Charles Hugh Smith is an economics writer, former builder, and general renaissance man who blogs at oftwominds.com. In 2012 CNBC dubbed Charles as one of their top alternative financial bloggers.

I learned about Charles when a listener sent me a link to his blog—and I’m quite happy he did. My conversation with Charles was one of the most conversational interviews I’ve recorded, which wasn’t just fun for me, it also makes for a very dynamic episode. We talk about (comparatively) rosy collapse scenerios, parallel economies, the possibilities and limits of desktop fabrication, and why you should be out paving a bike lane. Listen for connections to Joseph Tainter and Douglas Ruskoff.

After our conversation, Charles engaged further with some of the questions we discussed in his short essay An Abundance of Bad Decisions.