Upstream
This is a free preview of the episode "The More Than Human World" You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at or at . Thank you. "The More Than Human World" is a phrase...
info_outline A Solstice Celebration for 2024 w/ Manda Scott and Nathalie NahaiUpstream
Happy Solstice! In this annual tradition, Della is joined by two fellow podcast hosts to reflect on the past year and set some intentions for the year ahead. Manda Scott is a novelist, smallholder, and host of the podcast , which showcases individuals and organizations at the emerging edge of our world to set the foundation for a future we’d be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. Manda’s latest novel, Any Human Power, is out now and available . Nathalie Nahai is a behavior science advisor, author and host of the podcast , which focuses on psychology,...
info_outline Historical Materialism w/ Torkil LauesenUpstream
Historical materialism is the science of Marxism. It’s the theory developed by Marx and Engels that explains how human societies develop and change over time based on economic organization. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, historical materialism serves as a powerful tool in understanding the world around us. It explains why societies are arranged the way that they are, why there are classes, why revolutions happen—and when taken together with the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism, historical materialism becomes a rigorous scientific tool for...
info_outline [UNLOCKED] Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shaun HarrisonUpstream
Anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Being Black and fat in our capitalist, white-supremacist, ableist, heteronormative society is to live in a body that is subjected to a form of unique violence marked by policing, misdiagnosis, discrimination, abuse, trauma—the list goes on. And anti-fatness and anti-Blackness are not simply two separate things—disparate nodes on a circuit of oppression—anti-fatness and anti-Blackness form a crucial intersection, and are ultimately one and the same, according to our guest, in terms of their history, structural, weaponization, and deployment by the...
info_outline [TEASER] Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An IntroductionUpstream
This is a free preview of the episode "Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An Introduction." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at or at . Thank you. "Sure, I...
info_outline How to Be a Good Ancestor w/ Roman KrznaricUpstream
It's been said that “the shortest path to the future is always one through the deepening of the past.” But how do we balance the past, present, and future, when all three weigh so heavily on our consciousness and our social existence? Perhaps one way to find a balance—or at least to distill these various webbed threads of temporality—might be to pose them as questions: what can we learn from the past to help us in the present? And how can I be a good ancestor for the people of tomorrow? These are the questions that inform and guide the recent work of our guest on today's episode. is a...
info_outline [TEASER] Palestine Pt. 14: Decolonial Marxism w/ Patrick HigginsUpstream
This is a free preview of the episode "Palestine Pt. 14: Decolonial Marxism w/ Patrick Higgins." You can listen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you'll get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at or at . Thank you. The Palestinian...
info_outline The Exhausted of the Earth w/ Ajay Singh ChaudharyUpstream
Exhaustion. What a perfect and powerful word to describe our times. Exhausted bodies—over-worked, over-productive, over-stretched. Bodies pushed to their limits, treated like machines whose sole existence is to produce profit. Exhausted ecosystems—extracted, ruined, plundered. Viewed as nothing but raw material for the ceaseless flow of capital accumulation. Exhausted minds—hurried and harried, no time for joy, for introspection, for pondering the cosmos. Our minds are tethered to an orbit delineated by distraction, denial, and despair. Exhaustion. 2024 is on track to be the hottest year...
info_outline [TEASER] Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shaun HarrisonUpstream
This is a free preview of the episode "The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness w/ Da'Shuan Harrison," which will be unlocked in a few weeks. To can get early access to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this...
info_outline Prefigurative Politics and Workplace Democracy w/ Saio Gradin and Nicole WiresUpstream
Prefigurative politics, building the new within the old, exercising our muscles of collectivity and collaboration—muscles that have grown weak and atrophied under capitalist hegemony—these are all ideas and practices that play a crucial role in our revolutionary movements. And examples of prefiguration can and do take many interesting and inspiring forms—one of these forms is worker self-direction, or worker cooperatives. In today’s episode we’re talking prefiguration and worker self-direction—and we’ve split the episode up into two parts so that we can dive deeply into...
info_outlineListen to the full episode by subscribing to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/upstreampodcast
As a Patreon subscriber you will get access to at least one bonus episode a month (usually two or three), our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, early access to certain episodes, and other benefits like stickers and bumper stickers—depending on which tier you subscribe to. You’ll also be helping to keep Upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Find out more at Patreon.com/upstreampodcast or at upstreampodcast.org/support. Thank you.
Weight loss has become a fully fledged industry in the United States—another classic trick by the capitalist class: manufacture a problem to make profits, and then sell a half-solution back to the population to purportedly address that problem. Are you experiencing health issues from the poisonous food manufacturing industry in the United States? No problem, we got you. Here’s a drug.
You might have heard of a drug called Ozempic—if not, don’t worry, we’ll bring you up to speed soon, but for now, all you need to know is that it’s a brand new weight loss drug that swept its way through Hollywood a couple of years ago and has now found its way into the bathroom mirrors of people around the world. Some predictions actually suggest that in a few years, a quarter of the U.S. population will be taking these drugs. In fact, it’s become so widespread that there’s been a decline in the stock value of companies like Krispy Kreme, the doughnut brand, which analysts have directly attributed to the growing popularity of drugs like Ozempic.
But what problem are these miracle weight loss drugs really trying to solve? If they are meant to increase our health and well-being, how do they actually impact health indicators? And what if the ultimate solution to the problem of increasing stress under capitalism and a poisonous food industry is more complicated than injecting yourself with appetite suppressing hormones?
These are the same questions that led today’s guest on a journey from Iceland to Minneapolis to Tokyo to find some answers about the impacts of industrial food manufacturing and “miracle” drugs. The answers aren’t black and white, and they take us through a deep and widely varying conversation that spans from body positivity movements, to weight loss drugs, fast food, anorexia, body dysmorphia, health and healing, and much more.
Johann Hari is the author of the books Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope, Stolen Focus: Why you Can’t Pay Attention, and, most recently, Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs. In this episode Johann tells us about his experience experimenting with Ozempic, the benefits and drawbacks of the drug, what it taught him about shame, willpower, and healing, and whether these magic little pills are a pathway towards liberation from diabetes, cancer, and an early death, or if they’re just another symptom of and false solution to a system that poisons us for a profit.
Further resources:
- Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs, by Johann Hari
Related episodes:
- Upstream: Stolen Focus with Johann Hari
- Upstream: The Political Economy of Food with Eric Holt-Gimenez
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