Futurist(Mom)

nancy giordano: hi, and welcome back to The Future's Mom podcast.

Today we're tackling a question that I think keeps many parents awake at night.

It's will our children's lives be better than ours?

You know, recent research shows that most parents don't think so.

And it's hard to blame them when the economic playbook that we grew up with seems to be breaking down.

Not just the economic, but the societal playbook in general.

But what could that breakdown, be creating in terms of an opening?

What, what if the economy that our kids inherent is one that no longer relies on endless growth and extraction, we could actually make them happier, healthier, and more fulfilled, not just in materialist ways, but also in community ways.

Right.

Solves multiple layers of needs that we have that often we've ignored and most of our economic.

Design and planning thus far.

Hi, my name is Nancy Ano.

I'm a strategic and exponential futurist that helps organizations and leaders think about the future in new ways through lots of different work that I do in terms of keynote speaking and writing.

But the thing I'm really passionate is ensuring a safe and thriving future for us all.

And I'm so excited to invite one of our Pinker, a person you need to know today into this conversation.

Our guest, Gaia Harrington is here to help us reimagine what's possible.

Gaia is a sustainability researcher, published author and global speaker on replacing the economic goal of growth with human and ecological wellbeing.

She contributes her work in many different places and her, research in 2021 went viral when she revisited an old MIT study from 1972 on the limits of growth and helped us.

Really realize how close we are to the collapse of many of the systems that had been predicted 50 years prior.

So the question is then what do we do with that?

Right?

What does that change in terms of our understanding about how economic systems work and how can we reframe that both for ourselves and for our children moving forward?

I encourage you to watch her Ted talk, to read her book on five insights for avoiding Global Collapse and to have conversations with your children that recognize that there is
something that we sense that is shifting and changing, and it can create a tremendous amount of fear, but hopefully it also opens the door again to lots of new possibilities.

So with that, uh, Gaia Today will help us envision what a wellbeing economy actually means for our kids, and how we can guide them toward a future that works better for everyone.

Welcome to the Futurist Mom, Gaia.

Gaia, thank you so much for jumping in.

I know you have a busy life and many conversations that you have on this topic, but I think that we don't necessarily always get to have it with parents, and I think there's a really unique conversation in their minds about what does the future look like.

Not just in terms of technology or environment, but economically, what can we imagine that our lives, our children's lives could be like?

And so thank you for joining me in this conversation today as an expert.

And you know, I, I talk a lot about the Edelman Trust barometer in my work when I run around giving keynotes about this, because I'm really struck by every year they do.

Tens of thousands of interviews, I wanna say like 20,000 interviews.

So they have very, very fine data and how it differs around the world.

And they ask a lot of different questions around how hopeful people are and how much they trust various entities from government, to NGOs, to businesses, to their own bosses.

And you know, that number continues to track down, like the trust is eroding in so many domains of our lives.

But this year, one of the stats that was most frightening to me is when they asked.

People to believe, you know what percentage believe that their children would have a better future than they did.

Only 36% around the world believe their children will have a better future than they did, which is a really sad and scary number.

And in the United States it's even lower.

It's only 30%.

So let's just jump in to say at this moment, you know, the data is showing that parents don't believe this.

How would you help?

Dimensionalize that that concern that people are feeling right now, where's that coming from?

Gaya Herrington: I think this is, I think the parents in, in both the more optimistic one in areas where it's a little bit higher above that average.

And in the US for example, I think they're, they're just speaking from their lived experience and the lived experience is in the US that despite you know, sometimes some, some nominal economic growth.

Everything is harder.

So meeting our needs has become harder.

They're correct about that perception.

And so if you have lived through that trend, you are wondering, is this going to continue for my kids?

And I

nancy giordano: And I make that.

Gaya Herrington: to our how our economy really works.

We have made our.

Livelihoods dependent on, on continuous growth.

And that's not really possible on a finite planet and especially at

nancy giordano: that

Gaya Herrington: consumption levels.

Where we are at, it's, first of all, it's um, it's, it's not really meeting our needs.

nancy giordano: license.

Gaya Herrington: certain level of material consumption, um, it's it, it really, we have more emotional and spiritual needs.

And those are sometimes this, this overconsumption goes.

Directly against that.

But also it's, it's really not tenable, right?

And we know that.

So it's hard to even enjoy what you have today if you're, if you're not sure it's gonna still be there tomorrow.

And I think a lot of people are feeling that right now.

nancy giordano: I feel.

I, I just am a little curious, 'cause on the one hand, I think that people do definitely have that fear that their children's lives won't be and necessarily as robust or as great as they perceive theirs to be.

But I don't know that they always connect that to overconsumption or to extraction or to some of these economic terms when we start talking about even growth.

Right?

I think that I work with plenty of clients around the world who still very much are pushing for growth.

You see that in almost every economic article.

You see that in every analyst report that you, you know, hear or read in every quarter.

So I think we have these fears, but we don't recognize that it's connected to this concept of.

Of relentless growth.

You know, I was even actually just, um, reading a, a short essay that was an excerpt of the book Abundance from Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein.

I don't know if you ever had had a chance to take a look at it.

Right.

But they're all like pro-growth.

Gaya Herrington: very, very clear,

nancy giordano: Yeah.

The pro, pro-growth.

Gaya Herrington: push.

nancy giordano: Right.

Gaya Herrington: everywhere.

At some point, Hey, are you interested?

I'm like, I already told you.

No.

nancy giordano: Right.

But what I, I think it's, it's interesting that again, we, we say we want this, but we can't seem to, you know, pull ourselves away from this concept of growth.

And I think, you know, I, um, unfortunately make it through the entire TED Talk.

I'm so sorry.

I wanna watch the whole thing.

But I love the way you set it up and you talk about the work of, you know, the introduction of GDP, sort of how do we got here, right?

When did growth become the thing that we're all chasing?

Gaya Herrington: I think that's a good question because it's actually relatively recently, and I think that's important to, to keep in mind, you and I, everybody listening here.

Ha has, we have all grown up with this notion that growth always equals.

Progress.

And even perhaps more importantly, um, because I feel some of us, we do sense that rat race, especially once you get older, you're
like, okay, my income goes up, my house price has gone up, and yet I get, I still have a harder time meeting my, even my physical needs.

So there is something here, which is, which is true, it's called, it's in research, it's called satisfier.

Escalation.

So we get these new innovations and things, but because ultimately of this underlying thing of, of, of imperative, of growth, that becomes the new norm.

So we just constantly need more material stuff to satisfy even our basic need.

So, but that's, that's a separate issue.

And sometimes people do feel that, but what they even fear more, I think, is that they understand that the absence of growth.

Even worse.

We, we all are very fearful of that.

I am fearful of that too.

This is very understandable because our livelihoods have been made dependent on growth and in the absence of it, we have a recession and we, we can't guarantee our livelihoods.

The point is that this is a policy choice.

It's not a natural law.

So that's where it starts.

Do we think that's a good policy choice?

Because if not, it's totally possible to change that for most of human history.

So for most of the time that the homo sapiens genus has been around, we did not organize ourselves around growth.

So even in the.

Relatively more recent history.

So after we, you know, people are like, okay, hunter gatherers, okay.

First of all, hunter gatherers had the life that we typically aspire to, okay?

So we had very strong community.

We had abundant food everywhere, and, and we worked about three to five hours every day.

It could be worse, really.

nancy giordano: I would say lifespan.

Lifespan wasn't so great back then.

Gaia so.

Gaya Herrington: I completely agree and I'm so glad we have modern medicine to, I also am very glad that we have the internet.

Okay.

So I, I'm not saying I, you are absolutely right.

I don't want to romanticize that, but we were not living in poverty.

I think that's important to realize as well, that human beings there.

Um.

In many ways it was relatively much easier to have our needs met.

So people there had less stuff than homeless people, but they, their needs, all of their needs.

So the physical, social and spiritual are all much more satisfied than for homeless people will, of course live on the fringe of society.

Um, so, but as for most of human history, and I completely get your point, I'm like, yes, but some things are really good.

And I, of the technology, I completely agree, but, but it was totally possible to organize around, um, human needs and, and an economy that satisfied them by design.

So, as a default and not.

crossed through growth, and we really only started to change that in in the 1950s.

Before that, we had already started as well.

Um, we, cap capitalism is around 1800, and before that we had feudalism, which was also very unequal.

Um, but still in the history, throughout history, we, we've had different kind of forms of organization.

Most of the time we did organize much more egalitarian than what we see today.

For example, in the US and much more around, Hey, maybe everybody should have access to food.

Maybe we don't let anybody starve here.

And that is a policy choice.

That's a meaning, that's a something all of us decide together whether we find that acceptable or not.

I also understand most people feel disempowered.

So that goes to the governance and it goes back to the trust that we feel we don't have in each other, we don't have in the government.

Um, but ultimately all of this is a social construct.

nancy giordano: Yeah, I mean there's a long economic conversation we could have around this and you and I know some of the same people who are doing this work.

Brianon Isler is one of them we just mentioned.

Douglas Rushkoff has been doing some really interesting work around that and does, you know, does the same kind of comparison to back into medieval times when people, you know, made money at the end of the day and then they just sort.

Like they weren't accumulating.

It wasn't about trying to save and get bigger.

And I think that that whole mindset again about the fact that I need to have more and more and more, you know, I went to, um, the Consumer Electronics Show last January and I have to say it was horrifying.

You walk into that and everything is about more and bigger and, and you know, and more.

Power and, and just owning like every, like, whether it's owning attention or owning stuff or owning market share, everything was about the, the domination of the market.

Um, and none of it was focused on better.

Like CES is a really potent and amazing experience.

You have all of these, you know, very, um.

Energized entrepreneurs and business leaders who wanna come and talk about how the world is gonna take a new shape.

And if it was shaped to better instead of more, it would be a very different experience when you go there, right?

So when you become sensitive to this, it starts to really like, show up in all of these places.

So let's go to the work that you did, um, and con connecting this not just as an economic lesson.

'cause again, we could spend a lot of time going into the role of GDP and um.

The, the fact that it measures, you know, everything

Gaya Herrington: can I,

nancy giordano: good and bad.

Gaya Herrington: one point,

nancy giordano: Sure.

Gaya Herrington: I also use the Edelman Trust Barometer.

Um, it is important to know, I think the surveys they do.

they're valid.

And so I think that the, the results are useful.

Um, I, I also think it's good to keep in mind that it is a, a company.

It's a PR company, and so they do use that stuff also to sell their services.

And they are not selective.

They do go, go to the highest buyer.

So they've used this kind of things also on trust to really polish up.

Um, you know, the, the Prince of Saudi Arabia, for example, after he killed that journalist.

Um, so there's you know, big pharma.

Um, so I think that's important to keep in mind.

It's just a side note, but Yeah.

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, no, I think that any of these things can be co-opted, right?

And then people can turn that, that like the game of Monopoly.

I mean, I think that that's such a fascinating story.

Let's just start there for one moment, right?

The woman who created the game of Monopoly.

Did it as a tool to say, you know, extreme capitalism creates extreme wealth inequality and we need to be really careful that we don't create
a game, you know, IE at economy, in which there's a winner take all, and that they can accumulate so much and leave other people destitute.

Right.

And the game caught on.

It was sort played from parlor to parlor.

I, I don't know exactly how she sort of lost control of it, but at some point somebody came in and goes, wow, this game is really popular.

Let's.

You know, basically copyright it stole the copyright from her, and then all of a sudden the game became the joy of accumulation and owning as much as possible and wiping everybody out.

Like, what a strange thing to have started out with good intentions and get completely co-opted for the other side.

Gaya Herrington: such a good point.

I think that is, I think capitalism is so inherently flawed that I think over time, ever since it was around, people were like, this is gonna break soon because it's so clearly flawed.

And I think one of the key things why it's still going on is because it's so fantastic.

In co-optation, I, I have been co-opted too.

I made a TED talk about how we need to let go of growth and then it was fake videoed into a face cream ad. I just saw myself, this is the best whatever kind of cream out there.

Yeah, yeah.

nancy giordano: No way.

Gaya Herrington: yes.

Just

So we're clear, I've never made a face cream ad, but um, and they did take it down.

It wasn't TikTok and ultimately I kept nagging them and they took it down.

But yeah, it was there.

nancy giordano: That's a whole nother feature that we're heading into where you have to really protect all of this stuff.

And then you go to Denmark.

This goes back to design choices and policy choices, right?

Denmark is protecting the copyright of your name, your voice, your likeness, your video.

There's people can't do that there.

Um, and here we're so focused, so United States.

So having this conversation in the US I think is a, you.

Particularly unique place because we were so focused on that this is the American dream.

You can come here and, you know, on our Golden Shores and it's a meritocracy.

If you can just have a great idea, you know, you can build the business that's gonna take you into the future.

We, we, we, la entrepreneurs, we you know, fawn over any way that we can try and put money into some of these things.

So I think it is uniquely built into our DNA that we.

Want this kind of economy and this kind of life and we don't, you know, we're willing to deal with some of the collateral damage.

Gaya Herrington: in the, in the American narrative.

It's not in our DNA.

We're still have

nancy giordano: Okay.

Fair enough.

Gaya Herrington: So

nancy giordano: Fair enough.

Gaya Herrington: for fairness and arianism.

We are not wired for this kind of inequality.

In fact, I think one of the reasons we allow billionaires to exist, it's because our brains literally cannot understand.

We cannot grasp how much more a billion is than just a million.

nancy giordano: I know.

Gaya Herrington: we wouldn't allow billionaires to exist.

It's, it, it is per definition a policy failure.

But um, yes, you are right.

It is in the American narrative.

Um, ever capitalism has been your only economic model.

Europe and, and all the other continents really except for Australia and New Zealand, maybe.

No.

'cause you had the, you had your indigenous people too, so you, you all, you know, there were these.

These economic systems that existed before.

Um, and that

nancy giordano: And that only.

Gaya Herrington: America too.

Still very much present, um, in indigenous populations here.

Like I, I talk about a post growth or wellbeing economy in my work, but really it's just an indigenous economy.

It's this notion of regeneration, right?

Or ecological economics.

It's all, for me, it's all the same thing.

You have.

Our economy is a subset, is wholly embedded in society.

It is wholly embedded in our ecosystem, and you can't grow infinitely in that.

And when you start to do that, you start to really destroy all the things around you that, that have the most value.

nancy giordano: And to keep looking at it through the short term lens and not through the long term lens.

You know, we talk a lot about the wisdoms that are going to, you know, get us into a future that hopefully, that we want to all live in.

And certainly in indigenous wisdom, natural wisdom, you know, that's embedded in nature.

Um, in feminist and feminist economics.

There's so many places where that wisdom has been suppressed and oppressed, you know, very overtly dominated out of existence.

And now we're hopefully finding a way to pull it back.

But I think this concept is seven generations.

We're thinking about this, not just across, you know, my lifetime or even my children's lifetime, but we're thinking about, you know, what kind of descendants or ancestors.

Gaya Herrington: Yeah.

nancy giordano: so let's, should we, do you wanna dive into the work that you did on limits of Growth?

Do you wanna just touch on that for a moment, just to talk about sort of what has led it?

Do you wanna jump into, um, defining a wellbeing economy for us?

What's

Gaya Herrington: Oh

nancy giordano: the next step?

Gaya Herrington: very quickly go into my Limits to growth work.

It was a bestseller in 1972.

Um, and think it caught on for a while.

Then people realized how much it attached to reducing inequality, even though it was a global model.

So for a while people

nancy giordano: Lemme make up for one second.

It was a study that was a book that was written out of MIT.

It was work that MIT did in 1972.

So that was not your work yet.

You were, I don't even know if you were here yet.

Gaya Herrington: No, I was not there yet.

Um, I,

nancy giordano: So,

Gaya Herrington: know, I,

nancy giordano: so, before you were born, MIT did work.

Gaya Herrington: You're right.

So, yes, so in 1972, a group of MIT scientists created the first of its kind world model.

And it was a, was a first of its kind 'cause it was a, a way to model complexity.

So they did that for the world.

So all global variables.

And they just ran it on.

They ran several scenarios and one of them was on historical averages only.

So no additional assumptions.

And they said, oh, if we keep pursuing growth, like industrial output growth all the time, every year in perpetuity, then we will see a collapse setting in around now.

So a steep drop from a previous peak, it doesn't mean the end of civilization, but it, but it is a drop in wellbeing and all other kinds of things.

So, um, at the time it really caught on.

Initially it was a bestseller.

Politicians were interested also at Congress 'cause they were like, okay, this, because I think they thought it was an environmental work.

Oh yeah, that makes sense.

We have limits the the planet is abundant, yet finite.

So we need to work with that.

And I think at some point they caught on that.

But if, if ultimately what we have is finite, that means in order to eradicate poverty and all those things, we have to divide what we already have more equally.

So it goes, it's directly tied to reducing inequality.

And I think, my personal opinion is that that's why it was squashed.

It was very effectively buried because.

Typically people like this generation, the 20 to 30 year olds, they they have, they have never heard of the limits to growth, even though it was very

nancy giordano: Very.

Gaya Herrington: that's where my research comes in.

I just, a few years back, I did an empirical data update.

So it was like, okay, let's take a few of these scenarios, including the business as usual one, so the one that only had historical averages in it and see what, how these things line up.

So there were variables in there like population, industrial output those kind of things.

Pollution, I approximated that with carbon emissions.

And, um, it was very closely aligned most closely aligned actually to the business as usual scenario.

So that means we're heading towards the direction of, of a collapse.

I wrote a book, five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse.

At the time, we, we did not

nancy giordano: Did not.

Gaya Herrington: change the direction and so I do think collapse at this point is unavoidable.

I think we're already in it.

I think what lots of us are feeling, and that's also back to why so many people don't feel like the future is gonna be better.

because they feel that the system is breaking and they may not know, they might not tie it to the growth pursuit.

They might not agree.

We know we don't agree on these solutions or the, the ways forward, we do have a very broadly shared sense that this is not working and it cannot last.

And I, I agree with it.

I think we're all feeling the rawness of that, that system breaking.

nancy giordano: We're certainly seeing that in our, you know, the political choices that people are making right now.

Not necessarily by party, but just voting from a place of economic fear and seeing costs skyrocket at this moment, and then seeing this extraordinary income inequality.

You know, the fact that we actually have a potential tech executive that could potentially have a pay package of a trillion dollars, like.

Impossible.

You talked about not being able to understand the difference between million and billion, nevermind being able to understand billion to trillion.

You know, like just like, doesn't make any sense in any way, shape or form.

But it's because of a system that was built that basically incentivized that if you're able to, you know, create this much in sales growth, then you should be getting, you know, compensated equivalently for whatever that percentage is.

And we.

Distort what that looks like for people.

So they, again, growth in the fact that I get to have more interesting products and services doesn't always get connected to the fact that the CEO now makes, you know, multiple times higher than they ever made before.

So we've, the, the game has just become more and more concentrated and more and more distorted.

Gaya Herrington: Yes.

I also think these are just crumbs.

These are crumbs.

We keep growing a pie at the expense of ultimately what goes into the pie.

So the earth, that's why we have decertification and all the biodiversity laws and water

nancy giordano: right.

Gaya Herrington: Um, but also what the, the larger share of that additional pie is not going even to the middle class or the upper middle class.

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Gaya Herrington: That's

nancy giordano: Right.

Gaya Herrington: our livelihoods still feel precarious.

That's why.

Millionaire,

nancy giordano: Sure.

Gaya Herrington: multimillionaires still feel like, yeah, kind of.

I guess I'm okay, but like there's still fragility even for them.

nancy giordano: Yeah, for, for sure.

. Well, let's, um, shift gears and talk about now what is a wellbeing economy like?

Is the, you know, we can talk so much about the, the collapse and the fear around that and the real, when you talk about collapse, do you see it more in the environmental side or
also as we just said here again about the economic side of people feeling like they can't have their own needs met, regardless of, you know, where they are in their income spectrum.

Like, how are they feeling?

Collapse?

How are we feeling?

Collapse as you describe it.

Gaya Herrington: Yeah.

So yeah, so the, the wellbeing economy is the term I use, but it really, there's so many terms out there right now.

You can call it post growth.

You can call it feminist economy, I or indigenous regenerative.

They all, A donut, of course, is another one.

So they, and they really, all, they, they differ a little bit on the details, but they're all very clearly pointing in the right direction, which is, we, we can't, we have to let go of growth as the ultimate pursuit.

Nobody is anti-growth.

of course not, but um.

Sometimes growth can really improve wellbeing and then we should do it.

Um, but if it doesn't, we should not.

And so given that our wellbeing inherently depends not just on our material consumption, but also on our connections, which means to others, but also to nature.

Because we are nature.

it, once you get into that, you, you can see that growth a lot of times is, is just only detracting from it.

So there was a, an economist, um, former senior economist at the World Bank, Herman Daley for example, who coined ecological economics, who, who said exactly this.

And he devised an alternative to the GDP called Genuine Progress indicator.

So if you look at that one, and it still takes income there on material welfare, of course, that those are factors as well, but.

There are other things that, like a sense of, let's say there's a pollution, you have pollution in your community that then is detracts, that's subtracted from it.

Um, loss of a sense of trust.

Again, the, the, the 8 0 1 trust barometer lack of sense of social

nancy giordano: Social

Gaya Herrington: sense of

nancy giordano: sex.

Gaya Herrington: sense of purpose.

These are all spiritual and emotional needs that we have.

If we

nancy giordano: It

Gaya Herrington: that, um, that also,

nancy giordano: also.

Gaya Herrington: from it.

And so if you take that, you see that the genuine progress indicator peaked around the seventies and at that point it slowly started to go down.

So again, if you take that arguably better measure for our wellbeing, you, it's, it's not that surprising that people start to have less and less trust in in the future as well.

nancy giordano: Or again, again that sense that they think that things are not, think, not, not, not thinking, but are experiencing the, the collapse as you describe it.

Gaya Herrington: trend in their

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Gaya Herrington: So

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Gaya Herrington: it's, it's probably rational to think that that will, might persist for your children.

Yeah.

nancy giordano: Um, all right, so now if we imagine what a wellbeing economy looks like.

So we want to give our children now we've spent, you know, 20 minutes talking about all the things that are falling apart and hopefully trying to get people to pay attention.

You know, I once went to a luncheon and had five white male economists say that the two most important things were constant GDP growth and job creation.

Both of which are outdated metrics in a very, very significant way.

And we can talk more about that.

But if we wanted to flip it and say, okay, let's look at it from a, what does a genuine progress indicator allow for?

Like what would a wellbeing or regenerative or a healthier economic system look like in real life?

Like, yes, all of our needs would be in met.

Yes, everyone would have quality housing.

The income divide or the wealth divide would be decreased.

Everyone would have access to, you know, quality healthcare, et cetera.

But it feels so far fetched to imagine from here to there.

Gaya Herrington: Yeah.

All right, so let me talk about that.

And I also wanna make clear that I think those white male economists were neoclassical economists.

They always, they, they don't mention that as if they represent the only form of an economist.

This is not true.

There are many schools of economics and neoclassical is one and they haven't done so well if you ask me.

So their theories have hardly lined up with what empirical data out there.

So just to be clear, so I'm a

nancy giordano: Well, and by the way, and that's, I, I thank you for making that point, and when you actually dig even more deeply into it, there was an amazing article once
that I read, read, um, a lot of the theories or the, um, you know, the concepts that underpin this were also just sort of made by guessing, you know, not with real data.

So it's not even like that was built on a very solid foundation that was based on a lot of conjecture,

Gaya Herrington: a lot of conjecture about who we are as human beings.

So this goes back to the ultimate narrative, and it always comes back to what you mentioned already.

R and ISO's work on partnership versus domination.

Um, so this homo economics, be clear, this I, my first, so my second master's was in sustainability.

The first one is an econometric.

So I'm actually very well versed in the whole neoclassical narrative.

Okay?

I know all these.

These very intimidating formulas.

If you're not good at math, I'm pretty good at math, so I'm not that easily intimidated.

I'm like, I know what hetero spasticity means, but they

nancy giordano: Even spell it.

Gaya Herrington: so, but they are very intimidating otherwise, and I personally think that's why they did it because the homo economic, those formulas only work when you assume human nature is like a maximizer.

So a never satisfied.

Man who's always calculating, apparently has all the information all the time, um, has fixed preferences, not influenced by social media and, you know, and discounts impacts on others including, you know, family and et cetera.

He only cares about himself, so he's incredibly selfish.

That's the Homo Economicus, a selfish maximizer.

And that we have to assume that human nature, otherwise those formulas don't work anymore.

So there's always market equilibrium because we have these fixed preferences and everybody has the information all the time.

it's, you know what I mean?

So it's completely

nancy giordano: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally.

Gaya Herrington: themselves in that.

Um,

nancy giordano: Right.

Gaya Herrington: a few.

I think I, I think it's, you could call that person a sociopath and as few percentage of people are born sociopaths, but the vast, vast majority of people are not like that at all.

So, but I think the reason they kept it anyway is because you st you, you nip any kind of criticism in the butt.

Because if you make it look like it's an exact science, you don't wanna argue with it.

You wanna argue with me about gravity?

No.

You're any, you're full if you do that, but it's not an exact science, it's a social construct.

That's why I keep going back to that.

So, sorry.

nancy giordano: Well, and, and well, no, and to your point now, but also then, and you know, again, a very gendered or a very, you know, narrow leave system about how to, your point about humanity is structured and

Gaya Herrington: Smith, how he wrote his book by

nancy giordano: Right?

Gaya Herrington: to his mom doing

nancy giordano: Yes.

Gaya Herrington: work for him?

He wouldn't have been able to write that book.

And I, I always, that really pisses me

nancy giordano: Yeah, let's like, but for people who don't know this as well, right, because I did this story is actually really, and I think
that was the point I was gonna try and make before that I forgot about, about this unpaid care work and what a big, big portion of that.

We talk a lot about the natural extraction from nature, but we also need to talk about the unpaid care work that is propping up the entire economy.

And so.

Gaya Herrington: and women, especially female bodies.

Yes.

nancy giordano: A hundred percent.

Um, but you go back to again, the story of Adam Smith, who's considered the, you know, um, the architect of the modern capitalist, you know framing, who, to your point, had his mother take care of him.

And then when he got another appointment at another university, she moved with him and continued to cook his food and do his laundry and take care of all of his unmet needs.

And he completely ignored any of that contribution to his success, right?

So.

Gaya Herrington: like, what a blind spot that is.

So

nancy giordano: I mean,

Gaya Herrington: he saw the invisible hand of the market, which exists.

The market is a very powerful thing, but all the, I, I would call it the invisible hands that do our care work, the cleaning, the cooking, caring when you're sick, all that every day.

That is the core of the economy.

This society would fall apart within a week if we all stopped doing that.

Right.

nancy giordano: yeah.

Gaya Herrington: if, if all marketeers stopped working, think we'd be fine.

you know, oh, oh, we have no ads telling us that we're never good enough.

Oh, boo.

But, but like.

it would be absolute chaos.

The people collecting our waste, like all that care work that is either not paid or vastly underpaid, society would fall apart.

It would be complete chaos, and it's hardly accounted for by neoclassical economists.

nancy giordano: Fair enough.

Okay.

So now we go back to a different form of economics or different, you know framing or telling of the possibility of economics in which everyone, again has their needs met.

And we have distributed things in a way that feels a great deal, more equitable and still hopefully have the drive for innovation and for creation and for doing things.

I think in a, um, you know, interesting and, and positive way.

So it doesn't become stagnant.

I mean, I guess these words, like we assume that if we're not growing or we're not innovating, we're not creating, that we become stagnant.

And you would argue with me about that.

So

Gaya Herrington: yes, please.

nancy giordano: at your face.

Gaya Herrington: me?

nancy giordano: Go.

Go baby.

Go.

Gaya Herrington: yeah.

You are really good at making me very emotional to say you're a very good podcaster.

I think.

Um, so this is, I mean, this is, listen, I don't blame you.

This is one of the many false, I think stories we've been told, right?

We need growth for innovation.

I don't, do you know what innovation is?

Because you look at what really drives real innovations, not like a slightly different USB port, so you have to buy a whole new thing, but like real innovation that typically comes from people being curious and playful.

Real discoveries comes from people going,

what, what, what have we tried that?

Do you wanna try that?

So I, this is of course the stories we've all been told.

I think they're falsehoods, which is progress is always we need.

Growth for innovation, right?

That's, that's what we've been told.

But if you look at how innovation and discoveries are really made, um, it's typically are typically made for people, first of all, have bandwidth.

So they're not completely overworked and stressed about all meeting their kids' needs paying rent, et cetera, which I, I would argue the more majority of parents are, um, today in the us.

So.

nancy giordano: So.

Gaya Herrington: people having some bandwidth.

It's people connecting together.

Most discoveries are done.

Innovation is made in groups.

It's not this one Leonardo da Vinci.

Typically it's, it's people working together.

So it's playful, curious people, which we are, by the way.

We are very playful and curious people.

Once our basic needs are met, going, huh?

What if we tried that?

Do you think That's funny?

You know, let's, you wanna, you wanna see what happens if we do this?

That's how discoveries are made.

Okay.

So in a wellbeing, I think we're a lot more innovative than today.

What we

nancy giordano: I love that.

Gaya Herrington: is just, just really market tricks to buy you new stuff.

It's the plant obsolescence and all those things.

Like they changed the USB ports and now you have to buy everything new.

Like, that's not really innovation.

so, and also, um, I think a lot of thing brains that could really contribute to this innovation are completely underused because they're, they, they didn't win the birth lottery.

So they're, they're born in some slum in Brazil.

Um, and also on top of that, they're female.

So they will, we will never learn what she could innovate for us.

So this, getting everybody above that social foundation and also not working them to their absolute max will completely skyrocket, skyrocket real innovation, in my opinion, for all those reasons I just mentioned.

So the, the physical one, right?

We were not exhausted.

The, the social one where we, we tap into everybody's potential because there's less inequality, we're also much better in cooperating to begin with.

And then the third one is the spiritual one.

have a real need to feel like their jobs are not tricks from money.

And most of us, this is also clear very much from surveys, is we feel disengaged at work.

We, we feel that that's what we're doing.

We feel like what we do on a daily basis with most of our waking hours has no real value to the world that's mental suffering.

We shouldn't underestimate that.

That's why we burn out.

Because we, we put a lot of effort in something and we can't actually do that if we feel like we're really helping our community.

We're bettering the lives of our family, of we, we, or, or of all the other animals that are our brothers and sisters.

But we don't feel that, most of us don't feel that.

And so that's why we burn out.

So

nancy giordano: Yeah, I know.

Gaya Herrington: thing.

Once we are energized by that sense of purpose, um, we again, that's really gonna turbocharge There are, are an enormous human innovation capabilities.

Of course we do have that.

nancy giordano: All right, so now we're gonna go back to another fork in the road and you can decide which way you wanna talk about this.

'cause one is much more, again economic, I guess theory.

When we talk about, um, if we have so much productivity, we're gonna have dark factories, we're gonna have autonomous cars, we're gonna have all this stuff.

What would the economic structures look like to be able to have more equitable distribution of whatever productivity is created during that so that we would be able to have our needs met?

I mean, that's one story.

Story from a techno utopian.

Perspective, right?

That the technology's gonna right free up all kinds of ability for us to have our needs met.

Energy costs go down, housing costs are cheaper because it's able to 3D print a house, whatever.

That's one way of looking at an economy in the future is that the cost will come down somehow.

It will be magically distributed.

I know.

Well, I was.

Gaya Herrington: promise for a while, right?

So that's the thing.

A little bit like we've been, we've been promised that growth is gonna lift everybody out of poverty.

We're the richest country in the history of the world.

I mean, we've had growth very much so in the earlier in a couple of decades ago.

Would, at least in the hi, in the richest country in the world, wouldn't it have happened by now?

At least, like, you know what I

nancy giordano: Well, I.

Gaya Herrington: the same like with this, it, it's like this.

nancy giordano: I sit around with a lot.

Sorry, I'm interrupted because we're running outta time, but I just wanna cover all these things, but just to say that, you know, I hang out with
a lot of people in the financial industry and when we have this conversation around capitalism, I'm like, you know, I'm actually pro capitalism.

If it was true cost accounting, there's no true cost accounting in any of these things.

It is a very, very narrow set of, you know, again, things that we just talked about with on pa. I mean, um, invisible care work and extractions from the environment that are never factored into the actual cost of goods.

And if we did, then we would pay differently for these things, and then we would actually have a much more robust Brianne Isler, who we mentioned
earlier, which is amazing economic theorist and teacher and prolific author will talk about the fact that, you know, capitalism's great.

We should give it a try sometime.

You know, we haven't actually done it.

Um, so that's one conversation.

But the second conversation then is, okay, now how will we raise our kids?

Like you have two young children, right?

When you think about the future and the ways that you're teaching them about how the world works, you know, we used to do lemonade
stands and teach people how to become a, you know, an entrepreneur and be able to, you know, have a lot of profit at the end of the day.

Like, how are you you know, framing the world for your children as you imagine where they're headed.

Gaya Herrington: no, I mean, that's a good point.

Um, I think the, the future we're heading into is gonna be very tumultuous.

So, for example, it used to be a very good idea to tell them, Hey, um, choose your.

Your university carefully and your subject, and because you know that's gonna put you on a track.

I don't think there's gonna be tracks anymore in a collapse.

It's gonna, it's all very fluid.

So, um, I think

nancy giordano: I think.

Gaya Herrington: things to teach your children is resilience in that sense.

Being able to cope with disappointment, that was always good to teach.

Right?

Um, but I, I really think it's more important than ever and to understand, to not give up.

Too, too soon.

Um, I do also really wanna teach them the importance of that narratives, new narratives aligned, so the partnership narrative aligned way of thinking.

Um,

nancy giordano: Let's back up for a second.

For people who have, we have not interviewed, Rhianne are not as, um, familiar with her work and the difference between a partnership system and a domination system.

She really set up this framing that so much of what we see is about one.

Class taking over for the other, whether it's, you know, capitalism or socialism.

It's whoever's on top can take from the, whoever's on the bottom.

And she went back and did research on prehistoric societies that showed that actually we shared, as you would call the chalice back in the day, both across gender and across, you know, diversity inside the community.

That to your point, again, all needs were met in a, what she will describe as a partnership system.

So just back to what you were saying, but.

Gaya Herrington: And I, I think that also ties to your, your techno optimist view.

If you have the, that narrative of the domination side, which is we are the selfish beings and so we have to have very strict hierarchies.

Otherwise, it's just gonna be chaos.

'cause we are, we were just gonna fight each other.

nancy giordano: Take all.

Yeah.

Gaya Herrington: driver is competition.

And then you look at like Darwinism and stuff and it's like, well, we didn't say stronger.

We said fittest.

And what is fittest?

Oh, it turns out actually why we were so able, like there's this book called Survival of the Kindness, and it's really our ability to empathize with other human beings, but even other animals in general that has made us so success.

Why?

Because look, look at us.

We're not impressive at all.

Really?

Yes, we have slightly, brains, but elephants have bigger brains.

So, you know, and they can't outthink us.

They're very smart, but they can't outthink us.

They're clearly not at the top.

Um, and I think, um, that is really what is the, what biologists are very clear about is that we are able to collaborate much better.

Why are we able, able to, to collaborate better than.

Any other animal because we're storytelling animals.

So these stories that we tell about ourselves are the most important ones.

And Rihanna Eisler, I, sorry, I thought you would surely have introduced her 'cause she is so phenomenal.

Um,

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Gaya Herrington: Eisler looked back at like the, the two, the archetypes of those on, on either side of the spectrum of the narratives that humans have told one another throughout history.

It's a spectrum.

Obviously there's not one like Domination Society and, and there's a partnership one, but the domination is one.

Like I told you, it's marked by inequality.

So it's so differences between humans are not, are qualifying.

We, we like men and women are different.

Yes.

But there, that doesn't mean one is superior to the other in domination high societies, they are.

Um, colors race.

So race is, there's, there's, there's that, there's tribalism, right?

There's, there's religion over religion.

Sexual, not, not very open about homosexuality, all those things.

They always go hand in hand.

Um, so that society.

Always undervalued care, care, work, and care for the environment.

And so they are always inherently unsustainable.

This is also why they always had some form of growth.

So before we invented economic models that had to grow in perpetuity, we had you always had to grow your land.

We had right the, the Roman

nancy giordano: Okay.

Gaya Herrington: So we know all those we know the most about those.

Because they've dominated throughout history.

They've not dominated throughout history.

They've dominated in the history books.

History books are literally not just his story, but the story of that one king.

They are the ones who paid, describes to write up their stories from.

So that's actually why, if you wanna learn about history, you're probably better off looking at the work of archeologists and or, you know as realer would, would tell anybody.

So if you look at that work.

So her latest book, I think she wrote together with an arch archeologist for that reason.

And she said actually, so the partnership, oh, sorry.

Yes.

Yeah.

so, um, so in the, in partnerships that that model has actually been way more prevalent in history, and it's also inherently sustainable.

So it's much more egalitarian.

We do have differences.

They are acknowledged, they're not qualifying.

We also have leaders, but they're not like at the top and disconnected from the people.

They're just like.

help decision making to make it easier to facilitate it, but there's not like really a lot of power differential in it.

There people are just like, yeah,

nancy giordano: Just like, yeah, look

Gaya Herrington: until you

nancy giordano: dirty.

Gaya Herrington: So it's very different.

Um, but that's a very

nancy giordano: That's a very

Gaya Herrington: way of organizing.

It's also how humans have organized most throughout history.

So if we're talking about a wellbeing economy.

That's basically that.

nancy giordano: slow.

Gaya Herrington: much less inequality and everybody's working towards some form of wellbeing.

So, um, communities, civilians government, but also businesses.

So you have these wellbeing businesses that are still profit baking but not profit maximizing that we see today.

So I also wanna make clear that.

A wellbeing economy is not like where we're still hunter-gatherers.

We still have businesses and

nancy giordano: Business

Gaya Herrington: and all those things.

Um, I, we, I, I think we have a lot of the same technology, but the technology is not used for new ways of extracting.

It's, it's directly used to give us wellbeing.

This is not currently the case.

So to the

nancy giordano: Right.

Gaya Herrington: you know, I've heard those stories where like, oh, in the future economy you will own nothing.

You will be happy.

Yeah.

Except you won't be right, because it's just a new form of capitalism.

It's those who own.

And then the rest of us, we have nothing left to sell but our labor.

Um, and, and that would not be the case in the wellbeing economy.

You would have, you would still have, for example, solar panels.

Enormously useful technology.

And you also, ai actually one of the super useful applications of that, because solar renewable energy from solar and wind is, it's
intermittent, but you can, across a system, if you connect all the households and the businesses, you can really optimize the, the energy flows.

'cause there, there's different use in different parts of it, right?

Ai, super, super good for that.

So that's where you would

nancy giordano: I'll say, yeah.

And I'll just interrupt and say, I do think that the constructs around, like who owns like ownership will be, I, I, you know, it is to your point of construct that will be reexamined or examined much more closely as we move forward.

I mentioned that I have some land in Costa Rica that I've bought with four other women that is in a land stewardship trust.

It's not built to be able to optimize and extract, you know, whatever the profitability of the land is.

Value of it improves, which we think it will be, because people want to be in safe areas around fresh water, right?

So you could argue we're gonna hold onto it till they collapse, and then we're gonna be able to make our money when we sell it back to the, you know, original TCOs and we're not doing it that way.

So I think people are thinking about constructs around ownership or around what we have and don't have, and in much more inventive ways.

And that'll be a lot of the conversation that we have moving forward.

Which goes back to, again, in the time that we have remaining.

When you talk to your children about the kind of future that they will inherit, like I've said to my children right now, we have a big, huge family home.

I'm like, you know, in the future people aren't gonna have big, huge family homes like this.

It's gonna be seen as, um, not grotesque, but just as, um, super wasteful for one family to have this much square footage, to have this much water that we use to water and lawns to, you know, I'm trying to prepare them for the wreck that it's going to look.

Different, maybe not in their lifetimes, but certainly for their children's lifetimes in the ways, the choices that we're gonna make about resources and how we expend them and who gets them.

So like trying to set up an expectation that the future will look different than it currently has from this really extractive point of view.

How do you do it with your kids or with oth other people that your students that you,

Gaya Herrington: Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my kids are two and four, so, um, there's only so much we're not getting into ownership yet, although you already see it.

Right?

There's very

nancy giordano: yeah.

Gaya Herrington: mine.

Um, so I think it's a good point.

We absolutely have to go to community ownership of things.

That's also, when you see that it's.

Done.

Totally sustainable.

So the, the tragedy of the commons doesn't happen if ownership is the same as the people will also use it.

So that separation will be gone in the future.

And I wanna, I definitely teach them to, able to you know, the,

nancy giordano: You know,

Gaya Herrington: of sharing.

I think, um, there and also, but also that things are to be used.

Um, I don't know if you know the derogative term Indian gift, but when the settlers came here, there was this, you know,

nancy giordano: you know.

Gaya Herrington: the Indians would give them a gift or the Native Americans and, and then later they would ask it back when they saw it was just sitting there.

And they were like, oh, gifts are not real.

No, it's not that.

It's that they thought you could use it and now they see you don't.

And also they see somebody else who could use it.

So, and I think that.

nancy giordano: Oh, that's so interesting.

I never realized that that was the history of that term.

Gaya Herrington: like that the new concept of ownership is something that I wanna instill in them.

Like there's a real difference between inanimate things that you can own and they, they're not that important.

It's about the pleasure that people get from it when they

nancy giordano: Right,

Gaya Herrington: it.

Does

nancy giordano: right, right.

But also, but but then also to your point, not to own it, to hoard it or to,

Gaya Herrington: Exactly.

nancy giordano: to stash it, but to put it into use in whatever way.

Yeah.

And actually money, the whole concept of money, right.

When you really talk about the flow of money versus the hoarding of money, it's a whole nother conversation that we could have about what that looks like in the future.

So when I, um.

Go into enterprise organizations, and we've had some of this conversation before about how you just build even like a partnership thinking into a team, right?

They'd be like, oh, well we love to play competitive games, right?

And every time we did any kind of breakout session, it'd always be like, team A versus team B versus team C.

And I'm like, wait, what if we did this differently?

Right?

And in just a moment, be able to explain that if team A built something that Team B could use, that then Team C could also benefit from.

Right?

That actually the end game would be better.

Like the, the, the, the solution would be.

Would be different, like just even patterning inside a breakout session.

How you do this in a collaborative way and in a way in which we build on each other's work as opposed to in a competitive way.

Right.

So are there ways that we can imagine in schools or as we're talking with children about way to pattern for them to start to recognize these things so we don't fall?

I think that we, we talked about blind spots, you know, off camera before we jumped on, but it's really easy to say these things on the top level and then still subvert them.

In day-to-day practice because we just don't recognize that we're doing it.

Like, we don't realize that the, this is the, the consciousness that we're swimming in.

So I'm just wondering if we can leave parents with some way of thinking about how to talk about this.

One of, you know, R'S concepts is about power with, or power too versus power over.

So really just understanding when we even talk about power, right?

What does it mean?

You know, even not to give people permission to, but just that they have permission to, everyone has permission to do something.

What does that look like?

And you know, my kids were in all kinds of activities where they had to collaborate and had to learn how to share power, how to share decision making, how to share, you know, input.

Like these are all, I think, you know, foundational concepts to the wellbeing economy that then would spring from that kind of thinking on a long-term basis.

No.

Gaya Herrington: Yeah.

And I think the younger gen, this also goes to influence, right?

You don't, you can't tell

nancy giordano: Kids house

Gaya Herrington: but our influence can be there if we have credibility.

Um, and that can

nancy giordano: that could also.

Gaya Herrington: as we know.

But I think that is a really important point.

So I. This is not new.

I think to many parents, they've probably read a little bit about attachment theory, um, and that you're not supposed to hit your children.

But this is an important point that, um, if you, if you hit your children.

Or, and use

nancy giordano: And

Gaya Herrington: of coercion.

Even you teach

nancy giordano: teach them

Gaya Herrington: in order to get

nancy giordano: to get something done.

Gaya Herrington: force them

nancy giordano: Right.

Right.

Gaya Herrington: it, it, that's,

nancy giordano: that's, that is,

Gaya Herrington: So it's just

nancy giordano: it's just,

Gaya Herrington: realize that you as a parent then instill in them that this is

nancy giordano: this is,

Gaya Herrington: works, and so they will be more likely in the future.

That's just what

nancy giordano: it's just.

Gaya Herrington: to obey authoritarian.

Leaders in, in politics or just at work to to accept toxic work environments.

So that

nancy giordano: So that is.

Gaya Herrington: I know as a parent of, I have a, I have a two and 4-year-old, so I know how hard that is.

Okay.

And I al I do, I try, I think I try to be most of the time I'm successful in being patient and sometimes I do raise my voice.

That's aggression too.

So you, you wanna minimize that as much as possible.

I know we're all fallible parents and we're human beings, but it is important to realize this is how you instill that domination versus partnership where

nancy giordano: Well, you know, I'm gonna,

Gaya Herrington: Yeah.

Where you,

nancy giordano: sorry.

Gaya Herrington: think this important point where you don't let them conflate care with aggression and violence.

nancy giordano: Yeah, right.

Gaya Herrington: domination hierarchies always used to form a early childhood un conflate care and love with violence.

nancy giordano: Right, right, right, right.

And then you end up with this like, you know, conversation around gentle parenting and then this sort of swing back.

There was another episode that we did I'll send you the link to it.

It is about rye resources for infant educators.

It's a parenting or child rearing philosophy that is so aligned with all of this thinking.

And it literally starts from the moment that you pick up your baby, right?

And you make eye contact with them.

You put your hands on them, you say, I'm gonna pick you up now, and you treat them as a. Respected sentient person who has at least, you know, some, even if you're not asking the baby's permission to say, may I pick you up now?

Right?

Because you're gonna pick 'em up and go do something.

But you're at least explaining to them what it is that you're gonna do at that moment and including them in the in the decision.

And so these are like.

All of these things, right?

When we talk about how we do child growing from the very beginning, how we take care of ourselves so we understand our own shadow selves, so we understand why we
got triggered by that, and why we sh you know, reacted the way that we did which was a big, long lesson for me as a young mom, is like, I wanted to always be the.

Good mom and the right mom.

And when things challenge that, right, that's when the, you know, less patient and less, um, benevolent parent comes through, which is my work, not their work to do.

You know, when we think about the future of education and that we do want kids to be an environment where they can be that playful innovator that you described so much earlier, I love
that way of thinking about innovation is through play and through experimentation and through wonder as opposed through, you know, some mechanism of being able to win or take all.

Of the, the game and somehow, but, you know, again, dominate everyone around it.

I think there are a lot of these.

So maybe the, the real value of this conversation today, Gaia, is just to help parents open their own minds to thinking about the, the, the mythologies that we've been.

You know, enrolled in and question them and ask really if that is true, that we think that people are all super greedy and controlling and
think that the only way to have a successful society if it somehow end up on top or if we can really reframe that and question a lot of things.

I mean, there's another book that I wanna write called re-Patterning the Future, which is so much about questioning every one of these
historical things that we thought were truths about who we are and about how economies thrive and look at them through a much broader.

Much more diverse lens,

Gaya Herrington: Yes.

I, I think

nancy giordano: respectful lens.

Gaya Herrington: I think that's very true, where, you know, and, and we, we all know ultimately that to be a good parent is to just be gentle with yourself first.

And I, you know, and that's also starts with, what I do still on a daily basis.

Is this enforcing the domination or the partnership narrative?

Because we have all of those

nancy giordano: I love it.

Gaya Herrington: basis.

We're bombarded by both.

Right?

And it's very confusing.

So I think that could help when we have more awareness and we can choose.

And when we have less of that, um, that, that conflict, maybe we are also could, we can just, I mean ultimately kids do what they follow your example.

They do what you do, they don't do what you say.

So.

nancy giordano: Right.

Right, right, right.

But I think being, but even then, I think that we say, oh, well, gosh, I still fell into this old way of doing things.

I want to think about it differently.

I mean, I will say you're gonna have so many hours of conversation with your children over the course of the next 18 years, um, and beyond.

But I think that those conversations do start very early on, and I think children do pick up that language.

They do think about it the way that you think about it in I think these are really, really important conversations.

And just our own way of speaking to have around our children from the very beginning because I think that there is an amazing opportunity to re-pattern all of this.

There's a line from your TED Talk that we'll conclude with that I think was so great that says, what we do in the next few years will determine our wellbeing for the next century.

Our next half century.

Um, I think that we are in this moment of inflection where we get to make really different decisions around these things.

And I think, um, the fear that we have around losing whatever we think is happening as we start to see things collapse, can be turned and transmuted into curiosity about how has this worked better?

we don't wanna leave people feeling that the collapse is the only story, right?

The collapse is inevitable.

It's not gonna look really awful.

And then we just have to be as brave as possible to get through it, right?

But I think recognizing that there are even like, you know, dual emotions that we hold at the same time as we're going through this change,

Gaya Herrington: I think that's really it.

So the duality of it, I think that's what's so difficult about this moment.

We see things breaking.

Um, we see also people just fleeing into some kind, some kind of utopia, right?

I, we see people suffering.

Children are, don't have access to Snap.

And also Kim Kardashian came out with some new stuff and, you know what I mean?

It's, it's very, it's all of, all of it is there.

People are getting $10 billion packages, so.

I, I think what, this is actually very common in collapse.

So I do

nancy giordano: Like Tuesday

Gaya Herrington: collapse in and of itself is inevitable By now it's just pure physics, but that doesn't mean the end of

nancy giordano: we

Gaya Herrington: and it certainly doesn't render mood now, oh, what do we do next?

Do I just brace for impact and that's it?

No, you, and you know, it's, it goes much further than just telling your children, teaching them to be resilient because.

What you see in collapse, and historians have looked at this much better than I have.

I just read their research.

Um, so you, you see several, several people have looked at that.

One that's prominent recently is Luke Kemp Cambridge Scholar, and he said, well, it's interesting because it, it does come with a lot of destruction.

So all of these things you said, and then it also opens up new.

Possibilities, especially for the majority of the population.

So it's mostly a collapse of existing power structures.

And so really what you do when it comes to leadership, this is also for the parents themselves, is you have this, a lot of systems thinkers or talking about this notion of, have hospice have midwife.

So that's the duality that we talked about.

'cause the old system is dying and dying.

Any, any nurse who does that, any hospice knows it's a painful and ugly process a lot of the times.

And

nancy giordano: Well, it creates grief, right?

There's a sense of mourning that there is something that was familiar that is going away.

Yeah.

Gaya Herrington: these last death throws.

So there's a lot happening there.

Um, and so that's really a process and the hospice then tries to make it as easy as possible, but it's never really easy.

And the same goes for mid wifeing.

There's no such thing at all.

Parents know there's no such thing as an easy birth.

so.

But the end result is something that you wanted.

Um, and it would just, I, I, I've been pregnant twice.

I know that, that, oh, if there was just any way we could do that, but it's not, C-section doesn't make it easier, right?

It, there's no such thing as an easy birth.

So it's.

You know, you, you want the end result and there is no way around it.

And the, the midwife at least tries to help that transition, but it, it's not easier.

So that's the, the, the other part is new system that wants to emerge.

That is part of it as well.

So you recognize, so what are these new things?

What are

nancy giordano: Father

Gaya Herrington: that we

nancy giordano: bed

Gaya Herrington: we can help?

Come to realization in the cracks

nancy giordano: crack.

Gaya Herrington: old system that is opening up, it's because it's breaking apart.

And so it's called inters ality.

So that's really what we do.

So what's happening there in the cracks is people, communities, setting up their own provisioning systems.

Again, not because government and business are completely gonna pull out of there.

they are weakening.

I think that's the snap, the food.

So that's what is being set up, the provisioning systems, people's energy, people's food, and they're doing it in a way that's community owned and and it's shared in the community and it's tailored towards the local needs and the local ecosystem.

So community solar.

Regenerative agriculture projects, um, financing within the community.

So community banks, um, those are all things that your child could do too.

If they wanna go into

nancy giordano: Gone

Gaya Herrington: that's fine, but

nancy giordano: here,

Gaya Herrington: you know, cooperative

nancy giordano: right.

Gaya Herrington: banks,

nancy giordano: Right.

Gaya Herrington: food.

You wanna go in food.

I know you have a background there.

There's lots to do, but grow the food in a way that replenishes the soul totally possible.

Renewable energy, ai, you, you wanna do, you wanna create ai.

Okay.

We need these AI algorithms to optimize the energy flow.

So there are a lot of things and all these people need to be able to work together.

So if you are good in helping people conflict resolution, those kind of skills, super important.

So there's a lot of things you can do there still.

nancy giordano: I love it and I love the way of being able to think about these again in terms of not just, um, hopelessness, but the contribution that we're gonna make.

And we think about these, the genesis of the new systems, and I'll say Samantha Power has written a lot of book about bioregional finance great for kids who
are interested, um, in that way of imagining how we would design communities and the, um, the role of money and cooperation and setting systems up for greater.

Group success, collaborative community success, which, and so there are a lot of amazing thinkers that are out there doing this work, including you, Gaia.

So thank you again for the contributions that you make to it and all the, um, hope you give us and the structures and framework and, um, I'm really excited
to see the stories that you're gonna tell your children over the next few years about how all of this works and again, what will replace the lemonade stand.

I really think that that's a really key question as we imagine teaching the, um.

The, the potential of what economic systems could look like to hold us all.

Well, what are the games that we play?

So I'll let you think about that and we can come back and talk about that next year.

Gaya Herrington: That I love it.

Yes.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna stew on that.

Thanks,

nancy giordano: Okay, good.

I can't wait.

Thanks so much, honey.

Take good care and we'll do more soon.