Alex McDowell - A master class in worldbuilding and designing holistic spaces

from Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan

Alex McDowell is a worldbuilder. He builds future realities to envision worlds that don't yet exist. By working across disciplines to imagine the future, his worlds inform and inspire stories and open eyes to new possibilities. Origins Podcast websiteShow Notes: Quaker meeting (09:40)EmpowermentThe skills of listening and gathering (11:40)The politics of your social experience (12:10)Worldbuilding"Storytelling Shapes the Future" Every world is a holistic system at multiple scalesMinority Report (22:00)Triangle of narrative design (27:00)Relationship to complex systems (27:30)Counterfactuals to explore a world (27:50)Cultivating interdisciplinary collaboration in teams (28:00)Scenius (29:00)Building enough of a framework to know what we don't know (31:00)Teaching (40:00)The literacies of worldbuildingWork collaboratively in the space of uncertaintyExperimental Design company (44:30)Great 'Askers' (49:00)Balancing curiosity and boredom (51:00)MIT Media Lab (52:00)Scott Fisher (52:30)Falling forward (55:00)Lightning round (55:15)Book: Neuromancer by William GibsonCognitive estrangementPassion: GuitarHeart sing: New language for molecular biologyScrewed up: Graphic design for record labelsFind Alex online:Twitter: @worldbldgWebsite: https://alexmcdowell.design/'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series Alex’s playlist

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This episode is 1 hour and 4 minutes long.

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This episode was published on October 4, 2022.

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