Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff

The digital world promises a frictionless existence of infinite growth, convenience, and total scale. But what happens when that virtual map starts consuming the real territory? Rushkoff reflects on his recent appointment to the Club of Rome and their legendary 1972 warning: The Limits to Growth.

From the massive water and energy drained by AI data centers to Jeff Bezos' intentional dismantling of the Washington Post, Rushkoff breaks down how the tech elite are using the digital simulation to extract the last remaining value from the physical world. The oligarchs want a frictionless reality where they own the platform and avoid the messy negotiations of actual human connection. But reall life, and real democracy, requires friction. It requires the awkward, inefficient, and vital collisions of human beings sharing a local space. It is time to stop confusing the map with the territory. Find the others. Embrace the friction.

Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.

Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/
Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/
Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/
Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman

Follow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:
Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoff
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasrushkoff
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/douglasrushkoff
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has the internet always been a magical space?

Shira Chess, a Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia and a leading scholar of digital folklore, dive into her new book, The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse, to explore the hidden spiritual architecture of our digital lives.
From the open-source creation of digital cryptids like Slender Man on early forums to the summoning of AI entities in latent space, Chess argues that technology and magic have become indistinguishable. Rushkoff and Chess discuss how the countercultural, techno-shamanic roots of the 1990s internet (including the Mondo 2000 era) transformed into today’s algorithm-driven corporate landscape, and how we might reclaim our agency by finding subversive ways to use these technologies.
They also unpack algorithmic conspirituality, exploring why we treat our social media feeds like modern-day oracles, and how meme magic has evolved from an online joke into a force that shapes political reality. Ultimately, is our digital occultism a path to liberation, or just a new way to decorate our corporate cages?

Substack: Subscribe to The Unseen Internet at https://unseeninternet.substack.com/
Book: Get The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse wherever books are sold.

Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.

Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/
Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/
Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/
Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman

Follow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:
Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoff
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasrushkoff
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/douglasrushkoff
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Why are you in the Epstein files?"

It is a question Rushkoff received from his own daughter, and in this raw monologue, he gives the full answer.

His name appears in the CC field of emails from his former literary agent alongside Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and yes, Jeffrey Epstein. But the story of why those names were grouped together reveals something much darker than a mailing list.

Rushkoff recounts a disturbing mid-90s dinner party where he was physically grabbed by a host and scolded for "wasting his plus-one" on a brilliant female intellectual instead of "eye candy" to decorate the room for the male elites. He traces the lineage of this misogyny directly to the "scientism" of figures like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, whose theories of humans as "meat machines" and "survival vehicles for genes" provided the perfect philosophical cover for sociopaths like Epstein to commodify and abuse women.

This is not just a story about a predator; it is an indictment of the "permission structure" built by the scientific and tech elite. A worldview that dismisses human soul, consent, and morality as mere delusions.

Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.
Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/
Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/
Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Support Team Human:
Team Human is a listener-supported project. To get ad-free access to this episode, join our quarterly Zooms, and support this work, please visit https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"Why are you in the Epstein files?"

It is a question Rushkoff received from his own daughter, and in this raw monologue, he gives the full answer.

His name appears in the CC field of emails from his former literary agent alongside Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, and yes, Jeffrey Epstein. But the story of why those names were grouped together reveals something much darker than a mailing list.

Rushkoff recounts a disturbing mid-90s dinner party where he was physically grabbed by a host and scolded for "wasting his plus-one" on a brilliant female intellectual instead of "eye candy" to decorate the room for the male elites. He traces the lineage of this misogyny directly to the "scientism" of figures like Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, whose theories of humans as "meat machines" and "survival vehicles for genes" provided the perfect philosophical cover for sociopaths like Epstein to commodify and abuse women.

This is not just a story about a predator; it is an indictment of the "permission structure" built by the scientific and tech elite. A worldview that dismisses human soul, consent, and morality as mere delusions.

Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.
Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/
Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/
Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Support Team Human:
Team Human is a listener-supported project. To get ad-free access to this episode, join our quarterly Zooms, and support this work, please visit https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is the online safety legislation moving through Congress actually a Trojan horse for mass surveillance? And do the tech billionaires building our future actually care if the rest of us survive it?

Rushkoff sits down with Taylor Lorenz, the internet’s premier culture reporter and founder of User Mag, to discuss her departure from legacy media (The New York Times, The Washington Post) and the dangerous reality of the new tech authoritarianism.

From the misogyny of the 2013 "Selfie" panic to the rise of "maximalist" human aesthetics, Lorenz and Rushkoff break down how to reclaim the internet from the billionaires who view humanity as a problem to be solved (or eliminated).

Check out User Mag: https://usermag.co
Follow Taylor Lorenz: @TaylorLorenz

Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.

Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/
Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/
Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/
Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/

Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman

Follow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:
Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoff
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasrushkoff
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/douglasrushkoff
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.