Last Born In The Wilderness

I speak with Johann Hari, journalist and author of Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, and Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.  Johann goes over some of the themes he explored in Lost Connections, which includes exploring some of the root causes of depression and anxiety, understanding some of the deep misconceptions we have in Western societies about treating anxiety and depression, as well as pointing to the possibility and potential for radical change to occur in alleviating these mental health issues permeating throughout society.  // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/johann-hari // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, Silvia Federici goes over many of the details and themes in her groundbreaking book Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, an extensive history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Silvia discusses the conditions that led to the witch-hunts in medieval Europe, and the lasting impact these events have had on the trajectory of capitalist development into the modern era. Silvia provides a description of the social and economic system—feudalism—that governed societies in medieval Europe, and how the events and struggles that occurred during that time period led to the economic and social system—capitalism—that dominates our lives today. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/silvia-federici // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, Cynthia Jones and I speak with Milica Popovic, Associate Professor of Art at the College of Southern Idaho. Milica discusses her personal experiences with the social and economic disintegration in her home country of Serbia, during the fracturing of the Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. She describes how her and her husband left their home country and made their way to the United States, where Milica eventually settled in Twin Falls, Idaho, and took up a position at the College of Southern Idaho, where this interview was conducted. In our discussion, Milica also discusses the impact trauma has had on her art, and how producing art has helped her work with the traumatic memories she carries with her to this day.  // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/milica-popovic // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

This is my second interview with David O'Hara, and as with the first, conversing with him is always a delight and a great pleasure. In this episode, we discussed his trip to Central America, and the recent archaeological discovery of a vast Mayan metropolis that "at its peak some 1,500 years ago, covered an area about twice the size of medieval England, with an estimated population of around five million." David describes the cutting-edge technology that is now being used to discover these, until very recently, hidden ruins of an ancient Mayan civilization, and what we can learn from these discoveries regarding our own civilization.  We also get into the ethics of artificial intelligence and the corporate control of the development of computer technology, and the implications this has for how information is disseminated through our society. David discusses some of the underlying issues on relying on algorithms and computer learning to make big decisions for us, and how this kind of thinking leads to unintended outcomes.  // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/david-ohara-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, climate journalist Dahr Jamail lays out the details of the current state of the global climate system and the massive catastrophic changes currently underway in our oceans, as well as the ongoing disappearance of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, the receding land ice on Greenland, and what this means for sea level rise in the upcoming decades. We discuss the implications of these very rapid shifts in our global climate system and what this means for the future of our species, and all life on this planet. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/dahr-jamail // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Patrick Dougherty is a veteran, clinical psychologist, and founder of Moving Through It, an organization that raises public awareness and cultivates a deeper understanding of collective trauma, helping to provide a means for individuals and groups to move through the various states of feeling we have all begun to experience as we enter a time of great uncertainty and instability. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/patrick-dougherty // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

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