Last month the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference - better known as COP30 - was held in the Amazonian city of Belem in northern Brazil. The conference was widely seen as a disappointment - with a binding agreement for a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels being blocked by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other oil producing states. In the toda…

theory based analysis of the new Epstein documents and his connection with Trump. Deeper dives on the story: Secular Talk Drop Site News This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribeBrenden

In 2006, the music streaming service Spotify, founded by Swedish entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon was launched in the context of widespread music piracy, file sharing, and declining profits for the music majors.Presenting themselves as music fans who were intent on saving the music industry, Spotify has since gone on to become the domin…

If you'd like to listen to the rest of this episode of PTO extra please consider becoming a £5 supporter at patreon.com/poltheoryotherPolitics Theory Other

PTO has now been going for more than seven years and some of the earlier episodes unfortunately have truly abysmal audio quality - because of the podcasting technology of the time. But, thanks to the wonders of audio editing software in 2025, it's been possible to quite significantly improve the sound quality of those episodes, and so in the coming…

Sofia Menemenlis joins PTO to chat about her recent article in The Breakdown on the concept and history of solar geoengineering - or “solar radiation management" as it has become known. We talked about how the implementation of SRM is imagined, what the potentially catastrophic side effects of such a project might be, and who the key players are in…

Sebastian Budgen returns to provide an update on the political situation in France. If you'd like to hear the rest of this episode of PTO Extra! please consider becoming a £5 supporter at patreon.com/poltheoryotherPolitics Theory Other

In December of last year, the then South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol - of the right-wing People Power Party - attempted to impose martial law on the country in what was described as a 'self-coup'. Kevin Gray joins PTO to talk about his recent article in the New Left Review on the Korean far-right. We chatted about the background to the attempted…

We’re living in a time when politics has become pornographic…pure stimulus, pure confirmation bias, pure ideology. The postmodern conservative doesn’t seek truth; they seek arousal through outrage. Their politics perform themselves before they think themselves, cycling through prepackaged narratives that gratify resentment the way pornography grati…

Politics Theory Other

Sebastian Budgen returns to PTO to talk about the political crisis in France where Emmanuel Macron has appointed his third prime minister in a year. We talked about the political background of the new prime minister, and long-time Macron ally, Sebastien Lecornu and whether the French Socialist Party is likely to prop up the new government. We also …

If you'd like to listen to the rest of this episode of PTO Extra! become a £5 supporter at patreon.com/poltheoryotherPolitics Theory Other

Juliet Jacques interviews James Schneider (co-founder of Momentum and director of strategic communications during Jeremy Corbyn's time as Labour leader) about the creation of the new left party in Britain, why there's a greater opportunity for a left electoral breakthrough now than there has been in living memory, and about the need to rebuild the …

Adam Hanieh, Rafeef Ziadah, and Robert Knox on their new co-authored book, 'Resisting Erasure: Capital, Imperialism and Race in Palestine'. We spoke about the inadequacy of framing the question of Palestine and the Gaza genocide solely as a humanitarian issue and how the Israeli project of settler-colonialism has been part and parcel of the expansi…

I wrote an essay recently on this…but i realized there’s more to say. Anyway…i try to go deeper in connecting this idea of desire machines, status quo propaganda, and forms of radicalization. And Twitter happens to be a great case study. Stay curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bo…

In today's episode Cecilia Rikap - an expert in the political economy of science and technology - speaks with Paris Marx (host of the excellent Tech Won't Save Us podcast). Cecilia and Paris discussed the subservient approach that Keir Starmer's Labour government has taken to tech policy and how willing Starmer has been to give tech companies whate…

Expert on China-Iran relations William Figueroa joins PTO to talk about the relationship between China and Iran in the wake of the twelve day war between Iran and Israel. We chatted about why China's backing for Iran has been - and is likely to continue to be - relatively limited as China balances support for Iran with its other interest in West As…

if you'd like to listen to full episode of this episode of PTO Extra! become a £5 supporter at patreon.com/poltheoryotherPolitics Theory Other

I listened to his Turning Point speech…and I have some thoughts. So…talking about Tucker Carlson and President Trump. I think Tucker is going to be the follow up guy to Trump. To put it simply. Also…Tucker is better at playing politics… Anway…in this one I talk about how they both weaponize aesthetics and catharsis in order to replace real potentia…

Owen Hatherley responds to listener questions by Politics Theory OtherPolitics Theory Other

In 1998 Leigh Claire La Berge was hired by a major communications conglomerate, where she worked alongside employees of the soon to be disgraced Arther Anderson (the auditor of companies involved in high profile corporate fraud such as WorldCom and Enron). Leigh Clare and her colleagues were tasked with working on the problem of Y2K - also known as…

I’ve been doing a long term project that has Peter Thiel in my view. I saw that he did an interview. He said… Douthat: It seems very clear to me that a number of people deeply involved in artificial intelligence see it as a mechanism for transhumanism…for transcendence of our mortal flesh…and either some kind of creation of a successor species or s…

Jeremy Gilbert on the Oasis reunion and the britpop phenomenon more generally. We talked about the music that britpop marginalised, why 90s nostalgia is so prevalent, and why it was that of the various guitar groups of the time it was Oasis who became so successful in the mid 1990s.Politics Theory Other

Journalist Séamus Malekafzali joins PTO to talk about the aftermath of the Israel-Iran war. We chatted about where the cessation of hostilities leaves the two states militarily, and whether Iran's strategy of reliance on ballistic missiles and a loose regional alliance was wholly misbegotten or just poorly implemented. And we talked about why the T…

Owen Hatherley returns to discuss his New Left Review article on the Welsh guitar band, the Manic Street Preachers. We talked about the particular appeal the group seemed to hold for working class kids from non-metropolitan backgrounds in the 1990s, and about the forbearance and occasional embarrassment that is the lot of fans who've followed their…