let's THiNK about it

Mapping out how we got here, and why Baudrillard's ideas of the simulation and simulacrum can explain much about how our institutions and ideals have lost touch with their original motivating force, falling into simulating previous goals. "After the orgy" is an essay on the post-modern plight that Ryder briefly reads through in Part 3.  1:32 Part 1: Where we are at, and why Baudrillard can help  A...

This is a loosely beginner friendly, and broad, look at Baudrillard's notions of simulacrum and simulation.  Baudrillard is frequently cited in the art world in reference to all things that have steps away from the original, just like any artist using multiples (lots of something) tends to mention Walter Benjamin. Once the simulation, the illusion, or the copy comes into play, we need to start thi...

In his interview, we discuss Tom's book. While speculative fiction, it is based in a realism that predicts a chain of events leading to a more and more despotic, tyrannical presidency by Trump. While somewhat dystopian, it is lively, and shows a number of flaws and strengths in our democratic process. During the show we discuss Trump, facts as stranger than fiction, and how this becomes a difficul...

This was a delightful conversation with Rebecca Coffey, author of the book "Science and lust" available on Amazon, or wherever you buy things that make you smarter. We cover a lot of ground, while primarily remaining focused on our shared heritage with apes and our evolutionary basis for behavior. We discuss Freud, Darwin, Morris, natural selection and how culture and sexual selection modify our b...

This week, I talk with Zackary Seitz, a doctoral student in Education and Social Studies at Univeristy of Texas at Denton. We cover how to be a global citizen, especially when our globalized society is composed of multi-national companies, often dominated by them more than by the nation/states with whom we affiliate most often. This neoliberal, globalized capitalism works well for consumers (and t...

Part 1  Is the culture of new capitalism, and our capitalist economy creating a New Politics? Yes, of course. Increasingly, there is a divide between the wealthy workers who are, as Robert Reich calls them, the SKILLS ELITE and the stagnant middle class. These achievers, these skills elite, the "symbolic analysts" in the new institutional model are not provided with a life-narrative or promise of...

During the depression people couldn't find work, so now we get an education, but today we still can't find work, and have lost our place in a society that devalues craftsmanship, stability, and experience in favor of speed, superficial processing, and potential ability.  Part 1: SKILL & TALENT Sennett asks, how does SKILL translate into TALENT? And how does TALENT translate to economic value? Senn...

PART 1: militarization of society Tracing back to Max Weber’s insights, Sennett talks about the “iron cage” of the militarized bureaucracy is mapped onto society by Otto Von Bismarck. This does 2 things: it gives everyone a place in society, so they won’t rebel, and it creates “rationalized time.” That is regimented time you can plan around, which develops agency for citizens. For the first time,...

THE PUNISHER, is a comic book character who is an ex-military, badass vigilante. He is all dark and broody, and smashy and gunsy. In 2019 the Punisher death’s head skull logo became conflated with the police movement ‘blue lives matter’ and ‘the thin blue line.’ What we want to do, is not only recognize where this comes from, but how it works in our society, despite it’s myriad contradictions. PAR...

For the podcast's first interview, L and I read William James "Pragmatism" as well as a few other texts. We are mostly concerned with how objective and subjective truths or beliefs intertwine, at once having a framework to gauge and judge truth and it's use in the real world, but wanting to maintain a pluralistic notion that allows space for fallibility and individual experience.  

PART 1:  grand truths We have become really good during our post-structuralist, deconstructionist era of pointing out the flaws in broad concepts of truth or good. Instead, we now champion individuals over collective identity… unless that collective identity is for individuals.  So, big generalized broad-brush truths usually give way to individual truths: my truth is not your truth, my good is not...

PART I :  Rage Snyder brings up feeling “rage” … lonely rage while lying in a hospital bed. Before COVID hit, he was in 3 hospitals and each one misdiagnosed him, or flat out ignored his desperate efforts to show them paperwork for previous hospital visits. A bit about Snyder:  Snyder is a historian at Yale specializing in Russia, Germany, and Eastern Europe, and he has a brilliant way of spotting...

Gut Decisions “The core of the managerial mystique is decision-making prowess”  Robert Jackall So, if decisions were easy, they would be made by someone else, so it is only the big money, big risk decisions that are looked at to determine your prowess. 1,000’s of jobs and the future of the division are on the line. How do you make the call? By your gut. The rules of a manager are : “(1) Avoid maki...

Part I: Protestant Work Ethic Max Weber has a phrase: “secular ascetism” where you subjugate your impulses to God’s will, through “restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly calling”. This entangles religious values (hard work, self-reliance, frugality) with work values and success, but over time the religious trappings slipped, opening up to conspicuous wealth and consumer culture. So, wh...

Part I We all know we are addicted to our phones, but can it really be a bad thing to think all the time? Yes, it can. The stories we tell ourselves trigger a little a dopamine buzz, activating part of the DMN (Default Network Mode), which means we increasingly live in our own head listening to our own stories. The problem becomes compounded when the PCC (posterior cingulate cortex) is activated,...

Ryder takes a walk, and ends up musing about his neighbor's Xmas decorations, the lack of participation, and if that means anything. Expecting a conspiracy he researches the use of Xmas lights and a short history leading back to the White House and Thomas Edison. Eventually he discusses the movement of all things from physical to virtual space. Pulling form the classic text "The Sacred and Profane...

Part I In a reaction to the previous podcast, step 23, my wife and I discussed the problem of tyrants, or mini-tyrants, who practice repressive tactics based on fear, coercion, and cronyism, and how reducing guilt and shame may not be helpful in combatting them. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.” Carl Jung The notion that is hard to fathom is...

Moving through the psychology of guilt vs Shame, and onto the societal implications of a shame-based or guilt-based culture, invoking Max Weber's "Protestant Work Ethic" as roots for our meritocracy, Hannah Arendt and Timothy Snyder's texts on the Nazi occupations and how people not only obeyed in advance, but used words to distance themselves from reality. This is linked to the American South, an...

Returning to Michael J. Sandel's "The Tyranny of Merit" we tackle how the college system establishes a sorting machine based on credentials. Sandel shows how the attempt at equal opportunity through education and standardized testing has allowed the wealthy to, once again, rise to the top and form a hereditary aristocracy.  However, the winners feel that they deserve their success due to the  stru...

Michael J. Sandel, a Harvard philosophy professor, questions the assumption that by working hard and playing by the rules you deserve what you earn. This "meritocratic" notion of justice is observably increasing inequality and fostering a winner/loser culture that led to the populist backlash of Trump and Brexit.  https://thewilltodiy.com/step-20-tyranny-of-merit-pt-1/ Part I: What is Meritocracy...

Part I We are in the era of "treat yo' self" and "you deserve it," which is at odds with the attitudes and behaviors of many successful people. What is will power? Ryder maps out three types of will found in psychoanalysis and how they relate to time. Freudian can be considered the "will to pleasure" based on your past, Adlerian is the "will to power (or superiority)" based around the present, and...

PART I : Time travel is a technology that allows us to fix mistakes, to rewrite our failures. This gives us more agency and less humility. WE begin to relate to our agency more than people. In the movie "The Fountain" the doctor spends his time searching for a solution rather than spending time with his love.  If tech amplifies your desires and will (speeds them up), but we cannot control our desi...

We first pick on Rene Descartes for championing internal reasoning as a way to know yourself, instead of community, objective reality, or some form of morals and ethics. In Matthew Crawford's "Shopclass as Soul Craft" he mentions this division as he draws our attention to subtle distinctions about how people relate to the world. Primarily, how does one make a choice and act on it when "desire" dri...

Drawing from ideas in "Marginal Revolution" and "Sapiens," Ryder discusses some ideas on how our society is formed through tribes and stories. The internet and social media have thrown a wrench in social cohesion: after we became quite good at deconstructing all the narratives that held a society together, now we promote madness and contradiction.  In an attempt at a path forward, Ryder draws from...

In this episode Ryder discusses how ideas become pervasive. We accept that technology is progress, and the thing we created, now controls us under the guise of being essential or more efficient. And essentialism is at odds with human needs and society.  Ryder walks through how online surveillance to enhance products also captured 'exhaust data' which tracked users behavior. Eventually google figur...