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Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff 429 Episodes Aug 18, 2026

Douglas Rushkoff hosts a weekly podcast exploring who benefits from the design of modern society. He engages in honest conversations with scientists, activists, artists, and philosophers about technology, power, and consciousness. The show is independent and unfiltered, aiming to understand what it means to stay human in a world not built for us.

Episodes

Cooking is Under Attack. Here's How to Reclaim It.
Cooking is Under Attack. Here's How to Reclaim It. Aug 18, 2026 3806 Rushkoff sits down with renowned chef Benjamin Castro of Benjamin's Kitchen to explore the intersection of food, community, and what it means to nourish the human spirit. Chef Castro shares his journey, breaking down why food is more than just fuel.🌍 Your support keeps Team Human alive! Support the show to receive ad-free access to videos, livestream Q&As with Rushkoff, access to the commu
I Gave Up on Saving the World
I Gave Up on Saving the World Aug 12, 2026 1118 Are we so focused on saving the world that we’re forgetting how to care for it?  Rushkoff explores the paralyzing ambient terror of the meta-crisis, polycrisis, and impending societal collapse. Recounting a transformative personal experience sitting at the bedside of a dying relative, Rushkoff re-evaluates the urge to fix everything through abstract strategies and grand interventions.Instead of tr
Losing the World to Save It (w/ Conner Habib)
Losing the World to Save It (w/ Conner Habib) Aug 5, 2026 4268 Rushkoff sits down with author, podcaster, and scholar Conner Habib (Against Everyone with Conner Habib, Hawk Mountain) for a conversation about what we have to lose before anything can change.They move from dying-before-you-die and the idea that civilization has not yet begun, into Rudolf Steiner's Ahriman -- the force of cold reduction that wants to convince us we're just biological robo
Can Journalism Survive AI? (w/The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson)
Can Journalism Survive AI? (w/The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson) Jul 31, 2026 3641 As President of The Atlantic and former Editor-in-Chief of Wired, Nicholas Thompson sits down with Rushkoff to discuss the precarious intersection of artificial intelligence, journalism, and American democracy.Thompson breaks down how The Atlantic turned its business around using paywall optimization, why they chose to form a partnership with OpenAI instead of solely fighting them in court, and th
What Camus Knew That Sam Bankman-Fried Didn't
What Camus Knew That Sam Bankman-Fried Didn't Jul 26, 2026 2128 Rushkoff breaks down the intellectual hubris driving Silicon Valley: Effective Altruism (EA), Longtermism, and AI accelerationism.From Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX collapse to the tech oligarchs attempting to optimize human presence through code, Rushkoff exposes how treating human lives as simple spreadsheet inputs creates a dangerous ends justify the means worldview.Drawing on philosophers like Alber
Is AI Development Modern Chaos Magic? (w/ Trevor Paglen)
Is AI Development Modern Chaos Magic? (w/ Trevor Paglen) Jul 21, 2026 3815 We once looked at pictures. Now, pictures are looking back at us. Renowned artist and author Trevor Paglen joins Rushkoff to expose how computer vision, generative AI, and algorithmic feedback loops are fundamentally reformatting human perception, labor, and democracy itself.What happens to a society when its default assumption becomes that all media is untethered from reality? In this episode of
How to Glitch the AI System (w/ Sophie Strand)
How to Glitch the AI System (w/ Sophie Strand) Jul 14, 2026 3800 Sophie Strand (author of The Flowering Wand and The Body Is a Doorway) joins Rushkoff for a conversation about breaking free from the dominant paradigms of our time. Together, they challenge the Silicon Valley Sky God obsession with scaling up, critique the limitations of institutional think tanks, and dive into how modern systems have systematically stripped us of our foundational skills. From t
Carnival vs. Coliseum: Reclaiming Our Shared Civics
Carnival vs. Coliseum: Reclaiming Our Shared Civics Jul 7, 2026 1473 Rushkoff breaks down the disturbing cultural shift toward Might Makes Right, a playground philosophy that values raw power, wealth, and violence over morality and mutual aid. From the organic, joyful street celebrations of the New York Knicks winning the NBA Finals to the surreal, hyper-industrial gladiatorial spectacle of the UFC erected right on the South Lawn of the White House, Rushkoff explor
Adam McKay: We've Already Left the Holocene
Adam McKay: We've Already Left the Holocene Jul 1, 2026 4926 "The most useful framework is that our country’s been invaded. But like all great invasions, it involves new techniques." - Adam McKayAcademy Award-winning filmmaker Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up, The Big Short, Succession) dissects the urgent cultural, political, and planetary moment we are living through.McKay brings a massive unified theory exploring how our prehistoric evolutionary limits
Formulas Against the False Self: Mitch Horowitz on Left-Hand Path Magic
Formulas Against the False Self: Mitch Horowitz on Left-Hand Path Magic Jun 24, 2026 4883 Mitch Horowitz returns to Team Human for a fiery, provocative exploration of his new book, Esoterika: Formulas Against the False Self. Rushkoff and Horowitz grapple over one of the most foundational concepts in modern mindfulness: The Serenity Prayer. While Rushkoff shares his recent journeys into radical porousness, learning how to surrender, accept grace, and metabolize the world’s heavy energie
The Shoggoth in the Machine: AI, ARGs, and the Future of Play (w/ Reed Berkowitz)
The Shoggoth in the Machine: AI, ARGs, and the Future of Play (w/ Reed Berkowitz) Jun 19, 2026 3852 How do we keep the machine from pulling us into another world, or escaping into ours? Rushkoff is joined by OG game designer, hacker, and Director of Curiouser Institute Reed Berkowitz to explore the liminal space between reality, fiction, and artificial intelligence.From the early days of late-80s text-based worlds and San Francisco’s cyberdelic rave culture to the complex modern landscape of AI
The Trap of Living Forever (And the Bliss of Letting Go)
The Trap of Living Forever (And the Bliss of Letting Go) Jun 16, 2026 1124 Rushkoff contrasts the blissful, terrifying reality of voluntary dissolution with our pyramid-building civilization. From the ancient pyramids of Egypt to tech billionaires injecting themselves with young blood, humanity has built a world based on accumulation, extraction, and freezing time.He argues true power doesn't come from maintaining a rigid, permanent self-hood or uploading your consci

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