Last Born In The Wilderness

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

John Perkins is the best-selling author of several books, including the well-known Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and as his follow-up book, The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman, released last year. John spent the 1970s working for the strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main as Chief Economist, where he and his staff advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, as well as countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. In this episode, we discuss his role in the paradigm of economic exploitation termed globalization, and his insight into the political and economic turmoil currently being experienced in South and Central American nations, and more specifically in Venezuela. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/john-perkins // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Chris Isner is a visionary artist that primarily works with recovered portions of wood, and produces memorizing iterations of form. The story of how he learned to work with wood in this way, to produce incredibly unique works of art, came about when years ago he reached a low-point in his life. Due to a series of coincidences, Chris made his way to Peru and engaged in a shamanic ritual involving the powerful psychedelic brew ayahuasca, which he claims not only healed his physical ailments, but also healed him psychically as well, and revealed to him the knowledge he now uses to produce his art. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/chris-isner // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Sean McFate is an author, novelist, and expert in foreign policy and national security strategy. His career began in the U.S. Army in the 82nd Airborne Division, and later became a private military contractor in Africa for Dyncorp, where he "dealt with warlords, raised small armies, worked with armed groups in the Sahara, transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe, and helped prevent an impending genocide in the Great Lakes region." Sean is deeply critical of the ongoing privatization of military operations by the U.S. government, as well as Erik Prince, former president and founder of Blackwater, and his proposals to dramatically privatize military operations in Afghanistan. These types of grandiose plans Prince proposed to the Trump Administration have not been implemented, but there is still much to be concerned with regarding the rise of mercenary armies and how they fit into the ever-changing face of war in the 21st century. Sean McFate goes over this and much more in this episode. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/sean-mcfate // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Just like David O'Hara's book Downstream, this episode is about so much more than fly-fishing. David imbues the conversation with great knowledge and wisdom, and speaking with him was a great pleasure in and of itself. The topics touched in this episode are broad: fishing the rivers of Appalachia; empathizing with other creatures; studying and observing reef ecology in Belize; enduring and recovering from a major head injury; the wonder of it all. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/david-ohara // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast