The End of the World with Michael and Stu
The Apocalypse is Everywhere. The End of the World with Michael and Stu is a (hopefully) insightful and (hopefully) humorous exploration of the rise of apocalyptic news, apocalyptic thinking and apocalyptic culture. Each week, we’ll be looking at a work of art, a piece of media, or an historical event related to the (hopefully not) impending End of the World.
The End of the World with Michael and Stu
Latest Episodes
119: All My Impurities and Evils yet Unknown
This week we are covering recent events in the news, including NBA playoff conspiracies, time travel conspiracies about the recent attempted shooting of President Trump, the "missing scientists" conspiracy (which maybe, just maybe, ties into th...
118: A Brief History of the Afterlife Eight
This week we travel to the Americas to consider the Aztec conception of the afterlife. Unlike many of the cultures we have covered, the Aztecs put a great weight on the manner of your death in determining the location of your eternal (or not so...
117: A Brief History of the Afterlife Seven
This week we are going to Ancient Greece and exploring their vision of the afterlife. We talk about the judges in hell, about Hades, about all of our favorite denizens of Hades, such as Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Ixion, and we even relate the stor...
116: A Brief History of the Afterlife Six
Our occasional series, "A Brief History of the Afterlife," is BACK. This week we are covering the Zoroastrian vision of the afterlife, including the Chinvat Bridge, the four layers of heaven, the four layers of hell, Ahura Mazda, Angra Mainyu, ...
115: A Motion and a Spirit, that Impels All Thinking Things
It is finally here: the cybernetics episode! We go over the origins and basic concepts of the 20th century science of cybernetics, looking specifically at the work of Norbert Wiener and Gregory Bateson. We draw on Stu's 2025 article
