In this solo show I discuss the death of the middle class for services, and the ways in which complexity and social forces are splitting us into elites who get the white glove treatment, peasants who get the AI-driven voice-mail hell. Along the way I talk about Hobarts, house calls, and happy endings.
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I talk with Coindesk reporter and entrepreneur Andrew Thurman about Non-Fungible-Tokens, what gives them value, and the history of absurd art. We also discuss the implication of Barbados opening a virtual embassy in the Metaverse.
Related links:
• Article by Matt Asher about the Metaverse as dystopia
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I talk with economist and philosopher Walter Block. We discuss his series of books, Defending the Undefendable. The third and latest in that trilogy was recently released. Block defends the legality, and sometimes the morality, of a variety of generally maligned practices and people. We talk about these, as well as libertarian punishment theory, how to handle hostage takers, and the infamous flagpole problem.
Related links:
• Walter Block page at Loyola University
• Defending the Undefendable III
• Walter Block author page at alibris
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I talk with John Picco about his military life, including an exercise that drowns you in dark waters, Colombian airstrips, dogfight training, landing planes with no margin for error, and the aftermath of reducing your enemies to rubble.
Related links:
John Picco at his current job with Edward Jones
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I talk with Martha Bueno about life in Cuban, the true nature of our embargo, Miami politics, the perils of foreign aid, and two-tiered systems.
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I talk with Adam B. Levine, managing editor at Coindesk, about decentralized finance startup Compound’s very costly error and their CEO’s ham-fisted attempt to fix it. We discuss ethereum, immutability, fungibility, and what constitutes a hack in the context of code as law.
Related links:
• Compound sends out extra COMP
• Adam’s author page at Coindesk
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In this episode I speak with Reed Coverdale, trucker, gun hacker, meme lord, podcast host, noted 9/11 conspiracy theory denier, and man with a moustache. We talk status among truckers, supply chains, lolberts, border walls, John McAfee, Dom/Sub twitter, and why Reed’s Garand goes BRRRRRRRR.
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This episode features many of the voices that made microcasting great in 2019 and early 2020. Topics include:
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In this solo show I give my take on how to think about our world of tail risks, from asteroids to global warming to global pandemics to the existence of the afterlife. Also, I make the case for the earth disaster genre, hot pockets optional.
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I talk with Robert A. Jensen, author of the new book Personal Effects: What Recovering the Dead Teaches Me About Caring for the Living. Over the past three decades Jensen has travelled to every major disaster you’ve heard of, and many you haven’t, to help recover bodies and the personal effects of the deceased. We discuss the importance of recovering “fragments”, the role played by local customs in his work, the politics of dead bodies, and why the British Empire buried their citizens wherever they died.
Related links:
• Jensen’s former company, Kenyon International Emergency Services
• Personal Effects for sale at Barns & Noble
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