logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2020
1h 34m

The most important book I've read this y...

Vox
About this episode
If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future.  Best known for the Mars trilogy, Robinson is one of the greatest living science fiction writers. And in recent years, he's become the greatest writers of what people now call cli-fi — climate fiction. The nam ... Show More
Up next
Today
The people who want AI to replace us
Sean talks with writer Sigal Samuel about AI successionism, the growing movement that sees artificial intelligence as humanity’s rightful successor. They discuss why some people in the AI world think humanity should be replaced, how this vision borrows from old religious ideas ab ... Show More
49m 14s
Jun 8
Understanding our dreams
Sean talks with dream scientist Michelle Carr about what dreams are, why we have them, and what they might reveal about the mind. They discuss nightmares, lucid dreaming, memory, consciousness, and whether dreams are just random brain noise or a kind of overnight therapy. They al ... Show More
47m 57s
Jun 1
Do we really need to work so hard?
Americans have absorbed the Protestant work ethic: the idea that our value as human beings – and our eventual salvation – is determined by how hard we work. Political philosopher Elizabeth Anderson explains how this evolved, why it pervades everything, and why it’s no longer serv ... Show More
41m 50s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2022
Margaret Atwood on Stories, Deception and the Bible
<p>A good rule of thumb is that whatever Margaret Atwood is worried about now is likely what the rest of us will be worried about a decade from now. The rise of authoritarianism. A backlash against women’s social progress. The seductions and dangers of genetic engineering. Climat ... Show More
1h 8m
Mar 2022
How science fiction can shape our reality | Your Undivided Attention
The meta-crisis is so vast: climate change, exponential technology, addiction, polarization and more. How do we grasp it, let alone take steps to address it? One of the thinking tools we have at our disposal is science fiction. To the extent that we co-evolve with our stories, sc ... Show More
28m 14s
Jun 2023
Fighting Capitalism's Ecological Death Cult
Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of climate catastrophe and the challenges in confronting the state and market behind the disaster. Climate catastrophe is intensifying at an alarming pace. Capital and governments clearly have no intention of stopping it; for them, free marke ... Show More
1h 28m
Jan 2022
94/ The Political Economy of Solarpunk w/ Andrew Dana Hudson
<p>This is a conversation with speculative fiction writer and &nbsp;sustainability researcher Andrew Dana Hudson. His stories have appeared &nbsp;in Slate Future Tense, Lightspeed Magazine, Vice Terraform, MIT &nbsp;Technology Review, Grist, Little Blue Marble, The New Accelerato ... Show More
1h 37m
Aug 2022
Three Sentences That Could Change the World — and Your Life
<p>Today’s show is built around <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/opinion/the-case-for-longtermism.html" target="_blank">three simple sentences</a>: “Future people count. There could be a lot of them. And we can make their lives better.” Those sentences form the foundat ... Show More
1h 8m
Apr 2024
Dominic Boyer, "No More Fossils" (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
Our hosts, Devin Griffiths and Deanna Kreisel, sat down with Dominic Boyer to talk about his new book, No More Fossils, which appeared just last year (2023) from the University of Minnesota's "Forerunners" series. We talked at length about his book, its gestation in basic questio ... Show More
59m 18s
Jan 2022
Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future
<p>In this episode of Red Menace, Alyson and Breht discuss and analyze <a href= "https://www.versobooks.com/books/3138-climate-leviathan">"Climate Leviathan" by authors Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright.</a></p> <p>Book description: "Despite the science and the summits, leading capi ... Show More
1h 57m
Oct 2021
91/ Satisfying Human Needs at Low Energy Use (With Jefim Vogel & Julia Steinberger)
<p>This is a conversation with <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/see/pgr/2305/jefim-vogel" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Jefim Vogel</a> of the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds, and <a href="https://www.unil.ch/gse/fr/home/menuinst/v ... Show More
1h 17m
Dec 2022
Robin Ince and the joy of popular-science books
Our traditional end-of-year episode will give you some holiday reading ideas 
26m 32s
Jan 2021
Book Club #3 - Janvier 2021 - Essentialism, Greg Mckeown
tail spinning
2m 5s