Episodes

Friday Jun 23, 2023
SOCRATES & THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE
Friday Jun 23, 2023
Friday Jun 23, 2023
In this podcast, we discuss the resonances between the question asked by Socrates in Plato's Republic, 'How should life be lived?', and the TV series, The Walking Dead. [Free. 50 minutes.]

Saturday Jun 17, 2023
BORIS JOHNSON’S PERFECT POST-TRUTH MOMENT - INTERESTING TIMES 66
Saturday Jun 17, 2023
Saturday Jun 17, 2023
In this podcast, we reflect on the resignation of Boris Johnson from the UK parliament after having been found by the Commons Privileges Committee to have lied to Parliament. We take it that Johnson's subsequent and immediate appointment on a six-figure salary as a columnist for the Daily Mail is significant as a kind of culmination of the UK's deep immersion in post-truth confusion, which has for some time been an advantageous state for global oligarchs in a time of wide-spread unrest. [Free. 26 minutes.]

Saturday Jun 10, 2023
AI - THREAT OR PROMISE?
Saturday Jun 10, 2023
Saturday Jun 10, 2023
In this podcast, we discuss AI and its recent emergence into the public sphere. We examine four main aspects of AI; what the term 'AI' signifies, the knowledge status of its products, the political and economic ramifications of AI, especially its role in automation, and its position in current affairs public discourse. [Free. 61 minutes.]

Monday Apr 24, 2023
EARTH DAY 2023 - INTERESTING TIMES 63
Monday Apr 24, 2023
Monday Apr 24, 2023
In this podcast, we discuss the recent earth day demonstrations in London which involved over 200 organisations acting in accord to demand climate justice from the UK Government. [Free. 38 minutes.]

Thursday Jan 12, 2023
INDIVIDUAL & COLLECTIVE, (& FARMING)
Thursday Jan 12, 2023
Thursday Jan 12, 2023
This podcast is a wide-ranging discussion which ends up entertaining the suspicion that the individual and collective do not make up a stark opposition, as much right-wing propaganda presupposes. The journey includes some thoughts about soil and ecological degradation and cultural shifts taking place regarding struggles over how agriculture should be best conducted. Not to mention, a stab at answering the pressing conundrum, "What is woke, exactly?" [Free. 32 minutes.] (Click on the link to buy me a coffee.)

Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
EDEN REVISITED
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
In this podcast, I examine the Genesis story and the notion of original sin, considered as a kind of foundational myth for "the West". I entertain the suspicion that this foundation myth doesn't provide a viable answer to the question of why we humans suffer and what to do about it. Not only that, it actually inhibits our abilities to use our ingenuity to secure and enhance human life. (Click the link to buy me a coffee.) [Free. 20 minutes.]

Thursday Oct 13, 2022
GROWTH, GROWTH, GROWTH? - INTERESTING TIMES 60
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
In this podcast, we examine what UK Prime Minister Truss means by the mantra "Growth, growth, growth." We follow by discussing how economic growth is defined formally by The Bank of England. Growth is understood by such institutions as being an increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation state over time. We take issue with the notion that GDP is a measure that is useful to facilitate global human flourishing and look at alternative metrics for determining the health and size of an economy. We note that the Bank of England also identifies shortcomings in GDP for getting a good picture of an economy. We take The Happy Planet index as an example of an alternative metric to GDP and tease out some of the features of its threefold desideratum, for a good, healthy economy of "long, happy and sustainable lives". We point out that the GDP measure is useful only to gamblers in the exclusive global casino of finance capital. Click the link to by me a coffee :) [Free. 36 minutes]

Monday Oct 10, 2022
LAO TZU 54
Monday Oct 10, 2022
Monday Oct 10, 2022
In this podcast, we discuss Chapter 67 of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching in which Lao Tzu elucidates the necessity for good leaders to embody compassion, thrift and humility. Click this link to buy us a coffee! [Free. 19 minutes.]

Tuesday Oct 04, 2022
EIE, A GLIMMER OF HOPE - INTERESTING TIMES 59
Tuesday Oct 04, 2022
Tuesday Oct 04, 2022
In this podcast, we appraise the recent demonstrations in 50 UK towns and cities by the Enough is Enough movement, which has largely been instigated by a number of active trade unions to combat the cost of living crisis. We find the broad base of the movement encouraging as well as its grounding in the lived experience of the working class, economically understood. Click BUY ME A COFFEE to make a small donation. [Free. 23 minutes.]
![CORPORATIONS TO RUN CITIES IN THE UK SOON? [PART 1]](https://deow9bq0xqvbj.cloudfront.net/image-logo/771447/hyradiologobig2_300x300.png)
Monday Jul 18, 2022
CORPORATIONS TO RUN CITIES IN THE UK SOON? [PART 1]
Monday Jul 18, 2022
Monday Jul 18, 2022
In this podcast, we consider the Tory Government proposal to institute eight 'Charter Cities' in the UK. Charter Cities are planned to be areas which are given over to governance by a corporation which is likely to remove workers protections, ban minimum wage laws, dismantle welfare, quash restrictions on working hours and more. All this is thought to be facilitated by Brexit and the subsequent revocation of EU regulations. For its neoliberal proponents, who are universally drawn from the big oil funded right international, this is a utopia which will end world poverty. We argue the contrary, that it will be a monstrously dystopian anti-democratic nightmare in which workers will be treated like disposable things and which must be stopped. For background, a good shortish read is here - https://medium.com/@cormack.lawson/charter-cities-the-real-reason-for-brexit-and-the-bigger-picture-4de80dbb69fbhttps://medium.com/@cormack.lawson/charter-cities-the-real-reason-for-brexit-and-the-bigger-picture-4de80dbb69fb [Free. 58 minutes.]