Best Shane Simonsen Podcasts (2024)

1
Reville Saw 1:04:36

17h ago1:04:36

1:04:36

Shane Simonsen talks to Reville Saw about his work rehabilitating degraded land in West Papua using syntropic principles, the indigenous agriculture surviving in Papua, and his own extensive efforts breeding bananas from original species, lima beans, restoring fertility to ginger, breeding better biomass plants, and a bunch of other topics.…

1
Richard Paul Watson 1:04:24

1M ago1:04:24

1:04:24

Richard Paul Watson talks to Shane about his efforts growing and breeding a wide range of vegetable crops in windy New Zealand, and his successes in building a network of seed growers to create a collective seed sales organisation, the Sentinels Group. Check out more of Richard's work at https://www.sentinelsgroup.co.nz…

1
William DeMille talks to Joseph and Holly 59:37

2M ago59:37

59:37

Farmer and educator William DeMille talks to Joseph and Holly about permaculture, biodynamics, silvopasture, holistic management and georgics and how they apply to his farm in northern Nevada. Check out more of Williams work below https://www.thegeorgicrevolution.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Free-Eating-William-John-DeMille/dp/B0BW2Y4GLZ https…

1
We Are Fighting a War to Keep Our Hearts Alive 2:01:02

2M ago2:01:02

2:01:02

Is it time to give up? Was it already time to give up in 2020, or 2012, or perhaps even 1999? We usually justify our answers to these questions purely in terms of their rational foundations. But our reasoning is embodied, and variation in the details of our embodiment produce very different relationships to hope, despair, and the place one finds be…

1
Vivimancer pt. 2: Brain Waves 3:14

2M ago3:14

3:14

In 2015, Thorstein Grunwald began a mythic undertaking. He sought extreme states of consciousness for the purpose of making scientific discoveries about the earth's carbon cycle that would allow for interventions in runaway climate change. Science already had a very long legacy of progress through the spontaneous visionary experiences of its practi…

1
Austin Vaughn 42:04

2M ago42:04

42:04

Shane chats to Austin Vaughn about his experiments developing landrace carrots and a range of other crops in his difficult Texas clay. Check out more of Austin's work at the Going to Seed discourse forum https://goingtoseed.discourse.group

1
Taylor Chance 47:11

3M ago47:11

47:11

Taylor Chance talks to Shane about his many crop breeding projects, including Chinese yams (Dioscorea polystachya), ancestral cucurbits and interspecies goji berry hybrids.

1
Sub-Self, Meet Meta-Self: Notes on The Emerging World Mind 2:31:22

4M ago2:31:22

2:31:22

You've heard a million times that the history of life on earth is one of systems tending toward ever-increasing complexity, but in this episode, we argue evolutionary history is best conceptualized as one of ever-expanding boundaries of selfhood. In so doing, we apply a unique lens to questions with concrete strategic implications which have vexed …

1
Padraic Flood 43:30

4M ago43:30

43:30

Shane Simonsen talks to Padraic Flood about his work to domesticate the lost tuberous pea crop of Europe, Aardaker, also known as Lathyrus tuberosus.

1
Episode 16- Darren Abbey 48:53

5M ago48:53

48:53

Shane talks to Dr. Darren Abbey about breeding blue beans, white tomatoes, storage tomatillos and so much more. Read more about Darren's work - https://the-biologist-is-in.blogspot.com/ Find him on Twitter (@thebiologistisn), Mastodon (@thebiologistisn@redwombat.social), Bluesky (@thebiologistisn), Threads: (@thebiologistisn), Instagram (@thebiolog…

1
Episode 15- Holly Hansen 55:37

6M ago55:37

55:37

Joseph and Holly reminisce and discuss plans for the year ahead.

1
Yevgenii Berben-Zycki 19:15

6M ago19:15

19:15

This episode features traditional farmer Yevgenii Berben-Zycki, managing his farm with his family in the middle of an active war zone in Ukraine. He outlines his family's work selectively breeding hazelnuts over the last four generations, and how they are reconnecting with historic farming techniques.…

1
Raphael Maier 53:05

6M ago53:05

53:05

Shane and Joseph talk to Raphael Maier about breeding cold hardy passionfruit and other fascinating projects. Check out Raphael's book- https://www.amazon.com/Breeding-Hardy-Passion-Fruit-Developing/dp/B0C12P63RK And Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/imperatorplantae/?hl=en

1
Jesus of Nazareth and the Biology of Defeat 2:38:39

7M ago2:38:39

2:38:39

What does it say about a society if it venerates the image of someone being executed by the state for sedition? In this episode, we trace the improbable evolution of Jesus of Nazareth from fervent revolutionary to apolitical, transcendental being. We situate his trajectory in the cross-cultural tradition of prophetic liberation movements, from sout…

1
Going to Seed- Bruce Pascoe 50:36

7M ago50:36

50:36

Shane Simonsen talks to Bruce Pascoe about revitalising Australian Indigenous foods (including kangaroo grass and vanilla lily among many other species). Check out Bruces work at the following links: Black Duck Foods https://www.blackduckfoods.com.au Trailer for the Dark Emu Story https://youtu.be/Z1Vq7rrTsY0?si=pw6AQBtWDwRA3o0W Full Documentary- T…

1
Going to Seed- Mark Shepard 57:13

8M ago57:13

57:13

Shane Simonsen and Joseph Lofthouse talk to Mark Shepard about restoration agriculture and breeding staple tree crops with mass selection. Check out Mark's work at the following links: restorationag.com www.forestag.com Mark is speaking at the Restoration Agriculture Conference very soon! https://events.acresusa.com/e/2023-eco-ag-conference-trade-s…

1
The Biological Singularity Is Near pt. 1 2:16:45

8M ago2:16:45

2:16:45

We are clearly reaching the end of this phase of human civilization. Does that mean that evolution's broad trend towards increasing complexity, scale, and self-awareness is also dying? Many futures are possible, and in this episode, we speculate about one that continues the evolution of ever-greater complexity. Exiting the fantasy of a “sustainable…

1
Joseph Lofthouse talks to Evan Sofro 56:07

8M ago56:07

56:07

Joseph Lofthouse chats to nomadic farmer Evan Sofro about heritage grains, biophilia and land artistry. See more of Evan's work at- www.instagram.com/regenerative_earth_art/ Contact Evan at- evansofro@earthincorporated.net/

1
Shane Simonsen talks to Damien Beaumont about intergeneric berry hybrids 20:23

8M ago20:23

20:23

Going to Seed Podcast- Shane Simonsen talks to Damien Beaumont about raspberry-strawberry hybrids and other fascinating topics. Check out Damien's work at his blog - http://living-mudflower.blogspot.com Contact Shane with guest suggestions at shane.simonsen@icloud.com

1
Joseph Lofthouse talks Tomatoes with William Clark Schlegel 52:21

9M ago52:21

52:21

Joseph Lofthouse Interviews William Schlegel about promiscuous tomato breeding and other projects. https://osseeds.org/ossi-breeders/wil...

1
Shane Simonsen talks about primitive permaculture with David Lauterwasser 1:05:32

9M ago1:05:32

1:05:32

Shane Simonsen talks to primitive permaculturalist David Lauterwasser. Find out about the diverse agricultural systems in tropical Thailand, and hear discussions about breeding jackfruit, tropical mustard greens and aquatic tomatoes. Read more of David's work at his substack- https://animistsramblings.substack.com Instagram- https://www.instagram.c…

1
Joseph Lofthouse interviews Mark Reed 53:50

9M ago53:50

53:50

Joseph Lofthouse Interviews Mark Reed about Sweet Potato Breeding, broccolish and a bunch of other fascinating projects. Check out Mark's broccolish project in more detail here- https://youtu.be/7tgfpo28fhc?si=blPDSVnQT-uOrp8u

1
Shane Simonsen talks to Thulahn about domesticating Silverweed 35:22

9M ago35:22

35:22

Shane Simonsen talks to experimental crop breeder Thulahn about his exciting new project to domesticate silverweed (Argentina anserina). Read more about Thulahn's work at his substack: https://urbanfoodforest.substack.com https://linktr.ee/foodforestadventurer

1
Zero Input Agriculture with Joseph Lofthouse and Shane Simonsen 52:34

9M ago52:34

52:34

Joseph Lofthouse talks to experimental farmer Shane Simonsen. Learn how to grow food with no irrigation, no imported fertiliser and no pest protection, the zero input agriculture way. Shane also talks about his experimental crop breeding work with Canna tubers and Bunya nut trees. Check out Shane's weekly blog - https://zeroinputagriculture.substac…

1
Bringing Potato Onions Back from the Brink with Joseph Lofthouse and Kelly Winterton 55:14

9M ago55:14

55:14

Joseph Lofthouse talks to world potato onion expert Kelly Winterton. Learn how you too could become a crop expert with a little care and attention.

1
Joseph Lofthouse interviews David the Good 56:31

9M ago56:31

56:31

Episode 2- Pioneer vegetable breeder Joseph Lofthouse interviews David the Good about gardening on Florida sand, subtropical food forests, survival gardening, and learning to grow food to build community. Check out David the Good’s writing at https://www.thesurvivalgardener.com/ and his videos at https://www.youtube.com/@davidthegood…

1
Joseph Lofthouse interviews William Whitson of Cultivariable 51:33

9M ago51:33

51:33

Joseph Lofthouse talks to William Whitson about breeding potatoes from true seed and his many other crop breeding projects. Check out Will's work at https://www.cultivariable.com

1
Social Complexity after the Machines: Interview with Dr. Shane Simonsen 1:46:38

9M ago1:46:38

1:46:38

Rejecting both the empty promise of a future of magically sustainable resource extraction and a return to what has already been, Dr. Shane Simonsen examines possibilities for social and ecological complexity based only on biology and the human imagination. In his Zero Input Agriculture blog, Going to Seed podcast, and Our Vitreous Womb fiction seri…

1
Metanoia: How Worldviews Change 7:34

10M ago7:34

7:34

Fight Like An Animal has engendered a group, and that group has in turn engendered a new podcast called Metanoia: How Worldviews Change. Metanoia, which means "a transformative change of heart," examines why most people are so utterly unresponsive to witnessing the world die, while a few of us are deeply burdened. Abandoning Enlightenment notions o…

1
Vivimancer pt. 1: The Water Carrier (excerpt) 5:23

10M ago5:23

5:23

Perpetually replenishing his organs by inducing his cells to behave like those of an early embryo, Arnold continues the 100th year of his podcast. In Fight Like An Animal 2120: Vivimancer, we examine the end of the Machine Age and the subsequent Biological Revolution, providing both an introduction for new practitioners and a history of the practic…

1
Seeds of the World Tree: Programs of Revolutionary Biology and Evolutionary Politics 47:19

11M ago47:19

47:19

Fight Like An Animal has generated an incredible audience consisting of rigorous thinkers who possess deep empathy. These traits, which are too rarely combined in political movements and institutions, mean that we have the potential to collaborate on truly novel, worthwhile projects. Thus is born, friends, the World Tree Center for Evolutionary Pol…

1
Social Cohesion vs. the Internet vs. the Establishment vs. the Earth 1:45:58

11M ago1:45:58

1:45:58

A wide-ranging conversation between Arnold and Daniel of What Is Politics? concerning the prospects for social transformation in this dreamlike age of epistemic fracture. We talk about the impact of declining social cohesion on traditional modes of political organizing; whether the internet can do anything other than make people stupid and crazy; a…

1
#66: A Saboteur's Moon Sheds No Light (excerpt) 2:15

12M ago2:15

2:15

Before this podcast began, a nascent version of Fight Like An Animal 2050 was called A Saboteur's Moon Sheds No Light, broadly following the same narrative trajectory of revolutionary transformation amidst ecological collapse. A variety of video, text, and music was produced for the project. As a companion to the most recent episode, and as a way t…

1
The Ashes of the World Tree: On Grieving and Fighting 3:01:04

1y ago3:01:04

3:01:04

Our worldviews emerge from our psychologies, from embodied states of being. In an effort to describe my framework for understanding social possibility beyond ecological tipping points, I have decided to tell a story. The story is of my life over the course of seven years, of the integration of past traumas, nomadic revolutionary politics, unmitigat…

1
Metamorphosis pt. 3.3: Your Body Is a Map of the Sky 2:03:03

1y ago2:03:03

2:03:03

We examine the neurobiological changes that brought archaic Homo sapiens into behavioral modernity, despite negligible changes in brain size. We see how complex symbolic capacities are embedded in anatomy and behavior, and describe the human brain's progressive change to a more globular shape, the increase in our neural density, and the expansion o…

1
Metamorphosis pt. 3.2: Integration across Landscapes and Brain Regions 1:12:37

1y ago1:12:37

1:12:37

We continue the story of humanity's journey to modern thought and behavior, examining how a mosaic of both cultural and anatomical traits existed throughout Africa for ~200 thousand years. Then, this patchwork of cultures and anatomies fused, a process of integration that is also reflected in increasing brain connectivity. We see how isolated popul…

1
Metamorphosis pt. 3.1: The Rupture in the Fabric of Reality Model of Human Cognition 1:49:45

1y ago1:49:45

1:49:45

We continue to assess our future evolutionary prospects, this time picking up the story of the human journey where Homo sapiens emerges. Anatomically modern humans have existed for ~300 thousand years, but modern behavior is only evident starting ~100 thousand years ago. We examine this evolutionary process by describing humanity's unique capacitie…

1
Metamorphosis pt. 2: The Cognitive Evolutionary Avant-Garde 2:49:25

1y ago2:49:25

2:49:25

We assess the future of our evolutionary journey by asking what it was like, experientially, to be at the forefront of ancestral human cognition. We examine the role of choice in human evolutionary history, describing expression changes in synaptic genes of the prefrontal cortex as a key driver of our cognition, and see how such changes are driven …

1
Metamorphosis pt. 1: The Age of Mutual Incomprehension 2:06:00

1y ago2:06:00

2:06:00

This series examines the future of the human evolutionary journey. Can we adopt behaviors other than the ones that are driving us to chaos, misery, and collapse? Building on the notion of developmental plasticity as the core driver of evolution we established in Revolutionary Biology, we examine the feedback loop between technology and biology that…

1
The Incompetent Authoritarianism of Vladimir Lenin 1:25:24

1y ago1:25:24

1:25:24

Having grown up in a time when anarchism was the ubiquitous form of revolutionary politics, Daniel of What Is Politics? and Arnold talk with bewilderment about the current proliferation of authoritarian leftism. Heavily referencing the amazing A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, we discuss the persistent myth that the Bolsheviks i…

1
Revolutionary Biology pt. 2: The Development and Evolution of Sasquatch 2:05:28

1+ y ago2:05:28

2:05:28

As an illustration of the extraordinary plasticity of our species, we examine the story of Zana, whose genetics, described in a 2021 paper, establish her as a member of a modern human population. Zana, who was captured living wild in the Caucasus Mountains in the 19th century and held in captivity for forty years, was two meters tall, covered in ha…

1
Revolutionary Biology pt. 1: Nature vs. Nurture vs. Synthesis 3:28:44

1+ y ago3:28:44

3:28:44

Nature vs. nurture thinking simply makes no sense: an entity can only respond to its environment via evolved capacities. Nonetheless, this binary reasoning is persistently attractive to the human mind, and is present in the theoretical foundations of all the major political tendencies. In this episode, we explore the persistent harm to our politics…

1
The Raven Politics of Terra Incognita 59:00

1+ y ago59:00

59:00

A uniquely stand-alone episode of the Fight Like An Animal 2050 fictional series usually reserved for Patreon, here we describe a future in which insights from anthropology and biology on the ecological determinants of social structure are used by revolutionaries to create a society capable of survival. Combining the rapidly developing possibilitie…

1
Narcissists, Strongmen, and Technocrats pt. 2 1:07:44

1+ y ago1:07:44

1:07:44

(01/01/2022) Why are states incapable of navigating the ecological crisis? We progress to the third of our six explanatory levels for comprehending any sociopolitical condition—species-typical behavior—in pursuit of answers to this question, describing the process of state formation as the imposition of a dominance hierarchy onto an existing social…

1
Narcissists, Strongmen, and Technocrats pt. 1 1:22:26

1+ y ago1:22:26

1:22:26

We examine a scientific case for revolution: the claim that modern societies are forms of dominance hierarchy that grant power to people with extremely narrow frames of awareness, who are incapable of grappling with the crises that beset us. Reading from the unnamed Fight Like An Animal book, we examine a tripartite psychology: that of the Narcissi…

1
Glitching Is the New Tweaking (excerpt) 4:14

1+ y ago4:14

4:14

(12/05/2022) This episode of Fight Like An Animal 2050 tells the story of the initial meetings, in 2025, at which a strategy was conceived for dismantling the I-5 Commerce and Security Zone, appropriating its resources, and thus saving the west coast from annihilation. We learn more about the early exploits of the I-5 saboteurs, the initial publish…

1
Myth, Science, Power 1:40:44

1+ y ago1:40:44

1:40:44

(11/17/2022) Why is it that apocalyptic cults have been such a common aspect of the human experience, but are largely absent from our apocalyptic present? Does global collapse inherently invoke a mythical frame of awareness, and if so, what is the role of science in helping us navigate collapse? Here, we continue our examination of the relationship…

1
Red Sky, Black Snake: Eight Strategic Theses from Standing Rock 2:03:28

2y ago2:03:28

2:03:28

In celebration of the anniversary of the killing of Custer, to prepare for revolutionary efforts against the theocratic authoritarian regime which has taken over the US, and in hopes of a holy war against the forces that are destroying life on earth, Arnold describes lessons learned at, or illustrated by, the pipeline struggle of 2016-7 at Standing…

1
#52: Varieties of Scientific Revolution pt. 2 1:39:33

2y ago1:39:33

1:39:33

In order for scientists to start a revolution, the case for revolution must emerge from the scientific process. But that process is heavily influenced by the underlying psychologies which produce the different worldviews found in different disciplines and sub-tendencies within disciplines. We introduce a coarse classification of distinct segments o…

1
#51: What We Sang in the Mountains to Greet the Gentle Rain pt. 2 (preview) 3:55

2y ago3:55

3:55

(05/22/2022) The story of the epochal changes of the 2020s, told in 2050, continues. This episode tells the story of west coast forests in the 2020s and the three preceding decades, and the institutional inertia that existed with regard to fire. We examine the insane technical literature generated by environmental law, the failure of wildfire behav…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Shane Simonsen Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide