EP76: Do You Want to Live Forever?

FromDarts and Letters

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EP76: Do You Want to Live Forever?

FromDarts and Letters

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Length:

65 minutes

Released:

Mar 27, 2023

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

The story of the Fountain of Youth is as old as history itself. Herodatus, the father of ancient Greek history, wrote of a mythical spring that extended the life of its bathers. Today, entrepreneurs, scientists, and health influencers are still searching for that mythical spring.

Released:

Mar 27, 2023

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (99)

This is about ‘arts and letters,’ but for the kind of people who might hack a dart. We cover public intellectualism and the politics of academia from a left perspective. Each week, we interview thinkers about key debates that are relevant to the left. We discuss politics, culture, and intellectual history.

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EP8.1: Bantering with Bannon: In this bonus episode, host Gordon Katic speaks with Ben Teitelbaum, author of a fascinating new-ish book called War for Eternity. He spent over 20 hours with Steve Bannon, as well as a wider network of far-right thinkers and strategists. Honestly, by Darts and Letters
77 min listen
EP9: The Founding Grift: Lately, things have been a little too heavy on this show. Insurrections, fascism, proto-fascism, weird apocalyptic visions. That stuff is important, but let’s get serious. You don’t think the society we live is actually dominated by people who hold any... by Darts and Letters
76 min listen
EP4: The Conquest of Bread: You know McKinsey and Co. They worked for a company that was fixing the price of bread in Canada. They helped on Trump’s immigration policies, but their ideas were too extreme even for ICE. More recently, they proposed that Purdue Pharma “turbocharge”... by Darts and Letters
77 min listen
EP16.1: Mesmerizing Convolutions: The Rise of Fingerprint Identification: In this bonus episode, Gordon Katic speaks with Simon A. Cole, a professor of Criminology, Law and Society at University of California Irvine. He’s the author of “Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification”. by Darts and Letters
55 min listen
EP16: Derailed: The Crisis of Forensic Expertise: When it comes to complex social problems, us sensible well-educated book-learnin’ types turn to the experts; we ‘believe science’ — unlike those snorting, hooting, semi-literate dunces. But over the next two weeks, by Darts and Letters
83 min listen
EP6: Katichisms: What’s the matter with Catholics? They are strangely over-represented in the conservative intellectual ranks. From William F. Buckley to Steve Bannon and many others, Catholics have long been the brains of the modern American right. by Darts and Letters
77 min listen
EP3.1: Decoding Dominionism: You liked our last episode, Pew Research Center, so I wanted to bring you more. We were just scratching the surface on far-right political theology. On this bonus episode, Andre Gagne takes us deeper. We talk through an intellectual history of the key ... by Darts and Letters
68 min listen
EP22: The Colonial Lens (ft. Uahikea Maile, Max Liboiron, & Pam Palmater): Scholars want to decolonize everything, and universities say they are doing the hard work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. But is anything really being done, or is it all for show? In this episode, by Darts and Letters
59 min listen
EP4.1: Auditing the Auditors: Our last episode, “the Conquest of Bread,” was about McKinsey and Co. encroaching on higher education. In this bonus episode, we put these developments in a wider context. That context: audit culture. Put simply, it’s governing by numbers. by Darts and Letters
57 min listen
EP15: Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children: In recent years, the left seems to have ceded the issue of free speech — or, rather, flipped on it. For years, it defended against censorship, stood up to global imperialism, decried efforts to silence resisters and renegades, by Darts and Letters
79 min listen
EP20: The Revolution Will Not Be Streamed (ft. Destiny, Trevor Strunk, Cypheroftyr & T.L. Taylor) by Darts and Letters
84 min listen
EP13.1: Gamers of the World, Unite! (w/ Paolo Pedercini): In this bonus episode, Gordon Katic speaks with Paolo Pedercini, a professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University and a game developer who runs Molleindustria. Pedericini’s games offer systemic critiques of capitalism, by Darts and Letters
65 min listen
EP5: Prison Notebooks: I can point you to mountains of research about prisons. I can also recommend at least a dozen Netflix documentaries, and highlight a handful of radical activists and scholars. There’s a lot of intellectual work done about prison. by Darts and Letters
61 min listen
EP3: Pew Research Center: You’ve seen hilarious videos of the evangelicals for Trump. You might be inclined to ignore them, mock their excesses, or dismiss their threat. But the evangelical right is a force to be reckoned with, even with Trump on his way out. So, by Darts and Letters
91 min listen
EP23: Back to the Land: Indigenous Schooling in a Colonial State (ft. Kyla LeSage & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson): Canada is a colonial and genocidal state, past and present. The horrifying news of the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School is evidence of that, by Darts and Letters
54 min listen
EP17: Pathological: The Work of Dr. Charles Smith: Dr. Charles Smith performed autopsies at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, ON. The cops kept turning to him with new corpses, and he kept claiming that these deaths were the result of foul play. He was thought of as a God in his field–few peop... by Darts and Letters
76 min listen
EP20.1: Solid Strunk (ft. Trevor Strunk of No Cartridge): In this bonus episode, we talk more with Trevor Strunk of No Cartridge. Trevor has a forthcoming book called Story Mode: Video Games and the Interplay Between Consoles and Culture. It’s coming out this November. by Darts and Letters
51 min listen
EP7: It Takes Coup to Tango: We’re all still processing what just happened on Capitol Hill. Clearly, there is a mounting proto-fascist threat that must be stopped. But liberals are being rash in their response, and this is likely to only enflame things. by Darts and Letters
69 min listen
EP24: Darts and Lasers (ft. Cory Doctorow, Nalo Hopkinson, & Batya Weinbaum): It’s stardate 99040.01 and lead producer Jay Cockburn is temporarily taking over command of Darts and Letters for an episode. This week we enter the world of science fiction, revealing how it’s long been a vehicle for radical thought We dig into post-s... by Darts and Letters
60 min listen
EP12: Left Jab (w/ Garth Mullins of CRACKDOWN): As the pandemic drifts into its one-year anniversary, all eyes are on the end of the thing. Whenever that may be. Discovering, producing, and shipping vaccines is the big plank in the world’s plan to move beyond the coronavirus, by Darts and Letters
68 min listen
Summer Bonus EP: Decolonizing Marxism (w/Boaventura de Sousa Santos): Writing in 19th century Europe, Karl Marx was reflecting a time and place: Europe in the wake of the closing years of the Industrial Revolution. Marx himself, later in life, recognized that his crowning work, Das Kapital, had a limited scope, by Darts and Letters
44 min listen
EP13: Boss Battles: The video game industry is a behemoth. It shapes our culture, it shapes our discourse, and it’s on its way to becoming something like a $200 billion industry. But what is it like for the people who make the games we enjoy? Unfortunately, by Darts and Letters
51 min listen
EP19: Seizing the Means of Run Production (ft. Dave Zirin of the Nation) [Rebroadcast]: Programming note: It’s Major League Baseball postseason and Darts and Letters is (coincidentally) on a break this week. In honour of the playoffs, we’re running one of our favourite episodes — one fit for the season. by Darts and Letters
83 min listen
EP18: The People’s President (ft. Steve & Larson of Going in Raw) by Darts and Letters
84 min listen
EP26: The French Connection (ft. Jean-Yves Camus, Matt McManus, & Joe Mullhall): The national security state is alive, well, and growing. By weaponizing the threat of right-wing extremism, governments are building out their post-9/11 securitization projects. The far-right, however, is dangerous and does need to be stopped. by Darts and Letters
79 min listen
EP32: Academic Disaster Capitalism (w/Gary Rhoades): School’s back. Alongside the usual challenges of managing college and university life comes sorting out how to keep people on campus safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. Colleges and universities are trying to find their way forward after a rough 18 mont... by Darts and Letters
47 min listen
EP10: Whose Mine Is It Anyway?: Canada likes to trade on the “middle power” trope. Tucked away among the many, snuggled up with peer states just outside the focus given to global hegemons, the country goes about its business, friendly and mild. Nothing to see here. by Darts and Letters
59 min listen
EP21: Letters From Herzl (ft. Rashid Khalidi & Faisal Bhabha): Gazans live in an open-air prison within an apartheid state. Backed by the United States and USD $3.8b a year in military aid, Israel dominates Palestinians. Recent Israeili airstrikes on Gaza have left over 200 Palestinians and a dozen Irsaelis dead. by Darts and Letters
79 min listen
EP8: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Fascism!: Donald Trump is no longer president—the Biden era has officially begun. But it begins still reeling from a siege on the capital. As we said last week, we have to figure out how to respond. But respond intelligently. This week, by Darts and Letters
68 min listen
EP14: How to Save the News: Journalism is in crisis. Of course, there’s no shortage of rescue ideas. Sometimes it’s billionaires buying newspapers as vanity projects. Other times it’s techno-utopianism. Or plucky startups pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. by Darts and Letters
39 min listen

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EP85: Mutual Aid & the Anarchist Radical Imagination (ft. Elif Genc, Payton McDonald, Max Haiven, & Alex Khasnabish): There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics. However, this misses strong autonomous and anarchist-inflected social movements. In this episode, by Darts and Letters
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EP83: The WEF is Actually Bad, But Not Like That (ft. Raj Patel, Joel Bakan, and more): The WEF is yet another example of the scrambled ideologues of our moment. Conservatives condemn the WEF, and news organizations like Rebel cover it doggedly; at the same time, left-leaning NGOs speak there, by Darts and Letters
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EP82: The Texas Two-Step and Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder: What's safer than baby powder? Parents have been using it for over 100 years to powder their baby's bottoms, and they've found one brand especially trustworthy: Johnson & Johnson. Yet, numerous studies have revealed the presence of trace amounts of asb... by Darts and Letters
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EP81: Introducing Academic Edgelords & Reading the Unibomber: We're excited to announce Academic Edgelords. This is a scholarly podcast about scholarly provocateurs. Gadflys, charlatans, and shitposters sometimes get tenure, believe it or not. This is a leftist podcast that takes a second look at their peer-revie... by Darts and Letters
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EP80: Dr. Ex Machina (ft. Casey Ross & Ben Chin-Yee): Could an artificial intelligence diagnosis what ails you? Medical futurists offer a techno-utopian vision of perfect personalized risk assessments, diagnoses, and treatment recommendations. Yet, recent stories belie this optimism. by Darts and Letters
70 min listen
EP79: Learning for Liberation: The Life & Legacy of Paulo Freire: Paulo Freire offers activists and academics everywhere a lesson in what it means to be a radical intellectual. He is known as the founder of critical pedagogy, which asks teachers and learners to understand and resist their own oppression. by Darts and Letters
62 min listen
EP78: Misinformed: The Lab Leak & the Politics of Misinformation (ft. Branko Marcetic & Nicole M. Krause): The COVID-19 lab leak theory went from being dismissed as mere misinformation, to now a credible matter of debate. What's changed, and what does this teach us about science journalism and science communication? by Darts and Letters
61 min listen
EP77: The Hearts of Men (ft. Vaush, Annie Kelly, & Nicholas Lemann): Online masculinity is getting weirder and weirder. Now, we’ve got bro science, ball tanning, ball eatin,’ piss drinkin,’ and who knows what's next. We ask: what's broken in the hearts of men, and how might the left fix it? by Darts and Letters
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EP75: The Hippie High-Rise: From 1968 to 1975, one eighteen story high-rise was the heart of Canada's counterculture. Rochdale College in Toronto was jammed full with leftist organizers, hippies, draft dodgers, students, artists, and others just looking for a good time. by Darts and Letters
66 min listen
EP74 BONUS: PlasticPills – AI & the New Crisis of Humanities Education: The Darts team is working on another big episode! In the meantime, we're sharing this one from our friends at PlasticPills - Philosophy & Critical Theory Podcast. They do a great discussion of OpenAI and its implications in academia. by Darts and Letters
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EP73: Drafts & Letters — Vietnam War Resisters Come to Canada: The idea of moving to Canada figures prominently in the imagination of many disaffected Americans. Usually, they don't come. However, between the mid-60s and early-70s they really did--and in the 10s of thousands. Yet, by Darts and Letters
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BONUS EPISODE: Kino Lefter – Discordia (2004) A Snapshot of Student Activism: Our host Gordon and producer Marc join Evan MacDonald of Kino Lefter to discuss our latest episode - a retrospective on the 2004 documentary "Discordia". by Darts and Letters
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EP72: Discordia Revisited — The Meaning of the Concordia Netanyahu Riot (ft. Yves Engler, Ben Addelman, Samir Mallal & more): We revisit the extraordinary National Film Board documentary Discordia, directed by Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal. The film covered the 2002/03 school year at Concordia University in Montreal, QC. That year started with a planned speaking event from Be... by Darts and Letters
73 min listen
EP71: MAID in Canada (ft. Nipa Chauhan, Trudo Lemmens & Dr. Derryk Smith): The Canadian government has recently instituted an expansive Medical Assistance in Dying regime (MAID). The usual Left impulse is to accept and respect what people wish to do with their own bodies. Yet, there has been a series of disturbing news report... by Darts and Letters
65 min listen
EP70: Chokepoint Capitalism ft. (Cory Doctorow): Many of the creative industries look like an hourglass. On the one side, you have creators; on the other, the rest of us. In the middle, Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow say there's often a 'chokepoint.' Corporate behemoths -- be they streaming apps, by Darts and Letters
47 min listen
EP69: Mathematical Morality (ft. Émile P. Torres): The collapse of the crypotcurrency exchange FTX has caused major shockwaves throughout the financial world. This has brought new attention to the ongoing reckoning around crypto, and urgency to the calls to reign in and regulate these emerging technol... by Darts and Letters
46 min listen
EP68: Science Against the People (ft. Charles Schwartz & Sigrid Schmalzer): Today, right-wingers attack science and liberals defend it. Science good, anti-science Republicans bad--that's the prevailing narrative, especially so during the March for Science in 2017. However, it's not so simple. by Darts and Letters
60 min listen
EP67: Darts Transit Commission (ft. Paris Marx): We have been talking a lot lately about the idea of techno-utopian thinking, but we're coming to a somewhat surprising conclusion: there isn't as much of it as there used to be. Our Silicon Valley tech bros have quite a curtailed vision. by Darts and Letters
43 min listen
EP66: Technocracy Now!, pt. 3 (ft. Sam Adler-Bell & Alessandro Delfanti): The first two episodes of this series told stories of technocrats who tied themselves to a muscular state. They believed the state could remake society, if it had the right expertise. - However, the state under neoliberalism doesn’t have the technocra... by Darts and Letters
61 min listen
EP65: Technocracy Now!, pt. 2 (ft. Joy Rohde & Eden Medina): Last episode, we looked at the technocrats of the industrial age: Thorstein Veblen, Howard Scott, and the “industrial tinkerers,” as Daniel Bell put it. But Daniel Bell went on to say we were entered a new age — a … by Darts and Letters
64 min listen
EP64: Technocracy Now!, part 1 (ft. Noam Chomsky): Technocracy is the idea that experts should govern. For the common good, presumably. It makes a certain amount of sense, given how irrational our politics seem to be right now. So, technocracy is seductive. In fact, by Darts and Letters
63 min listen
Coming Soon: Technocracy Now!: Technocracy is the idea that experts should govern. For the common good, presumably. In fact, it's an idea as old as politics itself, and it emerges just about everywhere across the ideological spectrum. next episode, by Darts and Letters
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EP63: Who Researches the Researchers?: Researchers with the best of intentions still get things wrong. So what does it look like when the old paternalistic ways are dispensed of? We talk to Garth Mullins, who is both researcher and subject in Vancouver's downtown east side and also to Mich... by Darts and Letters
56 min listen
EP62: Socialize the Series of Tubes (ft. Ben Tarnoff): Recently a major outage took nearly a third of Canada offline. No phone, no internet… even access to 911 got shut down in some places, all thanks to Rogers Media Inc. But why does one company get so much control over a vital service like the Internet i... by Darts and Letters
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EP59: January 6th and the Myth of the Mob (ft. James Jasper and Joy Rohde): The January 6th hearings continued this week, so we took it as an opportunity to revisit how academics tried to explain the events. Many likened it to a kind of psycho-social pathology; terms like deindividuation, psychosis, groupthink, by Darts and Letters
69 min listen
EP58: The Twisted “Science” of Great Replacement Theory: The suspect in the Buffalo shooting had a manifesto, as mass shooters often do. However, this one was different. It was littered with references to peer-reviewed scientific research that, he purports, supports his white supremacist beliefs. by Darts and Letters
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EP57: Truck Nuts (ft. Matt Christman, Shane Hamilton, Chase Barber, Justin Martin, & Gabrielle Esperdy): The pickup truck is the symbol of rural conservative masculinity. So, it often takes centre stage in the tired culture wars between reactionary neo-populists and liberal moralists. Like today, with Canada’s right crudely embracing the truck–and tweetin... by Darts and Letters
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EP76: Do You Want to Live Forever?

EP76: Do You Want to Live Forever?

Description

Titles in the series (99)

More Episodes from Darts and Letters

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