End of an Agora
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Over the last 2 years I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with and hearing from many of you who have graciously given a piece of your time in either supporting or facilitating the content of the show. For that, I cannot thank you enough.
The mission of Agora Politics is to revitalize political theory through open discussion, incorporating perspectives from the natural sciences, applied sciences, engineering, business, arts, and humanities to confront our ever-more novel circumstances.
I believe this mission to be generally important. It has guided my selection of guests, choice of topics, and interview questions throughout. However, I also believe it to be overly broad and ill-formulated. By that, I mean that it does not get to the heart of our predicament incisively enough.
What’s needed is not just directionality and a-la-carte selection from orthogonal fields of inquiry, but a set of axiomatic principles and proper theoretical frames with which to guide our exploration. An overly broad approach leaves too much space for wandering and misdirection.
There is another problem with the Agora, which is that it has been metaphorically obsoleted. With the rise of social audio applications such as Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, a digital Agora is much closer to being realized by those than by the previous podcast model. A common place where serendipitous encounters with people of different backgrounds, occupations, social statuses, ages, and life experiences occur looks much closer in form to a drop-in social audio room, than it does a pre-planned conversation between 2 or 3 people, broadcasted to passive listeners. Unfortunately for the metaphor, Clubhouse was released one month after the start of the Agora Politics podcast.
For these reasons, I am turning Agora Politics into Hacking State.
What is Hacking State?
Hacking State is a search for exploits. “Hacking State” is a quadruple entendre divided into two pairs corresponding to alternating definitions of hacking and state. To hack as in to cut away, as well as to exploit. State as in the condition of a body or mind, as well as that of a polity or regime.
From this one can yield:
Hacking State - Cutting away at a condition of body or mind
Hacking State - Cutting away the State
Hacking State - Exploiting a state of body or mind
Hacking State - Exploiting the State
And many other formulations.
The consistent theme is that technological developments can enable us to do more with less, as well as break into, deeply disrupt, and irrevocably alter, our institutions and selves.
In the next post, I’ll describe more of what that means, give some examples, and a more comprehensive introduction to the Hacking State project.
For now, know that I am transforming most Agora Politics properties into Hacking State properties. This is to conserve resources and maintain continuity between my prior and current online work.
The goal is not to erase or dissolve the Agora Politics podcast, work which I am proud to have done, which will remain up and freely available, and which I will always stand by, but to allow the insights gleamed from it to give birth to something newer, more focused, more ambitious.
I thank you all again for speaking, arguing, listening, answering, and laughing with me. Every interview, regardless of outcome, has given me immeasurable satisfaction. Many have given me a joy I find little elsewhere. Friends, allies, and mentors have come from them, too. I will conduct many more going forward. Agora Politics was not about me, but about living out an idea.
Best to all,
Alex Murshak