Other Life: Recent Episodes
Justin Murphy
We dissect the complex life of Ezra Pound, one of the most interesting and controversial poetic geniuses of the 20th century. You'll gain insight into: Why Pound was so influential, his extraordinary talent-spotting skills, and his knack for turning vibrant social scenes into artistic movements. However, be prepared for a rollercoaster ride, as we also delve into the darker sides of Pound's life, including his descent into Fascism and anti-semitism. I believe the story is a cautionary tale about resentment, the modern passion par excellence, and a dangerous trap for people who rebel against institutions.
This podcast will help you understand Pound's poetic and cultural innovations, including Imagism and Vorticism, and how his strong opinions and unique perspective propelled him, despite his controversial and often off-putting personality. We'll recount his turbulent career during WWI and WWII, his friendship with W.B. Yeats, the launch of Blast Magazine, and much more.
This podcast is based on a close reading of Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano (1987) by John Tytell.
Chapters
(0:00:00) - Intro
(0:04:04) - Summary of Lessons From Ezra Pound's Life
(0:17:22) - Dense Networks and Creative Success
(0:26:26) - Imagism and Vorticism
(0:37:05) - Wyndham Lewis and Blast Magazine
(0:42:41) - A Restless and Controversial Personality
(0:53:07) - Taste, Talent-Spotting, and Pound's Extreme Generosity
(1:04:52) - Downward Spiral Into Fascism
(1:18:29) - Ezra Pound's Reflections Late in Life
(1:22:07) - Final Lessons
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A deep dive into the life of William S. Burroughs based on a close reading of Ted Morgan's 1988 biography, Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs. Burroughs is one of the most independent creative spirits of the 20th century. My goal is to understand how he did it; how he remained so free but was also so influential and successful.
I discuss his transformation from a heroin addict living off his parents' allowance to an internationally acclaimed writer, who was inducted into the Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1983. Hear about his unique brand of conservative anarchism, his significant influence on the counterculture of the '60s and '70s, his parenting, and the social-psychological correlates of his creative freedom.
Burroughs was a blend of the Yankee inventor and the fire-and-brimstone Methodist preacher. We explore his grandfather's invention of the arithmometer and his uncle Ivy Lee's career as a public relations expert. These stories shed light on the roots of Burroughs' radical literary career, which combined a penchant for invention with a desire to go his own way and attack the respectable order of things.
I also discuss Burroughs' late entry into writing and his experiences as a heroin user and a criminal, which taught him a lot about how the world works. I explore his failed attempt to build a commercial farm, his theory of 'factualism', which anticipates Nick Land and Deleuze, and much more.
What did you think of this format dedicated to a close reading of a great writer's biography? I'd love to hear from you.
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We discuss the life and times of John Kennedy Toole (1937-1969), the influential author behind the classic novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. We're joined by independent writer Dan Baltic, who teaches us some of the lessons he has learned from Toole's life and career.
Dive into the captivating world of A Confederacy of Dunces, as we discuss the book's main character, Ignatius J Riley; learn how Toole's persistence (or lack thereof) serves as a cautionary tale for contemporary independent writers; as well as the parallels between Toole's struggles and Dan's rise as an independent author on the internet. Dan shares his experience building an audience on Twitter, publishing his first novel, and the lessons he's learned himself.
We try to unlock the strategies and goals of dissident writers, and how independent authors like Paul Millard and Dan Baltic are able to make a living and continue producing great art. We'll discuss the pros and cons of traditional publishing deals, vs. the world of independent publishing.
Chapters:
(0:03:46) - Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces"
(0:15:45) - John Kennedy Tool's Life and Work
(0:29:40) - Persistence and Patience for Writers
(0:33:21) - Navigating the Confusion of Independent Publishing
(0:43:02) - Building a Twitter Audience for Success
(0:48:34) - Unlocking Twitter for Independent Writers
(1:02:17) - Success for Independent Writers
(1:13:09) - Lessons for Starting a Project
Dan Baltic:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/baltic_dan
NUTCRANKR - https://terrorhousepress.com/product/nutcrankr/
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Can artificial intelligence ever truly replace the human mind? In this thought-provoking episode, we explore the delicate balance between embracing AI's power for mechanical tasks, such as summarizing and translating, while preserving the uniquely human elements that make great works truly great.
Join us as we navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI, breaking down categorical humanism and unreconstructed Faustianism, two alternative viewpoints on the topic. We discuss why neither position is fully consistent or defensible, and the importance of understanding the different aspects of human cognition in order to determine which elements can be outsourced to machines and which must remain uniquely human. Don't miss this fascinating conversation about where we draw the line between human intelligence and machine intelligence.
Chapters:
(00:00:22) - Two Futures for AI
(00:05:11) - What Should Writers Outsource To AI?
Other Life
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Why do some incredibly talented individuals never reach their full potential? In today's episode, we dive into the fascinating life of Ezra Pound, a true genius in the realm of language and literature, yet somehow failing to make the lasting impact of his contemporaries like TS Eliot or WB Yeats. We'll explore the idea I call "the curse of genius" and how Pound's obsession with power and acknowledgment may have held him back from greatness.
Join me in this thought-provoking exploration of Ezra Pound's life and career, from his influential role as an editor and promoter of other poets, to his controversial leanings toward fascism later in life. We'll seek to understand the man behind the poetry, the impact he had on the world of arts and letters, and the lessons we can learn from his story for our own personal endeavors and for recognizing the pitfalls that can accompany great talent and ambition.
Chapters:
(00:01:21) - Pound's Curse
(00:05:28) - What Happens When You Aim for Influence?
(00:08:58) - Let the Chips Fall Where They May
Other Life
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In this episode, we explore the principle of writing for oneself and how many of history's greatest writers have operated on this principle. We discuss the importance of writing in a way that pleases only oneself and how sacrificing even a hair of one's vision in order to please someone else is the most abject of treacheries. Listen in as we examine the stakes of writing and how it truly matters whether you're writing for yourself out of a conviction in truth and beauty, or for others in order to please them.
We also discuss the challenges of writing for oneself in the era of social media, where the nearness of the audience can make one lose the self. We consider the difficulty of recultivating the self in today's world and how it requires a certain degree of anti-social discipline and effortful recultivation of the self.
Chapters:
(0:00:00) - Writing for Yourself
(0:05:56) - Cultivating A Self
Other Life
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Asher Penn is the founder and editor of Sex Magazine, now in its 10th year. We talk about the magazine business, how to persist on countercultural projects for the long haul, what's cool and what's not, how to spot underground talent, the enduring value of print, what Asher learned from interviewing William Gibson, and much more. This was recorded at Urbit Assembly 2022.
Asher Penn
Buy Sex Magazine at https://sexmag.bigcartel.com/
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Subscribe to The Network Age podcast wherever you get your podcasts https://rss.com/podcasts/thenetworkage
~timluc-miptev: https://twitter.com/basileSportif
~nilrun-mardux: https://twitter.com/alephdao
~bichul-ritsen: https://twitter.com/bichulr
Recommended reading mentionedhttps://bichulritsen.substack.com/p/how-to-explain-ftx-to-your-mother
https://www.thediff.co/p/money-credit-trust-ftx
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Alex Lee Moyer is the director of TFW NO GF and most recently Alex's War. We discuss Alex's perspective on filmmaking, Hollywood, independent vs. institutional pathways, and why it's worthwhile to produce politically difficult work. This was recorded at Urbit Assembly 2022.
Alex Lee Moyer
✦ Watch Moyer's new documentary on Alex Jones
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Don't Obey the Algorithms; Ye is the GOAT; my review of Sam Kriss on "The Internet is Already Over", and Nick Land Dead or Alive.
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Every sentence from Nick Land's Meltdown, one at a time. https://nicklandcourse.com
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Now that we're past Peak Wokeness, has "heterodoxy" exhausted itself? That's the argument of David Fuller, co-founder of Rebel Wisdom, a popular but now retired media brand. We discuss the problem of audience capture, whether Eric Weinstein and Jordan Peterson lost the plot, why David and Alexander decided to shut down Rebel Wisdom, and the deep-reaching effects that Covid has had on public intellectual life.
David Fuller
✦ David Fuller on Twitter
✦ David's website
Other Life
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Joey Krug is Co-Chief Investment Officer at Pantera Capital, the biggest crypto hedge fund in the world. Joey's AngelList syndicate is also one of the most successful ever. We talk about Urbit as an investment and how to identify underpriced value more generally.
Joey Krug
✦ Joey on Twitter
✦ Pantera Capital
Other Life
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Timluc is a top Urbit engineer and founder of Uqbar, a zero-knowledge ETH Layer 2 built on Urbit.
Timluc is one of the highest-conviction Urbit bulls in the world. We talked about why he has so much confidence in Urbit, what people misunderstand about Urbit, why he went from BTC Maxi to ETH Maxi, and what he learned about crypto living in Ukraine when the war broke out.
~timluc-miptev
✦ Follow Timluc on Twitter
✦ Subscribe to timluc's new podcast The Network Age
✦ The Uqbar crew is eager to talk with you in their Urbit group: ~hocwyn-tipwex/uqbar-event-horizon-forever
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Marty Bent is the founder of TFTC.io, a media company focused on Bitcoin and freedom in the digital age. We discuss the "ESG" movement, how Marty built his media company, and how he's now building a natural gas company with Bitcoin mining.
Marty Bent
✦ Marty's newsletter
✦ Marty's podcasts
✦ Marty on Twitter
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~Nilrun-mardux is co-host of The Network Age podcast and founder of AlephDAO, an early network state project on Urbit via El Salvador.
~Nilrun-mardux
✦ Nilrun is on Twitter at @alephdao
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Ellie Hain and Joe Edelman are itinerant thinkers designing a new kind of social movement. We discuss what they've learned from Charles Taylor and Amartya Sen, why Effective Altruism can be so cringe, Joe's role building Couchsurfing.com, and much more.
Ellie Hain
Joe Edelman
Other Life
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Logistical acceleration refers to the logistic function, otherwise known as an S-shaped growth curve. Techno-economic interactivity is a key postulate of Land's ideas. Elsewhere, he will frequently use the adjective techonomic.
Other Life
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Chris Williamson runs the Modern Wisdom podcast and YouTube channel. We discuss how Chris went from zero subscribers to nearly half a million; how to get big guests; and how to think about wisdom in the internet era.
Modern Wisdom by Chris Williamson
Podcast
YouTube
Other Life
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Curtis Yarvin is the author of Gray Mirror
Other Life
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In the most underrated work of social theory from the 1990s, Nick Land presents a sweeping theory of modernity.
With about 3,500 words and only 4 citations,Meltdown seems to comprehend—and arguably foretell—a range of momentous historical developments that will only arrive decades later. From cryptocurrency to the Covid pandemic, Meltdown sees it all coming.
And yet, few social scientists have ever deigned to take this work seriously.
The time is nigh. otherlife.co/renaissance-rationalization
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Geoffrey Shullenberger (@daily_barbarian) is a lecturer at NYU and runs the newsletter and podcast. Geoffrey teaches the Other Life course on René Girard.
The Girard Course
✦ Download our free 18-page syllabus to get started reading Girard
Other Life
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Rachel-Rose O'Leary was an artist before getting into crypto through Nick Land and Julian Assange. She's now a programmer working with Amir Taaki to build a crypto-anarchist DeFi ecosystem called DarkFi.
✦ DarkFi
✦ Rachel-Rose on Twitter
Other Life
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James Ellis hosts the podcast Hermitix. His latest book is Be Not Afraid, a fictionalized account of his recent conversion to Christianity. We discuss James' actual conversion story, Saint Teresa Benedicta and CS Lewis among others, and James' journey as a writer and podcaster.
✦ Be Not Afraid
✦ James' current writing
✦ The Hermitix podcast
✦ James on Twitter
Other Life
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Neal Davis is a professor of computer science and the director of Urbit's Hoon School. We discuss why solving nuclear fusion might be a disaster, why Urbit computers have souls, Shinto philosophy, why you should read old books, how to select books, and much more. This was really good!
Neal Davis
✦ Neal on Twitter
✦ Neal on Urbit: ~lagrev-nocfep
✦ Learn Hoon with Neal
Other Life
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Vers la Lune is an NFT degen who hosts the podcast Version 4, which published the first interview with Miya the BPD God in 2020. As Crypto Twitter influencers try to cancel the Milady NFTs for association with Miya, this podcast provides a totally different narrative in the context of Vers' first-hand knowledge of the Miya/Milady nexus and his larger perspective on NFT valuation.
Vers la Lune
✦ Vers on Twitter
✦ The Version 4 podcast with Charlotte Fang representing Miya
Other Life
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Noah Kumin is the founder and editor of the Mars Review of Books, a new magazine published from Urbit (in print and digital). Check out the Mars Review of Books at https://marsreview.org.
Mars Review of Books
✦ Order Vol. 1 in print
✦ Noah on Urbit: ~librex-dozryc
✦ Noah on Twitter
Other Life
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Johnathan Bi is a founder and independent scholar working on René Girard. Johnathan just published a professionally-produced YouTube series on Girard, in collaboration with David Perell. We discuss the concept of metaphysical desire, how to engineer social environments for productive mimesis, whether Girard can be separated from Christianity (Johnathan thinks he can), and the strategy behind Johnathan's new lecture series on YouTube.
To learn more about and watch/listen to the first episode, check out: https://twitter.com/JohnathanBi/status/1530297358432407553
Johnathan Bi
✦ Johnathan's website
✦ Johnathan on Twitter
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I'm joined by @lb_dobis, @yung_calibri, @SCHIZO_FREQ, @addytheyoung.
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Paul Millerd was a McKinsey consultant before quitting for an independent life on the internet. He's the author of The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life.
✦ The Pathless Path
✦ Paul's newsletter
✦ Paul on Twitter
Other Life
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Steff is a poet and Autumn is a novelist. We talk about the writing economy, grad school for poetry, canceling yourself, how Autumn almost won the Passage Prize for right-wing fiction, how to stay free inside the institutions, how Autumn won Steff's heart with a meme about Hitler, how to think about success as a writer today, whether Curtis Yarvin's poetry is good, and Steff's call for suitors (DMs open).
Steff
✦ Steff on Twitter
✦ Steff's website
Autumn Christian
✦ Teach Robots Love
✦ Autumn on Twitter
✦ Autumn's novels
Other Life
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We discuss the enneagram personality model, my decision to become 10% more psycho, why Mike loves Gandhi, Christian anarchism, and markets for truth.
✦ Mike is the founder of IdeaMarket.io
✦ Mike on Twitter
Other Life
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Andrew Hitchock bought 21 acres outside Austin to build a village DAO. We talk about the new urbanism, his vision for his village DAO called Montanoso, what he's learned from similar projects such as CabinDAO, and how he plans to make his vision happen.
✦ Andrew's village DAO, Montanoso
✦ Andrew on Twitter
Other Life
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At the Other Life x Urbit meetup in Austin, a group of 8 people rocked up wearing black trenchcoats. Endproject is an art and music collective based in Houston. I didn't know a thing about any of them until this podcast, and we quickly went deep into their defection from institutions, faith, the logic of culture, Deleuzian immanence, Urbit, and how authentic counterculture always wins.
✦ Endproject website
✦ Endproject's group on Urbit: ~rocdel-napsec/endproject
✦ Vincent on Twitter
✦ Vincent on Urbit: ~tacnul-docrux
✦ Maria on Instagram
✦ Maria on Urbit: ~doltud-topsyp
✦ Justin on Twitter
✦ Justin on Urbit: ~dirtec-hassun
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Read the essay
Upcoming events I mentioned
Other Life
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We discuss what's real and what's not in web3 gaming, and the future of crypto countries. Charl3s is a cool dude I've got to know in Austin. At a party recently, I heard him spitting some fire about how most of web3 gaming is bullshit, so I brought him on to discuss.
✦ Nifty Island is a web3 game that lets players import NFTs from multiple chains
✦ Charl3s on Twitter
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We discuss the evolution of "alt lit," the formative experience of "indie sleaze" for millennials, why party photography went out of fashion, and the gathering wave of sex negativity.
✦ Katherine's newsletter
✦ Katherine on Twitter
✦ Katherine on Urbit: ~hapnyx-tamnex
Other Life
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We discuss the imminent future of DAOs on Urbit with the founder of Holium (~lomder-librun) and Anthony (~poldec-tonteg) from the Urbit-focused startup accelerator The Combine.
Other Life
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James Poulos is a Tocqueville scholar who wrote The Art of Being Free (2017) and Human Forever (2021). He was a co-founder of The American Mind and his latest project is a magazine called Return. We discuss humanism and post-humanism, the merging of Big Tech and Woke Capital into an atheist cyborg theocracy, why James rejects accelerationism, the importance of human memory, Bitcoin, Urbit, and much more.
✦ Human Forever
✦ Return Magazine
✦ James on Twitter
Other Life
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Riva Tez wants to fund epistemological anarchy in science. Former VC, Former Director at Intel, former store owner, Riva does whatever she wants.
We talked about how Riva built a unique career doing whatever she wants, what she's learned from the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, why the brain might be an antenna, why she moved away from Transhumanism, why Rationalism is cringe, how she thinks Urbit will win, and how she's planning to introduce epistemological anarchism to contemporary science funding.
✦ Riva is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rivatez
✦ Riva's writings: hardtowrite.com
Other Life
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.co
✦ We're building a new country at Imperceptible.Country
If you like the podcast, you'll love the newsletter: otherlife.co
✦ The Improvement Illusion: otherlife.co/improvement
✦ On the NYRB: otherlife.co/signs78
✦ Join the new Other Life community: imperceptible.country
✦ If you're working on independent intellectual work you should join the next cohort of IndieThinkers.org
I'll be in NYC for a few days around May 20. I'm down to give talks, do your podcast, etc. Just hit reply to an Other Life newsletter and tell me what's up.
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✦ Get your own Urbit planet (free) at imperceptible.computer
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Dr. Jonathan Paprocki is a specialist in topological quantum compiling and an Urbit engineer interested in swarm intelligence, Internet of Things, and anarcho-communist governance structures.
✦ Jonathan on Urbit: ~datnut-pollen
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.Co
Anthony Arroyo runs The Combine, a startup incubator for startups building on Urbit. We discuss how Urbit governance really works, debunking the many myths, i.e. the meme that Urbit has a "feudal" or even "fascist" governance structure. We also discuss how Urbit competes with Ethereum, what kinds of businesses are starting to appear on Urbit, and many other interesting topics.
✦ Anthony on Urbit: ~poldec-tonteg
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.Co
Sam Frank has written for Harper's and The New Yorker, but he was also an early buyer of Ethereum because Vitalik "looked like an alien." Sam explains his heuristics for judging technological and cultural projects, how he first met Curtis Yarvin, what he sees in Urbit, and how he eventually became one of 256 senators in Urbit's galactic senate.
✦ Sam on Urbit: ~todset-partug
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.Co
A short lecture on "Review of CCRU's Digital Hyperstition" in the book Writings 1997-2003. We analyze how the CCRU foresaw many aspects of the crypto economy from first principles in the early 1990s. See more below.
✦ Get a free Urbit planet at https://imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at https://otherlife.co
Ted Blackman is a senior engineer at Tlon and one of the most advanced Urbit engineers in the world. We discuss how Urbit will get faster, how it will scale to billions of users, and how Urbit fits into the blockchain ecosystem. In some ways Urbit is like a blockchain, in other ways Urbit is the categorical dual of the blockchain, soon there will be a blockchain built on top of Urbit, and more.
✦ Ted on Urbit: ~rovnys-ricfer
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.Co
Soph, aka praxisbaby, is a niche microcelebrity e-girl from the GenZ wing of the Weird Theory twitterverse. Now she's into Urbit, so I interviewed her to learn what's bringing e-girls to Urbit. She is joined by her fellow e-girl friend ****, who has requested to stay anonymous.
✦ Remilia Collective
✦ Soph on Twitter: @alivegirl001101
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.co
Philip Monk co-authored the Urbit whitepaper with Curtis Yarvin in 2016. He's now one of the lead engineers working on Urbit, and a thoughtful writer as well. We discuss how to find frontiers, the philosophy of "correctness at all costs," how the current internet is captured by gradient descent, and how Urbit will achieve mass adoption.
✦ Philip on Urbit: ~wicdev-wisryt
✦ Philip's blog: pcmonk.me
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.co
Nico Arqueros is the CEO of dcSpark, a startup that's recently launched two products built on Urbit. We discuss their unique thesis that the future of Urbit apps is outside of Urbit, with Urbit ID as the universal identity layer for the multi-chain future.
✦ Nico on Urbit: ~dovnec-bonder
✦ UrbitVisor is a Chrome plugin that uses your Urbit ID to interact with websites. https://urbitvisor.com/
✦ UrbitDashboard lets you explore your ship's activity in a browser-based dashboard. https://urbitdashboard.com
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at https://imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at https://otherlife.co
Honor Levy and Walter Pearce host the podcast Wet Brain. We discuss cataclysmic events about to happen, Starseed Theory, demons, fashion, God, the CIA, the problem with Millennials, how they got into Urbit, and more.
The Wet Brain podcast: https://www.patreon.com/wetbrain
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at https://imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at https://otherlife.co
Galen Wolfe-Pauly is the CEO of Tlon. We discuss why Urbit is led by designers rather than engineers, the theories of Christopher Alexander, the longest-running company in the world (Kongo Gumi), and much more.
Galen on Urbit: ~ravmel-ropdyl
✦ I can give you an Urbit planet at imperceptible.computer
✦ Learn more about this episode's sponsor at dalten.org
The Tirrel corporation is a startup building payment rails for Urbit. We discuss capitalism on Urbit, Deleuze, Christianity, and the impossibility of human dignity on the current internet.
Tirrel Corporation: https://tirrel.io/
Christian on Urbit: ~pindet-timmut
Logan on Urbit: ~tacryt-socryp
✦ I can give you an Urbit planet at https://imperceptible.computer/
✦ Learn more about this episode's sponsor at https://dalten.org
Édouard Urcades is a designer at Tlon. He thinks computers are like flowers; his goal is to design the most beautiful computer.
Édouard on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fiowerstructure
Édouard on Urbit: ~fabled-faster
✦ I can give you an Urbit planet at https://imperceptible.computer/
✦ Learn more about this episode's sponsor at https://dalten.org
The Chivalry Guild is a Twitter account about the theory, history, and aesthetics of chivalry. We're joined by Parker, the creator and author, who explains how chivalry is a theory of Christian vitalism. "Christian men don't have to be bugmen," he explains. We also discuss the strategy and tactics behind launching and building "theory brands" on the internet; how Parker grew the account over its first year; how much writing is necessary to grow a theory account (less than you think), and more.
The Chivalry Guild: https://twitter.com/ChivalryGuild
Other Life
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On the surface, Numerai is a crowdsourced and tokenized hedge fund. Below the surface, it's a decentralized truth machine pointing the way to general Artificial Intelligence. They recently released performance metrics for the first time, showing that Numerai outperforms other market neutral hedge funds by 29%.
I talk with Numerai founder Richard Craib about finance and truth, the regulation of crypto, how to raise money for crazy ideas, how to persist on crazy ideas, the future of artificial intelligence, and how to overthrow the Elite Gerontocracy.
Numerai
✦ Data scientists can get started at https://numer.ai/
✦ Numerai's recent performance report: https://medium.com/numerai/numerai-outperforms-market-neutral-hedge-funds-by-29-raises-up-to-150m-9df9a0ce642
✦ Richard Craib on Twitter: https://twitter.com/richardcraib
Other Life
✦ Join 6,000 academics, creators, founders, and investors who read the free Other Life newsletter at https://OtherLife.co
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From a private seminar hosted in the Other Life community. To learn more and follow community events, subscribe to the free newsletter at https://OtherLife.co
A lecture on Albert Hirschman's classic book from 1970. More info below.
✦ Read the lecture notes at https://OtherLife.co
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life podcast https://plnk.to/otherlife
Paul Town is an author and all-around star of the internet underground. He has a wild life story involving psychosis, alleged arson, and a ton of writing: In 2019 he wrote 3 books of more than 400 pages each. All of his books are self-published and quite underrated. We talked mostly about writing on the internet, indie publishing, and the internet-insanity nexus. This conversation was quite funny, interesting, and had some real insight around mindset, attitude, and how to live a creative life in the internet age.
✦ Paul Town on Instagram: https://instagram.com/realpaultown
✦ Paul Town's most popular book (comedic non-fiction): It Is the Secret
✦ Paul Town's latest book (novel): Rose
Other Life
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IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Gritcult is a Twitter anon who's built a small business empire exclusively through Twitter. We talk about getting jacked, how he built his business on Twitter, and how he thinks about content, crypto, cults, and much more.
✦ Gritcult on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GRITCULT
✦ Gritcult's crypto fashion marketplace: https://tri.bs
Other Life
✦ Join 5,500 academics, creators, and investors who read the Other Life newsletter: https://OtherLife.co
IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Mark Beylin is a co-founder of Myco, a platform for Web3 social businesses. Mark is also a writer and he has interesting ideas about the intersection of business, social media, and crypto.
Mark Beylin and Myco
✦ Mark on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkBeylin
✦ Myco: https://myco.space/
✦ How Myco works: https://m.mirror.xyz/6UxMOPMAnCZr8XSkhIM2Xx47bZ7X5rColwpnwIDbx5s
Other Life
✦ Join 5,500 academics, creators, and investors who read the Other Life newsletter: https://OtherLife.co
IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Josh Rosenthal is a former academic historian and a specialist in the European Renaissance and Wars of Religion. He's now a serial founder and crypto investor. We discuss parallels between the crypto revolution today and the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Wars of Religion. If you listened to Josh's recent appearance on the Bankless podcast, this is like a Part 2.
Josh Rosenthal
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshuarosenthal
6th Event, a crypto-first founder's fund: https://www.go6ixthevent.com/
Other Life
✦ Join 5,500 academics, creators, and investors who read the Other Life newsletter: https://OtherLife.co
IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Eric Jacobus is a professional stuntman, motion designer, and independent philosopher. He is writing a book called the Art of Violence, about how mirror neurons and mimetic rivalry affect perceptions of violence. We talked about film, how to theorize cinematic violence, René Girard, how social crises change cinematic norms around violence, why mainstream cinema has degenerated so badly, and much more.
Eric JacobusThe Art of Violence: https://ericjacobus.com/the-art-of-violence/
Eric's Youtube: https://youtube.com/ericjacobusofficial
Rope a Dope (short film): https://youtu.be/G5xAbp1SW5c
Other Life
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IndieThinkers.org
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Indian Bronson is a pseudonymous writer and an early employee at Swype. Swype is building pseudonymous payment infrastructure on crypto rails.
Swype: https://getswype.io/
Indian Bronson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lndian_bronson
Other Life
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IndieThinkers.org
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Gabby Dizon is the founder of Yield Guild Games ($YGG), adecentralized autonomous organization that lends video-game assets to professional gamers for profit. Like a "World of Warcraft guild with a balance sheet." Their serious gamers earn around $1,000/month on average, sometimes much more. Remittances from the game Axie Infinity to the Philippines are greater than remittances from Hong Kong.
Gabby Dizon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gabusch
Yield Guild Games: https://yieldguild.io/
Other Life
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IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Path started trading crypto when he was 15 and made a ton of money. He's famous for calling the Bitcoin top in 2017 but less known is that he's an OG of the 2015 Meme War and an Urbit bull.
We talked about how meme culture informs his trading strategies; how artists and intellectuals should think about developing crypto projects; what he's bullish on right now, and what he thinks will stand the test of time amid all the hype bubbles rising and falling in recent years. Not financial advice, of course!
➡️ Follow Path at @Cryptopathic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cryptopathic
Other Life
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IndieThinkers.org
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Signs of Life is my weekly newsletter about philosophy and science on the frontiers of internet culture. Subscribe at https://OtherLife.co.
This podcast is based on Signs #63: Reality Splitters. We explore...
- How to find frontiers
- Mónica Belevan's theory of Covidian Aesthetics
- How to listen to podcasts
- A light for the most midnightly men, according to Nietzsche
- How microdosing works
- News and events coming up (Based Mansion, Austin!)
Links
✦ ȘȈǤƝȘ 63, Reality Splitters: https://www.otherlife.co/signs-reality-splitters/ ✦ IndieThinkers.org:https://indiethinkers.org
✦ Philip Monk's How to Find Frontiers https://pcmonk.me/2019/02/19/how-to-find-frontiers.html
✦ Join a Tuesday morning work session: https://lu.ma/fhonr8u8
✦ Edgeware Agency's Discord server: https://discord.gg/JXcdzNeQys
✦ RSVP to Based Mansion: https://jmrphy.typeform.com/mansion-atx#source=pod
Mónica Belevan is a Peruvian theorist and crypto entrepreneur. She's the author of a newsletter called Covidian Aesthetics and co-founder of a Web3 production studio called Accursed Share. Her current focus is an NFT project called The Curse, which you can search for on Open Sea.
We talk about Georges Bataille and the meaning of energy expenditure in the cryptoeconomy; Spengler, Wittgenstein, and Duchamp; the aesthetics of covid, the sentimentality of markets; the affective drama of Wallstreet Bets; egregoric warfare; and much more.
➡️ Covidian Aesthetics newsletter: https://covidianaesthetics.substack.com
➡️ Accursed Share production studio: https://accursedshare.art
➡️ The Curse NFT: https://accursedshare.art/curse-nft-auction/
Other Life
✦ Join 6,000+ academics, creators, and investors who read the Other Life newsletter https://OtherLife.co
✦ Join the Urbit group via https://exit.otherlife.co
IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Discord for this project: https://discord.gg/W43KSNgWct
The Point DAO group on Urbit: ~winlud-dirnet/point-dao
If you need an Urbit planet, I can give you one at cost of gas fees: https://exit.otherlife.co
James of Zora.co
✦ James on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/new_username_22
Kenny Rowe
✦ Kenny Rowe on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/sicdev_pilnup
Justin Murphy
✦ I write a free newsletter to more than 6,000 academics, creators, founders, and investors: https://OtherLife.co
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
✦ If you're not already subscribed to the pod, subscribe at https://plnk.to/otherlife
Justin Murphy
✦ I write a free newsletter to more than 6,000 academics, creators, founders, and investors: https://OtherLife.co
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
✦ If you're not already subscribed to the pod, subscribe at https://plnk.to/otherlife
Brom Rector is a Youtuber, podcaster, and venture capitalist focused on the psychedelics industry. We discuss how he launched his creator brand and VC fund at the same time; the current FDA pipeline, which psychedelics are going to be mainstream medicine, in what order, and for what treatments; unknown psychedelic compounds that haven't been invented yet; the "picks and shovels" infrastructure that will boom as psychedelics go mainstream; how to track the space; why microdosing might be overrated and harmful; a serotonin receptor to improve long term memory; whether LSD can help ADHD; how the psychedelic industry is different from the cannabis industry; and how virtual reality is on a continuum with psychedelics.
Brom Rector
✦ Empath Ventures VC Fund: https://www.empath.vc
✦ The Integration Conversation Podcast: https://www.theintegration.co
✦ Brom on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/therealbrom
Justin Murphy
✦ I write a free newsletter to more than 6,000 academics, creators, founders, and investors: https://OtherLife.co
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
✦ If you're not already subscribed to the pod, subscribe at https://plnk.to/otherlife
Resources on the Psychedelics Industry
✦ Clinical Trial Tracker: https://psilocybinalpha.com/data/psychedelic-drug-development-tracker
✦ Database of Psychedelics Research and Companies: https://blossomanalysis.com/
✦ Psychedelics Patent Tracker: https://psilocybinalpha.com/data/psilocybin-patent-tracker
Razib Khan writes the #1 Substack in the Science category. We talk about how to genotype your unborn baby, whether we can increase our intelligence and testosterone with CRISPR, whether Genghis Khan was good actually, how Razib is succeeding on Substack, and much more.
Check out Razib's Substack at razib.substack.com. If you subscribe, tell him I sent you.
➡️ Join 6,000+ who read the Other Life newsletter at OtherLife.co
➡️ If you're working on long-term creative or intellectual work, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
We talk with the preeminent biographer of Ivan Illich on the life and times of the great Catholic anarchist priest; Giorgio Agamben and the coronavirus; why friendship is the modern form of prophecy, and much more.
➡️ Nina Power's course on Ivan Illich: IllichCourse.com
➡️ Join 6,000+ readers of my newsletter at OtherLife.co
➡️ If you're working on long-term creative or intellectual work, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
Jess Sloss is a lead instigator of Seed Club, an incubator of tokenized communities—communities that use custom cryptocurrencies to align incentives and distribute value among stakeholders.
Learn more about Jess Sloss and Seed Club
✦ https://SeedClub.io
✦ The Seed Club Discord https://discord.gg/42UjJskuEF
✦ Jess Sloss on Twitter https://twitter.com/thattallguy
Learn more about the $LIFE dao
✦ Join my free Urbit group and get some $LIFE: https://exit.otherlife.co
Are you working on a long-term creative project outside of institutions?
✦ Request an invitation to https://IndieThinkers.org
LM Sacasas is a theorist of technology and expert on Ivan Illich. He writes a popular Substack called the The Convivial Society, and recently published a book entitled The Frailest Thing. We're joined by friend of the show Nina Power to discuss Ivan Illich's prescient theories of technology, institutions, and the senses.
Learn more about LM Sacasas✦ Subscribe to LM's newsletter, The Convivial Society.
✦ Read LM's book of collected essays, The Frailest Thing.
Learn more about Ivan Illich✦ Download our free Ivan Illich reading list at https://IllichCourse.com
✦ Apply to Nina Power's 8-week course on Ivan Illich at https://IllichCourse.com
Are you working on a long-term creative project outside of institutions?✦ Request an invitation to https://IndieThinkers.org
David Fuller is a co-founder of Rebel Wisdom, a media company and community dedicated to ideas and independent sense-making.
Rebel Wisdom’s newest course, Sensemaking 101, starts this Thursday. With guest faculty including Daniel Schmachtenberger, John Vervaeke and others participants will spend 8 weeks developing their judgment, thinking, speaking, and relating skills. David is giving Other Life listeners 10% off, just use the coupon code “Indie_10”.
✦ Sensemaking 101: https://rebelwisdom.co.uk/sensemaking101
✦ Rebel Wisdom on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/rebelwisdom
Other Life
✦ I write a free newsletter about philosophy, science, and tech to +6,000 academics, creators, founders, and hackers. Subscribe at https://otherlife.co
✦ If you like the podcast, do me a favor and leave a review on Apple podcasts! https://otherlife.co/review
IndieThinkers.org
✦Are you working on a long-term intellectual project? With about 400 members working on blogs, books, films, and more, IndieThinkers.org provides recurring work sessions to improve your productivity, monthly conferences to share your work, private workshops and Q&As with other successful indie thinkers, a content library with instructional material, and a curated network for finding collaborators. Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org: https://bit.ly/3jH5DUg
If you like the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts: OtherLife.co/review
✦ Get our Ivan Illich reading list at IllichCourse.com
✦ Subscribe to the newsletter at OtherLife.co
✦ If you're working on long-term intellectual work outside of institutions, request an invitation at IndieThinkers.org
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts: https://plnk.to/otherlife
✦ Join the 6,000+ who read my writing on philosophy, science, and tech: https://otherlife.co
✦ If you're an independent intellectual working on a serious long-term project, request an invitation at https://indiethinkers.org
Wolf Tivy is Editor-in-Chief of Palladium Magazine. We discuss Wolf's theory of how a network of outsider seed institutions can reboot the US government; Palladium's aesthetic of Luxury Political Theory; why Palladium is structured as a non-profit; how they're layering in community features via Patreon; and why cloud countries and charter cities are unlikely to succeed without going through the US government.
✦ Wolf Tivy: http://wolftivy.com/
✦ Palladium Magazine: https://palladiummag.com/
✦ Get Palladium's beautiful print mag: https://www.patreon.com/palladium
✦ I write a free newsletter to more than 6,000 academics, founders, investors, and indie thinkers. Subscribe at https://otherlife.co
✦ Are you working on long-term intellectual work? Request an invitation to https://IndieThinkers.org
Nina Power is a British philosopher. She is teaching an online course about Ivan Illich at https://IllichCourse.com.
✦ We made a detailed syllabus for anyone interested in exploring Illich further. Download it at https://IllichCourse.com
✦ Are you working on long-term intellectual work? Request an invitation to https://IndieThinkers.org
Jacob's Twitter: @cryptochamomile
Adam's site: http://counterengineer.com/blog
Contain podcast: https://www.patreon.com/contain
Find Christian on Urbit as ~pindet-timmut
✦ Christian's group on Urbit is ~pindet-timmut/urbitcoin-cash
✦ Are you working on long-term intellectual work? Request an invitation to https://IndieThinkers.org
Is Satanism going mainstream, or is it angelicism in disguise?
✦ Check out Barrett's Contain podcast at patreon.com/contain
✦ Download the René Girard reading list at girardcourse.com
Are you working on a long-term intellectual project?
✦ Request an invitation to indiethinkers.org
Geoff Shullenberger is a lecturer at NYU. Download his free Girard study guide at GirardCourse.com.
Learn more about Geoff Shullenberger
✦ Outsider Theory newsletter: OutsiderTheory.com
✦ Outsider Theory podcast: OutsiderTheory.fireside.fm
✦ Geoff on Twitter: twitter.com/daily_barbarian
Join us for Geoff's 8-week course on René Girard
✦ GirardCourse.com
Working on your own research or creative work?
✦ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
In this podcast, we discuss:
Week 1: Introduction to Mimetic Theory
Week 2: Rivalry, Resentment, and Conversion
Week 3: The Founding Murder, the Scapegoat, and Sacrifice
Week 4: Deciphering Myth
Week 5: The Scandal of Christianity
Week 6: Girard Contra Nietzsche and Freud
Week 7: The Persistence of Scapegoating
My take on Eric Weinstein's long-awaited research paper, and other cringe coming out of the Rogansphere.
✦ Text me at +1 (303) 529-2047, I want to hear what you think
✦ Download the René Girard reading list at girardcourse.com
✦ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
Samo Burja is the founder of a consultancy called Bismarck Analysis, but he's interesting to me primarily as a theorist and researcher who has carved out an impressive niche for himself as an independent intellectual. I've invited Samo on the podcast to learn more about his ideas, but also to look under the hood of his larger operation because I think there's a lot to learn there, especially for all the rest of us who are finding our own ways to conduct professional-level intellectual work outside of traditional institutions.
Samo's website: samoburja.com
Samo's book, Great Founder Theory: samoburja.com/gft
Samo's Twitter: twitter.com/samoburja
Bismarck Analysis: bismarckanalysis.com
✦ If you're doing intellectual work outside of institutions, check out IndieThinkers.org
Launch your Urbit ship at https://tlon.io/
Apply for an Urbit grant at https://grants.urbit.org/
Follow Jacob at https://twitter.com/cryptochamomile
✦ Text me anything at +1 (303) 529-2047, I'll reply personally
✦ Working on your own intellectual project? Go to https://IndieThinkers.org
Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter on philosophy, science, and internet culture: otherlife.co
✦ Fans of the podcast can support via Patreon: patreon.com/jmrphy
✦ If you're working on your own intellectual projects, check out IndieThinkers.org
✦ Intern Ben's Twitter: twitter.com/b_well_insomnia
Recorded in-person during the recent collapse of the Texas electrical grid, 20-year-old Sierra Armor explains everything you ever wanted to know about the difference between Gen-Z art hoes, edgelord e-girls, quirked up shawties, and what these mysterious young women are looking for in a potential podcaster BF. We also learn what the younger e-girls think about: Deanna Havas, Cum Town, Tim Dillon, Kantbot, Anna Khachiyan, Thomas777, Paul Town, and many more.
Connect with Sierra Armor aka Unbridled Id
✦ Sierra on Twitter: @unbridled_id
✦ Sierra on Instagram: instagram.com/unbridled_id
✦ Sierra's quirked up Substack: sierraarmour.substack.com
Connect with the Other Life podcast
✦ Text me anything at +1 (303) 529-2047, I'm trying to connect with listeners more
✦ I write a free weekly letter to 6k indie thinkers: OtherLife.co
Support the Other Life podcast
✦ Leave a review on Apple Podcasts
✦ Support Other Life on Patreon at patreon.com/jmrphy
Are you working on a long-term intellectual project?✦ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
We react to schizo TikTok simps and Eric Weinstein's paranoia.
✦ Please leave a review for the podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/other-life/id1195362330
✦ My free weekly newsletter on philosophy, science, and tech: https://otherlife.co/newsletter
✦ Fans of the podcast can join the tokenized Discord server: https://otherlife.co/join
✦ If you're working on your own intellectual projects, check out https://IndieThinkers.org
✦ Subscribe to Ben's Twitter at twitter.com/b_well_insomnia
✦ Subscribe to the podcast and leave a review at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/other-life/id1195362330
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✦ Fans of the podcast should join the Discord server: otherlife.co/join
✦ If you're working on your own intellectual projects, request an invite to IndieThinkers.org
Check out IdeaMarket at https://ideamarket.io and learn more about Mike's writings at ribbonfarm.com/author/harmonylion.
✦ Every week I send a letter to more than 5,000 writers, creators, founders, and investors: otherlife.co/newsletter
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life podcast and leave a review at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/other-life/id1195362330
To join the live podcasts, subscribe to the Youtube channel and click the bell to be notified whenever I go live: https://www.youtube.com/justinmurphy?sub_confirmation=1
✦ Fans of the podcast can join my new tokenized Discord server: https://otherlife.co/join
✦ Other independent intellectuals should check out: https://IndieThinkers.org
Enroll in the course now: https://otherlife.co/jung
Get the Carl Jung reading list: https://gum.co/jung-guide
Join our Q&A about the course this Saturday: https://lu.ma/jung-qa
Barrett just moved to Austin too—we talk about quirked up shawties and normie bug ontology so don't listen if you only like my serious podcasts. I'm launching a course on Carl Jung with John David Ebert! Learn more at https://otherlife.co/jung/
Contain Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/contain-podcast/id1534719132
Contain Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/contain___
Contain Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/contain
This week was one of the craziest weeks in the history of American finance. Jacob explains the whole story of how the Reddit community Wallstreetbets is tanking a prestigious Wall Street hedge fund.
✦ Find Jacob on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkAiIqyVMwIolQnlDQ2af4g
✦ Find Jacob on Twitter, @cryptochamomile
✦ My newsletter is read by thousands of creators, academics & founders: otherlife.co/newsletter
I discuss my recent move to Austin TX, chaos at the Capitol, and the parallels between Bitcoin and Christianity with Jacob (@cryptochamomile).
➡️ Jacob's Youtube channel
John David Ebert is a cultural critic and the author of 26 books, including Art After Metaphysics, The New Media Invasion, The Age of Catastrophe and Dead Celebrities, Living Icons.
This is a warm-up for an 8-week course on Carl Jung, starting on February 20th.
✦ Get our Carl Jung reading list at otherlife.co/jung
✦ John David Ebert on Twitter: @johndavidebert
Dryden Brown is building a new kind of city, from the cloud, in a style he calls hero-futurism.
✦ bluebookcities.com
✦ @drydenwtbrown
✦ https://www.drydenbrown.org/
Get the free, expertly curated reading list at otherlife.co/strauss
This is probably the single best podcast on the main ideas of Leo Strauss. A warmup for Michael's 8-week online course that starts on January 23. Signup to be notified when the full course opens: https://otherlife.co/strauss
Michael Millerman received his PhD from the University of Toronto. He's taught and published extensively on Leo Strauss.
Michael's website: michaelmillerman.ca
I discuss my theory of reality forking with two tech entrepreneurs who specialize in community business models.
✦ Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) is CEO of product studio Late Checkout
✦ Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) is co-founder of On Deck
We discuss:
- How society got to a place where it lost its collective sense-making abilities.
- Why calibrating what is real is harder than ever.
- Signs that your community is working and what makes it flourish.
What percentage of my net worth is in crypto? Is the future of academia on Youtube, or where? Would I cut ties with Patreon? Do I consider myself uncensorable? What is the value of my brand? Where is it heading? Why am I launching a social token? Where do I locate myself in relation to other professionals becoming indie creators, like journalists going to Substack?
✦ Every week I send my best ideas & links to ~5k galaxy brains just like you: otherlife.co/newsletter
✦ Working on your own intellectual projects? Check out IndieThinkers.org
Tom Kaczynski is a successful indie thinker in a most challenging niche: Philosophy comics. Over 10 years, Tom K. has built an impressive little empire as an independent illustrator, teacher, and publisher. In this podcast, he teaches us how he did it.
➡️ Tom's Cartoon Dialectics: https://uncivilizedbooks.com/shop/cartoon-dialectics/
➡️ Tom's Blog: http://www.transatlantis.net/blog/
➡️ Tom's column at The Comics Journal: http://www.tcj.com/category/columns/event-horizon/
➡️. Uncivilized Books: http://uncivilizedbooks.com
✦ If you're working on your own independent intellectual project, check out IndieThinkers.org (where I first met Tom!)
After all the scams of the 2017 ICO craze, there's a new wave of genuine creators and communities creating serious value with social currencies. Bradley Miles is the CEO of a startup called Roll, which facilitates this process for creators.
➡️ https://tryroll.com/
➡️ Bradley on Twitter: @Bradley_Miles_
A few weeks ago I started talking with Bradley, who is one of the founders of a startup called Roll. What they're doing is they're trying to make it super easy for creators and communities to create their own social tokens on the blockchain, on Ethereum.
It's interesting because this was a practice that became somewhat notorious a few years ago in what's known as the ICO craze, the initial coin offerings of around 2017. There were basically just a lot of scammers. There were a lot of people who would launch a token, and would hype it up, get a bunch of people to buy into it, and then just sell it and basically profit off of the people that got in on it.
But now there's this new wave of genuine creators and durable communities that are using social tokens. And they're creating real value, and they're working and they're sustaining. And many of them are trading on the open market, for sometimes very good amounts of US dollars. And it just seems to me like a very real way in which creators and communities are generating real value and wealth potentially, in the long run, for themselves, in this autonomous bootstrapped way. So obviously I'm just super interested in that.
I'm definitely still thinking about how I might do it because I don't want to do anything like this unless I have a clear model in my mind of how it works and what I'm trying to do. So I'm still researching and thinking, but I think I'm going to launch a social currency for my community and I'm quite excited by it. I think there could be real upside and I want to take it seriously and try my best shot at making something really interesting and valuable for everyone who listens to or participates in my various projects . And I've been talking with Bradley quite a lot over the past few weeks. Thinking about it and strategizing and yeah... He's super cool, I think he's super legit. And I think he really believes in the project and he has also investors that I know and trust like Balaji Srinivasan.
I figured I'd have him on the podcast so he could share what he's doing and we can introduce the idea to the audience of the podcast and my broader community. So I'd love to hear what you think.
Kenny Rowe is an Urbit engineer. He's been working on blockchain projects since 2014, ranging from MakerDao to MetaCartel Ventures. Kenny is a member of the Dalten Collective, a for-profit membership organization rooted in Urbit.
✦ The Dalten Collective on Urbit: dalten.org
✦ Join Urbit with Tlon's new hosting service: tlon.io
✦ Get in touch: otherlife.co/contact
Join our 8-week seminar series on Deleuze and Heidegger, starting this Sunday, November 22.
✦ Get the reading list and learn more: otherlife.co/deleuze-vs-heidegger
➡️ Johannes Niederhauser on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohannesAchill
➡️ Johannes Niederhauser on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDsQqlrzoc-K32DE-Wh-roA
Neo-China arrives from the future, as a networked and monetized video platform called Superpeer. Anirudh Pai explains why he believes education will merge with the influencer economy, in the form of paid video-calling. Other topics include George Orwell, Africa, and Reed's Law (the lesser known cousin of Metcalfe's Law).
✦ Anirudh's newsletter: electricsheep.substack.com
✦ Anirudh's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conservative-curious/id1517105543
On where the truth takes place
Think about it like this, the most interesting conversations always happen after class. What if there was a way to bring that online and make it also shared? People don't really want everything layered over with a veneer of political correctness. A lot of people just want the truth, and the truth is often found, not in classrooms, but in the bar, two miles away where everyone gets together, just as it is in Davos...
What the West will learn from video culture in China
The consumer culture in China is radically different than anywhere else in the world. And that's namely through video. People have been doing this way longer than in the West and influencer culture, you can say, started and became popular in China.And that's because of the array of platforms that many of these influencers had. And when we think about an influencer, it's not really just somebody who's an Instagram model. All of us have specific knowledge in one domain. And they found ways to monetize that through all these different platforms. So you can look at Youku, which is like the Chinese YouTube, they might have these private WeChat groups and they might do live streaming events with this group and they're essentially living in video. So their entire day is just hopping from different video platforms to one another. They monetize through that. And for a lot of people, that's their job. That is what they do. And that's a very respectable career.
One example of that I always remember is Sina Weibo, which is what people call the Twitter of China. To give you an idea of how early China was on their shift, in 2018 Sina Weibo did about $35 million, paying out creators with about, I think, 2 million paid subscribers overall.
And the way they made money was, they had a 70/30 revenue share, but that's pretty crazy still. That people have been doing this in the East way longer than in the West.
On Reed's Law and Superpeer's vision for networked video
So a network effect is where the marginal benefit to each user increases as another user gets added, like Facebook, but what many people don't know is Reed's law, which is that the utility of these very massive networks scale exponentially with the network as well. So what that means is, when you have a big Facebook group, people split off into microcosms, right? And so it's like almost a Petri dish where some groups come together, others go around, and they're still finding their fit. But we have these various Schelling points where people come together and that's really the reason behind the Superpeer brand approach, which is... You might have these massive communities, thousands and thousands of people, but look at how many of those people talk. It's not actually very many, right? How many of your friends on Facebook do you interact with on the daily? Probably less than 10%, right? It's not a big sum by any means. And so when you want to design something like this, one thing you have to wonder is, how can we, from top to bottom, create the best experience and make it very easy for people to connect with one another, even inside networks, and make these communities that have thousands of people even more engaged by letting various members come together in these smaller groups and create those bonds? That, I think, nobody else is doing.
Default Friend writes a personal advice newsletter, defaultfriend.substack.com. We discuss how Default met two different boyfriends through Twitter, how she networked her way into tech without tech skills, some copywriting tips for creators, and my idea to create an arranged marriage agency (she's now on the team helping to build it).
➡️ If you'd like an arranged marriage (arranged by us), signup here real quick: https://defaultefriend.typeform.com/to/BCsFKG16
➡️ If you're trying to get serious about your own intellectual work, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ If you just want to support what I'm doing and get some cool stuff, consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/jmrphy.
Marriage is crazy. You’re right to think, “I’m not sure. What if it doesn’t work out? I lose so many options, etc.” It’s an impossible-to-guarantee decision with huge downsides. But if you do it right, the upside arguably approaches infinity. People postpone marriage for the same reason they're becoming less religious: we've lost the capacity for faith.
➡️ I might build an arranged marriage agency: defaultefriend.typeform.com/to/BCsFKG16
➡️ Submit a question for the podcast at otherlife.co/contact
✦ Big thanks to my patrons who help me keep the lights on! Consider becoming one at patreon.com/jmrphy
Biz Sherbert is a fashion theorist inspired by Mark Fisher, who's figured out how to make academic theory resonate with millions of people on TikTok.
➡️ Biz's blog: sherbert.biz
➡️ Biz on Instagram: @markfisherquotes
➡️ Biz on TikTok: BimboTheory
How Biz is building a career publishing social theory on TikTok
Justin Murphy:How exactly does fashion theory go viral on TikTok?Biz Sherbert:The one that really got big was a video explaining the history of the e-girl heart, which is just a little heart that's drawn onto the cheek of e-girls. It's a really popular makeup style in that group. It actually comes from an 18th-century and earlier European cosmetic tradition of trying to cover up deformities on the face, scars and deformities from smallpox. I think that just hit a sweet spot for people because e-girls are so well known on that platform.
I started getting emails from journalists, asking me to provide insight on GenZ TikTok fashion. I've done that a couple times on Cottagecore, Dark Academia, the viral strawberry dress, Simping...
They basically will write a story and they'll just look up "Cottagecore." And they'll see a couple people from " the hashtag that are on the top of the hashtag and interview them.
Every single person who's found my videos has looked up "Dark Academia" or "Cottagecore" or something, and seen one of my video essays at the top of the hashtag.
On the GenZ marriage postponement problem
Biz Sherbert: If anyone wants to marry me from the podcast, who's listening, you can DM me @markfisherquotes on Instagram.Justin Murphy: I bet you'll get at least a couple. Just make sure they're not theorycels.
➡️ Contact me or submit questions you want me to answer on the podcast at otherlife.co/contact.
➡️ If you're working on your own intellectual project, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ Or support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/jmrphy.
Max Nussenbaum is an author and entrepreneur who currently runs the On Deck Writing Fellowship, a new Silicon Valley take on modern education and career acceleration. We talk about how On Deck is helping writers become entrepreneurs; how Max bought a mansion in Detroit when he was 23; why JFK is overrated; what cults teach us about community building; and optimal strategy for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (which Max was on).
➡️ On Deck Writing Fellowship is open: beondeck.com/writers
➡️ Max on Twitter: @maxnuss
On buying a mansion with no money...
Max Nussenbaum: We were 23-year-olds when we decided to buy this mansion at a tax auction. And we asked a bunch of other people, we knew some of whom had fixed up houses themselves: "Hey, is it crazy for four 23 year olds who don't know anything about construction to buy a mansion, that's a total tear-down, and try to fix it up themselves?" And that is crazy, just to be clear, like I think in objective reality. And every single person we talked to was like, "Nah, do it, go ahead." It's just like that kind of place. So we purchased, it was just a mansion that had been abandoned. Was a total wreck.
It was a seven-bedroom, 3,500 square-foot mansion in what... in 1920 was the richest neighborhood in America. Purchased at tax auction for just over $8,000 that we raised from a Kickstarter...
Justin Murphy: Wait, $8,000 total?
Max Nussenbaum: Yes, now that's very misleading because we ultimately put over $200,000 into actually fixing up the house. We formed an LLC, found an outside investor. It was essentially a very micro-scale, real estate development project because obviously we did not have anywhere close to $200-grand ourselves.
So the $8,000 figure is misleading, but yeah, eight grand and the house was ours. It needed a new roof, new plumbing, new electrical, new wiring, new everything.
Justin Murphy: What was the business model though?
Max Nussenbaum: It was literally a basic real estate plan. We're going to rehab this house, we're going to rent it out to other young people, as a co-living, co-working space and there's going to be rental income and then eventually we're going to sell it and it's going to be worth a lot more.
I would guess it's probably worth $400-$450,000, which would be about double what we spent and put into it.
It would have been totally worth it, even if we never made any profits from it.
How Max is building the On Deck Writing Fellowship...
Max Nussenbaum: I joined [On Deck] to launch a writer fellowship, which is basically for anyone who's writing publicly and independently for the web. I think independent writers are essentially a form of micro entrepreneur, right? If you want to start a newsletter there's so much, you have to learn how to do that goes into that other than just being good at writing.But if you go Google, how to find users, how to get users for your SaSS product, you'll find tons of resources. If you were going to look up how to get readers for your email newsletter, there's really just a comparative dearth of information. And a lot of what you would find is like, assuming your email newsletter is the first part of a sales funnel from a company.
And it's going to tell you how to do SEO keyword research, which is... If you're an independent writer who wants to speak or write from the heart about something, you are interested in, that's not really the right approach for you at all.
➡️ If you'd like to join my Discord server, request an invitation here: otherlife.co/join/
➡️ Become a patron at patreon.com/jmrphy
Sudarshan Sridharan is a 20-year-old co-founder of the wildfire prediction startup Fion.tech, and co-creator of the Gen Z Mafia. We discuss: How to launch a tech startup when you're only 20; how VCs want deal flow but college kids want party flow; how awkward outcasts can "flip the switch" to start networking; how to use Twitter; and the benefits of being silent and elevating others.
➡️ Suds' startup predicting wildfires: Fion.tech
➡️ Fion is hiring engineers and enterprise sales (email suds@fion.tech)
➡️ Follow Sudarshan on Twitter @itzsuds
As soon as I understood, "OK, I talk to much," people don't like this about me, like I lacked social awareness. Then I started really just honing in on that stuff when I was like 16-17ish. By the time I got to college, I immediately flipped the switch from being this kid that was just running businesses and trading stocks to "Yo, I'm a party promoter."Like I literally just showed up to school, carrying around a bag of king-sized Skittles around my dorm, and anybody who was like, "Yo, can I get some Skittles?" I'd be like, "Give me your Snapchat." And so naturally that first day I got... 200 people added me and then one guy was like, "Hey, come to this party."
I went to that party. And then I started posting those parties on my Snapchat. So within the first week of school, I had 2000 people who added me, like freshmen who are looking for parties. Very quickly I knew, like how VCs want deal flow, kids want party flow. So if I just give them all these parties, people are gonna like me. From there I realized, "OK, I've got this following. I should probably be using it." So I started like just posting, basically like my Snapchat became my blog, a blog of my life and I learned very quickly how to push content, and that might seem not that important, but I think community building is a lot of... finding people of a general demographic and then adding value to them.
✦ To join my Discord server, request an invitation here: otherlife.co/join
✦ Big thanks to my patrons. Become one at patreon.com/jmrphy
Brett Goldstein writes the newsletter SocialStudies.news, teaching social science to founders and covering Tech Twitter. We talk about the untapped riches of social science for creators and founders, and how to think about branding and growing content-creation projects from niche academic disciplines. We also talk co-living and hype-house business models, as Brett calls in from OnDeck's Launch House in Tulum, Mexico.
The number of different stories in a single newsletter seems inversely correlated to how shareable it is. That’s why newsletters are becoming Wikipedia pages: comprehensive one-stop shops on particular concepts or entities.If indie creators optimize for growth, they’ll just morph into normal businesses. That’s great if you want that, but leaving some optimization on the table probably gives: More longevity (it’s more fun) and uniqueness (personality is a moat).Understand sprezzatura. If it looks like you invested a ton of effort, people are less impressed with your content. They expected better. Crappy production quality sets the expectation bar low, which means your audience gets more dopamine per insight.➡️ Brett's newsletter, SocialStudies.news
➡️ Brett on Twitter @thatguyBG
➡️ The OnDeck Fellowship at beondeck.com
✦ If you're working on your own long-term intellectual project, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
Gen Z Mafia is a Discord server incubating teenage billionaires. I talk with one of the ringleaders about community design, Gen Z psychology, and business models.
What is the Gen Z Mafia and what kind of projects are people working on?
How to make your community open and also filter for quality.
Is Gen Z Mafia a business model?
Are they more interested in venture capital or bootstrapped businesses?
What do Gen Zers see that older folks don't?
Especially for people like me—if you write mostly about abstract intellectual topics that are not directly useful—writing should be the way you build your audience and not the way you monetize your audience. After you’ve built an email list through consistently publishing your writing for free, you can monetize in other ways, which make more sense and will earn you more money in the long-run. I wrote a blog post about this at otherlife.co/should-you-start-a-substack.
➡️ Contact me or submit questions you want me to answer on the podcast at otherlife.co/contact.
➡️ If you're working on your own intellectual project, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ If you just like what I'm doing, consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/jmrphy.
I spoke with David Kadavy about what he's learning self-publishing non-fiction books. Really practical and useful for anyone thinking about writing a book. He shares a lot of insider knowledge on Amazon's publishing system, whether and how you should use paid ads, and much more. Check out his work at https://kadavy.net/ and follow him on Twitter at @kadavy.
I want to encourage people to publish a book tonight. I actually did this. You can put whatever name you want in the author field, you can publish a 500-word anything tonight, you can run some ads on it, you can try to get a friend to buy it. See what happens, watch your ranking, go through the process. You can unpublish it, if you want. But once you go through that process and once you see your book up on Amazon and you're like, that was scary easy. It really gets your gears going. I have books that are 4,000 words. I've got how to write a book. It's available as a free blog post, but it still makes me thousands of dollars.My strategy was very much: Write about whatever I'm interested in, create content about anything that interests me or anything. Then review, the search traffic and just see what search terms are coming in. Through that process, you can begin to find the things that are interesting to people, and that people will pay for.Eventually you have to make tough choices where you see an opportunity and you can't follow it. So this online dating blog that I was talking about, I made a $150,000 off of this site during its lifetime. I killed it, several months ago. 'Cause sometimes you got to burn your boats, especially if you're a person who's curious.
➡️ If you're working on your own intellectual projects, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ Become a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/jmrphy.
A talk I gave to Gen Z Mafia (Gen Z Mafia). Thanks to Emma Salinas (@emmalsalinas) for all the great questions.
Works Cited:
- Hard-Forking Reality
- On Liberal Pacification
- IndieThinkers.org
Where are the hottest countercultures today? What will happen to academia? What is my advice for young people? What Schelling points will emerge after academia? Why has academia has become left-wing since the 1990s? Can we make society more accepting of weird thinkers? Why do many of the countercultures today have a right-wing tendency? What caused the Left to gain dominance over mainstream institutions? Which conspiracy theories are directionally compelling? Should aspiring authors self-publish or try to get a traditional book deal? What will post-pandemic politics look like? What it's like living with two evolutionary psychologists? How will psychedelic drugs affect politics? What is my long-term vision for IndieThinkers.org?
Find Nicole at twitter.com/nwilliams030.
➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.
Travis Corcoran worked on startups before he built a homestead and turned to indie book writing and publishing. He recently launched a homesteading book on Kickstarter, which insanely crushed its goal. He describes himself as a "Catholic anarcho-capitalist software-engineering hobo farmer." You can get his homesteading book and support his work on Kickstarter.
➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.
➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
Paul Skallas aka Lindy Man is an acolyte of Nassim Taleb. He operates a particularly strange and, frankly, dubious hustle selling ebooks. This is a case study on his operation.
➡️ Learn more at OtherLife.co
➡️ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
Get our free Bataille study guide and learn more about our online course at theotherlifenow.com/bataille.
➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.
➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
Anna Khachiyan from Red Scare tells the story of how she left her PhD program at NYU; how she has more intellectual influence because of it; whether living in NYC is worth it for creators; and many other things.
Find Anna on Twitter at @annakhachiyan and Red Scare on Patreon.
➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.
➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
We look under the hood of Sonya's business operations as a writer and zine-maker.
Check out Sonya Mann at sonyasupposedly.com or on Twitter at @SonyaSupposedly.
➡️ Learn more at OtherLife.co
➡️ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
Aella is a blogger who recently started on OnlyFans, the new decentralized porn platform revolutionizing the adult industry. We talk about the sociology and economics of OnlyFans, and Aella's experiences so far.
Follow Aella on Twitter at @Aella_Girl.
➡️ Learn more at OtherLife.co
➡️ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
New intro/outro music by composer Philip Daniel via IndieThinkers.org. Check out his Youtube channel.
Some reflections on despair, existentialism, and Christianity via Kierkegaard's book The Sickness Unto Death.
➡️ I publish a free weekly newsletter about independent intellectuals on the internet. You should subscribe.
➡️ If you'd like to join my Discord server, request an invitation here.
➡️ Big thanks to my patrons who help me keep the lights on. Patrons get access to a lot of good stuff (including early access to this podcast, a week ago). Consider becoming a patron today.
This is Lecture 4 (out of 6) in the Based Deleuze lecture course. You can get the whole series at gum.co/deleuze.
➡️If you'd like to join my Discord server, request an invitation here.
➡️Big thanks to my patrons who help me keep the lights on. Consider becoming one here.
Works Cited
Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” October 59 (1992): 3–7.
Foucault, Michel. The Courage of Truth (The Government of Self and Others II). Edited by Frédéric Gross. Translated by Graham Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
Murphy, Justin. “Parrhesia and the Future of Honesty (Talk given at the Invisible College, London).” Other Life (blog), October 11, 2019. https://plnk.to/otherlife/e/1000453126804
Navia, Luis. Diogenes the Cynic: The War Against the World. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2005.
Shannon, Claude E. “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” The Bell System Technical Journal 27, no. 3 (October 1948). https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x
In-depth case study of a nuclear tweet. After my globally nuclear tweet about Greta & Epstein, I thought a lot about the factors that predict negative virality (AKA being "ratio'ed" on Twitter; getting a high ratio of replies to retweets, i.e. a lot of backlash relative to endorsement). A few weeks later, when drafting a quick tweet, I had a very strong intuition that the tweet would be ratio'ed hard. When I turned out to be right, I gained confidence in my theory of negative virality and decided to elaborate it through a case study of this one particular tweet.
✦ The tweet. https://twitter.com/jmrphy/status/1197664774097522688
✦ I have a free course on this stuff, called Revolutionary Internet Galaxy-Brain.
✦ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free community forum.
✦ This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
The absolute final word on all social-scientific questions related to Tiger King, the recent Netflix documentary. Taking questions from Twitter, we analyze: Why these tiger-breeding cult leaders score hot chicks (and guys, including straight guys!), the personality traits of these people, the ethical culpability of Joe vs. Carole, the ethics of animal breeding in general, etc. We also highlight multiple feasible equilibria in which Carole and Joe cooperate to reduce animal suffering.
Follow Geoffrey Miller on Twitter and Youtube. You can also listen to this podcast on Geoffrey's channel.
Follow Diana Fleischman on Twitter and Youtube.
👉 I'm currently hosting free, group work sessions on Zoom every Tuesday at 11am Eastern! We meet for 4 hours to do focused, private work on our personal intellectual and creative projects. Sign up here.
👉 If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free Discord server.
👉 This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
We recorded this late in the evening before the live show with Curtis Yarvin. It's lit, based, and fire.
✦ Barrett Avner of Contain
✦ Alex Moyer, director of TFW NO GF
✦ Wanyoung Kim, author of Cosmophenomenology
➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free Discord server.
➡️ Are you an intellectual working outside of institutions and/or mostly on the internet? I'm building a private membership community for those of us getting serious about increasing our impact and financial success. If this sounds like you, request an invitation at IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
In our epic 3-hour talk, Curtis Yarvin discusses: Democracy, his preference for Bernie Sanders, debunking the American Revolution, benevolent dictatorship, Ancient Rome and the need for an American Augustus, salus populi suprema lex esto, formalism, sovereign corporations, his rejection of Nazis and White Nationalism, and much more.
This podcast was recorded at the first ever live show of the Other Life podcast in LA, celebrating the release of my book Based Deleuze in paperback.
Several people helped make this event happen. Barrett Avner of Contain (Twitter, IG, Podcast) was my LA-based partner behind this whole event, he helped tons with planning and booking and this could not have happened without him. Alex Talan, also of Contain, helped run the audio. Ben Williamson made dope flyers, and shot and edited the video. Zach Hamilton of the video studio Church made the slick custom intro at the beginning of the Youtube video for this talk.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
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On the COVID-19 pandemic, intergenerational warfare, comparative politics, exogenous shocks, class war, whether Trump caught the virus, and other speculations on the next few days.
Follow Geoffrey Miller on Twitter and Youtube.
Follow Diana Fleischman on Twitter and Youtube.
More stuff
👉 Based Deleuze is now available in paperback.
👉 If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free community forum.
👉 This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
TFW NO GF is a documentary about young men on the internet (pepe? wojak? frogtwitter? incels?). It was set to premiere at SXSW before the whole festival got cancelled due to coronavirus. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/films/2023330. The director, Alex Lee Moyer, sat down with me while I was in LA a couple weeks ago.
➡️If you'd like to join my Discord server, you can request an invitation here: https://theotherlifenow.com/join/
➡️I publish a free weekly newsletter about independent intellectuals on the internet. https://theotherlifenow.com/newsletter/
➡️Big thanks to my patrons who help me keep the lights on. Consider becoming one! https://patreon.com/jmrphy
Aella (@Aella_Girl) is an internet thinker/creator/entrepreneur in the Rationalish sphere. She just launched a new card game called Askhole, research-backed card game designed to generate intense discussion. Aella's currently doing research on people who claim to have experienced Enlightenment. To learn more about Aella, check out her website at https://knowingless.com/.
If you're in the Los Angeles area, I'll be doing a live show of my Other Life podcast on Friday, February 28th. Get tickets here.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free community forum. This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
Charlie Looker is best known as a musician but he's also a passionate weird-theory lurker in various internet recesses of ill-repute. We've chatted here and there for well more than a year now, so I'm glad to finally sit down with him. Charlie's band, Psalm Zero, just released a new album called Sparta. Sample track from his new album (metal) and another single, Nothing Human (electronic).
If you're in the Los Angeles area, I'll be doing a live show of my Other Life podcast on Friday, February 28th. Get tickets here.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free community forum.
This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
Chris Gabriel runs the Youtube channel MemeAnalysis. He's also written for the revivified Acephale I've been hearing about lately. He's also co-creating a comics Instagram at Aeonic Comics.
First live show and Based Mansion, Los Angeles, Feb. 28-March 1
On February 28 I'll be doing a live podcast show in Los Angeles. You can get tickets here. From that night until the morning of Sunday March 1, I will also be hosting internet friends in a mansion lol. If you're interested, request a spot here.
Request an invitation to my free community forum
This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
Akira runs Lovecrypt, an indie digital-first music label.
Akira: https://twitter.com/lovecryption
Lovecrypt: https://lovecrypt.bandcamp.com/
Other Life live show and Based Mansion in LA, Feb 28 - March 1
On February 28 I'll be doing a live podcast show in Los Angeles. You can get tickets here. From that night until the morning of Sunday March 1, I will also be hosting internet friends in a mansion I'm renting lol. If you're interested, request a spot here.
If you'd like to join my Discord server, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on!
I'm joined by the half-wolf, half-kitten girl who appeared in a recent viral video. This video took her from 47 Twitter followers to about 18,000 and so she's gone to LA. She told me that when she had a baby, she decided to go all-in on being a full-time crazy person on the internet. She explains her life philosophy of not planning anything, not worrying, and relying on the kindness of strangers. This podcast had some good laughs but also a surprising number of quite human moments, I thought. See her viral video on her Twitter account @gaywithyourdad.
Other Life will soon have its first live show.
On February 28, I'll be doing a live podcast show in Los Angeles. If you're in the area, buy a ticket here ($15).
From that night until the morning of Sunday March 1, I will also be hosting internet friends in a Based Mansion lol. If you're interested, request a spot here. There are a few price points for any income level.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Jeremy Kauffman is the CEO of LBRY, a free, decentralized, blockchain-based digital content platform. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of decentralized content platforms for independent intellectuals.
https://lbry.com — https://lbry.tv
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free community forum.
Are you an independent intellectual? I'm building a private membership community for those of us getting serious about increasing our impact and financial success. If this sounds like you, request an invitation at IndieThinkers.org.
This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
Once a normie record producer, Alexander is now a creative internet madman who commands billionaires to do whatever he wants. In this podcast, he explains how he did it. First, he says, "whore" yourself out to make "f*ck you money." If you're ever afraid of speaking freely, just "get out of there!" Whore yourself another way. Read Deleuze and implement a practical nomadology. Know yourself, know your type, know your role and play it. You shouldn't even know what's taboo and what isn't! People who speak freely on the internet are "of a higher class" today, and people who respect political correctness will be the new proletariat. These were the major points I took him to be making.
I really enjoyed this high-energy discussion and gained more than a few new ideas for orienting and improving my own independent intellectual life in 2020 and beyond.
Are you an independent intellectual? I'm building a private membership community for those of us getting serious about increasing our impact and financial success. If this sounds like you, request an invitation at IndieThinkers.org.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to my free community forum.
This podcast is made possible by my patrons so big thanks to them. If you'd like to help expand my operations, you can become a patron yourself.
Eliot blogs at Mad Black Freud. He wrote the book Zizek in the Clinic. He came all the way from LA to visit me in person. I enjoyed hanging out with him and getting to know him better. You can also watch this talk on video.
If you'd like to talk with me and others about the podcast, join my Discord server.
Are you an independent intellectual? Check out IndieThinkers.org
This podcast is made possible by a bunch of noble benefactors. You are welcome to join this aristocracy of spirit...
This is the Preface to my book Based Deleuze. You can buy the book, the audiobook, or even a short video course here. Paperback soon!
Are you working on your own idea in some hidden recess of the internet? Have a sneak peek at my next big project: IndieThinkers.org
Big thanks to my patrons, who make this podcast possible.
John David Ebert and Brian Francis Culkin discuss their new book, Hypermodernity and the End of the World.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, you can join my Discord server.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Claire Lehmann is Editor of Quillette. I'm starting to play with a slight shift of focus for some of these podcasts. When I talk with really successful and impactful independent intellectuals, I'm going to focus a bit more on learning how the succeeded: strategies, tactics, things like that. Let me know if you like or dislike this direction.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Are you an independent intellectual? Check out IndieThinkers.org for a sneak peek at my next big project.
Big thanks to all the patrons who support Other Life.
I first heard about Deanna through Nina Power but I've never been able to find a full account of her story, so I asked her if she would tell it herself. I'm not sure yet but from what I can find she seems like a badass, perhaps too badass for the Art World. She experienced some kind of cancellation but she tells me she is making a comeback, so I'm really excited to meet her and learn more about what happened and what she's up to.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Are you an independent intellectual? Check out IndieThinkers.org
Geoffrey and I discuss Bronze Age Pervert, what it means to SUBMIT, Kanye West, bugmen, Curtis Yarvin, and much more. You can watch the video on Geoffrey's channel. Catch the first glimpse of my next big project at IndieThinkers.org.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Nina and DC are fundraising for a legal campaign against Luke Turner. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
I'm offering a free course on how to be a Revolutionary Internet Galaxy-Brain.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Mark Ledwich is an independent data scientist decoding the Youtube recommendation algorithm. Here Mark debunks several myths and we discuss the real underlying political implications of the Youtube algorithm. See Mark's political Youtube network explorer and his Medium articles.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
"Today, inappropriate honesty is not merely feasible, increasingly it is a dominant strategy.” I discuss the concept of parrhesia, its history, and its present political prospects. Thanks to Nina Power and DC Miller for the invitation.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
We talked about the Joker film right after we saw it. We discuss mental illness, heredity, violence, the 1970s, praying, silly health foods, and the quantum incel multiverse.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Nicolas Hausdorf (@dcntrrr) co-authored Superstructural Berlin (Zero Books). Then Zero Books threw him under the bus when he started writing for Jacobite. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
This podcast introduces an online course I'm producing with Heidegger scholar Johannes Niederhauser. Get the syllabus at https://theotherlifenow.com/deleuze-vs-heidegger
Find Johannes on Youtube here.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Angela Nagle is a writer best known for her book "Kill All Normies" and her recent piece "The Left Case against Open Borders" https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here. This conversation was first recorded on August 28, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
After my first livestream with Nina Power and DC Miller, we decided to sit down and continue the conversation. In this podcast, we discuss whether or not the Left can be saved from its current insanity. This conversation was recorded in March 2019, right before I left England for good.
Nina and DC are currently raising money for a legal campaign against Luke Turner. You can support their campaign here. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Txgen Meyer is an artist, researcher, and philosophy tutor. Learn more about Txgen at http://txgenmeyer.com/.
Big thanks to all the patrons who keep this running.
If you'd like to discuss these and similar themes with me and others, request an invitation to the Discord server.
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. Subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the bell to receive notifications when future livestreams begin.
Dasha Nekrasova is co-host of the podcast Red Scare. We discussed the One Holy Apostolic Church, Simone Weil, the best and worst drugs, prayer, Pussy Riot, Zizek, shoplifting, abortion, Deleuze, accelerationism, and many other things.
They just shut down Google Hangouts so we're still adjusting to a whole new recording setup — the audio is a little wonky, sorry!
Big thanks to all my patrons who help me keep the lights on. Red Scare is also on Patreon.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on August 8, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
From the rap sheet that nearly got me fired. I thought I made a very good case!
"Tonight's livestreamed disquisition will be on the ethics of shoplifting from self-checkout kiosks. Hint: I'm in favor. But I often feel guilty, so I need to think this through clearly and explicitly. Then we will be joined by @Xenogothic, a denizen of "acc twitter" and "cave twitter" and the batshit blogosphere. I believe Xenogothic is kind of an anti-leftist leftist type, kind of like me maybe, but I'm not really sure. Only one way to find out... Xenogothic's blog is at https://xenogothic.com"
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on July 3, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
David John Roden is a philosopher interested in eccentric alternatives to humanity. He is the author of Posthuman Life: Philosophy at the Edge of the Human.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on April 1, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
"So that's how academia got pwned, and that's how I pwned this university." In this short talk, I discuss the purpose of the university, how technological acceleration is overheating academia, how I made the decision to leave academia for full independence on the internet.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
I was interviewed by Katie Way (formerly of Babe.net) after one of my nuclear tweets went viral. Given the role this tweet played in my eventual departure from academia, I'm posting this interview (with permission from Ms. Way) for anyone interested in the larger story. It's pretty interesting as an artifact of media culture in the year 2018.
https://patreon.com/jmrphy
Related links:
https://twitter.com/jmrphy/status/996003715344715777?lang=en
https://babe.net/2018/05/17/justin-murphy-hot-take-abortion-57232
I speak with Chad A. Haag of the Chadafrican Philosophy channel. Chad wrote a short book called A Critique of Transcendental Memology, which seeks to join "the insights of John Michael Greer, Dmitry Orlov, and Richard Heinberg with the philosophical rigor of Aristotle, Kant, Zizek, and Heidegger."
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on April 9, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
To learn more about @MimeticValue, see http://mimeticarbitrage.com/. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
This conversation was first recorded on February 13, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Zero HP Lovecraft (@0x49fa98) is a horrorist. His blog is https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here. This conversation was first recorded on July 5, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Eli Schiff (@eli_schiff) is a design critic and UI designer. His latest book is called Uber's Undoing, which you can learn more about on Eli's website: http://www.elischiff.com/.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here. This conversation was first recorded on October 16, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Jordan Hall writes the blog Deep Code and has his own Youtube channel.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on September 26, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
We discuss the imminent social and political consequences of "deepfake" technology (fake multimedia indistinguishable from the real thing). Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist. Pre-order his ebook, "Virtue Signaling: Essays on Darwinian Politics, Language Games, & Free Speech" — Geoffrey also has a new Youtube channel, which you can subscribe to here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on July 19, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Aimee Terese (@aimeeterese) is co-host of the podcast What's Left? In this long talk, we discussed: why Aussies are good for American politics, the internet vs. Brooklyn, sugar-free Red Bull, is there even a Left?, John McAfee, the Harvard Prof who got played, the family, TradCath leftism, and quite a few other things.
Other stuff mentioned: True Anon Pod, The Good Ole Boys
Huge thanks to all my patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation to the forum.
This conversation was first recorded on July 24, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Rachel Haywire is a futurist and industrial musician. She tells me she is running for President of the United States as a candidate for the Transhumanist Party. She recently wrote a book called The New Art Right.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on May 2, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
On my new short book project, Based Deleuze. Pre-order here!
This conversation was first recorded on June 26, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell. If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Robert Mariani is co-editor of Jacobite Magazine. You can subscribe to Jacobite here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on October 14, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
This is a conversation I had with Geoffrey Miller on the psychology of Antifa and antifascism. It was first recorded yesterday (July 2, 2019) as a livestream on Geoffrey new Youtube channel. Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHdKxRAVrHA and subscribe to Geoffrey's channel at http://bit.ly/2FMRtMO.
The only reason I'm able to expand my projects like this, e.g. moving to Albuquerque for this big experiment with Geoffrey and Diana, is because I have financial support from fans of my work. Consider making a monthly pledge if you'd like to be a part of what I'm doing. https://www.patreon.com/jmrphy Or if you'd just like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Eliot Rosenstock is a practicing psychotherapist and author of Žižek in the Clinic.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
This conversation was first recorded on Dec 15, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Johannes Niederhauser recently completed his PhD at Warwick University for a dissertation entitled, "Heidegger on Death and Being." Check out his Youtube channel here.
Johannes says his dissertation is on Heidegger's entire philosophy but death is the key to his thought. I hung out with Johannes in London recently and his takes on Heidegger are very germane to my own interests, so it was a no-brainer to invite him on the show. We will discuss what Heidegger's philosophy & problematic life have to teach us about the critique of linear time, an alternative conception of ecstatic time, Exit as the thinking of concealment, replacing "resistance" with "releasement," and the construction of true and authentic communities.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
This conversation was first recorded on April 6, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
Audio of my talk given at the first Diffractions/Sdbs workshop on Patchwork. My thesis is that rigorous (voluntary) enforcement of honesty using blockchain + IoT (Internet of Things) presents an opportunity for leftists to solve the game-theoretic problems of communism in a potentially scalable way. I got flak for this being "fascist," which led me to write a short extension and clarification entitled, Fascism Over Yourself Is Called Autonomy.
You can read the transcript of this podcast here.
Diffractions Collective: https://www.diffractionscollective.org
SDBS: https://sdbs.cz
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on
This conversation was first recorded on September 22, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
After getting some heat for our livestream together, Nina Power sat down with me in London to set the record straight on her political views. I spoke little and mostly let her riff. I've probably never spoken with anyone whose political ethic comes closer to my own. We pretty much summarize this podcast's concept: A radical left politics of the other life. A radical left politics based on the search for truth, frank speech, and immanent relationships.
Part 1 is about Nina's upcoming book, What Do Men Want? Nina addresses the accusation that she's a Men's Rights Activist (MRA); discusses how feminism should think about incels; why women should try to understand concepts popular in MRA circles (e.g., The Game, hypergamy, the "red pill," etc. You can watch a video clip of this part here.
Part 2 is about left-paganism, acid communism, and friendship. Nina responds to accusations about "blood and soil" fascism and participating in a "red-brown alliance." We talk about the Outside; philosophy as self-defense; knowing one's own mind, etc. You can watch a video clip of this part here.
In Part 3 we talk about human sacrifice; Bataille and the Left-Sacred; on feeling trapped in the depressed radical left; redemption and exit; rectifying mistakes; honesty as freedom; courage; and the bravery of friendship as a portal to what I call (with Foucault) the other life. You can watch a video clip of this part here.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
Sonya Ellen Mann runs communications for the Zcash Foundation. Sonya's a thinker and writer interested in economics, tribalism, and cypherpunk. We talk about the Pink Pill, cypherpunk, crypto, and anarcho-capitalism among other things. This was a fun, high-energy romp through a lot of topics...
Sonya's website is sonyaellenmann.com and you can find her on Twitter @sonyaellenmann.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation: http://bit.ly/2FAi4g0
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. To participate in future livestreams, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the bell to receive notifications when future livestreams begin.
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Logo Daedalus is a writer, best known on Twitter (@Logo_Daedalus). He has a new book out, called Selfie, Suicide: or Cairey Turnbull's Blue Skiddoo. We talk about Logo's politics, his experience self-publishing his book, Wyndham Lewis, and the rise of Andrew Yang among the so-called Alt-Right, among other things.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes request an invitation here.
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Nina Power is a philosopher and writer, and DC Miller is a writer best known for his opposition to the Shutdown LD50 campaign. This talk has become quite a scandal. In response to this talk, someone wrote a ridiculous Open Letter Concerning Nina Power, and Nina just today published a response. You can watch the original conversation here, on my Youtube channel.
Other Life is a pretty punk-rock-DIY affair, run by one person — and I'm not an audio engineer. As this podcast becomes more popular, I'm aware that I really should up the production quality. If you strongly agree, become a patron; influxes of support incentivize me to invest in production quality. Big thanks to all the current patrons, for helping all this to exist.
DC Miller is a controversial but misunderstood person. He is a writer in London outcast from polite society after his opposition to the Shutdown LD50 campaign two years ago. I've talked with him enough to know he is not the evil caricature his enemies make him out to be, but I still don't understand his views fully. In this livestream we will try to get to the bottom of what DC really thinks. In doing so we make a series of distinctions about conservatives, fascists, neoreactionaries, and free-speech leftists. DC wrote the book, Dracula Rules the World and Mark Zuckerberg is His Son. You can find a list of his other writings at dcxmiller.tumblr.com.
This was first recorded on March 8, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
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Reposted with permission from the Parallax Views podcast by JG Michael. For many other talks like this one, find Parallax Views at @ViewsParallax and patreon.com/parallaxviews. Big thanks to JG for his interest in my ideas, and for extracting these atypically coherent thoughts from me. JG's excellent questions helped me make connections I've never made in public before, which reminds me how these new media are still so poorly understood. For intellectuals, podcasts are first and foremost production technologies rather than distribution channels or influence mechanisms (as they are to business people and social climbers).
From Michael's notes: "...How Justin got into academia... accelerationism... Justin giving his definition of accelerationism and its take on modernity... the different branches of accelerationism - r/acc (right accelerationism), l/acc (left accelerationism), and u/acc (unconditional accelerationism)... criticisms of these lines of thought... main players within the accelerationist milieu such as Nick Land and Edmund Berger... Nick Land's dark accelerationist vision... the way in which religion can act as a social technology against these horrors... the Frankfurt School philosopher/sociologist Theodor W. Adorno, his critique of instrumental reason, and the influence Adorno's writing has had on Justin's thought... this leads Justin into making an unexpected comparison between Adorno and... Jordan B. Peterson... Justin's research into the political ideologies of Jordan Peterson's fanbase... Justin's research into political ideology and fragmentation... the central accelerationist concepts of "Exit" and "patchwork" in depth... why religion has become so important to Justin and specifically his renewed interest in Catholicism. How Justin's radical politics are connected to his own religious beliefs... Catholicism's often overlooked history of breeding radically emancipatory thinkers..."
I'm joined by @systemkei, who works in the field of Automated Reasoning and wrote the article "Pacific Dialectical Materialism:" http://debayou.net/pacific.html If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
This conversation was first recorded on Feb 20, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
On the naked anti-Brexit academic lady, my fondness for youthful romantic insurrectionary anarchism, and my take on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ — are we really supposed to believe a guy died and rose from the dead? This was first recorded on February 17, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell. If you'd like to discuss these topics with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help me keep the lights on.
This livestream took place the day after my hearing for "gross misconduct" was scheduled. On being fired vs. resigning — on ruling the void and the work of social scientists such as Peter Mair and Wolfgang Streeck — is Lacan a charlatan? — and how to pick a major. More below... The blog post corresponding to this podcast is: Evaluating Exit Modes: Resign or Be Fired? (How Academia Got Pwned 11)
This was first recorded on February 14, 2019 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation here.
Big thanks to all the patrons who keep this running.
Christlover2000 is one half of the podcast Girls Chat. You can find them at patreon.com/girlschat.
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. Big thanks to all the financial contributors who help to keep this running.
Ted Blackman is a senior engineer at Urbit. Urbit is a mysterious tech startup founded by Curtis Yarvin, aka Mencius Moldbug. Ted kindly answered all my questions, and he dealt very graciously with my efforts to politicize everything.
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. Big thanks to all the members who help to keep this running.
Razib Khan is a geneticist, blogger, and man about the internet. Razib is the kind of extremely online intellectual we like here at Other Life. Razib has written for publications including The New York Times, India Today, National Review Online, Slate, and The Guardian.
Razib and I talked about the present and near-future of personal genomics; why Razib thinks Elizabeth Warren's genetic claims are reasonable (though Razib is a conservative); is 23andme worth it?; how sperm banks work; why skilled immigrants don't want to stay in the US anymore; why Razib doesn't like science videos on Youtube, etc. We also discussed academia vs. the internet, and different monetization models for intellectual work.
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. You can subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the bell to receive notifications when future livestreams begin.
As always, big thanks to all my patrons — I really could not keep all this running without you.
I talked to fantasy author, philosopher, and blogger R. Scott Bakker about his views on the nature of cognition, meaning, intentionality, academia, and fiction/fantasy writing. See Bakker's blog, Three Pound Brain.
Listeners who enjoy this podcast might check out Bakker's What is the Semantic Apocalypse? and Enlightenment How? Omens of the Semantic Apocalypse.
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. Subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the bell to receive notifications when future livestreams begin.
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Ben Sixsmith (@BDSixsmith) is a British writer based in Poland. He has a new book out, called Kings & Comedians: A Brief History of British-Polish Relations. His work has appeared in The Catholic Herald, The Spectator US, and Quillette, among other places. I find Ben interesting because he writes sympathetically of religion, although he's not religious. We talk about this, being immigrants, Brexit, and other topics relating to the pathologies of secular cosmopolitanism. Find Ben's website at bsixsmith.wixsite.com/home.
This conversation was first recorded as a livestream on Youtube. Subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the bell to receive notifications when future livestreams begin.
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Dave Hoover (@davehoover) is a software engineer and expert developer of Ethereum smart contracts. He wrote the book Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman and runs a distributed software development firm called Red Squirrel. He is currently writing a book on smart-contract development, called Hands-on Smart Contract Development with Solidity and Ethereum.
In this podcast, Dave gave me a better understanding of the potential — and the limits — of Ethereum smart contracts. I told Dave about my own ideas (see Reality Patchwork and Neo-Feudal Techno-Communism and Aristocracy and Communism) to see how my intuitions bounced off a technical expert. There's also some good stuff in here for anyone curious about learning to develop their own smart contracts.
Big thanks to all the patrons who help keep this podcast going.
CryptoChamomile works in the Silicon Valley crypto space. He was raised a Jehovah's Witness, went secular, then went Christian. We talk about Silicon Valley, the problems with secularism, and why the pull of religion is more rational than people think.
CryptoChamomile is on Twitter: @cryptochamomile. CryptoChamomile hosts the Youtube show Conversations with Chamomile.
This podcast was originally recorded as a livestream. If you'd like to catch future livestreams, subscribe here and then click the bell to receive a notification every time I go live.
This podcast is supported by its listeners. Big thanks to all the patrons of the show.
John David Ebert is a cultural critic and the author of 26 books (with traditional publishers and self-published), including Art After Metaphysics, The New Media Invasion, The Age of Catastrophe and Dead Celebrities, Living Icons. You can support his work at patreon.com/johndavidebert.
We talked about John's big ideas regarding long-term cultural dynamics, Oswald Spengler, Marshall McLuhan, Heidegger, film criticism, Jordan Peterson, the history of Christianity and Islam in Europe, John's religious views, John's perspective on psychic mediums, and John's rationale for his willingness to speak with people who have certain objectionable views (people who might be called "alt-right.") I found this to be a very fun and stimulating conversation, John is a very far-out thinker and his success as a radically independent and prolific intellectual strikes me as highly admirable and inspiring.
This conversation was first recorded on November 2, 2018 as a livestream on Youtube. To receive notifications when future livestreams begin, subscribe to my channel with one click, then click the little bell.
If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation: https://bit.ly/2FAi4g0
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Mike Crumplar (@mcrumps) is one of many strange people who have entered my internet orbit in recent months. I can't tell you much about him because I can't understand or remember anything about anyone I interact with on the internet. In this video chat I will hopefully learn more about him. He recently wrote an essay in Jacobite about Bronze Age Pervert. That will be the initial pretext for our conversation. Where it goes from there, only time will tell.
This conversation was originally livestreamed on Youtube on June 25, 2018.
Mike's article on Bronze Age Pervert
Mike Crumplar's website
You can now support the podcast at patreon.com/jmrphy
Nyx Land is a blogger and internet persona in the accelerationist sphere. She explains to me her ideas about gender accelerationism and lesbian neoreaction. I believe this is the longest podcast I have ever done, clocking in just shy of 4 hours.
Nyx's website is nyxus.xyz and her Twitter handle is @NyxLandUnlife.
This podcast and my blog have now been unified! The website is now theotherlifenow.com.
Big thanks to my supporters at patreon.com/jmrphy. You can also find other ways to support at theotherlifenow.com/support.
We talked about Joshua's music career, theory and psychoanalysis, Josh's time at the New School, Christopher Hitchens, neoreaction and patchwork, internet culture, instrumental rationality, and other things.
With Zohra Atash, Josh is in the band Azar Swan. http://www.azarswan.com/
This podcast and my blog have now been unified! The website is now https://theotherlifenow.com.
Huge thanks to my supporters at https://patreon.com/jmrphy
Robin Hanson is an economist, futurist, and blogger at overcomingbias.com. I've been following Robin for a while now because he's a genuine intellectual: he thinks, speaks, and writes intensely and prolifically about whatever he wants, even if it seems weird to other people. His recently published book, co-authored with Kevin Simler, is called The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.
In this podcast, we talked about the new book; his larger motivation behind the book; which minds Robin would like to change; the internet; Robin's strategic insights on how to be an intellectual, especially for young-ish academic types such as myself; the near future; Robin's ideas about "futarchy"; Robin's book The Age of Em, the profit motive and the space of institutions beyond the profit motive; and a few other things.
Nick Land is a British philosopher living in Shanghai. Nick is one of the main figures in the school of thought known as accelerationism. He is currently writing a book about the philosophical implications of Bitcoin. We talked about accelerationism, cybernetics, ideology, the evolution of Nick’s perspective, Deleuze and Guattari, emancipation and dehumanization, artificial intelligence, capitalism, Moldbug, mathematics and the significance of zero, religion, blockchain/Bitcoin, Kantianism, synthetic time, and more.
We recorded this online, over two sessions. We did have some unavoidable connection problems, so you'll notice some imperfections such as clicking sounds throughout. We did the best we could; big thanks to those who helped with the editing.
A few people are now helping to make a full-text transcript of this conversation, which will be available soon at Vast Abrupt (vastabrupt.com).
Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Taylor Adkins is a translator of French philosophy. He has translated influential books by Félix Guattari, such as Machinic Unconscious (Semiotext(e) 2010), and lesser known works by Jean-François Lyotard and François Laruelle. He’s a philosophy/theory blogger at Speculative Heresy and Fractal Ontology, and co-hosts the podcast Theory Talk with Joe Weissman. You can support them and enjoy extra theory talk at patreon.com/theorytalk.
Just a few of the books mentioned:
Glas by Derrida
Fashionable Nonsense by Sokal and Bricmont
The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque by Gilles Deleuze
Deleuze and the History of Mathematics by Simon Duffy
A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari
The Cut of the Real by Kolozova
Elizabeth Suhay is a political scientist who specializes in the study of public opinion and political psychology, especially regarding beliefs about the causes of inequality. In particular, her work has made some intriguing discoveries about how and why different individuals do or do not believe genetics are an important causal explanation for various phenomena. Dr. Suhay is Assistant Professor at American University, where she is also contributing to a large project on Evidence-Based Science Communication with Policymakers.
Given that debates about genetics and inequality are back in the spotlight today, instead of joining that debate I am more interested in exploring social-scientific angles that might help us decode why these debates are so controversial, confusing, and endless. So I reached out to Elizabeth for an apolitical, scientific angle on the psychology of how and why genetic explanations tend to be adopted or rejected. Elizabeth explains how and why individuals on the left and right favor or reject genetic explanations for different human characteristics. We talk about motivated reasoning, who really believes what and to what degree, and the role of media in activating motivated reasoning about genetic attributions.
Dr. Suhay's research mentioned in the podcast:
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"Discord Over DNA: Ideological Responses to Scientific Communication about Genes and Race." Alexandre Morin-Chasse, Elizabeth Suhay, and Toby Jayaratne. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 2(2): 260-299. Published version & abstract / Author PDF.
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"Lay Belief in Biopolitics and Political Prejudice." Elizabeth Suhay, Mark Brandt, and Travis Proulx. Social Psychological and Personality Science 8(2): 173-182. Published version & abstract / Author PDF.
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"Does Biology Justify Ideology? The Politics of Genetic Attribution." Elizabeth Suhay and Toby Jayaratne. Public Opinion Quarterly 77(2): 497-521. Published version & abstract / Author PDF.
Sean Trainor (@ess_trainor) is an historian, educator, writer, and podcaster. Sean has written for The Atlantic, TIME, Salon, and many other venues popular and academic. He is a professor at the University of Florida, where he is currently writing a book about beards in the nineteenth century. Sean co-hosts his own podcast, Impolitic. You can find more about Sean's work at his website, seantrainor.org.
Sean is a socialist activist so we had some interesting debates about the prospects for activism today, and we covered just about all of the hot-button, culture-war topics of the moment: campus politics, trigger warnings, free speech, etc., including many observations from our personal experiences moving through left-wing circles and academia. We also talked about some more obscure topics such as Catholic anti-capitalism, the pleasures and pains of our respective podcasts, and why beards became so fashionable among men in the nineteenth century.
Roman Montero (@PantaKoina) is the author of "All Things in Common: The Economic Practices of the Early Christians." We had a long conversation about religion and communism (duh), Christianity, Protestantism, Catholicism, rationality, love, and marriage.
Roman's book can be found on Amazon here. Roman also wrote a short synopsis of the book available on Libcom.org. You can also find a video recording of our conversation here.
Uriel Fiori (@cyborg_nomade) is a theorist and translator based in São Paulo, Brazil. He's an expert on the work of Nick Land, having translated and archived many of the various fragments Land has scattered around the web.
We talked about Uriel's idea of "left-wing neoreaction (LRx)," how to combine a commitment to equality with realism about objective inequalities, Proudhon and early modern anarchism, mutualism, Nick Land, patchwork, blockchain, and we even snuck in some #cavetwitter at the end.
Uriel's website is antinomiaimediata.wordpress.com and he is active on Twitter as @cyborg_nomade.
Philipp Streicher is a doctoral researcher in Informatics at the University of Sussex. Philipp studies photic brain stimulation, i.e. the use of light to boost brain activity. He is currently trying to combine light stimulation protocols with neurofeedback technologies, to help people improve their brain function. His startup, Augmind, recently won funding in the 2017 StartUp Sussex competition.
I visited Philipp at his lab, he conducted one of his experiments on me, and then we recorded this podcast. We talked about brain stimulation, economics, politics, and more.
You can find Philipp's web page at the University of Sussex here. You can also find a nice video about Philipp's Augmind project here.
Greg Osei is a Soul/R&B musician, performer, storyteller, and model. His music combines African, Latin, and Afro-Caribbean musical styles, in English and Spanish. He performs regularly throughout New York City. He describes his mission as creating spaces of "possibility, change, questioning, incitement, joy, helpful discomfort, and ultimately love through art and a collaborative creative experience with his audiences." Greg just released a new video of a performance at Sofar Sounds, which you can find here.
I asked Greg to chat with me because I remember him as a very powerful person. We went to high school together, so when I recently saw his work on the internet I thought it'd be fun to see what he's been up to. I've always been drawn to performers because I'm interested in the aesthetics of existence; I'm not a performer but I do want to exist more truly, which is to say, more beautifully. Genuine performers have specialized knowledge about how to exist aesthetically, so there is a lot we can learn from them. And Greg is definitely a very authentic performer in the sense that his performance tendency colors how he carries himself, his everyday demeanor, attitude, speech, etc. This is why I remember him as a very powerful person, because the ability to perform is the ability to shape reality.
You can find Greg's website at gregosei.com. You can also find Greg Osei on Instagram here, and on Spotify here.
Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychology professor at the University of New Mexico in the USA, and is best known for his books The Mating Mind (2001), Mating Intelligence (2008), Spent (2009), and Mate (2015). He has a B.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and has also worked at NYU Stern Business School, UCLA, and University College London. He has over 120 academic publications addressing sexual selection, mate choice, signaling theory, fitness indicators, consumer behavior, marketing, intelligence, creativity, language, art, music, humor, emotions, personality, psychopathology, and behavior genetics. He has given 192 talks in 16 countries. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Scientist, and The Economist, on NPR and BBC radio, and in documentaries on CNN, PBS, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and BBC. He has consulted for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, governments, NGOs, advertising agencies, market research companies, and social media companies. He is also active in the Effective Altruism, ancestral health, academic free speech, and polyamory movements. His current priority is leveraging evolutionary psychology insights to reduce the existential risks from Artificial General Intelligence.
Geoffrey's personal website: www.primalpoly.com
Geoffrey on Twitter: @primalpoly
Timestamps:
Capitalism, genetics, intelligence, etc. (00:00)
Polyamory with a purpose? (00:13)
Groups, clans, missions, cults, and the politics of optimal lifestyle design; blockchain polyamory? (00:26)
Public opinion toward free speech; hypothesizing about why some people reject free speech. (00:24)
How long will Trump last? Betting and prediction markets. (00:46)
Geoffrey's advice on how to live an intellectual life. (51:00)
Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychology professor at the University of New Mexico in the USA, and is best known for his books The Mating Mind (2001), Mating Intelligence (2008), Spent (2009), and Mate (2015). He has a B.A. from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and has also worked at NYU Stern Business School, UCLA, and University College London. He has over 120 academic publications addressing sexual selection, mate choice, signaling theory, fitness indicators, consumer behavior, marketing, intelligence, creativity, language, art, music, humor, emotions, personality, psychopathology, and behavior genetics. He has given 192 talks in 16 countries. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Washington Post, New Scientist, and The Economist, on NPR and BBC radio, and in documentaries on CNN, PBS, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and BBC. He has consulted for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, governments, NGOs, advertising agencies, market research companies, and social media companies. He is also active in the Effective Altruism, ancestral health, academic free speech, and polyamory movements. His current priority is leveraging evolutionary psychology insights to reduce the existential risks from Artificial General Intelligence.
Geoffrey's personal website: www.primalpoly.com
Geoffrey on Twitter: @primalpoly
Timestamps:
Feminist implications of Darwin and the politics of sexual selection. (00:00)
How the advent of bodyguards affected sexual politics. (00:07)
How to critique capitalism with evolutionary psychology. (00:17)
How being creative is a handicap. (00:24).
Can psychological knowledge provide an edge for creating radical social change? (00:31)
Declining fertility rates and anti-natalism. (00:37)
How the denial of IQ differences prevents us from criticizing cognitive domination. (00:50)
Will China soon dominate the world? (00:55)
How China’s use of molecular genetic technologies could lead to global domination in two generations. (01:01)
Antifa, guns, and why, if there is going to be revolution, Geoffrey thinks it’s not going to be an intersectional revolution. (01:08)
Will Sharkey is an ultraleft Catholic schoolteacher and Philosophy PhD. He is a member of the UK-based anti-capitalist organization Plan C. You can find more about Will and his work on his website, williamduncansharkey.com. You can also find him as @Anonyleftcommie.
A lot of people ask how I can be interested in Catholicism and communism at the same time. With Will's help, this is now the single best thing I've produced on this topic to date.
Will is also above average in his tolerance for what some people might consider outrage-worthy notions. Not that he necessarily agrees, but he has a very open-minded and generous conversational ethic. I think there are a few vaguely dicey talking points I float here and there, and Will was totally unperturbed. In my recent intellectual and political conflicts of late, Will hasn't always agreed with me, but he's never rejected our relationship as people and interlocutors because of it.
So I count Will as a model open-minded left-revolutionary who I am very lucky to know.
Timestamps
The first 30 minutes is chatting about schools and teaching and just general chit-chat.
Things get deeper at around 33 minutes when Will starts to tell me about Pier Paolo Pasolini, the famous Italian anarchist communist intellectual (about whom I know nearly nothing). From there it's off to the races, mostly about our different views on the three things we both share: Catholicism, anarchism, communism, and how those things add up.
Dr Ilan Zvi Baron is Associate Professor in the School of Government and International Affairs, and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at Durham University.
Baron has written multiple books, including Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) and How to Save Politics in a Post-Truth Era (Manchester University Press, 2017). He has also published numerous academic articles on Jewish identity and security, including Diasporic Security and Jewish Identity in the journal Modern Jewish Studies (2014).
Ilan is a "reluctant Zionist" and I don't know many Zionists so I wanted to ask him about that. Unlike many of my podcasts, this one is actually pretty focused on this one topic. We also discuss some tangents of this question, mostly relating to ideology and the culture wars, etc. After some chit-chat, the conversation really kicks off around the 14 minute mark.
This is the audio from a talk I gave to Plan C London on January 19, 2016. You can find the slides for this talk at the following links: PDF or HTML.
Sam Berkson is a poet and blogger. Sam is a really passionate and active writer, performer, and organizer (of culture and politics) in London. We recorded this podcast in Sam’s flat in Tottenham at 3am on a Friday night.
Sam's recent book, Settled Wanderers, is out now with Influx Press. You can find more of Sam's work on his website and you can hit him up at @AngrySamPoet.
Notes with timestamps
general patterns of the universe!!! 00:01
full automation or nah? 00:03
what’s up with Red Bull owning the whole world of extreme sports? 00:06
the crazy growth in performance in extreme sports 00:07
linguistic invariance, principles and parameters 00:14
even educated people basically don’t know shit 00:16
how natural human mental functioning is really faulty 00:18
the metaphor of the elephant and its rider 00:19:30
right-wing vs. left-wing models of human needs 00:24
the problem of aggregating from individualism to tribalism to global community 00:28
nobody does anything great out of desperation 00:44
why you have to be realistic about what thinking can do - 00:46
talking with people isn’t about solving problems but doing something meaningful 00:47
if listeners don’t like my podcasts then they're fired! 00:49
Russell Bentley is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Southampton, where he researches and teaches across the history of political thought, from ancient Greek to contemporary American politics. He also has experience in the upper echelons of university administration (formerly Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor of Education at the University of Southampton), from which he brings to us some uncommonly frank and revealing insights into higher education today. I invited Russell to chat with me because there are very few people I’ve met in academia who are at once so professional and candid about their views from within the belly of the beast.
You can find Russell on Twitter at @RKBntly.
There's a tiny bit of static at the beginning but it goes away!
Mindy Isser writes a low-key advice column newsletter in all lowercase. She is a labor organizer but also a very funny and sweet person who is fun to talk with. We used to be internet enemies but then became friends. We also made a movie together a few years ago. Here we talk about our romantic relationships, our different models of revolutionary politics, Drake (his record label made us remove the song we played, sorry Drizzy we still cool though right?), and a few other things.
There is a video version of this conversation on Youtube, here.
Here is the movie we made forever ago, "Meeting Mindy Isser in Real Life" (30 min)
Here is Mindy on Twitter (@mindyisser)
Here is Mindy's low-key radical hipster (in a good way) advice column newsletter written in all lowercase, "towards a fully automated luxury communist future"
Diana S. Fleischman is an evolutionary psychologist, currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. Her interests include sex, disgust, veganism, utilitarianism, effective altruism, polyamory, and genetics, among other things.
Show notes with timestamps:
0:00 - 00:30
How we met on Twitter, how to make friends online, dissecting our online impressions of each other. Our weird ideological histories and intersections. Academics and drug use and talking about it on the internet. A thesis about the new ideological fracturing; the alt-right, etc.
00:30 - 00:50
Diana’s experiences with the vegan movement; the milquetoast Science March. Is “intersectionality” predictive? Diana’s view of how the left is changing, on smart people leaving the left and people with nuanced views being ejected. My thesis that there is no mass media or mainstream anymore.
Diana reviews the idea of personality, the Big Five traits. Most people are not very open to experience. Are apparent ideological differences really just due to a bunch of different lexicons and/or sociological differences? Lefties open to global warming science, not open to other science (GMOs, etc.). The problem of epistemic hygiene and disgust. Why are we so paranoid and afraid of each other when our society has never been more pacified? How evolutionary psychology explains the prevalence of signaling in politics. Very interesting exchange of hypotheses on this point, about what causes this to increase or decrease, and how it may or may not be changing. One has to be disagreeable to update; how Diana has lost a lot of friends many times but most people don’t want to do that. How I think this is changing on the left.
00:50 - 1:20
Debates about IQ and leftist denials of hierarchy. Partisan sorting. How ideology can be rational and at odds with the truth, at the same time. How social partners want to make each other really weird so there is less competition for their attention. Why it feels good when someone tells you a secret. Marriage; hierarchical polyamory vs. anarcho-polyamory. How polyamory makes healthy competition. Diana’s personal arrangements. Why I like monogamy and think pleasure is bad. It’s hard to think clearly and be honest when you’re trying to get laid. My interest in radical transparency, which Diana thinks is dumb. How sex could facilitate honesty.
Social media as escape behavior, how to manage this. Kink and sociopathy. How to use social media dopamine as a propeller of disciplined work, which you then reinvest into social media, and so on. Diana becomes more fluent when arguing. How we both leverage social media exchanges for more purposeful writing.
1:20 - 1:54
Here is when things get a little bit dicey. I asked Diana if “human biodiversity” is a racist dog-whistle or a real thing? Diana laid out a lot of arguments and cited a lot of evidence, and we had a long back and forth about this and its implications. Diana recommended the article “On the Reality of Race and the Abhorrence of Racism,” an explicitly anti-racist case for "human biodiversity." I don’t know much about this stuff and I’m still processing the conversation to be honest. As if this wasn’t difficult enough, I also asked Diana about mental health and transgenderism. I’m just going to leave it at that. Definitely one of the more intense and politically challenging conversations I’ve had on this podcast so far.
Dan Goss is a happy revolutionary. Unlike me Dan actually works hard on many active political campaigns. We first met through Plan C. Although Dan is a very committed and serious organizer, he's also very based and reflective and funny, too, which is why I asked him to do a podcast. We are joined by Rosie Hiscock, who is a working actress and musician. We recorded this podcast in Dan's home in London.
Notes with timestamps:
how to shut down a coal mine in South Wales (1:56)
activist guilt, and work guilt, and why they're fucked up (7:50)
doing direct action just for fun (9:05)
honesty as the only radical political obligation (9:40)
don't be insecure about seeming selfish (13:00)
don't do stupid activist shit if you don't honestly believe it's going to make revolution (15:00)
why I like Plan C (15:30)
Dan is against altruism and selfishness (15:50)
What if the joy of our relationships was the only thing? (18:15)
don't care what some random activist group thinks (18:50)
maybe we need a cult with no leader (24:30)
how does one become ungovernable? (34:20)
acting and performance as a political skill (37:25)
The power of self-observance (38:00)
Rosie teaches us the Alexander Technique (39:00)
the political significance of a slouching posture (41:40)
resentment and conservatism (52:30)
how is Dan so happy all the time? (55:00)
on becoming revolutionary or hating yourself (63:00)
how the fear of being offensive turns people off to politics (74:30)
the idiotic performances of activism (75:00)
refuse anything that does not feel like the liberation of your soul (76:20)
radical politics is learning how to live (83:00)
Most people think "communism" is crazy but actually it's really easy and hilarious. We're already doing it and it's great. Here, we teach you exactly how to start now.
Dr. Jonathan Havercroft is Associate Professor of International Political Theory at the University of Southampton. He has published work on the historical development and transformation of state sovereignty, 17th century and 20th century political philosophy, space weaponization and security, global dimensions of indigenous politics and hermeneutics. He is currently working on the ethical dimensions of international norms, theories of political affect, and the role of agreement in democratic theory and practice. His book Captives of Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press, 2011) looks at the historical origins of state sovereignty, critiques its philosophical assumptions and offers a way to move contemporary critiques of sovereignty beyond their current impasse.
# Notes
Why Jonathan loves betting on the ponies (00:06). I'm cool with eating animals because animals eat animals and would eat me (00:14). Academics who sell-out their expertise are pretty lame, but I have a plan (00:24). Why self-help gurus are usually full of shit but sometimes useful (00:40). Academic efficiency stuff (47:00). What Jonathan learned from hiring a personal trainer (00:55). Jonathan's kettlebell routines (00:59). Running and high-intensity intervals, pros and cons regarding stress (1:12). Jonathan's proposal for a national house-cleaning service to overthrow the patriarchy; fully automated luxury communism, etc. (1:35).
Adriana is a mental health worker based in London. She is a member of Plan C (http://www.weareplanc.org/).
Notes
How our ideas and speech can cut off liberation dynamics; the sociology of sorting in activist circles (00:07)
Why we don't gossip or criticize other political groups, the futility of objections in favor of looking for new weapons, relationships (00:11)
Adriana's experiences in mental health, NHS, CBT, etc. The power of meditation (fuck the haters). (00:15)
Just because you're high-functioning doesn't mean your mentally well; how we've lowered the standard for what counts as healthy life; capitalism at best is like "choose your own mental illness." (00:16)
Financial success is just profitable mental illness (00:18)
How we're blackmailed into saying our lives are good (00:19)
Learning how to become well together might just be the most viable program of revolutionary politics available. (00:23)
Mental health is not hippie shit. (00:25)
The need for immediate tools to deal with where the economic system enters our bodies; cognitive-behavioral therapy. (00:27)
Focusing on your own mental health isn't selfish. It transforms relationships and institutions; charisma and the ability to embody and effect a new type of being. (00:30)
People think "being radical" means saying and doing things within radical circles, but around most people at most times we are boring, lazy, and moderate. On revolutionizing everyday life. (00:44)
To spread revolution you have to let go of your fucking agenda once in a while. (00:48)
Political groups don't have to read Marx; just find the thing that makes everyone joyous and creative. (00:56)
Why we don't recruit, Plan C. (1:08)
Adriana's thoughts on the next steps; allow large groups of people to radicalize themselves in totally different ways and then aggregate and organize them. Note and record your own moments where you feel really good, show them, understand them, and ask: what is your version of this? (1:15)
Revolutionary organizations should be technologies of immediate liberation; they should be direct action on your being. Also true friendships and romantic relationships, but we still have to learn how to do it because we don't really know yet (although we all pretend we do); making revolution means figuring how this works. (1:27)
How much should we let ourselves be depressed? In kindness do we maybe flatter each others' depression? Should we be more aggressive, with each other and ourselves, in helping each other? How we balance these things in Plan C. (1:40)
Political problems around mental health that most people don't want to talk about; mental health's contagiousness; why I think one's own mental health should be non-negotiable; some people can't "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" but actually some people can somewhat, especially with external triggers and collective supports, and why it's maybe fucked up to suggest people can't pull themselves up. (1:49)
The wellness industry is fucked up, but to dismiss wellness throws the baby out with the bathwater; true wellness is radical because it spreads. (2:06)
What I mean when I say I'm a revolutionary. (2:09)
Even if nobody listens to this it was a success because Adriana enjoyed it and we feel pumped and connected. (2:13)
Dr. Jonathan Havercroft is Associate Professor of International Political Theory at the University of Southampton. He has published work on the historical development and transformation of state sovereignty, 17th century and 20th century political philosophy, space weaponization and security, global dimensions of indigenous politics and hermeneutics. He is currently working on the ethical dimensions of international norms, theories of political affect, and the role of agreement in democratic theory and practice. His book Captives of Sovereignty (Cambridge University Press, 2011) looks at the historical origins of state sovereignty, critiques its philosophical assumptions and offers a way to move contemporary critiques of sovereignty beyond their current impasse.
Notes
How I'm trying to achieve absolute disalienation and why Jonathan thinks I'm crazy; living in the UK vs. the US; childhood; why it's good to have goals even if you know you can't achieve them; Caitlyn Jenner; bathroom gender laws; is the news worth reading?; how and why my dad used to get in fights and hitchhike but I never did; the tv show Cops and cultural change since the 1990s; the rise of after school activities as social control; whether I should want to have kids and Jonathan refusing to give me advice; how to live in the most revolutionary way; the problem of charismatic power and cults; the life of Wittgenstein; left-wing stupidities; Michael Oakeshott; why Jonathan thinks I'm going to become a conservative; gambling, etc.
Aria Alamalhodaei works on art history and sells groceries for a wage. Her writing has appeared in the journal History of Photography and online outlets such as Blind Field. Her website is alamalhodaei.tumblr.com. (Aria is also my spouse, which is probably the main reason she agreed to humor me for this first test run.)
Also thanks and credit to Aria for making the cover art for this podcast. :-)
Notes
Why I'm starting this podcast.
How we're so cool and smart.
Are Jay-Z and Beyonce actual lovers or just a corporate ruse?
Can jet fuel melt steel beams?
If you're cool or interesting and want to be on the podcast, or know someone who might want to be on the podcast, please hit me up. Or if you just want to tell me what you think about this podcast or anything else in the future, it's my goal to actively respond and sincerely engage with people who are interested in all the things I am thinking about. :-)