Escape From Plan A

Mike (@meow_meow_2020) joins Teen from Dalian to talk about moving to Northeastern China, whether China is liberalizing, is Xi Jinping the Chinese Ronald Reagan, and why China should be compared to the US as it exists today, but back at its Cold War peak in the mid-1980s.

Part 1 of 2

For access to pt. 2 and bonus episodes: patreon.com/planamag

Teen talks to Jess about getting canned from a job for the last and final time. Why economic dependency is not the full story about our dependency on careerism. Why status and identity are so intertwined.

Pt. 1 of 2

For access to bonus pods: patreon.com/planamag

Teen and Jess discuss changing diet and other fundamental aspects of life as a matter of choice rather than 'willpower' and how a Mortal Kombat dance demonstration was mistaken for a bake sale. And more observations about careerism at the mid-lifespan point.

Part 1 of 2

For access to bonus pods: patreon.com/planamag

Chris reunites with Plan A, along with resident professors Chong and Fred, to discuss Tony Thulathimutte's short story collection "Rejection", a tour of modern alienation, pathos, and terminal loneliness.

Part 1 of 2

For access to bonus episodes: patreon.com/planamag

Chris's review of 'Rejection' at his Substack: https://salieriredemption.substack.com/p/rejects-r-us

(**link to private video of Chris's short story reading in the bonus**)

*Note, we have migrated off of SoundCloud, our new public webpage for EFPA episodes: https://rss.com/podcasts/escape-from-plan-a/

Mike and Teen spend a Saturday evening looking back on our working decades, life after work, and the investment-over-work mindset.

Part 1 of 2

For part 2 and all bonus episodes: patreon.com/planamag

Teen continues his experiment with AI, to try and get a better understanding of what we're all actually talking to. This time, he talks about personal investment strategy, because it's involves both the empirical and subjective domain.

Conclusion: You Got To Know When To Fold 'Em.

Part 1 of 2

For bonus episodes: patreon.com/planamag

Jess and Teen talk about why fancy, high-skilled hobbies become more Asian as you climb higher on the skill and investment level. In the bonus section, they discuss the corollary of the Asian immigrant insistence on suffering and not living well.

Part 1 of 2

For bonus episodes: patreon.com/planamag

In an experimental podcast episode, Teen talks with the large language model DeepSeek-V3.2 to talk about the transgression and the professional managerial class, and why our view of it may be completely inverted. What does transgression actually mean within the constraints of a culture at once obsessed with virtuous perfection, and unvarnished degeneracy? And what is the nature of the dissociated, eternally discontent PMC subject?

Part 1 of 2

For Part 2: patreon.com/planamag

Back from a 5 month world tour, Twitter moot Scott (@alreadydawn, born in Taipei, raised in SoCal) talks with Teen about his world city rankings. What makes a city great (Osaka) versus loathsome (ahem LA)? And what exactly constitutes a city even?

See Scott's city rankings at: alreadydawn.substack.com

Part 1 of 2

For Part 2 and access to bonus pods: patreon.com/planamag

Steve joints Teen from Hong Kong to catch upon buying Chinese EVs, the surreal political landscape of the US, and using real cameras again.

Part 1 of 2

For access to bonus pods: patreon.com/planamag