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PODCAST

Doomer Optimism

Doomer Optimism

Doomer Optimism is a podcast dedicated to discovering regenerative paths forward, highlighting the people working for a better world, and connecting seekers to doers. Beyond that, it"s pretty much a $hitshow. Enjoy!

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All Episodes

01:31:16

DO 303 - AI, Existential Risk, and the Future of the...

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/03/17

AI, Existential Risk, and the Future of the Human Soul

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01:06:54

DO 302 - Starting a Farm and a Farm Store on Main Street

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/03/10

Geoffrey Long of Long Story Farms joins Jason to talk about what it actually takes to build a working farmstead part-time, the real challenges of scaling production and finding local markets, and why he thinks a permanent storefront can do what farmers' markets can't. We also get into his philosophy around local economies, community resilience, and why he believes people with skills and agency are better positioned more than most for whatever comes next.Geoffrey Long runs Long Story Farms in

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01:14:59

DO 301 - Open Source Civilization: Marcin Jakubowski...

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/03/04

When Your Tractor Breaks, Open Source the Whole CivilizationMarcin Jakubowski, founder of Open Source Ecology, joins Ashley to talk about his 20-year project to open source the blueprints for civilization, starting with a broken tractor on a Missouri farm and expanding into a full Global Village Construction Set of 50 industrial machines. They get into the abundance vs. scarcity mindset, solar concrete, modular open source housing at $100K build cost, why proprietary design is a bad mental model,

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01:18:28

DO 300 - Celebrating 300 Episodes of Doomer Optimism

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/02/25

Three hundred episodes in, and we’re still here, still questioning, still laughing, still building.In this special 300th episode, we gather voices from across DO; past guests, hosts, collaborators, and community members, to reflect on what this experiment has meant to us. What began as a space to grapple honestly with economic, ecological, and political unraveling has become something deeper: a living, breathing community grounded in realism and sustained by stubborn hope.We discuss our favorite

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01:46:36

DO 299 - Small Scale Production, Henry George, and...

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/02/17

Willy Denner of Little Seed Gardens in Chatham, NY, joins Jason and returning co-host Nigel Best for a wide-ranging conversation about 32 years of small-scale organic farming, the economics of direct market production, and the political philosophy of Henry George. Willy shares how he and his wife, Claudia, built their 100-acre vegetable and grass-fed beef operation from scratch — no farming background, just conviction, soil maps, and thousands of miles of driving back roads in search of land. He

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01:14:38

DO 298 - The Wool Empire, Faith, and Local Business

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/02/11

Jason is joined by Greg Cello to discuss his plan to build a regional wool industry in New England, starting with sheep on his Rhode Island homestead. This isn't just about producing sweaters; Greg sees sheep farming as a way to revive the cooperative spirit that once defined rural communities, where families worked together and traded their goods through local granges.The conversation touches on how Greg went from military officer to homesteader, why he pulled his kids out of school and daycare

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01:11:41

DO 297: Mulberries in the Rain: Permaculture, Crisis,...

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/02/03

How patient design and ideological diversity are reshaping food productionAshley sits down with Ryan Blosser and Trevor Piersol, co-founders of Shenandoah Permaculture Institute and authors of Mulberries in the Rain, to explore permaculture beyond the stereotype of backyard herb spirals. We discuss what sets permaculture apart from regenerative agriculture, the evolving demographics of people drawn to food production, and how ideological diversity from left-wing environmentalists to conservative

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01:05:07

DO 296: Building Community in Fragmented Times

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/01/20

Ashley Fitzgerald sits down with Elizabeth Oldfield to explore how we can foster genuine connection across ideological and cultural divides and why it matters more than ever.Drawing on Elizabeth’s experience leading the Theos think tank, hosting the acclaimed podcast The Sacred, and living in an intentional community, they discuss the power of combining rigorous research with compelling storytelling to actually shift culture and change minds. They dig into why demanding ideological purity fractures

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01:40:34

DO 295 - Navigating the Evolution of Meat Production...

Doomer Optimism ·

2026/01/13

Surviving Consolidation, One Pig at a TimeGreg Gunthorp, a fourth-generation Indiana hog farmer, joins Nate for a wide-ranging conversation about survival, stubbornness, and adaptation in the American meat industry.Greg grew up raising pigs on pasture as part of a diversified family farm, using livestock as a tool to care for the land and keep the operation afloat. But by the early 1990s, the writing was on the wall. In 1994, Greg’s father, Theodore, told him that the era of the independent hog

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01:16:06

DO 294 - Rural Revival and the USDA with Nate and...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/12/16

Nate sits down with Jason Mauck to discuss his hard-won experience running Munsee Meats, a small-scale meat processing operation in Indiana. What started as an opportunistic response to empty shelves during COVID became a two-and-a-half-year battle with regulatory bureaucracy that ultimately revealed the deep structural problems plaguing America’s food system.Jason estimates the regulatory burden cost him over a million dollars in inefficiencies, despite buying the facility for just $200,000

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01:27:18

DO 293 - Antitrust Law, Beef Politics, and Actually...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/27

Antitrust attorney Basel Musharbash discusses recent political whiplash in beef markets and the broader question of how actually to enforce anti-monopoly law. The conversation covers why ranchers erupted over being blamed for high beef prices, the history of promises versus lackluster execution going back to early 1900s meatpacking cases, and how the Packers and Stockyards Act was supposed to regulate these companies but never really worked except briefly in the 1940s, Reagan's 1982 announcement

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01:45:00

DO 292 - Breaking the Beef Cartel: Mike Callicrate on...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/25

Welcome to Beef Week! 🐄Nate sits down with rancher, entrepreneur, and farm advocate Mike Callicrate for a deep dive into the crisis facing America's cattle industry—and the path forward.Mike traces the devastating consolidation of the beef industry from the 1980s to today, explaining how we went from 20 competitive cattle buyers to just four dominant packers controlling 85% of the market. He shares his firsthand experience of being blackballed by the industry after speaking out, forced to watch

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01:29:27

DO 291 - Building an Edible Perennial Nursery with...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/20

Building an Edible Perennial Nursery with Nick Wren Nick Wren of Living Soil Tree Farms joins Jason to talk about the practical realities of starting and running an edible perennial nursery. Nick shares his journey from civil engineering to tree farming, explaining why he became passionate about native nut trees, fruit trees, and woody perennials.They cover the nuts and bolts of nursery operations, including seasonal rhythms throughout the year, the use of air-pruning beds for propagating seedlings,

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01:24:07

DO 290 - Distributism, Local Commons, and Agrarian...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/18

Jason and Ashley welcome back Chris Smaje to discuss his new book, “Finding Lights in a Dark Age,” now available for purchase. Chris is a returning guest who first appeared on the podcast to discuss his influential book “Small Farm Future,” which helped shape many of the show’s conversations about agricultural futures and sustainability. He returned previously to discuss “Say No to a Farm-Free Future,” his critique of George Monbiot and proponents of lab-grown food alternatives. In this episode,

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01:27:34

DO 289 - Beef, Bartering, and the Agorist's Guide to...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/13

Nigel Best doesn’t have time for your bullshit. He’s too busy welding gates, rotating cattle, building spiral staircases, and conducting “illicit beef transactions” in Craigslist parking lots.Missouri woodworker and regenerative rancher Nigel Best joins Jason and Nate to talk about what it actually takes to make a living on the land—without going broke, without selling your soul, and without waiting for Washington to save you.In this episode:Why coming up hard isn’t a strategy (but flat tires and

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00:59:10

DO 288 - Beyond Interchangeability: Leah Sargeant on...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/11

Why We Need Each Other More Than Everhttps://undpress.nd.edu/9780268210335/the-dignity-of-dependence/https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/Ashley welcomes back Leah Sargeant to discuss her new book, The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto. They explore two core arguments: that women's equality with men doesn't depend on being interchangeable with them, and that no humans are truly autonomous; we're all dependent on one another throughout our lives.The conversation moves

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01:09:53

DO 287 - Graze Against the Machine: Breaking Up Big...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/11/04

Fresh from dinner with Wendell Berry in Kentucky, the crew discusses Paul Kingsnorth’s new book and the deep tensions in American agriculture. From Trump’s controversial beef deal with Argentina to the packing monopolies squeezing ranchers, we explore why our food system prioritizes industrial products over actually feeding people.Topics include: the soybean-ethanol scam, why 80% of corn never becomes human food, land prices and the return-to-the-land movement, the death of email jobs and rise of

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01:10:59

DO 286 - Building a Regenerative Landscaping Business...

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/10/28

Creating member networks, local food systems, and recession-proof community infrastructureJason talks with Tres, co-founder of GreenBox Homes, about creating a regenerative landscaping company that competes with traditional lawn care services. They discuss the business model of providing weekly yard care focused on building soil and ecosystems rather than just aesthetic maintenance, creating member networks for sharing plants and resources, and the massive supply-demand gap in the native plant

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01:33:16

DO 285 - AI and The 95% Extinction Threshold

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/10/21

AI safety researcher Nate Soares explains why he believes there's at least a 95% chance that current AI development will lead to human extinction, and why we're accelerating toward that outcome. Soares, who has been working on AI alignment since 2012, breaks down the fundamental problem: we're building increasingly intelligent systems without any ability to control what they actually want or pursue.The conversation covers current AI behavior that wasn't programmed: threatening users,

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01:29:27

DO 284 - Group Chat Live

Doomer Optimism ·

2025/10/14

Join the Doomer Optimism crew for their first-ever live group chat as they tackle the big questions facing our technologically saturated world. Ashley, Nate, Jason, Peter, and Patrick gather to discuss Paul Kingsnorth’s new book Against the Machine, the creeping influence of AI in our daily lives, and whether we’re heading toward accelerated collapse or just another step down.The conversation meanders from the ethics of AI chatbots (including Amish farmers launching their own) to the practical

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97 results

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