The biggest threat to America’s world order is not China, but the country’s own deepening dysfunction. Its grand strategy must go beyond containment and transform the basis of U.S. power.
Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss Charlie Smith’s recent piece on posthumanism and its implications. Other topics include the ways in which a complex society impacts our agency, why the idea of discourse is a mind virus, and thinking of humanity as a hypothesis for life.
As neoliberal reforms broke the back of American labor, they also created a growing class of small business owners. Now, that class has come back to haunt both big business and the establishment which created them.
America’s China hawks paint the country as an economic, geopolitical, and military danger. In reality, China is less a threat to America itself than it is to the legitimacy of U.S. ruling ideology.
Wired magazine founder and technologist Kevin Kelly discusses why technology has agency, why he believes in God but not destiny, and how to be an anti-utopian optimist.
Observers regularly predict the U.S. dollar’s collapse as the global reserve currency. In reality, history shows that currency dominance is one of the most enduring forms of hegemony.
Wolf Tivy and Galen Wolfe-Pauly discuss what’s wrong with social media and computing as we know it, as well as a new paradigm for humane computing.
Humanism believed that we could conquer the world. In reality, modernity has escaped our control. Only a posthumanist framework can see us through.
Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss the concept of progress and whether it still has a role in the American consciousness.
Dr. Nicholas Christakis joins the salon to discuss his new book on COVID-19, extreme crisis, and what we can learn about the relationship between pandemics and human nature.
New Optimists such as Steven Pinker emphasize the triumphs of modern civilization. But modernity has also created a grim left tail of potential catastrophes. We have only averted them by luck.
Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss the role of billionaires in society, how to think about personal wealth, and the inherent tensions between capital and state.
Roman Krznaric joins the salon to discuss his book, intergenerational thinking, and how we can be good ancestors.
The United States is waking up to our new geopolitical normal—a world of multipolar competition as American power stagnates and others powers rise. We need to discard encrusted foreign policy illusions and go back to basics.
Samo Burja comes on the podcast to talk about when it’s appropriate to regulate online speech and the proper relationship between state and media.
National service is a well-established way for Western democracies to build civic unity. A joint military and diplomatic initiative can spark America’s institutional renewal.
Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton discuss the collapse of the scientific mythos and how both knowledge and statecraft can find new grounds for legitimacy.
Numerous Chinese projects adopted the Belt and Road brand. But its grand strategy propaganda has created new enemies and makes Xi responsible for every failed venture.