Other Life

By Justin MurphySociety & Culture Science Social Sciences Philosophy

Other Life episodes

September 24, 2020 Meet the Gen Z Mafia, with Ringleader Emma Salinas
Gen Z Mafia is a Discord server incubating teenage billionaires. I talk with one of the ringleaders about community design, Gen Z psychology, and business models.
What is the Gen Z Mafia and what kind of projects are people working on?
How to make your community open and also filter for quality.
Is Gen Z Mafia a business model?
Are they more interested in venture capital or bootstrapped businesses?
What do Gen Zers see that older folks don't?
1 hr 8 min
September 19, 2020 Should you start a Substack?
Especially for people like me—if you write mostly about abstract intellectual topics that are not directly useful—writing should be the way you build your audience and not the way you monetize your audience. After you’ve built an email list through consistently publishing your writing for free, you can monetize in other ways, which make more sense and will earn you more money in the long-run. I wrote a blog post about this at otherlife.co/should-you-start-a-substack.
➡️ Contact me or submit questions you want me to answer on the podcast at otherlife.co/contact.
➡️ If you're working on your own intellectual project, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ If you just like what I'm doing, consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/jmrphy.
33 min
September 11, 2020 Self-Publishing Non-Fiction with David Kadavy
I spoke with David Kadavy about what he's learning self-publishing non-fiction books. Really practical and useful for anyone thinking about writing a book. He shares a lot of insider knowledge on Amazon's publishing system, whether and how you should use paid ads, and much more. Check out his work at https://kadavy.net/ and follow him on Twitter at @kadavy.
I want to encourage people to publish a book tonight. I actually did this. You can put whatever name you want in the author field, you can publish a 500-word anything tonight, you can run some ads on it, you can try to get a friend to buy it. See what happens, watch your ranking, go through the process. You can unpublish it, if you want. But once you go through that process and once you see your book up on Amazon and you're like, that was scary easy. It really gets your gears going. I have books that are 4,000 words. I've got how to write a book. It's available as a free blog post, but it still makes me thousands of dollars.

My strategy was very much: Write about whatever I'm interested in, create content about anything that interests me or anything. Then review, the search traffic and just see what search terms are coming in. Through that process, you can begin to find the things that are interesting to people, and that people will pay for.

Eventually you have to make tough choices where you see an opportunity and you can't follow it. So this online dating blog that I was talking about, I made a $150,000 off of this site during its lifetime. I killed it, several months ago. 'Cause sometimes you got to burn your boats, especially if you're a person who's curious.

➡️ If you're working on your own intellectual projects, request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org.
➡️ Become a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/jmrphy.
1 hr 18 min
September 04, 2020Internet Vitalism
A talk I gave to Gen Z Mafia (Gen Z Mafia). Thanks to Emma Salinas (@emmalsalinas) for all the great questions.
Works Cited:
Hard-Forking Reality
On Liberal Pacification
IndieThinkers.org
Where are the hottest countercultures today? What will happen to academia? What is my advice for young people? What Schelling points will emerge after academia? Why has academia has become left-wing since the 1990s? Can we make society more accepting of weird thinkers? Why do many of the countercultures today have a right-wing tendency? What caused the Left to gain dominance over mainstream institutions? Which conspiracy theories are directionally compelling? Should aspiring authors self-publish or try to get a traditional book deal? What will post-pandemic politics look like? What it's like living with two evolutionary psychologists? How will psychedelic drugs affect politics? What is my long-term vision for IndieThinkers.org?
1 hr 8 min
August 17, 2020 Tech Twitter's Christian Wunderkind Nicole Williams
Find Nicole at twitter.com/nwilliams030.

➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.

➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.
1 hr 17 min
July 10, 2020 From Hacker to Homesteading Author with Travis Corcoran
Travis Corcoran worked on startups before he built a homestead and turned to indie book writing and publishing. He recently launched a homesteading book on Kickstarter, which insanely crushed its goal. He describes himself as a "Catholic anarcho-capitalist software-engineering hobo farmer." You can get his homesteading book and support his work on Kickstarter.

➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.

➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
1 hr 30 min
June 26, 2020 The Lindy Scam: A Case Study of Paul Skallas
Paul Skallas aka Lindy Man is an acolyte of Nassim Taleb. He operates a particularly strange and, frankly, dubious hustle selling ebooks. This is a case study on his operation.
➡️ Learn more at OtherLife.co
➡️ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
39 min
June 19, 2020 Introduction to Georges Bataille with Nina Power
Get our free Bataille study guide and learn more about our online course at theotherlifenow.com/bataille.
➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.
➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
1 hr 27 min
June 10, 2020 Anna Khachiyan's Insubordination
Anna Khachiyan from Red Scare tells the story of how she left her PhD program at NYU; how she has more intellectual influence because of it; whether living in NYC is worth it for creators; and many other things.

Find Anna on Twitter at @annakhachiyan and Red Scare on Patreon.

➡️ If you'd like to discuss this podcast with me and others, suggest future guests, or read/watch/listen to more content on these themes, request an invitation at theotherlifenow.com/join.

➡️ Patrons get early access to podcasts, not-yet-published writings, videos from my paid courses, and more. Become a patron at https://patreon.com/jmrphy.
1 hr 5 min
May 28, 2020 Selling Zines and Quitting Jobs with Sonya Mann
We look under the hood of Sonya's business operations as a writer and zine-maker.
Check out Sonya Mann at sonyasupposedly.com or on Twitter at @SonyaSupposedly.
➡️ Learn more at OtherLife.co
➡️ Request an invitation to IndieThinkers.org
1 hr 43 min