How Do You Redesign Civilisation? | Jordan Hall
Chris Williamson (host), Jordan Hall (guest)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Jordan Hall, How Do You Redesign Civilisation? | Jordan Hall explores jordan Hall Explains Why Our Civilization’s Core Game Must End Jordan Hall outlines his concept of “Game A,” the rivalrous, win–lose, institution-driven mode of civilization that began with agriculture and now drives modern society.
Jordan Hall Explains Why Our Civilization’s Core Game Must End
Jordan Hall outlines his concept of “Game A,” the rivalrous, win–lose, institution-driven mode of civilization that began with agriculture and now drives modern society.
He argues that escalating technological power, increasing systemic fragility, and multipolar geopolitical rivalry make Game A self-terminating and existentially dangerous.
Hall contrasts dominance-based dynamics with “prestige” dynamics rooted in learning and cooperation, claiming humans already evolved the capacity for a different kind of game.
He proposes a four-step personal and collective pathway toward “Game B,” a coherence- and learning-based civilization model that could replace Game A before it collapses.
Key Takeaways
Recognize we are embedded in a self-terminating civilizational game.
Hall claims modern society (“Game A”) is built on rivalrous, win–lose dynamics that historically reboot after crises, but now intersect with technologies capable of civilizational or species-level destruction, making rebooting unlikely.
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Understand how technological power amplifies both capability and fragility.
From nuclear weapons to CRISPR and cyberwarfare, our tools make small groups – even motivated teenagers – capable of massive disruption, while our interdependent infrastructure (power, water, finance) grows ever more brittle.
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See that human nature includes more than dominance and rivalry.
Hall emphasizes that humans uniquely evolved “prestige dynamics” – the ability to learn deeply from each other – which underpins culture, communication, and cumulative knowledge, and provides the basis for a different kind of game.
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Begin the shift by radical humility and admitting the problem.
The first step toward Game B is fully acknowledging, personally and collectively, that our current patterns are unsustainable and that we truly do not know how to solve this within the existing toolkit.
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Cultivate sovereignty: take real responsibility for your choices.
Rather than defaulting to activism framed within Game A logics, Hall urges individuals to reclaim their capacity to make and improve their own choices, expanding their “sphere of sovereignty” over time.
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Rebuild ‘right relationship’ in all domains of life.
Using growing sovereignty, people can consciously reconfigure their relationships with loved ones, nature, money, time, and work, discovering genuine vocation and a more stable sense of meaning.
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Aim for coherence: small, high-trust groups as seeds of Game B.
The mature phase is forming deeply honest, synergistic relationships (dyads, teams) that function as collectively sovereign entities, nurturing each member and modeling Game B dynamics on a small scale before scaling cautiously.
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Notable Quotes
“There has been a particular kind of game that we’ve been playing together since the birth of agricultural civilization… and we’re at the end of Game A.”
— Jordan Hall
“War has been always the last move in the game.”
— Jordan Hall
“We keep being handed wonderful opportunities to recognize that we have a problem, and we keep finding increasingly sophisticated ways to deny that we have a problem.”
— Jordan Hall
“Human beings are not the same as other primates. Something happened… and we can actually identify it now and dial it back in.”
— Jordan Hall
“The shift that we’re really talking about is actually very simple: we just need to finish the story… of the shift from dominance to prestige, from Game A to Game B.”
— Jordan Hall
Questions Answered in This Episode
If most people are memetic followers, what practical methods could generate enough visible ‘arm-folders’ to flip social norms away from Game A?
Jordan Hall outlines his concept of “Game A,” the rivalrous, win–lose, institution-driven mode of civilization that began with agriculture and now drives modern society.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can individuals distinguish between genuine sovereignty and just rebranded Game A activism or status-seeking?
He argues that escalating technological power, increasing systemic fragility, and multipolar geopolitical rivalry make Game A self-terminating and existentially dangerous.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What might early Game B institutions look like in practice for economics, governance, or education, beyond small coherent groups?
Hall contrasts dominance-based dynamics with “prestige” dynamics rooted in learning and cooperation, claiming humans already evolved the capacity for a different kind of game.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Given accelerating destructive technologies, is there realistically enough time for the cultural and psychological shift Hall describes?
He proposes a four-step personal and collective pathway toward “Game B,” a coherence- and learning-based civilization model that could replace Game A before it collapses.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can someone embedded in conventional careers and obligations begin moving toward right relationship and coherence without completely exiting Game A systems?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
(wind blowing) Jordan Greenhall, how are you today?
(laughs) I'm doing well. Apparently on the other side of the pond I will be Greenhall forever. Um-
Your name, your name is, uh, it flip-flops between the two, right? Which, which one are you now?
I am Jordan Hall.
Jordan Hall?
Yeah, Jordan Hall. I was, I was born Jordan Hall.
Yep.
I changed my name when I got married to Greenhall.
Yep.
Um, and I am now back to Jordan Hall.
Okay, cool.
But-
Well, I mean, every- everyone is now updated. Also, for the-
(laughs)
... viewers who are watching on YouTube, you will notice that I am now in HD. Uh, Video Guy Dean, my, uh, video producer, forced me to get a better webcam. Before it was, uh, a potato sticking out the front of there. One disadvantage is that now I, I... because it was so pixelated before, I could get away with not doing my hair. I could get away with, like, you know, put... wearing essentially pajamas and no, no pants or whatever I wanted. Whereas now, uh, I have to make a little bit more of, uh, an effort, which is good for the guests, I suppose, and also the, the viewers at home. So, uh, Jordan, what have you been working on recently?
(laughs) So I would- I'd like to compliment you on your HD. I noticed that when I was looking at it, it's like, "Wow, that is very crisp."
That's some sharp imagery right now, yeah?
It is.
Yeah, no. (laughs)
Um, okay, so let's see. Well, if, um... I'll, I'll assume a certain degree of familiarity with what I've been up to, uh, because otherwise the story ends up being pretty long, but the, the basic premise is for the past 20 years or so, um, I've been trying to get a sense of what we might say is sort of the fundamental nature of the, the game that we found ourselves playing for some significant period of time, that I'll call Game A. Um, and then initially really grabbing it from a bunch of different threads and just noticing that if you just kept pulling the thread, say, for example, the thread of the 2008 financial crisis and then the 2010 echo in, in Europe. If you take that thread and you just keep following it and just keep asking the question of what's under this, what's deeper, what's deeper, what's deeper? Um, there is a, a way to find yourself at a very deep level that shows that, in fact, as far as I can tell, there has been a particular kind of game that we've been playing together since the birth of agricultural civilization, that we're still essentially playing out that game. Um, and I should mention that there was a game before that that was pre the birth of agricultural civilization and, and the sort of the transition between the two was a big part of the early story. And that, from my perspective, it became more and more clear over time that that particular game, this Game A, this game of agricultural civilization in its most current form, has a certain trajectory to it. It has a certain set of, call it fundamental dynamics that lead to it, uh, failing in certain ways and that it reboots, reforms, tries to keep searching for ways to keep going on its own. But there's a sort of a meta terminus, there's a, there's a game to end all games. The game of thrones actually comes to an end and we're sort of there. We're, we're at the end of Game A. Um, you know, maybe in the next year, maybe in the next 20 years, but we're definitely at a point where the, the methodology by which that game is able to reboot and try to reestablish itself is coming to a, to a terminus. And so in that context, what I've been doing most recently is, what might we, we... what might we do in that context? How do we find a way to really step outside of the game? Like, because if we're in the game at all, we're kind of in the game all the way. It's a very tricky thing. Um, so is there a way to step outside of that game completely and to almost discover or maybe also in some sense, remember a new game that is simultaneously something that we can't... that is not going to be inextricably self-terminating and is really responsive to the situation that we actually find ourselves in, um, and is able to be born in the context of now while still develop- and develop on its own terms into being able to essentially take over from Game A in the time that we have.
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