Why 'Community' Fails: Everyone Wants a Village, Nobody Wants to Be a Villager with Nora Bateson, Jonathan Goldsmith & Lucas Jackson | RR 26

**Nora Bateson** (0:00)
This is the logic of a culture that says, don't give too much or people will take advantage of you. So I don't give because I know you're not going to give, and you don't give because you know I'm not giving, and pretty soon, there's nothing there. So moving in another way is radical. To actually have some kind of trust that those relationships that are in another rhythm, in another pattern will carry that. It becomes vivid that all of life is in this ever-amonging way. So tending to that amonging is tending to the self.

**Nate Hagens** (0:41)
You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagens. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming Great Simplification.
Ahead of an unsettled future, I believe one of the no-regret strategies available in today's world is to find the others and build community. At the core of community is communing with other humans. But humans and groups are messy. It is not easy. So how do we go about communing and building relationships with all the variety of human personalities and situations and values and temperaments and the like? Today, I am welcoming back the founder of Warm Data Labs and my friend Nora Bateson, along with her colleagues, Lucas Jackson and Jonathan Goldsmith, to discuss exactly how to go about all this.
Despite this conversation being about Warm Data Labs and experiences, it wasn't really defined. So I'm going to reshare my personal experience of it before I introduce Nora, Jonathan, and Lucas. A few years ago, Nora hosted a Warm Data Lab at Bioneers, which I went to. There were a couple hundred people there.
She told us to sit down in groups of four or five people, and there was a piece of paper on the floor. And Nora said to everyone, the topic is going to be food in a changing world. And I'm already thinking, I have a lot to say about that. I know a lot about that. And then we were in our groups of five, and she said, turn over your paper. And my first piece of paper said, family.
And then we discussed with the people around us, food in a changing world with respect to family. And after about five minutes, you could get up and go to a different group. Well, the different groups had different pieces of paper. It said politics or ecology or technology. And so then you would find other people and talk and share about food in a changing world in the context.
And so when I went and talked to politics, I had an opinion on that too. And after I had done like four or five of these, each time I was like, oh, I didn't think about those things because it was a different context. But what also happened, and maybe it's because I'm a gregarious, loquacious Sasquatch person, I noticed that my impulse to talk actually declined and became subdued. And after several of these little sessions, I actually didn't say anything. I started listening, and I guess I'm not the best listener.
But I do wonder how that experience is a microcosm of our broader society. So, for me, warm data, self-reflection, empathy, listening, and finding common ground were all a part of that experience. Okay, to today's episode, Nora Bateson is the founder of the International Bateson Institute, which is leading trans-contextual research in ecology, economics, social change, health, education, and art. Rather than focusing on quantitative metrics when looking at all the issues in the world, the Institute examines warm data, a term Nora coined that studies what gets lost when we look at problems in isolation. Within warm data labs, the Institute holds gatherings designed to facilitate understanding of the global issues we face today. Nora is surrounded by a strong team of facilitators at the Institute and Warm Data Labs, two of which she is joined by today. Jonathan Goldsmith is a psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, coach, trainer, and facilitator based in London. Additionally, he co-leads Warm Data Labs and works in a leadership position at the Bateson Institute. Lucas Jackson is a biodynamic farmer based in Vermont, where he works on permaculture projects in addition to being a holotropic breathwork instructor. He is also now a Warm Data host after completing training under the International Bateson Institute. In this wide-ranging conversation about the role community plays in navigating our more-than-human predicament, we address the urgency and misconception surrounding building strong relationships ahead of The Great Simplification. We dig into some foundational concepts that hit at the ancient instincts of our very social natures, such as what it means to be in communion with each other and how to practice radical hospitality in a culture that encourages the prioritization of the self above all. I believe this work is at the foundation of what we are trying to do with this channel and I hope that you'll find this conversation not just informative but exemplary of these practices. With that, please welcome Nora Bateson, Jonathan Goldsmith, and Lucas Jackson.