Sensemaking & Complexity, Dave Snowden

Dave Snowden is one of the originators of the field of sensemaking, and the creator of influential frameworks such as the Cynefin model.
In this conversation with David Fuller, he talks about the origin of his work, and how it applies to the pandemic landscape.
You can find out more about Dave's work here: www.cognitive-edge.com/
Rebel Wisdom is running our course, Sensemaking 101, starting on October 7th, find out more here: rebelwisdom.co.uk/courses/sen...

[@ericbelstelringheartandsou7473]

This guy is WONDERFUL. Wow, I feel he has put an entire language to what I have been formulating for some years between Integral Theory and Dan Siegel’s 9 domains of Integrations. Beautiful🙌!

[@rumelali6306]

So glad and happy to have this genius to explain all this and with a clear mind. ..thank you

[@bencubus1814]

Man, this is so good. I could watch this dozens of times and learn something new every time, I love it.

[@CactusLand]

Dave Snowden was an excellent guest, the man is obviously brilliant and he opened me up to some new concepts. That said, where is the sense-making, as he spells it? "All that Jungian nonsense", really? Jung helped us bring true meaning to narrative and myth, Snowden would have us toss out all narrative? Even his? Dancing between complex and complicated is not enough for most of us, it works if you are a pure materialist, but if not, what is the true sense in it all?

[@ricochetsixtyten]

He didnt necessarily say Jung was nonsense, he said the "heroes journey" nonsense.

[@theeskimo4740]

Ok. A couple things for me to say. I got up to get a drink of water, and felt Rebel Wisdom/David's energy. I sat down to find this was released 4 minutes ago. Now listening, I've been thinking lately how friendly and non-contact the yellow thinkers have been with eachother. I sensed boredom from Jordan Hall in Vervaeke's episode yesterday, and feel like the community has been stuck in a space of not confronting eachother authentically. That said, I appreciate this video a lot, and I'm grateful to David for bringing these perspectives to the table.

[@callummilburn8204]

@Healthy Healing I feel this is a very good observation. Jordon Hall, for example , was really beneficial to listen to when he first emerged. Same with John Vevake. It is not that they dont have anything , or had anything , worth listening to. They do. But one thing I have noticed is that how ever good some one is after a while they end up in a kind of bubble on the net. There is something about being on the internet. Something about the system set up, not just the individuals. But it has reached a limit, if these are the correct terms. So it is not about growing what we have out. Rebel wisdom, so far has done well on this bubble avoidance . And for some time. Having Dave Snowdon is good. I have had him on my peripheries for a while. Some of what he says I know, at a superficial level. Some resonates but only just grasping. Other information challenges some of my current narratives that I have not replaced, but I have no alternative. I think what he stated about development theories quite good. I think he is more to the coal face . I think you can start off close to what is occurring and end up in your bubble, if you dont step back. .

[@theeskimo4740]

@@callummilburn8204 Ah good eye spotting these bubbles, like how the Dark Horse podcast went. I think it happens that part of the individual that wants to share insights gets addicted to the feeling of validation, even subtly, and it slowly spirals towards 'echo chamber'. I found Snowden to be confrontational, which I like to see. Also well-grounded in science, which has practical value for communicating with the masses. I gotta keep processing this conversation.

[@callummilburn8204]

@@theeskimo4740 I mean it no insult to people who have succumbed to it, in some way. If anything humbling in that it can effect us mortals lol. Snowdon is confrontational, and before I psycho annals that, it may help to some degree. In don't know. I do place people life the emergence of Jordon P, IDW et al, and their dissipation , not as a failure, but showing where the narrative is. At the time. It resonates. Looking at how the conversations change show us the trajectory. Thing are moving. Even integral has had its time. But not gone. We are moving into complexity, metamodernis. The ideas are still in the hubris. I found David full holding back with Snowden. Especially around integral

[@theeskimo4740]

@@callummilburn8204 Agreed, I might have come off as more supportive of Snowden here but that's not necessarily my position. I find his dismissal of wilber and sweeping over Jung to be unrefined and uncalibrated. That said, I still feel there's a place at the table for the confrontational energy, if anything to bring it more in line with the rest of the system and put it to use. Regarding the evolving system, I like to see it as a sometimes sloppy, continually ongoing process, going through phases of buildup and breakdown, ultimately leading to a higher level of stabilization. And I don't want to skip over the value these individuals have provided. I find many of the thinkers in this area to be quite profound and individuated, despite any shortcomings.

[@callummilburn8204]

@@theeskimo4740 pretty well said. I agree. I think you can identify strengths and weaknesses in anything . Which is good. But I don’t think this means we reject it in the process. Supports us in making sense and knowing how to use these profound contributions by some great thinkers.

[@jonneil3086]

Oh my goodness, Dave Snowden is my favourite speaker

[@worldwidehappiness]

That was great. Dave Snowden gave my brain a good stretch. Two things that I question are: 1) His trust in talking things out only works for small contained issues, and those issues might actually be symptoms of a deeper disease. Indeed, I think collective sensemaking is only be kicking the can down the road because it leaves the disease undiscovered. 2) I agree that Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory have many dubious aspects. However, I think Spiral Dynamics in particular can be great for quickly diagnosing where a person is stuck. For example, it is obvious that Richard Dawkins is stuck in an Orange worldview and his religious enemies are stuck in a Blue worldview. But Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics are quite useless as prescriptions.

[@Kolmir]

The best interview with Dave Snowden I ever heard. Enlightening... Thank you! And for the god sake, Dave should be more careful about his health!

[@Omnifarious0]

About halfway through... this whole conversation is very meaty and interesting. I tend to think of the world this way. But, I've less thoroughly thought it through than Mr. Sowden here. I'm going to have to listen to it really carefully to figure out a mapping between my thoughts and his way of talking about things, and then I'll be able to better evaluate what I think of it.

[@chrisoddshoes]

Splendid program, there may yet be hope. Thanks a lot David.

[@RickTashma]

OMG! I've been inspired by and tracking Dave Snowden's work for years, and have been hoping for a dialogue on RW for a long time. Thank you both!

[@GnosisMan50]

You must be an academic..

[@RickTashma]

​@@GnosisMan50 Thank you for your separate comment and for the quotes you shared. In response to your reply here, my background is as a biologist (from 40 years ago), then years of hands-on tech and engineering, and currently psychology and neuroscience (as a facilitator and coach, not as a therapist). Dave Snowden's work and thinking is dense, no question about it, and I can only appreciate what he's saying in this dialogue, given that I've been following him for some time. The part of Dave's work that is most interesting for me is around complexity, insight, exaptation, and context-sensitivity in a system - such as happens in relationship within, between, and among people. When I partner with clients and facilitate vis-à-vis their embodied psychology, I get to see complexity and context-sensitivity in action. Dave's teachings - as well as that of a hundred others - helps me to better "attune" to my client-partners and to trust their system(s), my system, and the systems in which we are all embedded. At the risk of going off on a tangent, some readers of this comment might find these vids interesting, with Russell Ackoff, one of the fathers of Systems Thinking - who was originally a professional architect - and who was present and an active learner when Systems Thinking was in its infancy, long before it became "commercialized": kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3ixZnd4pbxsack kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWTNZ3x5ndumeKc Cheers to all the RW audience!

[@GnosisMan50]

@@RickTashma Hi Rick, you mentioned Dave Snowden's work and thinking is dense. Dr. Helen Sword has something to say about it: _"I wanted to find people working in higher education research who could kind of summarize the best of that research so that people could benefit from that research in their own teaching. Found plenty of good books that did that, and I could pull chapters out of those books. And I think there's a lesson there that the bar is higher with book publishing. You go through a lot more-- you have to step through a lot more gates. But when I looked in the top international higher education research journals, what I found were a whole bunch of articles that, by and large, were, at best, wooden and dry, at worst, spongy and soggy, and that really seemed to be communicating-- they seemed to be higher education researchers trying to impress other higher education researchers with their jargon, and with their language, and with their methodology. And most of these articles I couldn't use. At first, I thought maybe it was just because I came from literary studies. And maybe it was just me. So I did distribute a few of these to my colleagues. So these would be people from law, population health, music, engineering. And they pretty much all said, no, we don't want to read this stuff; don't understand it. They're taking 20 pages to say something they could say in five pages, et cetera. And that was when I started to think there's something wrong here if people who are doing research on higher education teaching and learning cannot-- are either not able to or can't be bothered to communicate that research to other people working in higher education teaching and learning-- so educated people with PhDs-then what are those articles for"?_ kzbin.info/www/bejne/pILWg6l3i7iJm68&ab_channel=HarvardUniversity As much as Rebel Wisdom wants to interview brilliant minds, I believe they defeat the purpose of sense-making if this jargon continues-with dire consequences as show in this video by James A. Lindsay on Grievance Studies. Maybe you've seen it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYfOapRrf8iXZ80&ab_channel=MikeNayna Long before Lindsay's revelation, Dr. Steven James Bartlett's 2011 book *Normality does not Equal Mental Health* has a lot to say about it and then we wonder why our educational system is so bad in so many ways.

[@ryanhauck5989]

There is a cognitive bias a lot of people need to come to terms with. Just because a person SOUNDS smart, doesn't mean he is. Snowden is a clear matertialist. Look up what that means. He will disregard a great deal of data because it was not obtained scientifically. He has some very interesting idea's, but his worldview has a ceiling, and it is beyond that ceiling humanity needs to venture.

[@martinzarathustra8604]

Except you have failed to come to terms with it. Since you think your immaterial position is the correct one. Who are you? Theists are so philosophically arrogant.

[@missh1774]

i love the diverse angles to contemplate meaning ... ty RW 💛

[@mryouben]

Wow! I will have to listen to this one more than once to fully grasp all of it.

[@justinlaporte9414]

Wow lots to digest here! Great watch!

[@ShannonBoschy]

I feel like I need to watch this again and again. Or watch it a few minutes at a time and just digest it piece-by-piece

[@muumarlin1731]

Love this guy (Dave Snowden)!

[@nugley]

Brilliant. Thanks.

[@Glisten45]

I switched off when that guy started drooling over Jacinda in New Zealand. Give it a rest, yeah? He also sounds like the manager from Gervais's "The Office" - yeah? 😂

[@helenyates3951]

Systems may or may not have boundaries...excellent conversation

[@cyberpunkcomplex629]

Knew I awoke early for good reason. Liked & shared.

[@F--B]

30:50 “Stage based models are dangerous because they privilege an imagined future state and they don’t realise that in different contexts we can all become different things” My understanding of spiral dynamics is that it acknowledges first and foremost the value and contribution of each stage to the wider system, and secondly that just because someone has developed to, say, Yellow, doesn’t mean that they are always thinking and acting from this stage - it recognises that in different contexts we may revert to different stages. Dave's subsequent example of (presumably) tennis player Emily Raducanu is a little puzzling as he states she is displaying more maturity than most adults, but the 'maturity' that he is talking about appears to have little to do with the idealised future state (i.e. model of maturity) of Spiral Dynamics. It makes sense to class a better tennis player as more competent, but it seems a stretch to say that she is more 'mature.'

[@F--B]

31:12 “It’s the context-free nature of developmental theory which is the problem with it” Dave appears to object to the fact that the stages are ordered in a specific way within a rigid framework, which is then taken as a universal gospel and (mis)applied widely. He says “it’s not linear”, seeing the stages more as modulators. Presumably this means that, for instance, in certain contexts ‘Stage 4’ may come to the fore (i.e. a person acts/thinks autonomously), whereas in others ’Stage 1’ may be predominant (a person acts reflexively). But surely we can say that a child is more likely to act from lower stages, and less likely to act from higher stages, than an adult? I’d be interested to know whether he believes linear developmental models have any use outside of the physical sciences, and if so, what use? Do people within a cohesive culture not tend to develop in a similar fashion, passing common landmarks? Is his criticism less to do with the linearity and more to do with the supposed universality of the theory?

[@F--B]

53:24 "People who are pro/anti science are pro/anti 19th Century" I like this observation, but it doesn't quite cover the issue. I think one of the problems many have with science is that it is unbounded - it is not nested within a wisdom-tradition, a wider framework, and this allows it to become rampant. Lex Fridman sums up this up in a recent interview "There are still things we don’t understand, of course, but as we get better and better answers, and better and better ability to address difficult questions, we can ask more and more ambitious questions." The more 'ambitious' our questions become, the further we are taken away from our natural/traditional limits. When science is secondary, or nested within, a wisdom tradition (e.g. Christianity) then bounds are put on its inquisitiveness. I can't see modern science placing limits on itself, in spite of its 'quantum' discoveries (epigenetics, extended mind, quantum physics, complexity theory, etc).

[@andrewcolliver2642]

Great to see a paradigm evolving in real time. Lots of significant changes to Cynefin as it incorporates more. Autopoesis! I think the thing I like the most is reconceptualising stages as modulators - he’s put his finger on something that has irked me about the rigidity and linearity of the dogma (and errors) of that frame. He opens it up by contextualising developmental phenomena. Bravo!

[@DAPage-qq8xh]

I, personally, would suggest that the concept of sympoiesis is more applicable than autopoiesis.

[@andrewcolliver2642]

@@DAPage-qq8xh thanks Dean. Wasn’t aware of the concept, but yes, you’re right, more applicable. 👍

[@alkexr5298]

Dozens of names were mentioned whose work is wothy of more attention. Could we please have these in a quickly accessible format, like a list in the video description?

[@djwork]

Would you consider interviewing Simon Wardley next?

[@mugokiberenge8818]

Dave Snowden opened my horizon. "when do you know you know enough"..

[@Zekian]

When your model has enough predictive power for you to achieve your goal.

[@rickbotelho2494]

This interview raises so many more questions. It is interesting to notice what follow-up question are avoided, such as on spiral dynamics.David is a holy fool who challenges sacred cows. Too little time to explore in depth but consider using this video for future discussions on RW group discussion.

[@jeeed6390]

Wow, bring him back.

[@alquinn8576]

i thought the spiral dynamics stuff was just a useful framework to think about different epistemological perspectives, rather than an exact taxonomy. as some guy once said: all models are wrong, but some are useful

[@aquilesg.4859]

I meant to add that Dave's comments about language at the end were excellent, how the word holism has become a platitude, too true

[@jimallen8186]

“Lowest energy gradient will win.” Aka least power demand, may be more total energy over time but is least effort at the moment; this is different going downhill as water would flow over tightest contours (and may be an exception to the statement due to safety concern) whereas going uphill the least gradient is the widest contours.

[@jimallen8186]

See Cass Sunstein in both Nudge and his newer Sludge.

[@jimallen8186]

“Three points of contact. Three points of contact. Three points of contact. Yet when you’re expert you may not do it, you can literally hang off one finger.” See Sutherland’s Shu Ha Ri discussion. And Bader (or Day?) “rules are for the obedience of fools and guidance of wise men.”

[@jimallen8186]

“Centralize coordination distribute decision making,” that is also known as Mission Command.

[@b-radsadventures6846]

Thank you so much for this. Very interesting. Coworkers lean on design thinking pretty heavily.

[@richardwoollaston3650]

Very interesting but it left me feeling very uneasy. His work sounds like a toolkit for technocrats - who essentially wish to treat the human race as something to be managed and controlled, as we cannot be trusted ( in their view.) This approach of Snowden’s needs to be placed in a moral context. To me he sounds like the type of programmer who is entirely familiar with his world and who judges negatively everything that doesn’t fit into it. Believe me, I’ve met a few and they hate to be called out in this way. An example of the direction his thinking takes him in is the response of New Zealand to the pandemic as being the correct one, and that of Sweden being incorrect. My view is that Sweden has avoided the moral (and arguably economic) costs of lockdown policies to good effect in terms of disease containment, while New Zealand has sold its soul to totalitarian social policy, with minimal reason to do so. Worrying stuff for the future of liberty, democracy and prosperity.

[@micksc1]

If only we could define our terms more accurately we could spend more time having a dialogue about the sort of thing we are talking about.

[@jimallen8186]

That Marine heuristic “capture the high ground, stay in touch, keep moving” is wrong. You’ve used it in the past with the more appropriate ‘stay in contact,’ though to a Marine, in contact does not mean in communication. Were you in communication, you wouldn’t need the heuristic. ‘In contact’ here means engaged with the enemy and is much more like one of Nelson’s heuristics, “a captain cannot go wrong by putting his ship by that of an enemy’s.”

[@Andrew.baltazar]

Very challenging material, but dynamite! I'm going to dive head first into this guy's work..

[@m.talley1660]

Finally, Mr Snowden's inclusion has been needed in this group.

[@jr44christ]

He refers to upgrading Junge, anybody know where he is/would be pointing to in this regard?

[@hank1938]

36:52 Can someone tell me what he's saying here I can't parse it for the life of me. Something about trade pound, an operation for shamans and having the third eye??

[@aquilesg.4859]

I'm not at all sure that Dave Snowden engaged with David's ideas about sense making, instead David made himself comfortable with Dave's expert jargon on systems thinking and complexity, and we the listeners were left feeling somewhat inadequate. I have an MBA and another postgraduate degree so I am not saying that I too can't join Dave Snowden's club, just that it feels somewhat like David fished out a great expert who doesn't quite engage with the ideas he deals with at a level people can understand

[@segasys1339]

Indeed he makes no substantial attempts to simplify his ideas and connect them directly for the uninitiated but he's too smart to be that unaware. It's probably the case that the exercise of grappling with and hashing out the ideas he discusses is a requirement for reaching his level of understanding.

[@teddygamel727]

There are other KZbins you can watch to get a background on Cynefin. Here he goes over it, and on top of it how it's evolved. Then he goes into how it fits against scientific management and systems thinking, and drops various references to philosophers. Fun to watch and take notes. It's a good example of content you make digestible for yourself.

[@Demosophist]

Sensemaking (or sense-making, whatever) was defined in the most meaningful way by Barrington Nevitt, in a book he wrote with Marshall McLuhan, under the heading, "Instant Preplay: Tetrad=": "'AS 'FIGURES' ALL SENSES CREATE THEIR OWN SPACES WHICH ARE METAMORPHOSED BY ACTION WITH THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL "GROUNDS". "Causes" become "Effects" *via Concepts* [delivered effect which splits the causes, there is an interplay between causes and effects so one becomes the other of this and that *via concepts* ] whereas effects merge with causes in process pattern recognition via percepts." -Barrington Nevitt in _Take Today_ p. 137 Most current definitions confuse "making" with "matching." They are entirely different processes.

[@Demosophist]

And the effects of the print medium are always in terms of *concepts* . Thus, it is always about matching, not making.

[@peterhardie4151]

The resiliant vs robust is very good.

[@Steve2Work]

Comment, Images, and latest edited version here: facebook.com/Steven.Work/posts/10227263212030385 No Facebook?, original version found under here: Alt: kzbin.infodiscussion * Sort by Newest * www.minds.com/newsfeed/1287540258807746563 gab.com/StevWork/posts/106977663846020154 September 22nd, 2021

[@viniciusbrazrocha9560]

I felt like Neo encountering for the ever repeating first time with the architect..... red pill overdose here =)

[@vaniatrindade9180]

wow, I had the same impression ! even the way he talks is similar !

[@TheBlackClockOfTime]

Snowden is the God of Complexity.

[@GnosisMan50]

I'm already 3 minutes into this video and Snowden makes the following academic statements *_the naturalizing element, constraint in complexity, abduction rather than induction, confusion of correlation, enabling constraints, governing constraints, systems thinking_* Then at the 3:48 min mark, he apologizes for his academic language. Let's be honest with ourselves: does anyone really know what he's talking about? Who can really sit for an hour and listen with undivided attention to all this academic jargon and expect to get anything meaningful out of it? As irony would have it, how can this possibly make sense if you are talking about sense making? The quotes below is what I would regard as not only making sense but truth revealing. *_With few rare exceptions all people are brought up within culturally-defined environments. The dominating social milieu attempts to offer a variety of accepted socio-cultural norms of thought and behavior. These operate, for example, through religion; science; education; entertainment; family; language and emotions; longing and doubt; happiness and fear; safety and security (identity and belonging); well-being and materialism. It can be said that such prevailing conditions create forms of submersion and submission. Once ingrained, the person is liable to perpetuate such traits believing them to have been obtained through ‘free thought’. In the end, we reinforce beliefs that have grown into us, accepting and defending them as our own. Of course, we only ‘believe’ those things that we want, or that fit within our perceptual paradigms_* Dennis, Kingsley L.. Breaking the Spell: An Exploration of Human Perception *_Our society actually exist as a kind of negative afterimage. We all live in a crazy, backward world, often unaware of the lies and double messages we are given. If we could be free for a moment to catch a glimpse of our true situation, if we could view our society as a visitor from another planet, we would be stunned at the nightmare in which we live. The things we are expected to believe about ourselves and about society are frequently the very opposite of the way things really are"_* Robert Firestone and Joyce Catlett "Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life" *_For better or worse, we are emotionally defined organisms whose choices as to what to believe and what not to are motivated in large measure sure by a relatively simple psychology of reinforcement, security, and comfort. Conventional thinking is the way average people think, not because the majority just happens to think that way but because conformity with convention gratifies many people in terms of reinforcement, security, and comfort. Unfortunately, what we like to think, what we prefer to believe, can be false, misleading, and at times harmful precisely because we resist putting our ideological preferences into question. It is now common practice to refer to "belief systems," and this is appropriate since beliefs are built on beliefs, layer upon layer, in interdependent, integrated ways that form systems that possess a dynamic of their own-resistant to change, chameleonlike so as to accommodate to varying environments of fact and fashion, and structured so as to protect and defend those systems, much as the human immune system is organized to withstand and fight back when challenged by a pathogen_* Steven James Bartlett. Normality Does Not Equal Mental Health: The Need to Look Elsewhere for Standards of Good Psychological Health There are many ways to address sense making and I hope Rebel Wisdom will consider interviewing scholars and writers like Riane Eisler, Steven James Bartlett, Chris Hedges, and Shoshana Zuboff (just to name a few) who know how to communicate their ideas and theories without the jargon.

[@purelife8559]

Awesome post I appreciate it

[@RAESGRACEFULWAVES777]

Slow it down and listen a few times if you can't separate yourself from your own understanding.

[@RAESGRACEFULWAVES777]

At the same time Great references. This type of civil reflection is what allows our future seeds to grow at a pace beyond entropy.

[@Garcwyn]

I do

[@rjyoungling220]

I feel the same way. I've copied the comment I wrote before stumbling upon yours. "I feel like I'm being hoodwinked and bamboozled. He lost me when he cited notorious fraud, Jacques Derrida. I feel like, this is using obtuse, unclear language to make it seem overly complicated. Pseudo-mathematics. Whereas math is complex because math is complex, this seems complex by design to hide the fact, not that the argument is flawed, but that there is no argument. Now, I'll be the first to admit that all of this can be wrong. However, I'm convinced few people (if any) in the comment section here have any idea what the argument actually is supposed to be here. For the moment, I'm filing this under intellectual masturbation."

[@PhilipNelson1991]

The idea that therapeutic techniques assume the therapist is more enlightened is a gross misreading of therapy. Most therapy these days is client led.

[@itechnwrite]

The therapist essentially enters the client’s world too often assuming knowledge impossible to acquire without having lived as an insider.

[@martinzarathustra8604]

The method is not client led. Is it?

[@technod24]

@@martinzarathustra8604 it is the basis of the Humanistic approach. See Carl Rogers for example

[@XxmidnitesunxX]

I have reservations with Wikipedia being considered a reliable source of information. It’s great that they have measures in place to ensure that statements must be cited and that editing wars don’t take place, but how often do people check the reliability of the citation sources themselves? I’ve seen statements that cite news articles that possess very poor standards of journalism.

[@tomwright9904]

Quite often if there is disagreement around the topic. Less so if there isn't. There is a preference for scholarly sources, and caution about what gets taken from papers.

[@DrAlexVasquezICHNFM]

Did he really just say that you’ve proved that you can do lockdowns as if that’s without consequence like depression alcoholism drug addiction suicide unemployment and loss of any social direction?

[@J5L5M6]

11:33 Nobody who understands complexity will ever make an absolute statement." Haha!. I sense the ever slightest glimmer of self aware wit in the subtle smirk he delivers just after the statement.

[@guest_informant]

"Never say never", "All things in moderation" etc

[@keithsmith5267]

Do you have a link to Alicia Gerardo‘s work as referred to at about the three minute mark?

[@markmelluish7463]

Just reading Alicia Juarrero's 'Dynamics in Action' at the moment and would highly recommend

[@andrewmca468]

This is a really good lecture from Alicia. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJWmial9mK2Ebdk

[@keithsmith5267]

@@markmelluish7463 thank you for your reply! obviously I had her name wrong… :-/

[@keithsmith5267]

@@andrewmca468 thanks!

[@Garcwyn]

I sense strong N. Taleb vibes here. Wonderful and super interesting film btw

[@Dilmahkana]

Snowden says he's "on Taleb's block list on social media, a very interesting group" so that fits haha

[@Garcwyn]

@@Dilmahkana what I meant is that they overlap in many topics. For example on systems resiliency (or their fragility), the absolute necessity to rely on data for good decision making (and the problem of its opaqueness which might not be evident to us), the problem of induction which badly permeates our sensemaking, and so forth. Taleb is more keen to model all these with statistical models. I haven’t watched this film in full and I will probably have to watch it twice but it seems that Snowden has a different angle. Both are fascinating though

[@Dilmahkana]

@@Garcwyn awesome! I do agree. They have a very strong foundation of knowledge and direct talking style, which probably contributes to their perceived abrasiveness

[@F--B]

Taleb criticised Snowden for not 'bringing the math' so so speak. Snowden comes from a philosophy background. Snowden is critical of Talebs concept of antifragility, seeing it as an unnecessary repackaging of 'resilience'.

[@Dilmahkana]

@@F--B thanks :)

[@IcarusFlyby]

This is guess the number of jellybeans in a jar self management technological anarchy

[@supadraiify]

Decent attempt but the guy suffers deeply from knowledge bias.

[@F--B]

What's knowledge bias?

[@esperanzafoletti9886]

Thank you ! DS has a wide brain

[@ubertrashcat]

Although this is very interesting, he comes across as a typical narcissistic expert-consultant. I don't see any openness or gaps he's willing to fill, things he wants to understand, just a guy with a single theory for everything and a strong opinion about every other school of thought.

[@guest_informant]

That's really well put :-) I thought there was a lot that was interesting here, but there is in almost any ideology. Problems do tend to arise when someone thinks they've found a simple solution to all the world's problems.

[@mellonglass]

He likely slipped in a whole bunch of stuff in bias and the old ego, using complexity as a cover for a little more love to share and not just bullet points to being convinced. Jumping way to quick on the imaginal, I hope Yunkaporta gives a little more slime on the speedway to his rescue of the carbon corporations.

[@williamthrasher7961]

16:36-16:52-accident?

[@AvenEngineer]

Nothing makes you more hip with the kids than using terms like OG, unironically. Dave Snowden is not Bishop Don Juan. LoL.

[@RebelWisdom]

what makes you think it was unironic?

[@AvenEngineer]

Oh sorry, that's my bad. Your delivery is subtle, like Adam Eget. If we could get a Sensemaking with Don Magic Juan, that would be awesome.

[@RebelWisdom]

I like the idea of Dave Snowden as an actual gangster though

[@zx9mel]

"Jacinda Ardern broke the law but gave herself options" Oh well, that's alright then. I suppose the same could be said of the Munich Putsch . . .

[@tomwright9904]

Indeed, a downside of science is that it can be rather amoral

[@pw8297]

This guy think Australia is doing it right?

[@jglammi]

'making sense' sounds less pretentious

[@S1L3nCe]

Some constructive criticism: don't use examples related to subjects/themes that you don't really understand (like covid). You make it extremely hard to wanting to keep listening. So many people have made that mistake during the last 2-3 years and it's aging terribly.

[@RobRandolph80]

"Narrative constructs are part of extended consciousness." = "Magic words create extant conditions." Further, not all 'new-age' does not cover all mysticism. Perhaps the 'new-age' distinction is how you define true mystical experience apart from self-coddling bullshit. The scientific approach absent a grounded mystical esoteric understanding will always result in a self terminating system. Sustainable chaos enters human systems through mystical experience, much as sense information enters as a reaction that is then sorted by higher brain function. Mystical experience has to be parsed like anything else.

[@lukebayshaw1958]

Hi… Chris Williamson just had dr Patrick Moore on his show about climate change. Would be great if you could get the same guy on but with also other different scientists who disagreee with him

[@lukebayshaw1958]

On the same “show”

[@lukebayshaw1958]

As all the science is so arguable

[@richardjohnson9534]

You cannot talk sense making into anybody. God knows I have tried. We all just have to take ownership of our own beliefs. About everyone and everything. Including how good we think we are. In other words we have to be willing to face our shadow and accept whatever we find. No matter how unflattering. It may be. We will soon discover none of us are as good as we think we are. We all have our blind spots and feel comfortable dwelling there rather than face some harsh facts about ourselves. And for good reason. It’s not as if we live in a forgiving world. There are no safe spaces just to be who we are. At least not yet. Truth be told we are not very grateful people. We take each other for granted. We take the planet for granted. We even take our lives for granted. Hence all the confusion and vexed arguments surrounding the pandemic and our responses to it. No one is really willing to say maybe they are wrong and way more information is needed before we can discern what is really going on. There has been a rush to judgement that is a bit obscene. Epistemic humility is the first thing we should do. Admit we don’t even know how little we know. And take it from it there. Building a new model of thought from the ground up. With everyone starting at the same point. A level playing field for all. A total flattening of the current hierarchy. In our authority. But to do that we have to be willing to give up our perch in society. For the sake of learning. And most people have no such yearning. They would rather stay comfortably numb and dumb. As they say. Ignorance is bliss. To be ignorant and to be proud of it. The fragility of human psychology keeps us trapped in a mindset of inadequacy. Constantly needing to prove we are a somebody. If only we could accept god loves us all equally. We could finally let go of all our animosity. And live peacefully within ourselves. As well as with everybody else.

[@karlplaza9977]

"we can move on from that now, the science is a lot better" - and presumably in 40 years there will be another Dave Snowden rubbishing the stuff that this Dave Snowden is into, trashing Cynefin, and saying that we can move on from it because the science is a lot better. The problem with saying that 'we know so much more now' is that there will presumably be a time in the future when we 'know so much more' than we do now, which will invalidate or at the very least make inadequate the sort of theories and 'good science' that Snowden stands upon. This suggests that everything that Dave is saying is as incomplete as the theories of Freud and Jung.

[@tobychadwick3511]

I'm sure he'd agree......it's the history of science.

[@tomwright9904]

I agree with your complaint is with "let's completely ignore Freud and Jung" versus let's critically appraise these findings in the light of newer findings.

[@DarkMoonDroid]

Definition: "Sense-Making: How can you make sense of the world so that you can act in it?" Sufficiency: "You can never know all you need to know but how do you know when you know you know?" "Wikipedia is a good example of behavior being used as an enabling constraint which means that content can be relied on." 🤔 I don't think that follows....

[@activistmalpractice]

Someone doesn't like holarchical thinking ;)

[@jimryan6023]

The point he loves Wikipedia means he can be easily fooled or he does not care for fact. I know a few people who have terrible untrue stuff written about them on that platform it's unregulated as he pointed out as a good thing this means anyone can write what they want about a person. Having your reputation ruined unfairly is a terrible thing in my opinion.

[@ethimself5064]

Ya, it has been corrupted for years now.

[@maxlowe2414]

“The point he loves Wikipedia means he can be easily fooled or he does not care for fact” might qualify as untrue stuff written about him on a platform that’s unregulated.

[@Hermetic7]

I thought the exact same thing when I heard him say this. There is so much garbage and downright nonsensical crap on that site it is painful. This is like saying one can rely on our institutions to tell you the truth today.

[@TennesseeJed]

I don't know, seems like Wikipedia is about as fair as we have in the information realms. Albeit it may only 51% right, it's all we got.

[@ethimself5064]

@@TennesseeJed Not - With enough solid research near any adult can find near any reality the want

[@PhilipNelson1991]

Great discussion but Snowden as a person puts me off, a bit too dismissive for me. Classic “I’m left wing, intellectual, and better than you” about him.

[@F--B]

Hes often criticised for being arrogant

[@martinzarathustra8604]

This is a you problem.

[@DrAlexVasquezICHNFM]

Great conversation but you guys really have zero understanding of physiology and microbiology in discussing the pandemic. All the concepts and vocabulary are wonderful but if you don’t know the nuts and bolts of medicine and physiology and mucosal barriers and immune responses then you’re simply throwing vocabulary and concepts around

[@groundedkiwi]

All these podcasts interviewing each other. So 2014.

[@dr.hairbrain1486]

‘Creationist nonsense’? Lol. Guess the universe just sprang up out of nowhere.smh

[@shanecondon369]

I created the universe and you can’t prove otherwise!

[@Mrguy-ds9lr]

Agreed. I heard that too. For all the rebel wisdom in the world, we still can't get it right. All I can say is ,God, you were so right about everything.