At the end of a turbulent year that has seen the masks come off the death cult in ways that were probably predictable, but still shocking, we reconvene our December Solstice Traditional conversation. Manda is joined by Della Duncan of the Upstream Podcast and Nathalie Nahai of ‘Nathalie Nahai in Conversation’ to explore the things that have stood out for each of us in our explorations this year—and to look forward to the year about to begin for what will be our baselines.
If we are to build systems that meet our real needs we have to first understand what those needs are and start growing the stuff that will allow us to thrive: good food from healthy soils, safe and supportive homes and communities, space to develop and express our creativity, opportunities to increase our capacity for co-operation and kindness. As much as these, though, we need to understand what an economy is for – why it does what it does…
We exist in a world where the ultra-rich are getting richer, powered by a system we call ‘the economy’ which is serving to funnel power and value up to an ever-shrinking core of wounded individuals who then project their trauma out on the rest of the world in a doomed attempt to feel better about being caught in a system that doesn’t promote human wellbeing.
Our western (Trauma Culture) economies run on two falsehoods – we might go so far as to call them lies. Our guest this week is someone particularly well positioned to debunk these and show how how monetary and fiscal policy can be directed toward meeting human needs within environmental limits.
How do we let go of the sense of scarcity, separation and powerlessness that defines the ways we live, care and do business together? How can we best equip our young people for the world that is coming – which is so, so different from the future we grew up believing was possible?
We are honoured to bring to Accidental Gods, a recording of three of our generation’s leading thinkers in conversation at the Festival of Debate in Sheffield, hosted by Opus.
This is an unflinching conversation, but it’s absolutely at the cutting edge of imagineering: this lays out where we’re at and what we need to do, but it also gives us roadmaps to get there: It’s genuinely Thrutopian, not only in the ideas as laid out, but the emotional literacy of the approach to the wicked problems of our time.
Now we have to make it happen.
Predatory Capitalism is killing us – this is obvious. So how do we create ways to exchange, store and account for value that are just and equitable and will take us towards the future we’d be proud to leave behind?
Our legacy – or status quo – media is owned and run by billionaires for billionaires and the stories they promote are the ones that will keep us all in line. How do we shift the global narrative towards a future of mutual flourishing?
How do we build the local futures we all know we need? What does it actually take to become a good enough ancestor? Or even the best ancestor we can be? Our guest this week, Helena Norberg-Hodge, has given her life to exploring the answers, and helping birth them into being.
How can business become an active, pro-active part of the multi-faceted solution to the meta-crisis? How can we accelerate our shift towards the emergent edge of Inter-Becoming? Tim Frenneaux of the Pivot project is working at the leading edge of regenerative business design to find the answers that will help us all.
In this moment of transition, we need to become the best of ourselves, as individuals, and as a culture. But how? What does it look like? More importantly, what does it feel like? Designer and Thrutopian thinker, Jenny Grettve says it’ll feel as if we care for the web or life as a mother care for her children. And we’d better learn how to do it as fast as we can.
We’re being sold many lies, but one of the most egregious is the idea that cutting down old growth forest, turning it into pellets and shipping it across the world to burn in former-coal power stations is somehow contributing to ’Net Zero’ emissions. It isn’t. Mary Booth, founder and director of the Partnership for Policy Integrity, spends her life in the corridors of power explaining why this is a scam. And now she’s talking to us.