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AMA with Ali Beiner. Wednesday 2/4 at 11:00 AM CT

Kainos host Alexander Beiner exploring cultural sensemaking around psychedelics, popular culture, philosophy, psychology, alternative economics, and spirituality.

Severance is great, but it gets one thing weirdly wrong. (Very mild) Spoilers for season 1 of Severance ahead.

First, if you haven't seen Severance, I recommend it! Bookmark this, go watch season 1, form your own opinions, and come back to chat.

Ok, people who have context for what I'm about to say, read on!

I couldn't finish the show the first time I tried. I got about half way through, but the fundamental horror of the protagonists' situation was simply too disturbing for me. Friends would say "Oh it's so great, it's so funny and weird. What a thought provoking idea!" 

And I'd be sat there barely able to breathe at the idea that someone's life could be an unbroken experience of being at work, in a windowless building. 

Based on these conversations, I genuinely think many people aren't actually fully imagining what's happening to the characters. It might also be because I was working as a full time employee, in front of a computer all day, during that first attempt.

Second attempt, I managed to dial down my vicarious horror enough to get through the season, and it is a great show.

Now the part I think the writers get wrong. 

I think, in one important way, they also failed to fully empathize with the situation. 

Mark, the main character of season 1, is presented as having chosen to become severed and work at Lumen as a way of dealing with and escape from the grief of the loss of his wife.

Superficially, this makes sense. It's a common trope, and makes psychological sense to me, that people often deal with grief by pouring themselves into work. So that, for at least those hours of the day, you have a distraction from the pain.

But getting severed would actually have the opposite effect. It would remove that tool from your life. It would mean you had one less way to escape the grief. Rather than waking up filled with grief, then going to work, and getting a few hours of relief, before going home and picking up the grief, you would wake up with the grief, head to work, and then immediately be coming home where your grief filled existence could continue, uninterrupted.

You might argue that it was Mark who missed this, when he made the choice, and now he's dealing with the consequences. But that's not in the text. What's in the text is just the implication that getting severed was Marks strategy for dealing with the grief, with no exploration of the fact that actually that's a horrible strategy. 

Thoughts? Counterpoints? What did you think of the show?

(ps, I'd just like to say how delighted I am that the generated images are now optional 🙏)

Digital Mystics: AI, Love & Spirit Can Dance Together Harmoniously. I'm becoming increasingly confident that we're potentially standing at the threshold of humanity's greatest evolutionary leap. The AI revolution isn't merely a technological shift—it's a cosmic invitation to expand our understanding of what it means to be human.

As a lifelong student of both cutting-edge technology and ancient wisdom traditions, I've come to believe that those who will thrive in this emerging era are neither the tech-obsessed futurists nor the technology-resistant traditionalists. Rather, it will be the "Digital Mystics"—those rare souls who can dance gracefully between worlds, wielding technological power while remaining deeply rooted in embodied wisdom, creative play, and heart-centered connection. These bridge-builders understand that AI is neither savior nor demon, but rather a profound mirror reflecting our collective consciousness back to us, amplifying both our shadows and our light.

This dance between digital innovation and spiritual wisdom is what I'm exploring in my upcoming book, "Digital Mystics: Dancing with AI, Love & Spirit Towards a Thriving

Collective Future". I believe our greatest opportunity lies not in fearing AI's power nor in worshipping it, but in partnering with it consciously to expand human creativity, deepen our compassion, and perhaps even accelerate our collective spiritual evolution. What if, rather than seeing AI as threatening what makes us human, we recognized it as the catalyst that might finally help us remember what being truly human has always been about?

#DeepTake

UAP are real and artifacts from non human intelligence. I just attended an event wt the capital factory in austin with some really respected people and now I’m wanting to come out: I’m convinced that UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena, the less stigmatized word for UFO):

• are real
• are craft from Non Human Intelligences (aliens)
• USA gov and aerospace companies have actual materials from these craft and someone has an actual craft
• have been hidden for security reasons for decades
• we need to de-classify so we can put the weight of the usa innovation, research and capital markets to learn about this stuff and create technologies that benefit the wellbeing of humanity
• we can learn to engineer einsteins relativity the way we learned to engineer Maxwell’s equations to do the crazy stuff people are seeing and seem
  Impossible

Monogamy v polyamory. Is monogamy better? Is poly better? Is there an overall norm for people, with exceptions? Is it totally pluralistic? Here are some points for monogamy, with some counter points, to convey some of my uncertainty but nevertheless leaning into what I’ve chosen:

• Point: I don’t know a single polyamorous couple that’s lasted more than a decade, whereas I know a ton of lifelong monogamous couples.
  • Counterpoint: many of the lifelong monogamous couples are not healthy relationships
    • Counter-counter-point: perhaps being in a lifelong commitment, even if the relationship isn’t ideal, is more healthy than being hyper-independent, especially as you get older. This runs right up against boundaries, how to know what to tolerate/love as is, when to leave, etc
• Point: The poly focus of attention tends to be the relationships themselves, often a kind of relational narcissism, rather than the relationship being a foundation for engaging the world in love (ironically). This is my version of the poly is impractical argument. Most of the people I meet practicing polyamory are constantly putting tons and tons and tons of life energy into their relational problems, and it seems like their relationships are often built around addressing these problems rather than enjoying life together. The fact that it takes so much time and energy points to something being a little off. Monogamous relating also takes energy but it usually seems less self-referential; they’re more often helping each other face and engage the world, rather than face and engage each other and their relationship.
  • potential counterpoint: You’re making a developmental point Jordan, not a mono/poly point. Most people practice poly from a Red ego-centric POV; most people practice sex from Red as well. If you practice from a genuine Green+ polyamory, this doesn’t happen.
• Point: Humans are largely monogamous; it’s instinctual
  • Counterpoint: How would we know if its cultural versus biological versus systemic versus psychological per person/family? it only takes a couple of generations of evolution to make massive physical changes, so even if it is biological, how could we know what’s possible for the future?
  • Counterpoint: people wanna fuck, especially dudes
  • Cheating, mistresses, polygamy, Sex at Dawn etc…
• Point: Many poly people avoid endings, boundaries, standards, and facing their own karma by just jumping from relationships to relationship. Sure monogamous people do too, but many of them end up getting married and that crucible forces them to face their stuff. Far fewer poly people get married, and when they do they can still use other relationships to avoid their shit
  • Counterpoint: we can use absolutely everything to avoid our shit.

there’s tons more, just want to get the convo started…