Caffeine Radio: Recent Episodes
E-mertz
Caffeine is a radio show/podcast that combines contemporary (electronic) music with philosophical dialogues. Born in 2020, the show presents philosophical dialogues on topics that are all loosely related to dealing better with something impacting your life out-of-nowhere like a pandemic. These are blended with abstract electronic music from the finest DJ`s of Rotterdam and surroundings. For more info visit caffeine.aexotic.net .
In this show we take you back to the cyber-enthusiasm of the 1990's. A time when people where dreaming of an upcoming “internet age”. “Working from home" and "socializing remotely" were then imagined as a liberating vision of the future possible thanks to groundbreaking technologies!
In this episode you'll get an introduction to the power of numbers! The pandemic politics of the last year have been increasingly legitimated through numbers and statistics. These are often used as a way to give proof for the necessity of a political action. But how did numbers become so dominant? And what are things that can’t be measured? Find out in this episode with music provided by Nikos.
The conspiracy theory movement Q-anon is stirring up the US and the rest of the world. With increasing isolation fatigue due to the lock-down(s), is it more likely to get sucked into a cult happening mostly online? Does the overall fatigue ask for a new drug called "Q-caine"?
In episode 6, ginger coons and Moritz do a historical analysis of the outbreak of the bubonic plague in San Francisco around 1900. And the politics of the quarantining and vaccinating process towards the population, at the time a highly discriminating initiative directed almost exclusively to the Chinese population.
Governments all over Europe are struggling to regulate numbers of new infections coming from the covid-19 pandemic. But how does a state regulate a "reproduction rate" of a virus? And what are the origins of these ways of regulating an entire population? It stems from a technique known as biopolitics. Listen to Moritz & Mihai traveling to 17th century France, where an earlier epidemic became the prototype for a political dream of control. Find out more about the workings of biopolitics and how strongly it relates to current discussions we have in society!
What would our economy look like, if everybody had work they actually enjoyed? And what kind of education would we need to prioritize work enjoyment over material gain? These and more questions are what we're talking about in the fourth episode of caffeine radio!
For episode #4 we got inspired by the economic crackdown that happened during the beginning of the pandemic outbreak of 2020. Worldwide production chains where suddenly coming to a halt. What other economic models could we think of that can make us rely better on our own environment? Approaching this topic, Moritz and Noemi investigated the 1973 economy classic "Small is beautiful" by E.F. Schumacher. During the episode we're gonna explain different concepts Schumacher defined in 1973 and discuss their striking validity today.
In the 2nd episode of caffeine were looking at different circumstances in our life and question whether they are in our own control or not. Are things that happen to our body or our reputation really something that we have control over? Were basing this conversation on the "Enchiridion" by the ancient roman philosopher Epictetus. For him, making a division between what is in our power and what not, is essential to living a good life. Your hosts Moritz and Marloes converse, music this time served to you by DJ Klapsalon!
Written in 1909, the sci-fi short story "The machine stops" by E.M. Forster was for its time as visionary as nothing else. It imagined a future where people do live in separated and isolated spaces while exchanging ideas through metal screens all day long. Public gatherings have been abandoned long ago due to their unpractical nature.
Being accompanied by futuristic tunes played by e-mertz, Moritz and Lotte will philosophize about the parallels between this story and how we live now. And how the pandemic has brought us closer or further from the state described in the story.