Crazy Town: Episode 111. Burned by Billionaires, with Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins returns to Crazy Town to offer insights from his new book, Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
Crazy Town
Crazy Town: Episode 110. Et Tu, Bhutan? Cryptocurrency and Late-Stage Capitalism
Maximize profits, exploit nature, hoard money, and, like Buzz Lightyear, grow the economy to infinity and beyond! That’s the modern economic playbook. But for decades, one renegade country has taken a contrarian stance that actually cares about people’s wellbeing and environmental health: the Himalayan nation of Bhutan.
Crazy Town: Episode 109. Artifacts of Collapse: Touring the Crazy Town Museum.
In this episode we travel in time to the year 2125, to visit the Crazy Town museum, which showcases today’s world of wanton consumption and profligate waste. How will humans in 2125 – if there are any of us left – judge the things everyone sees as normal today?
Crazy Town: Episode 108. Just One Word: Microplastics, with Matt Simon
Put on your best polyester pants, grab a bunch of gleaming mylar balloons, and crack open a case of bottled water. In today’s episode, we’re entering the plastic world of plastic pollution in all its glorious plasticity.
Crazy Town: Episode 107. Will Trump’s Tariffs Fuel or Foil the Degrowth Movement?
As Trump’s tariffs kick in, the Republican party is suddenly spouting anti-consumerist rhetoric that would make the Lorax smile. Should we cheer on this accidental experiment in economic shrinkage, or will this ham-fisted set of trade policies cause a backlash against the proponents of degrowth?
Crazy Town: Episode 106. Blinded by the Light – Facing Reality with Renewable Energy.
Asher, Rob, and Jason dig into the up-and-down story of the Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant, review the Harry Potteresque thinking behind complex, centralized power plants, and expose the truth of the energy transition.
Crazy Town: Episode 105. Who Can Fix the Housing Crisis – NYT Pundits, German Shepherds, or Bilbo Baggins?
Jason, Rob, and Asher are taking out a huge, unaffordable mortgage on the housing crisis. What’s behind the shortage in housing? Why is it that no one, except canine Tik Tok influencers with billion-dollar bank accounts, can afford to own a home??
Crazy Town: Episode 104. Bunkers, Bazookas, and Bespoke Moats: How to Be Safe in an Unsafe World
The world has gone bunking mad. The bespoke security industry is burying bunkers stocked with arsenals of automatic rifles and surrounded by flaming moats. Is there a better way to prepare for the polycrisis, the zombie apocalypse, or whatever hard times are on the horizon?
Crazy Town 103: It Was Never Your Democracy Anyway: Thomas Linzey on Rethinking the Constitution
Democracy and environmental protection have two things in common: (1) they’re both supposed to be enshrined in the laws of the United States and (2) they’re both under severe attack right now. Asher speaks with Thomas Linzey of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights to uncover how the source code of the U.S. Constitution and the body of environmental laws that follow it are actually designed to allow corporations to override the will of the people.
Crazy Town 102: Going #2: The Dueling Rules of Nature That Every Good Earthling Needs to Know
After dropping the kids off at the pool, Asher, Rob, and Jason cover the interplay of entropy and self-organization and contemplate how to manage the inevitability of entropy with elegance (beyond morphing into a lizard person).
Crazy Town 101: Even AI Chatbots Hate Us: The Rise of the New Luddites, with Brian Merchant
After failing to raise a single dollar for PCI’s newest initiative — the $350 billion Transdisciplinary Institute for Phalse Prophet Studies and Education (TIPPSE) — Jason, Rob, and Asher devise the only profitable pitch for raising capital: using AI technology to cure the loneliness that technology itself causes. Author Brian Merchant joins Asher this week to discuss the rise of the neo-Luddite movement.
Crazy Town 100. A Temporary Techno Stunt: Tom Murphy on Falling out of Love with Modernity
Recovering technology booster Tom Murphy visits Crazy Town to discuss his journey from shooting lasers at the moon, to trying to “solve” the energy predicament, to falling out of love with modernity itself.
