OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

• Humachines, Big Tech, & Our Future | Michael D.B. Harvey

  A dystopian fusion of human and machine is being pushed on us by a big tech elite. Michael D.B. Harvey, author of The Age of Humachines: Big Tech and the Battle for Humanity's Future, warns of the 'humachinator' worldview that weds unrestrained technology and capitalism - and what we might do to reclaim a future rooted in democracy and ecological balance. Highlights include: How the 'humachine' blurs the line between human and machine, technologizing everything and everyone; How the history of scientism and empiricism has led humachinators to imagine the brain as a computer and the body as a machine and the belief that engineering can control humanity, biophysical laws, and even death itself; How big tech oligarchs merge unfettered science with unfettered capitalism to produce 'ultrascience'; Why big tech oligarchs' faith in unrestrained technology and markets has merged into 'ontocapitalism' - a form of capitalism that commodifies nature and all human experience; How humachinators use 'tricknology' to hype their technologies and get us, especially the young, addicted to their products; What the five types of humachination are: cognitive, emotional, relational, the mechanized human, and a totalizing daily environment where our lives are surveilled, interpreted, and mediated by machines; How the extreme individualism in Silicon Valley undermines democracy and collective decision-making; How the 'G' word, growth, is behind all the humachinators' actions and dreams; Why our relationship with technology is ultimately political, not inevitable, and that we need to resist big tech oligarchs who profit most from unrestricted technology; Why we need to move from CIMENT values (competitiveness, individualism, materialism, elitism, nationalism, and technologism) to CANDID values (cooperative, altruistic, non-materialist, democratic, internationalist, and deferential to nature) - and how we might shift those values. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:  https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/michael-db-harvey   OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.  Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2025 Population Balance

  --------  

  1:29:22

  --------

  1:29:22
• Radical Alternatives to “Progress” | Shrishtee Bajpai

  Across India and around the world, communities are resisting destruction and reclaiming their right to shape their own futures. Shrishtee Bajpai, researcher and activist with the Global Tapestry of Alternatives, reveals how local struggles for self-determination connect across cultures and what is being done to weave a 'pluriverse' of possibilities rooted in social and ecological justice. Highlights include: How Shrishtee's upbringing as an upper caste, urban Indian girl living along the river Ganga shaped her search for personal freedom and ecological and social justice; How her work with Indian village communities resisting ecological and social destruction helped her connect academic critiques of feminism and development to lived realities; How she challenges oppressive systems while also interrogating her own privilege and colonial inheritance; Why creating a 'pluriverse' of diverse, locally-rooted alternatives is essential to move beyond the dominant development model and progress narrative; Why the Global Tapestry of Alternatives supports 'radiating out' values and lessons rather than 'scaling up', which risks destroying the important nuance of local context; Why strengthening communities’ imagination, confidence, and self-determination is central to her work; Why the Rights of Nature movement must de-emphasize the perspectives of NGOs and governments and center the voice of local communities with long-standing connections to their environments; How profound experiences with the more-than-human world and with story-based community ritual sustain her work. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:  https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/shrishtee-bajpai   OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.  Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2025 Population Balance

  --------  

  1:04:18

  --------

  1:04:18
• Progress: Humanity’s Worst Idea | Samuel Miller McDonald

  For 5,000 years civilizations have told themselves stories of progress. Today, the progress myth has become humanity's most dangerous illusion. Samuel Miller McDonald, geographer and author of Progress: A History of Humanity’s Worst Idea, illuminates the destructive lineage of progress, why these myths endure, how they enable socially and ecologically parasitic societies, and what values might guide us beyond them. Highlights include: How narratives of progress have persisted from Mesopotamia to today, and how those narratives have persisted even as the means of material subsistence and political economy have changed enormously over time; How the progress narratives of today are primarily divided into four camps: techno-liberal, Silicon Valley's android kingdom, the social justice vanguard, and right-wing grifters and political opportunists; How the ecological, energy exchange relationships of mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism offer a framework for understanding human societies' concrete and abstract energy capture historically and in the present; Why long-lived societies tend to be mutualistic or commensalistic with animistic, biophilic worldviews and egalitarian practices, while parasitic societies collapse due to the ecological and social destruction they cause; How parasitism has evolved across three broad ages of mythical, secular, and today's economistic, fossil-fueled, and globalized capitalist network; Why neoliberalism, the latest economistic project, is so resilient - and how it prioritizes economic growth over political rights, co-opts reformist movements and exploits the human cooperative impulse while entrenching corporate power at the expense of democracy; Why elite fantasies of transhumanism and off-planet escape are dangerous and delusional extensions of parasitic growthism; What more mutualistic and commensalistic alternative paths forward might look like, from agroecological local systems and rewilding to indigenous land rights, fossil fuel bans, rejecting AI, and class struggle - all guided by values of biophilia, fairness, and restraint. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:  https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/samuel-miller-mcdonald-2   OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.  Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2025 Population Balance

  --------  

  1:17:15

  --------

  1:17:15
• Complexity and Collapse | The Honest Sorcerer

  Modern techno-industrial civilization is running up against the law of diminishing returns - and societal collapse is inevitable. B, author of The Honest Sorcerer blog, reveals why our civilizational complexity carries the seeds of its own destruction. Highlights include: What led B (who also shares his reasons for remaining anonymous) from believing modern civilization would persist for centuries to recognizing collapse as inevitable; Why diminishing returns on energy, materials, and innovation are central to the collapse of complex societies; Why societal collapse is a long process taking place over decades or centuries rather than a single event, unfolding as a stair-step decline with sharp drops in complexity followed by brief recoveries and stabilizations; Why declining fertility rates should be embraced as a natural adjustment to overpopulation, rather than a cause for elite-driven panic; Why collapse will be liberating for some, devastating for most, and why adaptation to a simpler life will favor poorer communities that already know how to live simply; How and when to strategically leverage large-scale political change, and the role writers, thinkers, and local action can play in helping people face collapse more calmly . See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:  https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/the-honest-sorcerer   OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.  Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2025 Population Balance

  --------  

  1:16:05

  --------

  1:16:05
• The Elite’s Fixation with Low Birth Rates | Samuel Miller McDonald

  From center-left Ezra Klein to right-wing Matt Walsh, the fertility panic is an elite fixation that is rooted in a human supremacist worldview and a deep fear of slowing growth. Samuel Miller McDonald, geographer and author of the book Progress: A History of Humanity's Worst Idea, exposes how our parasitic relationship with Earth lies at the core of ecological overshoot, and why resisting authoritarianism in an age of contraction means embracing a pluralistic and just degrowth vision. Highlights include: Why our modern relationship to Earth is fundamentally parasitic - regardless of whether societies are capitalist or socialist; How media commentators resist degrowth in various stages and how their rejection reveals their lack of maturity in accepting responsibility for the ecological destruction we are causing; Why degrowth policies and practices should emphasize pluralistic, context-specific approaches rooted in democratic participation, not top-down master plans; Why many degrowth proponents have been dismissive of population concerns; Why the political right is more poised to benefit from ongoing economic contraction and why the liberal 'abundance agenda' needs to be resisted; Why conviviality and class solidarity are key to a successful degrowth transition and how modern societies undermine them; Why core values like fairness, autonomy, and ecological integrity will be essential in resisting authoritarians' claims to power in the coming challenging decades. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:  https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/samuel-miller-mcdonald   OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today’s interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity’s excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.  Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2025 Population Balance

  --------  

  1:06:32

  --------

  1:06:32

More Science podcasts

Trending Science podcasts

About OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance

OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance: Podcasts in Family