Last Born In The Wilderness

I speak with Michael Laufer, chief spokesperson for the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective. Four Thieves is a network of individuals that seeks to make commonly inaccessible medicines affordable and accessible to the public. We tackle the ethics behind the project, the anticapitalist/anarchist structure of the network, and the various DIY technologies the Collective has been able to make more afforda...

Indigenous artist, activist, and author Gord Hill—also known as Zig Zag—joined me for this episode. He has authored and illustrated numerous books and graphic novels, including the excellent The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book and The Antifa Comic Book. A major theme that runs through this discussion is the recognition of the growing intersection between traditionally Eurocentric leftist politi...

In this joint interview, RS and I speak with Dahr Jamail, investigative journalist and the author of The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. After meeting Dahr for his book release at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, we sat down with Jamail to discuss his journey writing this book. // Episode notes + video: https://www.lastborninthewilderne...

I speak with Dean Spillane-Walker, author of The Impossible Conversation: Choosing Reconnection and Resilience at the End of Business as Usual and the host of The Poetry of Predicament podcast. We pick up where we left off from our first discussion on The Poetry of Predicament: how to approach a more sane and connected means of discussing our "predicament-laden times" in the face of radical social...

I speak with Dr. Karla Tait—clinical psychologist, Director of Programming for the Unist'ot'en Healing Center, and member of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in so-called British Columbia, Canada. I asked Dr. Tait to bring us up to speed on the details surrounding the recent incursions into Wet'suwet'en Territory by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on January 7th; the legal dimension of this...

I’m joined by Trebbe Johnson, author of Radical Joy for Hard Times: Finding Meaning and Making Beauty in Earth's Broken Places. We discuss how in a "world devastated by human interaction and natural disaster—from clearcutting and fracking to extreme weather and urban sprawl—creating art, ritual, and even joy in wounded places is essential to our collective healing.” // Episode notes: https://www.l...

I speak with writer, lawyer, and environmental activist Will Falk. In 2014 and 2015, he spent a great deal of time at the Unist’ot’en Camp, part of the Wet’suwet’en Nation (in so-called British Columbia). We place Falk’s activism and insights about his time at the camp within the upheaval currently unfolding there. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), on January 7th, breached the borders of W...

I speak with anarchist and writer Peter Gelderloos. He is the author of numerous books, two of which we examine in this interview: How Nonviolence Protects the State and Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation. // Episode notes + transcript: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/peter-gelderloos // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness /...

I speak with Professor Siniša Malešević, Full Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University College in Dublin, Ireland. Professor Malešević is the author of numerous books, including The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence and the upcoming Grounded Nationalisms. We discuss his research into the historical formation of nationalism in the modern era and how the moldi...

I speak with Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. We examine his recent essay, Our Bonus Decade, in which he examines the role peak oil played in the 2008 financial crisis and what the long-term consequences will be of the fossil fuel industry’s transition to unconventional...

In this episode, I speak with Alley Valkyrie and Rhyd Wildermuth, co-founders of Gods & Radicals Press and the hosts of the Empires Crumble podcast. We discuss the recent widespread civil unrest in France—dubbed Les Gilets Jaunes, or the Yellow Vest movement in the Anglophone world—a response to President Emmanuel Macron's decision to implement a fuel tax hike in France. They provide needed contex...

I speak with Dezeray Lyn, an activist, street medic, and co-organizer of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADR), a "national network made up of many eco-activists, social justice activists, global justice activists, permaculturalists, community organizers, and others who are actively organizing around supporting disaster survivors in a spirit of mutual aid and solidarity." // Episode notes: https://www...

I speak with Stephen Siff, Associate Professor of Journalism at Miami University and the author of Acid Hype: American News Media and the Psychedelic Experience. We get into the US news media's role in the promotion and, in particular, the "hype," of psychedelic drug use in the 1950s and '60s—initially by prominent public figures and the intelligentsia and eventually the wider population more gene...

In this episode, I speak with Michael Sliwa—author, former educator, and “one of the foremost speakers on simple living.” My discussion with Michael addresses the traps of modernity, including work, consumerism, and settler-colonialism. I asked him to describe the path he has taken to move further away from the center of Empire in an attempt to liberate himself from false needs and excessive wants...

Stand-up comedian and political commentator Lee Camp joined me to discuss his new comedy special, Super Patriotic Very Uncle Sam Comedy Special Not Allowed On American TV—his first comedy special in over four years. We discuss such topics as the value of voting under a corporate oligarchy, our “inverted moral universe,” and the far-reaching implications of the recently revealed sealed indictment a...

In this episode, I speak with Aimee Lewis-Reau and LaUra Schmidt, co-founders of the Good Grief Network, an organization that “cultivates individual resilience to metabolize collective grief.” // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/lewis-reau-schmidt // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast [...

In this episode, I speak with Mirna Wabi-Sabi—writer and co-editor of Gods & Radicals Press. We discuss the recent presidential election in her home country of Brazil, the subject of her recent piece; voting and the farce of liberal democracy; the destruction of Indigenous and Quilombist peoples’ lands, culture, and heritage and the ecocide currently underway in the rainforests of Brazil; and the...

Historian of American Religion and author John G. Turner joined me to discuss the origins and development of the uniquely American religion The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (or, as it is more colloquially referred to, the Mormon Church). He explored these subjects in his biography, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, about the church’s influential second president, and in his more recen...

In the second half of the Another End of the World Is Possible event, we were joined by gonzo journalist, conjurer, and political theorist Dr. Bones. Continuing with the theme of this event, we fit the global rise of far-right violence within the larger ecological crisis underway on our planet. What role can mutual aid and militant organizing play in adapting to the rapidly disintegrating life sys...

In this discussion with award-winning environmental journalist Dahr Jamail, we begin by addressing the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I asked Dahr to unpack the data and projections in the report, with Dahr noting that the report excludes much of the more recent and varied data of the non-linear, exponential change in the climate system as a result of huma...

I speak with Spencer Sunshine. He is a researcher, journalist, activist, and political consultant regarding far-right movements. The last time I spoke with Spencer was a year ago, soon after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, in August 2017, in which we discussed the fallout of that event. In this conversation, we catch up on the developments of the far right over the pa...

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Helen Caldicott, the "single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises.” Our conversation addresses several key subjects, including the fallout of the nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011; the myths and lies that surround nuclear power as a sustainable energy source; th...

I speak with Joe Brewer—complexity researcher, cognitive scientist, and evangelist for the field of culture design. We discuss the social, economic, and ecological collapse we are currently in the midst of as a result of the destructive impacts of human industrial activity and the cultural value systems that uphold these practices. We also discuss Brewer’s work in designing cultural evolution thro...

I speak with Kate Harris, author of the captivating travel memoir Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road. We discuss living off-grid in Atlin, British Columbia; Kate’s complex relationship with Marco Polo and the famed and mythologized explorers from the “Old World”; and her life-expanding decision to traverse the famed Silk Road by bike with her childhood friend. // Episode notes: http...

I speak with anarcho-primitivist writer and philosopher John Zerzan. We discuss his in-depth analysis of the roots of Time as we understand it to be in the modern sense, explored in a collection of essays, Time and Time Again; the roots of agriculture, the domestication of life, and the detrimental impact this transition has had on human health and physical development; the neuroses of mass societ...