John and I continue our journey through Gillespie’s Theological Origins of Modernity, this time we dig into Petrarch, Martin Luther, the underpinnings of enlightenment humanism, and more.

John returns for the first installment of another reading series. This time we’re tackling Michael Gillespie’s The Theological Origins of Modernity, a book that aims at getting to the root of some of the major questions we face today as products of both the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment.

This is also the first in what John and I hope will be a longer project of delving into the history of the philosophy of science. After Gillespie we hope to explore works by Francis Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, Leibniz, Thomas Carlyle, David Hume, Edmund Husserl, and others.

We aim to conclude each author with a Q&A episode. So, if you have any questions, please leave a comment on the Substack—we’ll round them up and get to them at the end of each series.

Rachael Zisk just launched a nuclear energy newsletter — Ignition — which is great. I brought her on to talk about her new venture, the challenges of covering highly technical topics, how the media landscape is changing, and more!

Subscribe to Ignition.

Subscribe to Payload.

John and I finish up our discussion of the Machine in the Garden. We reflect on Leo Marx’s contribution—both its successes and failures. And we consider what opportunities there are to think about the American relationship with the Machine.

Director Tyson Culver joined me to talk about his new docu-series with Robert Bryce —Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid. We talk about what Tyson learned while making documentaries with Robert about the grid and what’s currently going around with America’s electricity sector. Check it out!

You can watch it on YouTube here:

And you can watch their first documentary together here:

John and I continue our series on Leo Marx’s The Machine in the Garden.

In this episode, we talk about Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Hawthorne.

We recorded this one a bit before Christmas last year.

A reading of a piece I wrote for the American Mind.

You can read the text here.

Author and mechanic Matthew B. Crawford of Archedelia joined me to talk about the nature of progress, our over designed world, the limits of laissez faire, safetyism, the current golden age of hotrodding, and so much more.

Here are the pieces we discussed:

Misanthropic Use of the Nudge by Matthew B. Crawford

A $5,600 Taillight Repair? by Matthew B. Crawford

For a way more thorough look into Chernobyl, which comes up towards the end, check out this thread from my friend Madi Hilly which has tons of links to resources etc. if you want a way better explanation of what happened than what I give here.

I got to sit down with Doug Sandridge, an oil and gas guy with decades of experience, to talk about his shocking new project: OIL AND GAS EXECS FOR NUCLEAR. This is the story of someone called to action to stand up for energy abundance for all—Doug’s a great guy and I loved chatting with him.

Check out the declaration of Oil and Gas Execs for Nuclear.

Read Doug’s op-ed for Grid Brief.

Check out Doug’s Substack:ENERGY RUMINATIONS

Isaiah Taylor, the founder of Valar Atomics, joined me to talk about his new venture, how he wants to turn the nuclear energy over on its head, how his Christian faith and Midwestern roots inform his work, and much more.

Reach more about Valar here.