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
61: One Step from the Great Beyond
We're talking about the rise and fall of Julius Caesar and the end of the Roman Republic this week, following up on our previous episode. We've got anecdotes about Caesar weeping before statues, his run in with pirates, his war against Vercingetorix in Gaul; all your favorite Caesar stories are here! Plus we also muse a bit on Caesar's death; why did he not take more precautions? Was it a case of suicide by senator? We get into the details, while also touching on the lives of his friends and rivals Pompey, Crassus, and Brutus along the way.
We open the episode by discussing the recent mistaken-group-text-invite story from The Atlantic about the Trump administration's plan for attacking the Houthis. Who among us hasn't mistakenly invited a reporter into a private Signal group?
We also go over Stu's recently published essay, "Cybernetics and the Evolution of Philosophy," which came out this week at Do Not Research.
Stu closes out the episode by reading some passages from his book Communicatingroups that relate directly to Caesar's assassination.
Here is Jeffrey Goldberg's story in The Atlantic about the mistaken group chat invite.
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