Doomer Optimism (Doomer Optimism)

The guest on this episode of Doomer Optimism is world traveler and do-gooder Simon Mostafa, who joined hosts Josh Kearns (@HillbillyNarnia) and Jason Snyder (@cognazor) from Spain, where he is currently working on various homesteading projects .Topics include: water and sanitation projects in the developing world, Mostafa's work in Chiapas and Spain, and facing down the existential crises of our time.

About Simon Mostafa
After graduating from Colorado University with a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, Mostafa moved to Chiapas to work as the Director of Research for Cántaro Azul, focusing on water sanitation research. He now lives in Spain doing community homesteading work.

About Dr. Josh Kearns
Josh is a born-n-bred Appalachian and a native of West-By-God-Virginia and damn proud of it. He studied chemistry and environmental engineering at Clemson (BS), biogeochemistry at Berkeley (MS), and environmental engineering at CU-Boulder (PhD). He's spent years bumming around rural and remote communities in Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, India, Nepal, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, and generally tried to make himself useful while doing so. He's the Director of Science for Aqueous Solutions, and the Chief Technical Advisor for Caminos de Agua, grassroots water and health development organizations in Thailand and Mexico, respectively. He taught environmental engineering courses at NC State University for a couple of years before returning to his roots as a freelance renegade scientist and exponent of ecological transition engineering. He lives with his wife Rachael and all their critters on a small mountaintop homestead in southern Appalachia.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, first-time host Donald Antenen (@riversofeurope) and Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) interview associate English professor and editor of Front Porch Republic, Jeff Bilbro (@jeff_bilbro). Topics range from Jeff's experiences living in a remote part of Washington state to his work at Front Porch Republic.

About Jeff Bilbro
Jeffrey Bilbro is an Associate Professor of English at Grove City College. He grew up in the mountainous state of Washington and earned his B.A. in Writing and Literature from George Fox University in Oregon and his Ph.D. in English from Baylor University. His books include Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, Loving God’s Wildness: The Christian Roots of Ecological Ethics in American Literature, Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (written with Jack Baker), and Virtues of Renewal: Wendell Berry’s Sustainable Forms.

About Donald Antenen
Donald Antenen lives with his wife and daughters in the Pacific Northwest. He is translating Genesis: Beginning: a Verse Translation of Genesis.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Small Town Mayor James Decker w/ Ashley and Nate

A rollicking conversation with Chris Mott of "Woke Imperium" fame. We checked in on geopolitics and ideology and how these have influenced current events and crazy trends in journalism, academia, gov't, NGOs, and the PMC in general.

One fulcrum of the conversation was how the DC pride celebration has evolved over recent years to be dominated by the military-industrial-complex (Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, the CIA, McKinsey, the Pentagon, etc. all doing big floats and extravagant productions attesting to their woke cred), and how all this reflects the consummation of the marriage of progressive culture war social justice politics with neconservatism, and the seamless interplay between supposedly humanitarian intervention and militarism in the Establishments monomaniacal neoliberal messianism.

Ashley speaks with Kate Parsons and Adam Mayfield about their wilderness survival skills school, the role of art in society, and mindfulness in practice. A wild ride! ‌ PRIMAL U designs and implements one-of-a-kind courses with experts in wilderness first aid, leadership, survival techniques, sustainability and mindfulness training. Primal U’s mission is to train individuals holistically, providing a space to learn and grow in an outdoor setting. Our new Primal U Artist Lecture Series showcases the practices of artists and creatives working in and with the natural world. Primal U is the brainchild of Rob Mullins, Kate Parsons, and Adam Mayfield. Parsons is an artist, educator, and co-founder of the virtual reality studio FLOAT. An Assistant Professor of Digital Arts at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and Instructor at Art Center College of Design, Parsons is a Montana-native who knows that country life and self-sufficiency still runs in her blood. Mayfield, who is from Los Angeles, is a mindfulness specialist, an actor (Ford vs. Ferrari, All My Children) and professional survival instructor. He is a longtime alum of Boulder Outdoor Survival School, where he taught traditional living skills to folks from all walks of life, from corporate executives and military personnel to artists and political activists. Adam is also a mentor for Inward Bound Mindfulness Education, a nonprofit organization that holds both traditional and outdoor excursion retreats across the US, Canada, and the UK, teaching mindfulness to teenagers and adults. Mullins, who hails from Ohio, is a homesteader, life & leadership coach, outdoor enthusiast, ultra-marathoner, and former executive at a Forbes 107 company. As a pharmacist, Rob has a lifetime of helping others and has had tremendous results coaching and mentoring leaders for career success. In addition he holds ACC accreditation from the International Coach Federation, is an Authorized Partner for Everything DiSC and is a registered Maine Outdoor Recreation and Hunting Guide. The three met when Parsons attended one of the wilderness training camps taught by Mullins and Mayfield at Thomas Coyne Survival Schools—one of the top survival schools worldwide. Since then, they have banded together to create a unique, hybrid curriculum: A combination of straightforward survival skills, wilderness first aid training, permaculture, mindfulness techniques and leadership coaching. ‌ Primal U Montana First Session: June 16, 17, 18 Second Session: June 23, 24, 25

Ashley and Arie broadly discuss Goethean science, loconomy, and doomer optimism.

This is part of a series of interviews where new hosts turn the mic on recurring DO hosts, like this one with Donald: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOyS9fAtSI8

Arie J. Dallas is a sometimes surrealist painter who wonders about the mystery of life and connection. He currently produces Popcorn Forest, an interview show focusing especially on epistemology, neurodivergence, creativity, systems science, and experimentation.

Popcorn Forest is at: http://www.popcornforest.com .

His paintings are at: www.ariejames.xyz.

Goethe on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe

Goetheanum and their publications: https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/

Craig Holdregde on Goethean Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmzXTuoqjMU&t=3744s&pp=ygUQZ29ldGhlYW4gc2NpZW5jZQ%3D%3D Merlin Sheldrake (son of Rupert Sheldrake) on Fungal Lifeforms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpnCowci0XQ&pp=ygUTc2hlbGRyYWtlIG11c2hyb29tcw%3D%3D

Arie's Selected Doomer Optimism Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVgIDIxsH2zleq7jFf7Dxw8sP5Ia_3yrg

Join our book club community as Ashley, Donald, AC, Tiffani, and Joel gather to discuss the timeless wisdom of Wendell Berry. Delve into the captivating world of his works, exploring profound insights, reflections, and engaging conversations that promise to leave you inspired and enlightened.

Paul, Alex and Ioan talk about searching for an intentional community, how to find the place and the people you can belong to, and community with the land you live on.

Paul d'Aoust @helioscomm is a member of an unintentional intentional community, living, eating, making music, and gardening with hiswith his wife, kids, and in-laws on an acreage in western Canada. He is trying, usually falteringly, to live more deeply into communal living and all the joys and pains that come with it. Paul works with Holochain, a framework for building applications that support thriving communities by making it easy to set up community-owned infrastructure.

Alex Wagner @alexdw5 is a writer. He publishes a weekly newsletter titled, Things That Should Exist, focusing on practical ways to build interdependence and resiliency in a changing world. He’s also a singer-songwriter and artist, publishing music under the moniker, Alex Time.

https://thingsthatshouldexist.substack.com/

https://alextimer.bandcamp.com/album/demos-2022

Ioan @awarenesss is trying to build community on land: http://elkenmist.substack.com and in the city @bridgespacepdx

Here are some thanks and links to  some of the people and inspirations that came up in the conversation:

Dare Sohei from https://animistarts.art for the concept of secure attachment to land and other more than human beings.

David Abram https://davidabram.org

Ron Rivers https://singletruth.org

The Weird Wild Wonderful World of Biochar – with Tom Miles, Kelpie Wilson, Myles Gray, and Josh

What is biochar and why should we care about it? A roundtable discussion with veterans of the biochar world.

Tom Miles –  TR Miles Consultants (ag and bioenergy) and US Biochar Initiative

Kelpie Wilson – Wilson Biochar

Myles Gray – US Biochar Initiative

Josh Kearns – A Field Guide to Biochar Water Treatment

Interest in biochar – “charcoal, with a purpose” – has been growing for 20 years. Biochar can enhance garden and agricultural soils and improve crop yields, provide a mechanism for drawdown and sequestering of atmospheric carbon, and provide a tunable engineered sorbent for a variety of water treatment and environmental remediation applications.

In this conversation, we discuss contemporary innovations and developments for using biochar to tackle a variety of sustainability challenges.

2024 North American Biochar Conference

February 12-14, 2024

Sacramento, CA

Ashley and Jason speak with Ed Bourgeois about his long history in the regenerative agriculture movement, the importance of holistic science, good soil management as the foundation, and his work now building peer to peer networks among farmers working towards a regenerative transition

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool), Jason Snyder(@cognazor), and Steven Morris (@lifesmyth) sat down with the incredible John Michael Greer, previous founder of the Archdruid Report and current founder of Ecosophia. Topics discussed range from regenerative futures to the collapse of industrial civilization. Doomer Optimists everywhere won't be disappointed with this one!

About John Michael Greer
John Michael Greer is a widely read author, blogger, and astrologer whose work focuses on the overlaps between ecology, spirituality, and the future of industrial society. He served twelve years as Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America, and remains active in that order as well as several other branches of Druid nature spirituality.  He currently lives in East Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife Sara.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

About Steven Morris
Steven Morris started his journey into Doomer Optimism in 2011 when during the time of a divorce he stumbled upon 3 of the many early doomer optimist voices: Chris Martenson's Crash Course, John Michael Greer's  blog The Archdruid Report, and KMO's C-Realm podcast. These 3 identified the many issues of decline in the world that he could sense but didn't have words for. At the same time they all provided positive possibilities for the future.

Steven considers himself an amateur Renaissance Man and Polymath of sorts with a wide variety of interests including, appropriate use of technology, regenerative systems, explorations in consciousness, alternative (sometimes called complementary) currency systems, computer technology, and complex systems.

He has worked on multiple award winning independent films, managed warehouse logistics for a small business, run a college radio station and lead ecstatic dance workshops. He is a trained Host for Nora Bateson's People Need People gatherings. He currently generates income from running the audio visual technology behind corporate events and is working with the Commons Engine as the video editor for their upcoming Currency Design for Change Agents master class to be launched this spring.

Jason moderates this panel on the topic of biophysical realities and cultural potentials.  

Greg Cassel @gregsc1 of @neighbour_hoods community open source #p2p inclusive organizing / protocols not platforms; communication not control/ #permaculture #madhyamika #panentheism   

Ellie at Common Action @sellieyoung making climate cool again. move fast and fix things. get your CA orb: https://ca.refiorb.com join us in Slack: http://tinyurl.com/42dnwub6  

Nathan @tornadonate is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a podcast about psychedelics, science and psychotherapy. He also practices regenerative ranching and writes from his family's farm in rural west-central Illinois.  

Richard Flyer @Richard_Flyer Fall 2022 Launching Symbiotic Culture Lab. From Symbiosis -- Intentional Mutual Benefit at all scales. Global Commonwealth of Bioregional Economies.  

Jason Snyder @cognazor Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

This is an interview Sean Blanda of Sabbatical did with Ashley on her approach to moving to Uruguay for a time when her kids were young. A write-up of the interview is here:
https://sabbatical.email/interviews/ashley-colby-how-i-took-a-working-parent-sabbatical

In this election day special, Jason talks with Jon Council, candidate for County Commissioner 3 in Watauga County of Western NC (Jason’s home county) and Sarah Davis, his campaign manager, to talk about local issues in the region, including environmental protection, affordable housing for the working class, and mutual aid. In particular they talk about the impacts of Hurricane Helene in the region, how it changed the nature of their campaign into one of disaster relief organizing, and the challenges and opportunities moving forward.

They are both active members with Down Home NC (https://downhomenc.org/ ) and it’s local chapter Keep WNC (and Watauga) Home (https://keepwnchome.org/ )

A profile of Sarah Davis can be found here: https://medium.com/reclaiming-rural/calling-watauga-home-a8608d9d36d7

Jon’s campaign website can be found here: https://www.councilforwatauga.com/

About Jon:

Born and raised in North Carolina, I have grown to appreciate the diverse communities and nature that surround us, especially here in the High Country. My wife and I have lived on the Watauga River for the past six years after living and working in other communities around the area.  We have witnessed firsthand the areas where our local government has fallen short. Our county's working people deserve access to safe and affordable housing, environmental protections, clean water, a voice on our local boards, and much more. I have faced these same issues daily and am dedicated to making a difference for our county. I aim to become a public servant, not a politician.

To learn more about my involvement in our community and the issues I am running on, check out this interview with the national publication, Barn Raiser Media (https://barnraisingmedia.com/appalachia-carpenter-watauga-county-development-organizing-minimum-housing-standards/ )

Ashley met Michael Sellas as a couple recent Doomer Optimism events and they immediately hit it off. After discussing urban planning’s connection to DO, Michael suggested some writing by his friends Dr. Timothy Patitsas, who not only thinks a lot about cities, but worked with Jane Jacobs!

Michael Sellas, M.Div, is the founder of Michael Sellas Photography, and the Audio Producer for the No-Till Growers Podcast Network.

Photography: michaelsellasphotography.com

Music: Spotify

Timothy Patitsas is the author of The Ethics of Beauty and the assistant professor of Ethics at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Boston.

For his book: https://www.stnicholaspress.net/store/the-ethics-of-beauty

For his film work: https://www.beautyfirstfilms.com

In this episode, Jason and Roland Gunn (@rolandgunntn ) talk with C. Sandbatch (@csandbatch ) about his project Ecologica Americana. With a focus on the South but more broadly generalizable to America, they weave in ecology, history, and politics to talk about paradigm change, shifting from rigid ideology to cybernetic mythology, breaking through the cultural ennui, and creating a future worth our time

C. Sandbatch’s Substack can be found here: ecoamericana.substack.com

AC and Tres interview Tom, the nicest guy on twitter, about his homestead, localism, distributism,  as well as his mentorship with Tres.  

Tom Ruby is CEO of Bluegrass Critical Thinking Solutions (www.bgcts.com), a strategic planning and leadership development consulting company geared to small businesses. Tom was born in Belgrade, Serbia, in January, 1964. His parents escaped the country in 1965 and arrived in Los Angeles in 1966 where they settled. In 1982, Tom received an appointment to the US Air Force Academy where he received his Bachelor of Science in Humanities. A 1986 USAFA graduate and three-time football letterman, Colonel Tom Ruby served 26 years on active duty in positions from Squadron Intelligence Officer, to Chief of Doctrine for the AF Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Enterprise at the Pentagon, to Chief of Special Programs for Air Force Materiel Command where he oversaw a more than $4 Billion annual portfolio of over 100 highly classified programs. He earned a Doctorate in Political Science from the University of Kentucky and is widely published and speaks globally on topics ranging from Morality in Warfare, to Leadership, to strategy, to localism and Distributism. Tom is a Board Member of the Society of GK Chesterton and has served on 3 non-profit boards. He mentors students from high school through graduate school, as well as individuals looking to change direction in life. He and his wife, Laura, live on 15 acres in Central Kentucky where he practices land management, reforestation, gardening and building a strong local community. They strive to live a Chestertonian Distributist life. They have three daughter and a son and five grandchildren. So far...

Anarcho-contrarian @anarcontrarian is a nostalgia-poasting Twitter Anon who is passionate about the resiliency of rural places.    

Tres Crow @dogeatcrow is a writer, podcast host, occasional thinker, and the President and co-owner of Roots Down, an environmental education startup that's revolutionizing the landscaping industry from one of the dirtiest industries in the US to a powerful force for positive change.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, Tres Crow (@dogeatcrow) chats up frequent DO contributor William Wheelwright (@ploughmansfolly) about his now infamous Twitter thread, how America can be saved with ice cream, and a path forward for right and left DOers.

About William Wheelwright
They're anonymous, soooo....

About Tres Crow
Tres is making the world a greener place one urban space at a time with my friends at Roots Down. He's a storyteller and marketing dude. He loves natural urbanism and climate justice.

Evan and Jason talk about Narrative Exchange, a program of bringing people from very different backgrounds and sharing stories to foster greater empathy and compassion. They also talk about many related topics including the internet and polarization, the loss of community life, Dunbar’s number, building new communities across differences, public schooling vs. homeschooling, how to be a responsible newcomer to a region, and much more

Ashley speaks with John and Evan, a Catholic and a Lutheran, about the recent resurgence in interest in religion, and how to embrace faith like a normal person.

John Dios (@RealJohnDios) works, lives and worships in rural Eastern Connecticut. In his spare time he produces the Cathedral in the Pines Radio Hour.
https://m.soundcloud.com/cathedralpines

Evan (@pythonrocksnake) was born in West Africa, grew up in eastern Wisconsin, and lives in Fort Wayne, IN with his family. He works in manufacturing supply chain and has a future homestead site outside of town where he grows a garden, is developing an orchard, and hopes to build a house soon.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, hosts Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Jason Snyder(@cognazor) sit down with none other than the regenerative guru himself, Neal Spackman (@NealSpackman). For the regenerative landscape and farming folks out there, this is a high-powered episode filled with inspiring stories from Neal's work, as well as plenty of practical tips for participating in the regeneration movement.

About Neal Spackman
Neal Spackman is an internationally recognized pioneer of hyperarid agroforestries. He is now the Cofounder/CEO of Regenerative Resources https://regenerativeresources.co/

He was cofounder and Director of the Al Baydha Project in Saudi Arabia, where he lived and worked with tribes of bedouin to convert deserts into savannahs. He founded the webinar series Sustainable Design Masterclass, and has taught and consulted in the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, Dr. Jason Snyder (@cognazor)has a discussion with Vince Horn (@VinceFHorn)about Buddhism, homesteading, and what it means to find peace (and even joy) in our current moment of perpetual crisis.

About Vince Horn
Vince Fakhoury Horn is part of a new generation of teachers & translators exploring dharma in the age of the network. A computer engineering dropout turned full-time contemplative, he spent his 20s co-founding the ground-breaking Buddhist Geeks Podcast, while simultaneously doing a full year, in total, of silent retreat practice. Vince began teaching in 2010 having been authorized in both the Pragmatic Dharma lineage of Kenneth Folk, and by Trudy Goodman, guiding teacher of InsightLA, in the Insight Meditation tradition.  Vince has been called a “power player of the mindfulness movement” by Wired magazine and was featured in Wired UK’s “Smart List: 50 people who will change the world.”  He currently lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains outside of Asheville, North Carolina with his partner Emily Horn and their son Zander.

About Dr. Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

Ashley and Feidhlim Harty of Ireland talk about ecological approaches to water, sewage treatment, constructed wetlands, and more.

Feidhlim runs FH Wetland Systems - Creating Spaces for Nature. Find more info at: https://www.wetlandsystems.ie

Ashley, Lindsay and Astrid discuss the doom of industrial schooling and the optimism of homeschooling. Lindsay speaks from the perspective of a homeschooling parent, and Astrid as an adult who was a homeschooled student.   

Lindsay @Lindsay_Rainey2 is a certified teacher turned home educator and a mom of two. She has over 8 years of experience as a home educator and several more in the classroom.  Believing that interests lead to deeper learning, she endorses a self-directed, project based approach to education. She’s experienced how providing choice in the learning process removes friction between parents and kids. She is an expert in finding resources and crafting open ended projects that free kids to learn in ways that work for them. 

Astrid @astridwilde1 is a lifelong learner brought up in a homeschooling household.

On this, the 29th episode of Doomer Optimism, first time hosts Tara Thieke (@TaraAnnThieke) and Donald Antenen (@riversofeurope) dive into the work and themes of Ivan Illich, the preeminent Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. They're joined for the discussion by writer and broadcaster, David Cayley.

About David Cayley
David Cayley is a Toronto-based Canadian writer and broadcaster, who is known for documenting philosophy of prominent thinkers of the 20th century - Ivan Illich, Northrop Frye, George Grant, and Rene Girard.  

About Tara Thieke
Tara Thieke is a homemaker and writer. Her writing can be found at Mere Orthodoxy, Front Porch Republic, The American Mind and many more.

About Donald Antenen
Donald Antenen lives with his wife and daughters in the Pacific Northwest. He is translating Genesis: https://bibletranslation.substack.com/

This is a syndicated episode where Grin and Jackson invited Ashley on their podcast, Campfire, to talk about Doomer Optimism and where it intersects with their project, Cabin, building a network of modern villages.

https://campfire-by-cabin.simplecast.com/episodes/37-homesteading-homeschooling-and-home-economics-with-ashley-colby-fitzgerald-and-grin

Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is comprised of internet friends building a global network of modern villages. Learn more at cabin.city

Read more about the future of living at futureofliving.substack.com

Ashley Colby Fitzgerald is a cohost of Doomer Optimism and founder of the Rizoma Field School. This episode explores how to prep for periods of instability, varying methods of homeschool, localism, agroecology, relationships in a time of crises, and integrating children into intentional communities. Cabin's technical lead (Grin) joins as cohost.

Twitter:

Ashley: @‌RizomaSchool

Jackson Steger @‌JacksonSteger

Grin: @‌grin_io

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, repeat host Anarcho-Contrarian (@AnarContrarian) is joined by Julie Fredrickson (@AlmostMedia) and Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory). The cover a wide range of economic and political topics, deflation versus inflation, and how the heck someone can navigate the coming insanity.

About Ben Hunt

Ben Hunt is the creator of Epsilon Theory and inspiration behind Second Foundation Partners, which he co-founded with Rusty Guinn in June 2018.

Epsilon Theory, Second Foundation’s principal publishing brand, is a newsletter and website that examines markets through the lenses of game theory and history. Over 100,000 professional investors and allocators across 180 countries read Epsilon Theory for its fresh perspective and novel insights into market dynamics. As Chief Investment Officer, Ben bears primary responsibility for determining the Company’s investment views and positioning of model portfolios. He is also the primary author of materials distributed through Epsilon Theory.

Ben taught political science for 10 years: at New York University from 1991 until 1997 and (with tenure) at Southern Methodist University from 1997 until 2000. He also wrote two academic books: Getting to War (Univ. of Michigan Press, 1997) and Policy and Party Competition (Routledge, 1992), which he co-authored with Michael Laver. Ben is the founder of two technology companies and the co-founder of SmartEquip, Inc., a software company for the construction equipment industry that provides intelligent schematics and parts diagrams to facilitate e-commerce in spare parts.

He began his investment career in 2003, first in venture capital and subsequently on two long/short equity hedge funds. He worked at Iridian Asset Management from 2006 until 2011 and TIG Advisors from 2012 until 2013. He joined Rusty at Salient in 2013, where he combined his background as a portfolio manager, risk manager, and entrepreneur with academic experience in game theory and econometrics to work with Salient’s own portfolio managers and its financial advisor clients to improve client outcomes.

Ben is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (1986) and earned his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 1991. He lives in the wilds of Redding, CT on Little River Farm, where he personifies the dilettante farmer that has been a stock comedic character since Cicero's day. Luckily his wife, Jennifer, and four daughters, Harper, Hannah, Haven and Halle, are always there to save the day. Ben's hobbies include comic books, Alabama football, beekeeping, and humoring Rusty in trivia "competitions".

About Anarcho-Contrarian

They're anonymous so honestly not that much to share here. But here's their Twitter bio: Scale-Reductionism, Localism, Agrarianism, New Village-ism, Distributism... i.e. Redundant, Nostalgic & Politically Homeless.

About Julie Fredrickson

Julie is a serial entrepreneur and investor.

Flávia Macêdo (@flaviagoma) and Jason have a conversation about her work in Brazil to create a local currency that reflects and reinforces values that aren't reflected in the fiat money system, her interest in collaborative food production and agroforestry, how her work interfaces with larger political structures, her work connecting with and building global support networks of like minded people that can help support local and bioregional regeneration, and her interest in the potential of AI  

Despite the degree in Pharmacy, Flávia led her career as a writer and social entrepreneur. She is currently working as Community Builder at Muda Outras Economias, a social currency network, and Common Ground, a web3 native communication platform.  

She is interested in the potential of technologies such as AI and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) in supporting regenerative initiatives. She's the founder of SintropiaDAO, where she investigates and writes about global collective intelligence, relational practices, gift economy, and regenerative cultures.

In this emergency podcast, DO hosts discuss the upcoming US Presidential election as well as plans for yanking Western society back from the precipice of certain total destruction.

The conversation doubles as a drinking game. Take a drink any time a host:

refers to wokeness (approvingly or disparagingly)

mis-pronounces “Kamala”

uses a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings metaphor

complains about Twitter

complains about “neocons”

expresses fear of AI and/or transhumanism

accuses another host of conspiracy theory

mentions “authoritarianism” or “totalitarianism”

gets googly-eyed talking about Thomas Massie

disagrees on the relevance of RFK joining the Trump campaign

Finish your drink (and open another) any time a host mentions:

cosmo-localism

epistemology

meta-modern ______

“hive mind”

“techno-feudalism”

“The woke/postmodern Right”

“I'm not telling you who you should vote for”

“___ is morally depraved”

A discussion of Chris' forthcoming book Saying No to a Farm-Free Future

“Everyone in the food business needs to read this book. . . . [A] lively and superbly written polemic.”—Joel Salatin, co-founder of Polyface Farm

A defense of agroecological, small-scale farming and a robust critique of an industrialized future.

One of the few voices to challenge The Guardian‘s George Monbiot on the future of food and farming (and the restoration of nature) is academic, farmer and author of A Small Farm Future Chris Smaje.

In Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, Smaje presents his defense of small-scale farming and a robust critique of Monbiot’s vision for an urban and industrialized future.Responding to Monbiot’s portrayal of an urban, high-energy, industrially manufactured food future as the answer to our current crises, and its unchallenged acceptance within the environmental discourse, Smaje was compelled to challenge Monbiot’s evidence and conclusions. At the same time, Smaje presents his powerful counterargument – a low-carbon agrarian localism that puts power in the hands of local communities, not high-tech corporates.In the ongoing fight for our food future, this book will help you to understand the difference between a congenial, ecological living and a dystopian, factory-centered existence.

A must-read!

“Chris Smaje has laid down an indictment – as unremitting as it is undeniable – that cuts through the jargon-filled, techno-worshipping agricultural futurists who promise silver-bullet fixes for having your cake and eating it too. This brilliant and compelling book is at once hopeful and persuasive about the future of food.”—Dan Barber, chef at Blue Hill and author of The Third Plate

Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future: The Case For an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods ‌https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/saying-no-to-a-farm-free-future/

Daniel Baryon (@anarkyoutube), Glen Ganaway (@glenganaway), and Jason Snyder (@cognazor) discuss modern day anarchism, how it's informed by complexity science, and how it works as a map for local solutions to a planet wide crisis.

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About Daniel Baryon
Daniel Baryon is an anarchist theorist and organizer. He co-founded Cooperation Tulsa and is a key member of Scissortail Anarchist Organization. He also runs the YouTube channel Anark, where he produces video essays on anarchism and libertarian socialism.

About Glen Ganaway
Glen considers himself a product of the Military Industrial Complex, The Deep South and the Southern Baptist Church. Today he identifies as an Anarchist. Born in Anchorage, Alaska to a deeply religious family and raised in the gated communities of Navy bases.The 80's found Glen doing sex work and waiting tables to support an injection habit. Glen cleaned up in the 90's and joined the Radical Faeries, a loose knit collection of Pagan Queer Anarchists. He met the love of his life Yolanda, an East Village legendary performance artist in 2004. Glen went on to be ordained an Interfaith Minister and acquire an Integral Mentor Certification and a BS in Healthcare Management, which he uses for UFCW Local 2013. Glen's passions include Advaita-Vedanta, Integral Theory, Anarchism, and Regenerative Agriculture. His next project is a 4.4 Acre Homestead in Vermont.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

In this episode Jonathan and Jason talk about Jonathan’s relationship to the South, his Orthodox faith and Interest in Islamic history, anarcho-agrarianism, the commons, and his current efforts helping to catalyze urban community food forests in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Food Forest Organization: chattanoogafoodforests.org

Substack: https://jonathanparkesallen.substack.com

Twitter: @‌Mar_Musa

How does modern society shape our perceptions of childbirth, and are we missing a deeper, more primal experience?

Ashley sits down with Leah, a software engineer and mother, to explore childbirth's deeply personal and often overlooked spiritual dimensions. Together, they unpack the ways modern society frames birth—medicalized, blissful, or terrifying—and contrast these narratives with Leah’s raw, primal experience of labor. They discuss the psychological and physiological forces at play, the importance of surrender and instinct, and the role of partners in supporting a natural birth. Ashley and Leah also reflect on the lost traditions of communal birthing knowledge and how reconnecting with this ancestral wisdom can reshape our approach to pregnancy, labor, and motherhood.

Can AI rival human artistry? Is the potential of AI rivaling human creativity an opportunity to enhance artistic expression and reimagine authorship?

Travis Logan, Charles, and A.R.X. Han discuss the complexities of consciousness, creativity, and the limits of AI, drawing on David Bentley Hart’s critique of materialism to explore whether human experiences and meaning can be reduced to physical processes.

Welcome to a Heartland edition of Doomer Optimism. Today Nate goes into the belly of the agribeast with Zach Smith and Jason Mauck. Representing the grain belt from Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, the trio discusses the status quo in big agriculture, making a living from the land, and human scale innovation.

A major question is how to scale back the total acreage of farms while increasing production and profit per acre, allowing prolific food production while making a livelihood in reach for smaller, more management intensive farms.

We discuss Zach’s invention the Cluster Cluck 5000, which integrates livestock into row crop acres, as well as Jason’s distribution innovation with Munsee Meats. All three are very clear that the status quo is on a very bad track, and the only way it gets better is if YOU do something.

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Zack Smith is a farmer and entrepreneurial inventor from northern Iowa. He is co-founder of Stock Cropper, Inc - The Autonomous Livestock Grazing Company...an entity focused on building autonomous grazing barn systems to integrate multiple species of livestock intelligently back on to various landscapes. After spending the first 20 years of his career in commodity agriculture, he decided at age 42 to set it aside to focus on developing non-regressive paths for future of agriculture that create opportunities for more participants in the food system rather than fewer.

Jason Mauck is a farmer and entrepreneur from Gaston,IN. Jason has developed an intense curiosity towards creating more complex agricultural systems. Systems that manage life with life. As the years progress his goal is to connect farmers with one another to learn together. He calls the movement #farmweird

Nathan Gates is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a podcast about psychedelics, science and psychotherapy. In addition, he serves as president of the board for the Illinois Psychedelic Society and is a board advisor for Entheo Il, a group dedicated to the successful passage of Illinois HB1, the Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens act. He also practices regenerative ranching and writes from his family's farm in rural west-central Illinois. He is a frequent guest and guest host for the Doomer Optimism podcast, a collective podcast dedicated to promotive creative and humane ways to engage with our social and environmental problems with creativity, hope, and good stewardship.

Ashley and Inez solve the battle of the sexes.  

Inez Feltscher Stepman @InezFeltscher is a senior policy analyst at IWF and host of High Noon with Inez Stepman, a podcast that hosts conversations with heterodox thinkers on a variety of important cultural and political subjects. She has over a decade of experience in education policy, and also handles issues related to institutional capture and the definition of sex in law and culture.  She is a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute and a senior contributor to The Federalist. Her work has additionally appeared in outlets such as USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and New York Post, and she has made appearances on Fox News, PBS, CSPAN, and NPR. Inez has a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. She lives in New York City with her husband.  

Ashley Colby @rizomaschool is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to collapse. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School in Colonia Uruguay.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, hosts Dr. Jason Snyder (@cognazor) and Tres Crow (@dogeatcrow) chat with Dostoyevsky addict and burgeoning Doomer Optimist, Ethan Charles Holmes (otherwise known as Posts from the Underground @the_posts) about the doomer to bloomer pipeline and the OG Doomer Optimist, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

About Ethan Charles Holmes

Ethan Charles Holmes is a writer at Sputnik Newswire and a student of Russian literature. His writing on complexity, altruism, liberty, and localism can be found at his blog.

About Dr. Jason Snyder

Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Tres Crow

Tres is making the world a greener place one urban space at a time with my friends Roots Down. He's a storyteller and marketing dude. He loves natural urbanism and climate justice.

Ashley and Robert bounce through a wide range of topics — everything from the tug-of-war between natural law and man-made law to how postmodernism has shaped (and maybe warped) the way we see truth and art. They look at how Western values were shaped, especially through Christianity, and wonder what gets lost when those foundations are ignored. There’s also a back-and-forth on the psychological strain of modern life — what some might call derangement syndrome — and how media and politics often feed into that.In another part of the conversation, they get into how media companies profit off fear, and how political discourse has become almost theatrical. There's talk about how people treat politicians like celebrities or even religious figures, and how social media makes that worse. They also unpack how stories and myths, old and new, shape our ideas about the world.They shift gears again to explore environmental issues, the changing role of art (video games come up as a new kind of art form), and how we use — and misuse — stats and data in the name of truth or democracy. There’s some reflection on good and evil, and how people navigate identity and meaning through different subcultures. Robert shares his thoughts on moving from strict rationalism toward something more faith-based, especially with AI and tech changing things so fast.Later, they get personal, talking about what makes relationships work, how to live with purpose, and how success often comes down to practicing small virtues every day. There's even a bit about what Christian ethics might say about becoming a multi-planetary species. They touch on regenerative farming, sacrifice, family, and what leadership looks like when it’s rooted in love and respect, especially in how we talk about gender and power.

Description:

Tessa Carman and JC Scharl join Donald and Going Godward to talk about poetry, translation, and motherhood in the first-ever Doomer Optimism Literary Hour.

Bios:

Tessa Carman is a writer and teacher. You can find more of her work at TessaCarman.wordpress.com.

Jane Clark Scharl is an American poet, playwright, and critic. Her poetry has appeared in many American and European outlets, including the BBC, The Hopkins Review, The New Ohio Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Lamp, Measure Review, and others. Her criticism has appeared in Dappled Things, Fare Forward, Plough Quarterly, and others. Her first verse drama, Sonnez Les Matines, was published by Wiseblood Books in February 2023. The play had its theatrical debut in NYC on February 21st, 2023 at the Nubox Theatre.

Brian Fink chats with Going Godward, offering a unique perspective on finding meaning in the chaos of life. Explore existentialism, spirituality, and optimism in this enlightening episode of Doomer Optimism.

Arie and Jason meander through a conversation, loosely inspired by recent podcast topics, exploring various ideas.

https://bothand.libsyn.com/20-whats-metamodern-with-linda-ceriello-greg-dember

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4iKUVpwwGA&t=11s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XBfoJx_8mg&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZKrhrb9oao&t=34s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4DmHZJu8UE&t=24s

This episode of Doomer Optimism sees frequent contributor Anarcho-Contrarian (@AnarContrarian)and DO newbie Kara Marshall (@karakara98) sit down with the founder and president of Strong Towns, Charles Marohn (@clmarohn). Naturally, the conversation drifts toward community resilience and building...well...strong towns, as well as the future of community building. 

About Charles Marohn
Charles Marohn—known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues—is the founder and president of Strong Towns. He is a professional engineer and a land use planner with decades of experience. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning, both from the University of Minnesota. Marohn is the author of Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity (Wiley, 2019) and Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town (Wiley 2021). He hosts the Strong Towns Podcast and is a primary writer for Strong Towns’ web content. He has presented Strong Towns concepts in hundreds of cities and towns across North America.

About Kara Marshall
Kara Marshall works to promote energy efficiency and, with her husband, takes care of and old house and five acres in Connecticut.

About Anarcho-Contrarian
Anarcho-contrarian is a nostalgia-poasting Twitter Anon who is passionate about the resiliency of rural places.

Alice, Dylan, and Ashley discuss using government funds for regenerative agriculture, building bioregional food hubs, and their upcoming Heritage Food Festival this November.

Alice Melendez-

I was born in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains between Clay City and the rolling fields of central Kentucky. I grew up on the farm, went to small-town schools, and learned to drive on winding country roads with lots of blind spots. I went away, like a lot of people, and came back. “Away” took me to Dartmouth College, Philadelphia, and then six or so years in Houston where my kids were born into a big Mexican household. I studied the way that economies social agreements and hard physical realities interplay in actual places (not models). I worked at a delivery business and a refugee resettlement agency. I ran a handyman business and for a short while a grain elevator. I thought for a while that 'the climate movement' might generate political will for a massive transformation in how humans relate to the natural world, and I worked on that. Now, I think it's time to focus on regenerative agriculture in our Ohio River Valley to ride through whatever comes our way.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e1duQMt65R-EeAMVzZzhpsVwQuBfYet0/view?usp=drive_link

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Uxg83U_IQ6RXOUQVCOz3H-MlkCt6EzP0/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=115071514593909738663&rtpof=true&sd=true

http://heritagefoodfest.org

http://mtfolly.com

http://mtfolly.com/for-farmers

In this episode Jason talks with Farahn Morgan about growing up in Appalachia, moving to DC and going to college, moving back home near her family and community, and her work in news, journalism, and how she frames it: storytelling. They dig into the nature of ‘expertise’, culture, folk traditions and how they are exploited, making a living in the modern political economy and the difficulties of doing that while still preserving traditional lifeways, the blessing and curse of the coal industry, the current story she’s working on looking into wildcrafting and how it connects to the Cherokee side of her ancestry, deaths of despair, the importance of choosing to build a home and connect to place despite the currents working against it, the importance of learning from elders, her views on the Foxfire series, book recommendations for understanding Appalachia, and much more. *Note, there is a bonus section at the end where the formal conversation wrapped up but they accidentally didn’t stop recording the more informal discussion, which they both decided to leave in Bio: Farahn is a writer living and working at home in Appalachia. After spending nearly a decade in politics and media in Washington, D.C., she returned to Southwest Virginia and Eastern Kentucky to be close to her family, understand their history and traditions more intimately, and re-establish her connection to the land and herself. She is still learning. Read her words at http://LongRoadHome.substack.com, County Highway, RealClearBooks & Culture, The Washington Examiner, and WrongSpeak.

Episode description: First time host Donald talks to Rita Koganzon about the politics and history of homeschooling and education in America.

Rita Koganzon is assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston. Her research focuses on the themes of education, childhood, authority, and the family in historical and contemporary political thought. Her first book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families: Childhood and Education in Early Modern Thought, examines the justifications for authority over children from Jean Bodin to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Her writing has been published in the Hedgehog Review, National Affairs, The Point, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

⁠https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/reasonable-education/⁠

In this episode, Ashley interviews husband and wife team Ben and Lucy about their eco-market in upstate New York, and Geoffrey from Longstory Farms about his planned local farm story in South Carolina. We discuss the importance of local commerce, challenges, and nuts and bolts approaches to competing in the market.

Ben and Lucy Janssen both grew up in upstate NY and met at the local Community College. Lucy started her store Reuse Refuge in October 2020 with a friend while many small businesses were closing. The goal was to help provide the local community with non-plastic or biodegradable necessities of everyday life that help reduce domestic waste streams. It has since adapted and branched out its focus to maintain a foothold in the small city of Auburn's downtown. Going on its 5th year it has struggled to flourish financially as its vision doesn't prioritize consumerism but the more traditional scale economy.

Ben works a job helping the developmentally disabled. The store hours are limited to weeknights and weekends when he's not working as they raise their 5-year-old. Ben grew interested in soil health and eventually peak oil. Ben met Jason Snyder in Joe Brewer's online regeneration class in 2020 and has kept in touch with the Doomer Optimism community since. Although Ben has grown more agnostic on peak oil or collapse perspectives he continues to read many books on the theme of industrial society and its effects on ecological and cultural shifts over time while supporting his wife's vision for her store.

@reuserefuge on Instagram and TikTok

@bennirubber on Instagram, Youtube, Substack, X, and Benjamin Janssen on goodreads.com 

Long Story Farms, LLC is a family-run pasture-based, sustainable farm just outside Newberry, SC. We offer pork and poultry, eggs, and select produce to consumers in the Newberry, Chapin, and Columbia areas. 

In the next few months, we will open a store offering local farm products, a zero-waste refiller, and some bulk foods. 

website: Longstoryfarms.com

Instagram: @longstoryfarmsc

X.com: @longstoryfarms

Facebook: @longstoryfarms

https://www.instagram.com/reuserefuge?igsh=eGVlNXlia2F0dnZp

Tik tok

https://www.tiktok.com/@reuserefuge

DO podcast alumnus Chris Smaje (@csmaje) returns to deflect eco-modernist criticisms of his agrarian vision laid out in “A Small Farm Future” and most recent book “Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future.”

Specifically, we examine evidence for the claim that traditional/territorial food webs supply 70-80% of the nutrition people intake globally, and discuss what this means for the potential of small biodiverse farming to “feed the world.”

Reasons for dispute of this claim include that much food production in traditional local food webs is “invisibilized” to top-down technocrats using data collected of commodity crops produced for the industrial food chain. This is one of several blind spots we discuss that characterize elites’ and technocrats’ worldviews, and partially explains why their prescriptions fail to deliver on promised sustainability and “equity” goals.

In this episode, Chris, Jason and Josh ponder whether it’s worth it trying to persuade technocratic elites of their errors, or instead turn our attention and efforts to different natural constituencies better oriented to implementing diverse approaches to agrarian bioregionalism. We consider what barriers people may face to getting involved and how to overcome those barriers.

The whole conversation pivots on the notion of Bioregional Self-Provision as a method for securing resilience for affluent-but-fragile “developed” regions while alleviating ecosystem degradation and impoverishing exploitation on poor peripheral “underdeveloped” regions, facilitating their own self-provision from local resources.

Chris’ website, blog, and links to books:

https://chrissmaje.com

ETC Group report: “Small-scale farmers and peasants still feed the world”

On one of the most inspiring episodes of Doomer Optimism, Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Willow Liana (@willlowthewhisp) speak with the father of Kevin Cooper (AKA Cole Summers) about his late son's work. They discuss Cole's plans and aspirations for sustainably developing the farmland where he lived to preserve the water table. Cole passed away at aged 14, leaving a huge legacy behind him. He had some of the most ambitious plans for business development and sustainable agriculture that you'll ever hear of. The hope of this episode is to inspire others to continue the work he left behind him. You can donate to help Cole's family rebuild their lives here:  

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kevin-coopers-family

You can purchase Cole's autobiography here.

About Willow Liana
Willow is a professional social butterfly and mother of a wee babe whom she is raising in the Canadian countryside.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

In this episode, James and Ashley speak with a return guest and climate and disaster researcher Ilan Kelman. We discuss the state of climate activism, the eco-modernist approach to solving climate change, the uselessness of international climate summits, how the new Trump administration factors on the environment, and what are some points of optimism to focus on. 

On this episode, Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) teams up with Nathan Gates (@TornadoNate) to co-host an intriguing conversation about Distributism with Chris Smaje (@csmaje) and Sean Domencic (@tradtom), co-founder of Tradistae.

About Sean Domencic
Sean Domencic is the director of Tradistae, a contributing author at New Polity, and a maintenance man who speaks and writes about Distributism and Catholic Social Teaching. He and his wife live in community at Holy Family Catholic Worker in Lancaster, PA.

About Chris Smaje
Chris Smaje has coworked a small farm in Somerset, southwest England, for the last 17 years. Previously, he was a university-based social scientist, working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey and the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College on aspects of social policy, social identities and the environment. Since switching focus to the practice and politics of agroecology, he's written for various publications, such as The Land , Dark Mountain , Permaculture magazine and Statistics Views, as well as academic journals such as Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and the Journal of Consumer Culture . Smaje writes the blog Small Farm Future, is a featured author at www.resilience.org and a current director of the Ecological Land Co-op. Chris' latest book is: A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, and a Shared Earth.

About Nathan Gates
Nathan is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a podcast about psychedelics, science and psychotherapy. He also practices regenerative ranching and writes from his family's farm in rural west-central Illinois.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Ashley and Roland talk with Jonathan Rawles, son of famous survivalist James Wesley Rawles about religion, localism in the inner mountain west, the state of the redoubt movement and our thoughts on white nationalism.

This episode finds two metamodernists, metamoderning together. Jason Snyder (@cognazor) interviews Justin Manchester (@kairos0101) a range of topics, using metamodernism as a launching point for discussing psychedelics, Manchester's work, and our relationship to ideas themselves.  

About Justin Manchester
Construction/Engineering. Metamodern mediator in a mad house. 'Tenth Man' who realized his error. Protopian disciple of the Tao; one finger pointing to the sun.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

James, Keturah, Andy, and Donald talk about America and literature and American literature, its limits and possibilities.

Jason speaks with The Last Farm about ecosocialism and his very ambitious ideas about how it could work, based partially on this tweet thread https://twitter.com/TheLastFarm/status/1586734175326961664

In this episode Jason speaks with Kimberly (@blkhomesteader) about her path towards gardening and homesteading, the Black homesteading and farming movement, the importance of own production and skill-building, the irony of underutilized land and problems of land access, political advocacy especially at the hyper-local level with HOAs, veganism and small scale livestock production, the hiphopisgreen organization, and much more. 

Kimberly is an experienced master gardener and urban homesteader, living in zone 9b, who is  interested learning how to live a more holistic and sustainable life.

Some links mentioned in the episode: 

Infinite Zion Farms: https://www.infinitezionfarms.org/ 

Hip Hop is Green: https://www.hiphopisgreen.com/ 

https://www.localharvest.org/orlando-fl

For decades, indigenous communities in the Amazonian region of Ecuador have been impacted by petrochemical exploitation and monocultural ag for export. They have suffered from pollution and associated ill health effects, economic insecurity, and encroachment on their traditional territories from roads, oil wells, pipelines, and industrial ag plantations.

Grassroots groups such as Amisacho Restauracion and La Clinica Ambiental have been working with locals to develop permaculture and agroecology approaches to preserving rainforest biodiversity and deriving sustainable livelihoods.

In this conversation we delve into the environmental history of region and the work of Lexie Gropper and Luis Munoz at Amisacho. For example, they have developed a system for climbing morete palm trees and other large trees in the rainforest to harvest fruit without needing to cut the trees down. They have developed equipment for processing morete palm fruits and other foraged items from the jungle into preserved foodstuffs, skin and health care products, essential oils and natural medicines. And they’re developing new approaches to making biochar for water treatment and soil amendment from local waste biomass that otherwise is burned for disposal.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, Tres Crow (@dogeatcrow) and Dr. Jason Snyder (@cognazor) managed to snag Visakan Veerasamy (@visakanv), the Friendly, Ambitious Nerd himself, for a convo about the end of the world, sense-making, and where we are on that infamous domino meme.

About Visakan Veerasamy
Simple + radical: focus on what you want to see more of. 🌍💪🏾❤️🔥⚡️ buy his ebooks FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD (http://gum.co/FANbook) and INTROSPECT (http://gum.co/introspect).

About Dr. Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Tres Crow
Tres is making the world a greener place one urban space at a time with my friends Roots Down. He's a storyteller and marketing dude. He loves natural urbanism and climate justice. 

In this episode, Jason speaks with D. Mason (@dkpmason) about his life growing up in ghettos, trailer parks, and the woods in Alabama and Appalachia, learning to live off the land and becoming the Dirt Mage, getting a felony for growing and trading weed and mushrooms which many venture capitalists are now getting rich on, anarcho-communism, community empowering technology, the pitfalls of both the dissident Right and techno-modern Left, localism and cultural tensions, the importance and limits of difficult conversations, and much more

On this episode, Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) discusses doom, prepping and bunkers, and building resilient communities with Dr. Chris Ellis (@Prep4Disasters) and Brad Garrett (@Goblinmerchant). This is a fascinating look at the prepper movement, and surviving the myriad coming crises.

About Dr. Chris Ellis
Dr. Chris Ellis is a subject matter expert on individual household disaster preparedness in the United States and other developed countries. He focuses on large-scale catastrophic threats, including natural, manmade, and spiritual events. Quantitative work and interests include deep analysis on FEMA’s annual National Household Survey. Qualitative work amalgamates – under the theory of ontological security – a model that matches fears, motivations, and government action (or inaction), with household response levels to assorted threats and potential futures. Chris earned his PhD at Cornell University, has four master’s degrees, and is an active duty Army Colonel with nearly 23 years of service.

About Bradley Garrett
Bradley Garrett is an American social and cultural geographer at University College Dublin in Ireland and a writer for The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom. He describes his research interests as being at the intersections of cultural geography, archaeology and visual methods and writes that his research is about "finding the hidden in the world". He is the author of five books including Bunker: Building for the End Times, a contemporary account of doomsday preppers around the world, and Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City, an ethnographic account of the activities of the London Consolidation Crew (LCC), a group of urban explorers Garrett calls "place hackers".

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Chuck and Saundra Lewis operate Sheraton Park Farms – a 70-acre regenerative farming operation nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountain of Wilkes County, NC.

Starting from a single chicken tractor with 25 broiler chickens in 2018, Chuck and Saundra have grown their operation to raising meat birds, egg layers, turkeys, pigs, and cows – and earning a respectable income.

In this fast-paced conversation, Josh and Chuck discuss economic, practical, and psychological barriers to getting more people involved in diverse, decentralized, small-scale regenerative ag, along with tools, tips, tricks, and ideas for overcoming those barriers.

They talk about Chuck’s philosophy for utilizing social media and YouTube to promote an authentic experience for Sheraton Park’s customer to know their food and their farmers.

They highlight challenges, weaknesses, and pitfalls, and lessons learned for bootstrapping a small farm operation and cultivating a customer base willing to pay a premium for healthy, local, clean meat from ethically raised animals.

Sheraton Park Farms YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@SheratonParkFarms/featured

Episode 70 of Doomer Optimism kicks off with Jason Snyder (@cognazor) introducing first-time host Ariel Greenwood (@greenwoodae) before launching into a discussion on ecological restoration with cattle rancher Jonathan Gay of Freestone Ranch.

About Jonathan Gay
Jonathan focuses on ranch infrastructure and restoration projects. He sees the land with its soils, plants, microbes, fungi and animals as a living entity that deserves care and tending. After a career writing software, he appreciates the chance to be working outside and seeing the growing physical results of his efforts.

About Ariel Greenwood
Ariel grew up unschooled in the rural wilds of North Carolina and began farming at 16. In college, she studied agroecology and psychology while working with community gardens and private farms.

She managed livestock in Northern California for 4 1/2 years, primarily at Pepperwood Preserve and Freestone Ranch in the North Bay region, and since 2018 she has been working in the intermountain west with Triangle P Cattle Company and as co-owner of Grass Nomads LLC, a land and livestock management and consulting company. She also serves as founding board member & treasurer for Contra Viento Journal, an art & literature journal about rangelands, and on the board of Holistic Management International.

Her work is seasonal; in the summers she manages yearlings in Montana and the rest of the time she works with cows on rangeland in Northeastern New Mexico.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

Tres Crow and Sim Gooder talk with Kevin Espiritu about Epic Gardening, food production maxing, inspiring your neighbours, critical mass of small-scale food production, and running a seed business in the age of the internet.

Kevin Espiritu is the founder and CEO of Epic Gardening, the world’s most-followed gardening brand and online garden store. As a self-taught gardener, Espiritu has spent over a decade producing educational gardening content across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, the Epic Gardening podcast, and the Epic Gardening website.

He’s amassed over 3.6 million social media followers, 11 million podcast downloads, and 42 million blog visits. Additionally, Espiritu has authored two books, ‘Field Guide to Urban Gardening: How to Grow Plants, No Matter Where You Live” and “Grow Bag Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow Bountiful Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Flowers in Lightweight, Eco-friendly Fabric Pots.”

Kevin currently lives in San Diego, California, at his Epic Homestead. His favorite plants are beans and peas.

How has the Bruderhof community balanced individual autonomy with collective decision-making to maintain harmony and functionality?

Ashley sits down with Alan Kopschel, editor at Plough Magazine and a member of the Bruderhof community. Together, they explore the unique history and philosophy of the Bruderhof community, a Christian community founded on values of pacifism, shared resources, and direct accountability. Alan sheds light on Bruderhof’s commitment to communal living, regenerative agriculture, and a governance system that balances personal autonomy with collective needs. Ashley and Alan get into Bruderhof's international growth, cultural traditions, and practical strategies for maintaining harmony and purpose in a shared life.

Alan Koppschall is a managing editor and an event coordinator at Plough. He is a member of the Bruderhof and lives at the Fox Hill Bruderhof in Walden, New York. Twitter: @koppsch_a

First time host Donald Antenen interviews first time guest Joey Keegin and back by popular demand guest James Pogue. They discuss the Cincinnati Bengals, underappreciated American writers Bernard DeVoto and Henry Bugbee, CrimethInc., and lessons from their anarchist days for navigating the doom of today.   

Joseph M. Keegin @fxxfy is an editor at The Point and a doctoral student in philosophy at Tulane University.  

Donald Antenen @riversofeurope lives with his wife and daughters in the Pacific Northwest. He is translating Genesis: Beginning: a Verse Translation of Genesis.  

James Pogue @jhensonpogue is an American essayist and journalist. He is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine. His pieces have appeared on the covers of Harper's and The American Conservative. He is the author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, a first-person account of conflict over public lands in the American west.

If Jordan Hall were a gin and tonic, then this, Jordan's second Doomer Optimism episode, would be a G&T with special elderberry simple syrup. By which I mean, the addition of this episode's hosts, Ashley Colby and Jason Snyder, unearths a few special nuggets about cosmo-localism and a variety of adjacent topics. So, get your lime juice, we're diving in!

About Jordan Hall
Jordan is the Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Neurohacker Collective. He is now in his 19th year of building disruptive technology companies. Jordan’s interests in comics, science fiction, computers, and way too much TV led to a deep dive into contemporary philosophy (particularly the works of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda), artificial intelligence and complex systems science, and then, as the Internet was exploding into the world, a few years at Harvard Law School where he spent time with Larry Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain and Cornel West examining the coevolution of human civilization and technology.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Jason has a conversation with Ioan @awarenesss, Jesse, Denzolo and Andy @coperthwaite about the Doomer Optimism PNW meetup and workshop, the evolution of friendship and collaboration, and bioregionalism.

Ashley and AC talk to Chris about the dominance of Front Row thinking, and Ashley offers Chris use of her term "spreadsheet brain." We talk about antidotes to this kind of thinking, including the advice "don't be an asshole."   

Chris Arnade @chris_arnade is the author of Dignity, a book exploring poverty, addiction, and faith in the US. He is currently walking across the cities of the world.  

Anarcho-contrarian @anarcontrarian is a nostalgia-poasting Twitter Anon who is passionate about the resiliency of rural places.  

Ashley Colby @rizomaschool is an Environmental Sociologist and co-founder of the Rizoma Field School in Uruguay.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism we're going down south with Magnus Popp and Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool), two Doomer Optimists that are cutting a new path forward in Uruguay. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ashley and Magnus chat about Magnus' past as a researcher in evolutionary biology, and his new life as a free man, homesteader, and self-described "beer brewing control freakish evolutionary biologist."

About Magnus Popp
Magnus Popp is a PhD in Evolutionary Biology, a Swedish homesteader in Uruguay living with his Argentinean wife Virginia and two kids. He is a self described beer brewing control freakish evolutionary biologist.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Community in a Fragmented WorldIn this episode of the Doomer Optimism podcast, host Ashley and guest Leah Sargent discuss the importance of building community in today's world. Leah shares insights from her book, 'Building the Benedict Option,' emphasizing practical steps individuals can take to foster deeper connections with others. They explore the challenges of hosting, the impact of perfectionism, and the role of faith in creating meaningful gatherings. The conversation highlights the need to bridge online relationships into real-life interactions and the significance of nurturing community dynamics, especially within family life. In this conversation, Leah Sargeant and Ashley discuss the dynamics of building and maintaining friendships, particularly in the context of parenting and community. They explore how shared experiences, intentionality, and the willingness to host gatherings can deepen connections. The conversation also touches on the importance of embracing individuality within community settings and navigating cultural and religious differences. Leah emphasizes the value of asking for help as a means to strengthen community ties.

Nathaniel Marshall sits down to chat with Going Godward on vocation, the good purpose of work, and rejecting ease as a means of becoming a more integrated person. Explore meaning, work ethic, and optimism in this warm and enlightening episode

Nathaniel Marshall:

Twitter handle: @‌oblatenate

Editor: thebluescholar.substack.com, @‌bluescholarwork

Going Godward:

Twitter handle: @‌goinggodward

Can Humanity Keep Pace with the Technologies It Creates?

Matthew Pirkowski joins Ashley Fitzgerald to unpack the complicated relationship between technology and humanity. They dive into the worlds of AI and cryptocurrency, exploring how these tools work—and how they shape our minds, societies, and futures.

Drawing from his background in evolutionary psychology, Matthew reflects on how our instincts and behaviors interact with fast-moving technologies. He and Ashley wrestle with big questions: How does AI influence our decisions? What risks do we face when innovation outpaces understanding? And how do we walk the fine line between exploring new digital frontiers and exploiting them?

The conversation also touches on a tech-driven world's psychological and political consequences—from polarization and power concentration to the importance of real, embodied experiences like parenting. They explore the need for communities to rethink how we live and govern together in a time of rapid change.

Matthew and Ashley share a cautious hope for the future—one rooted in curiosity, responsibility, and a commitment to keeping human values at the center of technological progress.

Ashley speaks with Tessa Carman and her uncle Dwight about his journey to Guatemala from a small farming family in the Midwest. We discuss the push and pull of moving abroad, learning ecological farming, where to find home, and more.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, first-time hosts Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Jason Snyder (@cognazor) have a beautiful conversation with the Meta Nomad himself, James Ellis (@meta_nomad). From accelerationism to the very meaning of Doomer Optimism itself, this conversation perfectly encapsulates the Nick Land to Wendell Berry pipeline.

About James Ellis
James Ellis studied fine art at Norwich University of the Arts, after finishing his degree he completed an M.A. in continental philosophy at Staffordshire University. He blogs at Meta-Nomad and is the host of Hermitix Podcast.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

Tres and Sim interview Zach Loeks, and talk about the problems and opportunities around growing food in sub/urban spaces. Zach debunks many of the myths around maintaining food production in urban landscapes, and we dig into the secrets of lesser-known city fruits.

Zach is an educator, author, artist, and farmer based in Canada.

Zach Loeks (@zachloeks) - https://www.zachloeks.com/

Tres Crow (@dogeatcrow) - https://www.greenboxus.com/

Sim Gooder (@slimgoober) - https://permapeople.org/

On this episode, first time-host Donald Antenen (@riversofeurope) has an intimate conversation with writer and essayist James Pogue (@jhensonpogue), who is fresh off the release of his powerhouse article in Vanity Fair about the New Right. It's a can't miss conversation!

About James Pogue
James Pogue is an American essayist and journalist. He is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine. His pieces have appeared on the covers of Harper's and The American Conservative. He is the author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, a first-person account of conflict over public lands in the American west.

About Donald Antenen
Donald Antenen lives with his wife and daughters in the Pacific Northwest. He is translating Genesis: https://bibletranslation.substack.com/

In this episode, Ashley and Dougald discuss an event they are co-creating in Chicago over the weekend of September 14 and 15. They talk about the various experimentations on the margins they have been a part of over the years, many of the friends they have in common, Ashley’s experience hosting Dougald’s co-conspirator Paul Kingsnorth in Wyoming last year, and their plans for this upcoming retreat in September.

Check out the event here: https://www.eventcreate.com/e/dougaldhineretreat

Shaun and Jason have a conversation about some of the major themes and projects that Shaun has been developing in collaboration with others, including Dark Optimism, Lean Logic, and Surviving the Future. They discuss biophysical collapse, the prefiguration of what comes after, what the trajectories of George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth indicate about the larger society, how Doomer Optimism follows in the footsteps and shares an affinity with Dark Optimism but with an American sensibility, and much more

Shaun’s Bio: Shaun quit his job in 2005 to explore full-time the beliefs and 'myths’ charting society's course towards collapse. And, in particular, how we might - individually or collectively - change direction before we end up where we are headed. He collaborated closely with the late David Fleming, later bringing his award-winning 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future' to posthumous publication, and now leads Sterling College's online program ‘Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time’, grounded in the books. He co-founded Transition Town Kingston and in 2009 authored the Transition movement’s second book, before becoming chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative and, later, one of Extinction Rebellion's first arrestees. Meanwhile, he puts the theory into practice as one of six custodians of Ireland's legendary free pub and land-based community 'The Happy Pig'. Website: http://darkoptimism.org The Happy Pig: http://mstdn.social/@DarkOptimism/109410285273214948… ‘Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time’ online programs and community through Vermont's Sterling College: http://ce.sterlingcollege.edu/surviving-the-future… Books: http://darkoptimism.org/books Free access to Lean Logic in full: http://leanlogic.online Shaun’s personal mailing list: http://flemingpolicycentre.org.uk/newsletter/

DO 245 - Regenerative Ag Technology W/ Josh Jenske and Ashley

On episode 49 of Doomer Optimism, Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Jason Snyder (@cognazor) sit down with Stephanie Lepp (@stephlepp), Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology. They discuss a range of topics, from Stephanie's roots in Memetic Mediation to the potential for truly humane social networks. It includes a deeper discussion of Stephanie's Synthetic Strategy, a potential framework for enabling collaboration between adjacent tribes.

About Stephanie Lepp
Stephanie Lepp is a producer whose work strives to hold up a mirror — inviting us to grow from what we see.

As the Executive Producer at the Center for Humane Technology, Stephanie leads Your Undivided Attention — the podcast hosted by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, which has garnered over 10 million downloads. She's also working to bring the organization into new media.

Infinite Lunchbox is Stephanie's studio for independent work. Recent projects include: Deep Reckonings (deepreckonings.com), a Webby award-winning series of explicitly-marked deepfake videos that imagine morally courageous versions of our public figures, and Reckonings (reckonings.show), a podcast that tells the stories of people who've made all kinds of transformative change, which was named in The Constant Listener's Best Podcasts of 2018.

Stephanie is a member of the Guild of Future Architects. Her work has been covered by outlets such as NPR, Forbes, and the MIT Technology Review, and supported by institutions including the Mozilla Foundation, Sundance Institute, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

To get a feel for Stephanie's work, listen to her interviews on The Jim Rutt Show (jimruttshow.com/stephanie-lepp/) and KALW's Inflection Point (bit.ly/3jGcAEg). The best way to be in dialogue with Stephanie is to follow her on Twitter: @stephlepp

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, host Tres Crow (@dogeatcrow) and guest host Patrick Fitzgerald (@rizomaat) tease out some gems from the Twitter anon Anarcho-Contrarian (@anarcontrarian). Topics range from the importance of cities for a just transition to what it means to be politically homeless.

About Anarcho-Contrarian

They're anonymous so honestly not that much to share here. But here's their Twitter bio: Scale-Reductionism, Localism, Agrarianism, New Village-ism, Distributism... i.e. Redundant, Nostalgic & Politically Homeless.

About Patrick Fitzgerald

Patrick is one half of the power duo Rizoma Field School. He's been a Spanish teacher for over a decade at both the high school and college levels in the United States. He has a BA in Spanish Teaching from the University of Illinois and my MA in Foreign Languages and Cultures from Washington State University. Along with different kinds of language instruction (formal grammar and/or immersion training), he's also taught Spanish language literature and art, and currently teaches AP Spanish Literature through Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. He almost got a hole in one once, and he used to be able to dunk.

About Tres Crow

Tres is making the world a greener place one urban space at a time with my friends Roots Down. He's a storyteller and marketing dude. He loves natural urbanism and climate justice

Jason speaks with Evan Welkin (@ewelkin ) about the general theme of displacement and dispossession, and what permaculture (permanent culture) means in contexts of people increasingly being uprooted from their homes for political, climate, financial, ideological, or other reasons and having to move. They discuss his growing up in a rural Oregon town where the forests were being clearcut and toxic chemicals applied, his experience in Palestinian rights activism and the general Israeli / Palestinian conflict involving two peoples who have experienced dispossession throughout their history, their experience in developing a folk school, ecovillage, and regenerative farm at his wife’s families place in Italy and the waves of shocks (covid, climate, financial) that might force them to leave, his work with an organization teaching permaculture to refugees all around the world, and much more

In this episode Ashley and Jason host Farahn Morgan (@farahnmorgan) to talk about her reporting on community pushback against lithium mining in North Carolina many other themes around ‘defending and cultivating land and people’

In this episode AC, TornadoNate and Josh do some irl nostalgia posting showing love for their home places and people, and telling stories about their grandpas.  

Anarcho-contrarian @anarcontrarian is a nostalgia-poasting Twitter Anon who is passionate about the resiliency of rural places.  

Nathan Gates @TornadoNate is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a podcast about psychedelics, science and psychotherapy. He also practices regenerative ranching and writes from his family's farm in rural west-central Illinois.  

Dr. Josh Kearns @hillbillynarnia is a born-n-bred Appalachian and a native of West-By-God-Virginia and damn proud of it. He studied chemistry and environmental engineering at Clemson (BS), biogeochemistry at Berkeley (MS), and environmental engineering at CU-Boulder (PhD). He's spent years bumming around rural and remote communities in Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, India, Nepal, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, and generally tried to make himself useful while doing so. He's the Director of Science for Aqueous Solutions, and the Chief Technical Advisor for Caminos de Agua, grassroots water and health development organizations in Thailand and Mexico, respectively. He taught environmental engineering courses at NC State University for a couple of years before returning to his roots as a freelance renegade scientist and exponent of ecological transition engineering. He lives with his wife Rachael and all their critters on a small mountaintop homestead in southern Appalachia.

Episode 67 is all about regenerative ag, with Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Peter Allen (@pclarkallen) teaming up to talk to Brendan Barnard (@IntractableLion)of Posterity Ciderworks about his cider-making philosophy, and his interest in low intervention agriculture.

About Brendan Barnard
Passionate about stewardship, long term thinking, and the intersections of nature, art, and science, cider captured Brendan’s attention in 2016 and he hasn’t shaken it. When he’s not grafting, planting, pruning, picking, pressing, or sampling cider you’ll find him cooking for his family.

About Peter Allen
Peter Allen spent a decade in Madison where Peter was researching and teaching ecology, economics, and complexity science, and his wife Maureen was studied biology, taught team building seminars at the University, and helped develop a non-profit urban farm for kids. They moved to the Driftless in 2012 to build a homestead and start a regenerative farm nestled in the hills of the Kickapoo River Valley in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless region.

They are inspired by the oak savanna ecosystems that once blanketed our hills and valleys. Groves of fruit and nuts trees combined with prairie grasslands to create the most diverse, productive, and functional ecosystems in the history of our continent. It's no wonder why these savanna gardens were cultivated by Indigenous Americans for millennia and manicured by mastodons for tens of millions of years. Now they’re the keystone species - planting fruit and nut trees by the thousands, thinning out overgrown woodlands, and practicing multi-species rotational grazing with cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and poultry to manage vegetation, build soil, boost biodiversity, and produce meats and medicines at peak power and potency.

About Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Ashley and Donald speak with Jane about her review of the book Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson and what being a homemaker means for modern women.

‌

Jane Psmith is a pseudonymous suburban housewife with four kids. She and her husband review books and write about knowledge, culture, and institutions at thepsmiths.substack.com. Her review of Home Comforts is here: https://thepsmiths.substack.com/p/review-home-comforts-by-cheryl-mendelson

Living Energy Farm is a pioneering off-grid project in central Virginia. They have developed relatively low-cost methods for taking advantage of solar energy in the form of passive solar-thermal systems for space heating and water heating as well as DC electricity. Their “DC microgrids” systems power household appliances and computers/phones, in addition to a wide array of hand tools and shop tools. This is accomplished by efficient “daylight drive” using power from PV panels to directly run DC motors, or by using energy stored in robust nickel-iron batteries. They have also prototyped an array of low-cost homestead technologies used for biogas systems, drying seeds and foodstuffs, harvesting crops and doing other “tractor work.” This fast-paced conversation outlines the technologies developed by LEF and contextualizes them in Alexis’ and community members’ philosophy of practical non-nonsense environmental technologies for achieving good quality of life as an antidote to typical, mainstream, middle class, bourgeois environmentalism. Learn more about their work: livingenergyfarm.org livingenergylights.com

Ashley and Nate discuss the concept of Left Conservatism in a wide ranging conversation about what is sacred, the market, the state, and the process of developing politics and relationships.

On this episoode of Doomer Optimism, Tres has a sit down with Julia Dakin, Founder of Going to Seed about Landrace, her environmental journey, and why seed diversity is so important.

Julia Dakin is a farmer and seed activist in Mendocino County, California. She has been involved in agriculture for most of her life, and has devoted the past few years to growing market crops and teaching the benefits of seed saving, local adaptation, and genetic diversity.  She created most of the content available in GoingToSeed’s online courses, and is working on a new course about traditional farming methods in Oaxaca and Guerrero.

Tres Crow is just a man standing before a laptop, begging to be liked.

Don and Ashley chat with Steve Mouzon about all things New Urbanism, Wrath of Gnon, and the right approach to the 15 minute city.

Steve Mouzon is an architect, urbanist, author, blogger, and photographer based in Tuscaloosa. He co-founded the Urban Guild, which was instrumental in the creation of the Katrina Cottages initiative. The Guild is the nexus of Project:SmartDwelling, which works to redefine the house to be much smaller and more sustainable. Steve speaks regularly across the US and abroad on sustainability issues. He blogs here on Original Green Stories, Useful Stuff, and We Do This Because... He also posts to the Original Green Twitter stream.

Ashley and Jason reflect on Doomer Optimism. We talk a little about how it started, what brought us to doom and optimism personally that led us to accidentally define the term, some of the challenges we see in building a movement, and where we see things going from here.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, hosts Dr. Ashley Colby (@rizomaschool) and Dr. Jason Snyder (@cognazor) interview the inestimable Tao Orion (@tao_orion) and get deeeeep into the weeds on the ecology of a homestead. This one is up there with episode 6 with Ben Falk of Whole Systems Design as one of the more practical episodes we've run this season. If you're interested in the ins and outs of maintaining your own ecological system, this is the episode for you.

About Tao Orion

Tao graduated from UC Santa Cruz after majoring in Environmental Studies with a focus on Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture. She participated in the 2001 Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at the UC Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, and received a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture. She received her PDC from Max Lindegger at Crystal Waters Permaculture Village in Australia in 2002. Tao holds a MSc in Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security at the National University of Ireland.

Tao is the author of Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Perspective on Ecosystem Restoration (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015), and also “People as Purposeful and Conscientious Resource Stewards: Human Agency in A World Gone Wild” (Routledge Press, 2020). She is passionate about linking restoration with thoughtful design of human and non-human habitat.

Tao currently serves on the Lane County Climate Action Planning Committee, as well as on the Planning Commission for the City of Cottage Grove, OR.

About Dr. Jason Synder

Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Dr. Ashley Colby

Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.

Andrew and Jason have a conversation around topics related anarchism, solar punk, and degrowth

Andrew is a writer, artist, and YouTuber based in Trinidad & Tobago. As an ardent anarchist and firm believer in power to the people, Andrew aims to invigorate imaginations and encourage people to create a better world in the shell of the old.

Andrew has an excellent youtube channel that can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@Andrewism

He can also be found on twitter @_saintdrew

Break-It-Down Austin – Food waste hauling, composting & creative resource recovery

Jeff Paine and Josh Kearns

Jeff Paine is co-founder and co-owner with his wife Mel MacFarlane of the Austin, TX based Break-It-Down.

http://breakitdownaustin.com

Formed in 2009 out of the couples’ rented duplex to provide a yoga studio, a coffee shop, and a juice bar with a way to steer their compostable waste away from the landfill and into something ecologically friendly, Break-It-Down has grown into business serving around 800 clients in the greater Austin area, and as far south as San Antonio and as far north as Waco.

In this conversation, Jeff and Josh sketch the history of Break-It-Down, the challenges they have faced, the successes they’ve attained, the quirks, the headaches, the lessons learned, and the creativity that goes into their innovative R&D processes for figuring out better things to do with food waste than entombing it in a landfill. In their schema, composting is the lowest rung on the resource recovery ladder. Their current food waste upcycling repertoire includes high-end dog food and treats [theconsciouspet.life], and nutrient rich bonemeal fertilizer for gardeners and landscapers.

In this wide-ranging convo Jeff and Josh (@hillbillynarnia) talk about the advantages and disadvantages of an academic path in life compared with on-the-job-training earned from developing a small business. And they talk about how this affects Jeff and Mel’s philosophy as parents, in particular how it informs their non-traditional approach to schooling for their two sons.

Rich, Steph, Roscoe and Ashley discuss their experience at the Microsolidarity Retreat in Denver in October 2022. Tune in to find out if Ashley did battle with the hippies or became one!

Steph Soussloff @stephsoussloff is an animal-lover, artist, gardener, cook, daughter & friend passionate about co-creating cultures of care, authenticity & embodied creativity. A design strategist & org development consultant by training, she loves to support clients in unfolding their shared capacity for collaboration, strong relationships and brave communication. She is a catalyst of a community project called Starter Cultures where she hosts a writing circle and a peer-coaching space.

Roscoe is a 58-year-old white guy living in Boston, Massachusetts, working as a counselor. An artist and synthesizer by wiring and practice, he cares about using the meta as a tool for advancing the ordinary good.

Richard D. Bartlett @RichDecibels is a Director at Enspiral, a network of self-managing, purpose-driven companies. He co-founded Loomio, a worker-owned company that builds collaboration software, and The Hum, helping decentralized organizations thrive. He’s the author of a community building practice called Microsolidarity. He's enthusiastic about co-ownership, self-governance and building relationships of partnership instead of domination to create collaborative workplaces.

read more at richdecibels.com

Chris and Ashley speak with Dougald about his new book At Work in the Ruins and where it intersects with both the Small Farm Future and Doomer Optimism.

Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer, speaker and the co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME. His latest book is At Work in the Ruins (2023) and he publishes new essays on his Substack, Writing Home. https://linktr.ee/atworkintheruins

His substack can be found at: https://dougald.substack.com/

Chris Smaje has coworked a small farm in Somerset, southwest England, for the last 17 years. Previously, he was a university-based social scientist, working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey and the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College on aspects of social policy, social identities and the environment. Since switching focus to the practice and politics of agroecology, he's written for various publications, such as The Land , Dark Mountain , Permaculture magazine and Statistics Views, as well as academic journals such as Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and the Journal of Consumer Culture . Smaje writes the blog Small Farm Future, is a featured author at www.resilience.org and a current director of the Ecological Land Co-op. Chris' latest book is: A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, and a Shared Earth.

Ashley, Gabe (@VividVoid) and Rich (@RichDecibels) discuss what an integrated, post-woke synthesis might look like. In this episode, we all discuss times and places where we have seen a functional pluralistic social environment – from public school to the Marines to Occupy. We discuss how you might take lessons from those examples into the present divisive social and political moment.

This is another Appalachian-centric episode of Doomer Optimism. This time, we have Jason Snyder (@cognazor) co-hosting with Tres Crow (@dogeatcrow) as they have a discussion with Roland Gunn (@RolandGunnTN) about cultural geography, the south, and what makes Appalachia such a special place.

About Roland Gunn
He's an anon, so don't ask.

About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Tres Crow
Tres is making the world a greener place one urban space at a time with my friends Roots Down. He's a storyteller and marketing dude. He loves natural urbanism and climate justice.

Kevin Alviti has been a carpenter for over 20 years, he has worked on everything from oak framed barns to high rise flats, from 18th century style carvings to cleaving the parts for a gate from a log.  Kev sits down with Ashley and a few DO fans to talk homesteading, parenting, localism and then a little bit about his upcoming woodworking class in Ashley's home economics course:  

https://rizomaschool.gumroad.com/l/homeeconomics101 

Introduction to Woodworking. When a tree falls, we automatically think of firewood, but really that should be the last use we come to, each part should be used to its fullest extent. Wood is the greatest material there is, renewable, durable and infinitely workable. In this lecture, I’ll talk about the basic tools and equipment you need, and how to start on some simple projects. Woodworking for projects and repairs you need for your home.

Chris Smaje and Jason Snyder make their triumphant return to DO to join Ashley to explore the concepts of 'strong gods' and 'weak gods' as articulated by NS Lyons, examining the historical context, implications of nationalism's resurgence, critiques of the strong gods argument, and the importance of localism and community in navigating societal changes. The discussion also dives into the need for a moral framework in a diverse society and the role of community in fostering resilience against global challenges. They discuss the need for a living tradition that is not ossified, the search for meaning in a secular world, and the role of religion in civic life. The conversation covers the complexities of community engagement, the duality of political figures, and the future of local politics and livelihoods. Throughout, they emphasize the importance of grounding spiritual practices in local contexts and the challenges of navigating tradition in a rapidly changing world.

On this episode of Doomer Optimism, Dr. Ashley Colby (@RizomaSchool) and Dr. Jason Snyder (@cognazor) sit down with Dr. Josh Kearns, an environmental chemist and engineer with a specialty in appropriate technologies for low-resource settings.

About Dr. Josh Kearns

My mission in life is to use environmental chemistry and engineering to understand and repair ecological harms and empower marginalized peoples.

I’m a born-n-bred Appalachian and a native of West-By-God-Virginia and damn proud of it. I studied chemistry and environmental engineering at Clemson (BS), biogeochemistry at Berkeley (MS), and environmental engineering at CU-Boulder (PhD). I’ve spent years bumming around rural and remote communities in Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, India, Nepal, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, and generally tried to make myself useful while doing so.

I’m the Director of Science for Aqueous Solutions, and the Chief Technical Advisor for Caminos de Agua, grassroots water and health development organizations in Thailand and Mexico, respectively.

I taught environmental engineering courses at NC State University for a couple of years before returning to my roots as a freelance renegade scientist and exponent of ecological transition engineering. I live with my amazing wife Rachael and all our critters on a small mountaintop homestead in southern Appalachia.

About Dr. Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.

About Dr. Ashley Colby
Ashley is an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. She's interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. She's the founder of Rizoma Field School and Rizoma Foundation.