DO 289 - Beef, Bartering, and the Agorist's Guide to Not Starving with Nigel, Nate, and Jason

During the night of February 1/2, 2021, a military junta deposed the elected government of Burma (Myanmar) and instituted martial law. Protests followed, answered by a violent and swift crackdown by the newly self-installed military dictatorship. They have attacked protestors in the streets, killed innocent bystanders, and wrongfully detained, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned, and killed many innocent people seeking only peace, freedom, and self-determination. This is the second podcast installment of a series of conversations on the situation in Burma. (The first installment can be accessed here: youtu.be/j288oI1poFE)  Once again we speak with "Romeo," a pseudonymous woman living and working in Yangon since long before the 2021 coup. Her work with the underground resistance facilitates citizens' grassroots resistance efforts including nonviolent forms of protests and general strikes to oppose the actions of the junta. We also speak with longtime friends and colleagues Lisa and Rocky. Rocky is ethnic Karen (from Karen State eastern Burma) and spent most of his childhood in a refugee camp. Lisa is originally from Scotland but has worked in the Thailand-Burma border region since the 1990s. She and Rocky lived in Thailand/Burma with their two kids for many years until the past few years they have been based in Scotland. They have a lot of experience working with grassroots groups of Karen women and youth on health issues, environmental issues, conflict and human rights abuses. "Romeo" is based in Yangon but with Lisa and Rocky's perspectives we were able to expand the discussion a bit to talk about how the coup and ongoing conflict has affected border and hill tribe areas, some history of the conflict and political situation in Burma, the roles that grassroots and community-based networks have played in relief and aid during and after natural disasters and conflicts, etc.  We also talked about the potential role for cryptocurrencies facilitating exchange and support as a parallel system to gov't controlled banks and the economic/inflation crisis the country has been experiencing. More information can be found at joshkearns.substack.com.  Our crowdfunding campaign to support underground resistance, peace, and democracy in Burma: givesendgo.com/G9TS8

28 Mars 202351min

Chris and Ashley speak with Dougald about his new book At Work in the Ruins and where it intersects with both the Small Farm Future and Doomer Optimism. Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer, speaker and the co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and a school called HOME. His latest book is At Work in the Ruins (2023) and he publishes new essays on his Substack, Writing Home. https://linktr.ee/atworkintheruins His substack can be found at: https://dougald.substack.com/ Chris Smaje has coworked a small farm in Somerset, southwest England, for the last 17 years. Previously, he was a university-based social scientist, working in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey and the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College on aspects of social policy, social identities and the environment. Since switching focus to the practice and politics of agroecology, he's written for various publications, such as The Land , Dark Mountain , Permaculture magazine and Statistics Views, as well as academic journals such as Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems and the Journal of Consumer Culture . Smaje writes the blog Small Farm Future, is a featured author at www.resilience.org and a current director of the Ecological Land Co-op. Chris' latest book is: A Small Farm Future: Making the Case for a Society Built Around Local Economies, Self-Provisioning, Agricultural Diversity, and a Shared Earth.

23 Mars 20231h 33min

Ashley and Donald speak with Jane about her review of the book Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson and what being a homemaker means for modern women. ‌ Jane Psmith is a pseudonymous suburban housewife with four kids. She and her husband review books and write about knowledge, culture, and institutions at thepsmiths.substack.com. Her review of Home Comforts is here: https://thepsmiths.substack.com/p/review-home-comforts-by-cheryl-mendelson

22 Mars 20231h 31min

Flávia Macêdo (@flaviagoma) and Jason have a conversation about her work in Brazil to create a local currency that reflects and reinforces values that aren't reflected in the fiat money system, her interest in collaborative food production and agroforestry, how her work interfaces with larger political structures, her work connecting with and building global support networks of like minded people that can help support local and bioregional regeneration, and her interest in the potential of AI Despite the degree in Pharmacy, Flávia led her career as a writer and social entrepreneur. She is currently working as Community Builder at Muda Outras Economias, a social currency network, and Common Ground, a web3 native communication platform. She is interested in the potential of technologies such as AI and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) in supporting regenerative initiatives. She's the founder of SintropiaDAO, where she investigates and writes about global collective intelligence, relational practices, gift economy, and regenerative cultures.

17 Mars 20231h 17min

In this episode Jason has a conversation with Dakotah Apostolou, CEO of Cohere Network @coherenetwork about their plans to build a global network of regenerative villages, their innovative and inclusive economic model, how they plan to collaborate with local populations, and much more Twitter thread describing what they are doing: https://twitter.com/coherenetwork/status/1506614056647598086 Bio: A designer of buildings, communities and businesses, Dakotah's training at The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture has informed his passion for using built environments to create regenerative systems that restore the health of ecosystems and communities. Links: Website: https://cohere.networkCohere Costa Rica: https://cohere.network/communities/lake-arenal…Cohere Berlin https://cohere.network/communities/berlin…Twitter: http://social.cohere.network/twitterInstagram: http://social.cohere.network/instagramDiscord: http://social.cohere.network/discordYoutube: http://social.cohere.network/youtubeLinkedIn: http://social.cohere.network/linkedinFacebook: http://social.cohere.network/facebookco:lab: https://cohere.network/x/lab/guatemalaMedium: https://medium.com/@coherenetwork

14 Mars 20231h 16min

Two frequent guest/hosts sit down to try to hash out what the f#@k is going on with all this weird horseshoe politics business. But first they set the stage with a discussion of their beloved western trout and the beautiful places they reside. The chat moved to western ecologies, public lands, and James' book Chosen Country as well as his recent Vanity Fair article on the strange convergence of preppers, libertarians and revolutionaries in the wilds of the mountain west. The episode ends with a pretty solid conclusion that explains everything, but you’ll have to listen to find out. James Pogue @jhensonpogue is an American essayist and journalist. He is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine. His pieces have appeared on the covers of Harper's and The American Conservative. He is the author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, a first-person account of conflict over public lands in the American west. Nathan Gates is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a podcast about psychedelics, science and psychotherapy. In addition, he serves as president of the board for the Illinois Psychedelic Society and is a board advisor for Entheo Il, a group dedicated to the successful passage of Illinois HB1, the Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens act. He also practices regenerative ranching and writes from his family's farm in rural west-central Illinois. He is a frequent guest and guest host for the Doomer Optimism podcast, a collective podcast dedicated to promotive creative and humane ways to engage with our social and environmental problems with creativity, hope, and good stewardship.

10 Mars 20231h 51min

-In this episode Jason has a conversation with Chris Jagger (@reggaj) and Viktor Zaunders (@zaunders) about the marketing and distribution (or post-farm) side of local and regenerative food systems. They discuss the various models, including farmer's markets, food hubs, CSAs, and cooperatives, the role of digital technology, and what the major challenges and opportunities are in building regenerative food systems and cultures from the ground up -Chris Jagger has been farming for 25 years (the last 20 years in southern Oregon). Chris’s main focus has been diversified commercial vegetable production but he also has experience with dairy animals, poultry, beef, pigs, hemp, perennials, and whole systems design. He is currently agricultural director for a state licensed cannabis farm and is bootstrapping an agricultural media company focusing on the crossroads between culture and farming. His number one goal with agriculture is stewarding soils back to health via proper nutrition and biology. Twitter: @reggaj Instagram: Bluefoxfarm -Viktor Zaunders has been working with software in service of place-based local regeneration for about a decade and has been a part of the Holochain ecosystem for about 4 years as a designer, communicator and architect. His main interest lies in enabling bioregional food webs and helping place-based groups to coordinate better. He wants to spark in interest in people around p2p technologies in order to lay the groundwork for a regenerative and thriving society that he hopes can replace our current degenerative civilisational patterns. He is also a mushroom farmer and whole village entrepreneur living in Röstånga, Skåne. Twitter: @zaunders https://darksoil.studio/ https://zaunders.medium.com/

7 Mars 20231h 30min

Welcome to a Heartland edition of Doomer Optimism. Today Nate goes into the belly of the agribeast with Zach Smith and Jason Mauck. Representing the grain belt from Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, the trio discusses the status quo in big agriculture, making a living from the land, and human scale innovation. A major question is how to scale back the total acreage of farms while increasing production and profit per acre, allowing prolific food production while making a livelihood in reach for smaller, more management intensive farms. We discuss Zach’s invention the Cluster Cluck 5000, which integrates livestock into row crop acres, as well as Jason’s distribution innovation with Munsee Meats. All three are very clear that the status quo is on a very bad track, and the only way it gets better is if YOU do something. ‌ Zack Smith is a farmer and entrepreneurial inventor from northern Iowa. He is co-founder of Stock Cropper, Inc - The Autonomous Livestock Grazing Company...an entity focused on building autonomous grazing barn systems to integrate multiple species of livestock intelligently back on to various landscapes. After spending the first 20 years of his career in commodity agriculture, he decided at age 42 to set it aside to focus on developing non-regressive paths for future of agriculture that create opportunities for more participants in the food system rather than fewer. Jason Mauck is a farmer and entrepreneur from Gaston,IN. Jason has developed an intense curiosity towards creating more complex agricultural systems. Systems that manage life with life. As the years progress his goal is to connect farmers with one another to learn together. He calls the movement #farmweird Nathan Gates is a licensed psychotherapist and co-host of Altered States of Context, a podcast about psychedelics, science and psychotherapy. In addition, he serves as president of the board for the Illinois Psychedelic Society and is a board advisor for Entheo Il, a group dedicated to the successful passage of Illinois HB1, the Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens act. He also practices regenerative ranching and writes from his family's farm in rural west-central Illinois. He is a frequent guest and guest host for the Doomer Optimism podcast, a collective podcast dedicated to promotive creative and humane ways to engage with our social and environmental problems with creativity, hope, and good stewardship.

2 Mars 20231h 33min