Daniel Schmachtenberger

In June 2017 he appeared on the podcast Head First with Dr. Hill as a member of the Neurohacker Collective, discussing how to understand and quantify the human brain.⁠[1]

He co-founded the Neurohacker Collective, which makes the nootropic supplement Qualia, and served as its director of research and development; he was home-schooled and was exposed early to the design science of Buckminster Fuller and Jacques Fresco and to systems and complexity science.⁠[2]

On The Great Simplification he discussed, from a systems perspective, how artificial intelligence adds to and accelerates the overall dynamics of the metacrisis, and the role of intelligence versus wisdom on humanity’s global path.⁠[3]

In episode 132 of The Great Simplification, he and Hagens took a wide-boundary look at the environmental risks of artificial intelligence, arguing that its current trajectory points toward ecological destruction rather than restoration.⁠[4]

In an episode of The Jim Rutt Show released on April 22, 2021, he discussed with host Jim Rutt his newly launched The Consilience Project, which aims to improve public sensemaking and dialogue.⁠[5]

The Consilience Project is a publication of the Civilization Research Institute, founded to explore the challenges facing public sensemaking at a time of rapid technological change; its original articles described the state of the information commons, and he is responsible for project strategy on its team.⁠[6]

He is a founder of the Civilization Research Institute, which says its aim is to support the emergence of a mature global civilization able to wisely steward the power of exponential technologies in concert with a healthy biosphere while avoiding the twin failure modes of catastrophe and dystopia.⁠[7]

He appeared on episode 191 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing aliens and UFOs, the collective intelligence of human civilization, consciousness, Girard’s mimetic theory of desire, self-terminating systems, catastrophic risk, the role of government in society and the meaning of life.⁠[8]

On January 26, 2022, Nate Hagens’s podcast The Great Simplification released their first conversation, Bend Not Break Part 1: Energy Blindness, in which he interviewed Hagens about how energy, materials and technology relate to a growth-based civilization. Hagens described him as a co-founder of the concept of Game B as a cultural destination.⁠[9]

On June 26, 2022, The Consilience Project published Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design, which argues that technologies inevitably have second- and third-order effects on the human mind and society, criticizes the “technological orthodoxy” that treats technology as values-neutral, and calls for “axiological design.”⁠[10]

Episode 42 of The Great Simplification, released on October 26, 2022, was his fourth Bend Not Break conversation, delving into humanity’s use of energy, materials and technology and how technology intensifies a growth-based world order.⁠[11]

He gave an introductory talk on the metacrisis at Stockholm Impact/Week 2023, moderated by Norrsken Foundation founder Niklas Adalberth; the summit is hosted by Norrsken and the City of Stockholm.⁠[12]

In September 2023 he held an unscripted conversation with Iain McGilchrist and John VervaekeJohn VervaekeJohn Vervaeke is an associate professor, teaching stream, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto and director of its Cognitive Science program; he researches intelligence, rationality, wisdom and “relevance realization,” and is publicly known for the YouTube lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis and his account of the Western “meaning crisis.”Open the full entry at Merton College, Oxford, on the cognitive and spiritual components of the metacrisis, which they define as the total ecosystem of global crises and the common underlying dynamics that generate catastrophic and existential risks.⁠[13]

In an episode of The Great Simplification released on June 6, 2024 (recorded on May 5), he discussed Development in Progress, a paper he co-authored on the costs left out of mainstream narratives of progress. His interests include catastrophic and existential risk, civilization collapse and institutional decay, progress narratives and collective action problems.⁠[14]

On July 16, 2024, The Consilience Project published Development in Progress, which argues that today’s idea of progress, measured by narrow metrics such as economic and military growth, is immature and downplays the scale of its side effects, using the invention of artificial fertilizers as its main case study of externalities.⁠[15]

As of October 2026, The Consilience Project no longer releases new articles at a regular cadence but continues to publish related content at varying intervals.⁠[6]

A call for papers for a metacrisis-themed special issue of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education states that podcasts with him introduced the metacrisis framing to a widening audience.⁠[16]

Personal website: Public link: https://civilizationemerging.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

Civilization Research Institute: Official website: https://civilizationresearchinstitute.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[7]

The Consilience Project: Official website: https://consilienceproject.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]