Episodi
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Why is the world in crisis? How can we get a view of the bigger picture?
My guest this week is Rachel Donaldâand she's something of an expert in these questions.
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Rachel Donald investigates why the world is in crisisâand what to do about it. She's the creator of Planet: Critical, a podcast and newsletter for a world in crisis with more than 23,000 subscribers in 180 countries. She recently launched Planet: Coordinate with her partner, a film series telling stories from the frontlines of communities who dare stand up against cruelty, injustice and indifferenceâand build a better world. Alongside these projects, her exclusive investigations into climate corruption have been published in major papers around the world, and her newsletters investigating the relationship between resources and genocide have been read millions of times. She's a sought after speaker on the big picture, and is currently writing her first book on the connection between violence against the earth and violence against women.
A podcaster is oftentimes a special kind of subject matter expertâan expert generalist. They are out researching and learning in public all the time, bouncing off of and commingling the various ideas they encounter in their work. Rachel lives up to this archetype powerfullyâfew have a more rigorous thousand-foot view of the big picture. In addition, Rachel has carved out a career as the first-ever climate corruption journalist, connecting dots and uncovering stories that powerful people would prefer stay in shadows. She has also just announced Planet: Coordinate, a film series that will bring her up close with these stories, and Iâm excited to see what comes of that initiative sometime this year.
We discussed all of this, the unique challenges of being an independent journalist, how to instigate changeâincluding her critique of Luigi Mangioneâs alleged murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompsonâand much more.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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Los Angeles: have you been doomscrolling and unable to concentrate? There's a reason, & it has to do with how our brains respond to trauma. I spoke with Dr. Jyoti Mishra, a leading neuroscientist to make sense of it.
If you appreciate the work I'm doing, make sure to subscribe here so you never miss an episode! Urgent Futures is also a video podcast, available on YouTube.
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Dr. Jyoti Mishra is associate professor Psychiatry in the UC-San Diego School of Medicine and Co-Director of the UC Climate Change and Mental Health Initiative. Dr. Mishra is trained in the computational, cognitive and translational neurosciences. She is also the founder of the Neural Engineering & Translation Labs (NEATLabs) at UCSD. Her lab innovates digital technologies for scalable brain health mapping, monitoring and precision therapeutics. Her interdisciplinary research emphasizes community partnered projects at the intersection of neuroscience, digital health technology & personalized AI/ML to inform mental healthcare and climate resilience innovations. Dr. Mishra also teaches an ongoing course on climate resilience.
Iâm going to be candid: itâs been hard to focus on much during the ongoing disasterâand disaster after the disasterâof the Los Angeles wildfires. I find myself easily distractible and prone to doomerism. Iâve spoken to a number of other folks who feel the same way. It turns out these are some of the symptoms of climate trauma, a form of psychological trauma that results from experiencing or learning about climate change. Specifically, many of us are experiencing what Dr. Mishra calls âfire brain.â
Climate trauma is a relatively new field of study, and Dr. Mishra differentiates it from the more generalized, ongoing climate anxiety that many feel as a result of understanding global heating. She outlines how symptoms such as a PTSD, anxiety, and depression can all occur as the result of witnessing or experiencing the impacts of these wildfiresâas well as how these are collective issues that require collective responses. At the end of the episode she outlines the four steps we should all take to respond to fire brain, minimizing harmful impacts for our loved ones and ourselves.
This episode is jam-packed with information, and many of the links she mentions can be found in the âResilience Resourcesâ tab via climateresilience.online.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
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Episodi mancanti?
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Wim Carton and Andreas Malm are the co-authors of the superb, devastating new book Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown. Hereâs a quote to give you a sense of its argument:
"And when the third decade of the millennium dawned, the relationship remained firmly in place: the warmer the globe became, the more fossil fuels were poured on the fire. The higher the temperatures, the larger the emissions. The closer the Earth came to being engulfed in flames â literally and figuratively â the harder companies worked to get oil and gas and coal out of the ground and ferry them off to combustion."
What is the political philosophy that landed us here? Overshoot.
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Well, this episode could not be better timedâand I mean that in the worst imaginable way. On Monday, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. is in the midst of an "energy crisis" and signaled that it was time for us to âdrill baby, drill.â This is an unimaginably stupid decision that will damn millions of people and other earthlings to unnecessary death or suffering. And proves out what Andreas and Wim argue in their superb, devastating new book,
Wim Carton is Associate Professor of Sustainability Science at Lund University, Sweden. He's the author of over 20 academic articles and book chapters on climate politics. His work has appeared in top journals such as Nature Climate Change, WIRES Climate Change and Antipode.
Andreas Malm teaches human ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He is the author of, among other books, Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming and How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
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If you live in Los Angeles, I urge you to listen to this and share it with everyone you care about right nowâespecially if you/they live in or near ash zones. Even though the AQI is low again, the impacts of wildfire smoke are still here. Loads of nasty pollutants like asbestos, formaldehyde, lead, and other heavy metals, plastics, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are still in the air and ashâand can travel for hundreds of miles.
My guest on this weekâs Rapid Response, Executive Director of California Communities Against Toxics (CCAT) Jane Williams, has deep experience in these situations, and in her words, we are now in the "disaster after the disaster."
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Jane Williams serves as the Executive Director of California Communities Against Toxics (CCAT). A network of local environmental justice groups in California, CCAT works to protect communities from industrial pollutants. Jane carries on the tradition of her mother, environmentalist Norma âStormyâ Gail Williams, working to protect the health of people and the environment as a common cause. Her mother, Norma, had launched a campaign that sought to identify toxins causing a brain cancer cluster among children in her small town of Rosamond, California. Ms. Williams is also the chair of the Sierra Clubâs National Clean Air Team, and works on federal policies on clean air, water, and soils. She has helped organize dozens of communities to successfully fight the building of facilities that would pollute their environment, such as incinerators, landfills, nuclear waste dumps, and industrial plants. Jane has also served on a number of federal and state advisory committees that study the effects of toxic chemicals on children and public health.
I recommend you read two books: Fire Weather by John Vaillant and The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell. Get your copies here and here. Together, these books help clarify the root causes of increased fire danger and the cascade effects of rapid planetary warming (and more).
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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Is the Western world in the midst of a crisis of meaning? If so, how did we get here, and what can we do about it? What should we be thinking about as we develop artificial intelligence? These are just a few of the many questions I dive into with my guest this week, John Vervaeke.
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John Vervaeke is an associate professor of psychology and cognitive science at the University of Toronto. John researches and publishes on the nature of intelligence, rationality, wisdom, and meaning in life, emphasizing relevance realization, non-propositional kinds of knowing, and 4E cognitive science.
A few years ago, deep in the pandemic, I encountered a YouTube series called âAwakening from the Meaning Crisis,â by a professor in Toronto who Iâd never heard of. Like so many, I was reeling from the Trump years and the sense of precarity wrought by the pandemicânot just its impact on global infrastructure, but in how it laid bare the social alienation, animosity, breakdown of consensus, and deep traumas of the modern condition. So itâs not surprising that I decided to watch the first episode.
If youâve also watched this series, you know how this story goes. Some 50 odd hours later, Iâd consumed a profound exegesis on how to genuinely live a life full of meaningâand that professor who Iâd never heard of, John Vervaeke, had become (parasocially) a favorite professor. It would be a foolâs errand to try to capture the wealth of integrated philosophy, evolutionary neuroscience, consciousness studies, spiritual exploration, and general provocations about reality that youâll find in the series, though of course I recommend you watch it. Or better yet, buy the new book of the same nameâbased on the series but extending it, thanks to deeper reflections by John and his coauthor Christopher Mastropietro, who John claims is an even more gifted storyteller than he is.
Grab your copy of the 'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis' book here.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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The Los Angeles Firesâmost notably the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fireâare the most destructive in California history. They are horrific, and they are teaching us hard lessons.
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If youâre paying attention, you recognize that all of thisâthe unprecedented âhurricanesâ of fire, our inability to prepare for them, the systemic failures of our government, the exploitation for political disinformationâare symptoms of collapse in polycrisis. Weâve been seeing them more and more, all over the world. Remember last yearâs floods in Brazil, Niger and Spain? Or Hurricanes Helene and Milton? Many call this our new normal, and thatâs true in a general sense, but it belies the deeper truth. This is a cascade of new normals (plural); as the Earth heats, we will continue to witness events that dwarf prior ones in scale and impact. Somewhere, possibly even in Los Angeles again, we are going to see hurricanes of fire more violent than those burning right now. The âfire tornado,â for example, was only identified in 2003 and popularized during later California wildfires in 2018 and 2020. Now that almost seems quaint in comparison to the Los Angeles firesâand not because the fire tornado became any less scary as a concept.
Will the Los Angeles fires be the wake up call to the necessary changes and preserve the Earth's habitability? Inertia is powerful, so Iâm not optimistic, but for those who do want to treat it as such, I thought Iâd take a moment to synthesize some of what Iâve learned through my Urgent Futures conversations to outline the root causes of the polycrisis and responses to consider.
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Oil defines our lives, but we actually understand so little about itâand moreover, so little about its role in driving what we call âprogress.â The flip side of that, of course, is that we donât grasp how utterly dependent modern civilization is on oil. Without it, everything we take for granted about energy, the economy, technology, agriculture, and medicine would change. We are, as this week's guest would say (along with his colleague Nate Hagens of The Great Simplification), âenergy blind.â
And that's a big, big problem for understanding coming realities, and figuring out what to do.
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My guest this week is Art Berman.
With 46 years of expertise in petroleum geology and a unique background in Middle Eastern history, Art Berman combines academic rigor with market insight to navigate the complexities of energy.
A realist who bridges fossil fuels and renewables, he integrates energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior into actionable insights. Trusted by investors and global corporations alike, Art is a leading voice in the energy sector, known for data-driven truth and no-nonsense analysis.
A seasoned keynote speaker, he has authored more than 60 posts in 2024 alone, covering energy, geopolitics, earth systems, the environment, climate change, economics, and human behavior. He engages daily with a large audience through his website, 42,000+ followers on Twitter/X (@aeberman12), and thousands more on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Substack.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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What are the most extreme extinction events in Earth's history? And what should we learn from them to avoid a similar fate? Today's guest, Peter Brannen, is an expert in these extinctions, having written one of the key books on the topic, The Ends of the World.
Itâs an invigorating read, in part because you really confront the raw power and volatility of this planetâand because you can then more thoroughly appreciate the blissful window of relative stability that humanity has evolved within. You then must confront the fact that techno-industrial civilization is undertaking many of the same processes that brought about past mass extinctions...
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My guest this week is Peter Brannen.
Peter Brannen is a science journalist and contributing writer at The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Guardian among other publications. His book, The Ends of the World, about the five major mass extinctions in Earth's history, was published in 2017 by Ecco. He was most recently a visiting scholar at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, and is an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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Humanity is in a state of ecological overshootâput simply: we use more than the Earth can support. In many ways, this is the primary problem of modern human civilization. But driving this problem is a fundamental 'human behavioral crisis.' Understanding this is criticalâand Phoebe Barnard, today's guest, can explain why.
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Internationally awarded global change and biodiversity scientist, filmmaker, public policy and communications strategist, mentor and professor to young professionals across Africa and the world, Phoebe Barnard has a fire in her belly for profoundly transformative sustainability change.
She convenes leaders from cultures around the world to collaborate in establishing a future kinder, wiser, humbler and much more sustainable civilization.
Member of the Club of Romeâs Planetary Emergency Partnership, and author or coauthor of seven of the world scientistsâ warnings on the state of the climate, planet and society, Phoebe is also impatient to convert warnings into social change action on the ground.
She is: founding CEO of Stable Planet Alliance, co-founder and convenor of the Global Restoration Collaborative, affiliate full professor of environmental futures and conservation science at the University of Washington, honorary research associate of climate, biodiversity and development at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and co-producer of the forthcoming documentary series The Climate Restorers and other movies on aspects of civilizational shift.
Itâs easy to get caught up in the abstractions inherent in talking about systems, but what distinguishes Phoebeâs practice is her commitment to social justice and feminist approaches to change. She doesnât lose sight of the fact that its people at the center of these issues. As monumental as these challenges may feel, they are ultimately coordination problemsâones we might solve if we can reframe our understanding and responses to them. Her latest work on the documentary series The Climate Restorers is the latest such example, which shares the stories of climate and ecosystem restoration efforts to return the climate to a state in which all life can thrive.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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We all know extinctions are badâbut extinctions aren't a yes or no question, they're a spectrum. That's why we need to understand the idea of 'defaunation,' a term coined by today's guest, legendary conservation scientist Rodolfo Dirzo.
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A few months ago, I hosted Gerardo Ceballos and Paul R. Ehrlich, two of the authors of Before They Vanishâa book outlining why biodiversity is so critical to life on Earth, how itâs imperiled, and what we can do about it. I had originally hoped to have all 3 authors in the mix, but one of themâRodolfo Dirzoâwas, fittingly, out in the field. Fortunately, we were able to get some time to chat after heâd returned. We spoke extensively about his background in ecology, the tragedy of biodiversity loss, and in particular: defaunation. Itâs a term he coined to describe the loss of animals (fauna) across all the various forms that can take: ranging from extinction and extirpation to local population declines. Youâre probably familiar with the term âdeforestationââthink of defaunation as a sort of counterpart.
As a lover of words, I think having the right word for the concept is critical in communicating necessary ideas. In this case, defaunation gives us a means to understand animal loss on a spectrum. Think of it this way. Even though a species might not have been totally eradicated, a dramatic drop in its numbers might have a whole host of knock-on effects, throwing an ecosystem out of whack. If our only metric for âcaringâ about animal populations and biodiversity is extinction, weâre missing critical danger signs that an ecosystem has been imperiled. Defaunation, then, allows us to understand the notion of animal loss in a more ecological senseâand measure for it.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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What is the future of voice? Where does AI fit in? Listen on!
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My guest this week is Harry Yeff, aka Reeps100.
Harry Yeff, aka Reeps100, is a London-born neurodivergent artist and technologist specializing in voice, AI, and tech-based performance art. Yeff emerged from a working-class background, dedicating his life to art and concept. He has been visualizing the voice for 15 years and is globally celebrated as a leader in a new wave of voice technology-focused experimentation despite a very nontraditional pathway into fine art and new media. He continues to build on his skillset by utilizing an almost inhuman vocal range to drive his works. Yeff rose to fame in the early 2010s as a beatboxer. His inhuman-natured vocal ability opened up a slew of voice, technology and academic collaborations, leading him to amass a global following, rendering over 100 million views online. Notable academic partnerships include three separate Harvard residencies, the last of which was followed quickly by a collaboration with Leipzig Opera House in Germany, where Yeff produced and directed the world's first-ever AI ballet.
What I so appreciate about Harry's practice is how heâs asking us to return to perhaps our most basic technology: our voices. Oftentimes when folks invoke the voice itâs in service of language or meaning. What Harry highlights is the voice itselfâits raw capabilities, how precious each individual voice is. Every time I speak to Harry, Iâm left with a renewed excitement for the possibilities of voiceâand Iâm sure youâll feel the same.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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Transitioning off of fossil fuels is critical for our survival, but what if the solutions we're racing to develop (solar, wind, etc.) aren't actually sustainable? What happens if we don't have enough minerals to service the energy demand our current projections say we'll need to?
My guest today is Simon Michaux, and his proposal is that we ditch the 'Green Transition' in favor of the 'Purple Transition.'
Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeingâ25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 72% off 2-year plans).Simon Michaux is Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) in KTR, the Circular Economy Solutions Unit. He holds a Bachelors in Applied Sciences in Physics and Geology and a Phd in Mining Engineering from JKMRC at the University of Queensland.
He has 18 years of experience in the Australian mining industry in research and development, 12 months at Ausenco in the private sector, 3 years in Belgium at the University of Liege researching Circular Economy and industrial recycling. Michaux worked in Minerals Intelligence in the MTR unit at GTK before joining the KTR.
Simonâs long-term objectives include the development and transformation of the Circular Economy into a more practical system for the industrial ecosystem to navigate the twin challenges of the scarcity of technology minerals and the transitioning away from fossil fuels.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
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What does the election of Donald Trump mean for America and the world? And what can we do about it?
This is not the post-election episode Iâd hoped to do. I imagined Iâd be doing an episode where I talked through the progressive ideals that didnât make their way into the Harris campaign, and strategies + tactics we could use to hold the Harris administration accountable to them. Alas.
There are so many takes and so much finger-pointing; Iâm not here to add to any of that. Iâm here to reflect on what the election might mean for near- and longer-term futures, and where we go from here. How do we re-orient, what actions do we need to take to minimize harm and promote mutual aid?
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CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
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How can humans deepen our relationship(s) with nature without anthropomorphizing or flattening it? Seeing the natural world in all its messiness, contradictions, & wonder.
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guest this week is Bradley Rydholm.
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Bradley Rydholm is an outdoor educator with a passion for exploring the relationship between humans and the natural world. He holds a master's degree in Outdoor Education Leadership where he combined traditional elements of the outdoor field with ecopsychology. He brings this focus on the relationship with nature to his education work in a variety of outdoor excursions and events.
He is the creator of Nature Is Not Metal, a platform dedicated to blurring the boundaries between nature and culture, urban and wild, body and mind, human and non-human. The platform seeks to use social media to creatively promote these ideas. He also writes the Green Night of the Soul Substack.
In the outdoors or on the internet, Bradley aims to inspire a deep appreciation and even a sense of enchantment with our weird and wild world.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
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Propaganda and the game of influence have evolved with the rise of social media. Who's winning that gameâand who is losing?
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guest this week is RenĂŠe DiResta.
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Humans have long been a rumor-prone species, but how rumors can spreadâand how influencers can become propagandists, knowingly or notâis a distinctly contemporary phenomenon. And understanding how and why it happens is vital for making sense of reality, especially in a heated election season that has already been marked by some wild conspiracy theories.
RenĂŠe DiRestaâs work examines rumors and propaganda in the digital age. She has analyzed geopolitical campaigns created by foreign powers such as Russia, China, and Iran; votingârelated rumors that led to the January 6 insurrection; and health misinformation and conspiracy theories pushed by domestic influencers. She is a contributor at The Atlantic. Her bylined writing has appeared in Wired, Foreign Affairs, Columbia Journalism Review, New York Times, Washington Post, Yale Review, The Guardian, POLITICO, Slate, and Noema, as well as many academic journals.
DiResta was the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching, and policy engagement for the study of abuse in information technologies. She has been a Presidential Leadership Scholar (a program run by the Presidents Bush, Clinton, and the LBJ Foundations); named an Emerson Fellow, a Truman National Security Project fellow, Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust, a Harvard Berkman-Klein affiliate, and a Council on Foreign Relations term member.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe -
Imagine a world without police. Would we be safe?
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guest this week is Professor Philip V. McHarris.
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Philip V. McHarris is an assistant professor in the Frederick Douglass Institute and Department of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. McHarris was a presidential postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University in the Department of African American Studies and the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab. He earned his PhD in sociology and African American studies at Yale University. He was named one of the Rootâs 100 Most Influential African Americans in 2020. McHarris has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and PBS and in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and more.
Imagine a world without police.
Not hypotheticallyâtake a moment and imagine that world. What are your first impressions? Lawless cities plunged into chaos? Crime-ridden dystopias? Something something Mad Max? My guest today argues that a world without police is actually a utopia, and has the receipts to prove it.
If youâre skeptical, then Iâm excited for you to listen to this conversation with Professor Philip McHarris, author of the recent book Beyond Policing. Itâs an astounding readâsprint, donât walk, to pick up your copy.
Phil believes this world is possible, and makes a persuasive argument for whyâand how.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe -
How close are brain-computer interfaces? And how big of a deal is AI, really?
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guest this week is Taryn Southern.
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Taryn Southern is an award-winning storyteller and creative technologist exploring the intersection of emerging tech and human potential. Her groundbreaking creative experiments blend innovation and art, offering insights into how we can all engage technology to lead more creative, joyful, healthy and productive lives.
A digital media pioneer, Tarynâs career began at the forefront of the online content revolution. In 2007, she hosted and produced a TV series documenting her travels to meet MySpace friends and uploaded her first viral video to YouTube. Over the next decade, she created over 1500 videos garnering more than 1 billion views.
In 2017, Taryn began experimenting with emerging technologies to push the boundaries of her creative work. She composed the worldâs first AI album, which landed on the Top 100 US Radio Charts and received widespread media attention. She then combined VR, blockchain, AI and spatial computing to create an award-winning Google VR series, earning her the AT&T Film Award. Her directorial debut, I AM HUMAN, a documentary on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, won numerous awards, and is now available on Apple and Amazon.
Since 2021, Taryn has served as Chief Storyteller at a leading implantable neurotechnology company, where she launched the worldâs first BCI museum and oversaw communications strategy for two successful funding rounds totaling over $230M. An advocate of women in science and tech, she has also angel invested in future-forward companies such as Oura, Etched, Extend Fertility, Vessel Health, and Forever Labs.
Prior to her work in emerging tech, Tarynâs creative work spanned both traditional and new media. She sold a musical comedy pilot to MTV when she was 23 years old, co-hosted Discovery Channelâs #1 late night show, guest-starred on primetime network TV shows, and created digital series for Conde Naste, Airbnb, The Today Show, Snapchat, and Maker Studios. She was an early advisor to YouTube, Google VR and Snapchat product teams, and consulted for companies like Conde Nast and Marriott on digital content strategy and narrative design.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe -
What if our interpersonal relationships and the polycrisis have a lot more to do with each other than we might initially think?
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guest this week is Nora Bateson.
Pick up your copy of Nora's latest book, Combining, here.
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Nora Bateson, is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer, educator, and international lecturer, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden. She is the creator of the Warm Data theory and practices. Noraâs work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology, and information technology together into a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems.
She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father Gregory Bateson.
Her first book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles, released by Triarchy Press, UK, 2016 is a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity.
In her latest second book Combining, Nora invites us into an ecology of communication where nothing stands alone, and every action sets off a chain of incalculable consequences. She challenges conventional fixes for our problems, highlighting the need to tackle issues at multiple levels, understand interdependence, and embrace ambiguity.
She was the recipient of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity in 2019.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe -
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signals in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guest this week is Al Hassan Elwan.
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Al Hassan Elwan is an interdisciplinary designer, brand consultant and creative director, born in Cairo, Egypt. They are now based in Los Angeles, where they completed a postgraduate degree in architecture with a focus on media studies from SCI-Arc in 2022.
Al is the founder of POSTPOSTPOSTâ˘, a brand that produces films, publications, and fashion on the edges of the cultural vanguard while simultaneously building an art movement. POSTPOSTPOST⢠has garnered a following on Instagram by posting contemporary cultural commentary, niche content, and avant-garde theory in the format of memes. Al is the instigator and co-editor of POSTPOSTPOSTâ˘'s inaugural publication, POSTPOSTPOST: Reflections on a New Avant-garde, which features contributions from over 30 artists, writers, and academics, including Shumon Basar, Jack Self, Carly Busta, and Ana Viktoria Dzinic. POSTPOSTPOST⢠has been featured in various publications such as Dazed, FlashArt, Frieze Seoul, Novembre, DAMN Magazine, and others. Al is also the writer and director of POSTPOSTPOSTâ˘âs launch film, produced by Liam Young - which is now published on DIS [dis.art]. Their theoretical work has been published in RealReview and DoNotResearch, among others. They are also a part-time lecturer at MSCHF.
Besides their POSTPOSTPOST⢠work, Al is the co-founder and Creative Director of the brand strategy and design firm, pew. design bureau, which is based in Cairo, Dubai and Los Angeles. pew. has worked with notable clients including Google, YouTube, Vice, Unilever, and UN Women, and their work has been featured in Entrepreneur, World Brand Design Society, LA Weekly, the Brandberries, Cairoscene, and others.
I first met Al when their fever dream of a new avant-garde, POSTPOSTPOSTâ˘, was just taking shape. It immediately struck a chord with me. A decade ago I was drawn in by metamodernism, the proposed structure of feeling that emerged in the wake of postmodernism. A lot of people have a lot of feelings about metamodernism, and this isnât the place where Iâm going to get into itâthough I am planning some pieces on Reality Studies, so be sure to subscribe over there.
I bring it up because when I encountered metamodernism, it had an electricity to it that felt true, capturing something in the zeitgeist that I hadnât seen named quite so well prior. And this is exactly how I felt when I encountered POSTPOSTPOST⢠in 2022. Of course, the 2020s are many worlds away from the 2010s, with new forms of digital culture and sociality. Ideas can go from fringe to center in an eyeblinkâlooking at you, Brat Summer and very demure. And speaking for myself, thereâs this paradoxical feeling I get when I navigate platforms whose algorithms prioritize de-nuanced, hard-line certaintyâall the while I feel increasingly disoriented and uncertain.
POSTPOSTPOST⢠consistently manages to distill that weird feeling. Al delights in ambiguity, even as they weigh into murky and fraught topics. I wonât burden you with a deep media theory argument, but simply say that the work feels important to me. In this conversation, which Iâm honored is something of an admin reveal for the account, we get into a full range of stuff, from their background growing up in Egypt, their experience in architecture, memes (of course), and much more.
As this show is finding new audiences, some of the folks who are most concerned about ecological overshoot, climate change, and biodiversity loss have expressed confusion about why I also emphasize digital culture on the channel. My answer is simple: how we socialize and share information with each other impacts pretty much everything elseâand digital culture plays an outsized role in determining those norms. Folks who understand the emerging shapes of digital culture are critical in helping the rest of us understand the realities we inhabit. And Al is one such critical interlocutor.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe -
Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds signals in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.
My guests this week are Gerardo Ceballos & Paul R. Ehrlich
Gerardo Ceballos, one of the worldâs leading ecologists, is a professor at the Institute of Ecology at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He has established more than twenty protected areas in Mexico and is the author or coauthor of more than 55 books. Ehrlich and Ceballos are coauthors of The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals.
Paul R. Ehrlich is the emeritus Bing Professor of Population Studies in the Department of Biology and the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. He is the author of The Population Bomb and Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect.
I donât even know where to begin with this conversation. On the one hand, Iâm still a little dumbfounded that I had the opportunity to have a conversation with two of the worldâs leading conservation scientists, whose contributions not only to their respective fields but to the planet are historically significant.
On the other hand, this is one of the most devastating conversations Iâve had on the show, rivaled only by my chat with William Rees, which Iâd say is thematically linked. The inciting incident for the conversation is the publication of their incredible new book, Before They Vanish, which they co-authored with Rodolfo Dirzo, who wasnât able to also join the call because heâs out in the field. As you might gather from the title, the book is part-blaring siren, part-love letter. In in, the authors highlight how precious life on Earth really is, detailing not only the sheer variety of flora and fauna we are blessed to share the planet with, but how entangled they all are within ecosystems we humans have done so little to understand, and therefore have allowed ourselves to push to the brink of extinction.
Before I go any further, I want to say what I always say in episodes like this: go buy the book. These conversations are invitations to the subject matter, and I do hope theyâre illuminating, but the book is where youâll have the necessary time and mental space to fully grapple with the ideas.
Anyway, however bad you imagine the present extinction crisis is, which some have called the sixth mass extinction, this book basically argues itâs worse even than that. That stems from several factors, including the lack of historical data, the amount of information we still donât have about various ecosystems, and the way we tend to measure extinctionsâat the species level rather than at the level of discrete populations. The book also outlines the drivers of the extinction crisis and steps that we could take individually and collectively to mitigate the harms of modern industrial society, and advocate for protections that will begin to heal the planet.
Before people get up in my comments: Iâm well aware of how individual responsibility has been weaponized by fossil fuel companies, and I too am wary putting the onus on individuals. That said, through their careers, these three authors have shown how much individuals can actually do. And weâre in the all hands-on-deck, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink moment to protect biodiversity. We should want to protect biodiversity because life is sacred, but even if that doesnât land, as Ehrlich says in the interview, if we destroy biodiversity, we humans likely wonât survive either.
CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work Iâm doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.
Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeingâ25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 72% off 2-year plans).
Find video episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures.
Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe - Mostra di più
