A wide-ranging conversation between Arnold and Daniel of What Is Politics? concerning the prospects for social transformation in this dreamlike age of epistemic fracture. We talk about the impact of declining social cohesion on traditional modes of political organizing; whether the internet can do anything other than make people stupid and crazy; and how lessons from evolutionary biology and anthropology apply to our utterly novel environment. Somewhere along the way, we talk about the biology of the naked mole rat, whose societies resemble the “civilizations” of social insects; the Goldilocks magnitude of crisis, that creates political possibility without starving everyone to death; the methodological horror show of evolutionary psychology that talks about genes “for” complex behavioral traits; how the fragmentation of knowledge by academic discipline enables hierarchy; and how the inverse correlation between social dominance and social comprehension means its best not to use big words when talking to venture capitalists. A good deal of what is discussed here provides a problem statement for which the next episode provides tentative answers.
Ethnogenesis pt. 4: Becoming a People in Terra Incognita
Times I Got Stuck in Albuquerque
Ethnogenesis pt. 3: Sacrificial Child Gods and Social Complexity
Ethnogenesis pt. 2: Evolutionary Anarchism
Ethnogenesis pt. 1: Hill Tribes Are Like Street Kids
Addiction, Madness, Despair pt. 3: Despair
Addiction, Madness, Despair pt. 2: Madness
Addiction, Madness, Despair pt. 1: Addiction
Heal Like An Animal: Interview with Joshua Sylvae pt. 3
Believing You're Trapped in a Simulation Is the New Punk Rock (preview)
Group Mind pt. 6: Suburban Holy War
Scientific Militant pt. 3 + Aggression and Specialization pt. 2 (preview)
Group Mind pt. 5: Everybody Loves a Narcissist
Group Mind pt. 4: The World Is a Lot Like the Internet
Heal Like An Animal: Interview with Joshua Sylvae pt. 2
Aggression, Specialization, Dysregulation, and Power pt. 1 (preview)
Group Mind pt. 3: Oxytocin Atrocities
Heal Like An Animal: Interview with Joshua Sylvae pt. 1
Group Mind pt. 2: Concerts, Riots, Cults
Scientific Militant pt. 2
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