The Chatterbox

Thanks to a delicate interplay between plate tectonics and life, Earth’s thermostat has kept animal life thriving on our planet for half a billion years. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer Peter Brannen about our planetary highs and lows, and the precarious goldilocks zone our animal-filled finds itself in now. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.  

Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.

Audio coda courtesy of Martin Rietze's YouTube channel.

There are spoilers ahead for all versions of The Day of the Triffids and also for the film Signs.

You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.

If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm

This episode had been edited down to a more digestible length of under an hour but a longer (audio only) version is available for Patreon subscribers (alongside the shorter option).

We are doing things a little differently and discussing the 1963 film along with the source material which is John Wyndham's 1951 book The Day of the Triffids.

The Day of the Triffids film was released in 1963 after reshoots were required to add a whole new arc in the story and bring the time to a more suitable length for a feature.

The film has many of the hallmarks of a 1950s science fiction film but seems to be reflective of the Golden Era of science fiction very much coming to its end.

The film is (very loosely) based on John Wyndham's first successful novel but seems more dedicated to the tropes of a 1950s sci-fi marketed for a mass, US leaning audience. The book is chockful of themes that are touched upon throughout the story which have very little (if any) presence in the film.

I have added a list of the characters we discuss below as well as a quick overview of their roles in the book and the film.

As usual I have two insightful guests to help us understand all of this.

Matthew Rule-Jones is a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of Exeter and author of the book Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualising Cultural Anxiety.

Adam Stock is a senior lecturer in English Literature at York St John University and author of the book Dystopian Fiction and Political Thought: Narratives of World Politics.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:30 John Wyndham's first hit

05:23 The concept of the cosy catastrophe

08:43 Wyndham's Britain: post-colonial triffids coming home to roost

14:48 The 1963 film: Wells, end of the golden age and marketing

20:04 The lighthouse sequences: Karen vs Josella

23:06 Weed killers in The Silent Spring era and WW2 imagery

25:17 The role of the Triffids

30:37 Bill Masen the hero

34:37 Coker's missing role

37:11 Women!

40:27 The ending

46:51 Legacy

53:57 Recommendations

Bill Masen:

Hero in both the book and the film. In the book Bill is English and works for the triffid farm where he has been almost blinded by a triffid sting. His colleague begins to suspect the triffids are indeed sentient and able to communicate. This brings up questions around exploitation and enslavement. In the film Bill is American and works for the US Navy who help save the hero and other survivors at the end of the film.

Josella Playton:

The heroine from the novel is not present in the 1963 film. Josella comes from a wealthy family (one with servants) and has written a notorious book titled Sex is my Adventure.

Coker:

Coker has a large role in the book and we meet him as an advocate for the newly blinded masses when many of the few sighted people left are attempting to save themselves from the threat of a disintegrating society. He is a strong public speaker from a working-class background who had learned to speak in a way that is more amenable to the intelligentsia and upper classes. His strongly held beliefs (of forcing the sighted to serve the blind) change through the book to become less idealistic and more practical.

Coker in the film is an old man with a very minimal role who dies early in the story form a triffid attack.

Susan:

Is a young girl who is rescued by Bill in the film after a train crash and ensuing chaos. In the book Bill takes in Susan whose family have died. She is a capable young child who develops an understanding of triffid behaviour from observing them as she guards the home that Josella and Bill stay in for many years.

Miss Durrant:

In the film Miss Durrant is the beautiful heroine that Bill meets in a large house in France that is caring from blind survivors of the meteor shower. In the book, Miss Durrant is a religious minded woman who is appalled at a man named Beadley's attempts to rebuild society through polygamy. She seems to purposefully mislead Bill who is trying to track down Beadley because he thinks Josella will be with him.

NEXT EPISODE!

Next episode we will be speaking about The Manchurian Candidate from 1962 by John Frankenheimer. A film that may not fit the definition of science fiction for many people but by now I think we know how ambiguous those definitions can be!

You can find the film on streaming platforms including Apple TV. The Just Watch website is a good resource to find where the film is available online in your region.

In this episode of Talk Eastern Europe co-hosts Adam Reichardt and Aleksandra Karpi discuss the latest developments across the region, from Lithuania’s border closure with Belarus to new US sanctions on Russian oil giants and Hungary’s political shifts ahead of next year’s elections. They also explore a recent sabotage plot uncovered in Romania and Poland.

The main interview, which was recorded recently live at the Sarajevo Security Conference, features Charles Kupchan, a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Kupchan shares his insights on the state of US foreign policy under Trump’s second term, the future of transatlantic relations and what the world can expect from America’s evolving role on the global stage.

We’d like to express our appreciation to the organizers of the Sarajevo Security Conference for assisting us in making this happen. Learn more about the event here: https://sarajevosecurityconference.com/

Further reading:

“NATO in times of crisis. Safeguarding the future of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance” by Wojciech Michnik, https://neweasterneurope.eu/2025/09/26/nato-in-times-of-crisis-safeguarding-the-future-of-the-euro-atlantic-alliance/

Check out a recent issue of New Eastern Europe dedicated tothis topic: https://neweasterneurope.eu/2025/05/06/issue-3-2025-negotiating-peace/

 //Additional financing for this podcast is provided by the Polish MFA: Public task financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2024 – 2025 - the European dimension and countering disinformation". The opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the official positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

In our latest episode, we talk with Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf about their new book "The Purifying Knife" and the history of eugenics in Texas and beyond. Bios//Dr. Michael Phillips (@drmphillipsut.bsky.social) is an American historian specializing in the history of Texas, racism in the United States, right-wing extremism, and apocalyptic religion in the United States. He is author of "White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity and Religion, 1841–2001," and co-author of "The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas ."Betsy Friauf (@betsyfriauf.bsky.social) is an independent scholar and a longtime journalist in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. She is the co-author of "The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas."-----------------------🎸 Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody🔗 Links📚 The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas (https://bit.ly/42VxTbJ)🎙️ Follow Green and Red🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/greenandredpodcast🌐 Website: https://greenandredpodcast.org💬 Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/uuP6yVQr📰 Follow us on Substack: https://greenandredpodcast.substack.com🌌 Follow us on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podcastgreenred.bsky.social💚 Support the Green and Red Podcast🎉 Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/greenredpodcast☕ One-time donation: https://bit.ly/DonateGandR🌍 Our Networks🎧 Labor Podcast Network: https://www.laborradionetwork.org📢 Anti-Capitalist Podcast Network: https://linktr.ee/anticapitalistpodcastnetwork📻 Listen on WAMF (90.3 FM) New Orleans: https://wamf.org🎬 A Green and Red Podcast production👨‍🏫 Produced by Bob (@bobbuzzanco) and Scott (@sparki1969)✂️ Edited by Scott🔔 Subscribe for more analysis on U.S. politics, leftist strategy, and anti-establishment resistance.

Aaron Benanav discusses the first part of his ‘Beyond Capitalism’ essay series in the New Left Review. In this part he lays the groundwork for his proposal of a multi-criterial economy.

SASE - Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics:

https://sase.org/

https://sase.org/networks/i-alternatives-to-capitalism/

Shownotes

https://cals.cornell.edu/people/aaron-benanav

https://www.aaronbenanav.com/

https://www.aaronbenanav.com/papers

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeUF7MZ2jQJXY_wHKn5xSIo-_L0tkMO-SG079sa5lGhRJTgqg/viewform

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii153/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-1

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii154/articles/aaron-benanav-beyond-capitalism-2

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2682-automation-and-the-future-of-work

on economic stagnation, see especially chapter 3, “In the Shadow of Stagnation”.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/appendix.htm

https://www.versobooks.com/products/817-a-history-of-the-world-in-seven-cheap-things

Postone, M. (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination. A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory. Cambridge University Press.

https://files.libcom.org/files/Moishe%20Postone%20-%20Time,%20Labor,%20and%20Social%20Domination.pdf

Mau, S. (2023). Mute Compulsion. A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital. Verso.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2759-mute-compulsion

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691205236/citizen-marx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_the_Soviet_Union

https://www.jstor.org/stable/150728

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331223694_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Market_Socialism_in_Yugoslavia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1809376

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_model

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Neurath

https://jacobin.com/2023/02/technocratic-socialism-otto-neurath-utopianism-capitalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Raz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_approach

https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-objective_optimization

https://www.routledge.com/Information-Technology-and-Socialist-Construction-The-End-of-Capital-and-the-Transition-to-Socialism/Saros/p/book/9780415742924

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics

https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/on-liberty/62EC27F1E66E2BCBA29DDCD5294B3DE0

https://www.mqup.ca/john-stuart-mill--socialist-products-9780228005742.php

https://degrowth.info/

https://youtu.be/lrOVKHg_PJQ?si=Q4oFbaM1p4fhcWP0

https://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/05/14/accelerate-manifesto-for-an-accelerationist-politics/

https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/siso.66.1.72.21001?journalCode=siso

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_R._Lange

https://jacobin.com/2022/10/oskar-lange-neoclassical-marxism-limits-of-capitalism-economic-theory

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20863-0_21

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

https://academic.oup.com/book/1464

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40728773

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb%E2%80%93Douglas_production_function

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction

https://www.routledge.com/Democratic-Economic-Planning/Hahnel/p/book/9781032003320

https://users.wfu.edu/cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_services

https://autonomy.work/ubs-hub/

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

Benanav, A. & Henwood, D. (2025). Behind the News. Beyond the Capitalist Economy w/ Aaron Benanav.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2diIiFkkM4x7MoZhi9e0tx

McCarthy, M. A. (2025). The Master's Tools. How Finance Wrecked Democracy (And a Radical Plan to Rebuild It). Verso.

https://www.versobooks.com/products/755-the-master-s-tools

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e47-jason-w-moore-on-socialism-in-the-web-of-life/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e29-nancy-fraser-on-alternatives-to-capitalism/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e04-tim-platenkamp-on-republican-socialism-general-planning-and-parametric-control/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e33-pat-devine-on-negotiated-coordination/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s02/e10-aaron-benanav-on-associational-socialism-and-democratic-planning/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e32-daniel-e-saros-on-digital-socialism-and-the-abolition-of-capital-part-2/

https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s01/e31-daniel-e-saros-on-digital-socialism-and-the-abolition-of-capital-part-1/

If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help:

https://www.democratic-planning.com/

https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction

https://www.indep.network/

https://www.planningresearch.net/

---

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Alex Aviña is back on the podcast, this time to talk about the evolution of ICE and the U.S. security state. They discuss the convergence of the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the war on migrants; the transformation of the border into a domestic counterinsurgency project; ICE’s roots in settler colonialism; the role of whiteness and assimilation in immigration politics; the use of surveillance and drones in law enforcement; the privatization and grift at the core of Trumpism; the legacy of Latin American death squads; the erosion of constitutional rights; and migration as the consequence of empire.

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Peter Rubin is head of publishing at Automattic and an editor at Longreads, a website that curates longform stories and publishes original writing. In this conversation with host Daniel Spielberger, Peter chats about the art of the longread, internet curation during the post-Twitter age, the IP potential of longreads, and the attention economy. 

More info about Longreads’ member drive: https://longreads.com/join/

More info about Study Hall: studyhall.xyz

Music by KT The Terrible

From military ceremonies to folk customs - can traditions really provide an answer to nationalism and boost local pride? Former MP Penny Mordaunt is publishing a book called Pomp and Circumstance: Why Britain's Traditions Matter written with Chris Lewis. She's one of Matthew Sweet's guests in the Free Thinking studio alongside

Producer: Robyn Read