Palladium editors Wolf Tivy and Matt Ellison join Skinner Layne of Wild Studios. We discuss why Palladium and Wild Studios are hosting the AI Conclave in Spain this November. Learn more and join us: https://aiconclave.io The AI Conclave is a month-long pop-up campus for deep study of the biggest questions—in Mediterranean nature: for healthy bodies, minds, and souls. November 1-30, 2023. Apply now. Full funding and scholarships are available.

Tea Törmänen and Marco Visscher join Ash Milton to discuss their recent article on how Finland's Greens chose nuclear energy and the differences between degrowth and ecomodernism. Recently, the Finnish Green Party has been leading the way among green movements in embracing nuclear energy. Tea and Marco tell us why that came to be and how it could be the future for the rest of Europe. The trio also discuss how human demography has and will shape energy consumption, and the question of...

Jesse Velay-Vitow joins Ash Milton to discuss how recent geopolitical realignments, energy crises, and migration patterns will shape the rest of the twenty-first century. Recent energy crises in Europe have helped to put nuclear energy back on a strong footing. But does that mean that powers like Iran will be able to build them? How will industrializing nations vulnerable to climate change like India balance economic growth with ecological stability? What will mass "climate migration" look...

Dylan Levi King joins Wolf Tivy to discuss his featured 07 article on North Korean environmentalist policies, Japanese whaling, and the ecotheology that undergirds them.   When Kim Il-Sung, the founder of North Korea, was fighting against Japanese occupiers, environmentalism and folk mythology were interwoven parts of his legend—it was rumored he could turn pine tree cones into flaming bullets, preventing the Japanese from harvesting the pine forests for their imperial wars. It was only one...

Ash Milton joins Alexander Gelland to discuss his recent article on the life of the Abbé Henri Gregoire, a priest who was one of the leaders of the French Revolution.   Henri Gregoire is a mysterious figure. Both revolutionary and clerical, universalistic and patriotic, he embodies many of the contradictions of the Revolution. Walking us through his biography and elite-level political life during the Enlightenment, Ash makes a case for how Henri Gregoire's beliefs anticipated those of...

Eron Wolf joins Wolf Tivy to discuss alternative computing and the trappings of the streamlined user experience.   As computing technology has become more widespread, the possibilities it offers the user have been narrowed. DRM restrictions, software bloat, and "appification" have made tinkering more difficult. Attempts at fixing this, such as the open-source software movement, have not been able to halt the trend. How can it be done differently?   Eron Wolf is a Software Author at FUTO,...

Mathis Bitton joins Ash Milton to discuss his PALLADIUM 05 article on state centralization under Charles de Gaulle, the institutional history of French liberalism, and how a nation is built. France occupies a unique position among the Western powers. With public spending at two thirds of its GDP, the French bureaucratic state has historically required a powerful executive. Charles de Gaulle refounded the state after the end of World War II and built a system that ensured the French executive...

Nicolas Villarreal joins Ash Milton to discuss his 05 article on how capitalist giants use socialist cybernetic planning, cybernetic methods of organizing supply chains, and their impact on the worker.   Socialist Chile centrally planned its economy using Project Cybersyn, which used computerized feedback loops to give production managers live updates on changes in demand and other production indicators. This helped solved the “bullwhip” problem, where producers belatedly learned of changes...

Charles Smith joins Alexander Gelland to talk about his 2020 article Confronting Modernity Means Overcoming Humanism, featured in PALLADIUM 05: Centralizing Society. The emancipating power of modernity has escaped our control and begun to resemble its opposite. But, if we have the vision to see it through, new technologies promise a radical reshaping of our society for the better.   Join Alex and Charles as they discuss how posthuman societies resemble those of the past, where legitimacy...

Erik Hoel joins Ash Milton to discuss the current state of education, how it succeeded aristocratic tutoring, and what it means for progress. Up until the creation of mass schooling in the nineteenth century, tutelage was the most common form of education. Only aristocrats were able to afford this, and with the disappearance of aristocratic society so too has tutoring fallen out of practice. But its advantages are what enabled great works of genius to emerge over the past three hundred...

Dylan Levi King joins Ash Milton to discuss his PALLADIUM 05 article on the cult of Jiao Yulu and China's convergence with Western technocracy. Local Communist Party cadres of the 60s and 70s experimented with economic reforms that seeded China’s economic success. Jiao Yulu was their model.   Since then things have changed. China has become no less susceptible to demographic change, financialization, and reliance on opinion polling than its Western counterparts. But there will always be...

Palladium Correspondent Fin DePencier joined Ash Milton from the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, where he has been reporting on the ongoing Russian invasion. In addition to events on the ground, they discussed the wider implications of this war for Russia's sphere of influence, given its recent history of frozen conflict and continuing involvement in Central Asia and the Middle East. One recent example of this influence occurred in Kazakhstan during its widespread protests and riots...

Richard Hanania joins Ash Milton to talk about the U.S. confrontation with Russia and why it keeps enduring. With the U.S. keeping the door open for future NATO expansion in eastern Europe, Russia is continuing its own military build-up in the region. Most recently, tensions rose again over Ukraine and its future. What drives the ideologies behind the foreign policy? And what does it really take to update entrenched political worldviews? Richard Hanania is President of the Center for the...

Charles Coulombe joins Ash Milton to discuss the rise and fall of the WASP ruling class, which he also covered in Palladium 04. America's upper class went from disparate networks of families to a national elite in only a few generations. Then, they lost it all. Topics include the WASPs' intentional cultivation of their internal culture, the decay of their ideologies and institutions, and more. Palladium 04 is our latest quarterly print edition, including an anthology of work and original...

Samo Burja joins Wolf Tivy to discuss his article in Palladium 04 on how rising classes become new elites. Historically, cycles of violence often break out at these moments, and yet elites are surprisingly good at surviving the resulting turnover. Are there better ways of integrating new players into a society's elite? Palladium 04 is our latest quarterly print edition, including an anthology of work and original art. To receive this and future copies, subscribe now.

Avetis Muradyan joins Ash Milton in Brazil to discuss his article in Palladium 04 on why elites often rise from the criminal underworld. Other topics include observations on the Brazilian favelas, the importance of frontiers, and how one learns to be human. Palladium 04 is our latest quarterly print edition, including an anthology of work and original art. To receive this and future copies, subscribe now.

Palladium 04 is coming out in Winter 2021. The theme is Cultivating Elites. In this special episode, Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discussed why developing the consciousness and culture necessary to act as an elite is not an easy task, but one that requires institutional and personal investment. They also previewed some of the articles included in this upcoming print edition: a new piece from Wolf about why you should quit your job, as well as articles on Skull and Bones, America's WASP elites,...

Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss why scientific management driven by digital technologies is becoming a dominant philosophy of governance in both China and the West. Other topics include why governments no longer want to mobilize their populations, whether chaos in society is really a bad thing, and Dylan Levi King's recent article on Chinese digital technocracy. The first half of the show is available to all our listeners. The full discussion is available to Palladium Members. Members also...

Geremie Barmé joins Ash Milton to discuss his decades of experience in China and what previous upheavals in its leadership can teach us about the Xi era. Topics include his time studying alongside red guards at Chinese universities during the Cultural Revolution, Mao's return in modern Chinese ideology, and the real heritage of neo-Confucianism. Geremie is an Australian sinologist and author. He currently edits China Heritage and is founder of The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology.  The...

Kevin Kelly joins the salon to discuss his new book and photographic travelogue: Vanishing Asia. Covering decades of Kevin's travels through 35 different countries across the Asian continent, this three-volume project records the traditions and pasts that are vanishing in the face of Asian modernity. Other topics include the value of printed work, why futurists should care about history, and why Kevin doesn't regret the vanishing of the past too much. Kevin is co-founder of Wired...

Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss the logic behind a centralized society and what life looks like inside it. Despite the psychological stresses of living in a world where everything is tracked and legible, societies around the world seem to move increasingly toward this model. What are its actual strengths and weaknesses? Is our problem too much scale or insufficient social complexity? And what's the real lesson of the Tower of Babel? The first half of the show is available to all our...

Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss what defines elites and how to cultivate them. Could it be that we do, in fact, only have an upper middle class today? Other topics include why money doesn't grant elite status, the reason why privilege is necessary for founding new institutions, and where people should go to escape the social conditioning of the rat race. The first half of the show is available to all our listeners. The full discussion is available to Palladium Members. Members also get to...

Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss China's embrace of high modernity. Since the early 20th century, America has been the core of industrial civilization. Now, China is its most powerful rising periphery. But while China is currently ascending, it is already reaching important inflection points, like demographic stagnation and uncertain political succession. Does its rebirth contain the beginnings of a new stagnation? Additionally, the team discusses why China seems to act as a proxy for...

Dr. Michael Zargham joins Wolf Tivy to discuss the dynamics of complex systems and what they can tell us about governing entire societies. Topics include how to think about local and global levels of action, why technological decisions are ultimately decisions about governance, and how to train people to embrace subjectivity. The first half of the show is available to all our listeners. The full discussion is available to Palladium Members. Members also get to participate in the Palladium...