1984 Today!

Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Crisis! Anxiety! Liberty!Dr Ashley Frawley joins me for a conversation about what she calls “the tendency to communicate social problems as emotional problems,” and how that degrades the power and autonomy of the individual while ignoring complex structural social issues.Ashley is a sociologist at the University of Kent in the UK, a columnist at Compact Magazine, a regular contributor to Unherd, the COO of Sublation Media, and a Research Fellow at MCC Brussels. She is the author of the books Significant Emotions: Rhetoric and Social Problems in a Vulnerable Age, and Semiotics of Happiness.She argues that people, rather than clamouring for solutions to unhappiness, lack of self-esteem, and poor mental health, have been taught to constantly monitor themselves, critique their position in life, and seek intervention by authorities and experts. The result, she says, is “the politics of the void”: A society in constant crisis, obsessed with fixing people it assumes are broken, rushing from one wellness fad to another, placing on the shoulders of individual citizens the blame for social problems that have complicated external causes which conveniently remain unaddressed.The increasingly widespread legalisation of assisted dying is a further sign of this trend, “a policy that reflects the fatalistic mindset of those who rule over us, leaders who can no longer promise a good life so instead offer a ‘good death’.”We had a fascinating discussion, one that left me with much food for thought. I hope you enjoy it.Find Ashley on X, YouTube, and Patreon as @AshleyAFrawley. Visit our website at https://www.1984.today or find us on X as @1984todaypod. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com to get our weekly dystopian newsletter!Communists! Assassination! Romance!Carol Cohn is an exceptional man with an incredible story. Born in Romania during World War Two, he survived the deportation of the country’s Jews, returned and grew up under the Communists, escaped to the West, and became a journalist married to the girl of his dreams.In this very special episode, he shares his experiences of mid-century European Jewish life, Communist indoctrination, Cold War politics, Western liberalism, Israel’s kibbutz collectivism, a Soviet hit squad, and, most touchingly, true love.For those of us who have grown up in countries that never knew the repression and stultification of true totalitarianism, it is easy to be seduced by or indifferent to an idealised, sanitised version of a system we never experienced or suffered under. Our own social and political failings and shortcomings are notable, and worth commenting on and correcting, but they do not excuse or make more attractive the horrors visited on the millions of people who lived with the tyranny of Communism as it was, and in some places, still is. To wish it had been otherwise or to assume it could be different if tried again is to ignore the one thing we can know for certain: What actually happened to the people who had to live with it.It was humbling and inspiring to hear Carol’s story, and to receive such an impression of his inner strength, good humour, and faith. I hope you feel the same.Find us on X: @1984todaypodhttps://www.1984.today This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Subscribe for free at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and more!Live facial recognition! “Legal but harmful” speech! Spycoin!In this episode, I’m joined by Mark Johnson, the Advocacy Manager for Big Brother Watch, a UK civil liberties campaign group dedicated to reclaiming privacy, defending freedoms, and rolling back the surveillance state. You can find them at BigBrotherWatch.org.uk, where you can download their reports on the various dystopian issues facing the British public, and find out how you can support them.Mark Johnson was previously a Parliamentary Assistant working on domestic and international human rights issues including opposition to the death penalty and freedom of religion. He is also active in campaigning against the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in China.We get into the (unfortunately many) issues facing Britain, from the deployment of live facial recognition by law enforcement to the crackdown on free speech and the push to get rid of physical cash. All in a day’s work for Big Brother Watch, but quite a lot to fit into one discussion!Mark has an admirable grasp of the myriad angles from which civil rights in the UK are being undermined, and an obvious passion for a free society. Speaking with him was as energising as it was concerning. I hope you feel the same!You can find Big Brother Watch on X: @BigBrotherWatchhttps://www.1984.today This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and special updates!De-ageing in dogs! Genetic scanning in dating apps! The Singularity!All this and much more came up in this fascinating conversation with Professor George Church, the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Professor Church is a founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and the Director of PersonalGenomes.org, the world’s only open-access information on human genetic, environmental, and trait data.His work was instrumental in laying the foundations for the Human Genome Project, the first successful global initiative to sequence the human genome. He has co-founded around fifty biotech companies, and in various surveys and lists has been counted among “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” and “The Top 8 Famous Geneticists of All Time.”We discuss the current state of genetic research, look at how DNA innovations could help or intrude upon us, and compare dystopian ideas on where genetic science is headed.It’s a dizzying time to be alive, and the future is rich with worries and wonders!https://www.1984.today This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for dystopian news, transcripts, and more!In this episode, I sit down in the studio with Andy Agathangelou, the founder of the Transparency Task Force, “a certified social enterprise for people who have been shortchanged by the financial sector.” Andy is also the Chair of the Secretariat Committee to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Personal Banking and Fairer Financial Services as well as a Fellow of the RSA and the founder of its Financial Services Network.He is a dedicated advocate for financial system reform and a kind, compassionate man who has committed himself to supporting people harmed by financial malpractice and fixing the problems that permitted it to happen.We discuss the ways in which so-called regulators are not fit for purpose or asleep at the wheel, and get into the details on some terrible examples of the harm done to people by banks. It was a moving conversation, even difficult at times, and Andy makes it clear how deeply he feels and shares the pain of the people he is campaigning with and for.Andy has a strong idea of how the system in the UK can be fixed, and lays out his proposals for reining in the rapacity of the financial sector.I hope you enjoy meeting him as much as I did.You can find out more about the Transparency Task Force by visiting their website at https://transparencytaskforce.org or following them on X (@TransparencyTF).https://www.1984.today This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for weekly dystopian news and transcripts.I’m joined in this episode by Emily Finley, author of The Ideology of Democratism. Emily is a senior fellow from the Albertus Magnus Institute and an instructor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.In her book, Emily argues that political leaders in many democratic countries differ from their citizens in their understanding of what democracy actually means in practice. The phrase “a threat to democracy” is used frequently by politicians, often in reference to things many of us consider a part of democracy, like the outcome of an election. On its face this seems contradictory, even incomprehensible, but by introducing the idea of “democratism,” Emily brings things into focus. Going back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and The Social Contract, she traces an intellectual and philosophical framework in which the ‘general will’ is seen as fundamentally different to the will of the people as expressed in democratic processes such as elections. Only a chosen few are considered qualified to interpret this ‘general will’, elite leaders who know what the populace ‘really’ wants and needs even if the people themselves say otherwise. These are the “democratists,” individuals with an entirely different attitude to what government is and should be. This framing is a stark contrast to how we are usually encouraged to think of democracy and the politicians who claim to believe in and practice it, as a manifestation of the popular will, measured by votes cast.Emily has come up with a brilliant way of examining our current confusing and crucial political moment, and speaking with her helped me understand something about politics that had been nagging at me like something stuck between my teeth.We go deep into her ideas about the distinction between democracy and democratism, the ways these differences show in our political culture, and what that gap between what the people want and what the leaders want them to want means for the future.I hope you enjoy the episode, and as always, let me know what you think.Visit us at 1984.today. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Subscribe at 1984today.substack.com for updates, transcripts, and more!All eyes on Argentina in this episode, as I’m joined by Beatriz Busaniche, an Argentinian activist and academic focused on free culture and human rights in the digital environment.Beatriz is the co-founder of the Argentine chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, a member of Creative Commons Argentina, and the President of the Fundación Vía Libre. She is also a Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, and her books include Artificial Monopolies Over Intangible Assets, and Intellectual Property and Human Rights.We discuss the Milei administration and its impact on freedom of assembly, Beatriz’s leading of the fight against electronic voting in Argentina, the implementation of a sweeping surveillance network in the capital of Buenos Aires, and the danger that the database state poses to civil liberties and personal freedom. We even found some time to talk about copyright and intellectual property in the AI age.Beatriz was the perfect person to walk me through the situation in Argentina right now, and we had a very enjoyable conversation which I hope you find interesting.I also recommend reading a Wired article called The Twisted Eye in the Sky Over Buenos Aires, which goes into more detail on the surveillance system in Buenos Aires and its flaws. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Sergei Loznitsa is an award-winning director of feature films and documentaries, a Ukrainian born in the Soviet Union, and a compassionate interrogator of the human condition.His 2018 film Donbass, “a darkly satirical omnibus of scathing vignettes” about life in Eastern Ukraine, won him Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival.His description of the film connects it with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four:In the Donbass, war is called peace, propaganda is uttered as truth and hatred is declared to be love…It is about a world, lost in post-truth and fake identities.His documentary work, often composed entirely of archive material without voiceover or other commentary, includes The Natural History of Destruction, The Trial, and State Funeral.On MUBI’s website, where several of his films are available to watch, he makes the following statement:I want my films to urge the viewers to move towards self-knowledge, self-awareness, and awareness of certain important things that they never considered before. This is of the greatest importance to me.I met with Sergei to discuss his films, his run-ins with the European and Ukrainian Film Academies, the possibility of truth in cinema, the way language is degraded in wartime, the imprisonment of Vladimir Kara-Murza, and more.We sat knee to knee in a small studio. It was an intimate setting for what turned out to be a wide-ranging, touching, and resonant discussion. In the recording of our conversation, you can sometimes hear Sergei’s suit jacket rustling when he gestures to make a point or emphasise a statement. His refusal to fall back on easy answers, and his determination to see the real human questions undergirding political issues, made it an honour and a pleasure to speak with him.I hope you enjoy the episode.Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment.Subscribe on Substack: 1984today.substack.comVisit our website: 1984.todayNB: I owe thanks to The Fifth Column (A Podcast) for bringing Sergei’s work to my attention. Thank you, gentlemen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Allow me to introduce This Is How We Do It, our new occasional sidebar exploring love in the age of dystopia.Aleksandr, a tech-savvy young man from Russia, used AI to automate his Tinder profile, but what started as a wild experiment in modern dating turned into a love story for the digital age. Aleksandr and his fiancée Karina join me for a chat about their courtship and relationship, a fascinating and heart-warming story perfect for sharing on Valentine’s Day.You can find an English language ‘how’ of Aleksandr’s AI odyssey on X. I was drawn to the story more from the angle of wondering how such a technical approach could still allow love to flower and grow between two people, and I was keen to hear Karina’s thoughts and feelings about the way Aleksandr ‘found’ her.In our conversation, Aleksandr describes how he went about optimising his Tinder account with AI to speed up the initial stages of finding matches, Karina talks about how it feels knowing that she was “more perfect” than over 5,000 other women, and they open up about their life together in the AI era.Even though I brought my own pre-conceptions to the table, speaking with them was warm and uplifting, and in a way the technology ended up taking a back seat to an exploration of what in the end are universal human needs and desires.As you’ll hear, I also suggested that they reach out to OpenAI to pay for their wedding, since their story is probably the nicest use of ChatGPT that I’ve heard of so far. Maybe our community has the means to make that happen for them, who knows?Anyway, I hope you enjoy the episode.Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Substack has been in the news recently, due to accusations of and/or objections to extreme/racist/Nazi writers who have newsletters on the platform, and the refusal of Substack’s management to remove or throttle the content in question to the satisfaction of critics.If we tried to pinpoint when exactly the presence of that content became a foreground issue, it would most likely be the publication in The Atlantic of a piece called Substack Has A Nazi Problem by Jonathan M. Katz. The article has drawn a lot of heat (and support), with notable responses from Elle Griffin,Glenn Loury, Matt Taibbi, and Jesse Singal, among others.In Episode 104 I spoke with Elle Griffin about her work, which included an open letter in support of Substack’s ‘walled garden’ approach to content moderation. Jonathan listened to the podcast and tagged me in a post to his subscribers about it, so I invited him on to give his perspective.Jonathan is an author and journalist who started out reporting for Associated Press on the Pentagon, the Middle East, the Dominican Republic, and the Haitian earthquake of 2010. He’s a contributor to The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Republic, and The New Yorker, and is the winner of the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism and a National Headliners Award.You can find and subscribe to his writing at The Racket, and his most recent book is Gangsters of Capitalism, about the life of General Smedley Butler of “War is a racket” fame.In our conversation, Jonathan and I get into the genesis of his Atlantic piece, the resulting response and backlash, his experience and development as a journalist over the past two decades, and the issues around free speech that underpin the current debate.Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Can AI imagine itself?Is an organic life possible in a machine world?Do you want a computer chip in your brain?Tim Boucher is the author of the AI Lore books, over 100 illustrated volumes of conspiracy-tinged dystopian fiction set in a future where AI has taken control of the planet. Before that he was a content moderator at a major social media platform, an experience that “left him with symptoms of mild PTSD” that took him nearly three years to recover from. For Tim, telling stories about a speculative dark future dominated by AI has in part been therapeutic, a way of exploring and exorcising the feelings that arose in him as a consequence of seeing what humans are capable of.Our conversation was very rich in questions for me, about how we see and inhabit the world, and how machines and algorithms have insinuated themselves between us and what we might call reality.“Our society embraces progress, not the sentiments of the past.”The above quote comes from one of Tim’s books, The Banned Prompt. Was the line written by him, or AI? Is it more concerning as an idea, or less apt as a description, if a large language model generated it?As we discuss in this episode, I found reading his work very interesting, and I would love to know what you all think. To that end, Tim has very kindly offered 50 free copies of two of his books, The Banned Prompt and Anxietopia, to the first listeners to click through. You can use the buttons below to get your free copy now (if you’re early enough), and Tim also shared a couple of the AI-generated images from the books to give some added flavour.Tim publishes through Lost Books and sells his books directly here. He doesn’t maintain a social media presence, for reasons made clear in our conversation; he prefers to spend his time gardening and building furniture.We, on the other hand, have accounts on X and Instagram, in case you want to come visit.Please let me know what you think of the episode, I’d love to hear from you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Can Substack survive mainstream media pearl-clutching? Do we dare to dream of utopia? Was the Virgin Mary really a virgin?These are just some of the questions I get into with the fascinating and contagiously positive Elle Griffin in this wide-ranging conversation.Elle is the author of The Elysian, an exploration of utopian ideas through fiction and non-fiction that goes out to over 11,000 subscribers on Substack. In December 2023, her open letter defending Substack’s content moderation policy, co-signed by a large number of Substack authors, went viral. The catalyst? An article in The Atlantic by Jonathan M. Katz called “Substack Has A Nazi Problem”. Katz’s main beef is that Nazis and extremists have Substack newsletters that in some cases have paid subscribers, and therefore, he claims, Substack is helping Nazis to make money, and is taking a cut in the process. No prizes for guessing what he thinks would solve the “Nazi Problem”.Would censorship and de-platforming be better than the hands-off, walled garden approach that Substack has chosen? The following response from Substack’s Hamish McKenzie was not enough to assuage and re-cage the outrage:I just want to make it clear that we don't like Nazis either — we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse.To paraphrase Louis XV: Après ça, le déluge.On one side of this argument stand arrayed the usual suspects from the commentariat and the haunted casket of the New York Times.On the other side, the signatories to Elle’s letter such as Matt Taibbi of Racket News, Michael Shellenberger of Public, Glenn Loury, and many more.Elle and I do our bit to tease out the subtleties of the situation while maintaining our sense of humour. I hope you enjoy it.Feel free to explore the links above and leave a comment letting me know whose argument you find most compelling. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Charged! Convicted! Sentenced! Then tried?In this episode, I speak with CJ Hopkins, an award-winning playwright, novelist, and political satirist who lives in Berlin.CJ’s plays have been produced and have toured at theatres and festivals in London, New York, Edinburgh, Sydney, Toronto, Los Angeles, Atlanta, the Netherlands, and his political satire and commentary have been published by Consent Factory, OffGuardian, ZeroHedge, ColdType, Rubikon, RT.com, CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, and many other publications. His dystopian science fiction novel, Zone 23, is also out now.CJ is in the process of being tried in German court because of retweets he sent on X/Twitter which included an image of his book cover (see below):The book is a compilation of his essays commenting on what he saw as a fascistic tendency in German politics related to the pandemic, and swastikas are legal for use in "art or science, research or teaching" in Germany, so the image itself was not the basis of his alleged crime.Whether you agree with his conclusions, or with his interpretation, what seems fairly clear is that he was implying that the similarity he saw with fascist policies, denoted by the swastika on his book cover, was a bad thing. It is therefore bizarre that the charge against him is “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization,” punishable by “imprisonment for not more than three years or a fine.”CJ has spent a 30-year career writing with great passion, fluency, and intensity about his opposition to war, fascism, totalitarianism and so forth, with humour and humanity. Whether or not you agree with his perspective, his experience of being charged in this way, and of the process he is being subjected to by the German court, is worrying, and worth hearing.You can find CJ on X and Substack, and his personal website is www.cjhopkins.com.Since it’s Christmas, you might not receive the transcript for this episode for another few days, as I’ve been drafted into an industrial-scale kitchen operation for the feeding of the multitudes. ‘Tis the season for forgiveness, so I plead mercy.If you received this as a forward, please consider subscribing to receive our weekly dystopian round-up The Weekly Weird, episode transcripts, and more!If you’re not totally tapped out by the holiday season, and you want to support us with that thing called money that people are always talking about, all blessings are gratefully received.Thank you for reading and listening. I hope that 2023 was kind to you, and that 2024 will be even better.Stay sane out there, my friends. Merry Christmas! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Entrapment! Terrorism! Nazis! It’s time for our second episode!Our guest is Ken Silva, an investigative journalist focused on data privacy and, more recently, the FBI’s role in right-wing extremism.Ken and I discuss his work on the Fed Files, his investigative series at Headline USA based on documents he got access to through a source who…well, listen to our conversation, he explains it better than I can.We get into the details of his in-depth research on the role of FBI informants within the neo-Nazi movement in the United States, some history on how the Feds’ tactical grab-bag was developed and used from the 1970s through to the 1990s, and how 9/11 and the Patriot Act really kicked ‘anti-terrorism’ into a higher gear. Extra talkies include Oklahoma City, the concept of ‘inert material’, the ‘Nazi chud’ who fell in with the North Koreans, and more! Be sure to check the transcript for links to some of the things Ken mentions - I’ve linked some key subjects to relevant background reading, sources, and documents.You can find Ken on X (formerly Twitter) here.Subscribers receive transcripts of every episode, as well as emails and updates. If you received this email as a forward, please subscribe (it’s free), and share.If you’re in a position to support us with money, we’d be very grateful and (subject to your preferences) give you a shout-out for your generosity. Please consider a donation.Thanks as always for listening. I can’t wait to hear what you think! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com

Thank you all for being the very first subscribers to our shared podcast journey.Speaking of sharing…This episode features the author, journalist, and podcaster Dorian Lynskey. His excellent book The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is worth reading and is available from all reputable booksellers (and disreputable ones as well, I’m sure).He and I talk about his research into Orwell, the motives the great man himself had for writing the genre-defining novel, the broader threads that stitch the book into our society’s idea of itself, and more besides.It was a good chat, and Dorian is a lovely man with a deep knowledge of the subject. I hope you enjoy it.Also, as subscribers, you’ll get a transcript of each episode as well. I’m still figuring out the best way to do it, so forgive me if typos or other errors snuck in. It will follow in a separate email because it’s quite long, probably due to my overly verbose and redundant loquacity. Or is it garrulousness? I’m not erudite enough to cognise such terminology.If you received this email as a forward and haven’t subscribed to the Substack yet, please do!Thank you again for subscribing during this crucial launch phase. Please tell your friends, your enemies, your families, your doctor, your dog’s therapist, whomever you can rope into our nascent community. Here’s that button again…Please don’t forget to reach out and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear from you.With gratitude,Mike This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com