R.U. Sirius: inside the mind of a cyberdelic shaman

In our special 200th episode, the former editor of the seminal magazine Mondo 2000 opens up about his musical activities, how his view of technology has changed, and his enduring curiosity about the chaos all around us.

Today, on this fun, round-number milestone, the Spotlight shines On legendary writer, editor, vocalist, and digital culture commentator Ken Goffman, better known as R.U. Sirius.

Most will know R.U. from his time as co-publisher and editor-in-chief of the 1990s cyberpunk magazine MONDO 2000. MONDO covered topics like transhumanism, virtual reality and smart drugs at a time when these things offered hope for a better or at least more interesting world, though the editorial tone always subversively poked at the soft white underbelly of technoculture and its champions. If Wired has become Kenny G, MONDO was Sun Ra, through and through.

R.U. is the author or coauthor of several books, including Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House, Everybody Must Get Stoned: Rock Stars on Drugs, How to Mutate and Take Over the World, and nearly a dozen others.

We covered a lot of ground, including, but not limited to, online subcultures, cryptocurrency, the societal repercussions of digital technologies, AI, conspiracy theory, politics, the shortcomings of transhumanism, deregulation, post-scarcity philosophy, the uses and limitations of irony and ambiguity, and a ton more. I could talk to him for hours.

Music is a big part of the R.U. experience, as you will hear in our talk. He’s been a lyricist and composer for projects including Phriendz, Party Dogs and Mondo Vanilli. These show notes have a link to his Bandcamp page and you are encouraged to spend some time there.

R.U.’s various works have served as a guidepost for me since I was a much younger man. It was a special treat to connect with him now, in this time of reckoning with what the digital and internet revolution has wrought, to talk about the state of life and affairs.

Before we get to the talk, here are some quick thoughts on 200 episodes: Thank you, everyone, who supports this show by donating, shopping in our store, attending our live events, sharing our work, and most importantly, just listening. My goal is to be your avatar in these discussions, and I hope I serve you well.

I would like to dedicate this episode to Eve Berni, Ken’s partner of 26 years who passed away shortly after we recorded this episode. I did not know Eve, but I know she was deeply loved by our guest today. I wish Eve, Ken, and all who knew them peace and solace.

(all musical excerpts heard in the interview are taken from R.U. Sirius’s Infinite Gesture (A Work in Progress))

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Dig Deeper

• Visit R.U. Sirius on his Bandcamp page and mondo2000.com
• Follow R.U. Sirius on Instagram, Twitter (X), Facebook, and LinkedIn
• Inside ‘Mondo 2000,’ the cyberpunk magazine that gave us a glimpse of the utopian future that never was
• Ben Goertzel: Decentralized AI | TED Talk
• Degens: Down and Out in the Crypto Casino
• Artificial Andy: Warhol in the Age of Technology
• Burn Book by Kara Swisher
• Douglas Rushkoff :: Official Site
• Chokepoint Capitalism by Cory Doctorow, Rebecca Giblin
• Bruce Sterling’s Tumblr Blog
• Tech Billionaires Need to Stop Trying to Make the Science Fiction They Grew Up on Real
• What is a Lagrange Point?
• About RAW – The Robert Anton Wilson Website
• Spotlight On: Gabriel Kennedy leads us into the Chapel Perilous
• Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, the book that changed the world
• What is post-scarcity, explained
• Naomi Klein | Doppelganger
• The philosophy of Andy Warhol : from A to B and back again
• Guillermo Gómez-Peña
• “Cosmic Trigger” by Burning Dervish

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