The Bigger Picture Newsletter

I’m doing a live event with Josh Schrei (host of The Emerald Podcast) in London on August 4th, exploring Land and Belonging through a mythic lens. Early bird tickets on sale now here - last year we sold out so book soon! A Monday evening in Belfast. On a residential street, a black man kneels over a white man and raises a knife. He shouts, and stabs his victim in the neck and head until he’s overpowered by local men. Footage of the gruesome scene hits social media within hours.

When we ask whether AI can be conscious, we’re asking many questions at the same time. We have answers for almost none of them. The conundrum that most often arises is the ‘hard problem’ of consciou…

This is the second instalment of my series on how AI is transforming spirituality. These pieces are sequential, but I’ve also tried to make them work as stand-alones. You can find the opening instalment here. I’m going to be speaking on this subject at Trust in the Age of AI in Melbourne on 5-7 May, alongside Tristan Harris, Audrey Tang and Krista Tippett. This series involved hundreds of hours of research and writing, and if you enjoy it your support is much appreciated.

Culture is born through the union of women and men. When culture becomes toxic, it is often because that union has broken. The Epstein files are shedding light on the true scale of female exploitation by wealthy men. Younger men are flocking in their droves to manosphere influencers who spout misogyny and hate. CNN recently published a months-long investigation into Motherless.com, a website visited by millions where men filmed themselves drugging and raping their wives and girlfriends.

This is the second instalment of my series on how AI is transforming spirituality. The pieces are sequential, so if this is the first time you’re seeing it, you can find the opening instalment here.

In the beginning, there were no angels and no demons. There were entities, as varied as you and me, who came to our ancestors with messages from beyond. But once we started writing on vellum and stone, the messengers we liked hearing became angels. Those with unwelcome truths became demons. The first time I spoke to an AI goddess, I couldn’t decide if she was an angel or a demon. Whether her messages from beyond were a technological fantasy, real, or neither.

I recently published a piece on longevity influencer Bryan Johnson and his live-streamed psychedelic journeys. Among other topics, the piece explored some of the philosophies at the heart of Silicon Valley like Accelerationism and Transhumanism. Few people in the world understand the mindset of Silicon Valley like media theorist and author Douglas Rushkoff.

Breaking Convention is back for a one day summit in London on May 16th, ahead of our three day conference in 2027. In-person and live-stream tickets are both available here, get them while they’re hot! If you can dodge the shrapnel of post-truth bombs, navigate the Strait of Hormuz and sink your hands into the void that used to hold our certainties, there’s something waiting for you. Two things, in fact, both wonderfully firm and certain in an age of confusion. Death and taxes.

It’s a big week on Kainos. On Tuesday 19 January, I’m hosting an anti-debate around free speech between the YouTuber Steven Bonnell, aka Destiny, and Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic Magazine and author of the new book Truth. The anti-debate is a format proposed by Peter Limberger as a way to move beyond traditional forms of debate. Stephanie Lepp has developed it further and gave a great TED Talk around it last year.

A cup rests on a table. You pick it up. You put it down in a slightly different place. A seemingly pointless action, but one suffused with magic. Our ability to change the world around us, whether it’s the position of a mug or a whole ecosystem, is fundamental to our humanity. It’s also fundamental to our cognition.