Token Gen-Xer Josh Bregman joins Emmet to discuss Robert Downey Jr.'s documentary about the '92 election, The Last Party. They discuss the NGO Industrial Complex, why the culture war is built to be endless, the handoff from the New Left to Gen X, and how RDJ accidentally made Twitter: The Movie in 1992.

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Bibliography.

Twitter.

Closing Song: System of a Down - Lost in Hollywood x Young Thug - Power (KEIFERGR33N Remix)

Emmet and John discuss two articles and try to fine-tune their understanding of who the American elites are and how they've changed over time. Do elites have the same interes? The same culture? Do they even believe in their own institutions?

"American Gentry" by Patrick Wyman

Bibliography.

Patreon.

Twitter.

Closing Song: "Slipknot - Wait and Bleed x Chrono Trigger OST - At the Bottom of the Night (KEIFERGR33N REMIX)"

A discussion of Ontario's lockdown and the fight over the grid in Texas turns into a longer conversation about decadence vs. decline, aesthetic education, and how we try to cultivate ourselves and find meaning in a shallow and ephemeral world. We talk about poetry, marriage, LARPing, the sack of Troy, and more.

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Bibliography: https://exhaust.fireside.fm/articles/p4

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ex_haustpodcast

Closing Song: https://moontype.bandcamp.com/track/ferry-2

Cover Image: Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

Special Guest: Mike.

Emmet and Geoff Shullenberger talk about a mutual favorite film: Cronenberg's Videodrome. They talk about how it pre-empted our fractured digital lives and the inscrutable, parapolitical world we inhabit.

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Eratta: Emmet states that Videodrome came out in 1985, but it did not. It came out in 1983.

Bibliography.

Twitter.

Closing Song: "La Flamme dell' Est (Fabio Brienza Remix)" by Lamniformes

Special Guest: Geoff Shullenberger .

Emmet and John sit down to speak with Meredith Angwin about her new book, Shorting the Grid, on America's fragile electric grid. We talk about how and why the grid became fragile, energy auctions, renewables and fragility, the glories of nuclear energy, and much more!

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Closing song: "Vermont" by Tiny Deserts.

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John and I had fun with this one. We talk through MacIntyre's analysis of the failure of the Enlightenment's ethical project and the difficulty the idea of telos posed for it.

Bibliography: https://exhaust.fireside.fm/articles/p3

In a brief addition to the Lasch Files, we discuss his essay, "The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom." We go through the Alger Hiss case, the ACCF, the Korean War as it played out uring McCarthyism, why everything's a psyop, and how Lasch saw psychopolitics coming.

Bibliography.

Patreon.

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Closing Song: "checkin out" by blasted diplomats.

Emmet sits down with Ashley Frawley to talk about her work on the semiotics of happiness, the knowledge class, and the how to think about freedom. Ashley was a great guest and we hope to have her return to the pod.

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Closing Song: "Ceiling" by Stuck

Episode image: Photo by Maximilian Scheffler on Unsplash

Special Guest: Ashley Frawley.

We review Alex Lee Moyer's documentary TFW NO GF. We talk about loneliness, the shitty American media class, the value of friendship, and a whole lot else. This one's a chiller.

You can watch the movie here.

Bibliography.

Twitter.

Patreon.

Closing song: "Kerosene" by Big Black.

Last month, CyberCharles joined Emmet to break down what happened with the big SolarWinds hack, how digital supply chains work, how citizens should think about these issues, and much more.

This is a sample of their talk. Listen to the full episode by subscribing to the Patreon.

Bibliography.

Closing song: "Bingo! Dino DNA" by MANS.

Photo by Kvistholt Photography on Unsplash.