Last Born In The Wilderness

In this episode, I speak with Johann Hari, journalist and author of Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, and Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Johann goes over some of the themes in his latest book Lost Connections, which includes exploring some of the root causes of depression and anxiety, understanding some of the deep misconceptions we have in Western societies about treating anxiety and depression, as well as pointing to the possibility and potential for radical change to occur in alleviating these mental health issues we see permeating throughout our society. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/johann-hari // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, Silvia Federici goes over many of the details and themes in her groundbreaking book, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, an extensive history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Silvia discusses the conditions that led to the witch-hunts in medieval Europe, and the lasting impact these events have had on the trajectory of capitalist development into the modern era. Silvia provides a description of the social and economic system, feudalism, that governed societies in medieval Europe and how the events and struggles that occurred during that time period led to the economic and social system, capitalism, we currently exist in today. Caliban and the Witch is an incredibly important and relevant work, and provides a much-needed context of how capitalism did not merely emerge naturally out of feudalism, but was enacted piece by piece through systemic acts of state violence over hundreds of years against the landless, the poor, and in particular women. Silvia

In this episode, Cynthia Jones and I speak with Milica Popovic, Associate Professor of Art at the College of Southern Idaho. Milica discusses her personal experiences with the social and economic disintegration in her home country of Serbia, during the fracturing of the Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Milica describes how her and her husband left their home country and made their way to the United States, where Milica eventually settled in Twin Falls, Idaho, and took up a position at the College of Southern Idaho, where this interview was conducted. In this episode, Milica also discusses the impact trauma has had on her art, and how producing art has helped her work with the traumatic memories she carries with her to this day. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/milica-popovic // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

This is my second interview with David O'Hara, and as with the first, conversing with him is always a delight and a great pleasure. In this episode, we discussed his trip to Central America, and the recent archaeological discovery of a vast Mayan metropolis that "at its peak some 1,500 years ago, covered an area about twice the size of medieval England, with an estimated population of around five million." David describes the cutting-edge technology that is now being used to discover these, until very recently, hidden ruins of an ancient Mayan civilization, and what we can learn from these discoveries regarding our own civilization.  We also get into the ethics of artificial intelligence and the corporate control of the development of computer technology, and the implications this has for how information is disseminated through our society. David discusses some of the underlying issues on relying on algorithms and computer learning to make big decisions for us, and how this kind of thinking leads to unintend

In this episode, Dahr Jamail lays out the details of the current state of the global climate system and the massive catastrophic changes currently underway in our oceans, as well as the ongoing disappearance of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, the receding land ice on Greenland, and what this means for sea level rise in the upcoming decades. We discuss the implications of these very rapid shifts in our global climate system and what this means for the future of our species, and all life on this planet. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/dahr-jamail // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Patrick Dougherty is a veteran, clinical psychologist, and founder of Moving Through It, an organization that raises public awareness and cultivates a deeper understanding of collective trauma, as well as provides a means for individuals and groups to move through the various states of feeling we have all begun to experience as we enter a time of great uncertainty and instability. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/patrick-dougherty // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

This is episode 100 of the podcast. Incredible. I read a letter from a listener and responded to it. I express how grateful I am for the support I've received for this project, and I reiterate the purpose and what I aim for with Last Born In The Wilderness. For this episode, I go solo. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/100 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Peter McCoy is the founder of Radical Mycology, a nonprofit grassroots organization that engages in wide and varied methods (from organizing events and workshops and producing media content) to educate and actively demonstrate the vast potential fungi has in the fields of nutrition, waste disposal, medicine, food production, and water treatment, just to name a few. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/peter-mccoy // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode, Professor Paul Ehrlich and I discuss the very severe loss of biodiversity on this planet in recent decades, human civilization and its detrimental impact on animal and insect populations, abrupt climate change, the toxification of the environment, and the looming specter of nuclear war. Also, we discuss the psychological blind-spots in the individual and collective human psyche that allows for this massive level of destruction to take place without much attention and meaningful change to ensure our collective survival. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/paul-ehrlich // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Samra Culum is Student Development Coordinator at the College of Southern Idaho (CSI), and a refugee. Samra, as a child, fled with her family from war-torn Bosnia, and through the CSI Refugee Resettlement Program, settled in Twin Falls, Idaho with her family. In this episode, Samra discusses what her and her family experienced in her community in Bosnia as underlying tensions and divisions broke out into war and ethnic cleansing, and what the process of escaping and eventually resettling in the United States was like. Samra then goes over her feelings and thoughts about the recent surge of anti-refugee sentiment that has emerged in the Twin Falls area surrounding the CSI Refugee Resettlement Program in recent years, and how difficult, painful, and important it is to revisit traumatic memories and experiences and process them in a meaningful way. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/samra-culum // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: h

Carne Ross is a former British diplomat, Middle East and WMD expert, who resigned in 2004 after giving what was then secret information to a British inquiry into the Iraq War. Carne became acutely aware that the information being presented to the public leading up to the Iraq War was misleading and false. After he left his position as a diplomat, he founded the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat, which advises democratic countries and movements around the world. This year, Carne was featured in the documentary Accidental Anarchist, a film that follows Carne's path from British diplomat to an advocate for Anarchism. This film follows Carne's journey to find and eventually witness anarchist principles in action during the Occupy movement, the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s in Catalonia, and contemporarily by the Kurds in Rojava. Rojava is a region in northern Syria, and during the chaotic Syrian civil war, was able to begin practicing anarchism effectively while simu

Riccardo Manzotti is the author of The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One. Riccardo teaches Psychology of Perception at IULM University, Milan (Italy), and has specialized in AI, artificial vision, perception, and the philosophy and science of consciousness. This discussion deals with a few different subjects brought up in Riccardo's work, namely what the "Spread Mind" hypothesis is and its underlying premise of what the "mind" really is, and how scientific exploration into the brain and neurological functioning will not lead to any answers regarding where our conscious experience comes from. Riccardo's new book, The Spread Mind, delves deeply into this fascinating subject and radically shifts our understanding of consciousness and points to another way to frame our understanding of this subject. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/riccardo-manzotti // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/last

Ian MacKenzie is an award-winning filmmaker and media activist, and co-director of the film "Amplify Her," a documentary that follows the powerful and emerging female producers in the electronic music scene. For most of my life, I've contemplated the roles that were bestowed upon us as individuals, as brothers and sisters, as men and as women, as sons and daughters, and collectively as a species on this planet. I wanted to explore the questions surrounding masculinity, while recognizing that the territory surrounding gender and more specifically gender identity requires a nuanced approach, and I wanted to tread lightly and purposefully when discussing this subject. I sought out Ian MacKenzie to have this conversation with me because I had become familiar with his work regarding gender and the sacred roles of men and women can embody, and I have come to recognize that the work he is doing is entirely necessary in this time of great calamity and confusion. More than ever, people are discussing gender ident

Bayo Akomolafe is a researcher, lecturer and author, born and raised in Nigeria. He is an international speaker, poet and activist for a radical paradigm shift in consciousness and current ways of living. Bayo is globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, counterintuitive, and indigenous take on global crisis, civic action and social change. Bayo discusses some of the themes raised in his essay, Homo Icarus: The Depreciating Value of Whiteness and the Place of Healing. The essay attempts to discuss a few difficult topics, triggered, in part, by the events in Charlottesville during the Unite The Right rally this year, which highlighted some of the more vile and racist elements of American culture. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/bayo-akomolafe // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Alex S. Vitale is Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and author of The End Of Policing. In this discussion, Alex describes the current state of policing in the US, and provides a historical and sociological context as to why policing functions as it currently does. Alex describes the policies that have led to the current problems many segments of the American population have with police and the tactics police employ. From the War on Drugs to the War on Terror, Alex describes how the political class operates on a very flawed view of human nature, and how that has inevitably led to policies and the horrendous experiences many have had with police. Putting this all in context allows us to address the underlying issues with policing as a whole, and work to change the way social issues are dealt with within our communities. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/alex-vitale // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me

Tom Aiello is the founder, owner, and lead instructor of the Snake River BASE Academy, based in Twin Falls, Idaho. Twin Falls is nestled up against the Snake River Canyon, and spanning the canyon is the Perrine Bridge. Due to lack of legal restrictions and its location, the Perrine Bridge is an optimal fixed structure for BASE jumping, attracting countless people from all over the world to this small city in Southern Idaho. "BASE" is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: building, antenna, span, and Earth (cliff). Tom is the first in the world to provide a detailed and rigorous multi-level educational course for those that wish to get into BASE jumping and learn more than just the basics. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/tom-aiello // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

John Perkins is the best-selling author of several books, including the well-known Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and as his follow-up book, The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman, released last year. John spent the 1970s working for the strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main as Chief Economist, where he and his staff advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, as well as countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. In this episode, we discuss his role in the paradigm of economic exploitation termed globalization, and as his insight into the political and economic turmoil currently being experienced in South and Central American nations, and more specifically in Venezuela. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/john-perkins // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Chris Isner is a visionary artist that primarily works with recovered portions of wood, and out of that produces memorizing iterations of form. The story of how he learned to work with wood in this way, to produce incredibly unique works of art, came about when years ago he reached a low-point in his life. Due to a series of coincidences, Chris made his way to the jungles of Peru and engaged in a shamanic ritual involving the powerful psychedelic brew ayahuasca, which he claims not only healed his physical ailments, but also healed him psychically as well, and revealed to him the knowledge he now uses to produce his art. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/chris-isner // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

Sean McFate is an author, novelist, and expert in foreign policy and national security strategy. His career began in the U.S. Army in the 82nd Airborne Division, and later became a private military contractor in Africa for Dyncorp, where he "dealt with warlords, raised small armies, worked with armed groups in the Sahara, transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe, and helped prevent an impending genocide in the Great Lakes region." Sean is deeply critical of the ongoing privatization of military operations by the U.S. government, as well as Erik Prince, former president and founder of Blackwater, and his proposals to dramatically privatize military operations in Afghanistan. These types of grandiose plans Prince proposed to the Trump Administration have not been implemented, but there is still much to be concerned with regarding the rise of mercenary armies and how they fit into the ever-changing face of war in the 21st century. Sean McFate goes over this and much more in this episode. // Episode notes: https

Just like David O'Hara's book Downstream, this episode is about so much more than fly-fishing. David imbues the conversation with great knowledge and wisdom, and speaking with him was a great pleasure in and of itself. The topics touched in this episode are broad: fishing the rivers of Appalachia; empathizing with other creatures; studying and observing reef ecology in Belize; enduring and recovering from a major head injury; the wonder of it all. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/david-ohara // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast