How Worker-Owned News Outlets Are Changing the Media Industry
For growing numbers of media companies, employee ownership offers journalistic freedom and job stability.
Society
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.
Ishmael: Chapter 2
The mythology of “Mother Culture” [modernity] will become ever-present. It will be harder to interact with and tolerate the people around you who drink in this tale without awareness. In their eyes, you’ll be an unrelatable weirdo: isolated and alone.
America First: Can it be squared with proposed ‘annexation’ of Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal?
Is there a contradiction between the Trump administration’s America First policy and its actions? Maybe not.
Audrey Tang — Digital Democracy: Moving Beyond ‘Big Tech’ to Save Open Societies
Today Nate is joined by Taiwanese Digital Ambassador at large, Audrey Tang, to explore real-world examples of how technology is being leveraged globally to address – and in some cases reverse – critical societal challenges, such as polarization, misinformation, and the erosion of trust in governments and institutions.
The View from Washington
To describe Washington, DC, as anything other than a circus would be to do it an injustice. Mind you, it’s not just any circus. It’s a two-ring Roman Circus with President Trump as its master.
Ishmael: Chapter 1
Ishmael characterizes the young people’s efforts in the sixties as trying to escape from captivity, but failing to do so “because they were unable to find the bars of the cage.” People of our culture would be relieved to escape captivity, and to simultaneously release Earth from its dire path toward collapse—except we can’t identify the bars.
Trump’s Second Act: Power, Resistance, and the Limits of Governance
Watch “Trump’s Second Act: Power, Resistance, and the Limits of Governance,” with Richard Heinberg and Ed Saltzberg of Security and Sustainability Forum.
Thinking and Feeling
In this Frankly, Nate unpacks the influence of beliefs on our feelings, and how it ultimately affects our actions. As global risks and complexity intensify and those with political power accelerate deeper divides, adopting an integrative perspective will become essential for fostering connection, cooperation, and civility.
If all minerals are extracted from the soil, will the flowers ever bloom again?
In artist Toshie Takeuchi’s work, she travels from Belgian archives to Congolese mines to expose the long durée trail of destruction that the powerful uranium leaves behind in the imperial — British, American, French, Belgian, German — drive for wealth and power.
The time is now, and it means real sacrifice
The moral of this story is not to stop being activists. There’s already enough passivity on Capitol Hill. The message is straightforward — careful because the administration could come after you from many directions. So, be prepared.
Ishmael Overview
Have I mentioned how important I think Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is? I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and was again impressed with how many important modernity-challenging ideas are packed into one novel.
