Fredrik DeBoer is a journalist and author of "The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice."

Eric Raymond is one of the early pioneers of the open source software movement, and is the author of a book on the subject, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar."

Peter Pomerantsev is a former producer of Russian television, and currently the Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at London School of Economics. He is the author of This is Not Propaganda and Nothing is True and Everything is Possible.

Derrick Jensen is an environmentalist, author, and anti-civilization advocate. His most recent book is, "The Myth of Human Supremacy."

James Shapiro is a professor of English at Columbia University, and the author of several books about William Shakespeare, most recently, "Shakespeare in a Divided America."

Sam Wasson is an author and film critic, whose most recent book is "The Long Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood."

Miguel Farias is an experimental psychologist at Coventry University, where he leads the Brain, Belief, and Behavior research group. He is co-author of the book, "The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?"

Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, professor of English at Middlebury College, and the author of several books, most recently "Borges and Me: An Encounter."

Dr. James Lineback is a practicing pulmonary physician with an academic appointment at the University of California Riverside, College of Medicine, as associate clinical professor of medicine. James Fallon is a neuroscientist and a professor at UC Irvine school of medicine.

Srdja Popovic is a Serbian political activist, whose student group Otpor! helped topple Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. His group CANVAS teaches activists around the world how to overthrow autocratic governments.