After a long pause, Seldon Crisis is back—with a new name, a broader focus, and a new home. What began as a Foundation-focused story + dramatization + commentary show is rebooting as Seldon Crisis: Beyond Foundation, exploring the near- and long-term futures of life, intelligence, and civilization—especially as today’s headlines start to echo Asimov’s themes of collapse and recovery.

In This Episode

• Why I started Seldon Crisis five years ago
• What changed—and why the show paused
• Why Foundation feels newly relevant in the era of:
  • AI acceleration
  • climate and planetary crisis
  • inequality and political dysfunction
  • systemic and existential risk
• The new show identity and direction
• The move to Substack and what it enables

What’s New

• New title: Seldon Crisis: Beyond Foundation
• New description: An exploration of the range of possibilities for life and intelligence in the near and distant future.
• New platform/home: Substack via seldoncrisis.net
• Better organization: episodes categorized as:
  • Story (narrative episodes)
  • Conversations (guest interviews)
  • Reflections (solo essays & commentary)
• Some topics may be written-only when visuals matter.

Upcoming Topics

A planned episode inspired by three major thinkers:

• Sara Imari Walker — Assembly Theory (with Lee Cronin) and new ideas about the origin of life
• David Grinspoon — Earth in Human Hands and intentional planetary stewardship; co-author (with Walker) on planetary intelligence
• Benjamin Bratton — speculative theory on planetary computation and large-scale systems thinking

Also coming: more guest conversations, including returning and new guests.

Release Schedule Note

• Posts will typically appear on Substack first, then be recorded and released as podcast episodes.
• As of recording, this post and two more are already up at seldoncrisis.net, with audio versions coming soon.

Credits

• Theme music: Tom Barnes (updated theme featured after the close)

Thank you to everyone who listened in the past—and to everyone returning now. I’m excited to keep going in a format that can last.

Next episode: Assembling Gaia