Last Born In The Wilderness

I speak with psychedelic scholar, editor, publisher, and researcher Robert Forte. For over three decades, Robert has collaborated with some of the most influential and well-known figures within the psychedelic movement, including R. Gordon Wasson, Timothy Leary, Stanislav Grof, and Alexander Shulgin, to name a few. James Fadiman, psychedelic researcher and writer, has described Robert as “a major but not well-known hero of the psychedelic movement.” In this discussion, we discuss Robert’s skeptical, but well-grounded, concerns regarding the “psychedelic renaissance” currently underway, in particular as we begin to see a resurgence of public interest (including more positive coverage in the corporate press) of MDMA and other psychedelic compounds, as well as the ongoing legalization (or as Robert states it: the commodification) of cannabis throughout the United States in recent years. Robert is fundamentally concerned with the various forces that aim to control the ways psychedelics and cannabis are perceived

In this episode, I speak with Ian Campbell, community-oriented educator and co-founder of North Texas Progressive Schools (NTxPS). We discuss the fundamental principles of self-directed learning and progressive schooling, the necessity of play in childhood development, and the value of instilling democratic values and collective decision-making through education. We also discuss the potent example of collective decision-making through Ian's research into the radical social revolution in Rojava, a Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/ian-campbell // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I speak with ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chris Thomas, author of Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction. In this discussion, Chris lays out his understanding of whether we have truly entered into the “Sixth Mass Extinction Event,” and provides his views on whether the current rate of species extinction on this planet lives up to that dire description. Chris also discusses the difficult challenges ecologists and conservationists are currently facing in the effort to preserve species in a radically changing world, and lays out the choices that lay before us when it comes to the difficult task of conserving biodiversity and preventing species loss in the face of anthropogenic climate change and other human-caused crises. We also discuss his view of whether abrupt changes in the global climate system will lead to severe loss of life on this planet, in particular human life, or whether many of the fears regarding this subject are overblown, but rooted in legitimate unders

I speak with Kevin Hester, host of Nature Bats Last, and RS in a group conversation in which we discuss living in a time of accelerating change, abrupt climate disruption, and extinction. As the climate crisis continues to accelerate, and the likelihood of mass human displacement and extinction increases by the year, what does it mean to live and be in this time? The nature of this discussion with Kevin and RS is to approach the difficulties of accepting the situation we are in and applying this understanding to our day-to-day existence, with all the complexities and inconsistencies that come with that. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/hester-rs // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast [ EP 144 / REC 08.19.2018 / REL 09.07.2018 / RMST 04.30.2026 ]

My guest for this episode is Ben Etherington, author of Literary Primitivism and the long-form essay The New Primitives, published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, the themes of which we discuss in this episode. Ben lays out a nuanced examination of Primitivism — a “mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate ‘primitive’ experience.” // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/ben-etherington // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I speak with writer Tad Hargrave about his work exploring, unpacking, and addressing the concept and social reality of “whiteness”—more broadly the roots, or lack thereof, of “white culture” as we understand it to be today. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/tad-hargrave // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I’m joined by Charles Eisenstein—public speaker and author of Sacred Economics, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, and most recently Climate: A New Story. Eisenstein discusses the themes and ideas presented in Climate: A New Story, a book that "flips the script on climate change," making the "case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction," from which the global climate crisis ultimately stems. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/charles-eisenstein // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast [ EP 141 / REC 08.16.2018 / REL 08.22.2018 / RMST 04.29.2026 ]

I speak with Jeremy Lent, integrator, author of The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, and the founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute. In this conversation, we start off discussing Jeremy’s excellent critique of cognitive psychologist, linguist, and popular science author Steven Pinker’s recent book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Jeremy initially presented his brilliant critique in his widely shared article, Steven Pinker’s Ideas About Progress Are Fatally Flawed. These Eight Graphs Show Why, which we delve into in this episode. Jeremy unpacks the underlying assumptions implicit in Pinker’s ideas presented in his work, in particular regarding Pinker’s defense (through cherry-picking of data) of the capitalist neoliberal economic order, and more broadly of the “progress narrative” that justifies (or outright ignores) the widespread ecological devastation implicit in the expansion and maintenance of industrial civilization and

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Joe Tafur—Family Physician, Shipibo-trained Shaman, Integrative Medicine activist, and the author of The Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor's Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine. We discuss Dr. Tafur’s years of work integrating Western medical knowledge and practice with traditional Amazonian plant medicine, in particular the administering of the psychedelic brew ayahuasca, and other plant medicines, under the traditional practice of Shipibo shamanism. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/joe-tafur // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I speak with writer, documentarian, and lecturer Douglas Rushkoff. Douglas has authored numerous best-selling books, including Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, and the yet-to-be released Team Human. Douglas’s lifetime of work has focused primarily on human autonomy in the digital age. We start this episode by discussing Douglas’s widely shared article, published on Medium and picked up by CNBC, Survival of the Richest: The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind. In the article, Douglas describes a situation in which he was invited to a private meeting with several ultra-wealthy men to go over their questions regarding technological trends in cryptocurrency, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence, as well as their deep-seated concerns regarding “The Event”—a reference to the portending threat of abrupt climate change, nuclear war, social unrest, and econom

Third-generation organizer and photographer Max Wilbert joins me for this episode. Max is the author of We Choose To Speak, a collection of essays written between 2013 and 2018, in which Wilbert “make[s] the case for a revolutionary environmentalism that aims to forcefully dismantle the global culture of empire.” Our culture is a life-destroying force on this planet. What is to be done in the face of the reality industrial civilization is forging on the living planet we all share? Max Wilbert and I discuss this question within the context of his years of work discussing and raising awareness of the large-scale ecological crisis currently unfolding under the guise of “economic prosperity” and “development.” We delve into Wilbert’s years of organizing, educating, and actively fomenting practical and diverse forms of resistance, as well as what forms of resistance are required of us to effectively dismantle this industrial civilization and culture. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/epis

In this episode, I speak with Lise Eliot, Professor of Neuroscience at The Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University, and the author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps and What We Can Do About It. In this interview, I tried to get to the root of what informs gender identity and its relationship to our biology, specifically regarding human neurology and brain development. The questions we explore in this episode include: What significant neurological differences exist between a “male” and “female” brain, especially at the time of birth? If differences exist, what role do these differences play in the development of individual traits—traits that may be categorized culturally as either “female” or “male” in nature? How much is the development of an individual's gender identity associated with cultural, rather than biological, factors? Along with these subject, we also delve into questions regarding transgender and childhood gender identity. Dr. Eliot's rese

I speak with Steven Cohen, former executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and professor in the practice of public affairs at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and the author of The Sustainable City. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/steven-cohen // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

In this episode I speak with Stephen Jenkinson - founder and lead instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School and the author of numerous books, including ‘Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul’ and most recently ‘Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble.’ In this discussion, we discuss how the dominant culture of North America, as Stephen frames it, is awash in aged people, but bereft of elders, in the truest sense of the word. Stephen “argues that elderhood is a function rather than an identity – it is not a position earned simply by the number of years on the planet or the title ‘parent’ or ‘grandparent.’”☨ Why is it that the dominant culture of North America has been unable to produce the conditions necessary for elderhood to flourish, especially in this time of trouble we find ourselves in? Stephen discusses what the historical and cultural conditions have been that has lead to this unexplored and unexamined crisis, and points to what elderhood in our time of great crisis (ecological, spi

Conjurer, political theorist, and gonzo journalist Dr. Bones returns to the podcast to discuss the irrational nature of human behavior, the narratives that direct human activity, folk magic, and the practicality of conjuring as a form of direct action. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/dr-bones-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast [ EP 133 / REC 05.31.2018 / REL 06.14.2018 / RMST 08.23.2026 ]

For this episode, Cynthia Jones and I speak with Liyah Babayan, local entrepreneur, business owner, activist, and Armenian refugee. In this conversation, Liyah goes over her life story, framing it within the cultural/historical/political framework of her home country of Azerbaijan, where she had spent much of her early childhood, before fleeing with her family from severe persecution and mass genocide. In the late '80s and into the early '90s, a pogrom was enacted against ethnic Armenians in the city of Baku (the nation’s capital and Liyah’s place of birth), as well as in surrounding areas, resulting in the expulsion, and mass murder, of thousands of Armenians. These events have been described as the Baku Pogrom: “From January 12, 1990, a seven-day pogrom broke out against the Armenians civilian population in Baku during which Armenians were beaten, tortured, murdered, and expelled from the city. There were also many raids on apartments, robberies and arsons. According to the Human Rights Watch reporter Rob

This episode contains two interviews. The first is with Shane Burley - filmmaker, journalist, and author of ‘Fascism Today: What It Is and How To End It.’ The second is with [RS] - journalist and radio host on the Progressive Radio Network. Each of these interviews focus on the dynamics and recent developments within Abolish ICE movement, and specifically the OccupyICE encampments that have sprung up in recent weeks around ICE offices throughout the U.S., the largest and most prominent being in Portland, Oregon. The formation of these encampments are in response to the increasingly Gestapo-like policies and tactics currently being employed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, in particular regarding the agency’s active role in the detainment of immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border seeking asylum. Much of the anger, and subsequent action, in recent weeks has been in response to the Trump Administration’s policy of separating immigrant families and i

In this episode, I speak with Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind Peter Sjöstedt-H on psychedelics, panpsychism, and philosophy. Peter and I discuss the resurgence of interest in psychedelics in popular culture regarding the profound, and absolutely vital, therapeutic value these substances can provide for individuals suffering from trauma and addiction. The therapeutic value of these substances is only the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to the value these substances hold for humanity’s philosophical exploration into the nature of the mind and the mind's relationship with reality. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/peter-sjostedt-h // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I speak with Joel Wainwright, professor at Ohio State University and co-author of Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future. In this book, Joel and co-author Geoff Mann examine a question often overlooked within the broader discussion about global climate change and our planetary future: how will our political and economic institutions respond to global climate change? // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/joel-wainwright // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast

I speak with Tom Aiello, founder and lead instructor at the Snake River BASE Academy. Tom has travelled all around the world pursuing his passion of BASE jumping, and in this episode he shares his rich depth of experience and knowledge, as well as some truly fascinating and engrossing stories well worth listening to. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/tom-aiello-2 // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast