Singularity.FM

Dr. Martin Shaw is the best oral storyteller that I know of. He is also the only person who can impromptu tell the entire Odyssey by his imagination alone. Martin is well versed in a variety of stories from classic Greek to pagan, indigenous, and religious ones. He is the author of 18 books and […]

When I started blogging and podcasting back in 2009 topics like wisdom were near-invisible, if not considered irrelevant to the conversations of AI, transhumanism, genetic engineering, and human enhancement. So bringing ethics to the technology conversation became my longstanding goal and unique selling proposition for both Singularity Weblog and Singularity.FM. At the time, most conversations […]

My goal with this podcast has always been to be a bit of a gadfly to your as well as my intellectual growth and, hopefully, a midwife to your best ideas rather than a disseminator of a specific movement or ideology. Thus, while I've never hidden my personal views, I don't try to make you […]

My podcast guest today is Nikolas Badminton. Nik is the Chief Futurist at futurist.com. He has worked with over 300 organizations in foresight, strategy, and disruption – including NASA, the United Nations, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Rolls Royce, and many others. Nik is a friend of mine, and in addition to our common interest in the […]

This is my 4 min video pitch for the 2023 Nordic Business Forum Speaker Contest. Hope you enjoy it but feel free to let me know if that's not the case 😉  The Greatest Leadership Opportunity in the 21st Century A story I stumbled on in 2006 changed my life. “The Singularity is Near” […]

Prof. Massimo Pigliucci is one of those very rare people who manage to combine the pursuit of deep science and the living ethos of practical philosophy. Massimo has Ph.D. degrees in Genetics, Evolutionary Biology, and Philosophy. He is also the author of hundreds of technical papers in both science and philosophy as well as a […]

When the war in Ukraine started, I asked myself if I could do anything to help. I have no friends or family in Ukraine, but I remember that a couple of years ago, I was interviewed by someone from Donetsk. When I got in touch with Alexander Padalka, he was hiding underground from the daily […]

Ursula Eysin is the founder of Red Swan, a consultancy focusing on the development of future scenarios. She is a trained ballerina, plays the flute, speaks 7 languages, does math, and reads chemistry books for fun. Besides that, Ursula is a mentor to various Austrian and international startups while also giving lectures at 5 universities. […]

Zoltan Istvan is a former journalist, political candidate, entrepreneur, bestselling author, and founder of the US Transhumanist Party. He has been on this podcast twice before when we discussed Istvan's presidential campaign and his bestselling novel The Transhumanist Wager. During this 1-hour conversation with Zoltan Istvan, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as […]

The Singularity Principles is a unique, comprehensive, and principled framework for riding the tsunami of change coming our way, instead of drowning in it. It is a one-of-a-kind work written by a person who is singularly qualified with the necessary knowledge, professional experience, and required discipline to produce it. David Wood is a futurist, catalyst, […]

This is an interview with Danko Nikolic and John Smart on the future of AI and their respective theories of Practopoiesis – Neuromimicry, and Autopoiesis – Biomimicry. During our 2-hour conversation with Danko and John, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as evolution, development, and life as a network; practopoiesis and the origins […]

Prof. Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist who looks for life on distant planets. In his most recent book, however, Dartnell turns his gaze inward and backward to the human story – who we are, how we came to be, where we are coming from, and, most importantly, how the geological planetary processes drove the evolution […]

Without a doubt, the social revolution in the West and individual insight/enlightenment in the East are among humanity's greatest accomplishments. But we can have them separate no longer for we desperately need both because individual people make society but, in turn, society makes individuals. We need to unite the quest for personal enlightenment and the […]

Byron Reese is a serial entrepreneur, technologist, and futurist. He has enjoyed a wide range of success over 30 years, including two NASDAQ IPOs as well as the sale of three companies he founded. Today Byron is the CEO of JJ Kent, a venture-backed company using AI to create new products. Reese is also the author […]

I have always wanted to discuss Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy and how it relates to technology and transhumanism. The problem is that a very short list of people will make me enjoy such a challenging conversation. Luckily, Dr. Cadell Last is among the top on that shortlist. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as […]

Joscha Bach is a beautiful mind and a very rewarding interlocutor. No surprise I had many requests to have him back on my podcast. I apologize that it took 4 years but the good news is we are going to have a third conversation much sooner this time around. If you haven't seen our first […]

Faith Popcorn founded her futurist marketing consultancy in 1974. She's been called “The Trend Oracle” by the NY Times and “The Nostradamus of Marketing” by Fortune. Faith is a trusted advisor to the CEOs of Fortune 200 companies and has predicted a variety of trends such as Cocooning and its impact on the COVID culture, […]

Dr. Kendall Haven is the only West Point graduate to ever become a professional storyteller. Haven holds a Doctorate in Oceanography and spent eight years as a Senior Research Scientist for the Department of Energy before finding his true passion for what he calls, a very different kind of “truth.” Kendall is the author of 34 […]

Brian Boyd is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His work has appeared in 20 languages and has won awards on four continents. Most importantly, Prof. Boyd is the author of On the Origin of Stories which examines the connections between evolution, cognition, and fiction. During our 2-hour conversation with […]

John Smart has taught and written for over 20 years on topics like foresight and futurism as well as the drivers, opportunities, and problems of exponential processes throughout human history. John is President of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, co-Founder of the Evo-Devo research community, and CEO of Foresight University. Most recently, Smart is the author […]

Jonah Sachs is an author, speaker, and viral marketing pioneer. He helped create some of the world's first and most heralded digital social change campaigns. Jonah Sachs is also the author of Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell (and Live) the Best Stories Will Rule the Future and, most recently, Unsafe Thinking: How […]

Many of you know that I've been working on a new book provisionally titled ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future. And so I thought it could be useful to me and interesting to you if I were to have a conversation with a few story experts and ask them questions such […]

Many of you know that I am a fan of Buddhism in general and Zen Buddhism in particular. So I've always wanted to get a Zen Master on the podcast. I never imagined, however, that there is a Zen Master who has listened to almost every episode of my show. But the universe is a […]

Prof. Angus Fletcher is a story scientist working at the intersection of story and neuroscience. Angus started as a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan but eventually decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Shakespeare at Yale. Then he went to Stanford University and worked with clients in Hollywood, DARPA, and the US special forces. Angus […]

This is the second interview of my series on story and my guest is PJ Manney. PJ is the author of the Phoenix Horizon Trilogy and has already been a guest on Singularity.FM twice before. [See our 1st and 2nd interviews.] She is a friend, and I am a big fan of her books. Today we […]

Some of you may know that I've been working on a new book. The provisional title is ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future. Struggling with this book is why it's been a number of months since my last podcast interview. And so I thought it could be useful to me and […]

Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest – forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism Power over the rules is […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 11: The AI Story Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. Edsger Dijkstra When looms weave by themselves, man's slavery will end. Aristotle Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 10: The Capitalism Story …by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led […]

I recorded this virtual keynote for a corporate client about 10 days ago and decided to share it publicly. Hope you enjoy it 😉    Technology is a Mirror, Not a Crystal Ball; It Reveals Who We Are, Not the Future   The 1st atomic bomb was nicknamed “gadget.” Does this say something about […]

A few weeks ago I had a client who asked me to do a virtual keynote on futurism. The client was pretty happy how it turned out so I thought I'd share it publicly. This way you can hopefully enjoy, share and benefit from it too. 😉 How to Be a Futurist Famous physicist Sir […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 9: The Technology Story Technology improves the lives of people who can avoid being dominated by it and forced into debilitating addictions to it. Frank Kaufmann The 1st atomic bomb was nicknamed “gadget.” Does this fact say something […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 8: The Science Story   The universe is made of stories, not atoms. Muriel Rukeyser *** About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 7: The Human Story The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to Earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Part  II: Our Story Gods always behave like the people who make them. Zora Neale Hurston, Tell My Horse Before we have a story, any story, we must first have a storyteller. Therefore, the most important story, that which […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 6: The Biology of Story Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside them, not realizing the contrary that the mind is itself the principle element of creation. Rabindranath […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 5: The Importance of Story It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story. Patrick Rothfuss Stories […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 4: The Power of the Storyteller The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come. Steve Jobs. Before we have a […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 3: The Power of Story We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our stories about them. Epictetus The most powerful stories are stories about things that don’t exist. Because our fictive language gave birth […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 2: The Story of Story The limits of my language means the limits of my world. Ludwig Wittgenstein Humanity has searched for meaning since its beginning. And we find it in story. The story that we tell ourselves. […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Chapter 1: The Definition of Story We started our thought experiment with Kenneth Burke’s definition of story as “equipment for living.” Burke offers a great start but it is Jeff DeChambeau who really brings all the essential elements together […]

ReWriting the Human Story: How Our Story Determines Our Future an alternative thought experiment by Nikola Danaylov   Part  I: Story People always find it easier to be a result of the past rather than a cause of the future. Unknown Are we just billiard balls in a predetermined cosmic game of pool? Or are we free […]

It is harder and harder to make sense of life. Everything is changing, all the time, at a faster and faster pace. Our civilization is struggling to keep up with exponential technology and disruptive change. Our age-old institutions, politics, economics, ethics, religion and laws, even our environment, are so fundamentally challenged, that we risk collapse. […]

Dr. Gus Hosein is a 20+year-veteran of Privacy International. So to say that he knows a lot about privacy will be an understatement. But his knowledge is not merely academic. Gus and his scrappy team of privacy crusaders have fought the long and hard war while putting everything on the line, over and over again. […]

Though admittedly posthumanist, Francesca Ferrando‘s Philosophical Posthumanism is the best book on transhumanism that I have read so far. I believe that it is a must-read for transhumanists and non-transhumanists alike. In fact, one can argue that Ferrando’s book ranks right up there with the very best not only on the transhuman, but also on […]

Kim Stanley Robinson has an asteroid named after him. The reason for that is simple: Stan, as he’s often known among people who know him, is one of the best known contemporary authors of classic [hard] science fiction. He has written 20 books that have been translated into 25 languages and has won pretty much […]

Dr. Matthew Cole is the only vegan sociologist that I know of. His unique point of view on veganism, especially its implications with respect to ethics, transhumanism, and the application of technology, has already left a mark on the way I perceive the small challenges of being vegan as an opportunity for personal discipline and […]

Thomas Homer-Dixon is one of Canada’s most celebrated intellectuals. Luckily, he was also one of my Professors at the University of Toronto whose class on complexity has left an indelible mark on me. So when I heard that after a long break Homer-Dixon is publishing a new book on climate change I simply had to […]

Maria Farrell is the author of some of my most favorite op-ed pieces of 2020. She is very smart, gutsy, genuine, feisty, generous, and Irish. Her writing is sharper, it penetrates deeper and she’s not afraid to go further than most others. I have already learned a lot from her and have become a total […]

Glen Hiemstra has been a futurist for close to 40 years. But if you think his specialty is forecasting the future then you’d be wrong. No. Hiemstra’s focus has not been on the most probable, or even the possible future. Instead, Glen has chosen to focus consistently on what he calls “the preferred future.” This […]

Hans Moravec famously claimed that robots will be our (mind) children. If true, then, it is natural to wonder What to Expect When You’re Expecting Robots? This is the question that Laura Major and Julie Shah – two expert robot engineers, are addressing in their new book. Given the subject of robots and AI as […]