While Kamala Harris has announced that she wants to become the first Silicon Valley President, Donald Trump is speaking today at Bitcoin2024 in Nashville in a self-serving attempt to make Bitcoin Great Again. So where should Silicon Valley be putting its (ample) money in 2024? According to That Was The…
A couple of days ago, America’s most controversial regenerative farmer, Joel Salatin, came on the show (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2139-joel-salatin-explains) to explain how industrialized farming is killing our soil, our bodies and our souls. Today, the Los Angeles based food writer and podcaster Nicola Twilley (https://www.nicolatwilley.com/bio/) offers a more nuanced account of the…
Yesterday, we were in rural Virginia interviewing (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2139-joel-salatin-explains) the pioneering regenerative farmer, Joel Salatin. Today, we are on an equally innovative farm in Houston, Texas, in conversation with Kimberley Meyer, author of Accidental Sisters. (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520384675/accidental-sisters) It’s called Shamba Ya Amani (https://www.famhoustontx.org/shamba-ya-amani) (Farm of Peace) and, as Meyer explains in her…
As one of America’s most outspoken pioneers of regenerative agriculture, Joel Salatin is popularly known as The Lunatic Farmer (https://www.thelunaticfarmer.com/) . Others have accused him of being a bio-terrorist, Typhoid Mary, a charlatan, and starvation advocate. Less of a lunatic and more of an agricultural visionary, however, Salatin has transformed…
A hundred episodes ago (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-2033-batya-ungar-sargon-on-how-american-elites/id1448694012?i=1000652520207) , we had the author of Second Class, Batya Ungar-Sargon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batya_Ungar-Sargon) , on the show to talk specifically about how America’s elites have betrayed the country’s working men and women. So when I bumped into her at the recent Braver Angels convention in Wisconsin, we…
In the wake of Biden’s resignation and the coronation of Kamala Harris, it’s likely that this year’s election will be particularly divisive and vitriolic. We will hear endless hysteria about the election being the most important in American history, blah blah blah. But while I certainly don’t believe that American…
As CEO of the AI start-up DoNotPay, Joshua Browder (https://x.com/jbrowder1?lang=en) is one of Silicon Valley’s rising young entrepreneurs. Born in the UK and educated at Stanford, Browder is from a remarkable family of American innovators and activists. His great grandfather, Earl Browder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Browder) , was head of the US Communist…
Lauded by KEEN ON favorites like Dave Eggers & Dale Maharidge, J. Malcolm Garcia (https://jmalcolmgarcia.com/) might be the Studs Terkel of contemporary American literature. Having worked as a social worker with San Francisco’s homeless community for 14 years, he then became an acclaimed journalist and winner of the Studs Terkel…
I was at the Liberalism for the 21st Century (https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/liberalism-for-the-21st-century-a) conference last week in DC where I bumped into an old friend and KEEN ON regular Jonathan Rauch (https://www.jonathanrauch.com/about.html) . A Brookings Fellow and prolific author, Rauch is amongst America’s most thoughtful commentators on the contemporary crisis of liberalism and…
For all the “progress” in civil rights front over the last couple of generations, the wealth gap between white and black Americans hasn’t changed much. As Ebony Reed, co-author of best selling new book, Fifteen Cents on the Dollar (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/fifteen-cents-on-the-dollar-louise-storyebony-reed?variant=41226132357154) , whites on average have 85% more wealth than blacks,…
In the wake of the failed Trump assassination attempt by what seems to be a conventionally lonely and bullied young man, more and more Americans are asking what has gone wrong. According to CNN correspondent Elle Reeve (https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Elle-Reeve/189169861) , online Americans - particularly lonely, alienated young men on networks like…
Trust a French literary theorist to think creatively about whether AI can think creatively. Laurent Dubreuil (https://complit.cornell.edu/laurent-dubreuil) is a professor of French literature at Cornell and the author of the intriguing Harper’s piece, Metal Machine Music (https://harpers.org/archive/2024/07/metal-machine-music/) , which asks both if AI and we humans can think creatively. Using…
I’m just back from the Liberalism for the 21st Century (https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/liberalism-for-the-21st-century-a) conference in DC which featured a lively discussion about digital misinformation between KEEN ON regular Jonathan Rauch (https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-forced-erasure-of-gays-from-20th-century-american-life/id1448694012?i=1000646062399) and Renee DiResta (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/contributor/renee-diresta/?lens=publicaffairs) , the author of Invisible Rulers (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/renee-diresta/invisible-rulers/9781541703377/?lens=publicaffairs) . As the former manager of the Stanford Internet Observatory,…
Does America have problem with its boys and men? Yes (https://lithub.com/richard-reeves-identifies-todays-crisis-of-masculinity-and-explains-how-to-fix-it/) , says author of Boys and Men, Richard Reeves, a previous guest on KEEN ON. Today’s guest, Niobe Way, a NYU professor of developmental psychology, give a more nuanced answer. The author of the Rebels With a Cause: Reimagining…
Few Americans know contemporary China better than Peter Hessler (https://www.peterhessler.net/) . The author of four prize winning books about life in China as well as the former China correspondent of the New Yorker, Hessler originally came to China as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996 and has been writing about…
What a treat. LA Times book critic Bethanne Patrick (https://www.bethannepatrick.com/) and I got the opportunity to talk today with the great Andrew O’Hagan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_O%27Hagan) , author of Caledonian Road (https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324074878) , his new blockbuster novel about the state of contemporary Britain. It’s a fabulous read and O’Hagan was no less…
