Adah Parris on Neurodivergent Cyborg Shamans & Elemental Tech Ethics

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About This Episode

This week we speak with “strategic futurist and pattern navigator” Adah Parris, a London-based wizard and weirdo with whom I immediately hit it off over our shared interest in “cyborg shamanism” and an emphasis on being good ancestors. Forbes Brasil called her “one of the most important futurists in the world.” It’s hard for me to measure the impact she’s had on business leaders, tech startups, marketing and communications firms, arts schools, and in the lives of the countless other people.

We talk about the relationship between numbers, language, and the ineffable, ever-shifting human spirit. Adah’s work points past knowledge and history into the elemental nature of both human and machine, past our differences into the deep similarity worth celebrating and the mystery that we inhabit and embody. Join us for a yarn that is both silly and profound, present and far-reaching, about being uncategorizably creative, open, and curious amidst the wicked problems of our time…

Project Links

• Read the project pitch & planning doc• Dig into the full episode and essay archives• Join the online commons for Wisdom x Technology on Discord + Bluesky + X• Join the open, listener-moderated Future Fossils Discord Server• Contact me if you have questions (patron rewards, sponsorship, collaboration, etc.)• Browse the HOTL reading list and support local booksellers

Chapters

0:00:00 - Teaser0:00:49 - Intro0:05:24 - Feeling Seen & Heard0:09:54 - Adah’s Biography0:17:21 - Poetry & Number0:27:55 - Cyborg Shamanism & The Five Elements0:37:03 - The Foraging Neurotype of “Extremely Online”0:51:07 - Surrendering Agency to Systems0:55:14 - The Incremental Reclamation of Agency1:01:19 - Art after Modernity & Healing from Noise1:13:01 - Beyond Narrative & Into Dance1:17:30 - Thanks & Announcements

Adah’s Links

Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Medium | Chartwell Speakers

Finding Our Future in Ancestral Wisdom @ TEDxSoho

What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want To Be? @ Think With Google

Cyborg Shamanism & The Case for Elemental AI @ Atmos

Mentioned Media

Refactoring “Autonomy” & “Freedom” for The Age of Language Modelsby Michael Garfield

223 - Timothy Morton on A New Christian Ecology & Systems Thinking BlasphemyFuture Fossils Podcast

Attention deficits linked with proclivity to explore while foragingby David L. Barack et al.

New Selves of Neural Media & AI as 'The Poison Path' with K Allado-McDowellHumans On The Loop

Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Futureby De Kai

Technoshamanism: A Very Psychedelic Century! at Moogfest 2016by Michael Garfield

Proteus (film)

Sonic restoration: acoustic stimulation enhances plant growth-promoting fungi activityby James M. Robinson et al.

Ada Twist, Scientistby Andrea Beaty & David Roberts

Oppenheimer (film)

Dante’s Infernoby Dante Alighieri

Mentioned People & Institutions

Ford Motor Co.TelefonicaWayraAT&TAugusta Ada Byron LovelaceCharles BabbageMarshall McLuhanDr. Kate StoneErnst HaeckelTada HozumiLewis MumfordJohn Taylor GattoPaul TillichAlan Turing

Guest Recommendations

Emalick NijeAnjuli BediCharlie MorleyAmichai Lau-Lavie

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