About the show
Co-hosts Emmet and John plumb the depths of history, culture, and philosophy to understand why it is that despite calamities and rapid change nothing feels possible anymore. Guests include artists, scholars, and thinkers from all over the world.
Subscribe to our Patreon to receive 2 extra exclusive episodes a month: https://www.patreon.com/exhaust
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Episodes
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Episode 39: Energiewendon't and the Nordstream Connection ft. Mark Nelson
May 18th, 2021 | 1 hr 4 mins
angela merkel, biden, carbon emissions, climate change, cold war, eu, european union, france, fukushima, germany, ipcc, nordstream, nuclear energy, renewable energy, russia
Mark Nelson returns to the pod to explain Germany's Energiwende policy and its dependence on Nordstream 2 pipeline from Russia.
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[teaser] Life and Death at Jasper Mall
May 16th, 2021 | 2 mins 12 secs
We discuss the movie Jasper Mall, which follows the small-town Alabama mall's decline over the course of a year. This is a teaser for the full Patreon episode.
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Episode 38: The Culture of Confession ft. Default Friend
May 11th, 2021 | 1 hr 3 mins
alt lit, cancel culture, millennial culture, myspace, paris hilton, sjw, tao lin, tumblr, woke, xo jane, zoomers
Emmet sits down with Default Friend to talk about the culture of confession, the emotional history of the internet, millenial blues, and more.
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Episode 37: Based and Nukepilled ft. Madison Czerwinski
May 4th, 2021 | 54 mins 13 secs
aoc, bernie sanders, byron, climate change, diablo canyon, dresden, electrical grid, environmentalism, green new deal, green nuclear deal, indian point, indisutrial policy, nrdc, nuclear energy, renewable energy, sierra club, texas
Founder of the Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal, Madison Czerwinski, sits down with Emmet to talk about the closure of the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York, the status of the US nuclear fleet, and what a nuclear future could look like.
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[teaser] American Canon: TS Eliot's "Tradition and Individual Talent"
May 2nd, 2021 | 2 mins 19 secs
Emmet and John talk about Eliot's essay on what it means for a writer to fit into a tradition.
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Episode 36: I Went Down to the Piraeus Yesterday with Robert Downey Jr.: Watching RDJ's Cocaine '92 Election Doc ft. Josh Bregman
April 27th, 2021 | 1 hr 37 mins
american politics, bill clinton, clinton, culture, democratic party, george bush, history, hollywood, mike ruppert, oliver stone, pat buchanan, politics, rdj, robert downey jr
Token Gen-Xer Josh Bregman joins Emmet to discuss Robert Downey Jr.'s documentary about the '92 election, The Last Party. They discuss what has and hasn't changed in the last thirty years.
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Episode 35: Two-Piece: Gentry Elites, Dead WASPs, and the End of Fair Play Culture
April 20th, 2021 | 1 hr 9 mins
america, american politics, elites, political history, politics, populism, wasp culture
Emmet and John discuss two articles and try to fine-tune their understanding of who the American elites are and how they've changed over time.
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[teaser] Bull Sesh: Decline, Decadence, and the Aesthetic Education of the Soul w/ Canada Mike
April 18th, 2021 | 3 mins 48 secs
Canada Mike swings by the pod to talk about decadence, decline, and the aesthetic education of the soul. This is a brief clip from the episode.
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Episode 34: Long Live the New Flesh!: Getting Videodromed with Geoff Shullenberger
April 14th, 2021 | 1 hr 29 mins
1980s, body horror, cold war, david cronenberg, leo strauss, marshall mcluhan, media theory, neoconservatism, paranoia, parapolitics, peter thiel, videodrome, viderodrome
Emmet and Geoff Shullenberger talk about a mutual favorite film: Cronenberg's Videodrome. They talk about how it presaged our fractured digital lives and the inscrutable, parapolitical world we inhabit.
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Episode 33: Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of the American Electric Grid ft. Meredith Angwin
April 6th, 2021 | 1 hr 7 mins
Emmet and John sit down to speak with Meredith Angwin about her new book on America's fragile electric grid.
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[teaser] After Virtue II: The Waning of Telos and the Problem of Human Rights
April 4th, 2021 | 5 mins 3 secs
John and Emmet discuss the failure of the Enlightenment's ethical project and highlight MacIntyre's skepticism of human rights.
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Episode 32: The Lasch Files: The Cultural Cold War and the Birth of Psychopolitics
March 30th, 2021 | 1 hr 6 mins
christopher lasch, cia, cold war, congress for cultural freedom, cultural cold war, korean war, mccarthyism, nixon, psyop
Emmet and John discuss Christopher Lasch's essay, "The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom."
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Episode 31: Thinking Through Happiness, Misery and Freedom ft. Ashley Frawley
March 23rd, 2021 | 53 mins 49 secs
capitalism, covid, democracy, freedom, happiness, knowledge class, marx, plato, social distancing, socialism, the elightenment, therapy
Emmet sits down with Ashley Frawley to talk about her work on the semiotics of happiness, the knowledge class, and the how to think about freedom.
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Episode 30: TFW NO GF: A Pro-Friendship, Anti-FUDposting Movie Review
March 16th, 2021 | 1 hr 17 mins
alex lee moyer, altright, charlottesville, incel, kantbot, loneliness, media criticism, tfw no gf
Emmet and John review Alex Lee Moyer's documentary TFW NO GF.
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[teaser] Understanding SolarWinds, Cybersecurity, and Attribution ft. CyberCharles
March 14th, 2021 | 4 mins 27 secs
cia, cold war, cybersec, cybersecurity, fsb, national defense, national security, natsec, nsa, russia, solarwinds, supply chains
For our second Patreon episode, Emmet talks with a cybersecurity expert about the SolarWinds attack.
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Episode 29: After Virtue Pt. I: Emotivism and Its Discontents
March 9th, 2021 | 1 hr 17 mins
after virtue, alisdair macintyre, christopher lasch, communitarianism, cultural decay, culture, ethics, marx, marxism, politics
Emmet and John begin their reading series on Alisdair MacIntyre's classic work After Virtue.