The Students

Many say computers have transformed society as deeply as the advent of industry. While computers are powerful, they have not reordered the fundamental basis of society. Ben Landau-Tylor and Wolf Tivy cover the history0:00 — Intro2:44 — "We take the industrial background for granted"8:36 — What does it mean to revolutionize society?13:56 — The industrial social system18:41 — The rise of the laptop class22:34 — Cultural homogenization28:43 — Technological changes vs novelty effects31:05 — The case of journalism’s decline39:00 — The time traveler thought experiment41:02 — What will the full development of a computerized society look like?49:27 — Computers and material production58:21 — "What would it mean for computing to be as impactful as the Industrial Revolution?"

Max Dmitrienko and Wolf Tivy take on glory. From the ancient Greeks to the posthuman machine gods, some achievements are remembered because they show truths about how the world works and the challenges of coordination.0:00 — Intro1:26 — "How should one live given that one is mortal?"7:11 — What is worth remembering?13:53 — The transhuman perspective18:01 — Achilles' choice vs Socrates' choice29:18 — The legitimate basis of cooperation35:24 — What does glory look like in the modern world?39:37 — Reaching higher forms of society44:25 — Distinction vs gradients50:34 — What glory will mean to the posthuman AI

Ben Landau-Taylor and Wolf Tivy deal with industrial growth. Standard economic theories model growth as continuous marginal improvements, and seek stability. Schumpeter explains growth is a destructive "history of revolutions" which cause chaos.0:00 — Intro1:23 — Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy3:35 — Creative destruction and natural monopolies11:09 — How natural selection works in capitalism15:11 — Clearing out the dead wood22:17 — Eliminating depressions has slowed development28:57 — The degenerative ratchet in our political economy37:00 — Hope comes from circumvention, not reform41:26 — Where can circumvention come from?49:39 — Extropy

Samo Burja and Wolf Tivy cover gerontocracy. Generational youth politics are a dead end: the "youth" will be old by the time they take power. Change can come only from empowering new classes willing to gamble on their own "nepo babies".

San Francisco is the capital of the online networks where today's new ideas are born. It's an excellent place for a sensitive young man with something to say. Ben and Wolf describe how the scene works and how to break in.

Napoleon built the institutions of the modern state—especially the military. This was best analyzed by Napoleon's enemy Clausewitz, who studied war on the opposite side of the battlefield. Napoleon's armies were defeated, but his system and his spirit are still with us.

Thorstein Veblen tells us how elites display their superiority by showing off their cultivated taste and skill, which in turn displays their economic power, and ultimately their capacity for violence. Veblen was very upset by this. But you don’t have to be.0:00 - Intro 4:40 - The structural purpose of leisure14:05 - The macroeconomics of respectability: Conspicuous leisure and vicarious leisure21:38 - What are the naturally honorable leisure activities?27:16 - How today’s leisure class was created36:30 - The new counterculture’s opportunity40:48 - Downward social mobility and the spurious leisure class42:50 - The inevitability of hierarchy and the failure of egalitarian experiments50:06 - How do we channel conspicuous leisure to prosocial purposes again?

The Earth has become small -- and the Last Man lives the longest.In 1885, Nietzsche foresaw mankind's transformation into a being who cares only for safety and contentment -- the final step before he gives up his higher nature. Jonathan Wallis joins Wolf Tivy to help us understand the Last Man.0:00 — Intro0:32 — The greatest threat is not disorder but the Last Man3:39 — Radical potential is always recuperated, domesticated, defanged16:46 — Cults reenact the logic of modernity23:45 — You have to live the hypothesis37:20 — Civilization is the ability to pass the crown51:34 — There is no soul-atom; you are an intersection of forces

Machiavelli saw that Christianity had made Italy weak, servile, and prey to criminal men. His answer: ground politics in "what is", not imagined republics — and dare great men to act on it. The consequences founded the modern world. Duncan Umphrey joins us to discuss the Machiavelli's virtue.

Ben Landau-Taylor discusses Carroll Quigley's thesis on how weapons systems shape political order—how military technology determines whether a society ends up democratic, authoritarian, or something else entirely.

The Peloponnesian War destroyed the Greek world and exposed the violence behind the civilized facade, much like the World Wars of the 20th century. Maxim Dmitrienko walks us through Thucydides' timeless History.

Should a student of the 21st century read Plato and Aristotle? Stephen Pimentel explains how Greek philosophy helps us to see past the conceits of our own era.

Carroll Quigley's 1961 book The Evolution of Civilizations describes the stages a civilization goes through as it grows, expands, decays, and falls. Ben Landau-Taylor tells us how Quigley's theory works, and where our civilization sits in this process today.

DC Posch and Wolf Tivy read Meltdown from Nick Land, the prophet of 21st century artificial intelligence and runaway capitalism.

Rachel Wallis is using cutting-edge gene selection technology to have kids. Wolf Tivy is using traditional methods. Which is better? They debate.-----------Reproductive Frontiers 2026 conference in Berkeley this June: reproductivefrontiers.org