PODCAST · society
The Conversation
by Aengus Anderson
A collaborative conversation about the future between some of America's greatest thinkers and you. www.findtheconversation.com
Episodes
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The Conversation - 67 - Aengus Anderson
Finally, formally, this is where The Conversation ends. If you've been a contemporaneous listener, thanks for joining on this epic trip. If you're just discovering The Conversation, welcome! This might be a more interesting place to begin than the beginning.
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The Conversation - 66 - Lisa Gray-Garcia
Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia is a writer, organizer, activist, poet, and self-proclaimed poverty scholar. She is the only interviewee in The Conversation who has spent a good portion of her life houseless (a term she prefers over homeless), and a lot of her work has addressed issues of poverty. In...
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The Conversation - 65 - Rebecca Solnit
Rebecca Solnit is an author, activist, and geographer, among other things. Her books include A Paradise Built in Hell, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and Men Explain Things to Me. She's also a regular contributor to Harpers, The Nation, and The Guardian.
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The Conversation - 64 - Peter Gleick
Peter Gleick researches water and water policy at the Pacific Institute. In addition to co-founding the Pacific Institute, Gleick is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has won a MacArthur Genius Fellowship for his work, and has been instrumental in the United Nation's designation of...
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The Conversation - 63 - Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the biggest names in current science fiction. His most famous work is, arguably, the Mars Trilogy, but he is the author of seventeen novels and several collections of short stories. I could easily overburden you with biographical details and lists of his accolades,...
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The Conversation - 62 - Rebecca Costa
Rebecca Costa is a self-proclaimed sociobiologist, author of The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, and host of the radio program The Costa Report. Throughout The Conversation we have regularly talked about the question of cognitive limits in an increasingly complex society, but...
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The Conversation - 61 - Rainey Reitman
Rainey Reitman is the Activism Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a co-founder of both the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Chelsea Manning Support Network. My conversation with Rainey is, in many ways, the logical extension of my conversation with James Bamford about digital...
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The Conversation - 60 - George Lakoff
George Lakoff is one of the most influential living linguists. He has revolutionized how we think about metaphor's role in cognition, the grounding of metaphor in the human body, and the metaphorical basis of mathemetics. Equally important, Lakoff is extremely active outside of the lab, as a...
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The Conversation - 59 - Charles Hugh Smith
Charles Hugh Smith is an economics writer, former builder, and general renaissance man who blogs at oftwominds.com, a site CNBC ranked as one of their top alternative economics blogs. We talk about (comparatively) rosy collapse scenerios, parallel economies, the possibilities and limits of…
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The Conversation - 58 - Jason Kelly Johnson
Jason Kelly Johnson is one of the co-founders of Future Cities Lab, an experimental architecture and design firm in San Francisco, CA. We spoke about cities, buildings, permeability, and nostalgia, among other things.
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The Conversation - 57 - Joan Blades
Joan Blades is the co-founder of Living Room Conversations, a movement dedicated to fostering meaningful dialogue between Americans of different political ideologies. In addition to her work with Living Room Conversations, Joan was also a co-founder of MoveOn.org and MomsRising. She's also partly...
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The Conversation - 56 - Aengus Anderson and Micah Saul at SXSW
After more than half a year away from The Conversation, Aengus and Micah return with a panel they gave at South by Southwest Interactive. The panel, entitled "A Sheep in Wolf's Clothes: The Myth of Disruption" drew extensively from The Conversation to question ideas of progress that are implied…
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The Conversation - 55 – Ed Finn
Ed Finn is the Director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. The Center was conceived as a place where people from radically different intellectual backgrounds come together to dream about the future—to "reignite humanity’s grand ambitions for innovation and...
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The Conversation - 54 - Charles Bowden
If you've listened to The Conversation for a while, you know there are numerous reasons we invite guests to join the series. Sometimes we are interested in a new idea and its implications, or an old idea that's being revitalized. We gravitate toward people working on interesting projects that...
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The Conversation - 53 - Carlos Perez de Alejo
Carlos Perez de Alejo is a the co-founder and Executive Director of Cooperation Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit that helps organize and raise awareness of worker-owned cooperatives. Economics has been a regular theme in The Conversation but, from David Korten to John Fullerton, many of our...
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The Conversation - 52 - Walter Block
Libertarian ideas have been a major theme in The Conversation. They were introduced in our second episode by Max More and have since been elaborated upon by David Miller, Robert Zubrin, Tim Cannon, and Oliver Porter. But while libertarianism has been discussed frequently, it has always been a...
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The Conversation - 51 - Phyllis Tickle
Phyllis Tickle founded Publishers Weekly's Religion Department and has written numerous books about modern American Christianity, including "The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why." Phyllis begins our conversation by describing 500-year social, cultural, and religious cycles in...
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The Conversation - 50 - The Future of The Conversation
We swoop in for our first interstitial episode in six months. Neil has the plague, but Micah and I talk about the future of The Conversation, our perpetual need to raise the project's visibility, and our naïve hope for funding another season of production. In light of James Bamford's conversation...
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The Conversation - 49 - Scott Douglas
Scott Douglas, III, is the Executive Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, an interfaith organization in Birmingham, Alabama. GBM provides poverty relief, lobbies to reform Alabama's state constitution, and has recently been active in opposing self-deportation laws. My conversation with…
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The Conversation - 48 - Chris Carter
Chris Carter is a self-taught electrical engineer and founder of MASS Collective, a workspace in Atlanta, Georgia that combines hands-on learning, apprenticeship, and traditional education for students and makers of all ages. We've talked about education with Mark Mykleby, Lawrence Torcello, and...
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The Conversation - 47 - Oliver Porter
Oliver Porter designs and implements partnerships between municipalities and corporations, allowing cities to privatize virtually all of their functions. Since his central role in incorporating Sandy Springs, Georgia in 2005, Oliver his moved on to advising numerous other American and Japanese...
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The Conversation - 46 - Mark Mykleby
Col. Mark "Puck" Mykleby is a former marine and co-author (along with Capt. Wayne Porter) of A National Strategic Narrative for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, a document that encouraged broadening the concept of defense to include sustainability. Currently Mark is a Senior Fellow at the New…
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The Conversation - 45 - James Bamford
James Bamford is an author and journalist who has written extensively about the National Security Agency. His books include The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory. He has also produced a documentary for NOVA on PBS. We learned about James last year through a Wired article…
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The Conversation - 44 - John Seager
John Seager is the President of Population Connection, formerly Zero Population Growth. Since its founding in 1968, Population Connection has been America's largest grassroots organization dedicated to the question of overpopulation. Prior to his work at Population Connection, John worked for the...
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The Conversation - 43 - Roberta Francis
Roberta Francis has been advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment for over thirty years, chairs the ERA Taskforce for the National Council of Women's Organizations and administers equalrightsamendment.org. She has also been active with the New Jersey League of Women Voters. There's something...
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The Conversation - 42 - Gary Francione
Gary L. Francione is an animal rights activist, proponent of veganism, Professor of Law and Scholar of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers. Previously he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, worked as an attorney in New York, and clerked for Sandra Day O’Connor. He is the author of several books...
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The Conversation - 41 - John Fullerton
John Fullerton is the founder of the Capital Institute, a group dedicated to the modest task of rethinking the future of finance. Prior to his work at the Capital Institute, he was the Managing Director of JPMorgan. If there is a moment that encapsulates my conversation with John, it is when he...
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The Conversation - 40 - Mary Mattingly
Mary Mattingly is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. We learned about her through the Flockhouse Project and traced back to discover the Waterpod and her earlier work. Mary’s art explores the environment, sustainability, housing, and community structure, among other things. We have spoken to…
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The Conversation - 39 - Richard Saul Wurman
Richard Saul Wurman is a designer, author of over 80 books, and founder of several conferences including TED, WWW, and EG. Presently, he is working on Prophesy2025, a conference about the near future. Richard caught our attention because he is both an architect and connoisseur of conversation....
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The Conversation - 38 - Alexa Clay
Alexa Clay is an author, economic historian, and director of thought leadership at Ashoka Changemakers. She is co-author of The Misfit Economy, a forthcoming book that looks for economic innovation in the black and gray markets of pirates, hackers, and urban gangs, among others. We begin by…
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The Conversation - 37 - David Keith
From The Conversation's inception, geoengineering—the deliberate manipulation of the climate through technology—has been high on my list of subjects to include in the series. To address the issue, I spoke with David Keith, a Harvard professor with a joint appointment in Applied Physics and Public...
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The Conversation - 36 - Ethan Zuckerman
Ethan Zuckerman is the Director of MIT's Center for Civic Media, a former fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, and co-founder of Global Voices, a hub of international news written by bloggers. We spoke about the need for global awareness, the relationship between information and empathy, and the...
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The Conversation - 35 - Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins directs the Institute of Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He has also co-founder of United for a Fair Economy and Wealth for the Common Good, a network of wealthy individuals who embrace fair taxation to support the broader good. He is also the author of 99…
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The Conversation - 34 - Douglas Rushkoff
Among other things, Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist, author, and documentarian. His books include Life, Inc. and Program or be Programmed, while his documentaries include Frontline's The Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders. Our conversation started with Rushkoff's concept of "present-shock"...
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The Conversation - 33 - Priscilla Grim
Priscilla Grim is one of Occupy Wall Street's organizers, co-founder of the website We Are the 99 Percent, and co-editor of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. We talk about her politicization, the current economic system, and the tension between class and environmental concerns. There are...
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The Conversation - 32 - The Conversation and the Election
Micah and I have been talking about a new interstitial episode for several weeks but, with the election last night, we decided to pick up our microphones and talk about the relationship between the political conversation and The Conversation. Relationship is probably the wrong word there—rupture...
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The Conversation - 31 - Claire Evans
Claire Evans is half of YACHT, a "band, business, and belief system" started by Jona Bechtolt in 2002. In addition to her musical/artistic adventures, she's also a writer and regular science blogger. Unlike most bands, YACHT has a developed a detailed and public philosophy (read their FAQ or…
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The Conversation - 30 - Henry Louis Taylor, Jr.
Dr. Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. is the Director for the Center for Urban Studies at the University of Buffalo and the Project Coordinator for the Perry Choice Neighborhood Initiative. His work has focused on the intersection of urban planning, regional development, and history in both the United…
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The Conversation - 29 - Lawrence Torcello
Dr. Lawrence Torcello is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Micah and I learned about him through his article "Is The State Endorsement of Any Marriage Justifiable?" in Public Affairs Quarterly. Having said that, we barely touched the idea of marriage...
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The Conversation - 28 - Tim Cannon
Tim Cannon is a co-founder of Grindhouse Wetware, a group of open-source biohackers in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. What does that sentence mean, you ask? Biohacking is the process of augmenting the human body to do new things, whether with technology or biology. Max More introduced the theme of...
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The Conversation - 27 - Patrick Crouch
Patrick Crouch is the Program Manager at the Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit, Michigan. The farm is a project of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and is the only certified organic farm in the city. Agriculture's urban history is an early theme in our conversation, as is the need to make food a human...
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The Conversation - 26 - Jenny Lee
Jenny Lee is a co-director of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit organization focused on the intersection of media and social justice. AMP stages the annual Allied Media Conference and, partnered with the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, organizes on a variety of media education and outreach...
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The Conversation - 25 - Frances Whitehead
As you will soon learn, Frances Whitehead is a remarkably difficult person to put a label on. Artist, designer (designist?), planner, environmental thinker, dot-connector, collaborator... the list could go on. Our conversation spanned two recording sessions, totaling 7.5 hours and producing 5.5...
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The Conversation - 24 - Aengus and Micah's Third Strike
Aengus and Micah return to interfere with your podcast enjoyment. In their third status update, they attempt to synthesize some of the broader trends in The Conversation to date, from the rift between anthropocentrists and biocentrists to the difference between tech optimists and tech skeptics....
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The Conversation - 23 - Carolyn Raffensperger
Carolyn Raffensperger, JD, is the executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network and the author of Precautionary Tools for Shaping Environmental Policy and Protecting Public Health and the Environment. Not surprisingly, she is well known for her work on the precautionary...
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The Conversation - 22 - Wes Jackson
Dr. Wes Jackson is the founder and director of The Land Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to rethinking agricultural practice and creating new farming systems which result in conservation and ecosystem resilience. Wes's conversation begins with soil and rapidly expands to address how we make…
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The Conversation - 21 - Robert Zubrin
Dr. Robert Zubrin is the president of The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the exploration and colonization of Mars. We begin by discussing why space exploration and colonization is good but, as with my conversation with Chris McKay, Robert and I use space as an entry...
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The Conversation - 20 - David Miller
David Miller is a state representative and mineral explorer in Wyoming. Rep. Miller was the architect of Wyoming's House Bill 85, the so-called "Doomsday Bill," which created a committee to study Wyoming's response to a collapse of the US Federal Government. Our conversation spans themes from...
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The Conversation - 19 - Joseph Tainter
Dr. Joseph Tainter is an anthropologist and historian who has studied collapse in numerous ancient civilization and penned The Collapse of Complex Societies. This is our first deeply historical episode and Dr. Tainter begins by offering his definition of complexity and taking us through the story...
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The Conversation - 18 - David Korten
David Korten is an economist, author, and progressive activist with a background in international business. He is the president of the Living Economy Forum, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, co-founder of YES! Magazine, and a member of the Club of Rome. His books include When…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
A collaborative conversation about the future between some of America's greatest thinkers and you. www.findtheconversation.com
HOSTED BY
Aengus Anderson
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Conversation have?
The Conversation currently has 68 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Conversation about?
A collaborative conversation about the future between some of America's greatest thinkers and you. www.findtheconversation.com
How often does The Conversation release new episodes?
The Conversation has 68 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Conversation?
You can listen to The Conversation on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Conversation?
The Conversation is created and hosted by Aengus Anderson.
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