Angry Planet

Greenland fever has faded for now but it will return. The world’s polar region, you see, is pretty damn important. As the planet heats and the ice melts, what was once an impassible warren of ice and snow has become a geopolitical opportunity.On today’s Angry Planet, we host journalist Kenneth R. Rosen who just published the book Polar War. He’s spent the past few years among the ice and snow, embedding with troops, yearning for snus, and smoking cigarettes with morticians in the long dark.Rosen knows what makes the Arctic so important and can see the truths that undergird the obsession with Greenland.Getting bombastic and angry about Greenland“We already have Greenland”How is Turkey “near Arctic?”The Greenland obsession as proof of climate changeWhat makes a good Arctic forceAccession to NATOServicing subs in the ArcticTrying to embed on a nuclear submarineMispronouncing place namesThe most powerful navy in the world doesn’t have an icebreakerSpies in the polar regions“It should have been an article.”Smoking under a tree in the darkSnus vs ZynThe death drive of the penguinBuy Polar War: Submarines, Spies, and the Struggle for Power in a Melting ArcticUS Army Poorly Prepared for Arctic Operations: Finnish Troops Forced Them to Surrender During Exercises in NorwayCan we just appreciate the fact State secrets were just leaked on this sub?Life Aboard a Nuclear Submarine as the US Responds to Threats Around the Globe

There was a time, just before the pandemic, when folks would say “Twitter isn’t real life” as a means of dismissing the horrors of social media. This was a cope, a way to ignore the worst political and cultural actors who now dominate our psychic landscape. Now those people are in charge and they’ve manifested Twitter into real life in a way previously thought impossible.The White House is posting Stardew Valley memes about whole milk. A Customs and Border Patrol official is asking people if they’re triggered when they respond with empathy to the murder of a woman. Laura Loomer, one of the most online gargoyles to ever live, is a serious policy player in administration. The Secretary of War has a video game tattoo.How did we get here? Michael Senters, a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech, is here to explain how online culture became the culture.It’s all for the postsA YouTuber comes to townWhat, exactly, does it mean to be terminally online?The right goes all in on identity politicsThe pandemic drove us all crazyTurns out the post-modernists were correctPosting yourself into a different form or realitySurvival tips for the extremely onlineDepraved art and Hearts of Iron IVDeus Vult?Video games as propagandaWe should have been harder on the online NazisJohn Romero will make you his bitchA brief history of Something AwfulFighting the performance regimeHow Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s WatchSix Prosecutors Quit Over Push to Investigate ICE Shooting Victim’s WidowDo you have stairs in your house?Fuck You And Die: An Oral History of Something Awful

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comOn January 28, 2025, I sat down with Aram Shabanian to talk about how we thought the first year of the Trump administration would go. I put the audio in a vault and didn’t listen to it until now.We focused on geopolitics and the American military and our hit rate for predictions was about fifty percent. Domestically, it’s been much worse than I expected. Abroad it’s been much weirder than I expected. The bit about America seeking violence though? Right now that feels spot on.Hegseth’s reforms got worse for women (vindicated)Conscription is not back (wrong)The yearning for violence when the gloves come off (vindicated)All the episodes that weren’t producedSicarioifciation continues apaceThe bigger problem was that people felt badThe dangers of boredom“Drugs won the war on drugs and then looted the armories.”Against burning it all downGreenland is still on the tableThe ceasefire didn’t last and war did not spread to Europe (wrong)Elon Musk is out (vindicated)X is still around, but it IS producing on-demand CSAM (wrong?)WWIII and mass riots didn’t happen (wrong)Martin O’Malley 2028?The Cult of Sicario

On the last Angry Planet of 2025, novelist and Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay returns to reflect on a year of spectacle and cruelty.Between the Pentagon’s boat strikes and the administration’s constant barrage of grotesque memes, it feels like America is a crueler and cruder place. For better and worse, the Presidency sets a moral standard for the country and Trump has lowered that standard. Klay wrote about all this in a piece at The New York Times and he’s here with us today to talk through it.“It’s too easy to condemn.”The project is spectacles of cruelty“You’re not supposed to be joining a gang of thugs.”What is this doing to us as a nation?The lust for cruelty and dominationKlay’s review of Hegseth’s first yearWar vs. Defense“Read long things.”Living in the Hell of opinionsEnding on a high noteWhat Trump Is Really Doing With His Boat StrikesTrump Admin’s Racist Halo Memes Are ‘A New Level of Dehumanization of Immigrants’Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced

Earlier this year journalist Ben Makuch caught a glimpse of Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, dancing at a club in Kyiv. It was a surreal moment, a snapshot of a tragic war that the West thinks is defining the future of conflict. Tech executives have flocked to Ukraine, courting the country in an attempt to get at a resource more precious than gold: data. Makuch was just there and has written about what he saw for The New Republic and he’s on the show today to talk about it.Some light smoking banterBen’s timelineGoogle’s CEO dancing in a bar in KyivUkraine as laboratory for war techThe JSOC era is overIn defense of the majestic American turkeyThe great America vs China speculationWar, cheaperOn the actual frontlineWheat fields of fiber optic lineThe buzz of the droneLife in the bloodlandsThe human suffering of living in UkraineFPV-made propaganda“Never underestimate human innovation when it comes to killing other humans.”What’s Erik Prince doing in Ukraine?New York Times on Military ReformThe Medieval—and Highly Effective—Tactics of the Ukrainian ProtestsWho Is St. Javelin and Why Is She a Symbol of the War in Ukraine?‘Cope Cages’ on Busted Tanks Are a Symbol of Russia’s Military Failures‘Unauthorized’ Edit to Ukraine’s Frontline Maps Point to Polymarket’s War Betting

Another week and another Angry Planet about the horrifying systems that rule our lives.Is there a depressive theme running through the work right now? Possibly. I promise we’ll soon replace it with rage.This week on the show we have Sven Beckert to talk about his new book Capitalism: A Global History. Beckert is a professor of history at Harvard and his tome is an attempt to capture the entire history of an economic system in one book. It’s a doorstop, but it’s also readable and clear-eyed. Some come with me on a journey that runs through the plantations of South Carolina to the tech markets of Shenzhen.Cotton as an entry point to the history of capitalismThe economic big bangIndustrial Revolution as mutation“It’s still being born.”Human data is oil to be frackedThe Quaker Oats metaphor“The market is God.”Ascribing morality to economicsWhen Gary Hart ushered in Neoliberalism“Capitalism is a series of regime changes.”Moments of great change offer opportunitiesCapitalism: A Global HistoryThe Old Order Is Dead. Do Not Resuscitate.