About C-Realm
C-Realm is an archive of more than 1,100 episodes hosted by KMO, recorded from 2006 onward. Guests include economists, energy analysts, artists, and writers. Topics include consciousness, psychedelics, energy and economics, collapse and resilience, science fiction, and artificial intelligence. Browse by guest, topic, year, or show.
The archive brings together the C-Realm Podcast and its related programs. The C stands for consciousness. The show began as a place to talk about minds, perception, and the unexplained, and it grew to cover energy, economics, technology, and culture. The guiding idea is in the site's motto: independent conversations, with room to change your mind.
The host
KMO studied philosophy of mind and philosophy of science at the graduate level in the 1990s and worked at Amazon.com in its early years, from 1996 to 1998. He has hosted the C-Realm Podcast since 2006, and he also writes fiction and publishes essays on Substack.
What the conversations cover
The emphasis has shifted over the years. The early episodes center on consciousness and psychedelics. A long middle stretch deals with energy, economics, and the possibility of civilizational collapse. More recent episodes take up artificial intelligence, science fiction, and the future.
C-Realm guests range from public intellectuals who were already well known when they appeared, such as James Howard Kunstler, Bill McKibben, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Douglas Rushkoff, Charles Eisenstein, and Derrick Jensen, to fascinating characters that circumstances placed in KMO’s path, such as stage magician Ferdinando Buscema, yoga teacher and psychonaut Spiros Antonopoulos, hacktivist Willow Bl00, and Troy, New York podcaster Duncan Crary. The two groups blend into one another, and people moved along that continuum over time. Douglas Lain, for example, was a solo podcaster before he became the publisher of Zero Books, and he is the most frequent guest in the archive.
Room to change your mind
KMO spent years as a voice of the Peak Oil fast-collapse narrative. He now describes himself as over it, and he is writing a series about why the narrative was persuasive and why it failed. The archive holds both the original arguments and the later reconsideration.
What is in the library
- The C-Realm Podcast: the numbered main series, free to everyone.
- The Vault: additional episodes for members.
- C-Realm Radio: the C-Realm Radio recordings.
- The KMO Show: the more recent series.
- Special and rediscovered recordings: including a collection of ten recordings preserved by James Scharff.
How to explore
The library has search and filters by show and year. You can also browse by guest, by topic, or by year. Each episode has its own permanent page with available show notes and links to guests and related conversations.
The state of the archive
The archive moved to this site in 2026. Some recordings are still missing; the Missing episodes page lists what is needed and explains how to send a copy if you have one. Many Vault and Radio episodes currently carry only a number as a title, and their descriptions are being restored. Catalog entries remain visible even where a recording has not yet been recovered.
Access
Public episodes are free. Vault recordings require member access. Sign in with your email address on the Account page to check your access.
Elsewhere
KMO writes at kmoptimal.substack.com, including Gen X Science Fiction & Futurism and Getting Over Collapse. A selection of early interviews appeared in the 2010 book Conversations on Collapse: C-Realm Podcast Transcripts, which is out of print.