Damns Given with Nick Richtsmeier
(formerly Working/Broken)
Brains On. Hearts Open. Forward Motion... for the Post-Digital World.
The world has gotten very good at telling us what’s broken. Platforms. Politics. Power. Business. Culture. Every feed reminds us we’re smaller than we thought, and that the real decisions are being made somewhere else.
When that message sinks in deeply enough, disengagement, even nihilism start become the default position. Businesses holding out for "someday." Ideas in limbo. Fear run amok. Our ability to make the world a long lost fantasy. We become spectators in a life we’re supposed to be living.
Damns Given is a show for those who refuse to surrender their agency.
Hosted by strategist and author Nick Richtsmeier, Damns Given is a forum for
Nick and his guests fight back against the "it-is-what-it-is-isms" of our day and the abandonment of agency that the algorithmic systems have demanded of us, calling us forward into a post-digital world where we are free again to ask betting questions of:
- How the internet has trained us to think algorithm-first and self-second
- Why our attention is our most powerful (and misdirected) asset
- What happens when leaders disconnect from real human scale
- How to build a meaningful life and business without waiting for permission
- The small decisions and risks that actually move the world forward
The premise is simple:
We already know what’s broken.
Now we ask:
How do we show up anyway?
No doomscrolling disguised as insight. No performing for the feed. Just honest conversations with thinkers, builders, and leaders who are navigating this moment with clarity — and giving a damn about the future they’re helping shape.
Because the game isn’t over. And the people who still care will decide what happens next.
You can find additional resources at DamnsGiven.com.
Damns Given with Nick Richtsmeier
Remix Culture and the Scraped Internet
In this introspective and timely episode, Brad and Nick take on a deceptively simple question: Do we really own our ideas anymore?
Prompted by Nick’s recent experience of having his writing lifted and reposted—sometimes respectfully, sometimes not—the conversation weaves through authorship, digital ethics, AI scraping, and the deeper emotional terrain of publishing on the internet. What begins as a conversation about plagiarism quickly becomes something bigger: a meditation on intellectual generosity, attribution, and the meaning of creative work in a remix culture.
Nick wrestles with the tension between wanting his writing to matter and his desire to be part of the conversation his work sparks. Brad adds reflections on how creative inspiration often flows from one source to another and how acknowledging that is more art than science.
In this jam-packed discussion, they also hit:
- How human creativity works (messy, layered, integrative)
- The rise of AI and its flattening effect on original voice
- The emotional whiplash of going viral
- Why traditional publishing may be a spiritual balm in an age of digital entropy
At the core: the internet changed how we think about ownership. AI is changing it again. So where does that leave creators, thinkers, and leaders trying to say something real?
Referenced Resources:
- Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
- Definition of “Palimpsest”
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Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at podcast@culturecraft.com.
