The Intellectual Dark Web - Living in a Post Truth World
There is this feeling in the air that something is transitioning culturally. We sense it every time we read a story about the latest cultural challenge or outrage. For those of us paying attention to the new innovations as well, we also sense something of what the future may be like. The question remains...is something in play that could change everything?
There has been much made of the failure of progressives to combat the rising wave of unhealthy tribalism. One of the heated points in that discussion are the thoughts, videos and books coming out of an informal movement dubbed the "Intellectual Dark Web." Thought leaders like Sam Harris, Ken Wilber, Eric and Bret Weinstein, Jordon Hall and Jamie Wheal have been associated in a loose network of discourse about why progressives seem to be having such a hard time addressing the wicked challenges in the world. Often times this is described as ... Living in a Post Truth World.
The interesting thing about something as mysterious as IDW is that its speakers are attracting large audiences. So much so, that major publications like the NY Times and others have done feature stories on these seemingly obscure writers. With this new found fame has also come fierce push back from liberals that don’t like their perspectives questioned. All of this makes for very interesting conversations.
Below are some representative video pieces and print articles that will give you a flavor of it. You can also find loads of videos on YouTube from everyone involved. The first interview I did is with the co-founder of Rebel Wisdom, Alex Beiner. Rebel Wisdom has been at the center of trying to make sense of what is emerging from this group.
The second piece is a Jordon Hall podcast where he is explaining what he calls the blue church. Jordan is suggesting the although the blue church is progressive, the left leaning establishment is actually protecting the status quo that we need to move beyond. Quite a different view than most progressives hold of themselves.
The third piece is a podcast featuring Eric Weinstein and writer Brett Funston Ellis where they discuss their bewilderment at the status of our current reality show. Eric has suggested that the current Covid crisis has awakened us from our "big nap" and is challenging us to rise to the unprecedented challenges of this time. That future is certainly not going to be business as usual.
Alexander Beiner Interview - Rebel Wisdom
Alexander is a noted writer, workshop leader and co-founder of Rebel Wisdom. In this interview Alex talks about what interested him about the Intellectual Dark Web movement and how he sees the themes it is pointing to show up in his own professional and personal work.
Click on ARROWS to enlarge to full screen
Click on ARROWS to enlarge to full screen
Jordan Hall - The Blue Church
Jordan is now in his seventeenth year of building disruptive technology companies.
Naturally, these interests led to a deep dive in the early 90's into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science as the Internet was exploding into the world,
This exposure led him to the conclusion that humanity is in the midst of a world historical transition which will likely kill all of us (think Mad Max) but just might end in a truly amazing future (think Star Trek). Getting there is going to require many things of us – most notably a significant upgrade of our individual and collective capacity for thought and action.
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Eric Weinstein - Brett Easton Ellis
Eric is an American managing director of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's investment firm, a position he has held since 2015. He and his brother Bret Weinstein coined the term "Intellectual Dark Web" to refer to an informal group of pundits.
Weinstein received his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from the Mathematics Department at Harvard University in 1992 under the supervision of Raoul Bott. In his dissertation, titled "Extension of Self-Dual Yang-Mills Equations across the Eighth Dimension", Weinstein showed that the self-dual Yang–Mills equations were not really peculiar to dimension four and admitted generalizations to higher dimensions.