One Thing Worth a Rant

Jeremy Pennycook
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A personal diatribe on a single topic that’s hopefully relevant, but still surprising in a new light.

  1. 3d ago

    Megacorp Dystopia: How Cyberpunk 2077 Models The Perils of AI and Regulatory Capture

    We may be imagining the wrong AI apocalypse. When the leaders of Anthropic and OpenAI warn that AI could end civilisation, most of us picture Terminator or The Matrix where a superintelligence taking over. But there’s another story about technology and power, and I think it’s the more useful warning: Cyberpunk.I also look at the satire of Don’t Look Up, which has tackles the messaging problem of predicting the end of the world.CHAPTERS00:00 The wrong AI apocalypse01:04 Cyberpunk: technology works, society doesn't02:58 The AI labs' contradiction05:03 Regulatory capture: Boeing and Arasaka07:49 Safety as a moat: the catch-2209:01 Don't Look Up11:37 Techno-feudalism: who is the argument for?13:50 A political choiceSources and further reading- WIRED — Isabella Ward, OpenAI Pauses Training Its Most Powerful Models After Rogue Agents Target Government (28 Sep 2026): https://www.wired.com/story/openai-pauses-training-most-powerful-models-after-rogue-agents-target-government/- George J. Stigler — The Theory of Economic Regulation (Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 1971)- U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure — final committee report on the design, development and certification of the Boeing 737 MAX (2020)- The Economist / YouGov — U.S. adult citizens, 28–31 Aug and 18–21 Sep 2026 (AI harm, benefits and partisan shift)- Stanford HAI — AI Index Report 2026 (source for the Arena, Cloudscene, Epoch AI, Ferracane et al., AI Incident Database, Pew, Ipsos, CHIP50 and U.S. public AI spending charts)- Artificial Analysis — Intelligence Index v4.3.2 (September 2026)- AI Release Tracker — model release timeline: https://aireleasetracker.com/- History of Market — Magnificent 7 share of the S&P 500 (CC BY 4.0): https://historyofmarket.com/- Bloomberg News — AI industry money network graphic (October 2025)- ExecutiveGov — What are the top Boeing government contracts (8 Jan 2026): https://www.executivegov.com/articles/what-are-the-top-boeing-government-contracts- IATA Sustainability and Economics / Cirium Fleets Analyzer — The Global Commercial Aircraft Fleet (June 2025): https://www.iata.org/en/publications/economics/reports/the-global-commercial-aircraft-fleet/- Yahoo Finance — Boeing (BA) weekly share price since 2000- Sensor Tower — State of AI 2026 (June 2026): https://sensortower.com/blog/state-of-ai-2026- Exponential View — AI revenue has more than tripled in a year (2026)International Energy Agency — The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions (2023)- NASA GISS — GISTEMP v4 global temperature anomaly: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/- Federal Reserve — Distributional Financial Accounts via FRED (top 1% vs bottom 50% share of U.S. net worth)- World Bank — Gini index (SI.POV.GINI): https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI- Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red, 2020), Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (Studio Trigger, 2022) and the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG (R. Talsorian Games)- Don’t Look Up (Adam McKay, Netflix, 2021); Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)

    Megacorp Dystopia: How Cyberpunk 2077 Models The Perils of AI and Regulatory Capture

  2. Sep 16

    Better without the Jedi? How Star Wars Zero Company succeeds from a narrative perspective.

    Star Wars Zero Company feels like the Star Wars I grew up with. Not the movies—the LucasArts games, the X-Wing novels, the trading card game. The old Expanded Universe, where stories happened inside the galaxy instead of orbiting the Skywalkers. Zero Company is a tactical, turn-based game set during the Clone Wars, but the interesting part isn’t the war. It’s the crew: a scoundrel with a personal moral compass, a Separatist partisan who lectures you about Republic imperialism, a discharged clone trooper carrying the weight of the war, and a rhyming toad-bulldog prizefighter who loves opera. The game never tells you which choice is right. It just asks you to pick. In this episode of One Thing Worth A Rant, I argue that the Jedi have become the most boring part of Star Wars—not because they’re bad, but because Light vs Dark always drags the story back to a struggle we’ve exhausted. The sequels mistook the original story for what made the original world compelling. The prequels, ironically, were reaching for something more interesting: a democracy sliding into authoritarianism through ordinary choices about order, security, and obedience. Zero Company, Andor, The Bad Batch, even Galaxy’s Edge work because they point the camera down—away from the mythic, toward the everyday. History viewed from eye level. Palpatine promises order; the Rebellion creates chaos. On good vs evil we know who to root for. On order vs freedom, is it so clear cut? Star Wars isn’t literally better without the Jedi. It’s better when it doesn’t need them to carry the whole story. CHAPTERS 00:00 Star Wars and the Old Expanded Universe 01:09 Zero Company: The Crew 03:38 World Building 05:43 The Jedi Are the Boring Part 07:29 Gritty realism 09:55 Why Zero Company Works

    Better without the Jedi? How Star Wars Zero Company succeeds from a narrative perspective.

  3. Sep 3

    History Retold: The Odyssey, 300, and Zero Dark Thirty

    Christopher Nolan’s *The Odyssey* is the latest version of a story that's been rewritten for nearly 3,000 years. But does retelling stories actually preserve the past? Historical fiction selects, compresses, and dramatizes and with every retelling an new interpretation is layered ontop. Nolan’s *The Odyssey* is a reminder of the relationship between history, myth, and cultural memory. And why every generation ends up rewriting the past in its own image. This isn’t an argument that adaptation is bad. Stories have always changed in the telling. But when fiction becomes our primary connection to the past, it’s worth remembering the difference between the story we inherited and the history underneath it. CHAPTERS 00:00 Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey 01:58 Homer Was Already Retelling the Past 02:58 Nolan Adds Another Layer 03:40 Translation Is Interpretation 05:41 When Stories Become History 06:06 The Myth of the 300 Spartans 09:17 Hollywood Rewrites the Past 11:39 Zero Dark Thirty Makes Memory in Real Time 12:33 What Stories Actually Preserve SOURCES / FURTHER READING Harvard — What to Know Before Seeing Nolan’s “The Odyssey” Cambridge University Press — Telling Old Stories Anew: Homer’s *Odyssey* as a Tale of Our Times Oxford Academic — Homeric Questions: Did Homer Exist and Is the *Iliad* Accurate? The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Mycenaean CivilizationPerseus Digital Library — Herodotus, *Histories*, Book VII

    History Retold: The Odyssey, 300, and Zero Dark Thirty

  4. Aug 14

    Ted Lasso: The Antidote to the Loneliness Epidemic

    Ted Lasso was never really about football. It was about what happens when people stop performing, let their guard down, and allow themselves to be known. Spoilers warning including the opening episodes of Season 4. The show has always been less interested in sports than in the power of connection. As Ted returns to Richmond to coach a women’s team, this episode looks at the show’s real playbook: creating spaces where people can be seen without the performance. Through Ted’s panic attacks, Roy’s anger, Jamie’s bravado, Nate’s fear of rejection, the Diamond Dogs, and the friendship between Rebecca and Keeley, the series offers a different idea of resilience. One built on vulnerability, accountability, forgiveness, and belonging. That message lands in the middle of a real public-health crisis. The former U.S. Surgeon General warned that lacking social connection can carry a mortality risk comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Pew Research, meanwhile, found that men and women report loneliness at roughly equal rates, but women are more likely to draw on a wider network for emotional support. Ted is not a cure for the loneliness epidemic. It cannot replace friendship, family, therapy, or the difficult work of reaching out when we would rather hide. But it may be a remarkably good reminder of the cure’s ingredients.Sources and further reading U.S. Surgeon General — Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (2023): https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf HHS — Social Connection advisory and action framework: https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/connection/index.html Pew Research Center — Men, Women and Social Connections: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2025/01/16/men-women-and-social-connections/ Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton — Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review (PLOS Medicine, 2010): https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316 Tirkkonen and Tietjen — Loneliness and Radicalization (Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2025): https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537251334550 Sparks and Papandreou — The Manosphere and Men’s Wellbeing (The BMJ, 2023): https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p2947 Apple TV — Ted Lasso Season 4 announcement and premise: https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2026/04/apple-tvs-emmy-award-winning-global-smash-hit-series-ted-lasso-returns-for-season-four-on-wednesday-august-5/

    Ted Lasso: The Antidote to the Loneliness Epidemic

  5. Jul 14

    Can You Buy a World Cup? How Economics, Geography, and History Shape Football Prowess

    Why can the US, China, and India dominate almost everything except football? Using player ratings, population, wealth, and Olympic data, this episode argues that World Cup success cannot be bought or brute-forced. It is grown through generations of culture, institutions, and squad depth.

    Can You Buy a World Cup? How Economics, Geography, and History Shape Football Prowess

  6. Jun 23

    Optimism is the answer? Artemis & Hail Mary

    A couple months ago, I stood on a beach looking towards Cape Canaveral, as we sent humans back around the moon for the first time in 50 years. And yet, I couldn't help thinking about a fictional alien made of rocks. Build your own tailored stories for children. Join the waitlist at https://lully.me Need expertise in generative AI and audio? Visit https://podgen.dev

    Optimism is the answer? Artemis & Hail Mary

  7. May 4

    The Holodeck: Star Trek's Generative Content Engine

    Star Trek promised immersion, but the real breakthrough might be dynamic stories you co-create with AI. Build your own tailored stories for children. Join the waitlist at lully.me Need expertise in generative AI and audio? Visit podgen.dev

    The Holodeck: Star Trek's Generative Content Engine

  8. 01/01/2022

    Lord of the Rings Christmas

    Behind the wizards, orcs, and hobbits, the themes of compassion and mercy in Lord of the Rings make it a perfect reminder of the holiday spirit.

    Lord of the Rings Christmas
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About

A personal diatribe on a single topic that’s hopefully relevant, but still surprising in a new light.

Information

  • Creator
    Jeremy Pennycook
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jeremy Pennycook
  • Show Website
    One Thing Worth a Rant