anarchySF - an anarchist, science fiction podcast

We talk about the pen and paper role playing game Shadowrun, focusing on the themes it allows its players and storytellers to explore. Shadowrun is a troperific mix of sci-fi and fantasy that takes everything that's wrong about the world and blows it up at the same time.

Subjects discussed:

Accelerationism and the Frankfurt school's influence on it

Reclaiming Cybernetics

Meaning in postmodern works

Mosaicism

Exceptionalism

Radical infrastructure space

We talk about Jack Womack's "Random acts of senseless violence" - a "minute into the future" dystopia told from the perspective of a 12 year old girl. It's gritty and depressing, just our speed.

Topics include:

How this is a horror story for the Bourgeois

The atomization of daily life

Hobbesian themes

Derrida and the duality between center and periphery

The merits of a political book with no obvious villain

The violence/mundanity barrier

We talk about a Sci-fi album by the band Clipping - Splendor and Misery. The album is a prime example of Afro-Futurism, dealing with such topics as time, space, bodies, space travel, slavery, and much more that we couldn't cover.

The discussed album:

https://clppng.bandcamp.com/album/splendor-misery

Topics discussed:

Queer time and its relevance to race theory

Space, resistance and the body

Belonging

Alternate futures in space

Anger as a political emotion

Anarchy and violence

We discuss one of science fiction's titans: Ursula K. Le Guin, in one of her slightly less read books: The Telling, offering a radical perspective on religion, colonialism and reason. Some themes:

Center-based vs. non-center-based epistemology

Decolonialism

Non-ideal anthropology

Multiple views on religion

Ways of life as resistance

Audio on my (Yanai's) side is a bit rough due to a recording issue, sorry about that!

For more information on Decolonialism I would, from my limited experience, recommend Serene Khader's "Decolonizing Universalism" and Vrinda Dalmiya's "Caring to Know" (tangentially related)

Listen people, we're mad about capitalism. We discuss the game Frostpunk and the movie Snow Piercer, two critiques of capitalism in frozen worlds.

Themes discussed:

Hobbes' Leviathan

Mark Fisher's "Abandon hope, summer is coming"

http://k-punk.org/abandon-hope-summer-is-coming/

The revolt of nature

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic_of_Enlightenment

Inherent conflict

Religion and society

What do we work for?