The first Lifepod episode is an introduction to the show, and a general overview of its themes and concerns.

I read a passage from the introduction to “Lifehouse” — situating the origins of my interest in mutual aid as a way of organizing against catastrophe in my experience of Occupy Sandy in 2012 — and use it to explain why I believe we desperately need to get beyond hope.

https://lifepod.transistor.fm/episodes/s01e00-an-introduction-to-lifepod

Valeria Graziano and Tomislav Medak of the Pirate Care collective join me for the first proper episode of the show, for a conversation about their book of the same name.

In addition to the concept of "pirate care" itself, we discuss the historical and contemporary significance of the pirate figure, the criminalization of care, the inspiration we can take from the Four Freedoms of the free software movement, the notion of “queer kinning” and its implications for solidarity, and the need to care for all those who fall through the cracks in traditional constructions of belonging.

https://lifepod.transistor.fm/s1/1

And in the final episode of this first tranche of three, agrarian thinker Chris Smaje joins me for a conversation about *his* book “Finding Lights in a Dark Age,” an exploration of what he sees as the need for a transition from mostly urban to mostly rural “sustainable livelihood communities.”

Chris shares his journey from academia to small farming in southwest England — highlighting the challenges involved in balancing high-complexity modern technology with local autonomy. We discuss the need for a practical, local politics of livelihood, and the potential for a large-scale urban-to-rural movement that might underwrite such a politics.

https://lifepod.transistor.fm/s1/2

If the surest cure for a sense of overwhelming passivity and helplessness is self-organized, collective action, Lifepod is designed to help you get started doing just that.

Like I say on the show, I intend for these conversations to serve as a reminder that it’s only by actively intervening in the circumstances that beset us that we’ll get through the years ahead intact in body and soul. I hope you enjoy Lifepod, and find it generative and useful.