 Good morning, everyone. Good morning, everyone. This is a call-and-response kind of stage on the main stage here at SoCAP 2018. My name is Ashara Aikundayo. I have the honor of being able to hold space with you and just steward a few of the conversations this morning and the next collective of thinkers and lovers that are coming out to spend a few minutes with you are very dear to me. I know that the conversation is framed around refugees, robots, and our dire need for regeneration. And this idea is that we're all in this together and so that you've made a decision to be here with us, not as robots, but as living, breathing entities committed to the well-being of our collective harmony on this planet is part of what the next conversation is about. Dacher Keltner is a lover, author, professor, advisor, and director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. He is also the faculty director of the Berkeley Good Science Center at the University of California Berkeley. As you all might imagine, we have a lot of deep conversations and thinkers that share space and hold space for the next generation, this new now generation in academia. There's a installation out front. You all walked by it on your way into this building and the question there is, what do you love and hope to never lose to climate change? And when I asked Dacher what his answer to that was, he hopes to never lose the trees and the sierras. And so I want to invite you all to stop and take a moment in reflection to think about that and to engage in that art installation that people have presented for us this morning. So he's going to be joining us on the stage. I ask you to welcome him as he comes out to take a seat to sit with his colleagues, Mr. Dacher Keltner. Thank you. Yes, you all should welcome him. This sister I'm going to invite out. I met maybe 13 years ago in Denver, Colorado when I was a fellow with an organization called Green For All, which was founded by this cat named Van Jones. You might have heard of him and we were at the Bali conference and this charismatic leader was there and I was so excited to meet her. Her name is Michelle Long. Today she is joining Socap as the co-founder of Jubilee, an investment platform for building beautiful portfolios that are catalytic and healing the earth, that are for equity and healing between people, and that build a ballast for the needs to make these changes happen. She is full of so much joy and she is a partner that I think is really setting the tone for in the ways in which we can collaborate our spiritual needs and well-being with our economic needs and well-being. Please welcome Michelle Long this morning. Daily Good, Smile Cards and Karma Kitchen are only a few of the projects birthed from the mind and heart of this full-time volunteer. Nipun Mehta is the founder of Service Space, an incubator of projects that work at the intersection of the gift economy, technology and volunteerism. This is a lover that I have been watching for many many years and I know you all might be thrown when you call someone a lover, but I'm really aware of our connection to each other and the bottom line being one that has to be focused and sharing in a level of abundance around love and what we can and do and will and shall give to each other and gift to each other. So please welcome our brother Nipun Mehta here to the stage, Socat, and we allow them to just get get ready and get into the juice of how we're going to move forward in this day and age. Blessings to you all. Thank you. Hello. Oh, yes. Good morning. Hi. Good morning. Well, it looks like we have a cozy little group. Does this sound okay? Is it a little loud? If someone can turn it down just a little bit and now I'm talking and getting used to the microphone. I think somebody's working on it. So you guys are really lucky because we're having a sort of intimate conversation with these two. As Bo was just sharing with us all, he has worked in investing in building companies for a long time and now is that a place where he recognizes the biggest point of leverage is deepening into his own humanity and working with others to do the same. And there's nobody better in the world to have this conversation to talk about how to do that. And if we actually can, then the two friends that I have here, these are two of my favorite people on the planet. And I'd love to start with a question for Dacker. We've been hearing some this week about companies who've said the leaders of companies locally, some tech companies who've said things like why do I have to give anything back? I haven't taken anything. You know, a very individualistic kind of view of the world. And then I was talking to somebody recently who was telling me about an interview that they did with some indigenous leaders somewhere else on this planet and they were talking to this person about how do you guys save money, like save for your future? And it was some back-and-forth like what do you mean saving? Finally, there was an understanding and he said well, I suppose that if I save, I save in the belly of my brother. I provide him meat today and he provides me meat tomorrow. And so that fundamentally different world view and my question is which are we? Are we competitive really by nature or are we cooperative by nature? Yeah, I mean I you know at UC Berkeley and then online with a bunch of online classes through edX I teach the science of happiness and I know Bo talked about happiness and we worry a lot about you know, frankly the underperformance of the United States how we've had a lot of expansive wealth and haven't seen commensurate rises in happiness and I think one of the fundamental reasons for that is what Michelle was talking about and what Nippun has devoted his career to which is that when you take a step back and you look at our default basic nature or default tendencies What you find is first of all around the world people will share about 40% of a resource and this is in really rigorous Studies, this is seen now in young kids 18 months old That we are we have evolved to share And you have to ask the question to do life context. Do we share enough in that particular? to sort of express that tendency the second thing that's really important and and I think that this has not only happiness implications but health implications is there's a new Science of the neurophysiology of what it means to form community to connect to other people to share resources and the very straightforward Answers are when we share and when we give and when we form communities and support and cooperate Reward circuits in the brain are activated the very same circuits that are activated when we eat chocolate or win money or get a massage Those circuits then influence the stress response and activate parts of the nervous system. I study so what we find is this neurophysiology and behavioral data that says our one of our basic Instincts is to share and promote the welfare of others and Individualism and capitalism have have misled us in in that effort in many ways I Love I love so much Dacker because he he is the sort of science that backs up what? Mini spiritual traditions tell us what pockets of different cultures around the world tell us that we we are fundamentally good We are fundamentally connected and He he was the one of the I don't know if you're the first or the You're you're sort of the guy who they're a lot of for a long time people studied what makes us sad what makes us depressed but nobody was studying what makes us well what makes us happy and This is Dacker's specialty. What is fundamental well-being for all humans? What is our common humanity and as research shows our common humanity is interconnectedness? It's the feeling of compassion with each other the feeling of empathy and connection with each other when we feel On reverence is part of something that's bigger. We feel deeply well, and so I'm deeply grateful for you and your science And I have a question for you napoon. It is Okay, we got a lot of big challenges right now. I mean big scary Grief inducing challenges on this planet. Yeah, so How do we think about the spending time on This kind of cultivating our hearts and inner work is do we do we have time for that? Don't we have to get on the big challenges? Yeah, I mean you were talking about first of all. I'm very happy to be here Yes, Michelle is loved by both of us and Dacker usually I'm quoting Dacker, but now I'm sitting next to him So I don't have to go to miss But you were talking about indigenous cultures, and I think one of the things You know, there's this seventh generation rule like how is every decision going to affect? You know seven generations down the road and what we've seen over time is just this sort of collapse of from seven generations To probably seven days to seven hours to seven minutes maybe seven seconds, right? Our attention span is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking so what we're doing is looking for very quick immediate feedback loops and What that does is it binds us into? Direct reciprocity direct reciprocity is transaction, right? I do this you do this for me And so how do we start to and of course if you're hungry or if you have an immediate need there is a relief That is required, but with the relief you have to also Have on your solution spectrum a cure and I think a lot of these cures are gonna take a long time Yeah, and we have to individually like inner transformation isn't just gonna happen overnight But also a lot of these solutions externally collectively Societally are also going to take a long time because it actually took a long time to erode trust for example And it's gonna take a long time to build it back up And if we're just looking for a short quick immediate feedback loops or direct reciprocity, I gave you this what am I getting in return right now? Versus I give you this that's gonna create a ripple effect and over time what goes around will come around Which was sort of the basis of the indigenous wisdom, but how do we? How do we tap into that and I think that's a mindset and that requires a huge shift So yes, we have urgent fires. We have to address them. You have to provide relief But that can't be the only thing we do you have to couple that with these much larger expansive In new cycles of indirect reciprocity and I think that's not just a thing that we do on the outside It requires an orientation on the inside to actually be able to hold such a large such a large field I Reminds me of the this woman lady Balfour she was in England and she considers her the mother of this newest wave of organic food and a long time ago. She said The yes, sure you could have like an organic label or you could have rules and regulations about what it should be But really nothing beats the mindset of the farmer If the if the farmer loves the land they will continue to innovate and so more than anything It is that mindset. I know we've all spent time in Bhutan and met with the Dr. Karma Ura and the people who've created the GNH framework and I was talking to a researcher from Australia who is studying gross national happiness Compared to corporate social responsibility How what would be the difference what if a company was to pursue a GNH approach rather than sort of a typical CSR approach What would be different and she said well first? The the product would have to be fundamentally and inherently of value. You know, you wouldn't sort of have Coca-Cola with a diverse board of directors. It would actually be a product that we really need in the world and then to You'd have to look at how much is enough for the owners that created that company how much is enough and Then you'd have to think what would we do with the rest any surplus that was created to benefit the most But the key she said what is is Where are you inside because if you if you haven't done that sort of inner work? You may think how much is enough? Well, all of it is how much is enough? So it's all about the mindset. Do we see that we're part and I We've been talking a lot about technology this week and I'm wondering I mean are there what's the is technology a blessing or a curse to Help us to get to this mindset I mean some people are talking about virtual reality could help us to build empathy and sometimes I think well Why don't we just actually talk to our neighbor, you know, but I wonder what you guys think about technology solutions around these ideas Well, we both thought a lot about it. I'm an engineer by trade, but you you were at Facebook Doing a lot of this work Maybe your thoughts first yeah, I did a lot of Consulting at Facebook and Google just trying to make those spaces to moderate success more compassionate and I know it elicits laughter these days, but Yeah, I think that I think I think we have I Think technology I think in terms of what it does to the human mind I think a lot of the big patterns of data of what it means to be on screens a magic average American It's on a screen nine hours a day. I think it's gonna it's not the end of the world It's not gonna destroy the human mind But we haven't figured out how to kind of let it bring out the better side to human nature And then I think that they're gonna be Ways in which it's going to solve critical problems like how do you get? People who are under resource to our national parks three hundred a million people visit the national parks a year Technology will be a solution and and I really think where and what I'm worried about in the current debates right now is Data actually has a lot of positive uses to it Data the etymology of data is things that are given and so if we can rethink How we can use our data for example for healthcare uses I think they're gonna be a lot of great innovations But right now I I'm with Michelle I think that I think our focus if we're really interested in rebuilding community Which Nippun has been devoted to and Michelle in heroic work. It's got to be Face-to-face and it's got to be these original systems of connection that have to be promoted Yeah, and I think if I'm not mistaken You were the person that got Facebook to go from likes to like the whole range of emoticons that took three years of that work that's Hundreds of pages of writing. That's right. We're not just binary. Yeah, we have multiple I know But yeah, I mean, I think this is you know, I'm a product of the Silicon Valley in so many ways I was an engineer and initially you had like the internet and oh my god This peer-to-peer system and then all of a sudden now net neutrality is not even you know is in question You had the search engines and now you see Google just you know super dominating all aspects of our lives I could before even plan a trip to Italy I've got ad words saying we learn Italian in nine days and they know that I'm leaving in nine days So there's a lot of question marks around all of these social networks Initially, wow, you know India and Pakistan can have friends across borders. Yeah, then we realized wow This is like way too cheap, you know and now with AI we're having these issues Yesterday I was with you know, the man who was a CEO of Lycos which sold for 17 billion dollars and and has you know, what in a way allowed Google to emerge and He was sharing this remarkable research. They asked young people if you had to give up one of these three things What would you give up your cell phone your internet access or your sense of taste? Wow, and 72% chose sense of taste And for a lot of people that kind of data is like oh, this is a growth opportunity to go in that direction But there's a huge question marks. Yeah, and if you think deeply about it, it's actually initially there I had the same kind of response, right? But if you think deeply about it if you grow up in this kind of an era What do you care more for than your sense of taste even is your sense of connection? Yeah, and the only connection that we have given exposure to systemically societally to the young ones is Through your phone and your internet access. That's all they know So they we long for this connection But the kinds of connection that the kinds of designs we have created allow for very Cheap sort of loose superficial connections and those are good. I mean they're still strengthened loose ties But that has to be coupled with the deep ties and we as a society have not figured out how to leverage technology for some of this So how do we you know? We have on one side the internet of life on the other side We have the internet of things both of those can coexist and they do in many ways But I think the question is what is leading what yeah, and if we keep the ratio of Personal growth with technological growth in balance right now. It's completely out of whack And if it's out of whack, we're we're gonna have the internet of things leading the internet of life And then we're gonna have things like hey, I'm so stressed out by all this data What should I do download a mindfulness app? Yeah, as opposed to just putting this phone on the side, right? And that's that's sort of symptomatic of this world But what does it take to have the internet of life? lead the internet of things and I think one very key distinction that emerges from that Shift is that necessity it used to be that necessity was a mother of invention now invention is the mother of necessity Right iPhone comes out with this new thing and I need I need it because you know because it's come out And so this is a kind of skewed world that we're living in And I think it starts to beg these questions of really the ratio of technical growth engineering growth Yeah, sort of innovation and personal growth and how do you keep those in balance? So yeah, please yeah, but I just want you know one of the things that that I mean I still am optimistic about big data I hope you all will pay attention to Raj Chetty at Harvard the economist just has this big data release of How to think about neighborhoods? Nipun travels the world building strong neighborhoods He is a as has Michelle in their career. Here is technology producing data That's visualized where I think we now know as investors Where to go if you want the biggest bang for your buck is to find particular streets on Neighborhoods where we know through data and technology. This is where we'll really make a difference, right? And this is where our money is wasted. So I'm really optimistic about those kinds of Innovations to guide us. Yeah, so thank you So you but you're saying that deep ties are the what really makes us deeply well It's really who we are. So do you have today? We're living Dakar. You mentioned the We're out of whack of our fundamental nature of cooperation in part due to this capitalistic structure that we're part of Yeah, and Charles Eisenstein are all of our friends that said once something about it'd be Impossible to talk about evolution of ourselves without also addressing money because it's so fundamental To to our to us right now. We're sort of woven up with it So how do we move from a transactional economy toward what's being called for a deeper longing? Do you have steps or ideas? Yeah, I Definitely have ideas And and experiments I mean I try to live into them I The one of the shifts we talked about in service space is a shift from transaction to trust So for example karma kitchen is an experiment where you walk into a restaurant and your bill re-zero Your check is zero because someone before you paid for you And you are trusted to pay forward for people after you and they studied it at UC Berkeley And they said would this work because this is so antithetical to the entire Economics framework that we're fundamentally selfish and we aim to maximize self-interest and we're and we're rational, right? And we're neither one of those And so what does it mean to give people insight into these ideas? And I think the road from transaction to trust goes through relationships That trust cannot actually be manufactured it has to emerge in this field of multi-dimensional relationships Transactional transactions become very one-dimensional. I do this you get you do this for me, right? How do you move from that to multi-dimensional relationships? I'm not going to my mom and dad and saying that you've what dad you wash my car three times And so I'm gonna do this for you. It's it's a multi-dimensional relationship. We are embedded We're capable of that and we're embedded in many of these multi-dimensional relationships So how do we create those kinds of communities? That allow for that and I think in that kind of a field will have amazing fruits of pro-social behavior like You know so many things you have studied compassion all gratitude But also things like trust and so I think we really have to learn to move into a more relational way of engaging And that begs the question of who do I have to be to hold people and their journeys? Yeah in in a non-transactional way Yeah, and I would I would I would really encourage our audience members if you haven't already to read a Book about social infrastructure by Eric Klein and Berg got his PhD at UC Berkeley now at NYU and He really feels that the central problem facing the United States in this social space is to create Social places where we build the trust and the relationships that gives rise to Collaboration and cooperation and all these physiological processes that benefits benefit us Eric Klein and Berg. So for example They're like the public library or the park or the pickup basketball court or the barber shop Are these old social contexts that aren't on our radar screen as places of innovation? Yeah, but they turn out to be the foundation of human health Right, and so we want to start to sort of move from the mind to What are the facets of social communities that are healthy when I travel in Mexico? Which is I think my favorite country in the world I was born there you go to a Zocalo in any town in Mexico and it has so much deep wisdom and healthcare and innovation that we're trying to use technology to recreate and we should be thinking about the physical spaces that that Nippun travels the world creating that that allow for these sides to human nature Our mutual friend Otto Sharma at MIT in the Presencing Institute Talks about how we're coming to the end of an era of maximum me Quite obviously the we've maximized we've maxed that one out and what's trying to be born is not so clear But it is something that is about expanding our intellect from our head to our hearts About the evolution from an ecosystem awareness that that sees the world from how do I make decisions that benefit me to one? That makes decisions from what benefits us including me from an ecosystem awareness to an ecosystem awareness Do you have examples either of you or both of you hopefully? Around examples in business or in finance or people have actively aimed to cultivate that heart Cognition the ability to see from we and then how did that manifest in a different kind of way of doing business or with money? Yeah, what a what a terrific question I love on this. I love my anybody read Michael Paulin's book how to change your mind amazing and in the spirit of Nippun he said the spirituality is The is the counterpoint to egotism and self-interest that if we want to find our spiritual connection to the world or the big We the big sense of self. It's moving away from narrow self-interest as Nippun has been arguing. I you know I'm I'm really interested in our investment in green spaces and There are is a ton of incredible science Japan and South Korea have led this in South Korea. They treat forests as Medical settings where you can heal physically. We know that it's good for the nervous system You know and the immune system to be out in nature. We know public parks help inner-city kids And and that is one of these things that we have invested modestly in and it has these huge We benefits and health benefits and reductions in the the Social ills that we worry about And it's again. It's something that seems intuitive, but has has a big Influence on in terms of getting good returns from our investment Yeah, I agree and I actually think Dakar's work has been a sign a sort of ray of Incredible hope, you know, nobody's compassion like how do you design for compassion? Yeah I mean these are questions that people don't ask, you know, how do you does it? What is the role of gratitude in my business? What is awe and you know, what what is the neuro science of goosebumps? We've all felt goosebumps and there's zero science on it and Dakar comes along and says wait a second, you know Let's actually study this and incorporate a lot of this So I think that's a big ray of hope actually and at a very practical level. I think I would say that what's inspired me most is Spaces and people who are in control of their Minds because I think that's fundamental. That's sort of the ground in which all these virtues arise so Birju one of our common friends He had this incredible story of his boss saying he was on Wall Street running this venture capital fund and And his boss says we've had a great year. What do you want? And these guys are like billing every three minutes and he says what I want is a minute of silence and You know, his boss doesn't understand it and then ultimately he kind of gives in and he says okay. Yeah, sure But that idea of learning how to honor that inner quiet Is really fundamental and I think it is from that space that we start and that minute turned to two minutes to three minutes To five minutes to 30 minutes once a week. They've even got their own bell, you know And and so that's great. Yeah, right like that kind of a thing I think is he gives to me a lot of hope And and I think these are the kinds of solutions. We heard some of what bow was talking about. Yeah exploring real freedom You know, I think I think these are things that To me seem like great experiments and and once you do that then so many different things emerge I've seen I saw I mean, there's so many examples in so many spaces I think in Louisville the police force is being measured by their compassion. Is that right in their arrests? and There's so much more in schools with social and emotional learning and Dacker of course is leading several Kaiser Novartis other healthcare companies on empathy with medical doctors But in business and finance, you know, if we don't do it there But I did one example that I heard from an investor that I really loved was With investments he made he would also place on top of those investments a generosity warrant So he would give additional capital to the entrepreneur To cultivate who they were as leaders of the company So he wasn't only interested in the products they made but who they were to meet a changing world Will they meet it with compassion? Will they meet it with empathy and these generosity warrants were meant to cultivate that kind of those qualities within their team so one company for instance got received this generosity warrant and They didn't quite know what to do with it But they decided to take some of this money and try little experiments like Buying a meal for somebody at the next table at the restaurant and you know as a group of People of this company and not quite knowing. Well, okay. We just did it. Let's record what happens And they found how much better they felt how much lighter they felt how much more free they felt and eventually from those kinds of Experiments they they recognize that they were a manufacturing company that the guys on the floor didn't have health care benefits They had health care benefits car allowances Cell phone allowances and on and on and on they decided to cut some of their own allowances and get health care for the factory floor and And they felt good, but then fascinating there was a big storm a hurricane that came and This factory was sort of put out of business, but they were the first ones back up They were the first ones back up because everybody that was there felt a part of the company and felt This was their company and so it actually ended up being successful for the company even though it was actually about their own Evolution to tenderness with each other So we only have a minute left unfortunately So my work with a jubilee partners with partners Don Schaefer and Dave Haynes Condom Mason Jed Emerson Mary and Moore we are interested in investing in the spiritual ballast the ballast for our soul Going forward in this changing world so that we can stay human Any big acupuncture points any leverage points? Where would you invest for that future with 30 seconds Dakar take it away? Well, I think the central problem one of two central problems in the United States is inequality and so I would think about investing in ways that You know lift up and and we now have the data to do that and to do it assertively Oh, I got 15 seconds. I would say that we ultimately design who we are so we really got to start looking inside And I think we need to start to think about capital from just Financial wealth to multiple forms of wealth. We need to start to think about motivation from just extrinsic motivation To really intrinsic motivation I think if we do that and we design who we are will create new patterns and we'll be happier as Dakar's found And so this is a path to not only solving complex crises The ability to see from we not only me but the path to our joy and we have a lot of joy. So we've got it Thank you so much. Thank you guys