Speaking with writer, collapse philosopher, novelist, and blogger Ran Prieur in a conversation that unfolds with a slow, organic rhythm, a pleasurable meandering walk through modern life and its ruins. Ran, as always, is philosophically rich, grounded, and quietly radical. In line with his long-held ethos of anti-industrial, post-collapse thought. I enjoyed reengaging with this contemplative tone in moving naturally between personal insight and social critique, offering a model for intimacy that remains intellectually serious and open.
From technology as spellcraft, to collapse as ongoing reorientation, to spiritual practice as a form of quiet resistance, on his new novel, on writing, the conversation avoids doomer clichés: it’s not about despair, but about seeing clearly. Ran speaks with a rare patience that reveals thought in motion pausing, circling, revising inviting us to listen more closely to what remains alive, to re-enchant.
For an earlier conversation with Ran, I invite you to listen to my 2022 interview with Ran Prieur.
Excerpts
On Mind and Matter as Play
“Matter is like a game that we’re playing. It’s like you’re playing a board game and if you’re playing a board game, you have to follow the rules of the game. And that’s what matter is. It’s a game. The mind is playing and that we’re all in. And while we’re in it, we have to follow its rules, but underneath it’s all mind.”
On Returning to the Non-Human World
“We’ve pulled all this stuff where humans are going deeper and deeper into a world of our own creation, and we’ve lost the vital force which we can get by going back to the non-human made world.”
On The Zeitgeist
“ We are the fish. And our whole culture is the fish and everything is going faster and brighter as the net closes around us. That’s my sense of the zeitgeist. “
“AI is not the painter, AI is the pallet.”
More Ran Prieur
Some works / people mentioned in the interview that might not be clear in audio transcription
Purse-Seine: a large wall of netting used in fishing to encircle and capture schools of fish
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou by Hitoshi Ashinano
John Vervaeke, Ph.D - psychology, cognitive science, and Buddhist psychology at the University of Toronto.
