Crazy Town

Escape Routes! That's the theme of the sixth season of Crazy Town. We're exploring how to escape industrialism, consumerism, globalism, capitalism, and all the other -isms that are causing a polycrisis of environmental and social breakdown. Most of all, Jason, Rob, and Asher are looking to maintain their sense of humor while escaping fatalism and finding meaningful ways to avoid collapse.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Wikipedia article on China’s Mango Cult
• France’s Dancing Plague of 1518
• Geoffrey Cohen, Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides, W. W. Norton, 2022
• Asch line experiment
• Bystander Intervention Tip Sheet
• Summary of Marvin Harris’s work on cultural materialism
• Research that extends Asch’s conformity experiments and highlights the personality trait of openness as a key to resisting the behavior of conforming.
• Big Five Personality Assessment
• Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley

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Join us on March 13, 2024 for the launch of our sixth season, in which Jason, Rob, and Asher explore escape routes from industrialism, capitalism, consumerism, and a bunch of other "-isms" that are causing the polycrisis of environmental and social breakdown.

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LaUra Schmidt visits Crazy Town to discuss her work with the Good Grief Network and her book, How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet. Along the way, she shares wisdom and insights on courage, taking meaningful action, terror management theory, and practices for processing the strong emotions that accompany facing climate change and other aspects of the polycrisis.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• LaUra's book, How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet
• The Good Grief Network's 10 Step Program
• LaUra mentioned Bayo Akomolafe and his work on "questioning our questions."
• Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnects
• Video of Dr. Andrew Weil's 4-7-8 breathing technique
• David Graeber's book Bullshit Jobs
• Crazy Town episode 34, "Fear of Death and Climate Denial, or... the Story of Wolverine and the Screaming Mole of Doom"
• Fiftieth anniversary book review in the New York Times: Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death
• Ayisha Siddiqa's poem "On Another Panel about Climate, They Ask Me to Sell the Future and All I've Got Is a Love Poem"

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Asher, Jason, and Rob reflect on 2023 – a year filled to the brim with Crazy Townisms like the COP climate conference being held in Dubai, an anti-aging nutbag who parasitizes his own son, and the hijinks of the world’s dumbest billionaires. After a few predictions (all with money-back guarantees), they turn to some personal resolutions that might even help you cope with what’s coming in 2024.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

References:

• 183 regional and local conflicts around the world
• Zuckerberg’s tragically misguided Hawaiian bunker
• Anti-aging nutter
• When do we get to use the guns?
• The 10-step program of the Good Grief Network

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The most vomit-inducing document of 2023 has to be the "Techno-Optimist Manifesto," written (oh so obviously) by a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Join Jason, Rob, and Asher if you feel like sharing in some outrage and learning about a WAY better manifesto that just so happens to focus on the world's smallest monkeys.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

References:

• Marc Andreessen's horrifying "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" 
• Peer-reviewed paper featuring Jason's far superior "Dehumanist Manifesto"
• Description of the pygmy marmoset
• The idea of Beth Sawin's Multisolving Institute
• The dark triad -- narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy
• The original paper on the taxonomy of Phalse Prophets
• Article by Richard Heinberg about free will.

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Investigative journalist Leah Sottile writes articles teeming with insights, and she produces and hosts podcasts filled with ah-ha moments. Rob tries not to sound like too much of a fanboy as he interviews Leah about political extremism, environmentalism, and the craft of storytelling during the Great Unraveling.

Resources:

• Leah's website
• Leah's Substack page, titled "The Truth Does not Change According to Our Ability to Stomach It"
• Article in The High Country News "The 90-foot sentinel of Butte, Montana"
• Bundyville: The Remnant, a must-listen podcast about the patriot movement and right-wing extremism
• Burn Wild, another must-listen podcast about the Earth Liberation Front and left-wing extremism

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Just how much has the extractivist growth mindset come to dominate Phoenix and other cities in the desert Southwest of the United States? Prepare to turn your indignation meter up to 11 as Jason, Rob, and Asher consider desalination, pipelines, and the folly of pursuing infinite growth in a dry climate.

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We are pleased to share the new podcast from Post Carbon Institute, Holding the Fire. Award-winning journalist and author Dahr Jamail hosts in-depth interviews with leaders from around the world to uncover Indigenous ways of reckoning with environmental and societal breakdown.

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Wildlife ecologist and communicator extraordinaire Rae Wynn-Grant visits Crazy Town to talk human-wildlife interactions, the social side of environmentalism, diversity and equity in the sciences, and ideas for young people (don't worry if you're older—the ideas apply to you, too). Rae is the host of the PBS Nature podcast "Going Wild" and will soon be appearing as the cohost of Wild Kingdom, a reboot of the ultra-classic tv nature show. Listen to the end of the episode to catch Rae’s thoughts on the most important stories people need to hear (and tell) to make a transition to sustainable and just society.

 Notes and Resources:

• Rae’s website
• The podcast: Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant
• Rae discussed how Ayana Elizabeth Johnson influenced her.
• Rae also highlighted the work of Leah Thomas on intersectional environmentalism.
• Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program
• National Geographic HBCU Media Scholarship
• Article about the reboot of the Wild Kingdom television series

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What do Saddam Hussein’s information minister and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board have in common? Hint: it starts with a “d,” ends with “enial,” and isn’t just a river in Egypt. A new and virulent strain of climate denial could be called “doomer shaming.” Instead of acknowledging how logical it is to be distressed about the state of the climate (and the pitiful worldwide political response), delusional boosters of the status quo would rather belittle people who worry about rising temperatures, wildfires, super-storms, and ecosystem breakdown. Jason, Rob, Asher, and Melody consider how to manage climate anxiety and use it in service of caring for planet Earth.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
References:

• Video of Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahhaf, aka Baghdad Bob
• Allysia Finley wrote this Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Climate Change Obsession Is a Real Mental Disorder”
• Nature article dismissed by Finley
• Lancet article dismissed by Finley
• Rebuttal written by PCI Advisor Leslie Davenport and published in the Wall Street Journal
• Rebecca Solnit’s article in The Guardian, “We Can’t Afford to Be Climate Doomers.”
• Survey on climate distress by the Yale Program on Climate Communication
• Gen Dread newsletter on climate distress
• Climate Psychology Alliance
• Good Grief Network

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After hearing a story of woe on the streets of Portland, Oregon, Jason, Rob, and Asher cover the four critical ways of cultivating personal resilience to navigate the Great Unraveling. The report we reference several times is Welcome to the Great Unraveling: Navigating the Polycrisis of Environmental and Social Breakdown.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

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Asher, Rob, and Jason explore the lessons and dangers of the brotherhood of Phalse Prophets and consider better ways to achieve a sustainable and equitable society. Along the way, they examine how to start a cult, turn the insufferability index on themselves, respond to listener feedback, and repeatedly mispronounce amygdala. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

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Meet Elon Musk, the Muskian mogul who Elon Musks his way to the pinnacle of Muskitude. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Prepare to be wowed by the Musk Foundation website.
• Luc Olinga, "Errol Musk, Elon's Dad, Prompts a New Controversy," TheStreet (2022).
• Musk's attack on Jane Goodall
• Cade Metz and Neal E. Boudette, "Inside Tesla as Elon Musk Pushed an Unflinching Vision for Self-Driving Cars," The New York Times (2021).
• Andrew J. Hawkins and Umar Shakir, "Elon Musk unveils a new Master Plan, a path to sustainable energy future, but no new cars," The Verge (2023).
• Adam Kovacs and Adam Westbrook, "Elon Musk Has Some bad Ideas for Mass Transit. We Have Solutions," The New York Times (2022).
• Adam Something, "Elon Musk’s Loop is a Bizarrely Stupid Idea," YouTube (2021).
• Ted Mann and Julie Bykowicz, "Elon Musk’s Boring Company Ghosts Cities Across America," The Wall Street Journal (2022).
• Nikki McCann Ramirez, "Paul Pelosi Conspiracy Theory Trends on Twitter After Elon Musk Pushes It," Rolling Stone (2022).
• Ted McCormick, "The billionaire space race reflects a colonial mindset that fails to imagine a different world," The Conversation (2021).
• Marina Koren, "The War in Ukraine is Testing the Myth of Elon Musk," The Atlantic (2022).
• Radhika Viswanathan, "Elon Musk’s plan to bring a mini-submarine to rescue the Thai boys," Vox (2018).
• A podcast episode from Backpacker that describes the amazing Thai cave rescue
• Zoe Schiffer and Casey Newton, "Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first," Platformer (2023)
• Emile P. Torres, "How Elon Musk sees the future: His bizarre sci-fi vision should concern us all," Salon, July 17, 2022.

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Meet Steve Bannon, the Molotov mixologist who wants to light the world on fire. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Video: Mutual Aid in the Great Unraveling, Part 1 with Daniel P Aldrich, Amira Odeh, and Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute, November 2022.
• Video: Mutual Aid in the Great Unraveling, Part 2 with Dean Spade, Joanna Swan, and Aliza Tuttle, Post Carbon Institute, November 2022.
• Dean Spade, "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next),"  Verso Books, October 2020.
• "Democracy Rising" essay series on deliberative democracy
• Global Tapestry of Alternatives
• Eliana Johnson and Eli Stokols, "What Steve Bannon Wants You to Read," Politico, February 7, 2017.
• Lisa Marshall, "Inside Steve Bannon's 'War for Eternity'," CU Boulder Today, April 22, 2020.
• Joshua Green, "Inside the Secret, Strange Origins of Steve Bannon’s Nationalist Fantasia," Vanity Fair, July 17, 2017.
• David Breitenbeck, "A Brief Summary of Traditionalism," The Imaginative Conservative, March 21, 2019.
• Generation Zero, Bannon's poorly reviewed documentary
• Guo Wengui's video for his song, "Take Down the CCP," -- the third best comedy yacht video of all time.
• Douglas Rushkoff, "How to Avoid Becoming a Fascist: Why I turned down an appearance on Steve Bannon's podcast," Medium, October 21, 2021.
• Olivia Goldhill, "The neo-fascist philosophy that underpins both the alt-right and Silicon Valley technophiles," Quartz, June 18, 2017.
• Philip Rucker and Robert Costa, "Bannon vows a daily fight for ‘deconstruction of the administrative state’," The Washington Post, February 23, 2017.

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Meet Guy McPherson, the extinction enthusiast who undermines legitimate climate concerns by predicting we’re all going to die yesterday. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Guy McPherson, "Near-Term Extinction blog post," Nature Bats Last (last updated 2016).
• Scott Johnson, "How Guy McPherson gets it wrong," Fractal Planet, 2014.
• Michael Tobis, "McPherson’s Evidence That Doom Doom Doom," Planet 3.0, 2014.
• Nathan Curry, "Humanity Is Getting Verrrrrrry Close to Extinction," Vice, 2013.
• BizNewsTV, "'Humans will be extinct by 2026' - 'doom and gloom prophet' Prof McPherson on abrupt climate change," January 19, 2023.
• Shannon Osaka, "Why climate 'doomers' are replacing climate 'deniers',” Washington Post, March 24, 2023.
• Jerome Roos, "We Don’t Know What Will Happen Next," New York Times, April 18, 2023.
• List of McPherson predictions

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Meet Barrett Moore, the bunker-building bullshit artist who helps capitalists survive the apocalypse with beans, bullets, and bravado. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• History of the Kelly Butte Civil Defense Center
• Article on Kelly Butte in the Atlas Obscura
• A Day Called X -- video of a dramatized atomic evacuation of Portland, Oregon
• Donald Fagen's "New Frontier"
• Sam Biddle, "The Rise and Fall of the Ultimate Doomsday Prepper," The Intercept, July 5, 2021.
• "Three Robots: Exit Strategies" -- episode 1 of season 3 of the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots.
• National Geographic produced the popular video series Doomsday Preppers.
• Molly Redden, "The American Elite Are Planning Their Escape — And It Starts With Paying For Passports," Huffington Post, March 19, 2023.
• John Ramey, "New statistics on modern prepper demographics from FEMA and Cornell," theprepared.com August 4, 2021.
• Bradley Garrett, "Living with bunker builders: doomsday prepping in the age of coronavirus,"The Conversation, May 14, 2020.
• Interview about Bradley Garrett's study of prepping
• J. Oliver Conroy, "We mocked preppers and survivalists – until the pandemic hit," The Guardian, April 30, 2020.
• Walter Karp, "When Bunkers Last in the Backyard Bloom-d," American Heritage, February/March 1980.
• Red Cross’s Preparedness Checklist
• FEMA’s 12 Ways to Prepare
• Tom Prugh, "Democracy Rising 1 Introduction: Idiots R Us," Resilience, October 27, 2021.
• Jana Reiss, "For today’s Latter-day Saints, it’s food storage light," The Salt Lake Tribune, January 27, 2023.

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How would you like to hang out with Asher, Rob, and Jason (well, virtually anyway)? Your chance is coming up at the fourth annual Crazy Town Hall. The town hall is our most fun event of the year, where you can ask questions, play games, get insider information on the podcast, and share plenty of laughs. It’s a special online event for the most dedicated Crazy Townies out there, and it’s coming up on June 6, 2023, from 10 to 11:15 AM U.S. Pacific time.

To get an invitation, make a donation of any size. Go to https://www.postcarbon.org/supportcrazytown/. When you make a donation, we’ll email you an exclusive link to join the Crazy Town Hall. If you're already a donor, we'll be sure to send you the invitation as well. 

If we get enough donations, maybe we can hire some decent hosts! Join us at the town hall on June 6th, 2023. Again to get your invitation, go to https://www.postcarbon.org/supportcrazytown/.

Support the show

Meet William MacAskill, the puerile professor who helps crypto capitalists justify sociopathy today for a universe of transhuman colonization tomorrow. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Andrew Anthony, "William MacAskill: 'There are 80 trillion people yet to come. They need us to start protecting them'," The Guardian, August 21, 2022.
• Guiding Principles of the Centre for Effective Altruism
• Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence and Morality," givingwhatwecan.org.
• Sarah Pessin, "Political Spiral Logics," sarahpessin.com.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky, "Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down," Time, March 29, 2023.
• Emile Torres explains the acronym TESCREAL in a Twitter thread.
• Benjamin Todd and William MacAskill, "Is it ever OK to take a harmful job in order to do more good? An in-depth analysis," 80,000 Hours, March 26, 2023.
• William MacAskill, "The Case for Longtermism," The New York Times, August 5, 2022.
• Emile P. Torres, "Understanding “longertermism”: Why this suddenly influential philosophy is so toxic," Salon, August 20, 2022.
• Nick Bostrom, "Existential Risks," Journal of Evolution and Technology (2002).
• Nick Bostrom, "Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development," Utilitas (2003).
• Emile P. Torres, "How Elon Musk sees the future: His bizarre sci-fi visions should concern us all," Salon,  July 17, 2022.

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Meet Mark Jacobson and David Keith, the leading techno-fixologists who overpromise overhyped “solutions” to the climate conundrum. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• The Solutions Project
• Carbon Engineering
• David W. Keith et al., "A Process for Capturing CO2 from the Atmosphere," Joule, August 15, 2018.
• Christopher T. M. Clack et al., "Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar," PNAS, June 19, 2017.
• Natanael Bolson, P. Prieto, and T. Patzek, "Capacity factors for electrical power generation from renewable and nonrenewable sources," PNAS, December 20, 2022.
• Simon Michaux's website
• Richard Heinberg, "Can Civilization Survive? These Studies Might Tell Us," Resilience, December 19, 2022.
• Average household electricity consumption
• David Fridley and Richard Heinberg, "Can Climate Change Be Stopped by Turning Air Into Gasoline?," Renewable Energy World, June 19, 2018.
• Mark Jacobson on Late Night with David Letterman
• James R. Martin, "Energy Transition & the Luxury Economy," Resilience, October 31, 2022.
• Yamina Saheb, Kai Kuhnhenn, and Juliane Schumacher, "It’s a Very Western Vision of the World," Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
• Mark Z. Jacobson et al., "Low-cost solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy insecurity for 145 countries," Energy & Environmental Science (2022).
• Nicole Jewell, "Leading Stanford climate scientist builds incredible net zero home, complete with Tesla Powerwall," In Habitat (2017).
• Raymond Pierrehumbert, "The trouble with geoengineers 'hacking the planet'," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2017).

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Meet Stewart Brand and his band of merry dematerialists, the Silicon Valley salesmen who undermined environmentalism with planet-saving fantasies that reek of technofetishism. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• John Markoff, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand, 2022.
• Anna Wiener, "The Complicated Legacy of Stewart Brand’s 'Whole Earth Catalog'," The New Yorker, November 16, 2018.
• Wolf Tivy and Matt Ellison, "'Life Goes On' With Stewart Brand," Palladium, September 14, 2022.
• "Ecomodernist Manifesto"
• Timothee Parrique, "A response to Paul Krugman: Growth is not as green as you might think," Resilience, February 28, 2023.
• Low-Tech Magazine
• The Long Now Foundation
• Revive & Restore

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Meet Bill Gates, the philandering philanthropist who attempts to remake the world's operating system in his own image. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, 2021.
• Alan Guebert, "Given What We Don't Know, Why Do We Act Like We Do Know?," Food and Farm File, September 25, 2022.
• Gates Foundation, "Bill and Melinda Gates Pledge $10 Billion in Call for Decade of Vaccines," January 2010.
• Bill Gates TED Talk, "The next outbreak? We're not ready," 2015.
• Erin Banco, Ashleigh Furlong, and Lennart Pfahler, "How Bill Gates and partners used their clout to control the global Covid response — with little oversight," Politico, September 14, 2022.
• Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, October 1, 2019.
• Timothy A. Wise "Failing Africa’s Farmers: An Impact Assessment of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa," Tufts University, July 2020.
• Anmar Frangoul, "Bill Gates on why he'll carry on using private jets and campaigning on climate change," CNBC, February 7, 2023.
• Alnoor Ladha and Lynn Murphy, Post Capitalist Philanthropy: Healing Wealth In The Time Of Collapse, October 17, 2022.

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Meet Tom Friedman, the mustachioed metaphor maven who thinks we can have our cake and listen to it too. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Thomas Friedman, "Foreign Affairs Big Mac I," The New York Times, December 8, 1996.
• Matt Taibbi's critique of Hot, Flat, and Crowded -- "Flathead" Strauss Media, November 21, 2014.
• Jason Hickel et al., "Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015," Global Environmental Change, March 2022.
• Thomas Friedman, "The Earth Is Full," The New York Times, June 7, 2011.
• Thomas Friedman, "Something's Happening Here," The New York Times, October 11, 2011.
• Thomas Friedman, "Want to Save the Earth? We Need a Lot More Elon Musks.," The New York Times, November 16, 2021.
• Thomas Friedman, "How We Broke the World," The New York Times, May 30, 2020.
• Belen Fernandez, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, November 1, 2011.
• Here's the archive of Global Citizen columns by Donella Meadows.
• Ian Parker, "The Bright Side: The relentless optimism of Thomas Friedman," The New Yorker, November 2, 2008.
• Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 1999.
• Thomas Friedman The World Is Flat, YouTube video of Yale University Lecture, 2009.
• Garrett Graff, "Thomas Friedman is On Top of the World," Washingtonian Magazine, July 1, 2006.  

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Meet Bill Clinton, who converted the Democratic Party into slightly less loathsome neoliberals. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Lily Geismer wrote an outstanding and comprehensive book, published in 2022, on Clinton and the legacy of neoliberal policies called Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality.
• Lily Geismer, "How the Third Way Made Neoliberal Politics Seem Inevitable," The Nation, December 13, 2022.
• Alex Parnee, “The Disastrous Legacy of the New Democrats,” The New Republic, May 16, 2022.
• Michael Pierce, “How Bill Clinton Remade the Democratic Party by Abandoning Unions” The Labor and Working-Class History Association, November 23, 2016.

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Meet Jack Welch, celebrated wrecker of real jobs and leading light of Wall Street wankers. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• David Gelles, The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of America—and How to Undo His Legacy (2022).
• David Gelles, "How Jack Welch’s Reign at G.E. Gave Us Elon Musk’s Twitter Feed," New York Times (2022).
• Malcolm Gladwell, "Was Jack Welch the Greatest C.E.O. of His Day--Or the Worst?," The New Yorker (2022).
• Geoff Colvin, "The Ultimate Manager," Fortune (1999).
• Matthew J. Belvedere, "Jack Welch says Obama’s ‘wacky’ climate-change agenda hurts the US economy," CNBC (2016).
• "Jack Welch Fast Facts," CNN (2020).
• Scott Tong, "This is how shareholders got to be first in line for profits," Business Insider (2016).
• James B. Stewart, "Did the Jack Welch Model Sow Seeds of G.E.’s Decline?," New York Times (2017). 
• Jack & Suzy Welch Winning (2005).
• Geoff Gloeckler, "Jack Welch Launches Online MBA," Bloomberg Businessweek (2009).
• Della Bradshaw, "Jack Welch on the executive MBA he created in his own image," Financial Times (2014).
• Jack Welch Management Institute .
• Oxfam "Top 1% grab twice as much new wealth as everyone else combined".
• Economic Policy Institute “CEO pay has skyrocketed".  

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Meet Ray Kurzweil, who combines Moore’s Law with nanobots in a faux recipe to cheat death. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Ray Kurzweil's 2005 book checks in at 672 pages -- it's called The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
• Kurzweil's sequel from 2022 is called The Singularity Is Nearer.
• Brian O'Keefe, "The smartest (or the nuttiest) futurist on Earth," Fortune, May 2, 2007.
• David Hochman, "Reinvent Yourself," Playboy, April 19, 2016.
• Episode of Doug Henning's World of Magic, 1980.
• Society for Cryobiology
• Singularity University
• Sarah Begley, "The Future of Food: Experts Predict How Our Plates Will Change," Time, October 9, 2014.
• Alan Thompson, "Dr Ray Kurzweil: 2022-2023 Updates," LifeArchitect.ai
• Eric Brende wrote a book that counteracts some of Kurzweil's absurdities. It's called Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology.
• The Simplicity Collective is a good organization for exploring voluntary simplicity.

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Meet Steven Pinker whose denial of limits increases the likelihood of his worst fear: the end of the Enlightenment. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• David Marchese, "Steven Pinker Thinks Your Sense of Imminent Doom Is Wrong" in The New York Times Magazine (2021).
• The Work that Reconnects Network
• Good Grief Network
• Three relevant past episodes of Crazy Town are episode 39 on the myth of progress, episode 35 on self-domestication, and episode 34 on terror management theory.
• "Steven Pinker: The Mind Reader" in The Guardian (1999).
• Robert Wright, "The 2004 Time 100" in Time Magazine (2004).
• Nick Gillespie, "Steven Pinker Loves the Enlightenment" in Reason Magazine (2018).
• David A. Bell, "Waiting for Steven Pinker’s enlightenment" in The Nation (2018).
• Emile Torres, "Steven Pinker’s fake enlightenment" in Salon (2019).
• Robert Epstein, "Book Review: The Better Angels of Our Nature" in Scientific American (2011).
• Tyler Cowen, "Steven Pinker on Language, Reason, and the Future of Violence," Mercatus Center (2016).
• Mike Freiheit and Lyta Gold, "Comic: Steven Pinker--Certified Grief Counselor" in Current Affairs 2018). 
• George Monbiot, "Contrary to Reason" in The Guardian (2018).
• Alex Blasdel, "Pinker's progress: the celebrity scientist at the centre of the culture wars" in The Guardian (2021).

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Meet the unelected leaders of Crazy Town, who keep our collective heads in the sand while the planet burns. Please share this episode to your friends and start a conversation.

For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD. 

Sources/Links/Notes:

• "Bundyville: The Remnant" -- long-form article and podcast by Leah Sottile.
• Five topic categories of the Phalse Prophets season: progress myth, neoliberalism, ecomodernism, effective altruism, and doomerism.
• Story of Bruce's Beach.
• Yes! Magazine article on land justice.  

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Stuart McMillen is a systems thinker disguised as a cartoonist. His long-form comics condense important academic topics into understandable and entertaining works of art. Stuart tackles topics in the fields of ecology, economics, psychology, and sociology. With original drawings, thought-provoking narration, and expertly paced storytelling, he introduces readers to critical ideas that are often under-reported and underappreciated, including energy slaves, property rights, peak oil, and the war on drugs. Go behind the scenes with Stuart to learn how he crafts his comics, from his philosophy to the nitty gritty of how he makes a living. And be sure to explore his work at stuartmcmillen.com. 

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Bob Jensen has written a book with Wes Jackson titled An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. With a title like that, Jason and Bob have lots of heavy ground to cover, including overshoot, the limits to growth, and the cascading environmental and social crises of our times. They conclude that there are no easy answers or silver-bullet solutions, but by focusing on sustainable size of the human population, appropriate scale of social organization, optimal scope of human competence for managing high-energy modernity, and required speed of taking action to avoid catastrophe, they home in on some strategic responses to the crises. 

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Asher is joined in Crazy Town by Danielle Celermajer, author and professor at University of Sydney, for a far-ranging conversation about human rights and the more-than-human world. Dany shares how her personal relationship with the Shoah (Holocaust) set her on a path of human rights work and impacted her experience of the devastating Black Summer Fires that swept through Australia in 2019-2020. They discuss her journey towards scholarship and activism for the more-than-human world, the intersection of human rights and multispecies justice, and the way that individuals and groups of people have stepped up to care for the billions of non-human lives impacted by the fires and floods that have ravaged Australia in recent years. Finally, Dany shares ideas for how listeners can (re)connect with the more-than-human world. For more information, please visit our website.

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Climate scientist and activist Peter Kalmus returns to Crazy Town, but this time with a green badge of courage. Earlier this year, he locked himself to the entrance of the JP Morgan Chase building in downtown Los Angeles to protest their ongoing investment in the fossil fuel industry. As you would expect, he was arrested for his troubles. It was an experience he describes (paradoxically) as "scary as f**k," but also opening and wonderful. In this wide-ranging interview, Rob and Peter cover civil disobedience, climate denial, activism, ego management, and coping strategies for anxiety about climate disaster and collapse. It makes you wonder why we can't arrest the executives at JP Morgan Chase, ExxonMobil, and all the other truly radical corporations that appear to be on an ecocidal mission from hell! For more information, please visit our website.

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Douglas Rushkoff revisits Crazy Town, where he and Asher discuss why so many billionaires, academic institutions, and "serious" people are drawn to longtermism - the view that our top priority should be ensuring that humanity can spread its wings throughout the physical and virtual universe. What's the suffering of a few billion people in the here and now, when there's quadrillions, no quintillions, of potential future people to worry about? Sure, the climate crisis is bad. But is it really an existential threat? Douglas explains why, when you take a tech bro to drink Ayahuasca in the Amazon, he still comes back a tech bro. And why, when you hear buzzwords like longtermism, effective altruism, and transhumanism, all you need to ask is: Does it perpetuate capitalism? Asher and Douglas riff on why longtermism is denialism – denial of death, denial of the body, and denial of responsibility – and why the antithesis is living in the here and now, with our neighbors. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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In her latest book "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law," Mary Roach approaches the topic of human-wildlife conflict with entertaining stories, scientific insight, and a healthy dose of wit and humor. There are plenty of animal stories in this episode, from marauding mountain lions to bothersome bears, from macaques who are jerks to gulls who are dicks, and of course that most meddlesome of all species – the human being. The phrase "going out clubbing" takes on a decidedly macabre meaning when the context is U.S. military attempts to control albatrosses living their lives near an air base. And find out if a scenario seemingly cribbed from an unaired "Breaking Bad" script portends the collapse of civilization. Hiding amidst all the stories and fun are big implications for ecosystems, biodiversity conservation, and human society. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Please check out our newest podcast, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival featuring Richard Heinberg. How have humans become powerful enough to disrupt the world's climate, trigger the sixth mass extinction, and cause serious harm to the biosphere? And with all the abilities and technologies we've accrued, why do we so often oppress instead of uplift one another? Join us as we explore the hidden driver behind the converging crises of the 21st century. It all comes down to power - our pursuit of it, overuse of it, and abuse of it. Learn how different forms of power arose, what they mean for us today, and why giving up power just might save us.

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Taylor Brorby has written one hell of a memoir. It covers many critical topics that come up in Crazy Town, from fracking to civil disobedience to that most inept of policies: aiming for infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Taylor shares both thought-provoking ideas (e.g., the intimidating width of prairies versus the intimidating height of mountains) and lessons learned from growing up gay within the construct of an extractive economy. Two "bonus" topics in this episode: writing and wrestling! But don't worry, the "Macho Man" Randy Savage impersonations remain mercifully brief. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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As a follow-up to Episode 61 of the Crazy Town podcast, Noam Chomsky, the well-known linguist, author, and social critic, joins Asher Miller in Crazy Town to discuss the failures and dominance of neoliberalism -- which Chomsky describes as "class war" -- since delivery of the Powell Memo 50 years ago. Chomsky responds to George Monbiot's critique of the political center and left for not, in Monbiot's view, developing viable alternatives to neoliberalism. Disagreeing with Monbiot's (and admittedly Post Carbon Institute's own) views about the limits of Keynesian "green growth" economic policies, Chomsky discusses proposals developed by places like the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) that he believes would meet the needs of the poor and working classes while tackling the climate crisis. Noam's emphasis on community power, going back to his childhood experiences, strongly resonates with "Do the Opposite" themes explored in Season 4 of Crazy Town.

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The astute listener will recognize the trends in population and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of our chronologically arranged episodes on watershed moments in history. Describing these trends in one word: growth. In two words: massive growth! And in three words: What the WTF? In recapping the season and considering what we learned, we hit on some common themes in Crazy Town: cognitive bias, energy literacy (really, illiteracy), human supremacy, disconnection from nature, and misplaced faith in technology. But we also share some uncommon themes: a prom night that should be featured in a Stephen King novel, a tale of boy meets spider monkey, and finding history in one’s own backyard. Plus we’ve got some takeaway lessons, like this gem: the more money you lose and the more exhausted you are at the end of the day, the more you know you’re winning. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Talk about cascading consequences: when a few nerds wanted to get high and orchestrated a small exchange of cannabis, they kicked off the age of ecommerce. Now that online shopping and the technology supporting it have ramped up commercialization and supercharged consumerism, we're facing existential crises. Exactly what nefarious internet innovation might lead Jason to unbox a trebuchet? Why would Asher consider having an Amazon truck deliver his kid to school? What's the most efficient way for Rob to get his plastic packaging to the ocean so it can choke the most marine mammals? Get online, order a must-have product (perhaps that pair of fentanyl-laced blue jeans you've been eyeing), and take part in the end times of capitalism. Or consider canceling that Amazon Prime account, shutting off the computer for a spell, and getting busy prioritizing community over consumption. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Free trade, private property, and limited government – these policies might seem well-intentioned and even benign. But when a couple of colluding, power-tripping, wealthy blockheads packaged them into a political system that would become known as neoliberalism, it was like putting capitalist exploitation on steroids. Pollution and other environmental problems? Just a minor cost of doing business. Inequality and lack of opportunities for workers? Just wait for all the surplus to trickle down from the upper crust. Concerned about government overreach? Just hand over operations to Halliburton, Philip Morris, and all the other "trustworthy" corporations. Sheesh! It's time for something entirely different to replace neoliberalism – maybe "paleoprogressivism?" Calling all wordsmiths! For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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For such tame technology, air conditioning really packs a punch when it comes to enabling environmental obscenities, indefensible infrastructure, and shortsighted settlement patterns. In the story of how A/C came to underpin human overshoot, you couldn't make up a better bad guy. Perhaps the most Batmanesque villain we've encountered would make a good candidate for mayor of Crazy Town (teaser: he's been called "the scientist who almost destroyed the planet"). Join Asher, Rob, and Jason as they turn up the heat on air conditioning and contemplate how to stay cool in the days of heat waves, heat domes, and global heating. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Are shameless product placements keeping you from enjoying your movie-viewing experience? Have you ever felt assaulted by pop-up ads and sidebars while trying to read something on the internet? These are some of the less insidious advertising techniques deployed to manipulate you into buying stuff you never knew you needed. Take a tour through the history of advertising, and explore the escalation of mind games and marketing mania that has fueled consumerism and the capitalist conflagration, leaving us on the brink of a climate meltdown. But not to worry, we’ve seen plenty of ads for products to ease your anxiety about the environment or any existential threat you might encounter. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Don't you wish we could power daily life on road rage, frustration, and righteous indignation? If that were possible, the U.S. highway system would be the best investment of all time. As it stands, the unintended consequences (e.g., pollution, habitat fragmentation, discrimination, town wrecking, dependency on unsustainable infrastructure, and the uglification of America) reveal how badly highways miss the mark. What a stupendous misallocation of resources! Fortunately we have some ideas about how to get from point A to point B and provision ourselves without relying on 18-wheelers and endless miles of asphalt. So get your motor runnin' and head out on the highway for an adventure in transforming the transportation system. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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What kind of thinking leads to the unleashing of exotic species on unsuspecting ecosystems? Hint: it's certainly not systems thinking or critical thinking – in fact, thinking may not be involved at all! Learn about three charter members of the Weirdo Hall of Fame who wanted you to eat tasty McHippo bacon burgers for breakfast. Influenced by the illusion of control and brainwashed by the industrial mindset, people have recklessly released plants and animals into environments where they cause colossal carnage. Perhaps you should think twice (first time in systems, second time critically) before accepting membership into the Society for the Acclimatization of Animals, Birds, Fishes, Insects and Vegetables.

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Welcome to the dehumanizing world of scientific management, where business gurus and middle managers view workers as resources, and where a cult-like devotion to productivity has invaded almost all facets of daily life. From fairy tales about strapping steel workers who put CrossFit champions to shame, to the plight of Amazon warehouse workers who can't even get a bathroom break, we've got stories that expose the dark side of the efficiency fetish. Grab your stopwatch and a pee bottle so you can listen to this episode as efficiently as possible! For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Back in the day, the World's Fair was a global showcase of innovation and a peerless cultural event where visitors envisioned a neon future filled with technological wonders. These international expos featured miracle inventions and opportunities to explore new ideas, but also on display were useless gizmos, silly stunts (who's ready for a game of topless donkey ping pong?), and some of the most unattractive towers people have ever built. Worse yet, a dismal thread of racism runs through the history of fairs, and in recent times, faux sustainability has become a recurring theme. Explore the diminishing marginal returns of both World's Fairs and technology in general, and consider what's next as dreams of a high-tech utopia go the way of the animatronic dinosaurs. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Skyscrapers have sprouted like mushrooms in our urban landscapes. But in an environmentally depleted, energy-pinched era, we need to take a closer look at the downsides of movin' on up to the sky. We especially need to pay attention to embodied energy and all the features required to keep skyscrapers standing: uninterrupted supplies of electricity, reliable water treatment systems, functional waste removal, and mechanized transport. It’s time to question the quixotic quest to build ever higher, consider alternatives for sustainable landscapes, and take precautions to prevent tragic instances of accidental self defenestration. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Welcome to the seductive, but regrettable world of unquestioned positive thinking, where faith healers, BS slingers, pseudoscientists, and get-rich-quick schemers all peddle the same basic message: think positively, and it’ll all work out. The problem: there’s no room for critical thinking and no call to do the hard work of finding real responses to climate change, injustice, biodiversity loss, and planetary overshoot. Sure, a rosy outlook can be useful in some situations, but it’s no way to address our collective sustainability crisis. On the plus side, some of the gurus out there say some really funny stuff. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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The “tragedy of the commons” is an idea that has so thoroughly seeped into culture and law that it seems normal for people and corporations to own land, water, and even whole ecosystems. But there’s a BIG problem: the “tragedy” part of it has been debunked – it really should be the triumph of the commons. Learn the origin story of privatization and explore the true meaning of commons and how to manage them for sustainability and equity. Also check out our suggestions for championing the commons (beyond Robin Hood’s strategy of stabbing the aristocracy). For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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Indigenous rights lawyer, leader, and author Sherri Mitchell describes how the Christian Doctrines of Discovery made their way from 15th-century European religious leaders into the U.S. legal system. She elaborates on how the U.S. government justified centuries of colonization and dispossession of Indigenous lands, with implications for social justice and environmental health. And Sherri offers important ideas for decolonizing the mind and healing the gaping wound that runs right through the middle of the U.S. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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In 1493 the most corrupt (and orgy-throwing) pope of all time gave the nod of approval for wealth-seeking Europeans to trample the rest of the world. As seafaring colonizers divvied up the world and justified their actions using the Doctrine of Discovery, the era of land-grabbing imperialism led to outrageous exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecosystems. Learn why the main ingredients in the recipe for souffle in Noumea are colonization, extraction, and globalization. For episode notes and more information, please visit our website.

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