Consilience Project Overview and Goals

From: jimruttshow8596

The Consilience Project is a new information service launched by Daniel Schmachtenberger and his associates, described as part journalism and part education [00:01:00]. It aims to support a new cultural renaissance or enlightenment to address unique global challenges [00:02:27].

The “Why”: Unique Global Problems

The project connects three core ideas regarding the future of humanity:

1. Unique Global Problems The world faces unprecedented challenges in an era of exponential technology and digital globalization [00:01:41].
2. New Problem-Solving Capacities Solving these problems requires new capacities, considering their complexity, scale, speed, and nature, necessitating new social institutions and governance capacities [00:01:51].
3. Cultural Prerequisites For these new institutions and capacities to arise bottom-up, rather than being imposed, a significant cultural shift is required [00:02:09]. This cultural shift involves developing capacities for effective sense-making, communication, and participation in new systems of problem-solving and governance [00:02:45].

The project emphasizes that quantitative changes in scale can lead to qualitative changes in type, a concept from complexity science [00:09:07]. An example is military capacity, which evolved continuously until the nuclear bomb, changing warfare from a local conflict to a potential global existential risk, requiring new social capacities beyond traditional warfare [00:10:27]. Similarly, the scale of economic power (e.g., Amazon vs. an individual) represents a qualitative difference from the past [00:08:54].

The project posits that historical solutions to problems (e.g., increasing GDP for wealth or national security for safety) have inadvertently led to the major issues faced today, such as environmental degradation or the creation of existential weapons [00:18:41].

The “What”: Redefining Information Service

The Consilience Project seeks to define the current problem space well enough to derive design criteria for new social systems and problem-solving approaches [00:21:51]. It aims to go beyond the traditional roles of the press and continuing education [00:03:30].

In an open society, education and the “fourth estate” (press) are prerequisite institutions that enable citizens to participate in governance and understand issues [00:04:14]. The project highlights the erosion of both the educational system and the fourth estate in the West over recent decades [00:05:37]. This erosion, coupled with increasing complexity of problems, means that the simulation of a republic no longer truly functions [00:05:50].

The project’s goal is not to replace existing education or news, but to:

• Help people understand the fundamental role of education and a knowledge commons for any civilization, especially an open one [00:05:21].
• Show how these systems have eroded and how the problem landscape has become more complex while public discourse has decreased in quality [00:05:48].
• Speculate on what an adequate fourth estate and educational system would look like for the future, considering factors like technological automation, information singularity, and artificial intelligence [00:06:07].
• Analyze why traditional societal models (e.g., feudalism, socialism, capitalism) are inadequate to current problems, often failing catastrophically [00:07:00].
• Identify the missing “social technology” innovations required to adequately manage the power of physical technology [00:07:44].

Core Inquiries and Problem Definition

The project believes that a deep misunderstanding of the true nature of problems is a key issue [00:21:12]. Often, problems are defined too narrowly (e.g., focusing only on climate change without considering interconnections or externalities) [00:19:06]. Solutions to narrowly defined problems can lead to worse or additional problems (e.g., sequestering CO2 with nitrogen fertilizer increasing dead zones) [00:18:08].

The project aims to:

• Define problems and their interconnectedness well enough to generate viable solutions that do not externalize harm [00:20:41].
• Explain the “generative dynamics” that give rise to problems, rather than just focusing on their symptoms [00:21:25].
• Clarify the world’s problem space to provide design criteria for new social systems and problem-solving capacities [00:21:51].

Project Structure and Content Types

The Consilience Project operates as a non-profit organization with two main branches:

1. Publishing Branch: This branch publishes three types of articles, with a goal of converting them into more accessible media forms like podcasts and animations [00:22:22].

   • Foundation Series: Theoretical pieces exploring the uniqueness of the problem landscape, social theory, and the inadequacy of previous social theories for the future [00:23:22]. Examples include:
     • “Democracy in the Epistemic Commons”: Discusses how a participatory government requires citizens who can understand the issues [00:29:08]. This term refers to the process of forming beliefs about shared truth and understanding, including dialogue and trust [00:29:31]. It highlights the importance of education and a strong fourth estate for a functioning democracy [00:30:34].
     • “Challenges to 21st Century Sense-Making”: Explains why the epistemic commons is more challenging today than in 1776 due to complex issues and a fragmented, often pathological, media landscape driven by advertising incentives [00:32:47].
   • Situational Assessments: Articles that apply the project’s social theory to current global issues [00:24:30]. They aim to factor in various perspectives (e.g., left/right, different countries, financial/cultural/technological lenses) to achieve a higher-order insight [00:25:00]. Examples include:
     • China’s activity in East Africa and the development of African infrastructure, framing it against the West’s engagement with the developing world [00:33:49].
     • The difference between French and US secularism, to address misunderstandings in geopolitical policy due to cultural biases [00:34:30].
   • Meta News: Focuses on analyzing deeply polarized topics to address the roots of polarization and narrative warfare [00:26:05]. This involves showing how narratives form, how vested interests and epistemic biases influence them, and how platforms optimize for tribalism [00:26:36]. The goal is to help people develop a “memetic immune system” to narrative warfare and transcend tribalism [00:27:44]. An example given is an analysis of whether bricks were planted at the George Floyd protests, revealing how various factions adopted beliefs aligning with their emotional perspectives despite inconclusive evidence [00:35:53].

2. Movement Catalyzing Branch: This branch aims to identify and curate resources from other groups doing critical work in sense-making, meaning-making, and choice-making capacities [01:24:17]. It seeks to re-contextualize these efforts as part of a larger cultural upgrade [01:24:57].

Addressing Polarization and Information Challenges

The project identifies runaway confirmation bias as a significant “disease of the current moment” [00:38:03]. It notes that in the modern media landscape, responses can be more predictable than a GPT-3 algorithm, reflecting “memetic propagation” rather than genuine thinking [00:39:16]. This leads to an “excessive certainty” based on partial truths or emotional hijacking [00:37:36].

The unique nature of modern information curation platforms (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Google) is highlighted [00:44:05]. Their ad-driven business model optimizes for “time on site,” which leads algorithms to curate content that confirms existing biases, creates fear of out-groups, and elicits outrage, thereby increasing polarization and extremism [00:45:19]. The project seeks to give people the tools to develop a “memetic immune system” to such influences, fostering greater cognitive and emotional sovereignty [00:47:11].

The current societal dynamic, where different political factions demonize each other and refuse to engage with opposing viewpoints, is seen as “horrendous” and “exceedingly dangerous” [00:52:28]. This internal infighting leads to a waste of energy and makes effective long-term coordination impossible, potentially leading to the decay of the system [00:56:32]. Pursuing culture wars only drives cultural arms races, which, amplified by exponential technology, could lead to rapid, destructive outcomes, whether through kinetic war, info war, or economic war [00:57:23].

Epistemologies and Sense-Making

The Consilience Project argues that while science is a necessary epistemology, it is not sufficient [01:07:49]. Science focuses on repeatable and measurable phenomena (the “is”), but it cannot provide the “ought” (ethical choices) [01:08:01]. Without a basis for choice-making beyond game theory (which thrives on rivalry), the application of powerful technology can lead to rivalrous dynamics multiplied by exponential tech, creating existential risk [01:08:45].

A necessary cultural enlightenment must integrate:

• Third-person epistemology: The philosophy of science, objective measurement, and experimentation [01:09:55].
• Second-person epistemology: The ability to understand and inhabit others’ perspectives, fostering good-faith dialogue [01:10:09].
• First-person epistemology: Self-understanding, recognizing one’s own cognitive biases, desire for certainty, and unwillingness to admit error [01:10:37].

Target Audience and Broader Impact

Initially, the project’s deep and nuanced articles are targeted at generally educated adults who are willing to invest time in understanding complex issues and challenge their own biases [01:12:49]. However, the long-term goal is to make the content accessible to a wider audience through various media formats, including short animations for high school students [01:14:04].

The project aims to be a “good example” for others in the media [01:17:35]. It operates as a non-profit, does not use paywalls, sell data, or host ads, relying solely on donations without strings attached [01:17:47]. Articles are published without individual author bylines to promote collective intelligence and reduce the impact of ad hominem attacks [01:18:29]. The project intends to openly publish its methods (e.g., for meta news) to inspire and enable other media organizations to do better work, fostering a “race to the top” in information quality [01:21:48].

The Consilience Project is designed to self-terminate after five years [01:16:05]. This decision is to avoid the perverse incentive for organizations to perpetuate their own existence rather than solve the problem they set out to address [01:19:37]. The project believes it can only succeed by catalyzing and supporting other groups working towards a cultural enlightenment, aiming to “signal upregulate” good work and foster a decentralized movement [01:17:09].

For more information, visit consilienceproject.org [01:12:29].