Episodes – Page 3 – Failed Utopia Podcast

August 24, 2021November 9, 2021

Credit Card Rewards

Credit card rewards. Who knew they had a dark side? Crazy, right? Well, not if you know the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

July 27, 2021November 9, 2021

The Family aka The Great White Brotherhood of Initiates and Masters (Anne Hamilton-Byrne)

Today, you get to hear about an Australian new-age, nuclear-apocalypse doomsday, child-stealing cult called The Great White Brotherhood of Initiates and Masters. Or for short, The Family. They stole babies, and they also dropped a lot of acid.

July 15, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 8

The final chapter of Thomas More’s Utopia.

July 13, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 7

Part seven is all about the Utopians’ military, and this might actually be one of the few times Thomas More manages to stay on topic.

July 8, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 6

In part six, Thomas More makes us think with the chapter title, Of Their Slaves, and Of Their Marriages, that we’re just going to hear about slaves and marriage in Utopia. But somehow he manages to talk about euthanasia, suicide, and the pitfalls of having an overly-complex legal code.

July 6, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 5

In part five of the series, we’ll continue Book 2 by reading Of the Travelling of the Utopians and find out how they they regard the pleasures and pains of life.

July 1, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 4

Today in the fourth part of the series, I’ll talk about weird old Greek words and mention Final Fantasy for no real reason and all and read you the introduction to Book 2 and the first four chapters, which include Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot; Of Their Magistrates; Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life; and Of Their Traffic.

June 29, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 3

In the third part of this series, Hythloday continues his discourse, and the friends discuss communism, greed, money, property, wealth inequality, Plato, religious men who make spiritual compromises for political convenience, and whether it is better to put forth radical ideas or “cast about” and stay in your lane.

June 24, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 2

In the second episode of this series on Thomas More’s Utopia, Hythloday continues his discourse. We’ll hear more about the death penalty, Renaissance humanism, how kings who are selfish stupidly act against their own interests, the fictional land of the Polylerits, and a socially awkward exchange between a court jester and a monk.

June 22, 2021November 9, 2021

More’s Utopia Part 1

It’s Failed Utopia’s inaugural fiction takeover! I’m doing something a little different for the next few episodes and talking not about real world stuff but about a fictional utopia. And what better place to start than with the book that gave us the modern meaning of the word: Thomas More’s Utopia. The book is a discourse on a fictional island called Utopia. Not only did Thomas More coin the phrase, this 16th Century work is widely considered to be the ancestor of the entire utopian and dystopian fiction genre.