Steppin' Off The Edge

"It proves very quickly that there was incidents of industrial-scale voter fraud that benefited the Conservatives and it puts that big question mark on that says that without that voter fraud we don’t know whether the Harper government would have won a majority. So we don’t know if they are legitimately holding office right now." A succinct quote from Chriz Miller, Media Strategist & Campaign Manager, on why he has helped form The NoRobo Co. and launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise awareness, judicial action and citizen engagement around the 2011 federal election robocall scandal. Your support to their campaign will help finish their Fraud Atlas and all the programming, design, and a small army of researchers and data entry people that it takes to create the definitive source for this info on the whole internet! Chriz steps off the edge with me to discuss this issue and many of the fundamental concepts around why such political scandals are far too common and what we can/should be doing to try and improve things.

Civil disobedience is a key missing ingredient of todays democracy. Hoaxes are just one of many, many, many things you can do creatively to get things changing. To bring attention to issues so that people are mobilized and galvanized to take action! Andy Bichlbaum, who along with Mike Bonanno forms the wonderful creative activist duo commonly known as The Yes Men, steps off the edge to discuss the importance of civil disobedience, the challenges with aligning profit and public good in the current model of capitalism and why The Yes Men Are Revolting and how you can help!

This "TED Timeout" episode features two great TED talks exploring taking the concepts of open source beyond the world of software and websites. Exploring how it could help to re-imagine the institutions and process of government with a model that allows everyone read access and a truly collaborative approach to policy development. Why is there no interview this month? Fall on a farm is a busy time of year because, as always, winter is coming.

Lindsey Pinto is the Communications Manager of OpenMedia, a grassroots organization that safeguards the possibilities of the open Internet. Just like your immune system protects your internal organs and body systems against viruses and other disease which can harm your ability to function, Open Media wants to build citizen awareness and engagement to advance informed and participatory digital policy in Canada. She steps off the edge with me to discuss the history and funding of Open Media, the impacts of a consolidated media landscape, trade policy secrecy and the TPP (HINT: IT'S A TRAP!) and the spectrum between privacy and transparency.

Jenn Lim is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness, a company that she and Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) co-created in 2010 to inspire happiness in work, community and everyday life. She steps off the edge with me to discuss understanding how to be happy, the scientific measurements of happiness, how you can nudge the world towards happiness and much, much more. It's a bucket full of happiness this episode, but remember. "It's more of a question of can you get to that point where knowing that there are going to be lifes' natural ups and downs that you can still maintain that state because you are in that frame of mind where you do know you have a higher purpose, you are interacting with other people, where you are sharing your resources and doing something outside of yourself" Come on, get happy!

Did you know there is a peace corps for geeks who want to help code a better government? The Director of Communications for Code For America, Abhi Nemani, steps off the edge with me to discuss how they are trying to engage citizens to show what is possible with technology and the many ways that government can be considered a platform for people to help themselves and help others. "I think as citizens we have to start thinking about government not just as this institution that I give money to but as this institution that’s a part of civic life that I am a part of and I need to have a deeper relationship with. Governments are getting it and they love it. They see that things are changing and they want to change with them. They just need the tools to do it."

"Couchsurfing isn't just about a free place to stay. Even beyond cultural exchange, Couchsurfing is about making our dreams possible." Gabriel Stempinski , Alexandra Liss and Chelsea Rustrum are all passionate about the concept and community of couchsurfing as well as lots of other digital services in the larger universe of sharing. This summer they are releasing a documentary - One Couch At A Time - about couchsurfing and a book - It's A Shareable Life - all about how to survive and thrive in the sharing economy. They step off the edge with me to discuss social networks where you're actually social, accountability through lack of anonymity, how to leverage underutilized space and things, many terrific tales of task rabbits and much, much more. They are humbly asking / suggesting that, "No matter who you are this can seriously benefit you, your family, your friends, your community and this can really improve your life. In a tangible level, not just some theoretical hippie feel good level. In a tangible, dollars and sense real level this can benefit your life as well as the feel good benefits. Take whatever you want from the buffet, we're just asking that you get in line!"

This episode picks up on the Burning State of Mind of the last podcast with 3 pieces of media recorded during the Burning Man Regional Leadership Summit. Together they give a strong sense of the commitment that the folks at BMHQ have towards the long-term success of the experience. They are always thinking of the community first and often working at a level far above what most of us can imagine that it will take to ensure that success. One potential title for this podcast episode I considered was “Burning Man grows up” for all the conversations had during the Summit around what we all can / need to do to share the transformative experience with the wider world. As Marian Goodell says during her speech you are about to hear, “We are unique, and of consequence in the world.”

It is a short but sweet episode this month as at the end of this month I am heading to San Francisco to join other regional coordinators and like-minded artists for what is boldly titled a Burning Man Regional Summit. The event has been summarized by one person as "a golden opportunity to meet the people that are truly shaping this year-round global culture from the ground up. There will be extremely rich content, thought-provoking conversations, and many opportunities for you to see YOURSELF in the larger context of the Burning Man Project and the future of our global culture." If you are in the Bay area and/or know someone who is that you think would also make a great interview for this podcast, drop me a line. With the Burning Man summit top of mind for me of late I figured it was a good chance to bring in a few choice bits of media that relate to it into the podcast, all of which come from videos either recorded AT Black Rock City or featuring lots of visuals FROM Black Rock City.

Neil Kramer is an English writer and philosopher specializing in the fields of consciousness, metaphysics, shamanism, and ancient mystical disciplines. He steps off the edge in a wonderful wide-ranging interview exploring such mindful topics as syncromysticism, consciousness as more than the reducible deterministic events of biochemistry, consensus reality tunnels, an electric chair of truth and what people can do to expand our capabilities to build a more harmonious environment where everyone prospers instead of the few. The episode title comes from a riff off a Terrence McKenna quote that compares humans to fishes – only one of which is seemingly aware of the environment in which they exist. Our conversation generally stepped off the edge towards the phiosophic side of the spectrum. To offer somewhat of a counterpoint to those moments where we were ragging on science for its’ inability to map the various complexities of consciousness, I wrap up the episode with some consciousness-related concepts from the history of scientific study in Larry Lowe’s great article Apollo 14 plus 41: The unexpected benefit of Edgar Mitchell and the preface from a book that has something of a syncromystic connection for Neil and I: An Experiment with Time by J.W. Dunne.

The interview I lined up this month won't happen until next week, but that won't stop the SotE monthly podcast production train for January! This episode features C-Realm #293 - Infinite Rehypothecation which KMO welcomed other podcasters to share as his iTunes enabled feed is acting wonky. It features an interview with Nicole Foss of The Automatic Earth blog discussing many topics related to decentralization before wrapping up with a great animal-based analogy about the need for more decentralization initiatives: You really don’t want to be the first or the only zebra or wildebeest in the water. So once the herds are crossing all at once almost all of them get to the other side. We need to move together on this because if we do then we can create enough decentralization initiatives that most of them will get to the other side of the crocodile infested waters.

"I may not know you. I may not agree with you. In fact, I probably don’t agree with you or many of the things that you believe in. But I will fight to my death that you have a life where you get to do what you want to do and in return you will do the same for me" According to Leifur Thor, member of the press team for Open Source Ecology (OSE), that is the mindset of someone living in a world of abundance and something sorely lacking in our society that holds scarcity as its' most deeply held belief. OSE has an ambitious plans in the Global Village Construction Set to open-source the blueprints of 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch, and they aspire to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village for under $10,000. If you haven't already, watch the fantastic TED.com video on the GVCS with OSE instigator Marcin Jakubowski. This open source hardware project is one of the first of a coming wave that wants to foster an abundant maker driven culture.

The C-Realm podcast and Extraenvironmentalist are two of the preeminent podcasts available today. Their hosts, KMO and Justin Ritchie, step off the edge with me for a 3-way conversation about podcasting and the common narrative of collapse. Though it may not be a career path to most, podcasting can be a great way to build community and further the conversation about topics of interest. We move quickly into a wide-ranging conversation focused around the idea of collapse; an idea that KMO says he doesn’t believe any of, but takes very seriously. We explore what a hypothalamus reaction to Rush Limbaugh sounds like, kvetching inside Karl Rove’s big tent, voluntary peasantry, appropriately scaled living, de-growth and many more interesting items.

AstroBarry Perlman steps off the edge with me to discuss his lifes' passion: Astrology, "is a craft, a mystical craft at the center of which is a beautiful mystery which nobody has yet been able to confidently say how it works despite thousands of years of history of people getting similar results and sharing each others experiences and research to build up a codified body of knowledge." We discuss the history of astrology, the interplay between science and astrology which some scientists have characterized as a pseudo-science despite having very similar origins to their profession, where the planets are now and what the coming alignments might mean for humanity as a group consciousness. There's some surprising parallels to be drawn back to the revolutionary energies of the 1960's and 1780's that suggest we are living in interesting times indeed.

When the sun’s up, Emlyn O'Regan is a senior developer for an e-learning company. In the evenings Emlyn quietly chips away at his little corner of the internet, inventing prolifically, writing furiously on his point7.wordpress.com blog and pondering what would happen if all humans had power over their own communication - to share with each other whatever, whenever and however they chose. He stepped off the edge to discuss crowdsourced credentialing, institutions delaminating and the evolution of adhocracy, "The adhoc, leaderless, tech and network powered organisations / events / revolutions / actions which taken together form a nascent world system, one which is challenging the old institutional/corporatist world system".