Ilona Otto and Steve Keen on tinkering through social collapse
“the hidden reality of human life is the fact that the world doesn’t just happen. It isn’t a natural fact, even though we tend to treat it as if it is—it exists because we all collectively produce it.” David Graeber
We are pleased that Ilona Otto and Steve Keen will join us to discuss tinkering our way through social collapse on December 9, 2025, at 6 PM London time/1 PM New York time.
Link to the live stream is here. Subscribe and turn on notifications for our youtube channel to keep updated with all our streams.
Their discussion will explore how we can get out of the impending social collapse and move away from a business-as-usual mindset. What kind of overshoot management strategies do we need? How can available technologies or not-yet-available technologies help? What kind of policies do we need, and how do we get there?
Ilona M. Otto is a Professor of Societal Impacts of Climate Change at the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz. She leads a research group focused on Social Complexity and System Transformation, aiming to leverage complex systems theory and innovative research methods to analyze social dynamics and interventions necessary for transformative changes in human interactions with nature over the next 30 years.
Steve Keen is an economist and author. He is a vocal critic of neoclassical economics, which he believes relies on flawed models that overlook the inherent instability of financial systems. He is a Distinguished Research Fellow at University College London and has previously held positions at the University of Western Sydney and Kingston University. Steve was one of the rare economists to predict and publicly warn us of the 2008 financial crisis. Steve’s books, including “Debunking Economics” and his popular YouTube channel, have been crucial in helping us understand the nature of banks and money itself.
Their talk will be a public hybrid event — both offline and online — streamed live across all our platforms and social media channels. We have a broad audience on Twitter (X), Bluesky, Instagram, and Facebook, and the conversation will be streamed simultaneously on all of them. The recording will also be made available online.James Schneider and Nika Dubrovsky will join us from the West Indies University in St. Vincent in the Caribbean, where we’re currently building a Spirulina farm inside a prison and setting up a 3D printer lab. This talk is part of our broader public outreach, linking conversation and theory with practical projects and artistic initiatives.
Image ‘Fine wind, clear morning’ by Katsushika Hokusai sourced from the Public Domain Image Archive / Rijksmuseum