeah the co-cultivation character and so they’re they’re actually like they’re able to um they’re almost like able to get into flow state for the for the first time in terms of an interpersonal right right yeah yeah because they they’re able there’s like oh it’s rewarded to talk about um whatever it feels meaningful and it’s like it’s like this extremely exhilarating experience especially given the context of parental pressures and also quite honestly prison-like conditions in their k-12 systems right and I don’t use I don’t use that that kind of analogy lightly especially well it’s especially the case in the COVID times where they are they’re super super regimented but that was also the case uh before where where it’s not about what they want to do it’s about what um a uh any number of uh of of entities that have co-opted the education system right right right so um I’ll pause there because I know I’ve said a lot but no no I want you to this is wonderful yeah it’s really good to be um you know connected with you because there’s there’s just like an infinite menu of like connection points because probably because uh your whole project is meaning right and uh you know it what I’ve what I’ve really realized is it takes a long time to change entrenched systems and if the if the if these are not exact synonyms but people use them like synonyms so I’ll just use them so if the movement community change making force that is trying to change the system is not a deeply rewarding flow inducing experience yeah it’s not going to sustain and this is my my common critique with with political movements yeah movement right that they dissipate as soon as the elections over yes yeah what a waste of like it’s almost like they pay people to just be there for an election it’s like wait don’t you realize that if you were able to create and this is very hard so like that if you were able to create and this is very hard so like I understand why they they don’t do this and they’re or they’re unable to do this but like if you’re able to create um kind of like a real community that is intrinsically motivated to support each other and to support and to further realize a vision or an emission um uh you’re able to to mobilize that community for for a long time right because because because because because strengthening protecting strengthening reimagining reinvent reinventing things uh it is not it’s not about a giant overhaul right for for any reason it’s about like being able to just see leverage points and like yeah you know shift the parameters in parallel shift the parameters in parallel exactly and what you’re talking about is not trying to I would say in my language I say you’re ultimately not trying to um even bring about a political change uh you’re actually trying to bring about a cultural change which is the the grounding way of being and the underlying normativity the soil in which a democracy has to be rooted right yes well 100 and the soil and and I I love that you brought that up because um I was working with a group of the kids and and they’re and they’re brilliant right like like kids when they’re able to uh and I know that you have this experience just like I do when the mission is big enough you get a lot smarter right yeah yeah yeah yeah and when you feel like okay I have an important role to play in kind of fulfilling this achieving this mission uh like it’s just like what like this is and you thought you weren’t curious you thought you weren’t uh extremely smart and creative um we put our kids in situations where they know almost everything is a bs academic exercise that is meant to fill space and check certain boxes for an administrator right and so and so when they’re when they’re finally put into I mean there’s all this pent up like energy to like do good right into into grow and to ask meaningful questions and pursue them it’s it’s been a really uh you know you know this well right because you have um you have supported a lot of really great thinkers and I’m going to get um his name wrong Christopher my my so Pietro Christopher yeah your friends yes and I was just watching um uh one of your conversations uh that was like kind of hosted by uh Andrew Sweeney oh Andrew’s great yes yeah yeah he’s so a lot like it’s he’s like a master class in curiosity yeah yeah yeah um and like just talking about art and how it like uh I mean it just allows you to see you know reality more clearly and just some different angles right because then you have to see you have to see the same thing from a lot of different angles so that you’re not well you’re almost like not bullshitting yourself right exactly exactly so so that was so so I just wanted to um I don’t want to lose the thread about the soil because uh so so my point in bringing up the kids well there’s a lot of reasons because they’re amazing but uh they they were the ones that were pushing for like imagine there’s like a civic world that has been gravely um I mean it’s just been malnourished to say the least and it’s not if not just like actively slashed right and it’s like so there’s a rainforest where like the soil right which includes like you know what nutrients include information right and culture right and value like what and like what’s cool right so what’s cool right now is to virtue signal what’s cool is to distort what other people are saying um so that your side wins and again like there are deep roots of the culture um you know I think people people really like to point to very simple explanations for for why things are bad right like like an organization like Boy State has been around for uh since like 19 like 20 or something oh really yeah and so it’s been it’s been there’s this legacy of like really celebrating wow good job you won you you you convinced a lot of kids that you should um be elected right and then again the simulation ends so like like the way that we orient ourselves to the world has been inculturated for for what for way longer I’ve realized than then uh you know the introduction of Mark Zuckerberg’s rise in the world this is we are just we are actually we are living in unprecedented times where um the kind of uh oh for lack of better term the worst in us is being magnified yeah uh algorithmically in a way that um it’s it’s kind of mind-boggling and and you’re you’re actually going to be unable to to understand exactly how until you completely unplug which um I will say we we did not we were not that intentional about civics unplug the unplug part but it’s like unplug unplugging from the simulation like oh my like we got so lucky with that name right right yeah because it’s all about it right and it’s like people ask oh what’s civics it’s like it’s like whatever it takes to unplug from what’s not meaningful and plug into what’s meaningful that’s our that that’s our and it’s like because that project is so um big and open-ended and and honestly dialectic right like you’re like someone’s someone’s definition of what’s meaningful and definition of what’s worth building in the world uh it’s they’re not going to be the same and I think I think we need to find a way to uh raise children right and develop citizen leaders that that that enjoy dialectic uh enjoy enjoy the process of dialoguing with with people that are different than them right because these are maybe this is you again right which just shows how much I have I’ve gotten from you and I’ve transformed through you um but like there are uh there are kind of irresolvable values conflicts about like you know pro-life and pro-choice like we act like there’s going to be one day people are going to wake up and like there’s one or the as one of the others no it’s like like once we start realizing that like there um there are extremely valid reasons for holding uh certain positions uh and and that we were actually and perhaps most importantly that the political media technology industrial complex is weaponizing these irresolvable conflicts yeah because it sells yeah because it sells because it gets us really mad once we realize once we’re able to step outside that we’re like oh okay so at least we can unite and that’s kind of the point of of at least my personal focus on democracy reform which a lot of people a lot of people uh perhaps rightfully assume that it’s like about electoral stuff it’s like no it’s about culture it’s about yes um it’s about technology it’s about it’s about everything that is harming us from actually building the civic world which um which itself is like okay what would the civic world be great let’s talk about it and I think I think that’s that’s one of the first steps wow that that’s that’s amazing I just want to just keep listening to you and your passion and your insight are fantastic and so can you tell us a little bit more about sort of the practicalities of it I get the idea that this sort of starts out and you draw people in uh like as a civics course of course on how civil how civics works with this what it is to be a citizen etc and then that moves into you know around leadership and initially obviously there’s some practical skills that are being taught and then you leave that that evolves naturally and draws them into you know the cultivation of wisdom meaning character virtue so what what age group are we talking about for these kids and what does the program sort of look like yeah it’s 14 to 18 although you know they get older right and and we’re here to support them for and exactly how we support them is an evolutionary thing but what we basically committed to is like everything that you need to uh like we’re here to support you and everything that you need to uh build that civic world and because I think that like people uh like people kind of shoot that like organizations people kind of shoot themselves in the foot by being overly specific about the how and not about like the ultimate why and then the and then the what um so the the fellowship which runs every year the the second year starts in january um it involves uh uh involves the the kids learning in a very participatory way personal development systems thinking community building and democratic theory and every one of the lessons is is communal and participatory uh like it’s very very questions oriented so like we’ll pose a question in a kind of live lecture sort of thing and then everyone gets to see the answers of everyone else right right then we’ll talk about it and then then we as like kind of the instructors will share like our our answer but like with the caveat that it’s like you know everyone else’s answers made sense as well like like you know yes for the most part right um and then because we realize that um I mean well so much of just developing and developing self-awareness is understanding like the almost like landscape of of human possibility I get like like yeah what yeah like what what what could people answer this question with and it’s like really fast it’s super it’s fascinating for me right it’s fascinating for kids to answer like so so even the question like what are you struggling with right and then like you get this you get this mosaic of answers there’s lots of patterns there’s lots of um kind of edge cases and you’re like oh okay that increases your empathy um it it shows that there’s other people that are dealing with similar issues um and that’s I think like a big part of even therapy right is just like even acknowledging that or like group therapy is just even even if you don’t resolve an issue um just like getting it out in the world and also knowing that you’re not alone in something right right there’s there’s something um like calming about that right like there’s something yeah so well it gets you out of the perspective it gives you at least the other person’s perspective on your perspective gives you a room like the the the pretended pretentious inevitability of a of a perspective is challenged just by the presence of an alternative exterior perspective yes yes um and and it’s it’s so clear again from the experience so so we actually put uh kids in in groups uh in juntoes of of eight uh eight to ten uh like right away starting in in February and then they’re they those juntoes meet every week um again they’re really really enriching experiences for the kids because uh almost all of their interactions it’s it’s sad to say uh are transactional yeah yeah outside of civics unplug right and actions yeah and a lot and some of the kids literally call uh our digital world kind of in oasis and and and what what i like to say is it’s our job to turn this oasis which again it’s like surrounded by desert a civic desert let’s say uh and and turn it uh turn it into a lush rainforest that that spreads across multiple continents that’s wonderful image wonderful and uh and and that’s and that’s honestly like how i see uh your dialogue of series i like what i see is uh people that needed to find each other finding each other yes yes that’s well put and and as smart as uh i don’t i don’t like that word smart but as as as fine off as you would be let’s say to just be reading books on your own right and and coming up with an almost monologuing right to a receptive audience um i’ve noticed that you uh it’s very helpful for you to to see that other people are converging on similar conclusions about yeah the world right or just very helpful yeah extremely they’re coming to similar insights especially if well it doesn’t strike me that you know you try to bring that many people that are just you know blindly take on ideas from other people on your channel so it’s like it’s like okay from if you bring on a bunch of first principles thinkers and and you just talk about what their their kind of thought projects are and there’s a lot of convergence it’s like okay uh let’s work together to figure out how to address this meeting crisis so uh one of the things that we realized as an organization is um a huge part of the benefit of of what we’re doing is the kind of intimate size of yeah yeah of our community so right now it’s about 200 um a fraction of those people uh show up right into the virtual space to engage uh every day and but but we but uh we we have some real life like superheroes like like like real life like like i was thinking like okay if this person was able to uh like their stories were able to be followed uh by like uh like random random middle schoolers for example that that would transform the middle schoolers or you know for that for that matter really anyone’s perspective of what they could see as possible because these are really remarkable kids and um so so we have this little oasis that has some remarkable like like basically super like real life superhero kids with like they have that much potential and um then you have this extremely powerful uh well there’s no single technology but let’s look at netflix when netflix is able to kind of put its you know camera right on like a particular phenomenon everyone can know about it right so um you know i don’t want to jinx this right but one one of the things that we’re trying to work on is to put our organization in position where um it’s it’s a uh kind of mutually rewarding proposition for someone like netflix or disney plus right to to follow yeah these of of these real life young civic superheroes um who embody basically the they are like almost like living embodiments of the culture that we that you and i know need to be just like people even needs to need to be aware of uh and hopefully inspired by but by just like you know and what what what would this um react like true reality tv hopefully show that like these kids are having real dialogue with with people to learn about the world and their minds are being opened like as they’re as they’re speaking um they’re actually constantly questioning their beliefs they’re working on extremely important projects they’re not they’re not focused on uh you know the context free social media um and so like just to kind of summarize our our goal is not to try to get uh millions of people into the intimate sort of program that we have it’s to put a spotlight on uh you know on on the like real life and i’m very intentional with the word superhero because what is the what is the main thing that it’s almost like what are the what are some of the few things that like almost everyone in the population has right they’ve watched a superhero movie from kids kids to all like all sorts of race gender whatever um and so we we need those sort of stories and they can’t just be pure fiction right it can’t just be uh iron man like while there’s real life kind of like lessons about courage that come from you know star wars or avengers right like people need people really need people are actually people are already hungry hungering for for um basically a blueprint for how they can be uh like a superhero right right and like gen z especially right and you see this with um their massive marches which i think it’s like what what what that makes me excited about is that there’s this intent to do a lot of good there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to show what it actually takes it takes a ton of it takes a lot of time it takes a lot of curiosity and and and hard work to understand what a system that you want to shift uh is so that you can actually shift it in a way that hopefully does not create more unintended consequences that are bad instead of good which is which is kind of like the story of public policy of the past i don’t know i like at least 40 years right and and right now we’re we’re choosing between two candidates that um they both have have done things that narratively made sense at the time but they they have produced pretty tremendous uh you know tremendously bad consequences so joe joe biden right uh you know i just want to be fair here uh because we can talk about trump all we want but joe biden i don’t know if you know that he authored the crime bill that was foundational to mass incarceration of in america right and i don’t want to impugn anyone’s intentions i think that it just it almost felt like an inevitability at a time like from what i’ve read it’s like of course we have to deal with these super predators we need to secure our cities like law and order right it just felt like an inevitable and this is the power of culture i think that’s changed so much which which gives me a lot of optimism and i think the social media and just the media landscape in general allows for quick much quicker dissemination of culture than um what did you say steal the culture what what so uh a big part of what uh we’re trying to do is to steal the culture for a small group of people that we can then shine a spotlight on and then steal the culture for like the whole world that’s just a fantastic plan gary and that’s just i mean i i mean i i haven’t had much to say because i just wanted to listen to you i mean just so thoughtful and insightful and exciting right um and i mean it just um uh i mean i want to do whatever i can to help support this i mean obviously i’m gonna put out this video it’d be great to maybe have you come back you know a couple months and talk more about this and say more what’s going on for sure yeah and i’d love to bring one of the kids that would be fantastic yep oh what a great idea gary yep oh i would love that oh i would love that very much that would be fantastic but john i i just don’t see another like i i i in terms of that that that plan right because we um it’s i’ve i’ve realized that whatever we’re doing in this oasis is is not is not scalable at any at any pace that is necessary to move the culture at a pace that allows for so let me um i mean like so so so i care about a lot of issues the kids care about a lot my whole the whole team cares about lot of issues criminal justice education democracy the the corruption of our political system and our political culture is is is preventing us from doing anything right and just so you know that the timetable of how fast or slow and i’m saying slow uh like electoral reforms government reforms take is that like even so we have a ballot initiative in florida that is to open primaries basically there’s a primary system before a general election the primaries are basically corrupt like co-op co-opted and you know selected behind the scenes by parties so that independents third parties can’t really have their say on who ends up getting the general election and so there’s a ballot initiative in florida basically a citizen’s movement to allow for more types of uh like just feasibly allow for uh more choice before the general election and even if that passes do you have a guess of of when it goes into effect i don’t know 10 years all right so i think 2024 right but even even even with 2024 it’s not like it’s like without without the proper culture to go along with it and even just do awareness that that is not crazy anymore right for an independent to run right and independence not going to run because people are because it’s about like i mean i know this too well right because it’s actually paralyzing to do things where you you think that even just like a few people in your life that you think that matter will be like is he crazy oh he finally he’s finally lost his shit right like he’s like you know he like and what we can talk about maybe another time but the difference between being a visionary and a delusional person is like uh in my opinion is like access to resources and and so so um you know anyways uh it so let’s say we want to do any of the things that zack stein wants um in terms of education system that works way better than it does right we have to drastically reform and just reimagine reinvent uh the the the the social and political kind of soil right that’s uh allows for us to even talk about education ideas yes exactly exactly and and so we have to think about things in i hate to say this and i i’ve had to grapple with this on my own we have to think in decade long time scales because um it’s sort of like it’s it’s an oversimplification but it’s a helpful one where it’s like it’s we have to get our our soil correct before new new trees of education right can can actually flourish yeah which is going to be which doesn’t take a lot of time but um i guess to kind of close this whole loop is um i don’t i don’t know what what you expected from putting out the series that that that you did um but it’s just had a it’s such a profound kind of influence on my my development and and uh the the organizations that i work with just the philosophy that i operate with in life um well well what i wanted to do is i let’s play with the metaphor i wanted to turn over the soil i wanted to till it i wanted to fertilize it as much as possible that’s why i’m doing all the all the series you know uh awakening for the meaning crisis voices with bravaki untangling the world not that the ones that are coming down the pipe that’s why you know chris you mentioned chris chris and i have put together uh an anthology of all the people well at least no sorry that’s too bold many of the major players in this whole dialogue movement and all these communities of practices and trying to get one of the things is to try and get like you know what we need to do i we need to shine a spotlight on the oasis but we also have to get all the oasis is connected by trade routes yes yes yes all you know all the trading ideas and trading practices other could not agree more um you know jordan hall um has been deeply uh you know influential in my in my own thinking um god why is why is my memory failing who is who’s who’s the uh who’s doing the consilience project uh he he has he has a long daniel schmoktenberger also also a really a clear thinker about this i loved your magic dialogue with jinsuk yeah yes so so good because um i guess one of the things i think a lot a lot about it’s like it doesn’t matter if it’s uh words are so limiting it’s like it doesn’t matter if it’s not real right if it’s useful right like this feeling that there is magic in the world is like it it actually does produce a lot of what you would think would happen if there was magic in the in the world yeah symbolic action serious play are things that we have to well take seriously again yeah jun sun he’s a seriously again yeah john sun he’s a former student of mine and you know now one of my ta’s and ra’s and love it manager he’s doing i’m just so proud of the work he’s doing it’s just amazing work it’s amazing also paul vanderclay yep paul vanderclay is doing jonathan pageau jonathan pageau yeah there’s there’s just and like you already mentioned andrew sweety uh you know and zach there’s just a whole um a whole bunch of people i mean and i got to talk to some of the seminal figures i got to talk to james karst which was amazing right the infinite is that infinite game yeah and religious case against belief unfortunately we lost james yesterday oh passed away which is very sad i’m so glad but i got to interact with him on a couple of occasions i’m so happy about our most recent uh because we were both on fire and so um just to have that for me not for him but for me that final dialogos with him that just caught fire that was just such a wonderful blessing and a gift i deeply appreciate of it well gary i should get going uh but uh but um like i definitely okay so your proposal let’s let’s make it let’s make it happen i want to have another discussion with you and i want you to bring one of your kids on or you know and and let’s i want to hear more i want to open up more i want to shine the spotlight i want to do everything you’re talking about let’s do it and let’s do it after uh the election yeah no i was going to propose we have we have plenty of uh i don’t want to say fun but there’s going to be a lot of interesting meaningful things to discuss uh in early early mid november so why don’t why don’t we plan for something like that yeah so let’s plan for that that’s fantastic and um i mean i just want you you’ve you’ve you’ve you’ve said a lot of complimentary things about me i just want to say i want to compliment you back you are realizing and you know what i what i mean a lot by that word you are realizing what i’m talking about in a deep like in a deep and you know actual you know rubber hitting the roadway and that i’m so deeply impressed by it so deeply impressed by it well i just uh just to kind of reference it’s funny um you’ve really taught me the the uh the power of analyzing words really carefully and using words really carefully so what i do is i appreciate your work ah well said well yeah you know and it’s it’s not as oh yeah cool it’s like i i really try okay this is there’s some there’s some there’s a reason why like this man is dedicating so much energy because i i don’t i’m sure you’ve talked about it somewhere but like your awakening from the meaning crisis series and all the series it just shows like i’m sure well let’s talk about awakening from the meaning crisis series probably you’ve probably spent like thousands of hours like at least at least the course i mean even if you put it together at a certain number of hours like this is this is a lifelong sort of thing that that you very much like oh like this is this is going to help a lot of people and and um i guess the thing that i just to plant this seed uh with you and maybe this is like a ongoing project that that we can work on is like how do we make um the most essential uh kind of elements of of your work and i guess all of our our work um accessible to as many people as possible that’s that’s uh yeah paul van der klee has i mean in addition to convergence dialogus carries within it the true scaffolding and affordance of constructive criticism and that’s a point that paul has made um vis-a-vis the comparison to the traditional religions and i think that is one of the central questions that we need to keep coming back to again and again and i think we need an ongoing evolving answer and you can see me discussing myself with jordan jordan hall we need an ongoing evolving answer that is continually to you know continually producing emergent aspects of a response to that question uh because i don’t think we’re going to get oh right here here’s it i don’t think there’s an algorithm to uh to answer that question i think i think also it has to be something uh that will very much take on a life of its own um and how it’s how that problem is addressed uh but i do i do let me return again um to you i deeply appreciate the way you are exemplifying so much and you’re doing like you did like on your own like i’m not taking any credit for this whatsoever the way you you so clearly exemplify so much of you know what i’m talking about and what i’m trying to achieve and i deeply i’m deeply grateful for that well i’m grateful for you and grateful for this opportunity to well to meet you again and dialogue and uh and make this an ongoing dialogue uh for that matter well i think that’s fantastic gary i mean i’m glad we had this and i look forward to the one after the election i hope the election goes as peacefully as possible um hope hopefully yeah um and uh please maybe in an email send me any any information you want me to put into the description of this video sounds good i i i have uh i have a lot of i mean the rabbit hole goes deep uh of of just at least send me some of them the choices links you think i should well so i want to send you some other stuff outside of what you would put in a blurb as well because okay do both i will i’ll do both all right okay thank you so so much all right