298 - Mary Harrington - Conspiracies and the Return of Myth

I had a wonderful discussion with writer Mary Harrington about conspiracies, myth and memes, the internet, artificial intelligence, and meaning-making.
Mary Harrington is a columnist and editor for UnHerd and runs her own weekly Substack Reactionary Feminist. She's interested in the political and cultural side-effects of globalization, the replacement of class politics by identity politics, the joy of limits, and women’s rights in the biotech age, which is the subject of her first book, Feminism Against Progress.

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/D__CrY3FaWA

- Mary's Twitter: https://twitter.com/moveincircles
- Substack: https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/
- UnHerd articles: https://unherd.com/author/mary-harrington/
- Book: https://www.amazon.com/Feminism-against-Progress-Mary-Harrington/dp/1684514878

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Introduction to the video
00:00:40 - Intro music
00:01:05 - How to understand conspiracies
00:05:17 - Eating babies
00:06:59 - Lizard elites
00:09:26 - Why myth is coming back
00:16:48 - Meaning-making and money
00:19:28 - Oral culture
00:21:28 - Artificial intelligence
00:22:40 - How does Mary see Ai and writing?
00:25:56 - Writers VS ChatGPT
00:28:28 - Teams and nation-states
00:31:58 - Crowdfunding and Crowdfeeding
00:34:09 - Weaponizing the conspiracy label
00:43:10 - Anti-normativity
00:46:38 - Making normal mainstream again
00:49:19 - There will be suffering
00:52:23 - Government and Ai
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The Symbolic World

Jonathan Pageau looks at symbolism in all its forms, from its source in sacred stories and images to contemporary culture and ultimately how it shapes the world we encounter.

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