Last Born In The Wilderness

In this episode, I speak with Tania Li, Ph.D.—Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto and the author of Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier. In our era of globalized neoliberal capitalism, we tend to examine the emergence of capitalist economic and social relations among indigenous communities primarily as a result of overbearing external pressures, e.g. governments, nonprofit organizations, and multinational corporations (often in tandem). It is important, however, to recognize that while this is often the case, this view does not include the ways capitalism can emerge and take hold in far more subtle ways. As documented in Land’s End, from 1990 to 2009 Tania conducted annual ethnographic research in the Lauje highlands of Sulawesi Indonesia, and bore witness to the indigenous population’s rapid adoption of the tree crop cocoa for cultivation, transitioning away from the more communally managed production of food crops, as had been done traditionally in these communities for generations. As Tania explains in this episode, the seemingly banal transformation the highlanders of this region experienced—transitioning from the communal production of food crops to the more privatized production of cocoa—not only produced capitalist relations among the Lauje, but did so with very minimal to non-existent pressures from outside institutions. How did this happen? What can we learn about the nature of capitalism and its emergence from Tania’s profound ethnographic study, and how can we apply this knowledge to more adequately respond to the material conditions that produce these results? Tania and I discuss these questions and much more in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/tania-li // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

This is a segment of episode #200 of Last Born In The Wilderness “We Live In The Orbit Of Beings Greater Than Us: A Weaving Of Threads.” Listen to the full episode: http://bit.ly/LBW200 / http://bit.ly/LBW200v Episode #200 is something of a highlight reel, featuring numerous segments from previous interviews I’ve conducted and released, with commentary on the underlying themes and threads that tie all this work together. The episode contains segments with Silvia Federici, Dr. Gerald Horne, Shane Burley, Liyah Babayan, Stephen Jenkinson, Dahr Jamail, William Rees, Dezeray Lyn, Peter Gelderloos, Cory Morningstar, Jasper Bernes, Rhyd Wildermuth, Dr. Karla Tait, Ramon Elani, John Halstead, Charles Eisenstein, Joe Brewer, and Bayo Akomolafe. The song featured is “Listening Piece 1” composed by Scott Farkas (used with permission): https://youtu.be/tBvMrqmHMVk WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

This is episode #200 of Last Born In The Wilderness. This is something of a highlight reel, featuring numerous segments from previous interviews I’ve conducted and released, with commentary on the underlying themes and threads that tie all this work together. This is a beast of an episode (almost four hours in length), so please take your time! This episode features segments of discussions with Silvia Federici, Dr. Gerald Horne, Shane Burley, Liyah Babayan, Stephen Jenkinson, Dahr Jamail, William Rees, Dezeray Lyn, Peter Gelderloos, Cory Morningstar, Jasper Bernes, Rhyd Wildermuth, Dr. Karla Tait, Ramon Elani, John Halstead, Charles Eisenstein, Joe Brewer, and Bayo Akomolafe. // Episode notes + timeline: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/200 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I speak with journalist John H. Richardson. Former writer-at-large for Esquire, John is the author of the captivating article Children of Ted: The Unlikely New Generation of Unabomber Acolytes, published December 2018 in New York Magazine. In Children of Ted, Richardson takes a deep dive into the world of Theodore Kaczynski (aka the Unabomber) acolytes and apostates, a journey that documents his interactions with various individuals and groups that have been inspired (or adjacently inspired) by the anti-civilizational writings and philosophy of Kaczynski, and even his multiple deadly acts of terrorism leading up to his arrest by the FBI in 1996. Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/john-richardson // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Jasper Bernes, Managing Editor of Commune Magazine. We discuss his recent article, Between the Devil and the Green New Deal, featured in the second issue of Commune Magazine. In this interview, I ask Jasper to explain the details of the Green New Deal, as has been proposed by the more progressive wing of the United States political establishment, and most famously by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Democratic Party. What is the Green New Deal, and what is materially required for it to be successfully implemented? As Jasper explains, its main objective would be to convert the US economy to (net) zero carbon emissions with renewable power by 2030—an undertaking that would require a massive overhaul of the energy infrastructure towards solar, wind, and biofuels as the primary source of energy production. While that all sounds rather nice, what are the (not-so) hidden costs of developing these so-called sustainable technologies, especially on the scale demanded for in the Green New Deal? As Jasper points out, “nearly every renewable energy source depends upon non-renewable and frequently hard-to-access minerals: solar panels use indium, turbines use neodymium, batteries use lithium, and all require kilotons of steel, tin, silver, and copper,” (http://bit.ly/DevilGND) all of which require extensive mining (most often in the less “developed” regions of the world), which is highly environmentally destructive and relies almost completely on the exploitation of human labor and fossil fuel use. As we frame it in this interview, to maintain an infinite growth economic model (capitalism) while trying to mitigate the worst impacts of global climate change and environmental degradation through “sustainable” technologies is not only unfeasible, but entirely impossible. Jasper and I go over the details of this subject in more depth in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/jasper-bernes // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Rhyd Wildermuth—writer, political theorist, co-founder of Gods & Radicals, and the author of the soon-to-be-released, All That Is Sacred Is Profaned: A Pagan Guide To Marxism. In this discussion with Rhyd, we examine the various ways capitalism—as a social, political, and economic system—directly informs the ways we relate with the land in which we live upon (and the spirits that reside there), the bodies we inhabit, the labor we perform, the rituals we engage in, and the various ways these relationships and perceptions either highlight or obscure the exploitive qualities of the global capitalism system we are all embedded within. In Rhyd’s book, All That Is Sacred Is Profaned, this examination of capitalism is framed within a Marxist analysis of the material conditions that inform these relationships (defined as “historical materialism” by Marx), and is then overlaid with a pagan, or more precisely animist, examination of these relationships as well. Rhyd, in being able to wed an animist perspective (the understanding that all objects, places and creatures possess a distinct spiritual essence) with a Marxist analysis of capitalism, is able to define more fully the conditions that have led to the rise and persistence of the capitalist system up to the present moment. One of the major themes of this discussion is to examine the “Progress Narrative,” or how capitalism informs our perception of time by imposing values on the past (bad), present (better), and future (obviously better), versus the “Process Narrative,” which poses that “the conditions of life are constantly in flux, changing according to larger processes (forces) which conflict with each other.” This conversation with Rhyd is wide, and these topics are just some of what we discuss in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/rhyd-wildermuth-3 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Michael Sliwa and [RS]. [RS] is the host of [MF] on the Progressive Radio Network, and Michael is the former co-host of Nature Bats Last and the author of Chasing A Different Carrot: A Manifesto For The Predicament Of Privilege. In this lively discussion between the three of us, we examine the overwhelm many are feeling in trying to navigate through our times of overlapping social, economic, ecological, and political complexities. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/sliwa-rs // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with psychedelic scholar, editor, publisher, and researcher Robert Forte. For over three decades, Robert has collaborated with some of the most influential and well-known figures within the psychedelic movement, including R. Gordon Wasson, Timothy Leary, Stanislav Grof, and Alexander Shulgin, to name a few. I ask Robert to explore the early days of psychedelic interest in American society, initially generated in large part by the release of the 1956 Life Magazine photo essay by R. Gordon Wasson (J.P. Morgan Vice President of Public Relations)—a landmark piece that was the first to expose the American public to the use and effects of psilocybin mushrooms. As Robert explains, the C.I.A. funded this venture, and was largely behind, along with media mogul Henry Luce, the branding of the psychedelic experience for Western audiences. Why would this be the case? As we descend down this rabbit hole of inquiry, we discuss the absolutely perplexing history of the popularization (and demonization) of psychedelic use in the modern era, including the overwhelming interest by Western elites to use these substances for mind control and social engineering purposes, as demonstrated in the MK-ULTRA project by the C.I.A., among other examples. Toward the end of our discussion, Robert and I get into some rather hairy topics relating to “conspiracy theory” in the “post-truth era,” as defined by the blurring of lines between what is verifiably true and what is difficult to make sense of. While Robert and I may not come to agreement on these difficult subjects, we both absolutely recognize the necessity of questioning officially sanctioned narratives of events as propagated by the corporate-and-state managed press. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/robert-forte-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Environmental Scientist and Ecologist Francisco Sánchez-Bayo. He is the lead-author of the scientific survey, Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers, co-authored with Kris Wyckhuys, which reviews dozens of contemporary research from around the world documenting the rapid decline of global insect populations, indicating that most species of insects are likely to become extinct by the end of the century. The paper also examines the primary drivers behind the loss of global insect biodiversity, which has pushed over 40% of insect species towards extinction within the next few decades, and the majority of insect species by the end of the century. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/francisco-sanchez-bayo // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, I speak with Joe Brewer—change strategist, complexity researcher, cognitive scientist, and evangelist for the field of culture design. This discussion picks up from our first conversation last year, recorded right before Joe and his family moved to Costa Rica to engage more fully with cultural design work and planetary collapse management. We start off this discussion by catching up with what Joe has experienced in the six to eight months since we last spoke on this podcast, which mainly includes a big move with his family to Costa Rica from the United States. I asked him why he and his family chose Costa Rica to do work in culture design, and why Costa Rica in particular is primed for regenerative practices and planetary collapse management. I ask Joe to detail his work in designing in-depth courses that lay the groundwork for individuals to build “regenerative hubs” across the planet’s numerous bioregions, and within this scaffolding of knowledge and practice, facilitate the management of planetary collapse on the local and global scale as nation-states, economies, ecologies, and the global climate system continue to break down into the near and distant future. As is a common theme in Joe’s work and in our discussions, I ask Joe about the necessity of doing this work, despite the overwhelming likelihood that the human species and countless species of nonhuman life will become extinct as a result of ecological collapse and abrupt climate disruption. Even in the face of planetary collapse on multiple fronts, individuals are doing (seemingly) invisible and sacred work in managing this unprecedented collapse, generating and expanding systems that heal the land, the climate, the human psyche, and humanity’s relationship with the living systems of this planet. As Joe says in this discussion, what can we do that is worthy of our hope? We discuss this and more in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/joe-brewer-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast