Barry-Wehmiller’s Bold Experiment in Prosocial Cultural Evolution
Release Date: 04/01/2025
The Evolution of Place: How Environments Shape Us
This View of Life
What if your neighborhood is quietly shaping your stress levels, immune system, and trust in others? In this episode, David Sloan Wilson talks with David McAleavey, Amy Clair, Blair Gross, and Rick O’Gorman about how environmental cues – such as order, greenery, and decay – act as signals to our brains and bodies. From the Generalized Unsafety Theory of Stress to the Social Baseline Theory, we explore why where you live affects how you feel, think, and connect. Tune in to see your environment through a whole new lens. Builds on this .
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Evolving Prosocial AI: A conversation with Peter Fenton and David Sloan Wilson
This View of Life
Artificial intelligence is evolving faster than most of us can think about it—but few of its creators understand evolution itself. Venture capitalist Peter Fenton joins evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson for a wide-ranging conversation about how evolution and artificial intelligence might shape each other. Fenton, a central figure in the AI startup world and a lifelong student of philosophy, brings a unique lens to technology. Together, they explore how the principles of variation, selection, and replication—the core of evolutionary theory—can guide AI’s growth toward...
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Forever Green: Building a cooperative innovation platform for diversification in Midwest agriculture with Nick Jordan & Whitney Clark
This View of Life
David Sloan Wilson speaks with Professor Nick Jordan and Whitney Clark, Executive Director of Friends of the Mississippi River, about their work on the Forever Green Initiative – a regional effort to scale regenerative agriculture in the Upper Midwest. They reflect on seven years of cross-sector collaboration to develop new crops and farming systems, and how their partnership with ProSocial World has helped strengthen the initiative.
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The Science of Imagined Worlds: Evolution and Ecology for World Builders - A conversation between Carlo Maley, Vaughn Aktipis-Maley & David Sloan Wilson
This View of Life
Join David Sloan Wilson in conversation with Carlo Maley and Vaughn Aktipis-Maley as they explore how evolutionary science can inspire deeper, more internally consistent worldbuilding. Based on their recent publication Evolution and Ecology for World Builders, this episode blends fantasy storytelling with real-world biology to ask: What makes a creature believable? What makes a society work? And what can fiction teach us about cooperation in reality?
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Shaping AI for Good: Prosocial Hybrid Intelligence for a Thriving Future - A conversation between Cornelia Walther and David Sloan Wilson
This View of Life
AI is no longer a distant future - it’s shaping our lives right now. But what if we could design it not just to be smart, but to be good? In this powerful conversation, Cornelia Walther and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson explore how we can build AI systems that truly serve people and the planet. They dive into the concept of Prosocial AI, technology that’s designed to support human connection, equity, and environmental sustainability—and the emerging field of hybrid intelligence, where human empathy and creativity team up with AI’s speed and precision....
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Democracy’s Deep Roots: From Hunter-Gatherers to Modern Society -- A conversation between Vivek Venkataraman and David Sloan Wilson
This View of Life
What if the roots of democracy run far deeper than ancient Greece or Enlightenment Europe, but back to our evolutionary origins as humans? In this thought-provoking conversation, evolutionary anthropologist Vivek Venkataraman and renowned scientist David Sloan Wilson dig into how early human societies, particularly hunter-gatherers, managed to balance individual freedom with the needs of the group. Long before constitutions and parliaments, our ancestors developed powerful, organic systems for cooperation, decision-making, and fairness. This discussion explores how evolution shaped us into...
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Decolonizing Ecology: Rethinking Nature in a Broken World
This View of Life
A conversation between Madhusudan Katti and Amitangshu Acharya Join us for a thought-provoking virtual dialogue exploring how colonial worldviews have shaped modern ecology - and what it means to decolonize our relationship with nature in an era of social and environmental upheaval. Building on themes from the This View of Life series , ecologist Madhusudan Katti and writer-researcher Amitangshu Acharya delve into questions at the intersection of science, history, and justice. Together, they’ll challenge dominant narratives and invite us to reimagine ecological knowledge that is rooted...
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Addressing the Wicked Problem of Housing Insecurity in Binghamton New York with Rebecca Rathmell
This View of Life
Originally published on September 9, 2024
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Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 2)
This View of Life
Hunter-gatherer societies are fascinating in their own right and--with appropriate caution--a major source of insight about our ancestral past, stretching back to our origin as a species. Remarkably, hunter-gatherer societies also have much to teach us about modern Democratic governance. Vivek Venkataraman is an idea guide to this subject, with a background in philosophy, primatology, and human evolutionary biology, along with direct experience living with and researching indigenous people in Malaysia. Originally published January 29, 2025.
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Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 1)
This View of Life
Originally published on January 8, 2025. Hunter-gatherer societies are fascinating in their own right and--with appropriate caution--a major source of insight about our ancestral past, stretching back to our origin as a species. Remarkably, hunter-gatherer societies also have much to teach us about modern Democratic governance. Vivek Venkataraman is an idea guide to this subject, with a background in philosophy, primatology, and human evolutionary biology, along with direct experience living with and researching indigenous people in Malaysia. Check out the resources, articles, and more...
info_outlineWho is Barry-Wehmiller (BW)? Not a person, but a manufacturing corporation and star attraction of the Conscious Capitalism movement. If you are familiar with this movement, you might have read Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, by CEO Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia, co-founder of the Conscious Capitalism movement. Or perhaps a Harvard Business School case report titled Truly Human Leadership at Barry-Wehmiller.
But BW deserves to become known far beyond its current circle of fame. Not only has it created an extraordinary culture of caring for itself, but it has replicated its culture in over 140 other companies that it has acquired--or rather adopted, to use its preferred word. Stated in scientific terms that can be understood beyond the business world, BW has conducted a bold experiment in prosocial cultural evolution and replicated it 140 times.
An earlier podcast with Chapman and Sisodia views BW through a distinctively evolutionary lens. This podcast covers the same ground in more detail with three senior staff members—Rhonda Spencer, Brian Wellinghof, and David Pickersgill. We are also joined by Michael Pirson, James A.F. Stoner Chair for Global Sustainability at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, who works closely with BW staff to promote the relevance of BW throughout the business world.
Originally published on September 16, 2024.
https://www.prosocial.world/posts/barry-wehmillers-bold-experiment-in-prosocial-cultural-evolution