Join your fellow Crazy Townies by registering at resilience.org/crazytownhall

The Crazy Town Hall is a live, online get-together for our most engaged listeners, affectionately known as Crazy Townies. The Town Hall is your chance to hang out with Jason, Rob, and Asher – and your fellow Crazy Townies – as we continue our arduous journey to the center of a collapsing techno-industrial, politically incompetent civilization. This 75-minute event will feature plenty of lampoonery, fun pop quizzes, and even good ideas for building community resilience.

Like any respectable political circus these days, this event is also a fundraiser. So please consider making a donation to our modest nonprofit organization, and join us for some fun at the Crazy Town Hall.

Is hypocrisy the one thing that can grow infinitely on our finite planet? When you learn that humanity’s fossil fuel burning, including your own, is contributing to climate chaos, what can you do? When you understand that economic growth and consumption are causing habitat loss and the sixth mass extinction, can you opt out? As long as you are embedded in an unsustainable society, it’s hard not to be a hypocrite. At the same time, dropping out seems isolating and ineffective, if you can even do it. Join Jason, Asher, and Rob as they hit the confessional to examine the challenges and psychology of hypocrisy. Originally recorded on 4/23/26.

• Hassan Fathy
• A Short History of Endurance by Charlotte Del Signore
• Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus
• Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy
• Homegrown National Park
• "What Is the Window of Tolerance, and Why Is It So Important?" Psychology Today, May 23, 2022.
• Asher recommends taking 20 minutes to sit down with this worksheet to better understand triggers/signs for when you’re either in hyperarousal (fight/flight) or hypoarousal (freeze).

• Episode 16, “The 10,000-Mile Cod and Insane Global Trade”

Production and editing by Alex Leff. Editorial assistance and transcripts by Taylor Antal.

Theme music is “Way Huge” and “Don’t Give Up” by Midnight Shipwrecks, used with permission.

Thanks to all the Crazy Townies, our listeners who are trying to understand humanity's overshoot predicament and do something about it.

Chris Smaje visits Crazy Town for some farmer-to-farmer straight talk with Jason Bradford. Are these two long lost cousins? Both dropped out of academia years ago to become philosophizing farmers (can we call them “pharmers” with a “ph,” as in PhD?!?). Chris’s latest book, Finding Lights in a Dark Age: Sharing Land, Work and Craft explores how we can move from modernity’s unsustainable political economy toward a re-organization of society, driven by communities and local food systems. In this wide-ranging conversation, Chris and Jason cover everything from Viking raids to agrarian populism, from societal collapse to the practicalities of making your way in a failed state. And they can’t get away from the shop talk of gardens, livestock, and home economics. Originally recorded on 4/2/26.

• Chris Smaje’s Blog
• Finding Lights in a Dark Age by Chris Smaje
• Excerpt of the book on Resilience
• Second excerpt on Resilience
• Review: Saying NO to Ecomodermism. Smaje Versus Monbiot, It’s No Contest

• Episode 98, “Bargaining With Collapse: A Superabundance of Lab Grown Meat and Dryer Balls”

Production and editing by Alex Leff. Editorial assistance and transcripts by Taylor Antal.

Theme music is “Way Huge” and “Don’t Give Up” by Midnight Shipwrecks, used with permission.

Thanks to all the Crazy Townies, our listeners who are trying to understand humanity's overshoot predicament and do something about it.

It’s really refreshing to hear from you, our listeners and fellow strugglers living in high-energy modernity (affectionately known as Crazy Townies). This mailbag episode offers the element of surprise, as it gives Jason, Rob, and Asher a chance to respond with delight and spontaneity to your questions and comments. Join the guys as they apply their dubious intellectual powers, subpar comedic talents, and underwhelming insights to your Crazy Townie queries. Originally recorded on 3/6/26.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Tradable Energy Quotas
• Carfree City Alliance
• Braver Angels
• Maclean Art Blog

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Episode 19, “I Can’t Drive… 35! The Rationale for Rationing”
• Episode 45, “Feedback Loops and Climate Catastrophe, or… the Story of the Baseball Bloodbath”

What happens when technology and competition start to invade our experiences in nature? For example, what if you’re so focused on documenting a bird sighting in your iPhone app that you fail to appreciate the majestic songs of the bushtit or dickcissel on the branch in front of you? In this episode, Jason, Rob, and Asher explore the world of competitive birding, the relationship between those who love nature and the technology they use to connect to it, and how even the most gentle of shared passions can get corrupted by status-fueled competition. Bear with us through the maddening tech and over-the-top competition as we rediscover how to observe and just exist within our home ecosystems. Originally recorded on 3/5/26.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Holding the Fire
• Owen Reiser, Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching, 2025
• David Frankel, The Big Year, 2011 film
• Nature photographer Hannah Seilhan

Have you ever had that feeling in your gut, when you suddenly realize that the person you’re talking with might have a screw or two loose? What about when you’re the one others are trying to slowly back away from at the punch bowl? The question of who’s the real nut often arises for us collapse-aware folks living here in Crazy Town. Since Mr. Peanut is no longer returning their phone calls, Rob, Jason, and Asher invite Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist, professor, and host of the Team Human Podcast to answer the question. In this far ranging conversation, they discuss why “leveling down” might be the best strategy for navigating late stage capitalism and bringing ourselves back into right relationship with each other and the planet. Originally recorded on 2/24/26.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Team Human
• Douglas Rushkoff YouTube Channel
• Douglas Rushkoff, “You Are Not Crazy,” Substack, January 7, 2026
• Douglas Rushkoff, “Survival of the Richest,” Medium, July 5, 2018
• Jesse Armstrong, Mountainhead, 2025 film
• Dan Fogelman, Paradise, Hulu, 2025 series
• Prospera
• Neom
• California Forever
• Jack Manno, Privileged Goods, 1999 book

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

• Tech Bros on Acid with Douglas Rushkoff (Bonus episode of Crazy Town)
• It’s All Paradox with Douglas Rushkoff (Bonus episode of Crazy Town)