We begin this week with an upbeat Mitch Altman speaking about the rise of Hackerspaces at TED-X in Brussels in November 2012. Alman, who has been termed "the Johnny Appleseed of hackerspaces", is enthusiastic as he underlines how his life turned around after he found something that he loved doing, and how quickly hackerspaces mushroomed around the world to help such priceless transformations among hundreds of other groups of people. Next we hear a little Gift Economy philosophy from the mystic Alan Watts, who, like the remaining speakers this week, challenges our modern conceptions of the self.

An interview from Latin Waves in 2015 allows Professor Robert Jensen to highlight the importance of self-perception, and the essential role of stories in oppression. He highlights the importance of contesting the bigger stories of imperialistic capitalism, a story of isolation, separation and loneliness. The disaster of modern life for many people in the USA is underlined by a section of a 2014 interview with techno-sceptic Morris Berman. He examines how US culture has been poisoned by corporate-led consumerism and illusions of continual material growth. He further explains how this failure allowed him to write his 2013 book, Spinning Straw Into Gold: Straight Talk for Troubled Times in just 24 hours.

Our last interview is with a new speaker on the show, a young British man named Chris Larcombe. He tells how an experience with psychedelic drugs broadened his perspectives, shaking his agnostic convictions and encouraging him to question the received wisdom about many other aspects of the world. He tells how after became increasingly "disillusioned" with academia he abandoned his PhD in epigenetics to try to create a computer system which could harness artificial intelligence to assist people in meeting their needs and fulfilling their desires - one based not on an abstract system such as money, but a more direct and democratic expression of people's desires.

We conclude with a dedication, and a short snippet from episode 511, which was assisted by long time Unwelcome Guests listener, Alex "Speakers" Wooldridge, to whom this show is dedicated. Is a deputy prime minister does not feel free to challenge an "illegal" war which has slaughtered over a million people, just who can be said to be benefiting from the current "operating system" under which humanity is laboring?
Thanks to Judith Regan for the interview of Morris Berman and to Latin Waves for the Robert Jensen interview.
This week's show is dedicated to longtime Unwelcome Guests listener, Alex "The Speakers" Wooldridge, who suggested material for episodes at least as far back as episode 485. He remained a close friend, separated though he was from me by thousands of miles.

This episode rebroadcasts content from 511.