Audiobooks narrated by Steve Wojtas

Competition Overdose: How Free Market Mythology Transformed Us from Citizen Kings to Market Servants

Using dozens of vivid examples to show how society overprescribed competition as a solution and when unbridled rivalry hurts consumers, kills entrepreneurship, and increases economic inequality, two free-market thinkers diagnose the sickness caused by competition overdose and provide remedies that will promote sustainable growth and progress for everyone, not just wealthy shareholders and those at the top. Whatever illness our society suffers, competition is the remedy. Do we want better schools for our children? Cheaper prices for everything? More choices in the marketplace? The answer is always: Increase competition. Yet, many of us are unhappy with the results. We think we’re paying less, but we’re getting much less. Our food has undeclared additives (or worse), our drinking water contains toxic chemicals, our hotel bills reveal surprise additions, our kids’ schools are failing, our activities are tracked so that advertisers can target us with relentless promotions. All will be cured, we are told, by increasing the competitive pressure and defanging the bloated regulatory state. In a captivating exposé, Maurice E. Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi show how we are falling prey to greed, chicanery, and cronyism. Refuting the almost religious belief in rivalry as the vehicle for prosperity, the authors identify the powerful corporations, lobbyists, and lawmakers responsible for pushing this toxic competition—and argue instead for a healthier, even nobler, form of competition. Competition Overdose diagnoses the disease—and provides a cure for it.

Ariel Ezrachi, Maurice E. Stucke (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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The Dozier School for Boys: Forensics, Survivors, and a Painful Past

Some true crimes reveal themselves in bits and pieces over time. One such case is the Florida School for Boys, a.k.a. the Dozier School, a place where-rather than reforming the children in their care-school officials tortured, raped, and killed them. Opened in 1900, the school closed in 2011 after a Department of Justice investigation substantiated allegations of routine beatings and killings made by about one-hundred survivors. Thus far, forensic anthropologist Dr. Erin Kimmerle and her team from the University of South Florida have uncovered fifty-five sets of human remains. Follow this story of institutional abuse, the brave survivors who spoke their truth, and the scientists and others who brought it to light.

Dr. Elizabeth A. Murray, Elizabeth A. Murray (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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The Scene That Became Cities: What Burning Man Philosophy Can Teach Us about Building Better Communi

A practical and irreverent guide to Burning Man, its philosophy, why people do this to themselves, and how it matters to the world Over 30 years Burning Man has gone from two families on a San Francisco beach to a global movement in which hundreds of thousands of people around the world create events on every continent. It has been the subject of fawning media profiles, an exhibit in the Smithsonian, and is beloved by tech billionaires and boho counterculturalists alike. But why does it matter? What does it actually have to offer us? The answer, Caveat Magister writes, is simple: Burning Man's philosophy can help us build better communities in which individuals' freedom to follow their own authentic passions also brings them together in common purpose. Burning Man is a prototype, and its philosophy is a how-to manual for better communities, that, instead of rules, offers principles. Featuring iconic and impossible stories from 'the playa,' interviews with Burning Man's founders and staff, and personal recollections of the late Larry Harvey--Burning Man's founder, 'Chief Philosophical Officer,' and the author's close friend and colleague--The Scene That Became Cities introduces readers to the experience of Burning Man; explains why it grew; posits how it could impact fields as diverse as art, economics, and politics; and makes the ideas behind it accessible, actionable, and useful.

Caveat Magister (benjamin Wachs) (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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The Ultimate Guide to the 2020 Election: 101 Nonpartisan Solutions to All the Issues that Matter

With the 2020 U.S. presidential election looming, the emerging contest doesn't seem so much a battle of ideas as it does a war of two tribes bent on the other's destruction. The Far Left and Far Right aren't much interested in a conversation, and they've dropped any pretense of it. But in fact, according to a recent study, two-thirds of the country are part of an "exhausted majority," who "share a sense of fatigue with our polarized national conversation, a willingness to be flexible in their political viewpoints, and a lack of voice in the national conversation." The Ultimate Guide to the 2020 Election gives a voice to this exhausted majority and provides an unbiased education on the true nature of the challenges America faces on several key issues including health care, energy & climate change, infrastructure, big tech & privacy, the American dream, immigration, the national debt, and gun safety. In addition to that, senior advisors Ryan Clancy and Margaret White present sound, fact-based ideas for rescuing American democracy itself.

Margaret White, No Labels, Ryan Clancy (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook: The Essential Guide to Ayahuasca Journeying

The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook provides a practical guide to ayahuasca use, aiding seekers in making right-and safe-decisions about where to go, who to drink with, and what to expect. Ayahuasca, the Amazonian psychoactive plant brew, has become vastly popular. Once the sole purview of shamans and indigenous native people in the great Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca is now becoming well known-and widely used-around the globe. Today, foreigners from all over the world flock in ever-burgeoning numbers to the steamy Amazon, drinking bitter ayahuasca with shamans and curanderos in order to access its potent healing and spirit-enlivening effects. What began as a mere trickle of visitors in the 1980s has become a surging riptide of seekers. Chris Kilham (Fox News's 'Medicine Hunter') has worked closely with South American shamans for two decades and has sat in ayahuasca ceremonies with at least 20 different shamans. Through his 'Ayahuasca Test Pilots' program, Kilham has brought numerous people to the Amazon to engage in ceremonies with maestro ayahuasceros. Clear, concise, straightforward, and well informed, The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook is an indispensable guide for anyone curious about this unusual plant medicine.

Chris Kilham (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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Motivation and Performance: A Guide to Motivating a Diverse Workforce

Many organizations approach the issue of employee engagement and motivation by tapping into age, gender and other stereotypes. Motivation and Performance challenges these notions, bringing together evidence that group differences are often exaggerated and that getting to the heart of what really motivates individuals is what's most important. This book is a practical guide to ensuring that organizations consider all motivators - job security as well as the need for personal growth - to improve employee satisfaction, boost organizational productivity and reduce staff turnover. Underpinned by original research, Motivation and Performance features case studies from finance, retail, the public and other sectors to show how the principles of motivating employees apply at all levels of the organization, not just at the leadership level, and how values and motivation can be changed and developed. Complete with a framework for conducting effective visits to front-line locations, it will help HR professionals ask the right questions, choose whether to implement external motivation-building programmes and make a real impact on an employee's desire to progress in the company.

Adrian Furnham, Ian Macrae (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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Climate--A New Story

Flipping the script on climate change, Eisenstein makes a case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our "fight" mentality. With an entire chapter unpacking the climate change denier's point of view, he advocates for expanding our exclusive focus on carbon emissions to see the broader picture beyond our short-sighted and incomplete approach. The rivers, forests, and creatures of the natural and material world are sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply for carbon credits or preventing the extinction of one species versus another. After all, when you ask someone why they first became an environmentalist, they're likely to point to the river they played in, the ocean they visited, the wild animals they observed, or the trees they climbed when they were a kid. This refocusing away from impending catastrophe and our inevitable doom cultivates meaningful emotional and psychological connections and provides real, actionable steps to caring for the earth. Freeing ourselves from a war mentality and seeing the bigger picture of how everything from prison reform to saving the whales can contribute to our planetary ecological health, we resist reflexive postures of solution and blame and reach toward the deep place where commitment lives.

Charles Eisenstein (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information

How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis-a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword-Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.

Erik Davis (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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The Ascent of Humanity: Civilization and the Human Sense of Self

Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. In this limited hardcover edition of Eisenstein's landmark book, he argues that our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics, medicine, and education as we know them. It has fired our near-pathological pursuit of technological Utopias even as we push ourselves and our planet to the brink of collapse. Fortunately, an Age of Reunion is emerging out of the birth pangs of an earth in crisis. Our journey of separation hasn't been a terrible mistake but an evolutionary process and an adventure in self-discovery. Even in our darkest hour, Eisenstein sees the possibility of a more beautiful world--not through the extension of millennia-old methods of management and control but by fundamentally reimagining ourselves and our systems. We must shift away from our Babelian efforts to build ever-higher towers to heaven and instead turn out attention to creating a new kind of civilization--one designed for beauty rather than height. Breathtaking in its scope and intelligence, The Ascent of Humanity is a landmark book showing what it truly means to be human. "A tour-de-force filled with astounding insight, wit, wisdom and heart." --Christopher Uhl, author of Developing Ecological Consciousness: Paths to a Sustainable Future "Quite marvelous, a hugely important work. This book is truly needed in this time of deepening crisis." --John Zerzan, author of Future Primitive and Elements of Refusal

Charles Eisenstein (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme-but in the wake of their collapse, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being. This book is about how the money system will have to change-and is already changing-to embody this transition. A broadly integrated synthesis of theory, policy, and practice, Sacred Economics explores avant-garde concepts of the New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and the restoration of the commons. Author Charles Eisenstein also considers the personal dimensions of this transition, speaking to those concerned with "right livelihood" and how to live according to their ideals in a world seemingly ruled by money. Tapping into a rich lineage of conventional and unconventional economic thought, Sacred Economics presents a vision that is original yet commonsense, radical yet gentle, and increasingly relevant as the crises of our civilization deepen. Sacred Economics official website: http://sacred-economics.com/

Charles Eisenstein (Author), Steve Wojtas (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Steve Wojtas