Last Born In The Wilderness

This is episode 100 of the podcast. Incredible. I read a letter from a listener and responded to it. I express how grateful I am for the support I've received for this project, and I reiterate the purpose and what I aim for with Last Born In The Wilderness. For this episode, I go solo. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/100 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Peter McCoy is the founder of Radical Mycology, a nonprofit grassroots organization that engages in wide and varied methods (from organizing events and workshops and producing media content) to educate and actively demonstrate the vast potential fungi has in the fields of nutrition, waste disposal, medicine, food production, and water treatment, just to name a few. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/peter-mccoy // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, Professor Paul Ehrlich and I discuss the very severe loss of biodiversity on this planet in recent decades, human civilization and its detrimental impact on animal and insect populations, abrupt climate change, the toxification of the environment, and the looming specter of nuclear war. Also, we discuss the psychological blind-spots in the individual and collective human psyche that allows for this massive level of destruction to take place without much attention and meaningful change to ensure our collective survival. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/paul-ehrlich // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Samra Culum is Student Development Coordinator at the College of Southern Idaho (CSI), and a refugee. Samra, as a child, fled with her family from war-torn Bosnia, and through the CSI Refugee Resettlement Program, settled in Twin Falls, Idaho with her family. In this episode, Samra discusses what her and her family experienced in her community in Bosnia as underlying tensions and divisions broke out into war and ethnic cleansing, and what the process of escaping and eventually resettling in the United States was like. Samra then goes over her feelings and thoughts about the recent surge of anti-refugee sentiment that has emerged in the Twin Falls area surrounding the CSI Refugee Resettlement Program in recent years, and how difficult, painful, and important it is to revisit traumatic memories and experiences and process them in a meaningful way. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/samra-culum // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Carne Ross is a former British diplomat, Middle East and WMD expert, who resigned in 2004 after giving what was then secret information to a British inquiry into the Iraq War. Carne became acutely aware that the information being presented to the public leading up to the Iraq War was misleading and false. After he left his position as a diplomat, he founded the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat, which advises democratic countries and movements around the world. This year, Carne was featured in the documentary Accidental Anarchist, a film that follows his path from British diplomat to an advocate for anarchism. This film follows Carne's journey to find and eventually witness anarchist principles in action during the Occupy movement, the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s in Catalonia, as well as contemporarily by the Kurds in Rojava. Rojava is a region in northern Syria, that during the chaotic Syrian Civil W ar was able, and continues to this day, to practice a form of anarchism effectively while simultaneously fighting off ISIS as well as maintaining autonomy in that region. In this conversation, Carne and I briefly discuss his path toward anarchism, the complexity of the Syrian Civil War and the ethics surrounding intervention in that conflict, as well as the recent referendum in Catalonia to secede from Spain and become an independently governed nation, and what this means for the future of the nation state in the 21st century. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/carne-ross // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Riccardo Manzotti is the author of The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One. Riccardo teaches Psychology of Perception at IULM University, Milan (Italy), and has specialized in AI, artificial vision, perception, and the philosophy and science of consciousness. The discussion you will hear in this episode deals with a few different subjects brought up in Riccardo's work, namely what the Spread Mind hypothesis is, and what its underlying premise means regarding our understanding of what the "mind" really is, and how scientific exploration into the brain and neurological functioning will not lead to any answers of where our conscious experience comes from. Riccardo's new book The Spread Mind delves deeply into this fascinating subject and radically shifts our understanding of consciousness and points to another much needed and necessary way to frame our understanding of this subject. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/riccardo-manzotti // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Ian MacKenzie is an award-winning filmmaker and media activist, and co-director of the film Amplify Her, a documentary that follows the powerful and emerging female producers in the electronic music scene. I sought out Ian MacKenzie to have this conversation with me because I had become familiar with his work regarding gender and the sacred roles of men and women can embody, and I have come to recognize that the work he is doing is entirely necessary in this time of great calamity and confusion. More than ever, people are discussing gender identity and gender roles, sexuality and relationships, and what this all means for us as individuals and as a society. I felt ready to have this discussion, and Ian was gracious enough to accept my invitation and hash out these ideas with me, and I thank him for that. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/ian-mackenzie // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Bayo Akomolafe is a researcher, lecturer and author, born and raised in Nigeria. He is an international speaker, poet and activist for a radical paradigm shift in consciousness and current ways of living. Bayo is globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action and social change. Bayo discusses some of the themes raised in his essay, Homo Icarus: The Depreciating Value of Whiteness and the Place of Healing. The essay attempts to discuss a few difficult topics, triggered, in part, by the events in Charlottesville during the Unite The Right rally this year, which highlighted some of the more vile and racist elements of American culture. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/bayo-akomolafe // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Alex S. Vitale is Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and author of The End of Policing. In this discussion, Alex describes the current state of policing in the US, and provides a historical and sociological context as to why policing functions as it currently does. Alex describes the policies that have led to the current problems many segments of the American population have with police and the tactics police employ. From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror, Alex describes how the political class operates on a very flawed view of human nature, and how that has inevitably led to policies and the horrendous experiences many have had with police. Putting this all in context allows us to address the underlying issues with policing as a whole, and work to change the way social issues are dealt with within our communities. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/alex-vitale // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Tom Aiello is the founder, owner, and lead instructor of the Snake River BASE Academy, based in Twin Falls, Idaho. Twin Falls is nestled up against the Snake River Canyon, and spanning the canyon is the Perrine Bridge. Due to the lack of legal restrictions and its location, the Perrine Bridge is an optimal fixed structure for BASE jumping, attracting countless people from all over the world to this small city in Southern Idaho. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: building, antenna, span, and Earth (cliff). Tom is the first in the world to provide a detailed and rigorous multi-level educational course for those that wish to get into BASE jumping and learn more than just the basics. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/tom-aiello // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast