ABOUT THE PROJECT | The Consilience Project

About the Project

Critical conversations for the future of human civilization.

The Consilience Project publishes novel research at the leading edges of global risk mitigation, governance design and culture. Our content explores the key challenges and existential threats facing humanity, and the underlying problems with current approaches for addressing them. We outline how our social systems and institutions need to be redesigned if free, open, non-authoritarian societies are to survive.

Our Context

At no other point in history has humanity faced such a wide range of novel catastrophic risks. Our civilization has never been more vast, complicated, and fragile. This systemic fragility is exacerbated by new technologies, geopolitical instability, an ecological crisis and a reliance on global economic supply chains. These interlocking, interrelated problems are known collectively as the metacrisis. The Consilience Project’s primary aim is to clarify and reveal the nature of the metacrisis to enable comprehensive solutions to global problems. Our work recognizes the interconnectedness of humanity’s challenges: any solution must factor the underlying drivers of each one.

Our Project

We publish research and analysis to help guide decision-makers and leaders towards the critical paths necessary to address the unique challenges of our time. The content published here is for any individual, group or institution trying to innovate around global coordination challenges, catastrophic risks and social technologies.

The Consilience Project is a publication of the Civilization Research Institute (CRI), a charitable think tank focused on reducing systemic fragility and advancing new forms of governance and coordination. CRI seeks to inform the next era of human collaboration and collective intelligence to ensure human and ecological thriving.

Our Team

The Consilience Project consists of a core team of passionate people from a wide range of disciplines.

Daniel Schmachtenberger

Project Strategy
Social philosophy, collective intelligence, risk mitigation.

Samo Burja

Geopolitical Intelligence Founder, Bismarck Analysis, Research Fellow, Long Now Foundation.

Zak Stein EdD

Psychometrics & Education Expert in psychology and philosophy, previous Co-Founder at Lectica Inc.

Jess Webb

Social Network Intelligence, Founder, Aizle Analytics, Former All Source Intelligence, JSOC, NSWDG.

Ben Landau-Taylor

Economic Intelligence
Senior Researcher at Bismarck Analysis, focus on industrial economics.

Thomas Ermacora

Future-Oriented Design
Award-winning urbanist, architect, and futurist, Skoll Fellow, Fellow at Singularity Institute.

Mia Grable

Operations
Project management, software, finance, operations.

Sammi Fischer

Executive Administrator
Scheduling, administration, and back office.

Julia Pope

Strategic communications & Partnerships
Outreach and campaign specialist, Founder of Hylo, former CBC Radio journalist.

Bob Gray

Visual Design & Brand
Founder of Red & Grey design and brand agency. Partner at Adaptive cultures design strategy firm.

Paul Hughes

Branding, Design, Innovation
Strategic Director, Adaptive Cultures design strategy firm.

Alex Randall PhD

Editorial & Policy
Public policy, defence & security, neuroscience, art. Former UK Government, Cambridge Fellow.

Christopher Eddy

Philosophy & Social Theory
Governance, catastrophic risk, humane tech, cognitive science, logic, metaphysics

Deepa Purushothaman

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Author, speaker, and researcher on systemic racism and the advancement of women of color in corporate America.

Tristan Harris

Technology Ethics
Co-Founder at the Center for Humane Technology. Technology ethicist, philosopher, systems thinker.

Nate Hagens PhD

Natural Resource Economics and Risk
Focuses on the interrelationship between debt-based financial markets and natural resources.

R.P. Eddy

Intelligence & National Security
CEO of Ergo, Fmr Director at the White House National Security Council, Senior Diplomat. Economics, natl. security and geo-politics. Investor. Best selling author.

Tyson Yunkaporta PhD

Cultural Research
Lecturer and Author on Indigenous Knowledge, academic, researcher, educator, art critic.

Peter Sforza

Geospatial Intelligence Analyst
Director, Center for Geospatial Information Technology. Complex systems, resilience, regenerative systems.

Sanjiv Sidhu

Business & Supply Chain Intelligence
Cofounder and Chair of 09 Solutions. Supply chain management, artificial intelligence.

Dan Shalmon PhD

National Security Policy
Research experience employing qualitative and quantitative methods for clients in national security, education and public policy.

Liv Boeree

Game Theory & Existential Risk
Science Broadcaster, Astrophysics, game theory, existential risk.

Jamie Wheal

Cultural Architecture
Executive Director of the Flow Genome Project and Co-Author of the Global Bestseller Stealing Fire.

Evelyn Gosnell

Behavioral Economics
Applies behavioral economics insights in product design, with a focus on technology.

Jim Rutt

Complexity and Technology
Chairman, Santa Fe Institute. Former CEO of Network solutions. Complexity science, politics, economics.

Adam Robinson

Market Intelligence
President at Robinson Global Strategies, Founder at Princeton Review, Chess Master, Top Financial Advisor.

Rob Schuham

Co-Founder of Undercurrent, COMMON, and Fearless; former Chief Digital Advisor, Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.

Fernanda Ibarra

Collective Intelligence
Economics, currency design, organizational architecture, regenerative culture.

Ryan Walsh

Directed product strategy across Apple Media Divisions.

John Mattison MD

Medical Strategy
Former Chief Medical Information Officer and Associate CMO at Kaiser Permanente.

Justin Rosenstein

Technology and Governance
Co-founder of Asana, programmer of software, organizations, cultures, & systems in service of love. Co-Founder, One Project.

Tomas Bjorkman

Financial Intelligence
Founder, Investment Banking Partners AB, Chairman, EFG Investment Bank. Member, Club of Rome.

Raj Vaswani

Technology & Data
Innovation, product development, and product management. Data science, IoT, global utilities, information technology.

Nora Bateson

Complex Systems
Director of research at the Bateson Institute, transcontextual research, in ecology, economy, social change, health, education, and art.

Alex Gladstein

Open Societies
Chief Strategy Officer at Human Rights Foundation. Faculty at Singularity University. Advisor at Blockchain Capital.

Michael Slaby

Digital Strategy
CTO & CIO Obama campaign. Chief strategist, Harmony Labs. Technology, politics, and impact strategies.

Gilbert Morris

Professor, Financial Centre Expert, Economist, Diplomat, Historian, Author.

John Robb

Military Intelligence
Air Force, Special Ops, Military Intelligence. Expertise in counterterrorism and unconventional warfare.

Molly Maloof MD

Medicine & Biosciences
Integrative physician and medical researcher in the areas of longevity and human potential.

Jordan Hall JD

Strategic Intelligence
Founder at DivX, Founder of Game B,trustee, Santa Fe Institute.

Peter Demitry MD

Research & Strategy
Ret. Colonel, Associate Surgeon General of the US Air Force, fighter pilot. Director of NFIM.

Michel Bauwens

Peer-to-Peer Social Dynamics & Technology
Founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives, and the Peer-to-Peer Cooperative.

Jeffrey Ladish

Security Research
Cybersecurity and biosecurity; Existential risk expert.

Andrew Huberman PhD

Neuroscience
Tenured Professor of Neurology at Stanford Medical School; brain dev., brain plasticity, and neural regeneration.

Phoebe Tickell

Decentralization & Democratic Practice
Decentralization, distributed governance, horizontal practices. Collaborative and transparent decision-making and financing.

Kunal Sood

Impact Entrepreneur
XFellow, CEO of #WeThePlanet, impact entrepreneur, disruptive innovator & curator.

Jamie Daves

Media Strategy
Founder Current TV, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Investor.

Kyle Gresham PhD

Materials Science
Ret. Colonel, Director of US Air Force Research, nanotech, bioweapons containment.

Greg Thomas

Cultural Intelligence
CEO Jazz Leadership Project, Senior Fellow at Institute for Cultural Evolution, author, educator.

Jenny Stefanotti

Design thinking
Founder, Dent. Public policy, philanthropy, design, technology, behavioral economics, design methodology, and venture capital.

Bill Twist

Environmental Law
Co-Founder of Pachamama, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

Eric Mathur PhD

Biosciences
Senior scientist at the Human Genome Project; leader in molecular biology.

David Fuller

Journalism & Media
Channel 4 News (UK), BBC Newsnight, Guardian, Buzzfeed. Founder, Rebel Wisdom.

Marc Collins Chen

Future of Cities
Founder, Board Member, and former CEO of Oceanix: Sustainable Floating Cities. Former Minister of Tourism for French Polynesia.

Isaac Lee

Media
Former Chief Content Officer of Univision and Televisa.

John Vervaeke PhD

Cognitive Psychology and Science
Professor of cognitive psychology and science at the University of Toronto.

Rob Goldman

Social Media
Former VP of Advertising at Facebook.

Scott Barry Kaufman PhD

Social Psychology
Cognitive Psychologist, Professor at Columbia University, author, Former Scientific Director at The Imagination Institute.

Matt Ellison

Diplomacy & International Security
Hoover Institution, Stanford. Associate Editor, Palladium. Advisor, Bismarck Analysis.

Bill Melton

Technology and Economics
Founder and CEO of CyberCash. Founder of VeriFone, Inc. Former Board Member of the Santa Fe Institute.

Jonathan Rowson PhD

Philosophy and Strategy
Co-founder and Director at Perspectiva, Chess Grandmaster, 1999.  Author.

Alexander Bard

Philosophy
Co-Author of Futurica Trilogy, Music Producer, Co-founder of Stockholm Record.

Mihaela Ulieru PhD

Intelligent Systems & Organic Governance
Founder of the International Industrial Informatics, President of IMPACT Institute for the Digital Economy, Technology Alchemist Innovating at the nexus of AI/IoT/Blockchain.

Arthur Brock

Economics & Systems
Co-founder of Holochain, Software Architect, decentralized social and technological systems.

John Perkins

Economic Intelligence
Author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; Former Advisor to the World Bank, United Nations, U.S. Treasury Department. Founding member of The Pachamama Alliance; Activist and lecturer.

Yasmine El Baggari

Economic and International Intelligence
Founder and CEO at Voyaj, US State Department “Engage America” Ambassador, and Researcher at Harvard University; Blogger and speaker at international conferences.

Aneel Chima PhD

Clinical Psychology & Human Systems
Director of Health and Human Performance at Stanford’s Flourishing Project, Co-founder of At The Core.

Director of Development
Civilization Research Institute

Working Pattern: Full-time
Start: Immediately
Location: Remote, U.S.

The Civilization Research Institute (CRI) is a think tank focused on preventing global catastrophic risks and advancing new forms of governance and coordination. We are a relatively small nonprofit organization, although we work in close collaboration with several other nonprofits, including the Center for Humane Technology and Helena. CRI does not have a public-facing presence at the moment; our main public initiative is the Consilience Project. We are currently delivering a range of high-impact projects across our focus areas of catastrophic risk mitigation, collective intelligence, and improving institutions. CRI will soon launch a new public entity focused on generating novel solutions within these domains.

We are seeking an experienced Director of Development who will lead all of our fundraising activity from foundations. The right person will feel deeply aligned with our mission and be able to communicate its purpose and goals with passion. As Director of Development, you will secure funding both in support of our current activity and for the founding of new start-up nonprofit organizations within our network.

You will be responsible for raising funds from foundations known to you through your previous experience fundraising for nonprofit organizations. You will be responsible for identifying and building relationships with potential donor foundations, as well as grant writing, communications, relationship management, and the closing of funds. Where necessary, you will engage closely with the senior leaders at CRI, bringing them into conversations to open and close funding opportunities. You will lead and manage all activity relating to fundraising from foundations on behalf of the Institute.

Specific Tasks

  • Identify and negotiate new sources of funding.
  • Write grants and proposals for funding.
  • Build and maintain a network of fundraising contacts.
  • Maintain a positive and highly engaged relationship with both existing and potential donors.
  • Develop a fundraising plan for CRI and its related projects.
  • Propose new strategies to increase donations.
  • Using our existing work, produce bespoke content or fundraising material for pitching to specific foundations.
  • Track information and analytics on our fundraising activity, and use the data to suggest changes to our online presence to support your work more effectively.
  • Manage tranched or metricized donations, and ensure that the project is closing on funds appropriately.

Skills, Qualities and Attributes

Our ideal candidate will have a current list of contacts and connections at relevant funding institutions. It is likely that their experience will be US-centric, given that CRI is US-based and will primarily seek funds from domestic sources.

Importantly, our ideal candidate will understand that CRI does not fit easily into any established nonprofit category. CRI’s work is relevant to many other groups in the sector, in that it is seeking to address challenges upstream of their interests. Our active projects span a wide range of specific nonprofit domains of interest. For example, the right candidate will have the ability to raise funds for our work on biosecurity from foundations funding biorisk proposals; at the same time, they will be comfortable communicating with conviction on projects related to climate and the environment in raising funds from foundations with interests specifically within these domains.

The right person for this role will know what matters to us on the basis of our mission, and will be familiar with CRI’s general thesis on the metacrisis (summarized here). They will have experience working for aligned nonprofit organizations, including (for example) those within the fields of democracy, journalism, public health or education. They will be a strong bipartisan operator, with the ability to build relationships with foundations across the political spectrum. Importantly, the right person will be a skilled communicator with the ability to draft and present bespoke funding pitches based upon our existing work.

Our ideal Director of Development is:

  • Deeply passionate for the mission and aims of the Civilization Research Institute.
  • Knowledgeable about the range of foundations likely to be interested in supporting our work.
  • Experienced in writing successful grant applications to foundations.
  • Familiar with our framing of the current state of global existential risk and comfortable communicating it to potential donors.
  • Skilled at relationship management, able to navigate and build strong, long-term donor relationships.
  • Effective at personal organization, able to manage a portfolio of funding activity.
  • Able to shape messages for specific audiences, creating bespoke communications about our work that are relevant to the interests of a variety of niche groups.
  • Able to work independently to design the most effective funding strategies, liaising with other team members as necessary.
  • Competent at handling sensitive information and communications with discretion.
  • Familiar with the range of structural challenges within the nonprofit sector.
  • Aware of legal and technical processes for receiving international donations to US nonprofits.

Note: If an interested candidate has a demonstrable record of raising funds for nonprofits from alternative sources (i.e. beyond foundations alone) and believes that their experience would suit an organization like CRI, we would like to hear from them. We are interested in effective fundraising from any source.

Reporting

This role reports to CRI’s founder and executive director. You will interface regularly with others involved in communications regarding our content and activity, particularly when they can assist with fundraising opportunities. You will report feedback from donors to CRI leadership, and ensure the expectations of donors are managed, producing updates and wider communications packages as necessary.

Compensation for this role will be commensurate with experience.

How to Apply

To apply, please send a CV and a brief cover letter describing your suitability and alignment to [email protected]. Please write “Application: Director of Development” in the subject line of your email. Cover letters should be no more than 500 words.

Applications close at midnight, 22 Feb 23.

Chief of Staff to the Executive Director
Civilization Research Institute

Working Pattern: Full-time
Start: Right away

The Civilization Research Institute (CRI) is a think tank focused on preventing global catastrophic risks, addressing global wicked problems, and advancing new forms of governance and coordination. We are a small nonprofit organization that works in close collaboration with several other nonprofits, including the Center for Humane Technology, Helena, ISEOF, and others. CRI does not have a public-facing presence currently. Over the last two years, CRI has produced the Consilience Project as its primary publication, which has focused mostly on issues of public sensemaking. We are currently working on a range of high-impact projects across our focus areas of catastrophic risk mitigation, collective intelligence, and improving institutions. CRI will soon launch a new public entity focused on generating novel solutions within these domains.

Daniel Schmachtenberger is the Founder and Executive Director of the Civilization Research Institute. His work in the organization spans research, strategy, institutional relationships, new projects, and training.

We are seeking a Chief of Staff to support the Founder in the prioritization, management, and execution of all his activities across these multiple organizations and domains of work. The right person will already be familiar with Daniel’s publicly available work, feel deep alignment with our mission, and have experience working as a Chief of Staff or in a related position. The right person will have a clear sense of the requirements and abilities of a great Chief of Staff, and feel that they are a natural fit for this role.

Responsibilities

Primary Responsibilities

  1. Factor the totality of demands on the Executive Director’s attention from both internal and external sources (strategic priorities, long-term goals, team needs, organizational partner needs, and inbound requests) and optimize his time allocation accordingly.
  2. Maximally leverage the Executive Director’s capabilities (via delegation where possible), including tracking, information compression, preparation for meetings and of materials, follow-ups, mediation of communications, identifying and proposing solutions to bottlenecks, etc. This may also include leverage via targeted recruitment where necessary.
  3. Maintain coherent syncing between the Executive Director, the organization, and its network of allies.

Prioritization

  • Track the Executive Director’s high-level priorities and ensure his calendar reflects those priorities.
  • Inform, direct, and collaborate with his Executive Assistant on his calendar.
  • Create action plans and track milestones for his high-level goals.
  • Manage his internal work time, create the agenda, be present for co-working as needed.
  • Conduct retroactive assessments of his output and use of time; propose structures to improve.
  • Review and vet inbound offers and requests for engagement, bucket into categories, and either respond directly or present for response.

Regular Project and Task Management

  • Review and track requests and information from various communication channels.
  • Track follow-up actions and considerations from meetings.
  • Track, review, and prioritize all upcoming meetings, documents to review, speaking/consultation requests on a weekly and monthly basis.
  • Maintain the Executive Director’s project management system and update daily tasks.
    Attend meetings and multi-day events where relevant, track discussions and follow-ups.

Team Engagement

  • Communicate with team members to get accurate status updates on project deadlines.
  • Ensure that the delivery calendars for the Executive Director and the organization overall are properly attuned so there are no bottlenecks.
  • Identify and deliver relevant updates to team members.
  • Generate reports for internal staff, and inform the fundraising lead’s donor reports.
  • Lead on relationship management, tracking relationships, managing periodic touch-points, etc.
  • Identify where in the organization recruitment is needed and engage with that process.

Experience

Our ideal candidate will find that their values are closely aligned with those of the organization, the Executive Director and the wider team. We are seeking a proactive, thoughtful, and generally competent person, with high emotional, logical, political, and interpersonal intelligence. From CRI’s perspective, attitude and personality fit are the most important features of an effective Chief of Staff.

The right person for this role should have some previous relevant experience. Ideally, they will have served as a Chief of Staff or equivalent, but they could also have worked as an XO, senior secretary, liaison or ambassador, or department or program lead.

Ideally, the right person for this role should have a wide range of interests, with a natural affinity for learning and development. Their educational background may include university or self-directed/career experience. We are keen to find an individual with some experience working with or in government agencies and institutions, and with formal procedures, sensitive information, and high profile relationships. Experience in startups, disaster work, or other fast moving and unstructured environments is also valued.

Reporting, Compensation, and Location

This role reports to CRI’s founder and Executive Director. You will engage primarily with Daniel, along with the Executive Assistant, the COO, and the other project leads. During the onboarding period, you will be primarily trained by and reporting to Daniel’s previous Chief of Staff (who is transitioning into COO as the organization’s growth requires). Once your onboarding is complete, you will transition to the reporting structure explained above.

Physical proximity is important for this role. Our ideal candidate will be open to relocating alongside Daniel and joining for occasional travel. We are open to hiring someone to start remotely and financing and/or organizing relocation for the right candidate. Hours for this role are likely to be unstructured and unpredictable, as requirements will depend on a range of urgent projects and activities. Also, the ability to sync and co-work happens best outside of the overful hours other people are available for meetings, ie, late nights and weekends.

Compensation for this role will be commensurate with experience.

How to Apply

To apply, please send a CV and a brief cover letter describing your suitability and alignment to [email protected]. Please write “Application: Chief of Staff” in the subject line of your email.

Acknowledgements

The Consilience project team would like to thank the those who have directly supported the creation of the Project over the years, and whose time, knowledge and support have been invaluable.

Rachel Howard PhD

Biological Research Microbiology, interdisciplinary biosciences, epistemics.

Joseph Romero

Culture, News & Journalism Editor-in-chief of Culturekiosque, journalist for Le Monde & Wall Street Journal Europe.

Eugenio Battaglia

Product Engineering
Web3 Researcher at curvelabs.eu, Director at meaning.systems

Lucian Tarnowski

Collaboration & Coordination
Executive Director of Civana, Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum.

Alex Morrise PhD

Machine Learning
Theoretical physics, string theory, machine learning, data science, deep learning, adaptive learning.

Advisor and Team Disclaimer

Aligned with the principle of Consilience and the mission of this project, we seek earnest and well-considered perspectives on topics from all sides of an issue and through the lens of different disciplines. Our advisors all support the project’s central aim of better public education and dialogue: that does not mean they agree with or endorse every perspective in each article we write, nor does the Consilience Project necessarily agree with or endorse all the perspectives on issues each of them may have shared in other places.

Similarly, while everyone on the team contributes to the project and is aligned with the mission as a whole, that does not mean each piece represents the view of each team member, nor that the personal posts of team members elsewhere online represent the views of the project.

The views expressed in the articles are those of The Consilience Project as an organization, which assumes full responsibility for the content.

Partner Organizations



Helena is a problem-solving institution that addresses urgent global issues through non-profit, for-profit, and legislative projects.



Bismarck is a firm that analyzes institutions, from governments to companies, focusing on the causes of societal decay and flourishing.



The Center for Humane Technology is an independent nonprofit organization whose aim is to drive a comprehensive shift toward humane technology by changing the way technologist think about their work and how they build products.



Ergo delivers tailored intelligence and advisory services to help our private and public clients overcome multifaceted challenges and capture opportunities in over 200 nations.

Our Ethical Committments

In an effort to address the erosion of trust in the media and guard against the biasing forces that arise from perverse incentives and human fallibility, we have implemented the following commitments:

Universal access to information is foundational to a functioning open society. For the duration of this project, none of our content will ever be behind a paywall.

This is a purely donation-supported endeavor, with no competing agendas beyond the stated mission. Neither the content nor its host site will serve as an income stream for the project in any way. To eliminate the possibility of manipulation or preference modification of our content, we will never sell our readers’ data or display paid advertisements of any kind.

As a US 501c3 non-profit organization, our finances are reported transparently to the federal government and publicly available on the FCC website.

To protect our content from influence, we will not accept funds from any person or organization that seeks to influence content through their support. Moreover, we will consider any actor that even suggests a conditionalized donation as a potential source of harm to the information commons and investigate accordingly.

Our commitments regarding freedom from financial influence present real limitations to our ability to fund the team. If we are limited in what we can raise with these commitments in place, then we will simply be smaller and do less with full integrity. We will not rationalize compromise for scale.

With the exception of possible occasional guest posts by specific individuals, we will attribute all articles to the collective authorship of the House. This serves both our readers and our writers in a variety of ways:

  1. The anonymity of authorship means readers are engaging with the content itself rather than the personality of its author, circumventing writer preference or mistrust on the basis of perceived content “ownership”.
  2. Anonymity allows our writers to be as truthful as possible without concern for professional, personal, or political repercussions or retribution.
  3. Anonymity insulates our writers from motives of individual ego by eliminating any incentive to alter content to maximize an article’s popularity.
  4. Anonymity encourages the entire research and writing team to support all work rather than having preferential focus on pieces for which they are lead author.

We will continue to seek out team members and advisors from across the spectrum of political perspectives, industries, epistemic disciplines, as well as cultures and regions of the world. This multiplicity of viewpoints provides a more complete picture of any given issue. It also serves as a mitigating factor against our own human susceptibility to bias and group reinforcement.

In our “Under the Hood” sections, we will show the evidence and methods of analysis we used to arrive at our conclusions. Rather than guarding our methods like trade secrets in a competitive environment, we will open-source all of our resources and processes in the hope that others will replicate, adapt and improve upon our methods of sensemaking and reporting.

Our Financials

We will be filing and publishing our 2020 990 form in November of 2021 on our website and GuideStar. You can view our federal extension application here.

Our Legal Position

© 2021 by the Civilization Research Initiative The Civilization Research Initiative owns all copyrights to the work of The Consilience Project.

The articles on this web site may be redistributed in other media and non-commercial publications as long as the following conditions are met. The redistributed article may not be abridged, edited or altered in any way without the express consent of The Consilience Project. The redistributed article may not be sold for a profit or included in another media or publication that is sold for a profit without the express consent of The Consilience Project.

Critical conversations for the future of human civilization.

The Consilience Project publishes novel research at the leading edges of global risk mitigation, governance design and culture. Our content explores the key challenges and existential threats facing humanity, and the underlying problems with current approaches for addressing them. We outline how our social systems and institutions need to be redesigned if free, open, non-authoritarian societies are to survive.

Our Context

At no other point in history has humanity faced such a wide range of novel catastrophic risks. Our civilization has never been more vast, complicated, and fragile. This systemic fragility is exacerbated by new technologies, geopolitical instability, an ecological crisis and a reliance on global economic supply chains. These interlocking, interrelated problems are known collectively as the metacrisis. The Consilience Project’s primary aim is to clarify and reveal the nature of the metacrisis to enable comprehensive solutions to global problems. Our work recognizes the interconnectedness of humanity’s challenges: any solution must factor the underlying drivers of each one.

Project Initiative

Our Project

We publish research and analysis to help guide decision-makers and leaders towards the critical paths necessary to address the unique challenges of our time. The content published here is for any individual, group or institution trying to innovate around global coordination challenges, catastrophic risks and social technologies.solution must factor the underlying drivers of each one.

Project Partners

Our Team

The Consilience Project consists of a core team of passionate people from a wide range of disciplines.

Eugenio Battaglia

Product Engineering
Web3 Researcher at curvelabs.eu, Director at meaning.systems

Lucian Tarnowski

Collaboration & Coordination
Executive Director of Civana, Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum.

Kyle Gresham PhD

Materials Science
Ret. Colonel, Director of US Air Force Research, nanotech, bioweapons containment.

Jamie Daves

Media Strategy
Founder Current TV, Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist, Investor.

Jordan Hall JD

Strategic Intelligence
Founder at DivX, Founder of Game B,trustee, Santa Fe Institute.

Alex Morrise PhD

Machine Learning
Theoretical physics, string theory, machine learning, data science, deep learning, adaptive learning.

Christopher Eddy

Philosophy & Social Theory
Governance, catastrophic risk, humane tech, cognitive science, logic, metaphysics

Matt Ellison

Diplomacy & International Security
Hoover Institution, Stanford. Associate Editor, Palladium. Advisor, Bismarck Analysis.

Alex Randall PhD

Editorial & Policy
Public policy, defence & security, neuroscience, art. Former UK Government, Cambridge Fellow.

Aneel Chima PhD

Clinical Psychology & Human Systems
Director of Health and Human Performance at Stanford’s Flourishing Project, Co-founder of At The Core.

Yasmine El Baggari

Economic and International Intelligence
Founder and CEO at Voyaj, US State Department “Engage America” Ambassador, and Researcher at Harvard University; Blogger and speaker at international conferences.

John Perkins

Economic Intelligence
Author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; Former Advisor to the World Bank, United Nations, U.S. Treasury Department. Founding member of The Pachamama Alliance; Activist and lecturer.

Arthur Brock

Economics & Systems
Co-founder of Holochain, Software Architect, decentralized social and technological systems.

Mihaela Ulieru PhD

Intelligent Systems & Organic Governance
Founder of the International Industrial Informatics, President of IMPACT Institute for the Digital Economy, Technology Alchemist Innovating at the nexus of AI/IoT/Blockchain.

Alexander Bard

Philosophy
Co-Author of Futurica Trilogy, Music Producer, Co-founder of Stockholm Record.

Jonathan Rowson PhD

Philosophy and Strategy
Co-founder and Director at Perspectiva, Chess Grandmaster, 1999.  Author.

Bill Melton

Technology and Economics
Founder and CEO of CyberCash. Founder of VeriFone, Inc. Former Board Member of the Santa Fe Institute.

Scott Barry Kaufman PhD

Social Psychology
Cognitive Psychologist, Professor at Columbia University, author, Former Scientific Director at The Imagination Institute.

Rob Goldman

Social Media
Former VP of Advertising at Facebook.

John Vervaeke PhD

Cognitive Psychology and Science
Professor of cognitive psychology and science at the University of Toronto.

Isaac Lee

Media
Former Chief Content Officer of Univision and Televisa.

Marc Collins Chen

Future of Cities
Founder, Board Member, and former CEO of Oceanix: Sustainable Floating Cities. Former Minister of Tourism for French Polynesia.

David Fuller

Journalism & Media
Channel 4 News (UK), BBC Newsnight, Guardian, Buzzfeed. Founder, Rebel Wisdom.

Eric Mathur PhD

Biosciences
Senior scientist at the Human Genome Project; leader in molecular biology.

Bill Twist

Environmental Law
Co-Founder of Pachamama, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.

Jenny Stefanotti

Design thinking
Founder, Dent. Public policy, philanthropy, design, technology, behavioral economics, design methodology, and venture capital.

Greg Thomas

Cultural Intelligence
CEO Jazz Leadership Project, Senior Fellow at Institute for Cultural Evolution, author, educator.

Kunal Sood

Impact Entrepreneur
XFellow, CEO of #WeThePlanet, impact entrepreneur, disruptive innovator & curator.

Phoebe Tickell

Decentralization & Democratic Practice
Decentralization, distributed governance, horizontal practices. Collaborative and transparent decision-making and financing.

Andrew Huberman PhD

Neuroscience
Tenured Professor of Neurology at Stanford Medical School; brain dev., brain plasticity, and neural regeneration.

Jeffrey Ladish

Security Research
Cybersecurity and biosecurity; Existential risk expert.

Michel Bauwens

Peer-to-Peer Social Dynamics & Technology
Founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives, and the Peer-to-Peer Cooperative.

Peter Demitry MD

Research & Strategy
Ret. Colonel, Associate Surgeon General of the US Air Force, fighter pilot. Director of NFIM.

Jamie Wheal

Cultural Architecture
Executive Director of the Flow Genome Project and Co-Author of the Global Bestseller Stealing Fire.

Molly Maloof MD

Medicine & Biosciences
Integrative physician and medical researcher in the areas of longevity and human potential.

John Robb

Military Intelligence
Air Force, Special Ops, Military Intelligence. Expertise in counterterrorism and unconventional warfare.

Michael Slaby

Digital Strategy
CTO & CIO Obama campaign. Chief strategist, Harmony Labs. Technology, politics, and impact strategies.

Alex Gladstein

Open Societies
Chief Strategy Officer at Human Rights Foundation. Faculty at Singularity University. Advisor at Blockchain Capital.

Nora Bateson

Complex Systems
Director of research at the Bateson Institute, transcontextual research, in ecology, economy, social change, health, education, and art.

Tyson Yunkaporta PhD

Cultural Research
Lecturer and Author on Indigenous Knowledge, academic, researcher, educator, art critic.

Raj Vaswani

Technology & Data
Innovation, product development, and product management. Data science, IoT, global utilities, information technology.

Tomas Bjorkman

Financial Intelligence
Founder, Investment Banking Partners AB, Chairman, EFG Investment Bank. Member, Club of Rome.

Justin Rosenstein

Technology and Governance
Co-founder of Asana, programmer of software, organizations, cultures, & systems in service of love. Co-Founder, One Project.

John Mattison MD

Medical Strategy
Former Chief Medical Information Officer and Associate CMO at Kaiser Permanente.

Fernanda Ibarra

Collective Intelligence
Economics, currency design, organizational architecture, regenerative culture.

Adam Robinson

Market Intelligence
President at Robinson Global Strategies, Founder at Princeton Review, Chess Master, Top Financial Advisor.

Jim Rutt

Complexity and Technology
Chairman, Santa Fe Institute. Former CEO of Network solutions. Complexity science, politics, economics.

Evelyn Gosnell

Behavioral Economics
Applies behavioral economics insights in product design, with a focus on technology.

Nate Hagens PhD

Natural Resource Economics and Risk
Focuses on the interrelationship between debt-based financial markets and natural resources.

Liv Boeree

Game Theory & Existential Risk
Science Broadcaster, Astrophysics, game theory, existential risk.

Dan Shalmon PhD

National Security Policy
Research experience employing qualitative and quantitative methods for clients in national security, education and public policy.

Sanjiv Sidhu

Business & Supply Chain Intelligence
Cofounder and Chair of 09 Solutions. Supply chain management, artificial intelligence.

Peter Sforza

Geospatial Intelligence Analyst
Director, Center for Geospatial Information Technology. Complex systems, resilience, regenerative systems.

R.P. Eddy

Intelligence & National Security
CEO of Ergo, Fmr Director at the White House National Security Council, Senior Diplomat. Economics, natl. security and geo-politics. Investor. Best selling author.

Tristan Harris

Technology Ethics
Co-Founder at the Center for Humane Technology. Technology ethicist, philosopher, systems thinker.

Deepa Purushothaman

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Author, speaker, and researcher on systemic racism and the advancement of women of color in corporate America.

Ryan Walsh

Directed product strategy across Apple Media Divisions.

Gilbert Morris

Professor, Financial Centre Expert, Economist, Diplomat, Historian, Author.

Rob Schuham

Co-Founder of Undercurrent, COMMON, and Fearless; former Chief Digital Advisor, Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.

Paul Hughes

Branding, Design, Innovation
Strategic Director, Adaptive Cultures design strategy firm.

Bob Gray

Visual Design & Brand
Founder of Red & Grey design and brand agency. Partner at Adaptive cultures design strategy firm.

Julia Pope

Strategic communications & Partnerships
Outreach and campaign specialist, Founder of Hylo, former CBC Radio journalist.

Sammi Fischer

Executive Administrator
Scheduling, administration, and back office.

Mia Grable

Operations
Project management, software, finance, operations.

Thomas Ermacora

Future-Oriented Design
Award-winning urbanist, architect, and futurist, Skoll Fellow, Fellow at Singularity Institute.

Ben Landau-Taylor

Economic Intelligence
Senior Researcher at Bismarck Analysis, focus on industrial economics.

Daniel Schmachtenberger

Project Strategy
Social philosophy, collective intelligence, risk mitigation.

Jess Webb

Social Network Intelligence, Founder, Aizle Analytics, Former All Source Intelligence, JSOC, NSWDG.

Zak Stein EdD

Psychometrics & Education Expert in psychology and philosophy, previous Co-Founder at Lectica Inc.

Samo Burja

Geopolitical Intelligence Founder, Bismarck Analysis, Research Fellow, Long Now Foundation.

Joseph Romero

Culture, News & Journalism Editor-in-chief of Culturekiosque, journalist for Le Monde & Wall Street Journal Europe.

Rachel Howard PhD

Biological Research Microbiology, interdisciplinary biosciences, epistemics.

Advisor and Team Disclaimer

Aligned with the principle of Consilience and the mission of this project, we seek earnest and well-considered perspectives on topics from all sides of an issue and through the lens of different disciplines. Our advisors all support the project’s central aim of better public education and dialogue: that does not mean they

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Helena is a problem-solving institution that addresses urgent global issues through non-profit, for-profit, and legislative projects.



Bismarck is a firm that analyzes institutions, from governments to companies, focusing on the causes of societal decay and flourishing.

Project Commitments

Our Ethical Committments

In an effort to address the erosion of trust in the media and guard against the biasing forces that arise from perverse incentives and human fallibility, we have implemented the following commitments:

Politicians, journalists, and everyday people on all sides intentionally mislead with facts, mischaracterize opposing views, and dehumanize those with whom they disagree. Social media has started to change our basic habits of communication by amplifying and incentivizing bad faith tactics.

Politicians, journalists, and everyday people on all sides intentionally mislead with facts, mischaracterize opposing views, and dehumanize those with whom they disagree. Social media has started to change our basic habits of communication by amplifying and incentivizing bad faith tactics.

Project Transparency

Our Financials

We will be filing and publishing our 2020 990 form in November of 2021 on our website and GuideStar. You can view our federal extension application here.

Our Legal Position

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