Urgent Futures with Jesse Damiani

I’ve talked about AI a good deal in past episodes—and I continue to believe it’s a subject of critical discourse, even (and perhaps especially) as it’s ever more riddled with outstated hype. That’s why you’ll notice I’ve framed today’s conversation in the title as a contrast between large AI models and the little database, a term coined by today’s guest, Danny Snelson—but this conversation is so much more than that. In fact, he wrote a whole book about the subject—and it’s superb.This notion of the little database draws on the lineage of the “little magazine,” a type of publication popular in the second half of the 20th century for cheaply and rapidly distributing written works, especially experimental literature that didn’t quite fit in with existing literary norms. The little database is an archive that similarly embodies this DIY spirit—a curated (though not always too heavy-handedly) digital archive. Just as material realities fostered the possibilities and framed the constraints of little magazines in, say, the 1970s, so too do the material realities of digital media in little databases. The analysis Danny conducts in The Little Database doubles as an examination of how the rise of the web fostered and constrained the media that could circulate—and how and why.A whole lot more in this episode, including games, social justice, the poetics of search, and more!Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Daniel Scott Snelson is a writer, editor, and archivist working as an Associate Professor in the Departments of English and Design Media Arts at UCLA, where he serves as faculty for the Digital Humanities, the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Strategies, and the UCLA Game Lab. His online editorial work can be found at PennSound, Eclipse, UbuWeb, Jacket2, and the EPC. Published books include Elden Poem (Hysterically Real, 2022), Full Bleed: A Mourning Letter for the Printed Page (Sync, 2019), Apocalypse Reliquary: 1984-2000 (Monoskop, 2018), Radios (Make Now, 2016), EXE TXT (Gauss PDF, 2015), Epic Lyric Poem (Troll Thread, 2014), and Inventory Arousal with James Hoff (Bedford Press/Architectural Association, 2011). With Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Avi Alpert, he performs as one-third of the academic performance group Research Service. His recently published book, The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), examines the networked afterlives of media-reflexive works of art and letters in search of contingent methods for reading ordinary digital collections.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.Amid CDC upheaval under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., there's a lot of medical mis- and disinformation flying around—especially about the Covid-19 vaccines. It felt critical to have a conversation with an actual subject matter expert to get to the bottom of it, and Dr. Lucy McBride graciously agreed to join me for this Rapid Response episode on Substack Live.If you want to participate in future Lives, please subscribe to https://www.realitystudies.co/ to stay in the loop.Audio versions of this Rapid Response can be found here on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. If you prefer video, check out the episode on YouTube.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Dr. Lucy McBride is a practicing internal medicine physician in DC who has been seeing patients for over 20 years. During the pandemic, she became a nationally recognized voice on the importance of addressing mental and physical health. She is the author of the popular medical newsletter, Are You Okay?, now reaching over 36,000 people a week and is the author of a forthcoming book about whole-person health with Simon & Schuster. She hosts a top-rated podcast called Beyond the Prescription where she interviews guests like she does her patients, pulling the curtain back on what it means to be healthy. She has been published in The Atlantic, the Washington Post, USA Today, and has appeared on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and PBS NewsHour, providing evidence-based medical advice, advocating for a holistic approach to health care, and helping redefine health as more than our cholesterol and weight. Health, she argues, is not an outcome; it's a process. It's not fixed; it's dynamic. It's about awareness of our medical facts, acceptance of the things we cannot control, and agency over what we can change. You can find her on Substack at: https://lucymcbride.substack.com Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

It is well-documented that the polycrisis is intensifying across scales. It’s also well-documented that humanity is not doing nearly enough to preserve the habitability of our planet. It will be demanded of us to engage in extensive mitigation in order to rise to the stakes of this crisis, but mitigation alone isn’t enough. We also have to adapt—in ways across the scales of micro to macro, from a renewed meaning of what we mean when we talk about “the good life” for ourselves, to an overhaul in our collective practices and policies.Earlier this year, today’s guests, Morgan Phillips and Manda Scott—along with former Urgent Futures guest Rupert Read—published an incredible book called Transformative Adaptation: Another world is still just possible, a quick read faces this reality head on. It is a clear guide to the array of transformations that we humans necessarily must undertake if we’re going to make it.The book has been wisely picked up for distribution in the US by Penguin Random House, and is out with all US booksellers now, so these two graciously agreed to sit down for a sort of companion episode to Rupert’s. Given the subject, there’s inevitably some overlap in the conversations, but by and large I see them as complementary, foregrounding Manda’s and Morgan’s respective viewpoints and experiences, for a conversation that gets into everything from relocalization and regenerative agriculture to how folks who get the gravity of the crisis can meaningfully engage with their own confusion, grief, and rage toward healing ends.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Over the weekend, I published a post outlining how Trump’s rebranding of the Department of Defense to the Department of War ties in with a phenomenon known as the "Imperial Boomerang." This is the podcast episode version. If you’d prefer to read the piece, find that here. If you'd prefer to watch, check out the video on YouTube (and subscribe while you're at it! Your support is vital in helping this channel grow).Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans). Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Today’s guest has ideas that are going to be a jolt for many of you. An easy example? His ongoing worldbuilding project, Planet City, which proposes that one response to climate change and biodiversity loss would be to compress the entire future global population of 10 billion people into a contiguous “planet city” roughly the size of the state of Texas—thereby letting the rest of the world rewild. Another? The idea that controversial and likely problematic geoengineering and carbon capture technologies are going to be vital in preserving habitability of life on Earth—at least the life that exists today, including us. As they say, “desperate times call for desperate measures.”Amid cascading crises, art & storytelling must provoke new ways of thinking about the human enterprise. Across his work as an artist, filmmaker, architect, & educator, Liam Young embodies this spirit.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).BIO: Liam Young is a designer, director and BAFTA nominated producer who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. Described by the BBC as "the man designing our futures," his visionary films and speculative worlds are both extraordinary images of tomorrow and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today. As a worldbuilder he visualizes the cities, spaces and props of our imaginary futures for the film and television industry and with his own films he has premiered with platforms ranging from Channel 4, Tribeca, Venice Biennale, the BBC and the Guardian and they have been collected by institutions such as MoMA, Smithsonian, Art Institute of Chicago, SF MoMA, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Victoria amongst many others. In parallel to his work in entertainment he is in demand as one of the worlds foremost futurists consulting on next generation technologies and designs for clients such as Nike, BMW, Google, Sony, Mitsubishi, Wired, Showtime, Microsoft, Ford, NASA JPL, L’Oreal, the Dubai Government, DHL and numerous others. His work is informed by his academic research and has held guest professorships at Princeton University, MIT, and Cambridge and now runs the groundbreaking Masters in Fiction and Entertainment at SCI Arc in Los Angeles. He has published several books including the recent Machine Landscapes: Architectures of the Post Anthropocene and Planet City, a story of a fictional city for the entire population of the earth.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Welcome to the Urgent Futures podcast, the show that finds {signals} in the noise. Each week, I sit down with leading thinkers whose research, concepts, and questions clarify the chaos, from culture to the cosmos.Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! I’m happy to share the video here, as it continues to (unfortunately!) be a subject of critical importance for Internet freedoms. But if you want to participate in the Lives, ask questions of the guests I bring on, etc., do us both a favor and subscribe now and make sure Reality Studies isn’t getting filtered in your inbox. That way you can join me for my next live video in the app:Audio versions of this Rapid Response can be found here on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. If you prefer video, check out the episode on YouTube.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).My guest today is Noelle Perdue.Noelle Perdue is a writer, producer, and Internet porn historian with nearly ten years of experience working platform-side for multiple mainstream and independent adult companies. Having written everything from Food Network porn parodies to legally binding terms and conditions, much of her current work explores obscenity law and how pornography’s history can influence our digital and political futures. Noelle’s writing work has been published on Wired, Washington Post, Pornhub, Slate, Brazzers, Input, etc., she’s also been featured as an industry expert on multiple programs including the BBC, CBC, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and on Netflix's 2023 documentary Money Shot.Perhaps most impressively, Noelle is the first-ever third-timer on the Urgent Futures Podcast! She also runs the excellent Porn World with Noelle Perdue newsletter—so pop over there and subscribe for smart takes on spicy topics! This essay is a great companion piece to the episode, charting what makes age verification laws so fraught:In this Rapid Response episode, we got into all things age verification laws—a wave of legislation spreading across the U.S., Europe, and beyond. These laws, often framed as protecting children online, require platforms to verify a user’s age before allowing access to adult content. But the implementation varies widely: from Louisiana’s driver’s license–based verification to the UK’s repeated attempts at a national age-check system, to France’s ongoing court battles over platform compliance.Supporters see them as necessary guardrails in an age of ubiquitous digital media, especially with regard to “protecting minors” from “harmful” content. Critics (like Noelle and myself) argue these measures threaten user privacy, create massive data-collection risks, and risk handing governments or private companies unprecedented power over what people can see online.While this might seem like an isolated issue in the adult industry, it’s anything but; age verification have become a frontline issue in the larger fight over Internet freedoms, online anonymity, and the future of digital rights. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

What language should we use for our experience of the technological? There’s so much chatter about AI, and yet so often it’s framed by a language inherited from science and technology. Given technology’s cultural and societal implications, we need thoughtful folks in the arts and humanities creating linguistic interventions and modes of understandingWhich is why I was so delighted to host Nora—a writer, critic, curator, and educator whose work moves fluidly across fields to make sense of how technology reshapes culture, thought, and possibility. She’s one of the sharpest interpreters of algorithmic systems and the ways they mediate reality, but what makes her writing distinct is that it’s also deeply imaginative, poetic, and alive to the weird, the magical, the un- and not-yet-articulated.So, after a long summer hiatus, I'm thrilled to bring Urgent Futures roaring back with this illuminating conversation with Nora Khan.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).BIO: Nora N. Khan is an independent critic, essayist, curator, and educator based in Los Angeles, where last year she served as Arts Council Professor at UCLA in Design Media Arts. Her writing on philosophy of AI and emerging technologies is referenced heavily across fields. Formally, this work attempts to theorize the limits of algorithmic knowledge and locate computation’s influence on critical language. Her books are AI Art and the Stakes for Art Criticism (2025), Seeing, Naming, Knowing (2019) and Fear Indexing the X-Files (2017), with Steven Warwick. She is a member of the Curatorial Ensemble of the 2026 edition of Counterpublic, one of the nation’s largest public civic exhibitions, focused next on ‘Near Futures’. She was the Co-Curator with Andrea Bellini of the Biennale de L’Image en Mouvement 2024, A Cosmic Movie Camera, hosted by Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, and also curated Manual Override at The Shed (2020).CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

I’ve been called a prepper more times over the past few weeks than I have in my entire life. In this Rapid Response episode, I want to explain why. And moreover, I want to explain why I believe we should appropriate, normalize, and broaden the notion of prepping.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Relevant links from the show:- https://www.realitystudies.co/p/resilience-faq- https://www.realitystudies.co/p/what-is-resilience-climate-resilience-explained- https://www.realitystudies.co/p/psychological-resilience-explained-counseling-cbt-narrative-therapy-emdr- https://www.realitystudies.co/p/climate-resilience-guideFind video versions of Urgent Futures episodes at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Once upon a time, the Internet was heralded as a great open space, the utopian dream of free information flow. Obviously those ideas were misguided (at best); the Internet we experience today is a far cry from what Silicon Valley promised us. What went wrong?Today’s guest argues that it's because we’ve boxed ourselves—or maybe more accurately, been boxed into—platforms.The Internet as we understand it is dominated by platforms; in large part they define the logic of digital life. So what can we do about it? Listen on...Get your copy of Against Platforms here!Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Mike Pepi is a writer and critic exploring the intersection of technology, culture, and politics. His work has appeared in e-flux, Frieze, Art in America, Spike and other publications, where he interrogates the ideologies behind digital tools and cultural production. He is the author of Against Platforms: Surviving Digital Utopia (Melville House, 2025).CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

As soon as the cost of renewable energy drops to or below fossil fuel levels, we'll easily make the transition away from fossil fuels, right?...Unfortunately, that's just not how things are playing out in practice. Even though wind and solar energy have seen remarkable innovation and rollouts around the world, fossil fuels remain dominant. What gives?Today's guest, Brett Christophers, believes it's because we've gotten it twisted: under the complex, capitalistic infrastructures that define the energy economy, it's not cost that matters—it's price. In fact, he wrote a whole book about it: The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won't Save the Planet—which is the focus of our conversation today.Get your copy of The Price is Wrong here!Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Brett Christophers is professor of human geography at Uppsala University’s Institute for Housing and Urban Research. He is the author of 10 books, including Our Lives in Their Portfolios, Rentier Capitalism, The New Enclosure, and most recently, The Price is Wrong. Christophers is one of the world’s most influential geographers. Recognized for his work on land privatization, the growth of rentier capitalism, the role of asset managers in owning housing and other essential infrastructures—and the political economy of climate change and the energy transition—he has written for the Financial Times, The Guardian, London Review of Books, The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Washington Post, among many others.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Bit of a different episode this week! It’s a recording of my Substack Live with Better Future w/ Michael Mezz, where we dive into all the topics listed in the title, plus a few surprises.It was a fun little experiment that ends up packing a punch—all thanks to Michael’s ability to sensemake such volatile, complex topics. He’s also a past guest of the show, and our conversation is a fantastic introduction to degrowth and post-growth economics (which we need to be considering now more than ever).Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).👉 Never miss an episode! 👉 Subscribe to Urgent Futures now: Youtube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify.Back with new full episodes next week!Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, William E. Rees, Renée DiResta, and more. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

What if the ongoing devastation of the biosphere and the ascendancy of complex AI are rooted in the same anthropocentrism? What if there were a new theory of mind that incorporated our biological kin and AI? What if such a theory foregrounded ecological relationality and a broadening of our idea of what cognition is—and what can be a cognizer?Today's guest, N. Katherine Hayles, proposes such a theory—the integrated cognitive framework (ICF)—in her new book, Bacteria to AI. It's a wild mutant of a read, drawing ideas from evolutionary biology, feminist theory, speculative fiction, and more—and I cannot recommend it enough.Grab your copy of Bacteria to AI here!Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).N. Katherine Hayles is the Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the James B. Duke Professor Emerita from Duke University. Her research focuses on the relations of literature, science and technology in the 20th and 21st centuries. Her twelve print books include Postprint: Books and Becoming Computational (Columbia, 2021), Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017) and How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis (Univ. of Chicago Press 2015), in addition to over 100 peer-reviewed articles. Her books have won several prizes, including The Rene Wellek Award for the Best Book in Literary Theory for How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Literature, Cybernetics and Informatics, and the Suzanne Langer Award for Writing Machines. She has been recognized by many fellowships and awards, including two NEH Fellowships, a Guggenheim, a Rockefeller Residential Fellowship at Bellagio, and two University of California Presidential Research Fellowships. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her latest book will be is, Bacteria to AI: Human Futures with our Nonhuman Symbionts from University of Chicago Press.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Can feminism be African? The more you sit with this question, the more its complexities reveal themselves; as you emphasize different aspects of the question, new subtexts and assumptions come into view.This question is also the title of a new book by Minna Salami, today's guest. It's a remarkable read—I encourage you to pick up your copy now!Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Minna Salami is a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish feminist author, social critic and currently Program Chair at THE NEW INSTITUTE. She is the author of Can Feminism Be African? (Harper Collins) and Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone (Bloomsbury 2020) which has been translated into multiple languages. She has also co-authored children’s books and written content on feminism for numerous anthologies as well as educational textbooks.A leading voice of contemporary feminism, she has drawn over a million readers to her multiple award-winning blog MsAfropolitan.com. Her writing can be found in the Guardian, Project Syndicate, Al Jazeera, and The Philosopher, and many others. She is a frequent speaker and lecturer including at some of the world’s most prominent institutions such as the UN, EU, Oxford Union, Cambridge Union, Yale University, and the Singularity University at NASA. She has worked as a Research Associate and Editor at Perspectiva, consulted governments on gender equality, written school curricula, and curated cultural events at The Victoria & Albert Museum in London.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

What are the three types of eroticism? What is it like being someone who fetishizes foot fetishists? What is it like writing the script for an adult video in this genre? Speaking of fetishes, were you aware of the balloon ("looner") fetish?All that and more in this freewheeling conversation with today's guest, Noelle Perdue. A doubly fun episode because it marks the official launch of my "Riffs & Speculations" series on Urgent Futures.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Noelle Perdue is a writer, producer, and Internet porn historian with nearly ten years of experience working platform-side for multiple mainstream and independent adult companies. Having written everything from Food Network porn parodies to legally binding terms and conditions, much of her current work explores obscenity law and how pornography’s history can influence our digital and political futures. Noelle’s writing work has been published on Wired, Washington Post, Pornhub, Slate, Brazzers, Input, etc., she’s also been featured as an industry expert on multiple programs including the BBC, CBC, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and on Netflix's 2023 documentary Money Shot. Noelle also runs the Porn World with Noelle Perdue newsletter—so pop over there and subscribe for smart takes on spicy topics! Fans of the show will recognize Noelle from an earlier episode I did with her in August 2024. It’s a great dive into the more serious aspects of porn in society: how a society’s relationship to porn reveals the biases and forms of repression that society weaponizes, how obscenity law regarding pornography is used to smuggle anti-queer and -trans legislation, how the perceived frivolity of porn allows for creative experimentation that often doesn’t occur in other mediums. As mentioned, this conversation took a different approach—let me know what you think!CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Plato is among the most famous thinkers in all of Western philosophy. What if his notion of transcendence—of there being a reality "out there" that's "higher" than our earthly plane—underlies everything that's broken about modernity.If you can believe it, that's a core argument of an otherwise touching book about one ecologist's experience raising and ultimately freeing an orphaned screen owl. That book, Alfie & Me, was written by today's guest: legendary ecologist Carl Safina.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Carl Safina is an ecologist, author, and founding President of the Safina Center. He is the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University. His work centers on animal psychology and the relationship between humans and nature. His book "Alfie & Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe," is a moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl, whose lasting friendship with him illuminates humanity’s relationship with the natural world.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Conspiracy theories are all over the place, but...what are they, exactly? How do they work and what's their history? Who is susceptible to them? What do they tell us about the human condition?These are just a few of the questions that today's guest, David Guignion, examines in his research. He's also the founder of the popular Theory & Philosophy channel and podcast, so he knows a thing or two about making complex ideas accessible to the public.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).David Guignion is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Occidental College's Critical Theory and Social Justice Department. He completed his PhD at The University of Western Ontario where he studied conspiracy theories, media studies and continental philosophy. He is creator and host of Theory & Philosophy, a YouTube channel and podcast dedicated to making the history of ideas accessible to everyone. His published work covers myriad topics from conspiracy theories to French post-structuralism to Feminism and beyond. His most recent publication can be found in The University of Wisconsin Press' recently published Whispers in the Echo Chamber.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

The Dark Gothic MAGA oligarchs are going for everything at breakneck speed. We are playing defense and cleanup—and badly. It's time for a switch-up.Let's talk about Canada—and the prospect of Blue States joining it.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).What if we used the legal mechanisms available to us to badger our governors and state legislatures to join Canada? What if they too saw the writing on the walls and decided to go for it? What if, for once, we put the oligarchs and MAGA on the back foot, forced them to spend their time and energy trying to stop such an effort?Whatever you think about the prospect, the point I’m trying to make is that this is the kind of expansive strategizing and activity we need to undertake now. Mass protests are important signaling exercises but they are not going to cut it—especially because a lot of us already expect Trump & co to inject false flag violence into protests to lay the groundwork for martial law. We need to think bigger, weirder, messier. How can we use the legal mechanisms (still) available to us to become sand in the gears of the steamroller? Because the “Dark Gothic MAGA” movement is thinking massively. They are reaching for everything. Unconstitutional? No problem.Because to recap what I’m sure most of you already know, the U.S. government is currently in the midst of a coup. Between President Donald Trump’s hundreds of executive orders—many of which are unconstitutional—and unelected co-President Elon Musk’s meddling with federal agencies, any semblance of the U.S. government is fast unraveling. Have any big ideas to share? Leave your thoughts in the comments for other people to see.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

AI continues to be a major subject of debate—and for good reason. It’s a technology that holds incredible potential to shape and reshape power. This is why we have to remain more vigilant than ever to how AI models are built, who builds them, what their motivations and value systems are, and what we collectively demand from builders—and how we regulate them as a society. As with any emerging technology, what we’re talking about is not just technology—we’re talking about how that technology is interwoven into society. My guest this week, Avriel Epps, is an expert on the intersection of AI, transformative justice, and identity formation.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Avriel Epps is a computational social scientist, scholar, and strategist whose work bridges artificial intelligence, transformative justice, and youth well being.With a PhD from Harvard University, Dr. Epps' research delves into the intersection of technology, storytelling, and social equity, focusing on how biases in artificial intelligence impact the human beings that use it.Their work has been featured in major outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue, The Atlantic, and more. Dr. Epps is committed to leveraging digital spaces to usher in a just and regenerative future. They are currently the Civic Science Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University. In Fall 2025 they will begin their tenure as Assistant Professor of Fair and Responsible Data Science at Rutgers University.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

How bad is it going to get?This is the provocation today's guest Rupert Read makes in a recent keynote—and one that I found to be an excellent way to jump into our conversation—though it’s a bit of a decoy. It gives way to a deeper, more nuanced conversation about how we ultimately survive and even thrive in complex emerging realities. Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Given what we now know, it would be foolish to think we could reverse the harm done to the planet enough to return to a previous version of normal—but that doesn’t mean our only option is to prepare for dystopia. Instead—following the argument of Rupert's latest co-authored book, Transformative Adaptation: Another World is Still Just Possible—through transformative adaptation, we might bring about “thrutopias.” Will we have all our modern conveniences and material abundance in a thrutopia? Probably not. But could we build meaningful lives, in which we deeply connect with each other and experience a shared sense of purpose, while endeavoring to realign our species with the patterns of nature? We can—that world is still just possible.Rupert Read is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion and co-director of the new Climate Majority Project. He authored several books, including This Civilisation is Finished, Parents for a Future, and Why Climate Breakdown Matters and has been many times on the Today programme, QuestionTime, Newsnight, Politics Live, Al Jazeera, and more. He is co-author of Transformative Adaptation: Another World is Still Just Possible, with Morgan Phillips and Manda Scott.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe

Decontaminating the air, soil, and water in Los Angeles in the wake of the wildfires is going to be a long road. But Centre for Applied Ecological Remediation Founder and President Danielle Stevenson has spent more than a decade refining her research in "ecological remediation"—integrated social and environmental practices that could be crucial in not only healing LA, but better aligning it with the the realities of the place, making it more climate resilient.The past few Rapid Response episodes have been quite upsetting. While this Rapid Response also includes some upsetting analysis from Danielle about how severe the contamination is, it is also the most hopeful Rapid Response I’ve done in a while, because it points to real, known ways that we could responsibly, ethically, and efficiently respond to what Jane Williams calls the “disaster after the disaster.”If you appreciate the work I'm doing, make sure to subscribe here so you never miss an episode! Urgent Futures is also a video podcast, available on YouTube.Support the show by checking out: ZBiotics (Decrease impact of hangovers. Code: JESSEDAMIANI for 10% off), MUD\WTR (43% off starter kits), 1Password (simplify your life and increase digital safety), Mission Farms CBD (healthy, effective CBD for relief, sleep, and wellbeing—25% off with email), NordVPN (the simplest way to protect yourself online, 74% off 2-year plans).Danielle Stevenson is Founder & President of the Centre for Applied Ecological Remediation. She is a multidisciplinary scientist, mycologist and environmental problem-solver who works with soils, fungi, plants and people to address wastes and pollution in creative and circular ways. She holds a Bachelors of Humanities from the University of Victoria and a PhD in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California Riverside. Her dissertation research focused on bioremediation of brownfields with fungi and plants. She also founded and runs D.I.Y. Fungi (est. 2012) for research, education and action around fungal food, medicine, waste management and remediation, and Healing City Soils (est. 2015) with the Compost Education Centre to provide soil metal testing, resources, and community bioremediation for people growing food.She currently serves on the Department of Toxic Substances Control's Equitable Community Revitalization Grant (ECRG) Treatment Technology Council (TTC) and the Board of Corenewal. She is involved in many projects and organizations around the world supporting regeneration of lands and waters, environmental education and community-capacity building. Learn more about her work here: https://www.danielle-stevenson.com/ and https://diyfungi.blog/ and connect over: linkedin.com/in/danielle-stevenson.CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Get full access to Reality Studies at www.realitystudies.co/subscribe