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Downstream: Ex-Accountant Whistleblower: The System Is About to Break w/ Richard Murphy

In 2007, Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant of 42 years, accurately foresaw the global financial crisis. Today, in 2026, he believes we are heading for an even greate

Do Your Own Research: Inside China’s Biotech Revolution w/ Ruby Wang

In the Mao era, ‘barefoot doctors’ got just a few months of training before being sent out to straighten broken bones and administer vaccines. Now China’s researchers ma

Downstream: See My Movies Then Go On Strike w/ Boots Riley

You’ve probably heard of Boots Riley’s work – Sorry To Bother You starring LaKeith Stanfield was a surprise hit, and his series I’m A Virgo got picked up by Amazon Prime.

ACFM Trip 64: Confidence

Ever felt like an imposter? Jem, Nadia and Keir offer a weird-left analysis of confidence – from market dynamics and private school to the power of positive thinking – wi

Do Your Own Research: How China Defied The End of History w/ Kaiser Kuo

Through the 1990s and the 2000s, the West told itself a story: let China get rich, and it’ll become like us. But then China got rich – and it become less and less like th

Downstream: The New Right Is Obsessed With AI, Israel & the Apocalypse w/ Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor

In Brighton, for a special recording of Downstream IRL, Ash Sarkar sat down with Naomi Klein, and organiser, writer and co-founder of the Debt Collective, Astra Taylor. T

Do Your Own Research: The Mao Era – Catastrophe or Necessity? w/ Rebecca Karl

No one is disputed like Mao. Was he a mass murderer, a Communist hero, a charlatan, or a great poet? The saviour of the peasants, or the man who extracted from them all t

Downstream: Gaza Has Exposed the Hypocrisy of the West w/ Omar El Akkad

Three years ago, just weeks after the genocide began, writer Omar El Akkad posted a tweet, attached to some footage showing the extent of the ruin that Israel had already

Do Your Own Research: 150 Years of Constant Revolution w/ Rebecca Karl

For a century, China underwent a series of invasions, revolutions and counter-revolutions. In China, it’s known as the Century of Humiliation. It was a time of immense u

Downstream: Former Scottish Leader: How My Family Escaped Gaza & Why I Can’t Forgive Starmer w/ Humza Yousaf

This week marked three years since the Hamas attack of October 7th, and the beginning of the Israeli state’s genocidal onslaught against the Palestinian people. In that t

Do Your Own Research: The Chinese Company That Terrifies the West w/ Eva Dou

Huawei makes the pipes and cables that power the Chinese internet. Its global reach has made China into a superpower. Huawei is often accused of spying for China. But ho

Downstream: Trauma Farming and the Politics of Public Suffering w/ Catherine Liu

Are we in the era of trauma Top Trumps? ‘Lived Experience’ has become a byword for standpoint authority and progressive politics. It has allowed people from marginalised

Do Your Own Research: Secrets of the Chinese Internet w/ Tianyu Fang

Welcome to Series 2 of Do Your Own Research. Until the end of the year, I will be focusing on the most important and interesting country in the world: China. We’re start

Downstream: Porn Addiction Defines Our Political Age. Here’s How w/ Ash Sarkar

The effect of pornography on the people who consume it is often moralised about, generally due to its influence over the nascent sexuality of young men. But the business

ACFM Microdose: Reading The Society of the Spectacle

Following their recent Trip episode on Situationism, the gang offer a close reading of The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, first published in France in 1967. Nadi

Downstream: AI Will Destroy Liberal Democracy w/ Daron Acemoglu

When and why did liberal democracy stop working for the many? On Downstream this week is Daron Acemoglu, joint recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, who

Downstream: The Next Big Shock Is Coming. Green Energy Is the Only Way Out w/ Tessa Khan

This summer’s extreme heat, wildfires and thousands of excess deaths have shown that the climate is destabilising faster than predicted. In the face of this undeniable cr

ACFM Trip 63: Situationism

What did the Situationists actually achieve? Nadia, Jem and Keir look back on the antics and manifestos of the socialist revolutionaries who gathered under the banner of

Downstream: The Big AI Lie w/ Cory Doctorow

AI is set to take all of our jobs. It will irrevocably transform our relationships – and it might even kill us all. These are some of the big claims made about artificial

Downstream: Multiculturalism Will Save the Working Class w/ Jonas Patrick Marvin

We live in a moment when the working class is fractured along a great many lines. Gone are the days of solidarity built around a shared experience of factory work that fo