Worried about the Future? Join the Club

Worried about the Future? Join the Club

Author: Post Carbon Institute November 19, 2025 Duration: 51:54

There’s the book club, the Rotary Club, the Mickey Mouse Club, and the club sandwich. Whatever your preference, you might want to think about joining a club. Social clubs, fraternal orders, and the like have had a storied and critical role in public life. That is, until government programs and technology gave us an out from having to deal with each other. But with modernity failing, will clubs and community organizations make a huge comeback? In this episode we explore club life – past, present, and future, if there is one. Originally recorded on 11/6/25.

Sources/Links/Notes:

  • Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000.
  • John Michael Greer, "Secret Handshakes," The Archdruid Report, January 21, 2010.

Related episode(s) of Crazy Town:

Episode 65, "Why the Polycrisis Is a Statistical Anomaly: The Willful Delusions of the World’s Leading Pseudointellectual"


Trying to make sense of a world that often feels like it's lost the plot? That's the space where Crazy Town lives. Hosted by Asher, Rob, and Jason from the Post Carbon Institute, this fortnightly conversation navigates the disorienting headlines and deeper systemic crises-from climate chaos and ecological overshoot to the relentless engine of runaway capitalism-with a necessary blend of sharp analysis and dark humor. They’re not just diagnosing the "Great Unraveling" of our social and environmental fabric; they’re actively exploring what a transition to a genuinely sustainable and equitable society could look like, all while trying to keep their own wits about them. This podcast is for anyone who looks at the status quo and senses the profound delusions holding it together, offering listeners a mix of grounded understanding and candid discussion that’s as engaging as it is urgent. Tune in for conversations that are both a reality check and a search for a viable path forward.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 165

Crazy Town
Podcast Episodes
Announcement: Power Podcast with Richard Heinberg [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:41
Please check out our newest podcast, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival featuring Richard Heinberg. How have humans become powerful enough to disrupt the world's climate, trigger the sixth mass extinction, an…
Bonus: Boys and Oil with Taylor Brorby [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:16
Taylor Brorby has written one hell of a memoir. It covers many critical topics that come up in Crazy Town, from fracking to civil disobedience to that most inept of policies: aiming for infinite economic growth on a fini…
Bonus: The Stench of Neoliberalism with Noam Chomsky [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:29
As a follow-up to Episode 61 of the Crazy Town podcast, Noam Chomsky, the well-known linguist, author, and social critic, joins Asher Miller in Crazy Town to discuss the failures and dominance of neoliberalism -- which C…
Skyrocketing Population and Carbon Dioxide: Watershed Moments Wrap-up [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:37
The astute listener will recognize the trends in population and greenhouse gas emissions over the course of our chronologically arranged episodes on watershed moments in history. Describing these trends in one word: grow…