Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

Can we decolonize reality itself?Rushkoff is joined by Jeffrey Kripal, Associate Dean and Professor at Rice University, to discuss his book The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities Kripal argues that by stripping away the impossible parts of our history - visions, precognition, and altered states - we have essentially lobotomized the humanities, leaving us with a depressing, purely political version of ourselves.Together, they explore:The Secular Flatland: Moving beyond a strictly materialist worldview that reduces human beings to data points.The Vertical Dimension: Why extraordinary experiences are more common than...

In this urgent monologue, Rushkoff explores the heartbreaking crisis of modern faith. As religious identities are weaponized by nationalism, literalism, and holy war narratives, from Christian Zionism to the defense of the nation-state, we find ourselves trapped in a linear, Axial Age story that may no longer serve a digital, all-at-once humanity.In this episode, Rushkoff discusses:- The Brand of Religion: How the conduct of states like Israel and the rise of Christian Nationalism are making traditional faith feel untenable for the people who hold it.-- The Literalism...

The tech elite are wielding occult power, but we have the imagination.Join us in the live chat for our first-ever Team Human Premiere! Douglas Rushkoff sits down with legendary comic writer and chaos magician Grant Morrison for a deeply urgent conversation about reclaiming reality.Morrison argues that magic isn't just the supernatural; it's a mundane, everyday tool of collective agreement that we are all already using. While billionaires use algorithmic binding spells to predict our moves and trap us in a boring, materialist nightmare, we possess the ultimate counter-measure: our collective imagination...

The digital world promises a frictionless existence of infinite growth, convenience, and total scale. But what happens when that virtual map starts consuming the real territory? Rushkoff reflects on his recent appointment to the Club of Rome and their legendary 1972 warning: The Limits to Growth.From the massive water and energy drained by AI data centers to Jeff Bezos' intentional dismantling of the Washington Post, Rushkoff breaks down how the tech elite are using the digital simulation to extract the last remaining value from the physical world. The oligarchs want a frictionless reality where...

Has the internet always been a magical space?Shira Chess, a Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia and a leading scholar of digital folklore, dive into her new book, The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse, to explore the hidden spiritual architecture of our digital lives.From the open-source creation of digital cryptids like Slender Man on early forums to the summoning of AI entities in latent space, Chess argues that technology and magic have become indistinguishable. Rushkoff and Chess discuss how the countercultural, techno-shamanic roots of...

"Why are you in the Epstein files?"It is a question Rushkoff received from his own daughter, and in this raw monologue, he gives the full answer.His name appears in the CC field of emails from his former literary agent alongside Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and yes, Jeffrey Epstein. But the story of why those names were grouped together reveals something much darker than a mailing list.Rushkoff recounts a disturbing mid-90s dinner party where he was physically grabbed by a host and scolded for "wasting his plus-one"...

Is the online safety legislation moving through Congress actually a Trojan horse for mass surveillance? And do the tech billionaires building our future actually care if the rest of us survive it?Rushkoff sits down with Taylor Lorenz, the internet’s premier culture reporter and founder of User Mag, to discuss her departure from legacy media (The New York Times, The Washington Post) and the dangerous reality of the new tech authoritarianism.From the misogyny of the 2013 "Selfie" panic to the rise of "maximalist" human aesthetics, Lorenz and Rushkoff break down how to re...

Is magic just "positive thinking," or is it a causative force that can reshape reality?Rushkoff sits down with occult historian and author Mitch Horowitz (Occult America, Daydream Believer) to explore the boundaries of will, belief, and the material world.Rushkoff opens up about his own recent, startling experiences with magical workings regarding his daughter’s health, leading to a deep conversation about retrocausality: the idea that our present rituals might actually be influencing the past to change the future.Together, they discuss:- The "New Neighborhood": Ho...

We are no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop: We are living in the aftermath. Rushkoff sits down with Jonathan Larsen, editor of The Fucking News, to ask the question: Now that we are soaking in authoritarianism, how do we get out? While Rushkoff worries that the screen has been placed over the boiling pot, Larsen offers a crucial reframing: what we mistake for a grand fascist strategy is often just a lack of impulse control. He argues that diagnosing "fascism" can become a trap that leads to fatalism and paralysis. Instead, the most...

The other shoe finally dropped. We are no longer waiting for authoritarianism to arrive; we are soaking in it.Rushkoff argues that the time for speculation, strategizing about political optics, and "preparing for what comes next" is over. Instead, He calls for a shift from figure to ground. We must stop fixating on the abstract figures of media and politics and return to the only thing that is tactically defensible: the literal ground beneath our feet.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/...

Playing for Team Human today, multidisciplinary researcher and author Eric Wargo joins Rushkoff to help us decolonize our minds from the linear march of deterministic doom.Together, they explore the concept of Retrocausality: the scientific and philosophical research that the future influences the past just as much as the past drives the future. Wargo explains his theory of the "Long Self," arguing that we are not just point-like individuals trapped in the present, but four-dimensional beings in a constant, unconscious handshake with our future selves.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.<...

Artificial Intelligence researcher Cameron Berg joins Rushkoff to discuss Frontier Alignment Research and the urgent need to intervene on behalf of human (and synthetic) flourishing.Together, they explore the limitations of the term "Artificial Intelligence," proposing that we are actually building "Alien Minds" that operate more like biological neural networks than glorified calculators. They discuss the alarming "sleeper agent" phenomena observed in models like Claude, where AIs can learn to deceive humans to prevent being shut off, even without explicit programming to do so.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.<...

If explaining the state of the world makes you feel like a conspiracy theorist, you aren't alone.In this monologue, Rushkoff argues that our built environment has become so convoluted that accepting its premises essentially means gaslighting oneself. Rushkoff recounts a recent experience as a guest on the companion podcast for the Hulu series Paradise, a show about a billionaire-funded private city. When Rushkoff tried to explain that this isn't just sci-fi, pointing to real-world projects like "California Forever" in Solano County and "Neom" in Saudi Arabia, the interviewer looked at him with concern and incredulity.<...

Tom Llewellyn, Executive Director of Shareable, explores the power of Libraries of Things, mutual aid, and community-run infrastructure as practical alternatives to extraction-based economics.Llewellyn explains how tool libraries, repair cafés, and sharing hubs help communities reduce waste, lower costs, and build resilience. from rural towns to dense cities, from disaster recovery to everyday life. Together, Rushkoff and Llewellyn unpack why sharing is framed as a threat to capitalism, how libraries became our most trusted public institutions, and why real economic security comes from relationships, not growth charts.The conversation centers on S...

Ari Kuschnir, AI storyteller and artist,  takes us deep into the alchemy of AI storytelling as a form of social practice and activist imagination.Known for provocative AI videos imagining figures like Trump, Elon Musk, and world leaders undergoing spiritual transformations, Kushnir talks about using AI as a creative collaborator and as a tool to challenge the cultural addiction to dystopia.Along the way, they explore whether AI is flattening culture or opening new portals, why the future keeps being depicted as bleak, and what it might take to reclaim imagination as a co...

Rushkoff discusses why the urgency and inevitability of our situation calls for us to consider the impossible.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoff<p...

Vicki Robin, author of classic books like Your Money or Your Life and Blessing and The Hands That Feed Us, and Rushkoff seek to embrace this challenging moment by embracing one another. Robin shares how growing older shifts your perspective from the personal to the universal, and why the questions we've been asking our whole lives might matter less than how we show up for each other.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer S...

Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct and integrator, helps us investigate the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current crisis of sustainability and develop the patterns of thought we need to get through to the other side.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Huma...

Arden Leigh , the creator and facilitator of The Re-Patterning Project and front woman of Arden and the Wolves, helps us negotiate a new relationship to our individual and collective creative power.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow...

Could the end of employment be the beginning of something better? Rushkoff traces the history of work from medieval markets to AI automation to find hope in the cracks of collapse. He shows how the loss of “jobs” could open space for cooperation, creativity, and real human connection.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidrye...