Origin Story

Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey host an evening of storytelling, debate, gallows humour and intense irritation recorded with an audience on a balmy evening in Soho, London.They look at the idea of The Elite. What the hell does it mean? Where did it come from? How has it changed over the years? And why does it always seem to refer to whoever you happen to disagree with? For their sins Dorian and Ian read Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics by Matthew Goodwin and pick apart the case against the so-called “new elite".Reading list:Matthew Goodwin - Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British PoliticsCharles Wright Mills - The Power EliteWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts, people and events you thought you knew. In a first for Origin Story, Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt focus on a living figure: the ubiquitous and divisive richest man in the world, Elon Musk.In the past two years the public perception of Musk has changed dramatically, from Time's Man of the Year and “real-life Iron Man" to radicalised right-wing troll and destroyer of Twitter. Ian and Dorian trace his journey from sci-fi obsessed child prodigy in Apartheid-era South Africa to dotcom entrepreneur to the self-appointed techno-messiah at the helm of SpaceX and Tesla, and ask what happened to the man who said he wanted to save the world. They discuss what his career says about the arc of Silicon Valley and 21st-century capitalism, the cult of technocracy and the dangers of believing your own hype.Support Origin Story on Patreon for exclusive benefits: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  “He doesn’t seem that interested in money. The choices he’s made have not been your regular ‘rich guy’ choices.” – Dorian Lynskey “On Twitter some of the disinformation has been morally abysmal. You think, how could you be a person who would even write these words?” – Ian Dunt "He said it was the duty of the educated to reproduce so ‘we don’t devolve into a not very literate, theocratic and unenlightened future.’ It’s low-level eugenics.” — Dorian Lynskey Reading list:Eric Berger – Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceXAgustin Ferrari Braun – The Elon Musk Experience: Celebrity Management in Financialised CapitalismDavid S. Kidder – The Startup PlaybookHamish McKenzie – Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of OilAshlee Vance – Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Is Shaping Our FutureDouglas Coupland, ‘The smartest person in any room anywhere:’ in defence of Elon Musk, The Observer, 2021Tad Friend, Plugged In, The New Yorker, 2009Jordan Liles – What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor, Snopes, 2022Linette Lopez, Elon Musk Doesn’t Care About You, Business Insider, 2018David J Roth, Burning Down the House, Defector, 2023Neil Strauss – Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow, Rolling Stone, 2017Matthew Sweet, Why Jeff Bezos and Elon’s Musk real business inspiration is science-fiction, The Times, 2021The Elon Musk Show, BBC documentary, 2022I Do Not like Elon Musk Very Much, Behind the Bastards podcastElon Musk: The Techno Shaman, Decoding the Gurus podcastWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Explaining the most misunderstood ideas and people in politicsIn another two-parter, Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt break down the long, THORNY history of Zionism. In part two, the horror of the Holocaust persuades the international community to mandate a Jewish state in Palestine, with the surprising endorsement of Stalin, but Zionism remains divided. In the year of Israel’s 75th anniversary, Ian and Dorian discuss how successive governments lost the left and courted the right, what happened to Theodor Herzl’s utopian vision, and what people really mean when they say they are anti-Zionist.Hear the next episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  "In 1948 Israel is one of the most popular countries in the world, perhaps the only country supported by both sides of the Cold War." – Dorian Lynskey "Ultimately if you restrict Zionism to the oldest idea of a homeland for Jews for safety and identity, that is a really provocative, radical and interesting idea.” – Ian Dunt Reading list:Steven Beller – HerzlLenni Brenner – Zionism in the Age of DictatorsWalter Laqueur – A History of ZionismAlex Ryvchin – Zionism: The Concise HistoryAvi Shlaim – The Iron WallMichael Stanislawski – Zionism: A Very Short IntroductionMelvin J. Urofsky – American Zionism from Herzl to the HolocaustJeff Walker – The Revisionists and the Rise of Right-Wing ZionismGeoffrey Wheatcroft – Churchill’s ShadowPaul Bogdanor’s critique of Lenni Brennerhttps://fathomjournal.org/an-antisemitic-hoax-lenni-brenner-on-zionist-collaboration-with-the-nazis/The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, by Shlomo AvineriWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Explaining the most misunderstood ideas and people in politics.In another two-parter, Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt break down the long thorny history of Zionism. In part one, covering the 1890s to the 1930s, they explain how Theodor Herzl single handedly created a movement for a Jewish nation, Chaim Weizmann won over Churchill and Balfour, and Ze’ev Jabotinsky sowed the seeds of Likud. Utopian dreams wrestle with hard-nosed pragmatism as the Zionists clash with the world’s great powers, and each other, about what a Jewish nation should be. Hear Part Two right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  “Herzl didn’t see the Holocaust coming but he was a realist about the durability of antisemitism.” — Dorian Lynskey It’s a very communistic, very socialistic, very politically radical community that ends up in Palestine.” — Ian Dunt “At the time of Herzl’s death, only about one per cent of the world’s Jews were Zionists.” — Dorian Lynskey Reading list:Steven Beller – HerzlLenni Brenner – Zionism in the Age of DictatorsWalter Laqueur – A History of ZionismAlex Ryvchin – Zionism: The Concise HistoryAvi Shlaim – The Iron WallMichael Stanislawski – Zionism: A Very Short IntroductionMelvin J. Urofsky – American Zionism from Herzl to the HolocaustJeff Walker – The Revisionists and the Rise of Right-Wing ZionismGeoffrey Wheatcroft – Churchill’s ShadowPaul Bogdanor’s critique of Lenni Brenner:https://fathomjournal.org/an-antisemitic-hoax-lenni-brenner-on-zionist-collaboration-with-the-nazis/The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State, by Shlomo AvineriWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts, people and events you thought you knew.In part two of the story of climate change denial Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey take a closer look at the techniques of the “merchants of doubt" who took the denial of man made global warming into the mainstream. Ian tells the real story behind 2009’s phoney scandal “Climategate”, while Dorian reads Michael Crichton’s crank thriller State of Fear and watches the controversial Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle to explain how denial became a kind of conspiracy theory.A tale of wild claims, false balance, scientists under siege and the giant mess that the deniers have left behind.Hear the next episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  “It’s the most malicious, cynical, unrepresentative assault on good science that you can imagine” – Ian Dunt "It’s apparently a conspiracy between corrupt scientists, hippies, neo-Marxists and Margaret Thatcher. I would love to have been at the meetings." – Dorian Lynskey “Science operates within doubt, that’s how it moves forward” – Ian Dunt Reading List: Michael Crichton – State of FearRoss Gelbspan – The Heat Is On: The High Stakes Battle Over Earth’s Threatened ClimateClive Hamilton – Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate ChangeBjorn Lomborg – The Skeptical EnvironmentalistChris Mooney – The Republican War on ScienceThomas Gale Moore – Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry About Global WarmingNaomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway – Merchants of DoubtNathaniel Rich – Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate ChangePeter Stott – Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change DenialThe Great Global Warming Swindle (Channel 4)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYhCQv5tNsQWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts, people and events you thought you knew. This time: Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey try to cool their tempers as they take on climate change denial. They trace denial’s journey from fossil-fuel lobbyists and neoliberal think tanks into the heart of the mainstream media and lay out the dire consequences.In this first part Ian and Dorian discuss how global warming grew from a minor nineteenth-century hypothesis into the consensus scientific position by the eco-conscious 1970s. Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House and even Margaret Thatcher was worried about carbon emissions. Starting in 1988, though, contrarian scientists, lobbyists and right-wing politicians weaponised scepticism to ensure that nothing was done about it. Also: how discredited panics about overpopulation and a new ice age helped to fuel the politics of denial.Conspiracy theories, culture wars, pseudo-science and media credulity come together in the story of one of the greatest scandals of modern times.Hear Part Two right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod Tickets for the Origin Story live show are available now: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZwCihZbENZ “It is extraordinary how far back this goes…there’s cross-party recognition of man-made climate change in the 1960’s.” – Ian Dunt “It’s incredible that the Clean Air Act actually makes global warming worse.” – Dorian Lynskey “It’s the same technique as McCarthy, used again and again.” – Ian Dunt Reading List: Michael Crichton – State of FearRoss Gelbspan – The Heat Is On: The High Stakes Battle Over Earth’s Threatened ClimateClive Hamilton – Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate ChangeBjorn Lomborg – The Skeptical EnvironmentalistChris Mooney – The Republican War on ScienceThomas Gale Moore – Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry About Global WarmingNaomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway – Merchants of DoubtNathaniel Rich – Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate ChangePeter Stott – Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change DenialThe Great Global Warming Swindle (Channel 4)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYhCQv5tNsQWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts you thought you knew.Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey pick up the story of nuclear war in the 1950s with the arrival of the H-bomb, and travel from the deadly face-off the Cuban Missile Crisis to the theory of nuclear winter and the place of nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War world.Kennedy and Khrushchev contemplate the abyss, Ronald Reagan frets about Armageddon, and Dr Strangelove brings the twisted psychology of nuclear deterrence to the screen. Plus the dark allure of the Cobalt Bomb, the Doomsday Machine that never existed.It’s a story of threats, war games and hair-raising close shaves. Did the strategists get it right in the end or were we just very lucky?Listen to next week’s episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod “In the US there was a recognition over and over by presidents stating…we know that if we fire, we get fired back on.” – Ian Dunt “(the Cuban Missile Crisis) brought the world to the abyss of destruction and the end of mankind.” – Robert Kennedy “Distrust almost destroyed the world” – Dorian Lynskey Reading List: Luis Alvarez – Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist Martin Amis – Einstein’s Monsters Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin – American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer David C. Cassidy – J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi – The Worlds of Herman Kahn Herman Kahn – On Thermonuclear War William Lanouette – Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard William L. Laurence – Dawn Over Zero: The Story of the Atomic Bomb Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk - Indefensible Weapons Ronald Reagan – An American Life Jonathan Schell – The Fate of the Earth P.D. Smith – Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon H.G. Wells – The World Set Free The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, by Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey MichaelsThe Ascent of Man by Jacob BronowskiWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts you thought you knew. This time: the ‘genocide machine’ – nuclear war. With Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer on its way and anxieties about Putin’s nuclear arsenal in the air, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey take us through how the human race learned to live with the first weapon that could potentially spell global annihilation.From the invention of the atomic bomb in a novel by HG Wells to the triumph of the Manhattan Project and the horror of Hiroshima, a modern Pandora’s Box opens. Einstein calls his role in the story his “one great mistake”, Oppenheimer says he has blood on his hands, and an anxious world wonders if it will be blown up tomorrow.This one has the lot: fear, guilt, paranoia and a glimpse of the end of the world.Listen to Part 2 right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  “It wasn’t just a weapon. It’s an angry god. It’s Godzilla.” – Dorian Lynskey “The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish… The atomic bomb has spelled [these words] out for all to understand.” – J Robert Oppenheimer    “There should be a statue of Vasili Arkhipov in every town in the world. His refusal to fire stopped a nuclear war.” – Ian Dunt Reading List: Luis Alvarez – Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist Martin Amis – Einstein’s Monsters Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin – American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer David C. Cassidy – J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi – The Worlds of Herman Kahn Herman Kahn – On Thermonuclear War William Lanouette – Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard William L. Laurence – Dawn Over Zero: The Story of the Atomic Bomb Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk - Indefensible Weapons Ronald Reagan – An American Life Jonathan Schell – The Fate of the Earth P.D. Smith – Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon H.G. Wells – The World Set Free The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, by Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey MichaelsThe Ascent of Man by Jacob BronowskiWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This time: the tumultuous history of Atheism. The concept has been around since the ancient world but for centuries it was demonised and suppressed. Who could believe such a thing? Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey track the ultimate heresy from the earliest days of western civilisation to the freethinkers of the Enlightenment and the bare-knuckle oratory of the New Atheists.What’s the difference between atheism, agnosticism, secularism and deism? What does it stand for? Can it explain the world while also satisfying the need for meaning and community? Was totalitarianism the monstrous zenith of atheism or just a substitute religion?Thomas Paine, Bertrand Russell, Percy Shelley, Albert Camus, Richard Dawkins and more feature in the story of the fight for the right not to believe in God.Listen to next week’s episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  “Every day around the world it is incalculable the amount of damage done by religions saying; you can’t go there, you can’t marry them, you can’t say that.” – Ian Dunt “Declaring oneself an atheist is still a bold claim.” – Dorian Lynskey “It’s quite a humbling experience to think it’s taken us 1,500 years to get back to the position we were in in 300AD.” – Ian Dunt Reading List:  Julian Baggini – Atheism: A Very Short Introduction David Berman – A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell Albert Camus – The Myth of Sisyphus John Gray – Seven Types of Atheism Christopher Hitchens – God Is Not Great Christopher Hitchens (ed.) – The Portable Atheist Susan Jacoby – Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism Percy Bysshe Shelley – The Necessity of Atheism James Thrower – A Short History of Western Atheism Tim Whitmarsh – Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient WorldRichard Dawkins – The God DelusionWritten and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Episode art by James Parrett. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt explain the most misunderstood ideas and people in politics.This time: part 2 of their Winston Churchill deconstruction. The pair chronicle the turbulent decade that defined Churchill's political legacy. From Munich and his unexpected elevation to power, from the Bengal Famine to victory over Hitler, his surprise defeat in the 1945 election and his long, gloomy decline, they look at a life which still casts a shadow over Britain. And they even read Boris Johnson’s Churchill book, so you don’t have to.Churchill craved greatness. Did he live up to his ideal? There’s only one way to find out…Listen to next week’s episode right now when you support Origin Story on Patreon: www.Patreon.com/originstorypod  “I think what he did was primarily journalism, rather than being a prime minister.” – Ian Dunt “People think they can look at Churchill like a lifestyle guru they can replicate without the nuance.” – Dorian Lynskey  “Churchill personifies the European confusion that has lasted in this country to the present day” – Ian Dunt Reading List:Churchill by Roy JenkinsThe Churchill Factor by Boris JohnsonChurchill: Military Genius or Menace? By Stephen NapierChurchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Thomas E. RicksChurchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew RobertsOblivion or Glory: 1921 and the Making of Winston Churchill by David StaffordChurchill’s Shadow by Geoffrey WheatcroftFree Thinking: Churchill's Reputation – BBC Radio 3Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.https://twitter.com/OriginStorycast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices