Human Nature Odyssey

How did humans go from living in small-scale communities where everyone knew each other to building a massive civilization filled with billions of strangers? And what the heck holds those societies together?
In this episode, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, author of The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game, joins the odyssey to explore  the strange relationship between games, bureaucracy, and large-scale society.
We explore why bureaucracies are so inescapably powerful, what they can—and can't—see, and whether large-scale institutions are doomed to lose sight of nuance and local context. Does the flexibility and experimentation of games offer clues for designing better ways of organizing society?
This is a conversation about civilization, bureaucracy, social organization, community, games, human nature, and the possibility of changing the rules of the game we're all playing.
 
CITATIONS
The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game by C. Thi Nguyen

C. Thi Nguyen's blog Objectionable
 
If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review.
Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes.
For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast
Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.

You might think that you are not a forager. But what if no matter our lifestyle or job title, we are forever hunter gatherers in this world: of food, of love, of meaning. In this immersive episode, join Alex on a walk through an ancient forest as you explore what it means to live life as a forager. It's a journey through the Garden of Eden grocery store, a wrestling with the gods, and a coming home to feast and famine.
 
CITATIONS
Changes in the Landscape by William Cronon

 
If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review.
Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes.
For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast
Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.

What if the crises of our time are not just ecological or political, but also mythological?
Poet and author Sophie Strand joins Human Nature Odyssey for a wide-ranging conversation about stories, illness, ecology, and transformation. Drawing from mythology, religion, folklore, and her own experience living with chronic illness, Sophie explores how the stories we inherit shape our relationship to the living world—and what happens when those stories no longer serve us.
Together, we discuss death and rebirth, animism, the power of storytelling, and the art of composting old narratives so that something new can grow. From Jesus of Nazareth to One Thousand and One Arabian Nights to the ancient Greek epic of Odysseus, we explore stories not as relics of the past, but as living companions for navigating an uncertain future.
This conversation asks what it would mean to truly live in an animate world—to encounter plants, animals, rivers, and landscapes not as resources or scenery, but as relatives. At a time when many of our cultural myths are unraveling, Sophie offers a vision of belonging rooted in reciprocity, relationship, and participation in the wider community of life.
 
CITATIONS
Sophie Strand's Substack: Make Me Good Soil

Sophie Strand's Instagram: @cosmogyny

 
Thank you to Blindspot for sharing their original music. Check out Blindspot on Bandcamp and Spotify.
If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts and leave us a review.
Join us on Substack and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes.
For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast
Theme Music is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify) by Ray Lynch, from the album "Deep Breakfast." Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI. All rights reserved.

You, me, and everyone we know were born on the Titanic. 
Some are warning of icebergs. Some are shoveling coal into the furnaces. Some are jamming out while the band plays louder than ever.
In this special episode beginning Year Four of Human Nature Odyssey, Alex gathers friends together in a living room for a live-recorded podcast potluck conversation exploring civilization, collapse, climate change, community, and the strange experience of trying to live a meaningful life while the world feels increasingly unstable.
Drawing from Lord of the Rings, the Titanic, Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, ecological philosophy, and the first three years of Human Nature Odyssey, this episode becomes both a reflection on the journey so far and an exploration on what it means to "come home" to the living world.
Come join us in the living room. There's still space on the couch.
 
CITATIONS
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
 
If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Substack for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes.
For full episode transcripts and additional context, visit: resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast
 
Music: Celestial Soda Pop
By: Ray Lynch
From the album: Deep Breakfast
Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI 
All rights reserved.

Today Hajar Tazi joins us on our odyssey. Hajar is a poet, writer, facilitator, and self-described "ecosystem weaver." Our conversation is part of a new five-episode miniseries from Resilience that I'm hosting in collaboration with the Omega Resilience Awards.
 
It's called In the Rising Tide and it brings together conversations with five people from around the world, exploring the interconnected unfolding crises of our time—and how each of them is responding within their own communities. Across the series, I speak with a chef and farmer from the Philippines, an Indigenous water defender in Chile, a young organizer in Uganda resisting mega oil projects, and a narrative practitioner in India.
 
I wanted to include this conversation with Hajar here on Human Nature Odyssey because it touches many of the themes we've been exploring here on the podcast. Hajar has been deeply influenced by the scholar and activist Joanna Macy, and facilitates something called the "Great Weaving Game," which draws on Macy's framework of the Great Unraveling and the Great Turning to help people imagine new possibilities for the future.
 
If you want to learn more about Joanna Macy's work, you can check out the recent Human Nature Odyssey episode with Jess Serrante.
Today, Hajar and I explore many things: neurodivergence, eco-villages, the IMF and World Bank, surfing, political polarization, and the art of coming home.
In The Rising Tide was made with support from a grant from Omega Resilience Awards, a project of the nonprofit Commonweal. Find out more at ORAwards.org
You can learn more from Hajar at her substack Remembering the Future. 
If you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you listen, leave a review, and join us on Patreon for exclusive audio extras, writings, and notes.