let's THiNK about it
86 episodes - English - Latest episode: 25 days ago - ★★★★★ - 15 ratingsA cultural detective's journey into philosophy, art, sociology, and psychology with Ryder Richards. (Formerly known as "The Will to DIY")
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Episodes
{AI}ice's Odyssey in DALL-E Land
March 26, 2024 14:12 - 41 minutes - 38.5 MBIn this lecture, Ryder Richards, an artist currently based in Fort Worth, explored the intersection of art and artificial intelligence (AI), specifically focusing on a project that reimagines Salvador Dali's "Alice in Wonderland." Richards delved into public fears and misconceptions about AI, emphasizing a lack of understanding about how AI algorithms function, including generative adversarial networks (GANs) and diffusion models. By showcasing AI-generated images and discussing the differen...
Art and AI
January 08, 2024 19:41 - 1 hour - 68.9 MBEssay, Deck and Transcript can be found at https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-82-art-and-ai/ The Future of Art and AI: Promises and Perils Artificial intelligence (AI) has exploded onto the cultural scene, raising pressing questions about the role of technology in art and society. Artist and thinker Ryder Richards recently gave a lecture analyzing AI through a philosophical lens, exploring its potential promises and perils. Understanding AI Adoption Richards began by taking the puls...
Kant and the rise of subjective relativism
December 26, 2023 17:00 - 26 minutes - 24.5 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-81-kant-and-the-rise-of-subjective-realism/ Reality, belief, and the apocalypse. 0:00 Ryder Richards discusses the demotion of reality in favor of subjectivity, exploring the tension between science and religion, and the consequences of refusing to acknowledge the apocalypse. Kant's false dichotomy between freedom and determinism is questioned, with a focus on the historical context of Thomas Hobbes and Galileo's views on a mechanical reality. Kant'...
Transcendent Escapism
November 18, 2023 20:19 - 22 minutes - 20.2 MBIn this episode of Let's Think About It, host Ryder Richards examines the relationship between truth, reality, and abstraction. He proposes reality filters profound ideologies like religion and science, which rely on belief, from superficial falsehoods like marketing propaganda that obscure reality. Richards argues both sides undermine truth, but marketing inflames desire and bypasses reality altogether. Using quantum physics and art as examples, he shows how we use weighty abstractions to e...
Skipping Reality
October 23, 2023 15:00 - 17 minutes - 15.7 MBRyder Richards builds on thinkers like Kant, Rorty, and Baudrillard in this podcast to argue that reality can filter problematic abstractions. He proposes reality as a net separating transcendental truths and superficial advertising. Without reality's grounding, these abstractions reinforce each other's weaknesses. Part 1 - Reality as a Net for Abstractions Richards lays out the idea of reality as a net dividing two types of abstraction. On one side is a transcendental ideology or truth cl...
The Parallax View
September 17, 2023 14:00 - 22 minutes - 20.5 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-78-the-parallax-view/ Ryder discusses the concept of Slavoj Zizek's "The Parallax View" in three parts. Part 1: Ryder defines the parallax view as the convergence of seemingly parallel perspectives. He draws a connection to optical illusions of perspective and discusses how the parallax view involves looking beyond the central focus point. The author also touches on its use in astronomy. Part 2: Ryder discusses Slavoj Žižek's use of the parallax view...
Perspective Framing
July 30, 2023 17:19 - 21 minutes - 20 MBWelcome to the problematic realm of perspective framing. Ryder Richards will be your dubious guide through this profound exploration of self-awareness and understanding. Central to our journey is the parallax view, a powerful method of finding our place in the world by establishing reference points by Slavoj Zizek. But first, we must challenge hegemonic narratives and reconsider Hegel’s notion of negation, as breaking free from (or subsuming and overcoming) conventional beliefs allows us to ...
Concrete Universal (trash and art)
June 29, 2023 15:00 - 16 minutes - 15.1 MB🗑️ Garbage represents the concrete universal of waste. 🎨 Picasso's art exemplifies the concrete universal through different periods and works. 🌌 Failures and contradictions can lead to transcendence. 🎭 Art expresses both expression and concealment simultaneously. 🔀 Concrete universalism combines the concrete and the abstract into one concept. 💡 The concept of concrete universalism challenges fixed definitions and highlights the dynamic nature of objects, people, and ideas. 🔄 The concre...
holy to holy s***
May 26, 2023 13:43 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBChristianity operates through a lack: we cannot know God, so a “gap” must be filled between God and Humans. Christ is God splitting from 1 into 2, allowing us to identify and get closer to the mystery of God, but in so doing, Christ was subjected to the filth of this world. (Zizek) The reversal of the one God splitting into two (only to mysteriously re-unify us) is the process of poop: taking all values and reducing them into one homogenous, non-mysterious pile. (Bataille) Growth can occ...
Symbolic Victory
May 21, 2023 14:00 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MB0:00 The contradictory injunction of double binds. • The contradictory injunction in double binds. • The binary trap in cyberpunk. 2:15 The death drive of determinism. • The death drive of determinism. • How to transcend the binary. 4:44 How the capitalist system capitalizes on our stress. • The capitalist system surprisingly capitalizes on stress. • The anxious revolt is fuel for the bureaucratic nightmare. 6:33 Intro to the show. • America and political symbolic winning,...
Camouflage (sex and trust)
April 25, 2023 15:44 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MB0:01 Why camouflage is like a rhizome. The complexity of camouflage and abstraction. Why camouflage is a better survival strategy. 2:44 The servant as master. How to become low like water and remain powerful. Master as servant - martyr. 5:16 The boss who tries to also be your best friend. The parent who guilts you. Undermined core self: camouflage needed for shame concealment. 6:56 The ubiquity of repetition and mass media. The ubiquity of marilyn monroe as a sex symbol. (Andy W...
Camouflage (and Art)
April 21, 2023 16:11 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBIntroduction - Recap of previous episodes on the mimetic desire. - Rene Girard's model of scapegoating. 2:33 How do we prevent mimetic desire? - One way to solve mimetic desire and scapegoating. - The dispute plan to prevent future luxury. 4:42 What do you do after the revolution? - Government ineptitude and bureaucracy is what the people actually want. - What to do after the revolution, or after the orgy. - The French army became the first to create a dedicated camouflage unit. ...
The Costume & Inscribed Violence
February 28, 2023 17:14 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MB0:00 How violence is provoked by fantasy. 2:31 The balcony and the revolution. 5:14 How far does mimetic desire go? 6:54 Most things happen twice: the story, then reality 9:41 Post-terrorist architecture. 12:40 Turning the desire into a blueprint (simulation to be de-simulated) 14:37 Recognize that the world is f***ed. 16:43 The parable of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. 18:55 The desire to be the simulacra of man. (oh, to be a machine) 21:43 The black mirror of capitalism. (Amazo...
Scapegoating & Sacrifice
January 29, 2023 18:58 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MBReversing inner pressure outward requires a scapegoat to sacrifice in order to stabilize society. By discovering the hidden models driving it reveals our motivations, but more importantly, Rene Girard‘s theory accounts for civilizations' cybernetic energies and release valves. Paired with Georges Bataille’s theory of sacrifice necessary due to excess (the general economy) we find explanations for seemingly irrational behavior. Drawing from Luke Burgis's "Wanting: Memetic Desire in Everyday...
Mimetic Desire
December 24, 2022 17:22 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-69-memetic-desire/ 0:00 Intro 1:22 What is mimetic rivalry? memtic desire. 2:48 Mimicry as an internal set of neurosis. 5:05 What we want is the attention and control that someone else wanted first. 7:14 If somebody else wants something, our survival depends on us getting to it first. 9:47 Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. 11:28 Accelerationism is a means to break out of the deadlock of capitalism. 12:56 All of our focus is now embodied in winn...
Malign Velocities (Accelerationism)
December 10, 2022 20:48 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MB0:00 Introduction to this episode. 1:53 In 1879 there was a horrible train wreck: the promise and cost of technology 4:27 A cautionary tale about the influence of the machine on communism. 6:53 What is the frame of Capitalism? (Marxism into desire) 12:17 The problem with capitalism is not just the machinery, but also our social and libidinal economy. 15:04 Our desires are shaped by society, work, and culture, which are not easily overthrown altogether. 17:52 How do you manifest th...
Accelerationism & Futurism
November 07, 2022 00:24 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MB0:00 Intro _ the Gods of Technology (Deus ex Machina) 3:56 Part 1: some context _ the capitalist trap, double binds, and looking for an escape, reality vs. abstraction 11:27 Part 2: the futurists_ from industrialization to deregulation to cyberspace, 1909 manifesto, praise machines and war, but scorn for women 17:41 Part 3: the accelerationists _ the 2008 crash, bailout, failures and no foreseeable changes, humans slow down tech progress, we have lost imagination and are dying anyway ...
Cybernetics & Capitalism
September 24, 2022 18:55 - 24 minutes - 22.5 MBFull episode in writing as well as video at: https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-66-cybernetics--capitalism/ 0:00 Intro 1:56 Part 1: cybernetics _ machines, feedback, and cascades 6:22 Part 2: one-dimension of capital _ Marcuse, consumerism’s false needs, subjecting justice to capitalism 9:55 Part 3: deterritorialization _ Deleuze and Guattari, positive/negative energy, decoding the regulation valves 14:00 Part 4: reterritorialization _ Mark Fisher, immediate recapture, mark fishe...
The Path of Opposition (Failure as Transcendence)
August 31, 2022 14:15 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBPART 1: the path for the 2 to become 1 the 2 is 1, linked through exclusion in the last season of “peaky blinders” Tommy Shelby is a socialist forced into plotting with the fascists… In one scene he says people think of opposing sides as two end-points as if they are on separate tracks. But Tommy says he finds it to be a circle, where the two sides start diverging. As they escalate and become more extreme, separating distance, they begin to arch back toward each other, sweeping around th...
Artificial Negativity & Repressive Tolerance
July 27, 2022 18:34 - 18 minutes - 17.2 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-64-artificial-negativity--repressive-tolerance Part 1: Hegel, antithesis and sublation, the spiral, and the ground. Part 2: Paul Piccone & Telos Piccone was the editor of Telos, a journal. After being disenchanted by the "exhaustion of the left" he drifted from a Marxist/Hegel leaning ideology to embrace the ideas of the right, through the more totalizing illiberal Carl Schmitt. Artificial Negativity (Piccone and Lake) asserts the Herbert Marcuse...
The One-Dimensional Man
July 17, 2022 19:22 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-63-the-one-dimensional-man Part 1: Captialism absorbs everything: even your rebellion against it becomes a published book, which feeds capitalism, and generates pro-capitalists books. In a dynamic system, each tactic has a counter, and this generates (cleverly) more capitalism. A famous example is of Che Guevara’s rebellion sold as a cheap t-shirt: a purchasable identity of rebellion. Part 2: The On-dimensional man is a book by Herbert Marcuse in t...
The Double Bind
July 06, 2022 13:54 - 14 minutes - 13.7 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-62-the-double-bind/ PART 1 Ryder discusses Alan Watt's interpretation of the "tough-minded" and "tender-hearted" as "prickles and goos" that need each other, yet are confused by each other and lash out. Of course, like Alice in Wonderland, we can refuse to play the game: the competitive rules laid out by another in a grid, but Watts says to remember that life is a game... when our ego gets involved we tend to forget and become serious and demand "of...
Escape from Freedom (pt 2)
June 18, 2022 14:00 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBWhy would anyone want to escape from Freedom? Psychologically freedom is a tremendous burden, especially in a competitive society commoditizing your individuality. Erich Fromm in “Escape from Freedom” maps out three means to escape the anxiety, isolation, and doubt of the Modern Age: Sadomasochism (aka authoritarianism), Destruction, and Automaton Conformity. The burden to be uniquely you within a society demanding submission or conformity leads people to want freedom, and one response is ...
Escape from Freedom (pt 1)
June 12, 2022 01:09 - 24 minutes - 22.2 MBWhy would anyone want to escape from Freedom? Well, in a complex system, any move will produce countermanding forces, and humans are slow-evolving creatures, and by merely shouting “you are free” we encounter some problems: 1) now what? and 2) it doesn’t line up with the reality of working every day and still falling behind. While freedom is held up as an ideological holy grail, the reality on the ground is different: People do want to escape from freedom because having to “know who you are...
Gambling, the Death Drive, & Libertarian Neutrality
May 17, 2022 15:00 - 34 minutes - 32 MBGambling has grown, as has gambling addiction. With technology improvements driven by behavioral science, gambling is more addictive than ever. While it may be your choice to gamble, the cards are stacked against you, and more gambling addicts commit suicide than any other addiction group. Exactly how do we get addicted, why do we begin gambling in the first place, and if it is a flaw in our society why do we persist in thinking of it as a personal psychological failure? How does our cultur...
Step 59: Gambling, the Death Drive, & Libertarian Neutrality
May 17, 2022 15:00 - 34 minutes - 32 MBGambling has grown, as has gambling addiction. With technology improvements driven by behavioral science, gambling is more addictive than ever. While it may be your choice to gamble, the cards are stacked against you, and more gambling addicts commit suicide than any other addiction group. Exactly how do we get addicted, why do we begin gambling in the first place, and if it is a flaw in our society why do we persist in thinking of it as a personal psychological failure? How does our cultur...
Identity and Violence
April 26, 2022 17:11 - 18 minutes - 17.2 MBOur identity is multifaceted, but people love the simplicity and tend to reduce people to a singular trait, which objectifies them. This reduction leads to violence, in part because it allows an "us vs them" narrative. Amartya Sen points out the ramifications in his book "Identity and Violence". To consider it personally, we look at Martin Buber's "I-thou" to show how most of the time we are in an "I-it" relationship to the world, and must "self-surrender" to have an "I-thou" whole relatio...
Design facilitates Agency
April 15, 2022 15:00 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBStep 57: Design facilitates Agency Part 1: The Mouskedoer Crawford tells this story about watching the Mickey Mouse channel, and on the show they have these segments where, say, 4 objects are in a grid, and a river shows up on the screen. Do you use the bridge, the ladder, the hammer, or the banana to cross the river? Did you guess banana? That’s a common mistake. Smart mouses ask for help! Let’s do it on 3, 1,2, 3… it starts with a br and ends with an idge. And if you get all 4 you are...
Integrating Embodied Perception
April 01, 2022 16:23 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBIntro Today we continue considering “the world inside of our head” as quite narrow versus “the world of your body”, pulling heavily from Matthew Crawford, but also Iris Murdoch and Iain McGilchrist. We are going to look a bit at the mind/body split that became the “my self is the voices in my head” problem. And hopefully cast some doubt on the intellect as a lone arbiter for decisions, and reintegrate the right brain and body. This is difficult because at our most foundational (linguistic)...
Cultural Jigs
February 27, 2022 21:18 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBPart 1: Jggy wit it I personally do a lot of woodworking, making cabinets or entertainment centers, I'm currently trying to build a window. I have tools that help me, such as a table saw is great, but sometimes there is a finicky cut in a difficult spot and you need a handsaw. The hand saw has a downside to it: I'm not skillful enough or experienced enough to make sure it cuts it a perfect 90° angle while staying parallel to the edge and lined up on my marks. One trick is to clamp another...
The World Beyond Your Head (pt 2)
February 06, 2022 19:22 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MBSHOW NOTES at https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-54-the-world-beyond-your-head-pt-2/ 0:00 intro 2:11 part 1: environmental suppression 5:31 part 2: the illusion of the self 8:35 part 3: situated self & ecologies of attention 11:17 part 4: autonomy vs heteronomy 14:33 part 5: the current cultural narrative 19:16 part 6: freedom! 21:16 part 7: the ideal self as projection
The World Beyond Your Head (pt 1)
January 29, 2022 19:54 - 30 minutes - 27.6 MB1: Attention as a cultural problem “Capitalism has gotten hip to the fact that for all our talk of an information economy, but we really have is an attentional economy, if the term economy applies what is scarce and therefore valuable.” Matthew Crawford Crawford goes further because if capitalist corporations seek our attention, the easy way to get it is to stimulate us: to poke and prod our attention centers. To say fully present and to own our own attention we must apply tremendous effo...
Step 52: Best of 2021 review by books
December 30, 2021 16:22 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBRyder consumed over 50 books and about 200 podcasts in 2021. Walking through concepts of the origins of bureaucracy and how the protestant work ethic shaped corporations and consumer behavior, he moves into healthcare related to liberty, how to solve many problems on our way to utopia, and a model for transitioning away from capitalism into a nature-based economics. https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-52-best-of-2021-review-by-books/ My two favorite books “Moral Mazes” and “The Culture...
Best of 2021 (book review)
December 30, 2021 16:22 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBRyder consumed over 50 books and about 200 podcasts in 2021. Walking through concepts of the origins of bureaucracy and how the protestant work ethic shaped corporations and consumer behavior, he moves into healthcare related to liberty, how to solve many problems on our way to utopia, and a model for transitioning away from capitalism into a nature-based economics. https://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-52-best-of-2021-review-by-books/ My two favorite books “Moral Mazes” and “The Culture...
Ambiguity (self-optimization pt. 4)
December 05, 2021 14:57 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBThe most obvious problem with optimization is "who (or what) are you optimizing into?" First you must know yourself, then have a mission with little goals along the way allowing you to hack productivity. But if you are in a rush to gain career capital for survival or to earn freedom, your mission is likely not your own, thus requiring disciplined willpower to pursue. This opens us to problems with willpower and subjective truth shaped objective relations. More problematically, optimization r...
The Hero Trendency
November 18, 2021 19:30 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBThe Hero Story Perhaps there has always been an effort towards optimization, and it generally looks like technology. When speaking of self optimization, or overcoming , we are speaking of the hero’s journey popularized by Joseph Campbell. Campbell spoke a lot of the parallels of the external journey and the internal journey… the external circumstances gave the individual the opportunity to react and grow. In the 50’s-70’s there was a wave of belief in unlocking human potential through psy...
Step 50: The Hero Trendency
November 18, 2021 19:30 - 27 minutes - 24.9 MBThe Hero Story Perhaps there has always been an effort towards optimization, and it generally looks like technology. When speaking of self optimization, or overcoming , we are speaking of the hero’s journey popularized by Joseph Campbell. Campbell spoke a lot of the parallels of the external journey and the internal journey… the external circumstances gave the individual the opportunity to react and grow. In the 50’s-70’s there was a wave of belief in unlocking human potential through psy...
Atomic Habits (optimization pt 2)
October 20, 2021 19:22 - 25 minutes - 23.3 MBPart 1: The Aggregation of Marginal Gains Habits are really about identity change. Behaviour change is simply the means to get there (the feedback loop). What are atomic habits? They are the smallest possible habits, tiny little things that you can begin doing easily for remarkable changes. Example: The British cycling team wasn’t doing so well until their new coach, Dave Brailsford, implemented very small, incremental changes: things like trying out different tires or massage lotions to ...
Self-Optimization Lure (part 1)
October 11, 2021 21:37 - 20 minutes - 18.8 MBSeries overview There is a mystical power to self optimization, to becoming better. With all the Behavioral Science, behavioral economics, psychology, neurological studies, and FMRI tech we have figured out how to make you “better.” Yet, according to movies and myth, attempts at control or better living through science cascade into tragedy. From the 80’s man now considered toxic, to the perfect housewife now considered repressive, the timing of the societal idea of “better” shifts. And let...
Sacred Economics (pt 2)
September 20, 2021 22:32 - 26 minutes - 24.7 MBIntro Check Step 46 for a history of how money developed from sacred origins into “a force for evil.” Part 1: Separation and Oneness This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.” ~ Charles Eisenstein He goes as far as to say to bring forth generosity and love and all dimen...
Sacred Economics (pt 1)
September 14, 2021 16:09 - 33 minutes - 30.3 MBEisenstein asks “Why is money a force for evil in the world?” When did money, once a sacred promise and gift, become a means to separate individuals from each other and nature, to create competition, extraction, and hoarding? Key takeaways from Eisenstein's book "Sacred Economics" 1: We are ungrateful teenagers: the earth nurtured us into adolescence, but we won't become responsible adults. 2: The parable of the Eleventh Round. 3: Negative interest. Instead of money accruing value… what...
Free Guy
August 23, 2021 23:39 - 40 minutes - 37 MBhttps://www.letusthinkaboutit.com/step-45-free-guy/ Part I This week, we were offered a story of an NPC, non-player character, in a video game called Free City. And what happens when Guy, played by Ryan Reynolds becomes sentient. He is triggered awake by seeing a girl. Shocker right? He becomes a sentient algorithm, able to see his desires, take action, and even judge the relative value and merit of his actions. Well, the backstory is, the two programmers, a girl and guy, develop an AI, ...
Step 44: Fart Art
July 17, 2021 18:49 - 13 minutes - 12.5 MBPART I The art world is a complicated place with diverse motivations, bizarre criteria and social norms, yet it also offers profound friendships and solidarity through community. Ryder speaks of the psychology that drove him to choose art as a form of self-help therapy versus a more stable career path, but also his ridiculous tendency to apply "salvation through works" to his art practice. PART II A story about farting in church, followed by Ryder's current drawing of business people asle...
The Depression Relief Playbook, Zack Rutledge
July 01, 2021 21:06 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBOur conversation ranges from daily routines, gut health and probiotics, taking supplements, being in therapy, meditation practice, physical fitness as part of a daily routine that produces chemicals to help our mind-body balance, and setting up structures that don't rely on willpower. Oh, and naturally, we talk about reducing our media intake, or at least not watching the news. The topics are a bit personal stories, a bit self-help, some wellness, and a lot of taking action, or "doing the wo...
China Unraveled, Jason Szeftel
June 25, 2021 16:03 - 1 hour - 62.5 MBGiven the recent news of Hong Kong's protests being squashed, the "China Question" looms larger. As no expert, the best way to learn is bring someone on the show who has been podcasting about the multi-facted and historical complexities involved as China pushes it's way center stage. Jason Szeftel writes and speaks on the politics and economics of China. His podcast "China Unraveled" covers in depth the complexities of Hong Kong, and other issues China faces today.
Step 41: Utopia for Realists, pt 2
June 19, 2021 19:31 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MBRutger Bregman’s book, Utopia for Realists, maps out how Universal Basic Income was nearly real in the 70’s. Coupled with increasing automation (robot uprising) and prospects of joblessness (along with a growing confusion of what is “work” without “labor”) we should also consider the role of humans in a world of plenty. Providing proof for that disarms our culturally conditioned biases, the text allows us to dream about ways to reverse the increasing inequality, pain of industrial age facto...
Step 40: Utopia for Realists, Bregman (pt1)
June 03, 2021 01:52 - 35 minutes - 32.6 MBWe walk through the dreamland of Cockaigne, and our small utopic dreams. Bregman reminds us democracy was once a dream, and slavery was once unthinkably common. We nearly had UBI in the 70's, because all the data proves it works, but morality, economics, and conservatism have re-written our notions of what is possible or responsible in ways that only exacerbate wealth inequality. Bregman walks through programs on Minicome, the Cherokee nation, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and the failures of l...
After the Orgy, Baudrillard
May 24, 2021 15:25 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBMapping out how we got here, and why Baudrillard's ideas of the simulation and simulacrum can explain much about how our institutions and ideals have lost touch with their original motivating force, falling into simulating previous goals. "After the orgy" is an essay on the post-modern plight that Ryder briefly reads through in Part 3. 1:32 Part 1: Where we are at, and why Baudrillard can help A walk through the 4 or 5 books, from education to capitalism, and why the world doesn't make s...
Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard
May 17, 2021 12:39 - 17 minutes - 16 MBThis is a loosely beginner friendly, and broad, look at Baudrillard's notions of simulacrum and simulation. Baudrillard is frequently cited in the art world in reference to all things that have steps away from the original, just like any artist using multiples (lots of something) tends to mention Walter Benjamin. Once the simulation, the illusion, or the copy comes into play, we need to start thinking of how that new object (or idea) operates. Baudrillard offers stages and steps that map...
Step 37: Trump's Second Term, Tom Fischgrund
May 07, 2021 14:00 - 52 minutes - 48.1 MBIn his interview, we discuss Tom's book. While speculative fiction, it is based in a realism that predicts a chain of events leading to a more and more despotic, tyrannical presidency by Trump. While somewhat dystopian, it is lively, and shows a number of flaws and strengths in our democratic process. During the show we discuss Trump, facts as stranger than fiction, and how this becomes a difficult problem when writing. We discuss Putin and Russia, China, and the overall thorny problem we fi...