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The Overlap is a podcast brought to you by the Friends of the Future Foundation.
We believe that the majority of folks wish for the best future for themselves and future generations, we want to gather that majority, help them identify each other, coordinate together, educate, and equip them to ensure the best future for ourselves and future generations.
49 Episodes
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With Will out for the holidays, Joshua flies solo to dismantle the world’s most expensive practical joke: the American Healthcare System. From dental plans that haven’t updated their payout limits since the Nixon administration to algorithms that deny life-saving care in literally 1.2 seconds, this episode explores how the system isn’t actually broken—it’s working exactly as designed to vacuum money out of your pocket.
Does holiday stress feel like a feature, not a bug? On The Overlap, Joshua autopsies the Christmas Industrial Complex. From Santa as a surveillance asset to charity as a “carbon offset for the soul,” we discuss swapping vertical charity for horizontal solidarity. #TheOverlap
Welcome to the wild ride of “The Overlap,” where Joshua takes the mic solo, and the guardrails are off! With co-host Will allegedly at the dentist (or is he?), Joshua dives into the tangled web of conspiracy theories, evolutionary psychology, and why your brain insists on seeing tigers in the bushes. From the mystery of fast-food ice cream machines to the dopamine-fueled rabbit holes of the internet, this episode is a snarky exploration of why we love a good conspiracy. So, buckle up, and remember: if you see a face in your toast, just eat it. It’s probably sourdough. 🍞
Joshua flies solo to dismantle the biggest lie of the modern world: that you actually own your devices. From John Deere tractors that require Ukrainian hacker firmware to operate to BMWs that charge monthly subscriptions for heated seats, we explore the shift from ownership to usership. This episode breaks down how corporations turned us into digital serfs and how you can fight back through “digital homesteading” and the Right to Repair.
Forget the myths. The Maya didn’t disappear, and Easter Island didn’t starve. Collapse is never simple.
In Part 2, we ditch the simplistic cautionary tales and reveal the three radical paths history shows a civilization can take to pull out of a nosedive.
We analyze which of these models—if any—applies to our current global crisis. Is our ruling class on the path to self-sacrifice, or are we heading for a total systemic reset? We ask the ultimate question: What is the radical change required for survival?
This week on The Overlap, Joshua goes solo to navigate the “hellscape” of the 2025 government shutdown. This isn’t a story about closed national parks or airport delays. It is an urgent look at a calculated, three-pronged attack on American survival: the expiration of ACA subsidies, a Supreme Court freeze on food aid, and a political narrative designed to blame the working class. Joshua dissects the “welfare queen” myth with hard data and argues that what Washington calls “fiscal responsibility” is actually just violence committed with a spreadsheet. Tune in for a raw, honest breakdown of the “Hunger Games legislative edition” and what we can do to look out for each other when the systems fail.
We all feel it: a sense that things are both progressing and decaying at the exact same time. This feeling of ‘overlap’ is a classic sign of a civilization in transition… or perhaps, one in decline.
In the first part of a sweeping two-part episode, Joshua and Will move past the Mad Max fantasies to explore the academic study of collapse. They introduce Joseph Tainter’s groundbreaking theory that societies don’t get conquered; they simply buckle under the weight of their own complexity when it stops providing benefits.
In Part 2, Joshua and Will unpack the terrifying execution of Russ Vought’s master plan. This is no longer just theory; this is the playbook. We explore Vought’s role as the chief architect of Project 2025 and his “Vought Doctrine,” a plan to make the OMB the all-powerful “president’s mind.”
Discover his bureaucratic “kill switch,” Schedule F, designed to purge tens of thousands of civil servants. We also reveal the origins of the “woke and weaponized” slogan—a phrase Vought personally crafted to justify his “trauma campaign” against federal employees. Finally, we detail the surgical, vindictive cuts he’s making to everything from cancer research to food aid, and how even his “evangelical Harvard” alma mater erupted in protest, calling his vision “anti-Christian.”
The Grim Reaper of the American Government (Part 1)
Who is Russ Vought? He’s been called the “shadow president” and the “Grim Reaper” of the U.S. government, yet he looks more like a CPA than a revolutionary. In Part 1 of this episode, Joshua and Will trace the origin story of the man who wants bureaucrats to wake up “traumatically affected.”
We explore how Vought’s ideology was forged by his father’s obsessive “gospel of scarcity” and his time at the “evangelical Harvard.” Learn how his disillusionment with GOP “heretics” transformed him from a “true believer” staffer into a political “enforcer” at Heritage Action. Finally, we detail his role as Trump’s OMB director, where he used obscure bureaucratic tools to illegally freeze Ukraine aid, triggering a constitutional crisis and setting the stage for his current, most ambitious project.
Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussions of wartime sexual assault and mass suicide.
What happens after a nation trades freedom for the promise of order? In the stunning conclusion to their series on Nazism, Joshua and Will follow the chilling path from propaganda to ruin. Witness the total coordination of society, the indoctrination of youth, the frozen hell of Stalingrad, and the apocalyptic collapse of a nation, all culminating in a vital question for today: When the siren song of a glorious past calls, are we willing to answer?
TRIGGER WARNING: NAZI REGIME
It didn’t start with a bang. Nazism rose through a series of “legal” steps that ordinary Germans accepted. Join Joshua and Will as they uncover the post-WWI anger, economic ruin, and charismatic promises that allowed a democracy to vote itself out of existence. A chilling cautionary tale for today.
This is a continuation from our podcast titled Make Italy Great Again: Facism - Part 1, the second episode of our Facism series.
Joshua and Will continue where they left off last week down a narrow road to Facism in Italy.
The word ‘fascist’ gets thrown around like a political hand grenade, but what does it actually mean? We’re starting our new series by going back to the source. Before there were social media gurus and personal brands, one man perfected the art of turning national rage into absolute power. Meet Benito Mussolini: the journalist, the socialist, the bare-chested skier, and the original influencer who wrote the playbook for 20th-century dictatorship. Join The Overlap as we dissect how he used a cocktail of fear, grievance, and an army of black-shirted thugs to bluff his way to the top and build the world’s first fascist state.
https://fof.foundation
Part 2: The Blueprint and Its Legacy
A deep dive into the Powell Memo itself and its four-front strategy to combat what Powell saw as an “attack on the American free enterprise system.”
Discussion of the creation of organizations like the Heritage Foundation and ALEC.
How the memo’s strategies shaped lobbying, deregulation, and the modern political landscape.
Sources
https://www.helleniscope.com/2025/07/31/august-1971-the-day-a-french-warship-came-to-new-york-to-repatriate-french-gold/
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_court_cases_involving_the_American_Civil_Liberties_Union
Michael Dukakis commercial on YouTube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgRcQRmiEmk
Join us as we explore the Powell Memo, a secret blueprint for corporate power. Uncover the history of how a 1971 memo from a lawyer for the tobacco industry turned US Supreme Court Justice helped shape the political landscape of the modern world.
Sources:
https://www.helleniscope.com/2025/07/31/august-1971-the-day-a-french-warship-came-to-new-york-to-repatriate-french-gold/
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_court_cases_involving_the_American_Civil_Liberties_Union
Michael Dukakis interview on YouTube.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgRcQRmiEmk
Welcome back for Part 2! If you’re just joining us, be sure to listen to last week’s episode first.
This week on The Overlap, we’re diving deeper into the paradox of AI and crypto. We’ve established they’re incredibly energy-hungry, but could their massive consumption actually force us to innovate our way out of our energy problems? From the industrial revolution’s steam engine to the promise of nuclear fusion, we’ll explore historical parallels and future possibilities.
We’ll also tackle the dark side of this new tech: the volatility of crypto, the ethical minefield of AI, and the very real dangers of bias, misinformation, and lack of accountability. Is the need for more power the only thing that will push us toward a clean energy future, or does that path lead to a global scramble for resources and deepening inequality?
Join Joshua and Will as they navigate this technological trilemma of innovation, consumption, and responsibility. It’s a powerful conversation about the choices we’re making today that will determine our tomorrow.
Welcome back, folks. This week, we’re plunging headfirst into the digital abyss. We’re exploring two of the most powerful and perplexing technologies of our time: the seemingly unstoppable rise of cryptocurrency and the paradigm-shifting potential of artificial intelligence.
Are these forces of innovation our inevitable salvation, or are they setting the stage for a global disaster? We’re going to pull back the curtain on what they actually are, dissect their mind-boggling energy consumption, and ask the million-dollar question: Could this entire mess spark a new energy revolution, or are we just creating a really confident-sounding technocracy?
Join your co-hosts, Joshua and Will, as they unravel the complex relationship between code, energy, and the future. We promise not to think for you, but we will give you the tools you need to reach your own conclusions.
In this episode of The Overlap, we conduct a detailed analysis of how radical transformation happens within institutions. We tackle the central question: is it more effective to create change from a position of influence inside the system, or by applying pressure as an oppositional force from the outside? Join us for the breakdown.
Host Joshua dives into the so-called “crime emergency” in Washington D.C. that led to a federal takeover of the city’s police force. Is it a necessary public safety measure, or is it a cynical power grab using a constitutional loophole as a playbook for democratic erosion?
They’re not just angry. They’re not just ‘lost.’ A whole generation of men are being sold a weapon disguised as a solution, and it’s fueling something far more dangerous than anyone realizes. This week, we peel back the layers on how personal anxiety is being weaponized to dismantle democracy from the inside out.
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dems whining 🥱