We're finally covering the Norse vision of the apocalypse, Ragnarök. We go over the Norse pantheon of gods, Odin, Thor, Loki, all your favorites, and then we get into some of the events that presage the coming of doom before plunging fully into that doom itself, particularly the tragic death of the Baldr done by coward Loki. We also get into some of the classic Norse apocalyptic monsters, Fenrir, Jörmungandr, Hel, Garmr, and, of course, Surtr (who could forget Surtr?). It's a trip through Norse myth with comparisons to Greek and Christian visions of the end of the world thrown in for good measure.

We open the episode by discussing the recent ceasefire in Gaza, with hopes that it finally holds and brings an end to this terrible war, while along the way noting some of the discrepancies of language still en vogue in the media when addressing this war.

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We're finally tackling 1981's Mad Max 2 or The Road Warrior. One of the most influential post-apocalyptic films of the last fifty years, it is also considered to be one of the greatest action movies of all time. So of course, Michael is ambivalent about it, and Stu is OUTRAGED by that ambivalence. By the end will our hosts reach some kind of accord, or will this be a friendship-ending episode? To find out, you must listen.

We start out by discussing Trump's recent threats to invoke the dreaded Insurrection Act in order to quell "riots" in Portland, Chicago, and other American cities. We speculate on what the goal of these threats might really be.

Politico on Trump and the Insurrection Act

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This week we have bowed to pressure and are at last covering a 2013 National Geographic documentary called "How to Survive the End of the World: Zombie Earth." This is the first entry in a six part series to which we shall be returning periodically. The zombie apocalypse scenario set out in this infotainment feature is really about rabies, and not just regular, terrifying rabies, no. The documentary dares to ask, "What if rabies went airborne?"

It's interesting to look back on this cultural artifact from the 2010s with the knowledge we now possess of how the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic played out, and we do just that in this episode, noting the things the documentary gets right and those things it gets...completely wrong...or misses entirely.

We open up the episode by talking about YouTube's recent settlement with Donald Trump over his ban in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection. Has a golden age of free speech really begun, or is something else afoot?

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At long last we are covering Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien. We go over how the film is really about, surprise, capitalism, and how the ultimate aim of capitalism is to discover the perfect war-making commodity, in this case, a merciless killing machine unburdened by illusions of "morality," as one character puts it. Great movie, really fun to discuss, and we were even joined briefly by a special cat guest as we were discussing the prominent role in the film played by Jones, the crucial feline crew member.

We open the episode by going over the recently declared (by RFK Jr and Trump) connection between Tylenol and autism. What's next, Aleve is actually responsible for cancer? We consider the ominous implications of being governed by a cadre of people who seem to exist entirely in a world of illusion of their own making.

This podcast contains spoilers for Alien.

The New York Times on Trump and RFK Jr.'s Tylenol and Autism Announcement

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This week we are talking about 2022's Triangle of Sadness. Directed by Ruben Östlund, the movie looks at class divisions in three stages, zooming out from the troubles in an individual romantic relationship, then looking at class as it works on a luxury cruise, before finally depicting a kind of post-apocalyptic, Lord-of-the-Flies-with-adults situation on a seemingly deserted island. Beautifully made and at moments hilarious, we both felt there were times when the film was a bit heavy-handed, and we both had trouble deriving a "thesis" from what the picture depicts. How are we meant to understand the depths of its ironies? Is it completely black-pilled?

We open the episode by discussing the media reaction to the recent, murderous events in Utah. What does this bode for the future of political relations in the United States?

This episode contains spoilers for Triangle of Sadness.

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We've gone back to a total classic of the apocalypse genre, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, to mark our return from our "brief sojourn" in the realms of the afterlife. We get into all sorts of stuff about childhood traumas caused by the film, the desirability of voiceover in movies, the ATM-hacking skills of young John Connor; it's all here.

We open the episode by discussing the recently revealed "birthday letter" and consider what its implications might be, both for Trump's future and for his taste in art.

We then segue into a recent article from Politico about the "inevitability" of AI being integrated into the US's nuclear defense program and why that might be...a bad idea.

This episode contains spoilers for Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Politico on AI, escalation, and potential nuclear war

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In the final installment (for now) of our afterlife miniseries, we are considering the ancient Vedic Religion, the ancestor of modern Hinduism which arose in northwestern India in the second millennium BCE. We talk about the idea of being reincarnated in other realms (as opposed to in this world), and the different factors that might alter the realm in which one finds oneself. We also get into various hypotheses about where the Vedic religion came from, discussing the Indo-European peoples as well as the mysterious Indus Valley Civilization whose script remains as yet undeciphered.

The episode opens with another one of Michael's afterlife hypotheticals, speaking of hypotheses. Next week we'll be back to covering the end of the world as we usually do.

Theme music is from "After Life" by No Sky God.

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Moving in a parallel direction to our last topic, we are going over the afterlife beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians this week, touching on mummification, the pyramid texts, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the elusive Field of Reeds. We compare the classes afterlife of the Mesopotamians to the highly stratified beliefs of the Egyptians, while also noting that, for the first time in our series on the ancient world, there is an idea of an eternal paradise at the end in this vision.

We start the episode with another one of Michael's mind-bending afterlife hypotheticals. This one he has not posed to hundreds of people...yet.

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