#11 - Jamie Wheal: Tackling the Meaning Crisis

In today's episode I chat with one of my favourite thinkers and writers: Jamie Wheal. I got to know Jamie through our mutual interest in, well, the hot mess that our civilization seems to be going through, and I knew he'd make a great guest for Win-Win because he's one of those rare folks who can combine both intellectual rigor and a deep love for physicality and nature. So as well as discussing game theory and the meaning crisis and all that good stuff, we also get into his discoveries studying human "flow states" - he's the co-founder of the Flow Genome Project, as well as the author of the bestselling books Stealing Fire and Recapture the Rapture. If you enjoy this episode, I highly recommend you check out his blog linked below.

Chapters 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:30 - Childhood Games 00:03:23 - Flow States 00:18:24 - Flow Genome Project 00:23:27 - The Meaning Crisis 00:32:00 - Moloch 00:36:12 - Seeking Win-Win Games 00:48:51 - AI Concerns and Risks 00:53:24 - Protecting oneself from cynicism 01:12:51 - Fostering Community 01:15:16 - Book Recommendations 01:19:40 - The Goal of the Cosmic Game

Links ♾️  Jamie Wheal’s Substack https://jamiewheal.substack.com/ ♾️  Stealing Fire by Jamie Wheal https://www.harpercollins.com/products/stealing-fire-steven-kotlerjamie-wheal?variant=32121993101346 ♾️  Recapture the Rapture by Jamie Wheal https://www.recapturetherapture.com/ ♾️  Flow Genome Project https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/ ♾️  Group Flow https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312318/ ♾️  Bob Kegan https://www.gse.harvard.edu/directory/faculty/robert-kegan ♾️  Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/189989 ♾️  Problems with Externalities and Capitalism - Substack ♾️  Bittersweet by Susan Cain https://susancain.net/book/bittersweet/ ♾️  Dawn of Everything by David Graeber https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything ♾️  Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta https://www.harpercollins.com/products/sand-talk-tyson-yunkaporta?variant=32280908103714 ♾️  John Lilly Wikipedia Page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly   The Win-Win Podcast: Poker champion Liv Boeree takes to the interview chair to tease apart the complexities of one of the most fundamental parts of human nature: competition. Liv is joined by top philosophers, gamers, artists, technologists, CEOs, scientists, athletes and more to understand how competition manifests in their world, and how to change seemingly win-lose games into Win-Wins.   Credits Hosted by Liv Boeree Produced & Edited by Raymond Wei Audio Mix by Keir Schmidt