The Ecological Crisis as Runaway Cultural Evolution

In this episode, I bring my first guest onto the show to discuss the cognitive history of ideas as they relate to the current ecological crisis. Jeremy Lent has written an excellent book called The Patterning Instinct that explores the macro-evolution of societies in western Europe, the Americas, and east Asia. Together we explore how to apply insights about the importance of root metaphors to the transformation of our globalized economy in the next few decades.

In this fifth episode in the series on applied cultural evolution, we explore how all environmental problems need to be understood as system-level outcomes of evolution for human societies. Humanity is currently on a course to alter the entire planet -- due to the immense power of cultural evolution -- without understanding that this is what we are doing.

This is the fourth episode in this series on applied cultural evolution, where we explore how the social sciences and humanity need to be integrated in order for massively complex social problems to be addressed in the world. Among the topics explored are the future of universities, the relationship of evolutionary studies to culture and social behavior, and the importance of applying this knowledge as systematically and effectively as we can throughout a period of planetary-scale collapse.

This is episode 3 in a series on applied cultural evolution. It explores how the stress, anxiety, and suffering of life in the modern world can be explained using the framework of "evolutionary mismatch" to analyze, interpret, and design solutions for challenges we face together. If you know anyone who suffers from mental illness or other health effects, there is something here for you.

This is the second episode in this series -- which explains what cultural evolution is and why it is an essential body of knowledge for dealing with the convergence of global crises that now confront humanity. You will learn how global warming is merely a symptom of "runaway cultural evolution" as part of a sweeping history for our species that goes back millions of years in deep time.

This is the first podcast by Joe Brewer -- a short introduction about his work applying cultural evolution to large-scale social change. In this episode, you will hear a deeply personal account of his struggles to do original work in a world that has no structural supports. He believes this is something many people can relate to as they strive to innovate in these unprecedented times of global change.