Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library: special lecture series starting 1/20

Scott Doser, program coordinator at Telluride’s Wilkinson Public Library, managed to convince de Bivort to do a series of lectures on his current obsession: the future of the human species and how we can ensure a beneficial future for it.

The series, “Crafting a Desirable Human Future: The Great Hope and Its Most Fundamental Obstacles,” begins on Wednesday, January 20 with “Managing our Human Future.” The first talk answers the question: “We humans have the ability to affect our future in massive ways, but will we do so wisely? “

On Thursday, January 21, the subject is “The Systems We Build.”

The following Wednesday, January 27, de Bivort addresses “Human Cognition and the Management of our Brains”: Can we teach our brains better habits? If not, what may happen to our species?”

Lawry de Bivort is director of the Washington-based think-tank Evolutionary Service Institute.
In that context, the list of his everyday accomplishments includes working with the Gorbachev team on perestroika and glasnost, helping the Republic of Georgia prepare itself for independence, interviewing terrorists ‘in the wild’ to assist the US government in finding its way to a saner approach to terrorism, working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Closer to Telluride, de Bivort has tackled  air particulate pollution, ski-area expansion, wetlands settlement, transportation/gondola, and dual-home owner (TADHOA) issues.

De Bivort holds a BA from Stanford (biology, history, physics, political science), a PhD from Johns Hopkins (international law, Middle East studies, US diplomatic history, strategic analysis). He has carried out post-graduate studies in applied linguistics, systems analysis, probability-based forecasting, cognition and learning, and deception and detection.

For a preview of the lecture series, click the “play” button and listen to Lawry de Bivort’s podcast.