Episode 65: Rebecca Solnit

May 3, 2016

Rebecca Solnit is an author, activist, and geographer, among other things. Her books include A Paradise Built in Hell, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and Men Explain Things to Me.

Episode 64: Peter Gleick

February 13, 2016

Peter Gleick researches water and water policy at the Pacific Institute.

Episode 63: Kim Stanley Robinson

February 11, 2016

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the biggest names in current science fiction. He is the author of seventeen novels and eight collections of short stories.

Episode 62: Rebecca Costa

February 4, 2016

Rebecca Costa is a self-proclaimed sociobiologist, author of The Watchman's Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, and host of the radio program The Costa Report.

Episode 61: Rainey Reitman

February 1, 2016

Rainey Reitman is the Activism Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a co-founder of both the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Chelsea Manning Support Network.

Episode 60: George Lakoff

January 28, 2016

George Lakoff is a cognitive linguist, author, and political strategist.

Episode 59: Charles Hugh Smith

January 27, 2016

Charles Hugh Smith is an economics writer, former builder, and general renaissance man who blogs at oftwominds.com.

Episode 58: Jason Kelly Johnson

January 25, 2016

Jason Kelly Johnson is an architect, designer, and the co-founder of Future Cities Lab.

Episode 57: Joan Blades

June 4, 2014

Joan Blades is the co-founder of Living Room Conversations, a movement dedicated to fostering meaningful dialogue between Americans of different political ideologies.

Episode 56: The Conversation @ SXSW

April 3, 2014

Aengus and Micah draw upon their experience producing The Conversation for a South by Southwest panel about how the science/tech industries implicitly define progress.

Episode 55: Ed Finn

August 23, 2013

Ed Finn is the Director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.

Episode 54: Charles Bowden

July 28, 2013

Charles Bowden is a journalist and author. He is best known for his books about Ciudad Juarez, which include Murder City, Down by the River, and Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future.

Episode 53: Carlos Perez de Alejo

July 16, 2013

Carlos Perez de Alejo is a the co-founder and Executive Director of Cooperation Texas, an Austin-based nonprofit that helps organize worker-owned cooperatives.

Episode 52: Walter Block

July 5, 2013

Walter Block is a self-described anarcho-capitalist, chair of the Economics Department at Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is the author of Defending the Undefendable.

Episode 51: Phyllis Tickle

May 28, 2013

Phyllis Tickle founded Publishers Weekly's Religion Department and has written numerous books about modern American Christianity, including The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why.

Episode 50: Future of The Conversation

May 17, 2013

Aengus and Micah talk about the future of The Conversation, their perpetual need to raise the project's visibility, and hope for funding another season of production. They also address thematic connections that haven't happened.

Episode 49: Scott Douglas

May 6, 2013

Scott Douglas, III, is the Executive Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, an interfaith organization dedicated to poverty relief and legal reform in Birmingham, Alabama.

Episode 48: Chris Carter

April 17, 2013

Chris Carter is a self-taught electrical engineer and founder of MASS Collective, a workspace in Atlanta, Georgia that combines hands-on learning, apprenticeship, and traditional education for students and makers of all ages.

Episode 47: Oliver Porter

April 3, 2013

Oliver Porter designs and implements partnerships between municipalities and corporations, allowing cities to privatize virtually all of their functions.

Episode 46: Mark Mykleby

March 21, 2013

Col. Mark "Puck" Mykleby is a former marine and co-author of A National Strategic Narrative for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, a document that encouraged broadening the concept of defense to include issues of sustainability.

Episode 45: James Bamford

March 7, 2013

James Bamford is an author and journalist who has written extensively about the National Security Agency. His books include The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and The Shadow Factory.

Episode 44: John Seager

February 27, 2013

John Seager is the President of Population Connection, formerly Zero Population Growth.

Episode 43: Roberta Francis

February 20, 2013

Roberta Francis has been advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment for over thirty years, chairs the ERA Taskforce for the National Council of Women's Organizations and administers equalrightsamendment.org.

Episode 42: Gary Francione

February 15, 2013

Gary L. Francione is an animal rights activist and Professor of Law and Philosophy at Rutgers. He is the author of several books including Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement.

Episode 41: John Fullerton

January 27, 2013

John Fullerton is the founder of the Capital Institute, a group dedicated to rethinking the future of finance. Prior to his work at the Capital Institute, he was the Managing Director of JPMorgan.

Episode 40: Mary Mattingly

January 17, 2013

Mary Mattingly is an artist whose work explores the environment, sustainability, community, and survival in an unstable world. Recently, she has brought these themes together with the Flockhouse Project and the Waterpod.

Episode 39: Richard Saul Wurman

January 9, 2013

Richard Saul Wurman is a designer, architect, author of over 80 books, and founder of several conferences including TED, WWW, and EG.

Episode 38: Alexa Clay

January 1, 2013

Alexa Clay is an author, economic historian, and director of thought leadership at Ashoka Changemakers. She is co-author of The Misfit Economy, a forthcoming book that looks for economic innovation amongst pirates, hackers, and gangs.

Episode 37: David Keith

December 20, 2012

David Keith is a Harvard professor of Applied Physics and Public Policy. He has spent over two decades researching climate science and geoengineering, was named a Hero of the Environment by TIME in 2009, and is the President of a company dedicated to reducing atmospheric CO2.

Episode 36: Ethan Zuckerman

December 13, 2012

Ethan Zuckerman is the Director of MIT's Center for Civic Media, a former fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, and co-founder of Global Voices, a hub for international news bloggers.

Episode 35: Chuck Collins

December 5, 2012

Chuck Collins directs the Institute of Policy Studies Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He is the co-founder of United for a Fair Economy and Wealth for the Common Good, a network of wealthy individuals who embrace fair taxation to support the public good.

Episode 34: Douglas Rushkoff

November 19, 2012

Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist, author, and documentarian, among other things. His books include Life, Inc. and Program or be Programmed. His documentaries include Frontline's "The Merchants of Cool" and "Digital Nation."

Episode 33: Priscilla Grim

November 10, 2012

Priscilla Grim is one of Occupy Wall Street's organizers, co-founder of the website We Are the 99 Percent, and co-editor of The Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Episode 32: The Conversation and the Election

November 7, 2012

As a presidential election ends, Aengus and Micah talk about the relationship between the political conversation and The Conversation.

Episode 31: Claire Evans

October 30, 2012

Claire Evans is half of YACHT, a "band, business, and belief system" started by Jona Bechtolt in 2002. Unlike most bands, YACHT has a developed a public philosophy. In addition to her musical/artistic adventures, she's also a writer and science blogger.

Episode 30: Henry Louis Taylor, Jr.

October 22, 2012

Henry Louis Taylor, Jr. is the Director for the Center for Urban Studies at the University of Buffalo and the Project Coordinator for the Perry Choice Neighborhood Initiative. His work has looked at urban planning, regional development, and history in the United States and Cuba.

Episode 29: Lawrence Torcello

October 15, 2012

Lawrence Torcello is a philosopher focusing on ethics, politics, and the environment. He is especially interested in the problem of embracing pluralism while rejecting moral relativism.

Episode 28: Tim Cannon

October 3, 2012

Tim Cannon is a co-founder of Grindhouse Wetware, a group of open-source biohackers in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Episode 27: Patrick Crouch

September 26, 2012

Patrick Crouch is the Program Manager at the Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit, Michigan. The farm is a project of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and is the only certified organic farm in the city.

Episode 26: Jenny Lee

September 21, 2012

Jenny Lee is a co-director of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit organization focused on the intersection of media and social justice. AMP sponsors the annual Allied Media Conference.

Episode 25: Frances Whitehead

September 14, 2012

Frances Whitehead is an artist, designer, planner, environmental thinker, civic actor, dot-connector, collaborator, and generally difficult person to pigeonhole. She is also a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she founded the Knowledge Lab.

Episode 24: Synthesizing themes

September 7, 2012

Aengus and Micah return to discuss the rifts between anthropocentrists and biocentrists, tech optimists and tech skeptics. They also blather about teleological explanations, and The Conversation as a historical phenomenon. Is there such a thing?

Episode 23: Carolyn Raffensperger

September 2, 2012

Carolyn Raffensperger, is the executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network. She is well known for her work on the precautionary principle, but her thought ranges across a wide variety of questions that address the relationship between law and the environment.

Episode 22: Wes Jackson

August 23, 2012

Wes Jackson is the founder and director of The Land Institute where he has spent almost 40 years developing a new form of agriculture that mimics natural ecosystems.

Episode 21: Robert Zubrin

August 18, 2012

Robert Zubrin is the president of The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the exploration and colonization of Mars. He is also the author of The Case for Mars and Merchants of Despair.

Episode 20: David Miller

August 11, 2012

David Miller was the architect of Wyoming's House Bill 85, the so-called "Doomsday Bill," which developed the state's response to a collapse of the Federal Government. He is also CEO of Strathmore Minerals.

Episode 19: Joseph Tainter

August 7, 2012

Joseph Tainter is an anthropologist and historian who studies collapse in ancient civilizations and has written The Collapse of Complex Societies.

Episode 18: David Korten

July 31, 2012

David Korten is president of the Living Economy Forum, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, co-founder of YES! Magazine, and a member of the Club of Rome. His books include When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

Episode 17: Laura Musikanski

July 24, 2012

Laura Musikanski is the co-founder of The Happiness Initiative, a group that applies insights from Bhutan's Gross Domestic Happiness project to the American economy. Formerly, she was Executive Director of Sustainable Seattle.

Episode 16: Thinking Out Loud (Again)

July 22, 2012

Aengus and Micah reflect: is The Conversation inherently elitist? If not, how can it be made more democratic? Also, the announcement that Aengus is swamped with traveling, interviewing, and editing. As a result, The Conversation will slow to one episode-per-week and extend production.

Episode 15: Cameron Whitten

July 15, 2012

Cameron Whitten is, in his own words, a "shameless agitator" from Portland, Oregon. He became politically active during Occupy Portland and, at twenty, made a bid to become the mayor of the Rose City with endorsements from the Green Party and Oregon Progressive Party.

Episode 14: John Zerzan

July 10, 2012

John Zerzan is an anarchist and primitivist writer and speaker. His books include Against Civilization and Elements of Refusal.

Episode 13: Ariel Waldman

July 4, 2012

Ariel Waldman is the founder of Spacehack.org, a website that democratizes space exploration. Previously she worked in social outreach for NASA.

Episode 12: Gabriel Stempinski

June 25, 2012

Gabriel Stempinski is an evangelist of the new sharing economy, author, documentary producer, and San Francisco city ambassador for CouchSurfing.

Episode 11: Lisa Petrides

June 18, 2012

Lisa Petrides is the founder of ISKME, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, a research group dedicated to studying current educational systems and encouraging innovation.

Episode 10: Timothy Morton

June 11, 2012

Timothy Morton is a philosopher, dark ecologist, professor of English, and author of Ecology Without Nature and The Ecological Thought.

Episode 9: A Brief Status Update

June 8, 2012

Aengus and Micah discuss Aengus' interview style and possibilities for visualizing the conversation's metadata.

Episode 8: Chris McKay

June 4, 2012

Chris McKay is a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center. His work focuses on the search for microbial life within the solar system and he is active in discussions of bioethics, Mars colonization, and terraforming.

Episode 7: Alexander Rose

May 30, 2012

Alexander Rose is the Executive Director of the Long Now Foundation, a San Francisco-based group dedicated to encouraging long-term thinking. He is also overseeing the design and construction of a monument-scale clock intended to run for 10,000 years.

Episode 6: Jan Lundberg

May 27, 2012

Jan Lundberg is a former oil industry analyst for Lundberg Survey and is currently an environmental activist and advocate of depaving. He is the founder of Culture Change and the Sail Transport Network.

Episode 5: Andrew Keen

May 24, 2012

Andrew Keen, the self-professed Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley, is the author of The Cult of the Amateur and, more recently, Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us.

Episode 4: Colin Camerer

May 20, 2012

Colin Camerer is one of the pioneers of neuroeconomics, a combination of neuroscience, psychology, and economic theory.

Episode 3: Peter Warren

May 14, 2012

Peter Warren works for The Nature Conservancy and has been closely involved in an unlikely conversation that brought together ranchers and environmentalists to manage over 75,000 acres of grassland in Arizona.

Episode 2: Max More

May 9, 2012

Max More is the CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation and founder of the magazine Extropy. He also coined the term transhumanist.

Episode 1: John Fife

May 5, 2012

Reverend John Fife was instrumental in co-founding the Sanctuary movement. He is also active in humanitarian work along the US/Mexico border through Humane Borders.

Episode 0: What is The Conversation?

May 2, 2012

Aengus and Micah give you a little background about The Conversation, explaining what it is, what it isn't, and why they think it's important.