Beyond Binary Thinking

The War on Drugs has exacerbated most of the problems it claimed it could fix, costing the United States $1 trillion dollars and wrecking millions of lives, while disproportionally targeting black men. This episode we look deeper into the reality of modern day prohibition and discuss the drawbacks of a lack in drug education and the ramifications of strong drug laws. How dangerous are drugs? Would you want all drugs to be legalised? www.facebook.com/beyondbinarythinking

Real Politik is our favourite podcast, so we jumped on a cross-over to deep dive into how most economic theory is a nonsense mythology based on demonstrably false misunderstandings of people and markets. We also get into the religion of "Leftist" politics and why the Democratic Party stopped representing the working class, paving the way for Trump (and his potential re-election). Visit their Patreon at patreon.com/realpolitik and keep the conversation going on twitter @real_politik. Outro...

Evan Anderson, head of Grey Faction does inspiring work taking on pseudoscience and conspiracy therapists in the mental health industry. We discuss how Satanic Panic made an industry of hysteric Conspiracy Therapists, implanting false memories, and interfering with criminal cases. Does privatized healthcare corrupt therapy as quickly as a nationalized service trying to scale costs? Does the replication crisis invalidate most of psychology, and if so, are the therapies it's based on...

We discuss everyone's vision of Utopia, and how anyone can be happy when so many aren't. Must everyone sacrifice their freedom for someone else's vision of the greater good? Israeli Kibbutzim and apocalyptic sex cults aren't the only ones that have planned for a better future. Most revolutionaries plot for a better future, but how can there be a Utopia, if only a minority want it? As is often the case when we chew on a huge topic, we don't have all the answers, but we have a great...

JK Rowling's blog defending TERFS and the letter that followed promoted another round of discussion on Trans and non-binary rights, the problems with Cancel Culture, and worries of 1984 wrongthink wokescolding. We discuss with Trans Activist and stand up comedian Insanely Shane from the Holy Tranity what JK got wrong, and whether people are allowed to make mistakes in these conversation without moral panic? Despite the Left's recent claims that cancel culture is just feedback for bigotted...

The disproportionate murder of people of colour by police forces, and poverty has triggered a series of Black Lives Matter protests around the world. Are the police racist, or merely policing a structurally racist inequality? Will the arrest of "a few bad apples" fix the problem? Does "playing the race card" and toppling statues make things worse in a multicultural society? And if so, why has decades of peaceful protesting been so poorly received? Will more active demonstrations achieve...

The Beyond Binary team debates whether it's possible to be a conscious consumer, how evolutionary psychology, social media, and a desire to succeed and be conscious drive us all to be more conspicuous in our spending habits, and whether the scorn of this all is helpful. From Zizek to Kim Kardashian via Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates, we talk about poverty shaming, the politics of envy, whether greed is good, and whether progress is possible.

From harmless tales of Bigfoot and aliens, a mistrust of everything, and social media has mutated conspiracy theories into a monster. The Beyond Binary Thinking crew are joined by Jonny Miller to discuss how scientific illiteracy, skepticism, algorithms and echo chambers have us dying from preventable diseases, burning down 5g masts, and completely unsure who's running our elections any more. Will Newton's flaming laser sword save us? Do we really hate our own politicians so much, we'd...

We invite knowledgeable and eloquent guests for a beyond binary discussion, and we knew we'd outdone ourselves as soon as we started talking with Philosopher Lewis Williams from our favourite podcast Searching for It. What followed was a free and open conversation, following the most interesting tangents intersecting philosophy, psychology, and culture. Why did Simulism capture the public's imagination and what does it have in common with death cults? How does meditation become a...

The current pandemic is so controversial, we had to abort our first attempt at recording this episode. It devolved into a pretty heated argument. So we came back vaccinated against disinformation, and ready for a calmer, more entertaining discussion, on how skepticism in the face of social media clickbait, our stone-age misunderstandings of statistics, and a mistrust of government has doomed us. Will everything be all right? Well it won't ever be the same! Thanks to Kit Zellerbach for...

America’s history has always combined colonialist expansion with entrepreneurial spirit. Is Lockheed Martin sponsored war with Iran the inevitable logical step? Following another longstanding tradition, two Europeans critique American foreign policy. We’re joined by an American political hip hop artist to help explain whether there’s method to the madness of the orange president, and whether Christian Evangelicals are catalyzing world war three. We struggle to play devil’s advocate, and...

I was surprised when two senior leaders of The Satanic Temple agreed to a chat, especially given the organisations’s dramatic growth following the warts and all documentary (now on Netflix). I came prepared to play devil’s advocate. How can a group whose values include the right to offend be inspiring and thoughtful? How does a growing and popular organisation stop themselves from becoming the powerful theocracy they’re protesting against? The Satanist label clearly gets a lot of press...

We invite Ilyas Kassam from Karl Marx Does The Washing Up to discuss why disagreements get everyone so worked up. Has Social Media really made our echo chambers worse than when we lived in small villages? Is arguing online merely filling the lonely void since we left those villages? Is it part of our need to make our mark on the world, or make sense of the chaos? How do we make these communities, and our conversations more productive and positive? Is argument and disagreement a negative...

We're joined by Brocialist YouTuber - The Swoletariat to discuss the Left, what it gets right, where it fails, and how it can improve and win an election for a change. Tired of the narrative of "The Rise of the Right" we discuss pragmatically why the left is losing the culture war, how some are turning it around, and why woke scolding, witch hunting, social media slacktavist gatekeeping is so damaging to the cause. We tackle identity grifters, dog whistlers and conspiracy theorists on both...

While the daydream Brelievers seem asleep at the wheel, the Remoaners' project fear remains as unconvincing as their attempts to call everyone racist. Most of us ran out of hope and interest years ago, but after failing to avoid the topic, the Beyond Binary Team finally discuss Brexit. We brought on our favourite troll from the Facebook comments as a guest speaker. Toby's job was to keep the conversation as hilarious and futile as the subject matter. Chris tried his hardest to defend...

Beyond Binary Takes to the streets and demands action. There's no debate (outside of America) about whether climate change exists. The same Oil Lobbyists who've bought Congress to deny the existence of climate change, are now pushing the narrative that it's too late to do anything. So have you abandoned hope? Will thoughts and prayers, likes and shares be your only response? No! It's time for courage, action, and recognition that any politician that isn't going act immediately,...

A drunk & hedonistic psychologist, a sober absurdist philosopher, and a high nihilistic anthropologist discuss it all and more, while laughing at the surreal tragedy of trying to find happiness in life, as we celebrate our 10th episode. Should we search for meaning in life or do we need to create it ourselves? Is finding meaning key to a happy life? Is happiness key to a meaningful life? Can happiness be achieved on an individual scale or do we need community? Do we need to strive...

The Israeli occupation of Palestine has been the longest military engagement ever. The Palestinians have received more financial aid than any group in history (larger per capita than the Marshall plan). There's no shortage of news coverage nor opinions on Israel, Palestine, Zionism nor Anti-Semitism. So we talked to an Arabian Jew, who was capable of seeing both sides, to explore the nuance and intricacies of this complex narrative. More of a discussion and a learning exercise, than a...

Technological Philosophy: are we moving from a carbon-based organism to an immortal silicon-based consciousness? Four curious souls discuss the current understanding of human consciousness and how it has shaped itself. The conversation moves through exciting realms of artificial intelligence, network intelligence and other SciFi banter to explore if the future of human/artificial consciousness belongs to a skull, a digital post-human, or the junkyard.

Beyond Binary Thinking confronts the Libertarian Right's claim that Marxist academics and millennial snowflakes are destroying freedom of speech with their no platforming, trigger warning safe space political correctness. We also look into the Left's counter-theory that the Koch Brothers are flooding campuses with hate speech as part of a funded Culture War. From religion to politics, hate crime to death threats, we get deep and controversial as we hold up the mirror to the excesses...