Aengus Anderson - Podcast Details

Shows

Tucsonense The Great American AverageThe Phoenix metropolitan area is the Great American Average and a mirror of the American sensibility.

2018-07-1000 min

Tucsonense Archive TucsonSince January 2017 I have been spending most of my time recording oral histories for Special Collections at the University of Arizona Libraries. These histories capture some of the everyday stories and subjective experiences that seldom make it into an archive: what it was like to grow up in a Chinese grocery store, or be the second black graduate from the UA Law School, or move to Tucson to be closer to the Yaqui community. This episode will give you a few brief glimpses into what I've been recording lately and, hopefully, explain why I have been absent from Tucsonense. Thanks...

2017-05-1600 min

Tucsonense Francisco CantúFrancisco Cantu is an author and former US Border Patrol agent. We drove through his old sector and talked about a lot of things, but this story only focuses on one of them. Francisco's forthcoming book is called The Line Becomes a River. It is due out from Riverhead in 2018.

2017-02-1900 min

Tucsonense Patricia Preciado MartinPatricia Preciado Martin is an author, oral historian, and speaker whose work has been invaluable in preserving and sharing stories of Mexican Americans in Tucson. Her books include two oral histories, Images and Conversations and Songs my Mother Sang to Me and three collections of short stories. We spoke about her memories of growing up in Tucson, how her thinking about ethnicity and identity evolved throughout her life, and how recording oral histories changed the way she thought about Tucson, its people, and herself.

2016-10-3000 min

Tucsonense In the World of Tiny TrainsA visit to Tucson's Gadsden-Pacific Division Toy Train Operating Museum, a 6,000 square foot world of tiny trains and the men who run them.

2016-09-1700 min

Tucsonense Isaac KirkmanIsaac Kirkman is a writer and poet. In addition to working with words and a fair amount of border activism, walking is a large part of Isaac's life—he doesn't drive and never has. People who walk long distances look at cities in fundamentally different ways than drivers, public transit riders, or cyclists. They see more detail, obviously, but they also have access to different spaces and can spot patterns in the urban fabric. I hope to be talking to (and walking with) a fair number of them as Tucsonense unfolds. On a 109º July afternoon, I joined Isaac for a six...

2016-08-2200 min

Tucsonense Who Were the Hohokam?We live on top of the Hohokam—their buildings, ball courts, canals, fields, and bodies—yet most of us know nothing about them. Maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise. Arizona residents are famously transient and even Americans in relatively stable communities are often ignorant of the Indian landscapes underneath them. Sometimes that's because it's easier to ignore Indian history than confront the questions raised by studying the past, other times that's because Indian worlds are so thoroughly erased that they're hard to imagine or narrativize. I am ignorant of the Hohokam world—embarrassingly so, both as a Tucsonense and as som...

2016-07-2700 min

Tucsonense What is a Place?What is a place? This question seems simple, but the more you think about it, the more headache-inducing it becomes. Of course, I can't launch a series about place without trying to define what one is. To that end, I outline two extremes of thinking about place: everywhere is unique and everywhere is basically the same. Both are silly, so I try to justify taking a middle way, which is intuitive but not easy to articulate.

2016-07-1000 min

Tucsonense El TucsonenseYou can't launch a podcast called Tucsonense without tipping your hat to El Tucsonense, a Spanish-language newspaper that ran in Tucson from 1915 to 1962. In this episode, you will hear about El Tucsonense's history from Ernesto Portillo, Jr., editor of La Estrella de Tucson and columnist for the Arizona Daily Star. You'll also hear from Richard Elías, a Pima County Supervisor and great-grandson of El Tucsonense founder Francisco Moreno. Then we're off into the archives at the University of Arizona with Bob Diaz, a librarian who began digging through old newspapers and discovered why his immediate family kept their distance f...

2016-06-1200 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 67 - Aengus AndersonFinally, formally, this is where The Conversation ends. If you've been a contemporaneous listener, thanks for joining on this epic trip. If you're just discovering The Conversation, welcome! This might be a more interesting place to begin than the beginning.

2016-05-1500 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 66 - Lisa Gray-GarciaLisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia is a writer, organizer, activist, poet, and self-proclaimed poverty scholar. She is the only interviewee in The Conversation who has spent a good portion of her life houseless (a term she prefers over homeless), and a lot of her work has addressed issues of poverty. In addition to being a prolific writer of articles she is the author of Criminal of Poverty, the founder of Poor Magazine, the driving force behind the Homefulness Project. When I recorded this interview in the summer of 2013, I did not expect it to be the final interview I would...

2016-05-1200 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 65 - Rebecca SolnitRebecca Solnit is an author, activist, and geographer, among other things. Her books include A Paradise Built in Hell, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and Men Explain Things to Me. She's also a regular contributor to Harpers, The Nation, and The Guardian.

2016-05-0300 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 64 - Peter GleickPeter Gleick researches water and water policy at the Pacific Institute. In addition to co-founding the Pacific Institute, Gleick is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has won a MacArthur Genius Fellowship for his work, and has been instrumental in the United Nation's designation of water as a human right. I learned about Peter through Lawrence Torcello, who you can hear in episode 29 of The Conversation. Unsurprisingly, this conversation is generally about water, though we also spoke about population in more detail than any interview since John Seager. You will also catch a few oblique glimpses...

2016-02-1300 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 63 - Kim Stanley RobinsonKim Stanley Robinson is one of the biggest names in current science fiction. His most famous work is, arguably, the Mars Trilogy, but he is the author of seventeen novels and several collections of short stories. I could easily overburden you with biographical details and lists of his accolades, but I'll leave that to this very comprehensive fan page. I learned about Stan through my interview with Tim Morton in 2012—they are friends and, at the time, both lived in Davis. It took a year but, when I next passed through Davis, I was fortunate enough to get th...

2016-02-1100 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 62 - Rebecca CostaRebecca Costa is a self-proclaimed sociobiologist, author of The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, and host of the radio program The Costa Report. Throughout The Conversation we have regularly talked about the question of cognitive limits in an increasingly complex society, but we have only addressed the idea in passing. Wanting to dedicate a full episode to cognitive limits, we launched a search for interviewees that lead us straight to Rebecca Costa. There are lots of connections in this episode, but the most developed ones are with Joseph Tainter and George Lakoff. The...

2016-02-0500 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 61 - Rainey ReitmanRainey Reitman is the Activism Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a co-founder of both the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Chelsea Manning Support Network. My conversation with Rainey is, in many ways, the logical extension of my conversation with James Bamford about digital surveillance and privacy. But while Bamford discussed the extent and mechanisms of surveillance, that conversation didn't get into the nuts and bolts of how to cure the problem he diagnosed. Enter Rainey, who spends her days trying to make issues of digital liberties comprehensible and relevant. We only had an hour for...

2016-02-0200 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 56 - Aengus Anderson and Micah Saul at SXSWAfter more than half a year away from The Conversation, Aengus and Micah return with a panel they gave at South by Southwest Interactive. The panel, entitled "A Sheep in Wolf's Clothes: The Myth of Disruption" drew extensively from The Conversation to question ideas of progress that are implied by the science/tech industries. This episode is a departure from the rest of The Conversation's format but, rest assured, Aengus, Micah, and Neil will return soon with a new episode.

2014-06-0501 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 54 - Charles BowdenIf you've listened to The Conversation for a while, you know there are numerous reasons we invite guests to join the series. Sometimes we are interested in a new idea and its implications, or an old idea that's being revitalized. We gravitate toward people working on interesting projects that challenge or test the status quo. From time to time, we like discussing conversation itself, whether that's conversation as an art or conversation as a tool. We also think it's important to include guests who remind us that the status quo varies based upon where you live. <b...

2013-07-2800 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 53 - Carlos Perez de AlejoCarlos Perez de Alejo is a the co-founder and Executive Director of Cooperation Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit that helps organize and raise awareness of worker-owned cooperatives. Economics has been a regular theme in The Conversation but, from David Korten to John Fullerton, many of our discussions have focused on systemic issues and top-down reform. While we at The Conversation love big theories and grand visions, we're equally interested in projects. Worker-owned cooperatives fall in this latter category and, while they are hardly new, the changing economic landscape and success of Spain's Mondragon Corporation have ra...

2013-07-1600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 52 - Walter BlockLibertarian ideas have been a major theme in The Conversation. They were introduced in our second episode by Max More and have since been elaborated upon by David Miller, Robert Zubrin, Tim Cannon, and Oliver Porter. But while libertarianism has been discussed frequently, it has always been a secondary theme within episodes about, say, transhumanism or space exploration. But libertarianism is too intriguing to discuss obliquely, so we're pulling it out of the background and exploring it in a full episode. We were especially interested in the logical conclusion of libertarian thought and, for that, we turned to Walter Block...

2013-07-0600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 51 - Phyllis TicklePhyllis Tickle founded Publishers Weekly's Religion Department and has written numerous books about modern American Christianity, including "The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why." Phyllis begins our conversation by describing 500-year social, cultural, and religious cycles in parts of the world influenced by Abrahamic faiths. Building upon that, she asserts that our current historical moment lies at the edge of two such cycles. The upshot of this is a breakdown in traditional understandings of authority and a period of chaotic exploration. Emergence Christianity, like other emergent faiths, is developing as a response...

2013-05-2900 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 50 - The Future of The ConversationWe swoop in for our first interstitial episode in six months. Neil has the plague, but Micah and I talk about the future of The Conversation, our perpetual need to raise the project's visibility, and our naïve hope for funding another season of production. In light of James Bamford's conversation and my op-ed about digital liberties in Boing Boing, we talk about themes that aren't connected.

2013-05-1700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 49 - Scott DouglasScott Douglas, III, is the Executive Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, an interfaith organization in Birmingham, Alabama. GBM provides poverty relief, lobbies to reform Alabama's state constitution, and has recently been active in opposing self-deportation laws. My conversation with Scott is a powerful reminder that status quo ideas vary deeply based on location and that equality—or equity, as Scott prefers—remains just as cutting-edge of an idea today as it did fifty years ago. Like Roberta Francis, Henry Louis Taylor, and Carolyn Raffensperger, Scott takes us into the legal structures undergirding our society to f...

2013-05-0600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 48 - Chris CarterChris Carter is a self-taught electrical engineer and founder of MASS Collective, a workspace in Atlanta, Georgia that combines hands-on learning, apprenticeship, and traditional education for students and makers of all ages. We've talked about education with Mark Mykleby, Lawrence Torcello, and Andrew Keen, but our only conversation dedicated entirely to the subject was with Lisa Petrides back in the early days of The Conversation. Lisa's work leaned towards research and the development of new educational models, but Chris is coming at the problem from a very different perspective—as an autodidact who felt und...

2013-04-1800 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 47 - Oliver PorterOliver Porter designs and implements partnerships between municipalities and corporations, allowing cities to privatize virtually all of their functions. Since his central role in incorporating Sandy Springs, Georgia in 2005, Oliver his moved on to advising numerous other American and Japanese cities through his consultancy firm PPP Associates and has authored two books, Creating the New City of Sandy Springs and Public/Private Partnerships for Local Governments. Before his work in urban privatization, he was an executive at AT&T. Our conversation telescopes from micro to macro, beginning with the story of Sandy Springs...

2013-04-0300 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 46 - Mark MyklebyCol. Mark "Puck" Mykleby is a former marine and co-author (along with Capt. Wayne Porter) of A National Strategic Narrative for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, a document that encouraged broadening the concept of defense to include sustainability. Currently Mark is a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan policy institute dedicated to questions about the American future. We learned about Mark through our 41st interviewee, John Fullerton. There are a lot of ideas packed into this episode: America as an organism in a strategic ecology, sustainability as national narrative that su...

2013-03-2100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 45 - James BamfordJames Bamford is an author and journalist who has written extensively about the National Security Agency. His books include The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory. He has also produced a documentary for NOVA on PBS. We learned about James last year through a Wired article about the NSA's new data center in Bluffdale, Utah. My conversation with James covers several topics that have been missing from The Conversation thus far: privacy, surveillance, and the threat of totalitarian government. As a result, this episode has few overt connections to the rest of the project...

2013-03-0800 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 44 - John SeagerJohn Seager is the President of Population Connection, formerly Zero Population Growth. Since its founding in 1968, Population Connection has been America's largest grassroots organization dedicated to the question of overpopulation. Prior to his work at Population Connection, John worked for the EPA and in congressional politics. Population has been a regular theme in The Conversation but has not been well developed in previous episodes. John remedies that. He also argues that overpopulation results primarily from gender inequality and a lack of access to affordable contraception—education and affluence matter, but they are secondary to equality. Combatting overpopulation is...

2013-02-2700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 43 - Roberta FrancisRoberta Francis has been advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment for over thirty years, chairs the ERA Taskforce for the National Council of Women's Organizations and administers equalrightsamendment.org. She has also been active with the New Jersey League of Women Voters. There's something ridiculous about needing to include the ERA in a project about the future—why didn't we take care of this ninety years ago? If the ERA reminds us of anything, it's that old ideas can remain new and common sense can be remarkably controversial. I will revisit this theme in my...

2013-02-2100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 42 - Gary FrancioneGary L. Francione is an animal rights activist, proponent of veganism, Professor of Law and Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers. Previously he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, worked as an attorney in New York, and clerked for Sandra Day O’Connor. He is the author of several books including Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement and, more recently, co-author of The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation. For all of the talk of biocentrism and anthropocentrism that dominated many of the early episodes of The Conversation, animals ha...

2013-02-1600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 41 - John FullertonJohn Fullerton is the founder of the Capital Institute, a group dedicated to the modest task of rethinking the future of finance. Prior to his work at the Capital Institute, he was the Managing Director of JPMorgan. If there is a moment that encapsulates my conversation with John, it is when he suggests we need a new word to express the interconnected environmental/economic system. Applying an investor's sense of risk management to climate change, John sees our economic status quo as reckless and self-destructive. If we remain transfixed by our model of infinite...

2013-01-2700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 40 - Mary MattinglyMary Mattingly is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. We learned about her through the Flockhouse Project and traced back to discover the Waterpod and her earlier work. Mary’s art explores the environment, sustainability, housing, and community structure, among other things. We have spoken to a fair number of environmental thinkers in The Conversation, but Mary is the first whose work directly explores individual survival in an unstable world. There are lots of reasons you’ll like this episode. Aside from the Mad Max/Waterworld quality of our conversation, Mary looks at environmental change in a wa...

2013-01-1800 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 39 - Richard Saul WurmanRichard Saul Wurman is a designer, author of over 80 books, and founder of several conferences including TED, WWW, and EG. Presently, he is working on Prophesy2025, a conference about the near future. Richard caught our attention because he is both an architect and connoisseur of conversation. Because of this, we spoke entirely about conversation itself: its forms, rituals, and value. We also spoke about broader conversation and the hypothesis underlying this project. This episode is very different from its predecessors. It does not contain a prescriptive vision of t...

2013-01-1000 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 38 - Alexa ClayAlexa Clay is an author, economic historian, and director of thought leadership at Ashoka Changemakers. She is co-author of The Misfit Economy, a forthcoming book that looks for economic innovation in the black and gray markets of pirates, hackers, and urban gangs, among others. We begin by talking about economics in the 17th and 18th centuries and its close bonds with philosophy and psychology. From there we trace the increasing abstraction of economics into a formalized, quasi-scientific discipline that has become indecipherable to most people affected by it. This leads to a discussion of a...

2013-01-0100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 37 - David KeithFrom The Conversation's inception, geoengineering—the deliberate manipulation of the climate through technology—has been high on my list of subjects to include in the series. To address the issue, I spoke with David Keith, a Harvard professor with a joint appointment in Applied Physics and Public Policy. David has spent the better part of two decades researching climate science and geoengineering, was named a Hero of the Environment by TIME in 2009, and is also the President of Carbon Engineering, a startup dedicated to reducing atmospheric CO2. He is also publicly visible, having testified before the US Congress, spoken at TED, a...

2012-12-2100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 36 - Ethan ZuckermanEthan Zuckerman is the Director of MIT's Center for Civic Media, a former fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, and co-founder of Global Voices, a hub of international news written by bloggers. We spoke about the need for global awareness, the relationship between information and empathy, and the challenge homophily presents to thinking about the public good (homophily is the fancy way of saying "birds of a feather flock together"). This conversation takes us through the the media's power to set the public agenda, three current media paradigms, and Ethan's suggestion for a new, forth paradigm based on the serendipitous discovery...

2012-12-1400 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 35 - Chuck CollinsChuck Collins directs the Institute of Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He has also co-founder of United for a Fair Economy and Wealth for the Common Good, a network of wealthy individuals who embrace fair taxation to support the broader good. He is also the author of 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It and joined Bill Gates, Sr. to co-author Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes. I learned about Chuck through David Korten, only to realize that I already had Resilience Circles—another proje...

2012-12-0600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 34 - Douglas RushkoffAmong other things, Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist, author, and documentarian. His books include Life, Inc. and Program or be Programmed, while his documentaries include Frontline's The Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders. Our conversation started with Rushkoff's concept of "present-shock" and moved into a larger discussion of the relationship between market thinking, quantification, and what is ultimately measurable and knowable. Connections, you ask? There are lots, especially with Timothy Morton, Wes Jackson, and Frances Whitehead. We also talk about transhumanism a fair bit, so expect some...

2012-11-2001 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 33 - Priscilla GrimPriscilla Grim is one of Occupy Wall Street's organizers, co-founder of the website We Are the 99 Percent, and co-editor of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. We talk about her politicization, the current economic system, and the tension between class and environmental concerns. There are predictably strong contrasts with the libertarian philosophies of David Miller and Max More but, in one of the more unexpected connections in the project, Grim takes an attitude towards natural resources that is close to Robert Zubrin and far from Jan Lundberg and Wes Jackson.

2012-11-1000 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 32 - The Conversation and the ElectionMicah and I have been talking about a new interstitial episode for several weeks but, with the election last night, we decided to pick up our microphones and talk about the relationship between the political conversation and The Conversation. Relationship is probably the wrong word there—rupture might be more accurate. Long before we devised this project, both of us were concerned that the American political conversation was divorced from substantive issues, especially the interconnected tangle of economy and environment. In fact, this lack of political substance was one of the concerns that caused us...

2012-11-0700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 31 - Claire EvansClaire Evans is half of YACHT, a "band, business, and belief system" started by Jona Bechtolt in 2002. In addition to her musical/artistic adventures, she's also a writer and regular science blogger. Unlike most bands, YACHT has a developed a detailed and public philosophy (read their FAQ or visit the YACHT Trust for more details) and they regularly explore ideas about the future in their work. I was especially intrigued by the themes of utopia and dystopia which tie together their album Shangri-La.

2012-10-3000 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 30 - Henry Louis Taylor, Jr.Dr. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. is the Director for the Center for Urban Studies at the University of Buffalo and the Project Coordinator for the Perry Choice Neighborhood Initiative. His work has focused on the intersection of urban planning, regional development, and history in both the United States and Cuba. Dr. Taylor also studies the relationship between urban planning, race, and class. Our conversation focuses on inequality, racism, reconfiguring government institutions, and the physical structure of neighborhoods—several large, tangible issues that have been inadequately discussed or completely ignored by earlier interviewees. American exceptionalism is...

2012-10-2200 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 29 - Lawrence TorcelloDr. Lawrence Torcello is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Micah and I learned about him through his article "Is The State Endorsement of Any Marriage Justifiable?" in Public Affairs Quarterly. Having said that, we barely touched the idea of marriage privatization. Lawrence had listened to the entirety of The Conversation before we spoke, so this is the first meta-conversation in the project: we spend a lot of our time discussing how one can bring conversation about in a pluralistic world. To tackle the idea, Lawrence takes us through the thought of John Rawls, Enlightenment...

2012-10-1600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 28 - Tim CannonTim Cannon is a co-founder of Grindhouse Wetware, a group of open-source biohackers in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. What does that sentence mean, you ask? Biohacking is the process of augmenting the human body to do new things, whether with technology or biology. Max More introduced the theme of transhumanism back in Episode 2, but Tim is going to take the idea and run with it—the Grindhouse crew are actively developing and implanting technologies in themselves now. Tim and I don't dwell on current augmentation technologies for long. Instead, we plunge into a conversation about the nat...

2012-10-0300 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 27 - Patrick CrouchPatrick Crouch is the Program Manager at the Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit, Michigan. The farm is a project of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and is the only certified organic farm in the city. Agriculture's urban history is an early theme in our conversation, as is the need to make food a human right rather than a market commodity. We also discuss how the structure of modern civilization, from our urban planning to our economy, encourages us to value people solely for their productive capacity. Like Wes Jackson, P...

2012-09-2700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 26 - Jenny LeeJenny Lee is a co-director of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit organization focused on the intersection of media and social justice. AMP stages the annual Allied Media Conference and, partnered with the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, organizes on a variety of media education and outreach programs for communities marginalized by traditional media. Jenny and I talk about digital justice, inequality, media landscapes (or should we call them ecologies?), the relationship between offline and online community, narratives, and the myth of individualism. You will hear echoes of systems thinking that has appeared in Frances Whitehead...

2012-09-2100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 25 - Frances WhiteheadAs you will soon learn, Frances Whitehead is a remarkably difficult person to put a label on. Artist, designer (designist?), planner, environmental thinker, dot-connector, collaborator... the list could go on. Our conversation spanned two recording sessions, totaling 7.5 hours and producing 5.5 hours of tape. I have edited this down to 36 minutes and, of course, sacrificed an immense amount of content and nuance. So view this as a fast and condensed introduction to Frances' thought. And what themes come up, you ask? Complexity is a unifying theme, tying together the prospect of an environmental crisis with...

2012-09-1400 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 24 - Aengus and Micah's Third StrikeAengus and Micah return to interfere with your podcast enjoyment. In their third status update, they attempt to synthesize some of the broader trends in The Conversation to date, from the rift between anthropocentrists and biocentrists to the difference between tech optimists and tech skeptics. They also look at the appeal of teleological explanations and concept of historical progress. The update concludes with a dissection of the (flawed?) concept of The Conversation.

2012-09-0700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 24 - Aengus and Micah's Third StrikeAengus and Micah return to interfere with your podcast enjoyment. In their third status update, they attempt to synthesize some of the broader trends in The Conversation to date, from the rift between anthropocentrists and biocentrists to the difference between tech optimists and tech skeptics. They also look at the appeal of teleological explanations and concept of historical progress. The update concludes with a dissection of the (flawed?) concept of The Conversation.

2012-09-0700 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 23 - Carolyn RaffenspergerCarolyn Raffensperger, JD, is the executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network and the author of Precautionary Tools for Shaping Environmental Policy and Protecting Public Health and the Environment. Not surprisingly, she is well known for her work on the precautionary principle, but her thought ranges across a wide variety of questions that address the relationship between law and the environment. This is the first substantive discussion of law in The Conversation but, as always, we range over a variety of other topics including science as a social institutions, the tension between...

2012-09-0200 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 22 - Wes JacksonDr. Wes Jackson is the founder and director of The Land Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to rethinking agricultural practice and creating new farming systems which result in conservation and ecosystem resilience. Wes's conversation begins with soil and rapidly expands to address how we make choices about the massively complex and intertwined systems we live within--there is definitely a resonance between Wes Jackson, Timothy Morton, and David Korten. The problem of scientific fundamentalism also arises and Wes presents a thorough critique of many ideas put forth by Robert Zubrin and Max More (would Colin Camerer fall into that category? You tell...

2012-08-2400 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 21 - Robert ZubrinDr. Robert Zubrin is the president of The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the exploration and colonization of Mars. We begin by discussing why space exploration and colonization is good but, as with my conversation with Chris McKay, Robert and I use space as an entry to discussing issues back on Earth. A major theme of this conversation is environmentalism, which Robert classifies as a form of anti-humanism, offering a strong anthrpocentric response to the biocentrism of Jan Lundberg and David Korten. This flows into a conversation about how we define progress and where we find value...

2012-08-1800 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 20 - David MillerDavid Miller is a state representative and mineral explorer in Wyoming. Rep. Miller was the architect of Wyoming's House Bill 85, the so-called "Doomsday Bill," which created a committee to study Wyoming's response to a collapse of the US Federal Government. Our conversation spans themes from across the entire project, from the transhumanism of Max More to the primitivism of John Zerzan to the scientific optimism of Ariel Waldman. This conversation also grows naturally out of the previous conversation with Dr. Joseph Tainter. Similar themes of debt and complexity arise and Rome makes another appearance, but the context is different this...

2012-08-1200 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 20 - David MillerDavid Miller is a state representative and mineral explorer in Wyoming. Rep. Miller was the architect of Wyoming's House Bill 85, the so-called "Doomsday Bill," which created a committee to study Wyoming's response to a collapse of the US Federal Government. Our conversation spans themes from across the entire project, from the transhumanism of Max More to the primitivism of John Zerzan to the scientific optimism of Ariel Waldman. This conversation also grows naturally out of the previous conversation with Dr. Joseph Tainter. Similar themes of debt and complexity arise and Rome makes another appearance, but the context is different this...

2012-08-1200 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 19 - Joseph TainterDr. Joseph Tainter is an anthropologist and historian who has studied collapse in numerous ancient civilization and penned The Collapse of Complex Societies. This is our first deeply historical episode and Dr. Tainter begins by offering his definition of complexity and taking us through the story of Western Rome's collapse. Extrapolating from the past, Dr. Tainter paints an alarming scene of our possible future. In our conversation, he critiques the primitivism of John Zerzan, the transhumanism of Max More, and the technological optimism of Ariel Waldman and Colin Camerer. What are we left with? Not optimism, not pessimism but, perhaps...

2012-08-0800 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 18 - David KortenDavid Korten is an economist, author, and progressive activist with a background in international business. He is the president of the Living Economy Forum, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, co-founder of YES! Magazine, and a member of the Club of Rome. His books include When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. Our conversation covered a broad range of topics from economics to ecology, cultural myths to systems thinking. As you would expect, connections abound: questioning the purpose of an economy ties David's conversation directly to Laura Musikanski, Timothy Morton's mesh returns...

2012-07-3100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 17 - Laura MusikanskiLaura Musikanski is the co-founder of the Happiness Initiative and the former Executive Director of Sustainable Seattle. We spoke about her efforts to encourage governments and citizens to rethink gross domestic product as a measure of progress. In lieu of viewing progress in strictly material terms, Larua is advocating a future in which policy decisions are guided by a model of happiness quantification adapted from Bhutan. Laura's conversation has several points of resonance with Cameron Whitten, both because of her focus on social justice and her prioritizing collaborative conversation over specific methods of reform. Her methods of measuring and promoting...

2012-07-2400 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 16 - Thinking Out Loud (#2)As part of our effort to keep The Conversation transparent, we're taking ten minutes to bring you up to speed on some of the discussions going on behind the project. A few questions have been badgering us: is The Conversation inherently elitist? If not, how can we democratize it more? Speaking of which, how can we spark a more lively online conversation and bring more listener comments into the interviews? Finally, we mention that we're swamped with amazing interviews and not enough time to edit, so we're going to slow the pace of the project to a single conversation per...

2012-07-2200 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 15 - Cameron WhittenCameron Whitten is, in his own words, a "shameless agitator" from Portland, Oregon. He became politically active during the Occupy Portland movement and, at twenty, made a bid to become the mayor of the Rose City with endorsements from the Green Party and Oregon Progressive Party. As of this posting, Whitten is on day 44 of a hunger strike designed to spark the Portland City Council to address issues of housing inequality. We spoke about Occupy, equality, and the idea of The Conversation. For Whitten, The Conversation is a first step to addressing issues of cla...

2012-07-1600 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 14 - John ZerzanJohn Zerzan is an anarchist and primitivist writer and speaker. His books include Against Civilization and Elements of Refusal. We spoke about his critique of technology and civilization, moving on to discuss the origins of the biocentric philosophy that lies at the core of much of his thought. The Conversation itself was a major theme in our talk: John is the only participant in The Conversation (at least at this point) who openly advocates targeted property damage to change minds, so I was especially curious to ask whether his ideas can participate in The Conversation or if they are uncompromising. Micah an...

2012-07-1000 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 13 - Ariel WaldmanAriel Waldman is the founder of Spacehack.org, a platform to allow anyone to participate in space exploration. We spoke about the democratization of science, who science is working for, and some of the ideas of "good" that guide scientific research and technological development. As usual, connections with earlier conversations abound. Listen for a continuation of Alexander Rose's claim that, generally, creating more choices is a reasonable way to maximize the good.

2012-07-0500 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 12 - Gabriel StempinskiGabriel Stempinski is an evangelist of the new sharing economy, author, documentary producer, and San Francisco city ambassador for CouchSurfing. We spoke about how new, sharing-themed tech startups are reshaping the economic and social landscape. Environmental and population issues are at the heart of our conversation and community makes more than a cameo appearance. Gabriel responds directly to Andrew Keen's critique of social media, but there are also some indirect connections to Jan Lundberg's sense of an energy crisis and Alexander Rose's discussion of long-term thought.

2012-06-2500 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 11 - Dr. Lisa PetridesDr. Lisa Petrides is the founder of ISKME, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, a research institute dedicated to studying how educators and institutions use information to make decisions. She is a strong advocate for open education platforms and using information to improve policy. We discussed the state of the education system, some of the underlying goals of education, and the conversation between the worlds of education and business.

2012-06-1900 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 10 - Dr. Timothy MortonDr. Timothy Morton will turn your notion of ecological awareness on its head. Discarding all cozy notions of being one with nature, he has coined the term "dark ecology" and advocates for an appreciation of one's surreal, creepy connection with all other things. He dissolves the concept of nature and sees no clear line between life and non-life. Dr. Morton is the author of Ecology Without Nature and The Ecological Thought, but our conversation ranged far beyond ecology (assuming anything can, in fact, be beyond ecology). So shake your brain out of its torpor and brace yourself for a deluge of f...

2012-06-1100 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 9 - Status Update 1Aengus and Micah break back into The Conversation for a quick status update on the project: how they have been approaching interviews, some new ways of mapping information, production timeframes, and the death of the Kickstarter campaign. Beware, they will also entreat you (repeatedly) for more online conversation.

2012-06-0800 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 9 - Status Update 1Aengus and Micah break back into The Conversation for a quick status update on the project: how they have been approaching interviews, some new ways of mapping information, production timeframes, and the death of the Kickstarter campaign. Beware, they will also entreat you (repeatedly) for more online conversation.

2012-06-0800 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 8 - Dr. Chris McKayLet's take this up a level. Dr. Chris McKay is a planetary scientist who spends his days searching for microbial life beyond Earth from NASA's Ames Research Center. Dr. McKay is also active in discussions of bioethics, Mars colonization, and terraforming. We spoke about the search for life on Mars and how it can inform our thinking about life, biodiversity, and ethics on Earth.

2012-06-0500 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - 1 - Rev. John FifeWe plunge into The Conversation with our first interview: Reverend John Fife. Our conversation started with Rev. Fife’s experience with the Sanctuary movement and his perspective on current US/Mexico border issues. From there, we explored the underlying tension between human rights and national sovereignty, finishing up with some big-picture thoughts about crisis, The Conversation, and change. When is the last time you questioned the idea of a nation? I skimmed a chapter of Benedict Anderson's “Imagined Communities” once and almost died, but Rev. Fife tackles similar issues with eloquence, energy, personal experience, and a very different philosophical background–I can’t...

2012-05-0635 min

The Conversation The Conversation - 1 - John FifeWe plunge into The Conversation with our first interview: Reverend John Fife. Our conversation started with Rev. Fife’s experience with the Sanctuary movement and his perspective on current US/Mexico border issues. From there, we explored the underlying tension between human rights and national sovereignty, finishing up with some big-picture thoughts about crisis, The Conversation, and change. When is the last time you questioned the idea of a nation? I skimmed a chapter of Benedict Anderson's “Imagined Communities” once and almost died, but Rev. Fife tackles similar issues with eloquence, energy, personal experience, and a very different philosophical background–I can’t...

2012-05-0635 min

The Conversation The Conversation - Zero - IntroductionsWelcome to The Conversation. In this brief episode, producers Aengus and Micah explain what The Conversation is, why it matters, and how they hope to approach it with a new genre of media combining audio interviews with online discussion. Learn more at www.findtheconversation.com

2012-05-0213 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Conversation - Zero - IntroductionsWelcome to The Conversation. In this brief episode, producers Aengus and Micah explain what The Conversation is, why it matters, and how they hope to approach it with a new genre of media combining audio interviews with online discussion. Learn more at www.findtheconversation.com

2012-05-0213 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/29 - Asking for HelpWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a veteran of 25 years witnesses a fellow soldier kill an eight year-old girl. Upon returning home, he develops Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and faces a decision about how to cope with his memories. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-08-1905 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/28 - Stepping UpWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man learns that he is a father but, two weeks before his daughter's birth, his paternity is called into question. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-08-1605 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/27 - College and HorsesWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman reflects on her decision to give up equestrianism and go to college. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-07-1603 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/26 - Quitting PhD ProgramWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man shares his decision to drop out of his PhD program. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-07-1302 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/25 - Cold FeetWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a young man proposes to his girlfriend... and then reconsiders. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-07-1103 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/24 - Leaving it AllWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man gets in his car and leaves his life behind. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-07-0903 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/23 - Marriage Before DeploymentWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a single mom decides to marry her best friend before his deployment to Iraq. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-07-0803 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/22 - Accepting Gay FatherWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a teenage girl talks about learning that her father is gay and her subsequent decision to stay with him. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-07-0502 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/21 - A Job Offer in AfghanistanWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man in his early forties decides to take a job in Afghanistan. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-06-2003 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/20 - Leaving Kids for a YearWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a father decides to take a transcontinental motorcycle trip and leave his children for a year. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-06-1203 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/19 - Mental Illness in a ParentWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman shares her decision to stop trying to help her mentally ill mother. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-06-0603 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/18 - Stand by YouWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a 21 year-old abandons his carefree bachelor fantasy and reluctantly marries a girl he accidentally impregnated. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-05-2702 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/17 - Questioning Medical AdviceWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man questions the advice of his doctor and decides to stop taking anti-anxiety medication. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-05-2003 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/16 - Ending a PregnancyWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman shares her decision to end a pregnancy. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-05-1203 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/15 - A Month in JuarezWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a recent college graduate receives an unexpected job offer from his uncle: teach English in Ciudad Juárez. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-05-0403 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/14 - Severing Ties with DadWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man reluctantly decides to sever ties with his father. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-2904 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/13 - Separation and CustodyWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man decides to leave his unfaithful ex-girlfriend and their daughter. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-2703 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/12 - Using Psychic PowerWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman talks about the decision to train and apply her psychic power. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-2202 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/11 - Giving Up on JusticeWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman gives up on justice and ceases prosecution of the man who bankrupted her. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-2002 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/10 - The Breakthrough GigWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a musician talks about his decision to skip an audition in Nashville. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-1503 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/9 - Responding to RapeWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman talks about her decision to not physically resist being raped by a friend. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-1303 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/8 - Lies and TaxesWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a woman talks about her decision to be honest with the IRS. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-0703 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/7 - Ending the MatchWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a professional wrestling referee talks about the split-second decision to end a match, ruin a show, and go off the script. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-04-0503 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/6 - Becoming a Street PerformerWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man decides to become a traveling street performer after losing his family and job. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-03-3103 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/5 - Stop Attending ChurchWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man discusses his decision to stop attending church. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-03-2902 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/4 - Letting GoWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a mother talks about the decision to put her mentally handicapped daughter in a group home. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-03-2503 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/3 - Being AloneWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man who is afraid of being alone talks about his decision to solo-hike the Pacific Crest Trail—at night. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-03-2202 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/2 - Coming OutWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. In this episode, a man discusses the decision to accept his homosexuality. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-03-1602 min

Aengus Anderson Radio The Decisions Project/1 - Pressing ChargesWhat is the hardest decision you have ever made? During the summer of 2010, producer Aengus Anderson rode his motorcycle around North America and asked hundreds of people this question. Ultimately, 220 people agreed to share their decisions on tape, bravely opening windows into the most personal moments of their lives. The Decisions Project is a cross-section of these stories--stories that reveal a constellation of different worlds, moralities, and ways of thinking about the decision-making process. In this episode, a woman talks about her decision to press charges against her daughter. Learn more at www.thedecisionsproject.com

2011-03-1106 min