Perspective Shift:
- You’re not just choosing your feed — your feed is choosing you. We like to think we’re in control online, but algorithms are shaping our behavior, beliefs, and even identity beneath the threshold of awareness. Until we see the system shaping us, we won’t know what’s truly ours.
- Algorithms don’t just reflect your bias — they restructure your brain. These systems do more than show you what you like. They subtly rewire your attention, reinforce tribal thinking, and train you to crave simplicity over truth. And the worst part? You’ll think it was your idea.
- Fact-checking won’t save us — not when people live in different realities. In algorithmically shaped demirealities, even airtight evidence gets dismissed. Why? Because these self-reinforcing worlds actively exclude disconfirming perspectives. If we don’t change the structure, no amount of “truth” will break through.
- We didn’t just gain global reach — we lost local depth. The trade-off of the digital age is span over subtlety. We gained access to everything, but lost the slow, rich, relational processes that make real understanding possible. It’s time to restore the depth we’ve sacrificed.
- Digital life isn’t just a new tool — it’s a new ontology. We’re not just communicating through screens — we’re living inside a new layer of reality, one that reshapes how we know, relate, and even exist. Pretending it’s “just tech” leaves us blind to its existential impact.
Bruce Alderman joins Josh Leonard to explore one of the most insidious forces driving today’s cultural fragmentation: the “algorithmic undertow”. Drawing from his recent white paper, Bruce introduces this powerful metaphor to describe the slow, invisible pull of digital systems — algorithms, platforms, attention economies — that subtly yet profoundly shape our beliefs, behaviors, and social worlds.
Using the lenses of Integral Metatheory and Critical Realism, Bruce and Josh unpack how algorithmically mediated environments are not only polarizing society, but also distorting our cognitive tools, creating isolated demirealities that feel whole but are structurally incomplete. Together they explore how these forces are eroding shared meaning, weakening democratic discourse, and transforming the very nature of human sense-making.
But this is not just a diagnosis—it’s also a call to action. Bruce lays out a four-quadrant framework for reclaiming depth in the digital age, offering concrete steps we can take as individuals, communities, and systems to restore wisdom, presence, and shared reality.
If you’ve ever felt like reality itself is fracturing—and you’re looking for tools to reweave it—this conversation is essential.
About Bruce Alderman
Bruce Alderman, MA, is an affiliate faculty at John F. Kennedy University in the Consciousness and Transformative Studies and Holistic Counseling Psychology departments. After years of moderating several integral discussion forums of his own, including Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality and Integral Scholarship and Practice, he is venturing into production of integral video content himself.
About Josh Leonard
Josh Leonard is a seasoned social impact organizational leader with more than two decades of real-world experience developing strategy, culture, programs, and leaders through an integral lens. He brings 10+ years of executive leadership with the YMCA and the Institute for Cultural Evolution to bear on the emerging challenges organizations face today in grappling with the complexity of the 21st century. Josh is a developmental leader who is adept at facilitating growth in individuals, teams, and organizations to achieve their goals for impact.