To understand what this show is about, and for recordings of the shows from 2021, go here. 2022 shows are here, 2023 shows are here, and 2024 shows are here.
- 2025–01–04 We humans, time–binding animals that we are, have now exhausted the first quarter of the twenty–first century. And what do we have to show for it? Colonies on the Moon, research outposts on Mars, expeditions to the asteroids and Jupiter? Peace, prosperity, and healthy ecosystems on Earth? Make better choices, children!
- 2025–01–11 The metaphenomenon of recurrent phenomena occupies a considerable part of my attention this week. Also, a recommendation for a book, The Flying Sorcerers by Gerrold and Niven ; a consideration of the Car Culture in America ; and a warning to be aware of the ape brain that lies between the lizard brain and the higher faculties of consciousness.
- 2025–01–18 Has the capitalist owner–class, like its mediaeval equivalent (albeit with far less tangible reason), embraced the delusion that it represents a higher order of life than the working class? Will the USA, as a result, see a wave of CEO shootings in the coming year? Are our measures of historical time obsolete in the face of increased human life expectancy? Also, a little bit of astronomy, a little bit of space travel, and Mail Call! Two postcards from Canada this week, and a letter from Australia.
- 2025–01–25 The present world situation, it is clear, is unsatisfactory — although hopeful signs are there to be seen for those who will but look. But why are those who have it all the most unsatisfied? Also, mixed news from Canada, stupid news from Chile, and even stupider, colossally stupid, news from Britain ; new additions to our archive of scanned nuclear–energy public–information materials ; and if you’re going to be in the Dallas area 14—16 February, come up and see us at FenCon.
- 2025–02–01 Starting very late, about 15 minutes in as a matter of fact. I share some sensitive personal information about my family and friends, which is always a mistake, and lay out my expectations for the coming month, explaining why I may not be available to do shows regularly.
- 2025–03–15 Beware the Ides of March! I’m not yet back to doing a full show yet, but please accept these few minutes of commentary about geopolitics, the latest semi–successful lunar landing mission, my dental well–being, and the potential of “generative AI” to provide an always–on, personalized cult leader for anybody who is even remotely, momentarily susceptible. Exciting times we live in, to be sure!
- 2025–03–22 Can the lack of classical education be blamed for the failure of democracy, in the Soviet Union or elsewhere? Probably not, but it’s a nice thought all the same. Also, more Dental Drama™ ; a coda to last week’s show ; local outreach; and I offer a new approach to nuclear energy for the new German government, with a new slogan : “Pro–Nuclear is Pro–Europe”.
- 2025–03–29 Support your local library! No solar eclipse for me — such a travesty. Family emergency, an earlier return to the USA than planned, and anxiety about when I may be able to leave again ; effects of weather on my outreach efforts ; reflections on the limits of “ephemeralization” ; a discussion of the rise of the anti–nuclear movement, and some text I am going to have to use again.
- 2025–04–05 Anxiety about my upcoming return to the USA basically de–railed this show. I didn’t get to the things I was more interested in talking about, such as a recently–announced “nuclear battery”, because I felt the need to explain why the sudden imposition of large import duties can have a seriously damaging effect on a national economy, and even on the world economy in case of cascading retaliation. But I did manage to carve out some time to criticize the German educational system, and offer a critique of schooling generally.
- 2025–04–12 Yuri’s Night! Find your local party. Mail Call! The significance of the prospective new power reactor at the University of Illinois. And more thoughts about industrial policy, world trade, and the old adage “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end”.
- 2025–04–19 Stardrive! When will we get it, and how? Perspectives on a “nuclear battery” and an “all–woman spaceflight” ; a little more about tariff and non–tariff trade barriers and their utility, the adage “de minimis non curat lex”, and the straw–man of the “US–made iPhone” ; and likely–final remarks on the gold standard.
Supplementary Shows
- 2025–01–03 “The domain of the virus is apparently the threshold between what we have known in the past as the animate and the inanimate.” Back to Bucky Fuller and Utopia or Oblivion — The Prospects for Humanity, which seems very appropriate as we begin this Glorious Future Year of 2025.
- 2025–01–07 “When we have something vital to say we can usually develop the means of communication. Today with our great vocabulary inheritance we squander meanings on unworthy causes and communicate little that needs to be said.” More of Utopia or Oblivion by Bucky Fuller, the tail end of Prevailing Conditions in the Arts, and the start of Keynote Address at Vision 65.
- 2025–01–10 “We find that man is developing an increasing confidence in the way in which computers are resolving heretofore vexing and seemingly unsolvable problems.” Completion of Keynote Address at Vision 65, and beginning of Summary Address at Vision 65.
- 2025–01–14 “There is now a very large inventory of ways in which Man has been teaching, thinking, and accounting events and values which have no experimentally–demonstrated validity.” The remainder of Summary Address at Vision 65 just rounds out the hour (hey, it had to happen sometime), and provides the title for the book, Utopia or Oblivion.
- 2024–01–17 “For every problem solved a plurality of new problems arise to take their place. But the problems need not be those of physical and economic survival.” More from Fuller, a short piece titled The World Game — How to Make the World Work, describing a very interesting computer simulation effort, and the beginning of a longer piece entitled Geosocial Revolution.
- 2025–01–21 “The fundamental and prior problem of Man’s surviving successfully on this little sun–orbiting spaceship, ‘Earth’, cannot be solved by political theory and is not to be left to the politician’s ultimate lever — war — hot, subversive, cold, or cool.” More of Geosocial Revolution from Utopia or Oblivion by R Buckminster Fuller.
- 2025–01–28 “With these interlinkages of the lever and channeled energy, Man is now in the wealth–making business, which is to use his brain to get nature’s vast energy patterns to do the energy work of supporting and regenerating him.” More from Geosocial Revolution in Utopia or Oblivion.
- 2025–03–18 “Quite clearly, Man is coming into a completely new ecological relationship to his Earth, and quite clearly, we are accelerating into an entirely new relationship of Man to Universe. In speaking to you I have to take that statement as my fundamental premise, not just as an interesting aside. The problems of our moment are as unprecedented as they are vast. The solutions will have to be unprecedented and vast.” Picking up again with Utopia or Oblivion by Fuller, we finish “Geosocial Revolution” and begin “How to Maintain Man as a Success in Universe”.
- 2025–04–15 “Anyone can use the telephone. Any two can have any kind of telephone conversation they want. They can call themselves communist, capitalist, or any other kind of name. The telephone works for either. But the telephone shrinks the world for both, and disasters can be averted by means of it, and when disasters occur it brings swift help from great distances.” More from Utopia or Oblivion, continuing with How to Maintain Man as a Success in Universe.
- 2025–04–18 “The men and women who work on television get and hold their jobs through their diction, good vocabularies, confident tone, and pleasing personalities.” The conclusion of How to Maintain Man as a Success in Universe.
