What do Blade Runner and Dune have in common?

Both revolve around the same mechanism: scarcity creates demand, and demand turns possession into prestige... but here is the twist.

Prestige is not just about wealth, because status only emerges when wealth is tied to something else: an ethical meaning. In this episode we'll explore one unique possibility: what if prestige requires morality?

Full transcript (and links): https://liviajelliot.substack.com

In this discussion, we dive into the layered deceptions of Dune — a “feint within a feint within a feint.” We explore whether free will can survive foreknowledge, how cycles shape history, and whether heroes are truly liberators… or traps. We also ask a bold question: is religion a belief system, or a technology engineered for power?

My guests: K.D. Marchesi, Sarah K. Balstrup, and Henry Nielsen.

My Substack: https://liviajelliot.substack.com

Dune is, by no means, a simple book. It examines how an environment shapes a society and its politics, how political and economic power intertwine, and how resources can both provoke or deter war. It speaks about the consequences of scarcity, and how differently we treat abundance when it overflows.

With that in mind, this episode will focus on two key threads—details often smoothed in adaptations: the geopolitics of Dune's universe, and how religion and myth are leveraged to manufacture authority.

Let's get this book undone.

Check my latest book, The Omens of War: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNN94R17