
Astral Flight Simulation
Navigating the digital world through art and culture
Latest episodes

May 6, 2025 • 1h 33min
Ingmar Bergman's "Persona"
Josh and I discuss Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece, PersonaFollow Josh on Substack at PsychopoliticsFollow me on Substack at Astral Flight Simulation

May 6, 2025 • 1h 20min
Shiloh Hendricks and the Word of Power
Shiloh Hendricks was caught on video calling a man, and was accused of calling a child, “the N word” with a “hard R.” In other words, she broke the “alpha taboo” of language. She set up a GiveSendGo to help fund the looming legal battle she knows is coming. We support her, and explain why in todays episode, but more importantly, we also explore why we both believe this is a watershed moment in the history of race relations in America going back to the Civil Rights era.John wrote what I consider to be the quintessential essay on both the event itself and race relations in the fallout from the Austin Metcalf murder and Shiloh Hendricks affair.Read his article here: Stripping The Word Of It’s Power and follow him on SubstackAnd follow me on Substack for way more content!

Apr 21, 2025 • 1h 39min
The Years of Great Silence: The Plight of Ethnic Germans in Bolshevik Russia
Today Josh Neal returns to interview J. Otto Pohl on his landmark - but woefully under appreciated - work of historical scholarship The Years of Great Silence. Buy Ottos book here. Follow him on twitter.Buy Josh’s book here. Follow him on twitter.Follow me on Substack!From the back of the book: “This monograph provides a detailed yet concise narrative of the history of the ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire and USSR. It starts with the settlement in the Russian Empire by German colonists in the Volga, Black Sea, and other regions in 1764, tracing their development and Tsarist state policies towards them up until 1917. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet policy towards its ethnic Germans varied. It shifted from a generally favorable policy in the 1920s to a much more oppressive one in the 1930s, i.e. already before the Soviet-German war.J. Otto Pohl traces the development of Soviet repression of ethnic Germans. In particular, he focuses on the years 1941 to 1955 during which this oppression reached its peak. These years became known as “the Years of Great Silence” (“die Jahre des grossen Schweigens”). In fact, until the era of glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding) in the late 1980s, the events that defined these years for the Soviet Germans could not be legally researched, written about, or even publicly spoken about, within the USSR.”

Mar 24, 2025 • 2h 31min
MKULTRAmerica: Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK, and the CIA
My guest Cory Hughes (on Substack) is the greatest living researcher on the JFK assassination, whose book A Warning From History will absolutely convince you that Lee Harvey Oswald was a fake identity created by the CIA, and that there were at least four shooters, possibly five, with direct, provable ties to the CIA. We discuss how they planned, carried out, got away with, and blamed Oswald for the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This episode answers these big questions, laying out Oswalds fake identity and the motivations and actions of the other participants in the assassination, but it raises far more questions and leaves them unanswered. If you find this interesting, or haven’t been convinced, you absolutely MUST READ his book. Please subscribe to Cory’s podcast and listen to him on Jake Shields Fight Back.Also check the first installment of MKULTRAmerica on the Unabomber.

Mar 4, 2025 • 1h 31min
GamerGate 2
If you want to listen to this full episode, you'll have to go to my Substack.After an introduction on the importance of Gamergate, we finish the narrative of the controversy itself and discuss its legacyIf you want to follow us on twitter, I am @trvebelieve and he is @flayingenjoyer

Feb 17, 2025 • 2h 40min
GamerGate Part 1: Context, It Begins
My friend Remus and I spend 2 hours giving the backstory of the "golden era" of gaming, roughly the 2000-2010 and how it all went to hell. We only got about halfway through the actual chronology of GamerGate and didn't even touch on its (horrible) legacy, so stay tuned for part 2.Follow me on Substack

Feb 11, 2025 • 1h 34min
Butcher's Crossing and the American Western
My friend TR Hudson and I discuss Butcher’s Crossing, the American Western Genre, and his favorite novel by the same author, Stoner. Be sure to follow the links below to TRs content:Follow him at The Double Dealer on substackListen to him and I discuss Crime and Punishment and subscribe to his YoutubeAnd here is his other literary podcast, The Library Of Mass Destruction

Feb 1, 2025 • 1h 52min
David Lynch: In Memoriam
We mainly discuss Lost Highway, but in theory we were going to discuss his oeuvre. You must visit my Substack, there is another two hour episode on Lynch, and stay tuned for an episode dedicated to Mulholland Drive. If you love the films of Lynch and want to join a conversation about his work, please follow the link and contact me on Substack. There is one more episode on him coming soon!

Jan 21, 2025 • 2h 36min
Is Elon Musk A Gamer?!?! And Why You Should Care
If you listen to this podcast on iTunes or Spotify, THANK YOU. If you want more context, more content, and to interact with me and some of my guests, FOLLOW ME ON SUBSTACK.Here are two other episodes with Remus:The Texas Chainsaw MassacreElden Ring

Jan 13, 2025 • 1h 9min
Darryl Cooper on WW2 Myths and More
Catching up with Darryl and his latest projects.The full two hours of this episode can be found here, on my Substack, which is loaded with many more hours of podcasts and essays that don't make it to iTunes or Spotify. Here is a podcast episode on Spengler And The Election and two essays on the same subject, but they are relevant to the portion of the discussion that fades out at the end of this episode, you'll have to become a subscriber to hear Darryl's thoughts on the subjects.
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