The Wes Cecil Podcast

Spotify represents a case study in how the logic of Late Capitalism ramifies throughout our lives in ways that destroys fundamental aspects of our culture. Our love of music is leveraged to destroy the ecosystem of music creation and enjoyment. The pattern represented by Spotify is repeated throughout every cultural sphere. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So much for Free Will. Herein Nietzsche attacks the whole question of Free Will - not taking a side but simply pointing out the meaninglessness of most of the conversations surrounding free will.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In an almost Zen Koan kind of way, Late Capitalism increasingly immerses us in a society where we are simultaneously told money is THE most important value but wherein we are no longer able to even determine the price of things. This fundamental rewriting of our assumed economic structure - wherein we can make informed decisions - is eroding the dubious yet pervasive idea that somehow if we get our finances correct everything will work out. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nietzsche rejects Sensualism, Materialism, Metaphysics and any simple understanding of Science with his core concern - an Ethics built on Joy and Vigour derived from a Will to Power that he sees in all life. It is not error he is against, but error that leads to sleepiness. Nietzsche wants a philosophy that wakes us up. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore how late capitalism erodes our sense of history, leaving us in a relentless present. Discover the effects of financialization on individuality and societal orientation. Wes highlights the dangers of 24/7 news cycles that diminish the significance of events. He critiques our reliance on digital memory, linking it to a loss of historical perspective. Through practical exercises, he encourages reflection on past institutions and how advertising manipulates perceptions. Uncover how historical awareness can reveal alternatives to our current reality!

Having attacked most western philosophy, Nietzsche presents one of his core arguments - that all these claims to universal truth and discovery are simply a self-serving pose on the part of philosophers. Understanding his argument fundamentally alters the way we think not just about philosophy, but the construction of our understanding of the world itself. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Explore the bizarre logic of financialization and how it shapes late capitalism. Wes highlights personal experiences, like opaque cell phone billing, as examples of exploitation tactics. Discover how companies turn customer attention into revenue streams and the predatory nature of buy-now-pay-later models. The episode unveils how platforms treat users as commodities and discusses the implications of disorienting design. Finally, Wes emphasizes the importance of local markets and understanding these systems for better mental health.

Wow, Nietzsche rolls out all the rhetorical cannons to open Beyond Good and Evil. He attempts to undercut both the history and focus of Western philosophy and introduce a new basis of thinking based on a different approach to understanding the human. Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The History of Philosophy in 16 Questions - Q17: The Planet?“I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you.” WallStreetPoverty, ignorance, illness and other problems of that kind are not metaphysical emergencies. By the metaphysical nature of man and of existence, man has to maintain his life by his own effort; the values he needs—such as wealth or knowledge—are not given to him automatically, as a gift of nature, but have to be discovered and achieved by his own thinking and work. Rand Virtue of SelfishnessGrazing offers a bounty of benefitsIncreased diversity of plant and animal species. Control of invasive plant species, such as yellow starthistle. Habitat restoration for threatened and endangered species.Controlling erosion from water runoff for improved water quality. Improving vegetation along stream banks and watershed health. Reducing wildfire threat from rangeland fires. Offering visually attractive vistas. Preventing fragmentation of habitat from housing and commercial development and maintaining connected wildlife corridors.Preserving open space in a rapidly growing state. Providing food for consumers. If we really want to reduce the human impact on the environment, the simplest and cheapest thing anyone can do is to eat less meat. Behind most of the joints of beef or chicken on our plates is a phenomenally wasteful, land- and energy-hungry system of farming that devastates forests, pollutes oceans, rivers, seas and air, depends on oil and coal, and is significantly responsible for climate change. The way we breed animals is now recognised by the UN, scientists, economists and politicians as giving rise to many interlinked human and ecological problems, but with 1 billion people already not having enough to eat and 3 billion more mouths to feed within 50 years, the urgency to rethink our relationship with animals is extreme.Sign-up for Wes’s PATREON to get your questions answered by Wes!Plus, gain access to course materials, reading lists, peer discussions, bonus lectures, and Wes’s weekly diaries from France. Only $2 / month.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this discussion, financialization is revealed as a profound force shaping daily life. A call to live on cash for a week exposes how deep its reach is. The contrast between conventional commerce and the invasive nature of global financial actors highlights a dystopian reality. Topics like the surge in credit card debt, hidden costs of transactions, and the impact of tech-driven economies emphasize users turning into products. Philosophical responses offer ways to resist this pervasive financial control.