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The End of the World with Michael and Stu

The End of the World with Michael and Stu

The Apocalypse is Everywhere. The End of the World with Michael and Stu is a (hopefully) insightful and (hopefully) humorous exploration of the rise of apocalyptic news, apocalyptic thinking and apocalyptic culture. Each week, we’ll be looking at a work of art, a piece of media, or an historical event related to the (hopefully not) impending End of the World.

comedy

All Episodes

49:29

52: A Duel of Personalities

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2025/01/21

This week we are discussing Coralie Fargeat's 2024 film The Substance, a movie that imagines what it might be like if you could recapture your youth. We get into the implications of the film for our culture, particularly as it relates to aging and finding meaning in an increasingly youth-centric, substance-less world. Making references to Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley, we also take a look at some of the spiritual antecedents to this brilliant (if horrifying) concept-driven picture.We open up w...

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49:33

51: Tryin' to Run from the Destruction

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2025/01/14

This week we are discussing the "Y2K computer bug," the great potential apocalypse of the turn of the millennium that...did not live up to the hype. But rather than being another "when prophecy fails" situation, the reason this apocalypse was averted was because of concerted and organized work across many different areas. Programmers worked for years in advance to remediate the code of software used in applications from air traffic control to power grids and beyond. The Y2K problem therefore ...

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52:49

Episode 50: Strewn with Time's Dead Flowers

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2025/01/07

This week we're discussing Robert Eggers' 2024 adaptation of FW Murnau's classic Nosferatu. Is it a poignant and disturbing meditation on the idea of forbidden love, recasting a classic story for our troubled times, or is it merely an empty reboot of well-loved IP for our empty and soulless era? The hosts are somewhat divided on the answer to this all-important question! We also consider the original film, as well as Werner Herzog's 1979 adaptation starring Klaus Kinski and Bruno Ganz. W...

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49:26

Episode 49: A World in White Gets Underway

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/12/31

It's our 2024 recap episode in which we go over all things apocalypse from the year we are concluding. Topics discussed include: the return of Trump, the continued disintegration of the Democratic party, the rise of a new oligarchy, the continued impotence of the media in the face of horrors at home and abroad, and the potential for AI to immiserate creative people the world over. It's a very optimistic episode! We close out our look back by looking forward, attempting to divine what the...

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49:44

Episode 48: Five Golden Rings

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/12/24

It's Christmastime and in celebration we are covering a brilliant Christmas movie, namely The 12 Disasters of Christmas. This film is...a disaster. A Christian allegory mixed with a Mayan Apocalypse 2012 tale that is somehow also based on the popular Christmas carol, The 12 Days of Christmas...it is...very, very bad. But our conversation about it? That is good...very, very good.We also discuss Donald Trump's "imperialist turn" as expressed in his recently stated desire to purchase G...

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64:37

Episode 47: There's a Madman Living in Waco

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/12/17

This week we're covering the siege of the Branch Davidian compound by federal authorities in 1993, paying particular attention to the group's leader, the enigmatical rock musician turned would-be messiah, David Koresh. We go through the history of the Branch Davidians, tracing their roots back to the "Great Disappointment" of George Miller and the history of schismatic Adventism before diving into the history of Koresh's sect. Towards the end of the episode Michael gives his account of his 20...

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54:56

Episode 46: Shadow on the Things You Know

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/12/10

This week we are discussing avian flu and the possibility that it might be the next pandemic ahead of us, just over the horizon. We get into the history of influenza outbreaks originating in domesticated animals, such as, most famously, the so-called "Spanish flu" of 1918 in order to calibrate how potentially worrying such an outbreak could be should it arise, particularly in the post-COVID political context in which we now live.We also discuss the recent assassination of United Healthcare CE...

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53:53

Episode 45: It's a Godawful Small Affair

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/12/03

This week we are covering the 2005 Spielberg/Cruise film War of the Worlds. Made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the film attempts to make some kind of connection between the H.G. Wells's classic story of alien invasion and the events that had so recently shaken the foundations of America...and it fails to do so, at least in a manner that we found at all convincing or philosophically interesting. But fear not! In this episode you also get to hear the "legendary" story of St...

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49:01

Episode 44: Turn and Face the Strain

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/11/26

This week we are covering the COP29 climate conference which took place over the last two weeks in Baku, Azerbaijan. Have they solved the issue? Was this climate conference in actuality a "meet up" for lobbyists in the fossil fuel industry? What is the connection between climate change and social justice, and is this connection one of the reasons the conference has been largely ignored in the American media, particularly in the wake of Trump's 2024 reelection? We answer all of these questions...

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53:10

Episode 43: Our Shadows Taller Than Our Souls

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/11/19

This week we are discussing Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road. A bleak but simultaneously uplifting depiction of a journey through a world in which nature has been totally destroyed, the story offers glimmers of hope in spite of its incredibly grim setting. Themes of childhood, memory, dreaming, and perseverance even in the face of seemingly inevitable death mark this book, which is considered by many to be among the finest novels of the twenty-first century. We also open up th...

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46:25

Episode 42: Project for a New American Violence

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/11/12

This week we are talking about 2013's The Purge, a low budget high concept home invasion thriller directed by James DeMonaco. We discuss the Aristotelian overtones of the notion that an annual night of violence might allow for a cathartic experience that would help society to be more peaceful the rest of the time, while also exploring a few historical examples of "purge-like" behavior, including witch trials, the sacrificial practices of ancient Carthage, and the English countryside trad...

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47:59

Episode 41: The End of America with Michael and Stu

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/11/08

It's our election recap episode where we take accountability for our...mistaken belief that Harris would pull out a tight election, when, obviously...that did not happen. We discuss what went wrong for the Harris campaign, while analyzing what this outcome might bode for elections moving forward. Are we destined to just sink deeper and deeper into our algorithmically determined information bubbles, or can this defeat be the spark that inspires dramatic change in the way Democrats approach nat...

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47:00

Episode 40: There is No Turning Back

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/11/05

It's our election day special where we go out on a limb and predict who we think will triumph in the 2024 US presidential election. Is the seeming late swing to Harris real, and if it is real, will it be enough? Has Kill Tony doomed the Trump campaign with his offensive "comedy"? Has Ann Selzer, with whom we were all VERY familiar before this past weekend, done it again? Why is Tucker Carlson all of the sudden attempting to rebrand himself as the new Pat Robertson? Can Stu differentiate betwe...

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49:07

Episode 39: Hurry Up Please It's Time

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/10/29

We're back on our election beat, in this episode gaming out potential outcomes of the November 5th US presidential elections. What would happen if Trump wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college? What if Harris wins in a landslide? What if the electoral college comes out in a tie? We go through all of these scenarios and also look at some recent comments made by the candidates in order to imagine what might be heading our way next week as this contest finally winds to a close...

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47:12

Episode 38: They've All Come to Look for America

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/10/22

This week we are diving back into politics, looking at the platforms of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, paying particular attention to where each candidate stands on apocalypse-adjacent issues like climate change and military weaponry. The results of our investigation may surprise you!This episode is the first in a series we'll be doing as the 2024 US Presidential election draws ever nearer. We're always hearing that this election is "the most important election of our lifetimes" but may...

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51:02

Episode 37: Hail Atlantis! Part Two

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/10/15

In the second and final episode of our series on Atlantis we get into the modern vision of the mythical lost land, touching on such singular figures as Ignatius Donnelly, Madame Blavatsky, and Edgar Cayce. What was it about this ancient story from a minor Platonic dialogue that was so appealing to psychics, cranks, and charlatans of every variety, and why does it continue to inspire people to hunt for its submarine ruins to this very day? We also touch on the phenomenon of Mayanism as well as...

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47:43

Episode 36: Hail Atlantis! Part One

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/10/08

At long last we are covering one of the greatest apocalyptic narratives of them all! That's right, it's the Atlantis episode! And for a subject so massive, so important, we had to make it a two parter. In this first episode we will cover Plato's vision of Atlantis as presented in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. We also give a bit of background on the concept of "eschatology," the study of the end of the world, while situating Plato's narrative in its historical and religious...

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55:04

Episode 35: Monkey See Monkey Doom

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/10/01

This week we are covering the 1995 Wolfgang Petersen blockbuster Outbreak. Having lived through a pandemic of our own, can we glean new wisdom by revisiting this terrifying tale of an even-deadlier-than-Ebola virus set loose on a small Northern California town? Perhaps not, but it is still fun to examine the politics of this essentially liberal post-Cold War picture, where the real enemy is the US military itself and compare them to the politics of today, where scientists and agents of t...

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49:34

Episode 34: This is the End Beautiful Friend

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/09/24

This week we're talking about James Cameron's 1984 masterpiece The Terminator. How relevant is this movie to our current fears about a potential future AI dystopia? How was such a tight, well-written film executed on such a comparatively small budget? How moving is the love story between Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese? The answer to these questions and so much more can be found in this episode.We also open the conversation with a brief chat about the recent pager/walkie talkie attacks in Lebanon...

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53:34

Episode 33: The End of the World with Donald and Kamala

The End of the World with Michael and Stu ·

2024/09/17

This week we are discussing the highs and lows of the September 10, 2024 Presidential Debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. We get into where they stand on the issues, the depths to which the immigration debate has now plunged, and the utterly short shrift given to the question of climate change and the environment. Off the top, we also cover the second foiled assassination plot to target Donald Trump, wondering what the implications of this event might be for the election and for fu...

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