Jim Rutt

"Literally what we've done is we've taken all of chemistry and built a programming language and a series of systems that allow us to dial a molecule... You come to us with a chemical problem or specification, we will design molecules to it."

@leecronin.bsky.social on Chemify

EP 313 Chris Colin on Why Customer Service Sucks - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Chris Colin about his recent Atlantic article "That Dropped Call with Customer Service? It Was on Purpose."

🎙️ w/ @chriscolin3000.bsky.social on "That Dropped Call with Customer Service? It Was on Purpose."

Customer service hell, sludge, intentional friction, call center tactics, the psychological toll of poor service, enshittification, responses to the article, & more.

www.jimruttshow.com/chris-colin/

EP 312 Lee Cronin on Automating Chemistry - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Lee Cronin about Chemify, his startup that aims to automate chemistry through "chemifarms" that turn code into molecules.

🎙️ w/ @leecronin.bsky.social on Chemify, his startup that turns code into molecules.

An AWS for chemistry, a chemical programming language, open source tools & academic access, supply chain implications, distributed manufacturing, personalized medicine, and more.

www.jimruttshow.com/lee-cronin/

"It's muddying the waters. Nonetheless, of course, because it's so romantic and in some sense just because it's so crazy, people latch onto it and love to talk about it."

- Nicholas Humphrey approving of California Institute of Machine Consciousness's rejection of panpsychism

EP 311 Nicholas Humphrey on the Invention of Consciousness - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Nicholas Humphrey about the ideas in his 2023 book Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness.

🎙️ w/ Nicholas Humphrey on *Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness.*

Sentience & consciousness, the discovery of blindsight in monkeys, consciousness as art, qualophilia, consciousness in birds & mammals, theory of mind in different species, and much more.

www.jimruttshow.com/nicholas-hum...

"One of the most basic observations we can make about the world is that the vast majority of people act on scripts—essentially roles that have been defined in advance."

- Samo Burja on his distinction between live and dead players

EP 310 Samo Burja on Anduril's Plan to Modernize the US Military - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Samo Burja about his report on the defense startup Anduril's plan to modernize the U.S. military.

🎙️ w/ Samo Burja on defense startup Anduril's plan to modernize the U.S. military.

Live vs. dead players, software-defined conflicts, US vs. China manufacturing capabilities, the scale of drone warfare, AI capabilities gaps between nations, and much more.

www.jimruttshow.com/samo-burja-5/

"Politics and democracy actually don't mix. I really don't think the way politics is practiced, the two can coexist. They're opposed."

- @richardhames.bsky.social on what inspired his recent polemical post on the decline of Western civilization

EP 309 Richard David Hames on the Final Performance of Western Civilization? - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Richard David Hames, picking up from the ideas in his recent Facebook essay about the decline of Western civilization.

🎙️ w/ Richard David Hames on the decline of Western civilization.

The retreat from truth in politics & institutions, China’s governance model, social stratification, AI’s disruptive potential, the loss of character & virtue in leadership, living in a liminal period between worlds, and much more.

"Simultaneously, there's been a lack of positive innovation on the whole over the past half-century, and at the same time, there's a sense that our institutions are failing... And my argument is that the lack of a coherent, current understanding of nobility is a big part of that."

- David Chapman

EP 308 David Chapman on Rethinking Nobility - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with David Chapman about rethinking nobility for the modern age through his recent “nobility tetralogy” of essays. They discuss character & virtue as “risible” concepts, noblesse oblige & el...

🎙️ w/ David Chapman on rethinking nobility.

Character & virtue as “risible” concepts, nobility as intention vs status, the failure of elite universities, Tolkien’s models of nobility, Vajrayana Buddhism’s life-affirming approach, meta-rationality & tech, & more.

www.jimruttshow.com/david-chapman/

"One is growing linearly & making something planetary-sized & stuffing the planet inside...

The other is more like replication. Having a solution that works here in place... then gifting it... saying, 'This works for me here, see how it works for you.'"

- @thomasschindler.bsky.social on scaling

EP 307 Thomas Schindler on Heliogenic Civilization - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Thomas Schindler about heliogenic civilization as a vision for a regenerative future.

🎙️ w/ @thomasschindler.bsky.social on heliogenic civilization.

The current multipolar trap shitshow, bioregional self-sufficiency, biological computing, solar energy & hydrogen electrolysis, material constraints on renewable energy transition, and much more.

www.jimruttshow.com/thomas-schin...

"All of a sudden Magnus Carlsen plays this move. And this move shows Stockfish going into madness and saying, oh my God. What a big mistake! And all the commentators are pondering... How can he make such a blunder?"

@andersindset.bsky.social on the World Chess Championship and multipolar traps

EP 306 Anders Indset on The Singularity Paradox - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Anders Indset about The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI, co-authored with Florian Neutkart.

🎙️ w/ Anders Indset on *The Singularity Paradox: Bridging the Gap Between Humanity and AI,* co-authored with Florian Neutkart.

The “final narcissistic injury of humankind,” consciousness preservation, trust & friction as progress drivers, reactive vs reflective societies, the role of agency, & more.

"If you make analogy to a living system, the economy is the part of society that... combines natural resources with human labor to make goods & services that we need... or at least want. Whereas if you look at, what is a metabolism?"

- @doynefarmer.bsky.social on economies as metabolisms

EP 305 J. Doyne Farmer on Complexity Economics - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with J. Doyne Farmer about his book Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World. They discuss deterministic chaos & strange attractors, how chaos makes time possible, bounde...

🎙️ w/ J. Doyne Farmer on *Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World.*

Traditional economics’ failures, “as if” vs “as is” approaches, agent-based modeling, financial markets as an ecology of strategies, energy investment modeling, envisioning a “conscious civilization,” & more.

"When I think about my own experience with computers growing up, it wasn't just worry and concern. It was full of wonder and delight... I didn't feel that computation was just this branch of engineering. It was this weird, humanistic liberal art."

- Samuel Arbesman on *The Magic of Code*

EP 304 Samuel Arbesman on The Magic of Code - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Samuel Arbesman about his book The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future.

🎙️ w/ Samuel Arbesman on *The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future.*

Wondering vs. utilitarian stances toward computing, AI as a “hinge of history," evolution of protocols, agent-based modeling & artificial life, the simulation hypothesis, & more.

"The Catholic Church has gone missionary, and they got themselves a missionary in this new Pope."

- Mark Stahlman on the role of the new Pope and his connection with former Pope Francis

EP 303 Mark Stahlman on Pope Leo XIV and the Catholic Church's Missionary Turn - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Mark Stahlman about the new Pope Leo XIV and the Catholic Church's evolving role in a digital age.

🎙️w/ Mark Stahlman on the new Pope & the Catholic Church’s evolving role.

Trump as an avatar of the digital paradigm shift, the 3 pillars of Catholic social teaching, multipolar traps & solidarity, the Catholic Church’s diplomatic efforts & interfaith outreach, the future of global systems, & more.

"Meetings that don't have progress tracking mechanisms are straight up boring. And it's the same thing here in our civilization."

- Daniel Mezick on government as a game and the importance of a sense of progress

EP 302 Daniel Mezick on Games and Governance - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Daniel Mezick on the theme of games and their relationship to governance.

🎙️ w/ Daniel Mezick on games & governance.

Finite & infinite games, the U.S. Constitution as a game, progress tracking in governance systems, roles, artifacts, rules, events, problems with a two-party system, unintended consequences in rule design, game theory & system design, gaming virtue, & more.

"Conversation isn't semantic transfer. Conversation is pragmatic clarification of social relationship of responsibility. Pragmatic clarification of social relationship of responsibility is not something you can do with a machine."

- Zak Stein on the ecological importance of attention scarcity

EP 301 Zak Stein on K-12 Education in the AI Era - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Zak Stein about the psychological and developmental risks of AI in K-12 education. They discuss education vs schooling, technology’s role in human-to-human interaction, GPS & skill atro...

🎙️ w/ Zak Stein on risks of AI in K-12 education.

Education vs schooling, cognitive diminishment, attention as a service, Daniel Dennett’s proposal about criminalizing misrepresentation, design principles for responsible AI in education, the transhumanist ideology behind AI development, and more.

EP 300 Daniel Rodriguez on AI-Assisted Software Development - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Daniel Rodriguez about the state of AI software development and its implementation in industry.

🎙️ w/ Daniel Rodriguez AI software development.

Vibe coding, barriers to entry, cognitive styles needed for programming, approaches to steering LLMs through roles & personas, the future of agent frameworks, distributed systems, IDEs & linting tools, and much more.

"'98% of the permaculture projects that fail, fail due to poor design in the human sector.' We knew this, but we haven't experienced up until a few years ago a robust integration of what that human sector concept & how to design it might look like."

- Ryan Blosser on difficulty of the human sector

EP 299 Ryan Blosser on Permaculture for Food and Friendship - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Ryan Blosser about his book Mulberries in the Rain: Growing Permaculture Plants for Food and Friendship, co-authored with Trevor Pearsall.

🎙️ w/ Ryan Blosser on *Mulberries in the Rain: Growing Permaculture Plants for Food and Friendship.*

Food forest design principles, hunting stories, willows, redbuds, bourbon, burdock, community, climate considerations, water management, soil fertility, aesthetics in design, and much more.

"We need a big tent movement that isn't centered around any particular ideology, but centered around the democratic process and delivering for the American people what we actually want."

- @alake.bsky.social on the broader potential of @sanders.senate.gov's Fight Oligarchy tour

EP 298 Adam Lake on Rebooting American Democracy - The Jim Rutt Show Jim talks with Adam Lake about Reboot America, a project aimed at reforming American democracy.

🎙️ w/ @alake.bsky.social on Reboot America.

Existential threats, the two-party corporate duopoly, social media’s role in polarization, the Dems' cultural baggage, courage in leadership, liquid democracy, the People’s Agenda concept, lessons from the Emancipation Party & GameB, and much more.