Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ philosophy and intellectual history • political theory: democracy, capitalism, Marx, populism, oligarchy • technology and power: AI, surveillance capitalism, internet/media ecosystems • attention, social media, addiction, burnout • war, racism, immigration, Israel/Palestine
This podcast presents audio adaptations of video essays that connect philosophy, history, and politics to contemporary life. Across the episodes, it frequently returns to questions about how societies explain themselves through stories of progress, decline, and “the end of history,” and how historical interpretation can be used to shape political identity, justify power, or motivate resistance.
A major theme is the structure of modern political and economic life: capitalism and consumerism, oligarchy and authoritarianism, populism, and the role of lobbying, philanthropy, and large institutions in steering public outcomes. The show also examines democratic culture and its stresses, including polarization and “culture war” dynamics, and it pays attention to immigration debates and how evidence and historical narratives inform public policy.
Media and technology recur as central lenses. Episodes explore shifts in mainstream and partisan news, conspiracy thinking, and the attention economy, alongside the political consequences of social media, the internet’s development and privatization, and emerging technologies such as AI, robotics, and the metaverse. These discussions often emphasize how platforms, incentives, and surveillance-oriented business models influence behavior, knowledge, and civic life.
Interwoven with these topics are accessible introductions to major thinkers and traditions—classical philosophy and Enlightenment political thought as well as figures like Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Spinoza—used to frame questions about reason, freedom, morality, and human psychology. The podcast also addresses personal and social dimensions of modernity, such as burnout, addiction, anger, and the moral psychology of racism and mass violence, linking individual experience to wider historical and political forces.
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Episodes:
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Dreams Beyond the Algorithm
2025-Dec-09
86 minutes
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Burnout: The Hustle Century
2025-Dec-06
88 minutes
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The End of the End of History
2025-Dec-03
49 minutes
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How the Deep State really works
2025-Dec-01
79 minutes
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Populism: A Complete Guide
2025-Jun-20
85 minutes
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10 Steps to Becoming AI Proof
2025-Jun-13
17 minutes
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Monopoly World: Oligarchy & Authoritarianism
2025-Apr-22
85 minutes
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Capitalism: In-Depth
2025-Mar-18
311 minutes
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Marx: A Complete Guide to Capitalism
2025-Mar-11
134 minutes
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The Rise and Fall of the Mainstream Media
2025-Mar-05
133 minutes
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How AI was Stolen
2025-Jan-02
180 minutes
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The Real Harm of Social Media
2024-Sep-14
30 minutes
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The Origins of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
2024-Sep-11
30 minutes
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Does History Progress?
2024-Aug-24
41 minutes
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Can History Decline?
2024-Aug-21
46 minutes
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Hegel: A Complete Guide to History
2024-Jan-18
124 minutes
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How Socrates Beat Addictions
2024-Jan-14
14 minutes
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The Roots of Modern Democracy
2024-Jan-07
40 minutes
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Why Culture Wars Matter
2024-Jan-01
21 minutes
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What Red Pill Philosophy Gets Wrong
2023-Dec-28
39 minutes
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Being Outside Changes How You Think
2023-Dec-24
22 minutes
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Stoicism's Major Flaw
2023-Dec-18
49 minutes
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How New Addictions Are Destroying Us
2023-Dec-12
36 minutes
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How Big Tech is Ruining Your Attention
2023-Dec-07
27 minutes
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How the Internet Was Stolen
2023-Dec-01
129 minutes
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Why Our Idea of History is a Poison
2023-Nov-27
18 minutes
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The First Critics of Modern Life
2023-Nov-22
31 minutes
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Why German History is Different
2023-Nov-17
27 minutes
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Kant: A Complete Guide to Reason
2023-Nov-14
71 minutes
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What the Evidence on Immigration Says
2023-Apr-18
32 minutes
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Tucker Carlson's Paranoid Mind
2022-Oct-20
50 minutes
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How Fox News Changed The World
2022-Oct-17
84 minutes
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Our Consumer Society
2022-Oct-15
84 minutes
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Free Will Is Political
2022-Oct-13
19 minutes
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Putin's Sense Of Russian History
2022-May-19
36 minutes
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How The Atom Bomb Changed How We Think
2022-May-12
30 minutes
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MrBeast: Capitalism & Philanthropy
2022-May-12
80 minutes
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Thinking About Changing The World
2022-Apr-12
20 minutes
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Our 'Age Of Anger'
2022-Apr-08
53 minutes
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How Robotics Will Control You
2022-Apr-05
37 minutes
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Spinoza A Complete Guide To Life
2022-Feb-24
52 minutes
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Why The Internet Hasn't Fixed Democracy
2022-Feb-11
30 minutes
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How The Nature Nurture Debate Is Changing
2022-Jan-14
36 minutes
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The BIG Problem With The Metaverse
2021-Dec-23
23 minutes
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The Surprising Philosophy Of Dirt
2021-Dec-18
17 minutes
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Would You Have Been A Nazi?
2021-Dec-16
22 minutes
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The Psychology Of Racism In Jim Crow America
2021-Dec-14
40 minutes
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Scientific Racism and Immigration: A History
2021-Dec-12
26 minutes
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What The Sea Can Teach Us About Ourselves
2021-Dec-10
18 minutes
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Is Wokeism a Civil Religion?
2021-Nov-02
23 minutes
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What Makes Us Postmodern?
2021-Oct-29
30 minutes
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Wokeism
2021-Oct-27
31 minutes
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The Invention Of Individual Responsibility
2021-Oct-25
52 minutes
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Is Equality Natural?
2021-Oct-22
20 minutes
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What Makes Us Modern
2021-Oct-19
25 minutes
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Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Ideology
2021-Jul-07
30 minutes
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Jordan Peterson Critique: Philosophy & Responsibility
2021-Jul-02
37 minutes
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Baby Boomers VS Millennials: A History of the Coming Revolution
2021-May-29
39 minutes
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5 Useful Things I’ve Learned from the Existentialists
2021-May-13
24 minutes
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Being Us: Communities, Organisations, & Politics of Authenticity
2021-Apr-30
17 minutes
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Being You: The History and Philosophy of Authenticity
2021-Apr-26
42 minutes
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Kierkegaard: An Introduction
2021-Mar-24
18 minutes
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Steven Pinker & Human Nature: Nasty or Nice?
2021-Mar-06
29 minutes
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Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan
2021-Mar-04
18 minutes
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Zygmunt Bauman: Moral Relativism & The Holocaust
2021-Feb-09
16 minutes
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How We Become Genocidal: The Holocaust
2021-Jan-30
61 minutes
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Inviting the Tigers to Tea: Demagogues in America
2021-Jan-19
16 minutes
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Foucault: Criticisms & Method
2021-Jan-14
15 minutes
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Foucault: Madness & Civilization (History of Madness)
2021-Jan-11
25 minutes
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Heidegger & Descartes: Being-in-the-world, Care, Anxiety & Existentialism
2020-Dec-26
12 minutes
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Descartes' Error: Antonio Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis
2020-Dec-24
15 minutes
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Descartes Introduction: Meditations
2020-Dec-22
19 minutes
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Francis Bacon: Introduction to Induction & the Scientific Method
2020-Nov-27
15 minutes
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Francis Bacon: A Critique
2020-Nov-21
11 minutes
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Empires of Modernity: The East India Company and the Anarchy
2020-Nov-18
31 minutes
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Great Barrington Declaration: Science and Politics
2020-Nov-16
16 minutes
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Proudhon: Introduction to Mutualism
2020-Nov-14
16 minutes
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Proudhon: What is Property?
2020-Nov-12
17 minutes
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Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty
2020-Nov-10
15 minutes
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Foucault: Nietzsche, Genealogy, History
2020-Aug-13
14 minutes
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Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, & Utopia
2020-Aug-12
15 minutes
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Rawls A Theory of Justice: Comments, Utilitarianism, Rights
2020-Aug-12
27 minutes
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The Flesh Of Modernity
2020-Aug-06
26 minutes
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John Rawls: Property-Owning Democracy
2020-Jul-28
11 minutes
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Introduction to Rawls: A Theory of Justice
2020-Jul-03
16 minutes
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Statues, Philosophy, & Civil Disobedience
2020-Jun-22
12 minutes
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The Spanish Flu: Lessons
2020-Jun-11
23 minutes
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Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
2020-May-27
14 minutes
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The Historiography of the Police
2020-May-15
12 minutes
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The Fist of Modernity: A History of the Police in Britain
2020-May-15
21 minutes
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What is Modernity? Foucault, Governmentality, & the Plague
2020-May-05
18 minutes
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Romanticism: Covid-19, Climate Change, & Critique
2020-Apr-24
19 minutes
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The Philosophy of Creativity & The Castle of Indolence
2020-Apr-22
15 minutes
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Pandemics: The Politics of Trust & Optimism
2020-Apr-14
12 minutes
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Coronavirus & Scapegoats: Rene Girard
2020-Apr-14
15 minutes
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Stoicism & Coronavirus
2020-Apr-05
11 minutes
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Metaphors We Live By & Coronavirus
2020-Apr-02
13 minutes
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Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
2020-Apr-02
12 minutes
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The Myth of Sisyphus: Responding to a Pandemic
2020-Mar-26
13 minutes
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Introduction to Stoicism
2020-Mar-26
22 minutes
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Rene Girard: An Introduction
2020-Mar-26
12 minutes
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The Culture Industry: Adorno and Horkheimer
2020-Mar-06
17 minutes
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Adorno and Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment - Introduction
2020-Mar-06
24 minutes
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Bourdieu: Cultural Capital and the Love of Art
2020-Mar-06
15 minutes
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Introduction to Bourdieu: Habitus
2020-Mar-06
11 minutes
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Introduction to Baudrillard
2020-Feb-27
30 minutes
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Introduction to Deleuze: Difference and Repetition
2020-Feb-27
16 minutes
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Introduction to Foucault
2020-Feb-19
24 minutes
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Introduction to Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction
2020-Feb-19
17 minutes
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John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism
2020-Feb-16
8 minutes
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John Stuart Mill: On Liberty
2020-Feb-16
10 minutes
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