Share

Team Human
Ep. 115 Live at Civic Hall Pt. 1: Penny Abeywardena
Playing for Team Human today: Penny Abeywardena.
In part one of a two-part live Team Human show, Douglas is joined by New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, Penny Abeywardena. Penny’s work looks at the synergies between local and global issues. Guided by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Penny is helping make New York City a significant player in global efforts to solve humanity’s most pressing issues of immigration, poverty, climate change, injustice, and inequality.
In an era of virulent nationalism, racism at the border, and national disfunction; can cities like New York lead the way in solving global crises? Penny shares her insights and experiences, recorded live at the Civic Hall in Manhattan.
Learn more the Mayor's Office of International Affairs here as well as programs discussed on the show; Global Vision | Urban Action and OneNYC.
Douglas opens the evening with a monologue questioning the very concept of the nation state. Rushkoff asserts that community, rooted in solidarity – not borders or ethnicity – must be the organizing principle to enact social change.
Join us next week for part two which includes technology philosopher and mage Mark Pesce, plus a conversation and audience Q&A with Penny, Mark, and Douglas.
Team Human the manifesto is hot off the press! Order yours here.
On this episode you heard Fugazi’s “Foreman’s Dog” and Herkimer Diamonds in the intro, plus original music thanks to listener Josh Sitron and the Team Human Band. We also played Team Human Episode 31 guest R.U. Sirius in the transition and outro music thanks to the mighty Mike Watt: beak-holding-letter-man.
Check out Douglas’s regular column on Medium where you can read monologues like the one you heard on today's show.
Team Human is listener supported. To subscribe via Patreon go to teamhuman.fm/support. You can also help by reviewing the show on iTunes.
More episodes
View all episodes

347. Ari Kuschnir: Trump Ayahuasca - AI and the Alchemical Imaginary
51:50||Ep. 347Ari Kuschnir, AI storyteller and artist, takes us deep into the alchemy of AI storytelling as a form of social practice and activist imagination.Known for provocative AI videos imagining figures like Trump, Elon Musk, and world leaders undergoing spiritual transformations, Kushnir talks about using AI as a creative collaborator and as a tool to challenge the cultural addiction to dystopia.Along the way, they explore whether AI is flattening culture or opening new portals, why the future keeps being depicted as bleak, and what it might take to reclaim imagination as a collective human practice.Mastering the Alchemy of Storytelling Course: https://www.liminal.news/mastering-the-alchemy-of-ai-storytelling | Use code: ALCHEMY-TEAMHUMAN for a discountLearn more at: mssngpeces.comTeam Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJdUEh2Wh4fnswTLmqoEnhgTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
347. Cracks in the Pavement
18:06||Ep. 347Rushkoff discusses why the urgency and inevitability of our situation calls for us to consider the impossible.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJdUEh2Wh4fnswTLmqoEnhgTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
345. Vicki Robin: Parable of the Tribes
01:20:58||Ep. 345Vicki Robin, author of classic books like Your Money or Your Life and Blessing and The Hands That Feed Us, and Rushkoff seek to embrace this challenging moment by embracing one another. Robin shares how growing older shifts your perspective from the personal to the universal, and why the questions we've been asking our whole lives might matter less than how we show up for each other.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJdUEh2Wh4fnswTLmqoEnhgTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
344. Jeremy Lent: Reweaving Civilization
53:04||Ep. 344Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct and integrator, helps us investigate the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current crisis of sustainability and develop the patterns of thought we need to get through to the other side.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJdUEh2Wh4fnswTLmqoEnhgTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
343. Arden Leigh: Chasing the Hungry Ghosts
01:15:32||Ep. 343Arden Leigh , the creator and facilitator of The Re-Patterning Project and front woman of Arden and the Wolves, helps us negotiate a new relationship to our individual and collective creative power.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
342. The Joy of Becoming Worthless…except to each other
20:38||Ep. 342Could the end of employment be the beginning of something better? Rushkoff traces the history of work from medieval markets to AI automation to find hope in the cracks of collapse. He shows how the loss of “jobs” could open space for cooperation, creativity, and real human connection.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
341. Jonathan Larsen: This is Just the Beginning - Enacting the Team Human Agenda
01:01:26||Ep. 341Jonathan Larsen, Founder of The Fucking News, joins Rushkoff to discuss the 2025 U.S. Election and the path forward for Team Human.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
340. Andrew Slack: Superman vs Ubermensch
01:26:13||Ep. 340Andrew Slack, comedian and writer of Orphans, Empires, and the Search for a Better World, discusses the hidden history of corporate power, the mythic roots of American identity, and how hope - and solar panels - might just save us all.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com
339. Cory Doctorow: Enshittification is Not Inevitable
01:17:28||Ep. 339Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, unpacks the systemic forces behind digital monopolies, regulatory capture, the erosion of user rights, and how collective action and policy change can reclaim technology for the public good.Team Human is proudly sponsored by Everyone's Earth.Learn more about Everyone's Earth: https://everyonesearth.com/Change Diapers: https://changediapers.com/Cobi Dryer Sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Use the code “rush10” to receive 10% off of Cobi Dryer sheets: https://cobidryersheets.com/Support Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhumanFollow Team Human with Douglas Rushkoff:Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/douglasrushkoffBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rushkoff.com