It just now came to my attention that the new mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson, is the daughter of David Sloan Wilson, one of the coauthors of this book:
I’d be very curious what anyone thinks of the work of David Sloan Wilson or of the wider research communities in which he participates. I’d be especially interested if anyone thinks any of it has 2R potential. Meanwhile, I ordered the book - as political homework.
I’m a fan. I went through Prosocial World’s Becoming Prosocial course, and I appreciate what they’re doing. They do not seem to have a lot of traction, however. Their (Prosocial World’s) mission statement is something along the lines of “achieve a world that works for everyone”. Their means are primarily better ways of relating with one another. Of course, I’m also for that, but the ideal organization striving for that mission would need to find a way to do so without elevating one quadrant (the intersubjective) over others.
Here is the current political context. Feels like traction, in a Hegelian sort of way.
Fascinating and great to see.
Definitely think there is movement. The dialectic is moving.
And DS Wilson stuff has definitely been very interesting to me. I really got a lot from Darwin’s Cathedral, though i’m a bit more cultural evolution-ist than pro-social-list.
Gearing up for future action in Seattle, I am now working through the following titles:
Kemp, L. (2025). Goliath’s Curse. Random House.
Fullerton, J. (2025). Regenerative Economics. New Society Publishers.
Atkins, P. W. B., Wilson, D. S., Hayes, S. C., & Ryan, R. M. (2019). Prosocial : using evolutionary science to build productive, equitable, and collaborative groups. Context Press.
That short list is not a bad jumping off point for anyone wishing to have a comprehensive view of current social science, aimed at prosocial action and future-oriented transformations. Kemp adds a healthy dose of historical realism about how power structures came to be the way they are. Fullerton outlines new economic approaches, informed by, but not bound to, classical and neoclassical economics. Atkins et al. show how to undertake social action from micro to larger scales.
In addition to the print works, I’m also devouring YouTube videos on AI, featuring leading lights at Microsoft, AWS, and Google, as well as commentators both pro and contra AI, and power users much in the weeds on all the latest models. Why? Because (nod to Kemp here), whether one plays for team David or team Goliath, the battles for the future of society will transpire largely over digital networks. Likewise (nod to Fullerton), AI is currently the leading driver of the continuation and intensification of the ancient extractive economy. No regenerative economic program can afford to ignore it. Finally - and this is the nub of whatever my “Seattle praxis” may turn out to be - I’m finding that “pro-social” is a good way to organize ground level action on any number of topics, and moreover, there is no reason in the world AI and cloud infrastructure can’t be bent to the purpose of supporting
ground-level, small group, social action. The attached screen is from a prototype app I vibe coded live on Zoom during a small-group class session last week. That’s pretty much the Seattle stack in a nutshell!
Update.
I’m now officially on contract for Q1 for 2026 as a consultant to the NSC college president and her leadership team around themes of futurism, AI integration, the orientation of our technical workforce development programs. Scope and methods of the engagement are largely up to me.
Here is the place we are talking about: https://northseattle.edu/
At the beginning of the school year, our president brought in a speaker from another college on futurism and change management. The two images below were featured in that presentation.
My goal with this consulting engagement is very simply to launch a highly visible prototype of the “new paradigm” curve and shift everyone’s perception of the light cone of the possible. My horizon for the “possible” is defined by discussions occurring frequently in forums such as this one. My sense is the school in general is more wedded to the old paradigm, but feels the acute downward slope of that curve, and is not seeing a clear pathway to an imagined future on the other side. Likewise, the light cone of the “possible” is fairly tight, and maps too closely to the “plausible” and the “probable” as defined by worldviews such as modernism and postmodernism. My proposed approach as been dubbed by me and my graduate student team as “non-linear”, which term I hit upon as a convenient summary of the recursive nature of the metamodern and the aperspectival sensibilities of the Gebserian integral.
I’m sharing all this here because I am inviting anyone who takes an interest in the matter to co-consult on the project. The way that would work is I will share ground-level details about what is happening in the organization. What I am hoping for in return is best practices advice, sourced from all over the world, but on point with building both the new paradigm and the bridge, within the perceptual horizons available to the organization is it currently stands. As far as I am concerned, this is an opportunity to embedded deliberately developmental thinking, at scale, in a significant urban geography. I’m hoping others here will appreciate the potentials in that opportunity.
!! I did not know that - that is fascinating to me.
Here is Second Renaissance thinking taking aim at Seattle public-sector post-secondary education like a comet on the hunt for dinosaurs.
Mayor-elect Katie Wilson’s grandfather:
Learned about it on the Oasis call yesterday. Included it as a reference citation in my open source IT textbook today.
A spectre is haunting workforce education in Seattle — the spectre of Second Renaissance.
Update - the New Year got off to a bang for my Seattle strategies. (See reposted email below). Lots of wheels in motion already … Lots of Second Renaissance caliber issues involved. @dvdjsph is very much in the mix. Anyone else in the mood for a technology and social justice mashup?
”Since President’s Day, we’ve been exploring the idea of North Seattle College serving as a Technology Hub for the district. To help illustrate this concept, I’m sharing a short video clip (2 minutes and 23 seconds).
This video reflects what I envision this could mean for North, building on our strengths and our deep commitment to social justice and equity. Please note, this is not a final decision—just a starting point for discussion.
To move toward this preferred future, we need to continue the conversation and develop a shared vision together. I’ve asked VPI Pete Lortz to lead this effort, with support from Professor Robert (Bob) Bunge.
Thank you for engaging in this important dialogue as we imagine what’s possible for our college and community.
Rachel Solemsaas, Ed.D
President
North Seattle College”
You had me at shared vision 
Another recommendation from my school’s president:
“Here is another resource that can align with this topic. It is the Center for Humane Technology https://www.humanetech.com/”
So … I am now officially empowered to run a campus-wide process anyway I like around the theme of “Tech Hub”. To give everyone a flavor for how that works, I’ve got the Vice President for Instruction reading my summary of John Vervaeke on 3R/4P cognition. That and any other references I might wish to drop into the stew pot.
“Tech Hub” - what is it? To me a “hub” is an attractor. It’s a system, idea, symbol, entity, process, or mysterious presence that pulls people in. “Tech” is … culture. Language and ritual are the original tech. Everything after that is just elaboration and commentary.
So bascially I’m in charge of setting up an attractor to transform culture at an institution of higher education in Seattle. Lots of theory here in Second Renaissance about why we need to transform culture. Anyone what to put that into practice?
@dvdjsph @JamesBaker @rufuspollock @JonahW @Martin @Gen @Naeema @Asimong
Sounds great - and Vervaeke has some interesting discussion on AI too in his podcasts. Do keep us up to date in what you end up doing - I’m curious to what extent AI and its relation to wisdom and pro-sociality takes center stage as opposed to other ‘technologies’. And what kinds of formats you go for - online vs offline. Aside from organising retreats in Norway and Bergerac I’m also starting to collaborate with the FutureHOW project on AI, curious if there are any synergies there? https://futurehow.site/
Very likely synergies with FutureHOW. I had a nice Zoom call yesterday with 3 CS grad students - one employed in SaaS, one interviewing (unsuccessfully so far) and another doing job-jobs for income while practicing coding on the side. From all 3 perspectives AI is a change driver, but not an especially benign one. My framing at the top of call was that in 2015 this little group would have never met. The students would have just finished their degrees, applied for jobs, picked one, and started on their lucrative careers. I’’m calling that the “beanbag chair” era for developers. It’s gone. It’s not coming back.
Then we did the equivalent of a 2R research call. The technique (which I basically ad-libbed) was to bounce the framing visionary-institutional-visionary-institutional-visionary-institutional … at a high tempo that eventually yields a sort of binocular view. By “visionary” I mean high level stuff like “Tech Hub is an attractor”. By “institutional”, I mean things like “so and so has seed money, and this person told me this, and on Tuesday I’ll send an email blast, and here is meeting room we might use …” Basically, it’s like doing Mary and Martha in alternate frames until Mary-Martha becomes a single integrated personality.
Then, to continue Biblical metaphors (hey - they’re archetypes - find them in some other religion/philosophy if you prefer!). I allowed that the “Tech Hub” already exists, that the four of us on Zoom were in fact doing Tech Hub and fully embodied Tech Hub in the doing it, and moreover, anywhere I go and whatever I do is Tech Hub, because Tech Hub and I are one. Of course, when Dr. Rachel puts out Tech Hub videos to all staff, she also embodies Tech Hub. Tech Hub thus is more or less tantamount to a parousia of being, tapping us all on the shoulder saying “come, follow me.”
After we got done with historical analogies ( The Homebrew Computer Club - CHM Revolution ), local precedent ( The origin of "grunge" | Northwest Passage ) and my masterplan to leverage humanities faculty in service of human-in–the-loop, the lead of the grad students team blurted out, “it’s like a Renaissance!” Indeed. A Renaissance is exactly what it’s like. Sort of like a Second Renaissance, even.
