Bracero Podcast

Adam Hill

Essays and discussions on philosophy, political economy, and the like from a developing libertarian socialist perspective. bracero.substack.com

  1. 10/08/2022

    Longtermism and the Democratic Culture (Audio)

    I finally broke down and got a better microphone. My own ears are accustomed to fifteen year old Librivox recordings, but we live in a podcasting world, and a crappy compressor mic doesn’t slide the way it once did, so I decided to make the bare minimum effort. A sidenote: at one point in this essay, I referred to Will MacAskill as a utilitarian. He has publicly rejected the label, and that’s fair enough. The book itself does reluctantly advance a utilitarian philosophy and doesn’t make much mention of alternative approaches, so it’s no surprise I and so many others came away from it reading MacAskill as a cautious utilitarian (and EA as a utilitarian movement, which it undoubtedly was at least originally), but apparently he’s more of a moral agnostic. Since EA has exploded, I’ve encountered several of its advocates arguing that it can be justified without falling upon a utilitarian moral calculus, a claim I wholly agree with. Anyway, this essay isn’t a critique of utilitarianism of the sort writers like Erik Hoel have offered, mainly because I feel like there’s nothing new to be said there-anyone who knows much about philosophy knows that utilitarianism is at best a very flawed theory. But since I do mischaracterize MacAskill in the essay and the term “utilitarian” has become a bit spicier since I wrote it, I thought I should mention that the characterization was a misreading on my part, and didn’t give enough weight to MacAskill’s circumspection about the argument offered in the book. Get full access to Adam Hill's Substack at bracero.substack.com/subscribe

    19 min
  2. 09/17/2022

    Dan Chodorkoff on Sugaring Down, Communalism, Democracy, Green Capitalism and Identity Politics

    Dan Chodorkoff is an anthropologist and co-founder of the Institute for Social Ecology, which he founded with Murray Bookchin in 1974. His new book, Sugaring Down, is a fictional story about a group of New Left radicals in the mid to late ‘60s establishing a commune in rural Vermont. The book is genuinely a page-turner (at least for the commune-enthused like myself) and Dan is a wealth of history, information, and insight on the left’s past, and proposed roads for its future. It was truly a pleasure to talk with him. Interviewing is an uneasy concept to me, as listeners to this interview will likely be able to tell-the fact of the matter is Bracero is an outlet for my thoughts as a reader of and hobbyist in philosophy, and by the nature of my work I’m much more inclined to discussions than interviews, which is a self-serving way of saying I’ve never been very good at asking questions. But then, what better way to get better? I’m not sure whether this will become a more regular occurrence, though I would like it to be more than a one-off. Bracero will hopefully always be, principally, a writing project. As much as podcasting offers the temptations of a larger audience and a bit less of a grind than the often painstaking and time-consuming writing process, writing has long been a passion of mine, and it remains my favorite way of expressing myself. That being said, I love having this blog as an opportunity to talk to interesting and brilliant people like Dan, with the added benefit of turning this into a bit less of an inherently navel-gazing project. I hope you find it worthwhile. Get full access to Adam Hill's Substack at bracero.substack.com/subscribe

    49 min

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Essays and discussions on philosophy, political economy, and the like from a developing libertarian socialist perspective. bracero.substack.com