69 – Wood on Sustainable Superabundance

Algocracy and Transhumanism Podcast

In this episode I talk to David Wood. David is currently the chair of the London Futurists group and a full-time futurist speaker, analyst, commentator, and writer. He studied the philosophy of science at Cambridge University. He has a background in designing, architecting, implementing, supporting, and avidly using smart mobile devices. He is the author or lead editor of nine books including, “RAFT 2035”, “The Abolition of Aging”, “Transcending Politics”, and “Sustainable Superabundance”. We chat about the last book on this list — Sustainable Superabundance — and its case for an optimistic future.

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Show Notes

• 0:00 – Introduction
• 1:40 – Who are the London Futurists? What do they do?
• 3:34 – Why did David write Sustainable Superabundance?
• 7:22 – What is sustainable superabundance?
• 11:05 – Seven spheres of flourishing and seven types of superabundance?
• 16:16 – Why is David a transhumanist?
• 20:20 – Dealing with two criticisms of transhumanism: (i) isn’t it naive and polyannish? (ii) isn’t it elitist, inegalitarian and dangerous?
• 30:00 – Key principles of transhumanism
• 34:52 – How will we address energy needs of the future?
• 40:35 – How optimistic can we really be about the future of energy?
• 46:20 – Dealing with pessimism about food production?
• 52:48 – Are we heading for another AI winter?
• 1:01:08 – The politics of superabundance – what needs to change?

Relevant Links

• David Wood on Twitter
• London Futurists website
• London Futurists Youtube
• Sustainable Superabundance by David
• Other books in the Transpolitica series
• To be a machine by Mark O’Connell
• Previous episode with James Hughes about techno-progressive transhumanism
• Previous episode with Rick Searle about the dark side of transhumanism