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This weekend

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This weekend's reading

Where Value Touches Ground

A weekend at the boundary where thermodynamics stops being physics and starts being theology.

  • ◇Value Is Not Arbitrary: Its Thermodynamic Roots in Existence Itself
  • ◇The Sacred as Thermodynamic Necessity in Complex Societies
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Where Value Touches Ground

A weekend at the boundary where thermodynamics stops being physics and starts being theology.

Meaning CrisisRelevance RealizationProcess PhilosophyPhenomenologyConsciousness Studies
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Where Value Touches Ground

“If mattering is thermodynamic before it is psychological, what does that do to the distinction between sacred and secular?”

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This weekend's quest

Where Value Touches Ground

Something is holding the universe together that isn't gravity. Three thinkers trace value from its thermodynamic floor to its sacred ceiling. Your task is to find the joints — the places where physics becomes meaning and meaning becomes obligation. The map has seven edges. Not all of them point in the direction you'd expect.

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About · founded MMXXV"Patient with the slow word."The full story →
  1. Observers
  2. ›Jim Rutt
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Jim Rutt

Complexity science, Game B, social technology — systems thinking and civilizational design from the Santa Fe Institute

Santa Fe Institute
50 ideas135 connections

Former CEO of Network Solutions who negotiated its $15 billion acquisition by Verisign, Jim Rutt is now a Distinguished Fellow and Trustee Emeritus at the Santa Fe Institute, where he chaired the board from 2009–2012. Through The Jim Rutt Show podcast and his leadership in the Game B movement, he explores complexity science, social evolution, and what it would take to replace the current "Game A" civilizational operating system with something more adaptive and humane.

YouTubeXLinkedInSubstackWebsite ↗Wikipedia ↗

Codex Personalium — an AI-generated intellectual portrait synthesized from Jim Rutt's published ideas.

Read the Codex

Topics

Systems Thinking40
Epistemology16
Game B15
Social Technology13
Complexity Science13
Political Philosophy9
Civilizational Risk9
Sensemaking9

Connected Observers

Bret Weinstein6Gregg Henriques5Brendan Graham Dempsey5Rufus Pollock5Stuart Kauffman3Matthew David Segall

Ideas in the Observatory

  • Liquid Democracy and Continuous Accountability as Structural Escapes from Representative Government
    Liquid Democracy and Continuous Accountability as Structural Escapes from Representative Government
    II

Links

YouTube ChannelX / TwitterLinkedInSubstack
Evolutionary Biology8
Cultural Evolution8
Ontological Design6
Existential Risk5
Meta-Crisis4
Process Philosophy3
Relevance Realization3
Philosophy of Mind3
Ethics3
Relational Ontology3
Attention Economy3
Information Theory2
3
  • Humanity as the Universe's Only Known General Intelligence
    Humanity as the Universe's Only Known General IntelligenceUntil proven otherwise, everything depends on us.
    I
  • Complexification as Possible Source of Naturalistic Moral Meaning
    Complexification as Possible Source of Naturalistic Moral MeaningWhat if the universe was always becoming this?
    I
  • Why Power Structures Select for Psychopathy and Defection
    Why Power Structures Select for Psychopathy and DefectionEvil was always on the org chart.
    I
  • Death as the Cessation of Self-Sustaining Biological Cycles
    Death as the Cessation of Self-Sustaining Biological CyclesWhen the circuits stop, so do you.
    I
  • Choosing a Metaphysics Without Proof: Jim Rutt's Pragmatic Ethics
    Choosing a Metaphysics Without Proof: Jim Rutt's Pragmatic EthicsStrong convictions, loosely grounded.
    I
  • How Religions Are Born, Spread, and Captured by Power
    How Religions Are Born, Spread, and Captured by PowerA hundred messiahs walked into history.
    I
  • How People and Institutions Shape Each Other Through Reciprocal Emergence
    How People and Institutions Shape Each Other Through Reciprocal EmergenceThe spiral turns both ways
    I
  • Why Civilizational Collapse Timelines Are Unknowable
    Why Civilizational Collapse Timelines Are UnknowableThe fault lines are visible. The earthquake is not.
    I
  • How Small Communities Can Resist Domination Through Binding Collective Accords
    How Small Communities Can Resist Domination Through Binding Collective AccordsYou chose the vow. Now you keep it.
    I
  • How Market Systems Erode the Cultural Norms That Once Constrained Them
    How Market Systems Erode the Cultural Norms That Once Constrained ThemThe account was running low long before anyone checked.
    I
  • Exploitation vs. Exploration: How Systems Decide Whether to Optimize or Reinvent Themselves
    Exploitation vs. Exploration: How Systems Decide Whether to Optimize or Reinvent ThemselvesThe hill you're on may be shrinking.
    I
  • Liquid Democracy: Delegable Votes Across Policy Domains
    Liquid Democracy: Delegable Votes Across Policy DomainsYour doctor votes on healthcare so you don't have to.
    I
  • Large Platforms as Public Infrastructure: The Case for Common Carrier Regulation
    Large Platforms as Public Infrastructure: The Case for Common Carrier RegulationWhen the company town owns the square
    I
  • Why Suppressing Viewpoints Destroys a Society's Ability to Self-Correct
    Why Suppressing Viewpoints Destroys a Society's Ability to Self-CorrectHe knew. He bent the knee anyway.
    I
  • AI Content Moderation That Mistakes Reasoning for Extremism
    AI Content Moderation That Mistakes Reasoning for ExtremismThe machine learned to fear thinking.
    I
  • Mystical Brain States Are Real But Not Revelatory
    Mystical Brain States Are Real But Not RevelatoryThe map glows, but the territory stays dark.
    I
  • Complexity Increases Over Time, But Progress Is Not Guaranteed
    Complexity Increases Over Time, But Progress Is Not GuaranteedDirectionality is a project, not a promise
    I
  • Designing Social Networks That Enhance Rather Than Hijack Human Cognition
    Designing Social Networks That Enhance Rather Than Hijack Human CognitionThe medium is already making your decisions.
    I
  • Liquid Democracy: Replacing Party Bundles with Delegated, Issue-Level Voting
    Liquid Democracy: Replacing Party Bundles with Delegated, Issue-Level VotingYour politics, finally as strange as you are.
    I
  • Game B Communities Compete With Rather Than Retreat From the Economy
    Game B Communities Compete With Rather Than Retreat From the EconomyNo bible, no formula, just the proof of concept.
    I
  • Coherence vs. Exploration: Why Game B Communities Collapse Without Institutional Architecture
    Coherence vs. Exploration: Why Game B Communities Collapse Without Institutional ArchitectureThe line you never drew swallowed everything.
    I
  • How Evolution Encodes Complexity Into a Single Dimension
    How Evolution Encodes Complexity Into a Single DimensionDNA, recipes, and the trick that bootstraps worlds
    I
  • The Metacrisis as Systemic Failure of Civilization's Operating System
    The Metacrisis as Systemic Failure of Civilization's Operating SystemWe built the power before we built the wisdom.
    I
  • Game B as Evolutionary Experiment, Not Civilizational Blueprint
    Game B as Evolutionary Experiment, Not Civilizational BlueprintDon't quote this book as catechism.
    I
  • Personal Transformation and Institutional Change Must Co-Evolve
    Personal Transformation and Institutional Change Must Co-EvolveNeither the seed nor the soil comes first.
    I
  • Why a Political Party Repels the People It Represents
    Why a Political Party Repels the People It RepresentsThe door was right, the frame was wrong.
    I
  • Electrical Grid Failure as Civilization's Highest Cascade Risk
    Electrical Grid Failure as Civilization's Highest Cascade RiskEverything else is downstream.
    I
  • Collapse Follows Power Laws, Not Bell Curves: Calibrating Realistic Resilience
    Collapse Follows Power Laws, Not Bell Curves: Calibrating Realistic ResilienceMost catastrophes are survivable. Plan for those.
    I
  • Building a Fifth Attractor Before Civilizational Collapse Occurs
    Building a Fifth Attractor Before Civilizational Collapse OccursThe bowl is shaking. Where will the marble land?
    I
  • Two Governance Models Beyond Consensus and Representative Democracy
    Two Governance Models Beyond Consensus and Representative DemocracyPower that dissolves before it corrupts
    I
  • Why Intentional Communities Must Be Designed Around Children and Security
    Why Intentional Communities Must Be Designed Around Children and SecurityWhat the 23-year-old doesn't know civilization is for
    I
  • Replacing Economic Return with Human Flourishing as Society's Core Metric
    Replacing Economic Return with Human Flourishing as Society's Core MetricWhen the village decides what winning means.
    I
  • Designing the Community Membrane as a Formal Governance Object
    Designing the Community Membrane as a Formal Governance ObjectThe boundary is the community.
    I
  • Proto-B Communities as Civilizational Strategy, Not Retreat
    Proto-B Communities as Civilizational Strategy, Not RetreatThe parasite that builds a new host.
    I
  • Game B's Core Diagnosis: Societies That Punish Honesty and Good Faith
    Game B's Core Diagnosis: Societies That Punish Honesty and Good FaithA civilization that eats its own virtues
    I
  • Curation vs. Censorship: Why Platform Scale Changes Everything
    Curation vs. Censorship: Why Platform Scale Changes EverythingFacebook is not a club.
    I
  • How Facebook's AI Suppresses Novel Thinking by Mistaking It for Danger
    How Facebook's AI Suppresses Novel Thinking by Mistaking It for DangerThe machine fires, and no one aimed it.
    I
  • How Purpose Emerges Without a Designer: Naturalizing Teleology
    How Purpose Emerges Without a Designer: Naturalizing TeleologyThe squirrel never read Darwin, yet here we are.
    I
  • Three Compounding Vectors Driving AI Capability Beyond Predictable Horizons
    Three Compounding Vectors Driving AI Capability Beyond Predictable HorizonsThe map expires before the ink dries.
    I
  • Solar Storms, Failing Grids, and the $20 Billion Fix Nobody Will Fund
    Solar Storms, Failing Grids, and the $20 Billion Fix Nobody Will FundThe lights go out everywhere, all at once.
    I
  • Jim Rutt's Case Against Both Political Parties
    Jim Rutt's Case Against Both Political PartiesA plague on both your houses, carefully itemized.
    I
  • Causal Time as a Real Feature of the Universe, Not a Psychological Artifact
    Causal Time as a Real Feature of the Universe, Not a Psychological ArtifactDNA remembers every second it took to arrive.
    I
  • How Higher-Level Organization Causally Shapes Its Own Components
    How Higher-Level Organization Causally Shapes Its Own ComponentsThe dance shapes the dancers over time.
    I
  • Three Axioms Required Before Science Can Begin
    Three Axioms Required Before Science Can BeginThe smallest house that holds everything
    I
  • Shannon vs. Bateson: Two Irreconcilable Definitions of Information
    Shannon vs. Bateson: Two Irreconcilable Definitions of InformationOne bit that changed the war.
    I
  • Strong Links, Weak Links, and the Architecture of Collective Action
    Strong Links, Weak Links, and the Architecture of Collective ActionYour nervous system is using mine.
    I
  • How Interrupt Frequency, Not Content, Breaks Human Sensemaking
    How Interrupt Frequency, Not Content, Breaks Human SensemakingSet the slider to ten.
    I
  • No Free Lunch: Why No Strategy Works Everywhere
    No Free Lunch: Why No Strategy Works EverywhereThere is no view from nowhere.
    I
  • Aesthetic Meaning Beyond Dramatic Conflict
    Aesthetic Meaning Beyond Dramatic ConflictWisdom does not require a villain
    I
    • Website
    Wikipedia

    Topics

    Systems Thinking40
    Epistemology16
    Game B15
    Social Technology13
    Complexity Science13
    Political Philosophy9
    Civilizational Risk9
    Sensemaking9
    Evolutionary Biology8
    Cultural Evolution8
    Ontological Design6
    Existential Risk5
    Meta-Crisis4
    Process Philosophy3
    Relevance Realization3
    Philosophy of Mind3
    Ethics3
    Relational Ontology3
    Attention Economy3
    Information Theory2

    Connected Observers

    Bret Weinstein6Gregg Henriques5Brendan Graham Dempsey5Rufus Pollock5Stuart Kauffman3Matthew David Segall3
    ← All Observers