After a 111 episode break, we're finally returning to one of our favorite shows about the end of the world, that's right, it's The Leftovers Season Two. To celebrate, we have recorded our longest ever episode. There are so many themes to dissect, characters to consider, hypothetical questions to ask...we had to do our best to do this tremendous season of television justice!

As was just implied, the episode opens with a trio of Leftovers-related hypotheticals devised by Michael, and for once, he completely stumps Stu, in what is sure to be a highlight for all. 

This episode contains spoilers for the first two seasons of The Leftovers.

Our Episode on The Leftovers Season One

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This week we are covering recent events in the news, including NBA playoff conspiracies, time travel conspiracies about the recent attempted shooting of President Trump, the "missing scientists" conspiracy (which maybe, just maybe, ties into the attempted shooting), and the Supreme Court decision that has gutted the Voting Rights Act. We go over a lot of "interesting" ground, including speculating about the nature of conspiracies and how they tend to reflect the historical context from which they spring. There's even a bit of light JFK discussion for the heads who are still eagerly awaiting or long-forecasted deep dive into that ultimate hornets' nest of conspiratorial thinking. 

Mike Rothschild on the "Missing Scientists" conspiracy at Talking Points Memo

QAA Episode featuring Rothschild speaking on the same topic

The Louisiana Governor on the Supreme Court decision

AOC on the Supreme Court decision

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This week we travel to the Americas to consider the Aztec conception of the afterlife. Unlike many of the cultures we have covered, the Aztecs put a great weight on the manner of your death in determining the location of your eternal (or not so eternal) rest. We also give a brief overview of the practice of human sacrifice, and the episode once again opens with more of Michael's patented hypotheticals.

The theme music for this episode is "After Life" by No Sky God.

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This week we are going to Ancient Greece and exploring their vision of the afterlife. We talk about the judges in hell, about Hades, about all of our favorite denizens of Hades, such as Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion, and we even relate the stories of Orpheus and Heracles and their journeys into the underworld. It's all here!

We open the episode with one of Michael's brain-bending hypotheticals...this one...is perhaps the most outrageous one yet.

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Our occasional series, "A Brief History of the Afterlife," is BACK. This week we are covering the Zoroastrian vision of the afterlife, including the Chinvat Bridge, the four layers of heaven, the four layers of hell, Ahura Mazda, Angra Mainyu, the historicity of Zoroaster, all of your favorites. While we don't get into any "hypotheticals" in this episode, there are searching questions about what, so far, may be the most appealing conception of the afterlife we've yet covered.

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It is finally here: the cybernetics episode! We go over the origins and basic concepts of the 20th century science of cybernetics, looking specifically at the work of Norbert Wiener and Gregory Bateson. We  draw on Stu's 2025 article "Cybernetics or the Evolution of Philosophy" from Do Not Research. 

We open the episode discussing Donald Trump's continuing bewildering comments on the Iran War.

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This week we are discussing The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell. We go over the film's approach to the utopian and apocalyptic potential posed by AI, getting into some of the areas the film neglects as we go. Characters familiar to listeners of the pod feature throughout, as do themes we have discussed in detail before, but the film offers us a useful springboard for discussing in even more depth the issues inherent not just in the possibilities of AI, but more specifically in the possibility of talking about the possibilities of AI. It was an interesting conversation!

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This week we are talking about the recently anointed best picture of 2025, that's right, it's Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. We discuss the film's "message" regarding revolutionary politics, while also delving into parallels between the movie and its source material, the fiction of Thomas Pynchon. Wilhelm Reich is also mentioned, albeit briefly, as another point of reference for the picture's depiction of the entanglement of sexual energies with revolutionary and counter-revolutionary tendencies. 

We open up discussing the continuing conflict in Iran and the new decision to deploy ICE Agents to "assist" at airports.

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We're talking about the Iran War again, with a special focus on President Trump's incoherent statements regarding the war's status and aims.

We open the episode talking about the Oscars and the recent Clavicular "phenomenon." Finally, someone has dared to put Clavicular's "language making" in the context of British Romantic Poetry.  

The American Prospect on Renewable Energy as a National Security Issue

The Guardian on the Potential Helium Shortage

Middle East Eye on Israel's Incursion into Lebanon

Donald Trump's "difficult to parse" statement on the Iran War

Gizmodo on Sam Altman's Concept of Intelligence as a "Utility"

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This week we are talking about the first ten days of the Iran War. We go over some of the horrific consequences we've already seen unfold across the region and attempt to suss out what the more long term impacts of this catastrophic event might be. We also try to get into the heads of the people who are spearheading this endeavor in the hopes of imagining what they might hope to achieve. Doomsday scenarios, such as the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons are considered as well.

We also touch on the Anthropic/Pentagon "feud" and how it has served to whitewash Anthropic's long term plans for the use of Claude.

The New York Times on the widening conflict

The New York Times on Anthropic vs. the Pentagon

Taylor Lorenz and Ross Anderson on Anthropic, OpenAI, and the Pentagon

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