Aria Alamalhodaei works on art history and sells groceries for a wage. Her writing has appeared in the journal History of Photography and online outlets such as Blind Field. Her website is alamalhodaei.tumblr.com. (Aria is also my spouse, which is probably the main reason she agreed to humor me for this first test run.)
Also thanks and credit to Aria for making the cover art for this podcast. :-)
Notes
Why I'm starting this podcast.
How we're so cool and smart.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFYA3-fj0o8
Ellie Hain and Joe Edelman are itinerant thinkers designing a new kind of social movement. We discuss what they've learned from Charles Taylor and Amartya Sen, why Effective Altruism can be so cringe, Joe's role building Couchsurfing.com, and much more.
Ellie Hain: https://twitter.com/ellie__hain
Joe Edelman: https://twitter.com/edelwax
Other Life
✦ Subscribe to the coolest newsletter in the world https://OtherLife.co
✦ Get a free Urbit ship at https://imperceptible.computer
✦ We're building a new country at https://imperceptible.country
0:00 Intro
1:03 Why Effective Altruists are cringe paperclip maximizers
3:44 Charles Taylor's takedown of utilitarianism
5:55 The market of meaning
8:11 Measuring meaning
15:11 Meaningful conviviality & the P2P economy
16:56 Bypassing market instrumentality
22:38 Purposeful communities
24:24 Social imaginary
27:34 What the "sense-making" community gets wrong
31:59 Reactionary traditionalism
37:28 Closing words
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAHFMsZMKSA
Samo Burja is the founder of a consultancy called Bismarck Analysis, but he's interesting to me primarily as a theorist and researcher who has carved out an impressive niche for himself as an independent intellectual. I've invited Samo on the podcast to learn more about his ideas, but also to look under the hood of his larger operation because I think there's a lot to learn there, especially for all the rest of us who are finding our own ways to conduct professional-level intellectual work outside of traditional institutions.
Samo's website: https://samoburja.com
Samo's book, Great Founder Theory: https://samoburja.com/gft
Samo's Twitter: https://twitter.com/samoburja
Bismarck Analysis: https://bismarckanalysis.com
✦ If you're doing intellectual work outside of institutions, check out https://IndieThinkers.org
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZlgUvDcAUc
The 4 quickest and easiest edits that have the most impact on your podcast audio quality. For members of https://indiethinkers.org.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZEjxCNp0r4
Geoff Shullenberger (@daily_barbarian) is a lecturer at NYU and runs the newsletter and podcast https://outsidertheory.com. Geoff teaches the Other Life course on René Girard at https://girardcourse.com.
The Girard Course
✦ Download our free 18-page syllabus to get started reading Girard: https://GirardCourse.com
Other Life
✦ Subscribe to the coolest newsletter in the world https://OtherLife.co
✦ Get a free Urbit ship at https://imperceptible.computer
✦ We're building a new country at https://imperceptible.country
IndieThinkers.org
✦ If you're working on independent intellectual work, join the next cohort of https://IndieThinkers.org
0:00 Intro
0:59 Girardian view of pandemics
8:08 Plague & the founding violence of institutions
12:12 Anti-vaxxers are scapegoats
15:12 What was the COVID-19 pandemic?
17:56 Baudrillardian view of pandemics
22:00 Beyond Baudrillard & social engineering
26:07 Public health pandemonium
30:50 Choice architecture & subliminal manipulation
33:11 Girard's love of Napoleon
38:11 TrumpGOAT
44:01 The "current thing" scapegoat simulation
51:09 Apocalyptic violence
1:00:51 We Have Never Been Modern
1:10:41 Closing words
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcde2YtA7-o
Sam Frank has written for Harper's and The New Yorker, but he was also an early buyer of Ethereum because Vitalik "looked like an alien." Sam explains his heuristics for judging technological and cultural projects, how he first met Curtis Yarvin, what he sees in Urbit, and how he eventually became one of 256 senators in Urbit's galactic senate.
✦ Sam on Urbit: ~todset-partug
✦ Get your own Urbit planet at https://imperceptible.computer
✦ Subscribe to the Other Life newsletter at https://OtherLife.Co
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuRhzJBv3vg
Last month we discussed the significance of programmable money coming to Urbit. This month we share some updates from the past month, and what's next.
This is the replay from our community Zoom call—for crypto developers, creators, and capital allocators interested in what we're doing.
There will be ample time for questions and discussion, next steps, etc.
Recommended reading/listening:
✦ My first thesis on Urbit: https://otherlife.co/urbit
✦ My article on Social AI: https://otherlife.co/social-ai
✦ The Network Age (Ep. 9): https://rss.com/podcasts/thenetworkage/610178
✦ timluc-miptev on The BlockDollar: https://mirror.xyz/0x08477a125e282201BacCF4AE2e6136d1F0cEEE36/fNd7kLNFYkq-VMjeRFJ5MjmyzDgNwqmWacYYxXiK27A
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FIdB9qhwo0