Is Jesse Michels the 'new RAW'?

 

If you are kind of old like me, you probably have run across an article speculating on who the "new Dylan" would turn out to be. Here is an article, for example, on the "Top Ten Best New Dylans." At the end, I usually wound up concluding that the old Dylan was more interesting than any of the new ones.

Jim O'Shaughnessy is a Wall Street finance guy who is a huge fan of Robert Anton Wilson and who often references RAW on his Twitter account. He is involved in various interesting ventures, including producing  movie on the benefits of psychedelics, and also has a podcast called Infinite Loops. 

Describing a recent episode, O'Shaughnessy writes, "I think of my guest @AlchemyAmerican as a modern-day Robert Anton Wilson. He's even more of a rabbit hole diver than me, and his  @YouTube Channel is a blast--listen in as we discuss some wild ideas and fun speculations." 

@AlchemyAmerican is Jesse Michels, you can check out his Twitter account  and his YouTube channel. (lots of episodes about UFOs and psychedelic mushrooms.) The Infinite Loops episode that features Michels is here. and a transcript is available if you don't want to sit through the podcast. 

Michels used to work for Google and now works for Peter Thiel. Apparently the "new RAW" isn't familiar with the old one -- O'Shaughnessy brings up RAW early in the podcast and Michels doesn't recognize the name, although he does know some of O'Shaughnessy's other influences.

I have a couple of suggestions for Infinite Loops: O'Shaughnessy should interview Tyler Cowen, and he should do an episode that features somebody interviewing O'Shaughnessy himself. (I could do a good job with the latter, focusing on his RAW interests, although I suspect O'Shaughnessy would have his own candidate in mind if he wanted to do it).