let's THiNK about it

Mar 26 2024 83 ep. 24 mins 17
let's THiNK about it Podcast artwork

A cultural detective's journey into philosophy, art, sociology, and psychology with Ryder Richards. (Formerly known as "The Will to DIY")

  Society & Culture  Education
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


{AI}ice's Odyssey in DALL-E Land

Mar 26 2024 41 mins  
Ryder Richards talks about his exhibition based on Salvador Dali's (1969) illustrations of "Alice in Wonderland." Considering them un-Dali, he asks DALL-E to draw inspiration from John Tenniel, the original illustrator, and re-invent them as a Dali-esque blend. After several "failed" attempts to achieve his goal, Ryder used ChatGPT, NotebookLM, and Claude to rewrite "Alice's Adve

Art and AI

Jan 08 2024 75 mins  
A lecture diving into the promises and perils of AI in art through artist Ryder Richards' recent museum lecture on technology's impact on creativity, humanity, bias, consciousness, and our shared future. Beyond near-term hype, as AI increasingly penetrates cultural realms like art, urgent questions arise around human creativity versus artificial generation. This lecture traverses

Kant and the rise of subjective relativism

Dec 26 2023 26 mins  
Ryder Richards discusses how Kant bypasses the conundrum of fate vs. determinism, vouching for the transcendent realm. Kant introduced a philosophy that actually does have a square grid, with the influential idea of a priori knowledge in one quadrant. This abstract knowledge exists in Kant’s unknowable "noumenal" realm. This marked a departure from Hobbes and Newton, who emphas

Transcendent Escapism

Nov 18 2023 22 mins  
Ryder Richards explores the spectrum between truth and lies, arguing that humanity uses abstraction and catastrophe fantasies to bypass reality and construct dangerous universal rules that validate our desires.

Skipping Reality

Oct 23 2023 17 mins  
In this podcast, Ryder Richards uses the analogy of a ping pong game with reality as the net to examine how truth and superficiality can become untethered abstractions that escape reality. He explores how truth-seeking can turn into rigid ideology and superficiality into manipulative propaganda. Richards suggests reality should act as a filter to catch the excesses of these abstrac

The Parallax View

Sep 17 2023 22 mins  
The Parallax View is an approach by Slavoj Zizek to reconsider Hegelian Dialectics; instead of sublation or overcoming, what if we can adjust perspective and the seeming antagonistic opposition (an insurmountable deadlock) can be seen in as "short-circuiting" - that is, providing an inherent explanation from a new point of view. It is not synthesizing ideas (melding them into One)

Perspective Framing

Jul 30 2023 21 mins  
Ryder Richards discusses different methods of reframing one’s perspective in life, such as psychology, meditation, and religion. First, he discusses the cultural background of deconstructionism and Hegel’s idea of “negation” to frame the moment. He then talks about how methods (such as therapy, Buddhism, or Christianity) can help shift one’s perspective to alleviate anxie

Concrete Universal (trash and art)

Jun 29 2023 16 mins  
In this episode, Ryder Richards explores the concept of concrete universalism and its implications. He discusses the idea of transcending contradictions and how failures can lead to unexpected victories. Richards also examines the notion of the concrete universal through examples such as garbage and Picasso's art, highlighting the tension between specificity and universality. **Hi

holy to holy s***

May 26 2023 17 mins  
Christianity operates through a lack: we cannot know God, so a “gap” must be filled between God and Humans. Christ is God splitting from 1 into 2, allowing us to identify and get closer to the mystery of God, but in so doing, Christ was subjected to the filth of this world. (Zizek) The reversal of the one God splitting into two (only to mysteriously re-unify us) is the process

Symbolic Victory

May 21 2023 23 mins  
Symbols can unite us, but when symbols trump reality, the reversal dismantles order. We begin to exist in a simulacrum. Symbolic gestures, such as Ranchers chasing Rustlers in the Wild West seem illogical but can provide symbolic protection through irrationality. The issue is that amplifying "grievance" (for power and reputation) dissuades reconciliation for either side, leading