Doomer Optimism

Today Jason is joined on the podcast by Daniel Schmachtenberger, a social philosopher whose central focus is civilization design and who is also a founding member of The Consilience Project, and Gregory Landua, the founder of Regen Network. What is “high nature,” and what is its relation to high-tech? Can both co-exist? Gregory, Daniel and Jason discuss how to apply tools of coordination and techn...

Ashley and Dougald co-host Adam Greenfield to talk about his idea of LifeHouses as featured here https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/from-churches-to-lifehouses . Previously a rock critic, a bike messenger, a free-clinic medic and a sergeant in the US Army, Adam Greenfield has spent the past quarter-century thinking and working at the intersection of technology, design and politics with everyday...

Donald and Ashley interview Clare Coffey about her trio of articles at The New Atlantis: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/collections/phoneless-carless-friendless Clare Coffey is a writer living in Moscow, Idaho.

Alex Priou is Teaching Assistant Professor in the Herbst Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the author of Becoming Socrates: Political Philosophy in Plato’s Parmenides from University of Rochester Press, as well as a number of articles and essays on the history of political philosophy. He has two books forthcoming this year, Defending Socrates: Political Philosophy Before the Tri...

Today Nate interviews Jacob Wolki from Wolki farms in Australia and is joined later in the episode by Geoff Long of Long Story Farms in South Carolina. They talk pasture agriculture, creative farm marketing strategies, homeschooling, and the relaxation benefits of luxuriating barefoot with cows in the shade. Nathan Gates is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a pod...

Episode description: First time host Donald talks to Rita Koganzon about the politics and history of homeschooling and education in America. Rita Koganzon is assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston. Her research focuses on the themes of education, childhood, authority, and the family in historical and contemporary political thought. Her first book, Liberal States, Aut...

On this episoode of Doomer Optimism, Tres has a sit down with Julia Dakin, Founder of Going to Seed about Landrace, her environmental journey, and why seed diversity is so important. Julia Dakin is a farmer and seed activist in Mendocino County, California. She has been involved in agriculture for most of her life, and has devoted the past few years to growing market crops and teaching the benefit...

Joseph Lofthouse and Julia Dakin joins returning guests/co-hosts Shane Simonsen and Simon Gooder. The gang talk plant breeding, landrace style. They dig into hybrids, genetic crosses, wild analogues and fun things like grexes. Joseph and Shane tell everyone how to get started with home-scale plant breeding, and how optimistic they are about the future of food. Joseph Lofthouse is a sixth-generatio...

Ashley speaks with John and Evan, a Catholic and a Lutheran, about the recent resurgence in interest in religion, and how to embrace faith like a normal person. John Dios (@RealJohnDios) works, lives and worships in rural Eastern Connecticut. In his spare time he produces the Cathedral in the Pines Radio Hour. https://m.soundcloud.com/cathedralpines Evan (@pythonrocksnake) was born in West Africa,...

Keturah Lamb lives the American Dream and fears no establishment. She is 4th generation without a social security number or birth certificate. In her early twenties she found the balance of honoring her family heritage while not letting it hold her back from her visions, and learned the legal loopholes for getting a passport and banking account. She travels (often barefoot) to share about her succ...

Ashley and Ingri (@IngriPauline) discuss women’s health, female archetypes, and how to solve the battle of the sexes. Ingri is a women's weightlifting coach from Los Angeles, California. After serving in the Navy, she got her Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology at California State University Northridge. She has coached CrossFit, nutrition, and weightlifting on three continents since 2008. Her e...

During the night of February 1/2, 2021, a military junta deposed the elected government of Burma (Myanmar) and instituted martial law. Protests followed, answered by a violent and swift crackdown by the newly self-installed military dictatorship. They have attacked protestors in the streets, killed innocent bystanders, and wrongfully detained, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned, and killed many in...

Chris and Ashley speak with Dougald about his new book At Work in the Ruins and where it intersects with both the Small Farm Future and Doomer Optimism. Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer, speaker and the co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME. His latest book is At Work in the Ruins (2023) and he publishes new essays on his Substack, Writing Home. https://linktr.ee...

Ashley and Donald speak with Jane about her review of the book Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson and what being a homemaker means for modern women. ‌ Jane Psmith is a pseudonymous suburban housewife with four kids. She and her husband review books and write about knowledge, culture, and institutions at  thepsmiths.substack.com . Her review of Home Comforts is here:  https://thepsmiths.substack.com...

Flávia Macêdo (@flaviagoma) and Jason have a conversation about her work in Brazil to create a local currency that reflects and reinforces values that aren't reflected in the fiat money system, her interest in collaborative food production and agroforestry, how her work interfaces with larger political structures, her work connecting with and building global support networks of like minded people...

In this episode Jason has a conversation with Dakotah Apostolou, CEO of Cohere Network @coherenetwork about their plans to build a global network of regenerative villages, their innovative and inclusive economic model, how they plan to collaborate with local populations, and much more Twitter thread describing what they are doing: https://twitter.com/coherenetwork/status/1506614056647598086 Bio: &...

Two frequent guest/hosts sit down to try to hash out what the f#@k is going on with all this weird horseshoe politics business. But first they set the stage with a discussion of their beloved western trout and the beautiful places they reside. The chat moved to western ecologies, public lands, and James' book Chosen Country as well as his recent Vanity Fair article on the strange convergence of pr...

-In this episode Jason has a conversation with Chris Jagger (@reggaj) and Viktor Zaunders (@zaunders) about the marketing and distribution (or post-farm) side of local and regenerative food systems. They discuss the various models, including farmer's markets, food hubs, CSAs, and cooperatives, the role of digital technology, and what the major challenges and opportunities are in building regenerat...

Welcome to a Heartland edition of Doomer Optimism. Today Nate goes into the belly of the agribeast with Zach Smith and Jason Mauck. Representing the grain belt from Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, the trio discusses the status quo in big agriculture, making a living from the land, and human scale innovation. A major question is how to scale back the total acreage of farms while increasing production a...

Patrick ( @RizomaAt ) gets the keys to the podcast Ferrari to chat with @hi_frye and @butteryfur , Cozy Twitter power couple and  amateur construction enthusiasts.  The topic is their project of dreaming and scheming up their own tiny house, in which they now dwell. A DIY story that hits close to home, join us as we hear from the builders themselves about this tiny, but by no means small...

Paul, Alex and Ioan talk about searching for an intentional community, how to find the place and the people you can belong to, and community with the land you live on. Paul d'Aoust @helioscomm is a member of an unintentional intentional community, living, eating, making music, and gardening with hiswith his wife, kids, and in-laws on an acreage in western Canada. He is trying, usually falteringly,...

In this episode of Doomer Optimism, Brendan, Jim and Nate discuss the role that narrative and stories play in shaping the way we perceive the world around us and continually recreate the structures and processes that cohere to the narrative that we tell ourselves and each other about the world. We are narrative creatures at our core, and in our present time there are a great many competing stories...

Andrew and Jason have a conversation around topics related anarchism, solar punk, and degrowth Andrew is a writer, artist, and YouTuber based in Trinidad & Tobago. As an ardent anarchist and firm believer in power to the people, Andrew aims to invigorate imaginations and encourage people to create a better world in the shell of the old. Andrew has an excellent youtube channel that can be found...

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, Simon Gooder and Tres Crow interview experimental farmer and science fiction author Shane Simonsen. Shane talks about his farming experiments in his difficult Australian ecosystem, and then dives into the impetus behind his science fiction novella series set in the distant future. About Shane Simonsen About Shane Simonsen Shane is a scientist, documenting his ex...

In this episode Jason speaks with Kimberly (@blkhomesteader) about her path towards gardening and homesteading, the Black homesteading and farming movement, the importance of own production and skill-building, the irony of underutilized land and problems of land access, political advocacy especially at the hyper-local level with HOAs, veganism and small scale livestock production, the hiphopisgree...