Agora Politics

The new show, Hacking State is now up and live. Please go check it out at hackingstate.substack.com. All future interviews and audio essays will be located on the new feed. Thank you all once again for listening. Hope to see you there. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

I speak with Mike Elias and James Ellis of IdeaMarket.io, who are building out a market for attention-worthiness. IdeaMarket is a peer-to-peer zeitgeist management system with a mission to replace corporate media as the public’s arbiter of credibility. The core idea is to apply a risk-management approach to sensemaking and public discourse. Visit https://ideamarket.io/ to learn more. Mike Elias is the CEO/Founder, a philosopher, entrepreneur, blues musician, cartoonist, writer. James Ellis is a writer, philosopher, podcaster, investor, and one of IdeaMarket's earliest employees.

Samo Burja is founder of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that investigates the political and institutional landscape of society. He is also a research fellow at the LongNow Foundation, where he studies how institutions can endure for centuries and millennia, and a Senior Research Fellow in political science at the Foresight Institute where he advises on how institutions can shape the future of technology. Writer, speaker, and strategist. We discuss his Great Founder Theory, his hypothesis that “a small number of institutions founded by exceptional individuals for the core of society”; as well as the requisite infrastructure for complex thought that Samo says has almost entirely disappeared, and the causes of Western nations' decline in state capacity.

Gabriel successfully cofounded and sold one of the earliest Bitcoin exchanges in Canada. We talked about his decision and experience starting a cryptocurrency exchange, the limits to automated governance, decentralized statecraft, and ta smart contract constitution. Agora Politics is dedicated to upgrading our outdated theories of politics. Doing so requires honest and forthright engagement with not only academics, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, twitter anons, and luminaries of all types who are tuning in to the zeitgeist and attempting to synthesize stories of the past, with knowledge of the present, and visions of the future. Agora Politics is a podcast dedicated to making sense out of our outdated theories of politics. Subscribe to my channel for more videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Follow Agora Politics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/agora_politics/ Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amurshak/ — Subscribe on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agora-politics/id1496531814 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/agora_politics Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xfgHAlhswC6PWlTZC5S58?si=fY-OxZqASPWtxFnAqyLCbg Wherever you find your podcasts

William Johnsen is former graduate chair and coordinator of undergraduate programs in the Department of English at Michigan State University, editor of “Contagion: The Journal of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion”, and general editor of "Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture” a book series through Michigan State University Press. We talk about his work spreading the ideas of René Girard, imitation, mimesis & the internet, the role of the scapegoat, Girard’s radical interpretation of the crucifixion, his criticism of Nietzsche’s Slave Morality, his prescience in calling political correctness a new totalitarianism, the limits of imitative desire, & the paradox of differentiation.

Anna Brodsky is cofounder of the Global Redesign Institute, a childcare activist, and advocate for Structural Satyagraha: the design and implementation of infrastructure which supports and rewards nonviolent behavior. We talk about the meaning of structural satyagraha, American inventor Buckminster Fuller’s term Dymaxion, Project Cybersyn, and their lovechild, Dymaxyn, open source cities, education, childcare as the regulatory subsystem of the community, post-scarcity, open-access governance, and holistic approaches to the future of society. Agora Politics is dedicated to upgrading our outdated theories of politics. Doing so requires honest and forthright engagement with not only academics, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals, but luminaries of all types who are tuning in to the zeitgeist and attempting to synthesize stories of the past, with knowledge of the present, and visions of the future.

Nina Power is a cultural critic, social theorist, philosopher, author, and translator. Her upcoming book, “What Do Men Want” is forthcoming later this year. Take the Illich course from Nina herself at https://Illichcourse.com Use coupon code AGORA to get 30% off! We discuss the works of Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic, Ivan Illich, covering some of his most famous works such as Deschooling Society, Medical Nemesis, & Tools for Conviviality, we also discuss learning networks, social media & the state, iatrogenic harm and the medical-industrial complex, sex, gender, and economic neutering, and Illich's conceptions of conviviality, austerity and eutrapelia. - Agora Politics is a podcast dedicated to making sense out of our outdated theories of politics. I’m Alex Murshak, political theorist. Subscribe to my channel for videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Follow Agora Politics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/agora_politics/ Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amurshak/ — Subscribe on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agora-politics/id1496531814 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/agora_politics Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xfgHAlhswC6PWlTZC5S58?si=fY-OxZqASPWtxFnAqyLCbg Wherever you find your podcasts

Alex Feinberg's work focuses on optimizing performance to get the best in health and business. We cover: - His journey through professional athletics, finance, tech, and fitness - Understanding human nature for success in business and sports - His investigations into conspiracy and the shadow world - Hedging against inflation and rule by fiat - Breaking out of systems that condition learned helplessness - The importance of training as a closed feedback loop - Pathologies of large institutions - The political implications of entrepreneurship - Strength as a precondition for freedom You can follow Alex on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/alexfeinberg1 Agora Politics is a podcast dedicated to making sense out of our outdated theories of politics. Subscribe to my channel for more videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amurshak Follow Agora Politics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/agora_politics — Subscribe on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agora-politics/id1496531814 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/agora_politics Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xfgHAlhswC6PWlTZC5S58?si=fY-OxZqASPWtxFnAqyLCbg Wherever you find your podcasts

I am joined by writer, horrorist, and anonymous internet denizen Zero HP Lovecraft. We discuss anonymity and pseudonymity, peer-to-peer censorship, asymmetric cyberwarfare, the origins of Zero HP Lovecraft, horrific and utopian technological visions of the future, the dark side of technology, acceleration and human agency, his latest work “Don’t Make Me Think”, multi-sensory narrative experiences, cancellation, and The Zero HP NFT. Read Zero HP Lovecraft On Substack: https://zerohplovecraft.substack.com/ On Site: https://zerohplovecraft.wordpress.com/ On Twitter: https://twitter.com/0x49fa98 Agora Politics is dedicated to upgrading our outdated theories of politics. Doing so requires honest and forthright engagement with not only academics, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals, but luminaries of all types who are tuning in to the zeitgeist and attempting to synthesize stories of the past, with knowledge of the present, and visions of the future. Anons like Zero HP play a vital role in the ecology of the discourse by pushing the Overton Window up to, and in some cases, beyond its limits. Agora Politics is a podcast dedicated to making sense out of our outdated theories of politics. I’m Alex Murshak, political theorist. Subscribe to us on Youtube for videos and interviews: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Follow Agora Politics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/agora_politics/ Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amurshak/ — Subscribe on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agora-politics/id1496531814 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/agora_politics Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xfgHAlhswC6PWlTZC5S58?si=fY-OxZqASPWtxFnAqyLCbg Wherever you find your podcasts

I am joined by director of the metamodern think tank, Abstract-Org's Brent Cooper, for an exercise in constructive disagreement. We come together from different perspectives to address leaky abstractions, The IDW, Critical Race Studies vs. Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, globalization & cosmopolitanism, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), and thinking big in the face of endemic incrementalism. Agora Politics is about upgrading our outdated theories of politics. To do so, we need to be willing to have challenging conversations that not only push us to our intellectual limits, but our interpersonal and ideological limits as well. None of us are born with a worldview out of whole cloth, it is shaped by our disposition, upbringing, and experiences. What we mustn’t forget, however, is that the choices we make will influence our perspective now, in the future, and how we interpret the past. I’m Alex Murshak, political theorist. Subscribe to my channel for videos and interviews: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Follow Agora Politics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/agora_politics/ Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amurshak/ — Subscribe on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agora-politics/id1496531814 Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/agora_politics Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5xfgHAlhswC6PWlTZC5S58?si=fY-OxZqASPWtxFnAqyLCbg Wherever you find your podcasts.