Episodios

  • 176. Building a World without Parkinson's -- Ray Dorsey
    Jan 7 2026

    Ray Dorsey joins me to discuss The Parkinson's Plan, his new book about fighting and hopefully ending the disease. Ray and his co-author Michael S. Okun show that Parkinson's is primarily caused by human-made chemicals, chemicals we can stop using. As with climate change or ultraprocessed foods, we've made an environment that's sickening us. Now it's time to make a new, healthier world.

    You can learn more about the book at https://pdplan.org/

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    42 m
  • 175. The Battle of Seattle -- D.W. Gibson
    Dec 31 2025

    The modern anarchist movement began in 1999, when the World Trade Organization met in Seattle in order to create a set of rules which would require every country to accept the worst excesses of capitalism.

    Waiting for them in Seattle was a loose coalition of anarchists, farmers, organized labor, punks, Zapatistas, and giant puppets.

    Team Puppet won.

    D.W. Gibson's new book One Week to Change the World is an oral history of the Battle of Seattle. Gibson interviewed everyone from the black bloc to the riot police. The book is a history but also a guide for future protests. I highly recommend it!

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    50 m
  • 174. Rules, Games, and Anarchy -- Jay Dragon
    Dec 24 2025

    Ever since C. Thi Nguyen appeared on the podcast, I've been trying to use games to understand more about the relationship between rules and life. Jay Dragon, whose game Wanderhome is almost ruleless, joins me to discuss games, rules, and anarchy, and we especially talk about how we can analyze oppressive real-world systems as if they're games.

    Here are some links for more from Jay:

    https://possumcreek.medium.com/

    https://possumcreekgames.com/

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    52 m
  • 173. From William Morris to Bauhaus to Midcentury Modern -- Robin Schuldenfrei
    Dec 10 2025

    Robin Schuldenfrei rejoins me to talk more Bauhaus! In this episode, we discuss her book Luxury and Modernism, covering the complexities of the Bauhaus, which had a leftwing ethos but produced luxury objects, and made them by hand to appear machine made. Robin talks us through how the contradiction between luxury and egalitarianism ran from Morris's arts and crafts movement to the Bauhaus, and modernism only became a truly "everyday" part of life during the colossal expansion of middle-class wealth in the midcentury, as celebrated by Life magazine and recreated in the show Mad Men

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    1 h y 6 m
  • Liberty as Independence -- John McGowan
    Nov 19 2025

    John McGowan joins me to discuss Liberty as Independence, Quentin Skinner's new book about the way that our ideals of liberty were formed in in 17th and 18th century debates. The book covers legendary figures, such as Hobbes, Milton, Locke, Swift, Paine, and Jefferson, as well as many lesser-known figures that they engaged with.

    For more from John McGowan, here's the link to his blog: https://jzmcgowan.com/public-intelligence-blog/

    Finally, I'd like to apologize to Badger from The Wind in the Willows. In this episode, I repeatedly refer to him as "Mr. Badger." He is simply, as befits his status, Badger or The Badger. I regret the error.

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    1 h y 17 m
  • 171. Reel Politik -- Nathan Gelgud
    Nov 5 2025

    Nathan Gelgud joins me to discuss Reel Politik, a comics collection about a group of Brechtian revolutionaries who take over the movie theatre they work in.

    Nathan and I discuss our shared love for movies, the radical nature of paying attention to a movie screen, and The Chelsea Theater, a local movie theatre in Chapel Hill that Nathan and I both love (I even worked there!). Many thanks to Bruce Stone, who ran The Chelsea for decades!

    You can find the book here: https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/reel-politik/

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    1 h y 1 m
  • 170. The Biblical Curse of Wealth -- Pastor Micah
    Oct 29 2025

    Pastor Micah joins me to share a radical reading of the Book of Genesis in which wealth isn't a blessing on God's people, but a curse!

    I recently appeared on Micah's podcast, The Word in Black and Red, to discuss the 10 Commandments with Micah. That link is here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s-2-20-exodus-19-20-arrival-at-mt-sanai-the-ten-commandments/id1682991552?i=1000730399185

    I also recently appeared on The Skeptical Leftist podcast! That link is here: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/skepticalleftist/episodes/The-Anti-Influencers-Case-For-Anarchism-with-Graham-Culbertson-e3a0a4j

    And the YouTube video of that conversation is here (I didn't watch): https://youtu.be/YXYH1ngF30A?si=4DMONaFxIUGRuCNc

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    1 h y 1 m
  • 169. The Teacher and Society -- Alfie Kohn
    Oct 22 2025

    Alfie Kohn returns to the show to discuss his new podcast, the role of teachers in social progress, and why someone's view on chatbots in the classroom tells you eveything you need to know about their view of education.

    You can listen to Kohn's Zone wherever you get your podcasts, or get it straight from his website: https://www.alfiekohn.org/podcasts/

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    41 m
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