Death in The Garden

On this bonus episode, we are joined by Alex Leff of Human Nature Odyssey to discuss the food system and the strange incentives that perpetuate a system that is at once convenient and destructive. Alex was also thinking about food, as he had just released a podcast entitled The Forest and Forager before this conversation, where he takes the listener on a journey through the Garden of Eden and the grocery store, trying to understand ourselves as a foraging creature who once lived in the hands of the gods.

We were interested in speaking about food because we had just finished editing this film at the time of recording:

Ever wondered why going to the farmers market is more expensive than going to the supermarket, buying food that was shipped all over the world? Ever wondered why it’s so difficult for small-scale farmers to make a living in this economy? Ever wondered why corporations are given carte blanche to destroy the world, while your local regenerative farmer is being over-regulated and squeezed out of the sector altogether?

We were hired by Local Futures to make a film explaining some of the mechanisms that explain why this system seems so upside-down.

In this conversation, we explore this topic from many more angles, going deeper into the history and civilizational-level analysis of the food system, discussing immediate return, convenience, and the trap of comparative advantage.

This conversation might be more interesting if you’ve watched the video and listened to the podcast, so consider doing that first before diving a bit deeper.

As always, this entire conversation is available in its entirety for our paid subscribers only. If you’d like to support the project and gain full access to these bonus episodes, consider becoming a paid subscriber today!

As people who were willing to drive 3.5 hours one-way to see The Odyssey projected on 70mm IMAX, it’s safe to say we are fans of Christopher Nolan and we love the art of cinema. In this bonus episode with Alex Leff of Human Nature Odyssey, we discuss Nolan’s latest epic and all of the implications that his surprising retelling has today.

We discuss the importance of myth and storytelling, and the need for us to engage consciously with stories. We ask, what is the line between adaptation and appropriation? Retelling and perversion? And who gets to decide?

We also delve deep into the civilizational analysis that is embedded within The Odyssey, as well as it’s literal and spiritual predecessor (Maren’s favorite Nolan film) Oppenheimer.

We talk about responsibility, consequences, the role of the gods, animism, and what it means when people refuse to engage with genuine art based on culture war controversies.

We hope you’ll ignore the haters and go see this movie.

As always, this entire conversation is available in its entirety for our paid subscribers only. If you’d like to support the project and gain full access to these bonus episodes, consider becoming a paid subscriber today!

On this bonus episode of Death in The Garden with Alex Leff of Human Nature Odyssey, Alex takes us along on a deep-dive into The Score by game philosopher C. Thi Nguyen.

In this episode we discuss all things quantification and gamification, and the ways that our civilization has prioritized what can be measured at the expense of almost everything else. W…

On this bonus episode of Death in The Garden with Alex Leff of Human Nature Odyssey, we talk about the strangely beautiful, gore-filled sequel to Danny Boyle’s genre-defining film, 28 Days Later — 28 Years Later.

Set 28 years after the rapid spread of the “rage virus” across Britain, we follow a group of survivors who have managed to create a small, insular, and seemingly egalitarian society on an island off the coast of the mainland, protected from the zombies roaming the mainland. What follows is an incredibly earnest story of love, of growing up, and what it means to know you must die.

While these movies are incredibly violent (and also hilariously bizarre), this series is one of our very favorites. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple comes out this Friday, so be sure to check that out as well!

This full-length episode is only available for paid subscribers, so if you’d like to listen to the whole thing, consider upgrading your subscription. We are so grateful to our paid subscribers for helping us keep this project going. We hope you enjoy this conversation about 28 Years Later.

On this episode of Death in The Garden, we’re sharing the interview we did with Allan Savory, president and co-founder of the Savory Institute, an organization created to regenerate grasslands by training and connecting global practitioners in how to holistically manage their land to restore biodiversity.

Last April, we had the opportunity to travel to Zimbabwe to film promotional material for Allan’s memoir. You can sign up for the pre-sale list to be notified when the book comes out. We had the opportunity to read a proof copy before our trip, and it was absolutely fascinating to have a window into the life and context that birthed holistic management.

In this interview, we discuss the basic ideas around a holistic context, ecological concepts such as desertification, and the ways that we misunderstand ecology by imposing human concepts, such as competition, on the natural world. We also discuss some fascinating critiques of conservation, and the importance of human beings in environments. We discuss the role of death and killing in the continuation of life, and the importance of moral courage. We also tackle issues such as honesty in science, the fallibility of scientists and the problems of academia, bureaucracy, and institutional science. Most importantly, we talk about our desperate need to change our management strategies from reductionistic to holistic.

If you haven’t seen Allan’s TedTalk, we really can’t recommend it enough. This video was probably the single biggest impetus for beginning our journey into the creation of Death in The Garden. Holistic management, and the idea of holism in general, inspired us to see the world as one whole ecosystem that we are inextricably connected to, entangled in a web of relationships. This radically shifted our view of life after being enculturated in the Western, reductionist, mechanical worldview that the dominant culture presents as fact.

You can learn more about Allan’s work at the Savory Institute’s website, and you can contribute to their end-of-year campaign if you have the means.

Thank you as always to our paid subscribers who continue to make this project possible, and for Allan Savory and Jody Butterfield for giving us the opportunity to come out to Zimbabwe and work on this project.

On this bonus episode of Death in The Garden with Alex Leff of Human Nature Odyssey, we’re talking about a strange little documentary that came out in 2020 called Spaceship Earth. When Jake and I first saw this film, we were impacted in a surprising way. Beyond the project of Biosphere 2, the film ultimately depicted the power of a group of people who r…

MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING!

Do not listen to this podcast if you haven’t watched Andor. Close the post! Don’t risk spoiling this show for yourself. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Psht, they’re talking about a Disney Star Wars show? Sounds dumb! I don’t care if that’s spoiled for me!” please be advised that you are wrong and have been warned!

Watch the sh…

On this episode of Death in The Garden, we’re sharing our most recent interview with Helena Norberg-Hodge that we did while we were in Ladakh, India. Helena is the director of Local Futures, the organization leading the global localization movement. This interview was recorded following the events of the Planet Local Summit, which was a profoundly inspiring event that brought brilliant people from all over the world to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. We learned so much from our time at this summit, and are filled with a renewed sense of common humanity and inspiration, knowing that there are people all over the world resisting the machinification of the world, and turning toward life.

In this episode, we discuss the problems of globalization, the global monoculture, and the breakdown of our relationships with each other and the living economy. We discuss how localization is an antidote to many of the complex problems we face in modernity, as localization prevents the invisibilization of negative externalities that has become commonplace since the creation of the global economy. We discuss how localization brings people back into contact with communities, with nature, and what it means to be a human being, allowing people to return to a life of meaning once again. We also talk about the relationship between cultural diversity and ecological diversity, and how protecting biodiversity is inextricably linked to protecting cultural diversity. We also discuss “big picture activism” and the importance of resisting the myth of a mechanical world. Near the end, we discuss the invention of greed under our modern economy and the artificial scarcity in engenders.

Be sure to check out the films Ancient Futures and The Economics of Happiness, and also we absolutely encourage you to read Helena’s book, Ancient Futures: Lessons from Ladakh for a Globalizing World.*

Thank you as always to our paid subscribers who continue to make this project possible, and thank you to Local Futures for enabling us to be part of the Planet Local Summit. It was such an honor and privilege to be part of such a powerful event.

* This is an affiliate link. If you purchase the book through this link, we get a small kickback.

We are so excited to share with you our brand new collaboration with the wonderfully bright Alex Leff from his greatly inspiring podcast, Human Nature Odyssey. We insist that you follow his podcast immediately, and do consider joining his Patreon.

As fellow creatives trying to understand our place in the world, civilization, and our modern era, we decided it would be really fun (and also fruitful) to create regular podcasts together that we can share with our audiences to thank you all for supporting us in our endeavors. We’ve long wanted to find a way to thank our paid subscribers for the support we’ve received, so we were so excited to team up with Alex to share these exclusive conversations. We’ve been very stoked to find such a likeminded friend to be able to do this sort of thing with.

In this episode, we discuss all things AI: the dangers, the promises, its rapid adoption and what that means for human cognition and human relationships, and how it ultimately reinforces and accelerates all of the things that are wrong with modernity. We also discuss the Luddites, the machinification of the world, and our general inability to live ethically under industrial civilization, and the dissonance that brings. We also get a little mystical and talk about the creative process, and how AI side-steps some of the most important parts of creation: slowing down, paying attention to synchronicities, and tending to one’s imagination. We also talk a bit about the people who are pulling the levers on this technology, and their contempt for humanity.

This was a very fun conversation, and we hope it’s an insightful listen! If you’d like to listen to the full conversation (at 1 hour and 38 minutes!) please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Death in The Garden!

Some things mentioned in the podcast:

* Technopoly by Neil Postman

* Your Undivided Attention by the Center for Human Technology

* do not cognitively offload your creativity to AI by Maren (via postcreature predirt)

We are happy to announce that the podcast is back!

To break our long hiatus, we’re excited to share with you this beautiful podcast with our friends Thomas and Tess. Tess is a home-birth midwife and Thomas runs Heart of Men, a group council with the aim of reorienting men internally and externally and helping heal the wounded masculine in the culture. As you’ll hear, Tess and Thomas feel called to tend to life in different, but incredibly powerful ways.

This beautiful conversation explores our yearning for kin, and the space between the reality of modernity and where our visions want to be — expressed through the yin and yang wisdom of Tess’ and Thomas’ essences. We discuss the challenge of trying to resolve generations of dysfunction in our lifetimes, and the necessity to do just that. We discuss grief, worthiness, and finding connection in an alienating world, but above all, we talk about the difficulty of being a human being in this time that we’re living in.

We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. It was a very cathartic conversation and we feel it’s the perfect dialogue to restart the podcast with.

If you’d like to join Thomas’ Council of Brothers, please check out his website and also follow him here on Substack.

Thank you so much for subscribing to Death in The Garden. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share with your friends.