Keen On Democracy

“Globalization has revived tribalism. Instead of destroying local cultures, as the left predicted, it has made them stronger. Far from the triumph of capitalism that the right predicted, it has entrenched corruption.” — Franklin Foer How do Osama Bin Laden and Barron Trump explain the world? According to Franklin Foer — senior writer at The Atlantic and author of How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization — they're both (or were, in the case of Bin Laden), like Foer himself, rootless Arsenal fans. That's the irony of our simultaneously tribal and globalized world. The more rootless we become, the sharper our imagined identities. Thus the DC-based Foer, who showed up for this interview flaunting his Gooner gear, never misses an Arsenal game on tv, even though he grew up almost four thousand miles west of Highbury. Foer's 2004 classic has been reissued with a new preface in honor of the World Cup. As he notes, this upcoming MAGA spectacle will only underline the tribal-global nature of the world. On the one hand, Trump wants to emulate Mussolini (1934) and Putin (2018) in transforming the sporting event into a celebration of localism. On the other hand, the expansion of the tournament into 48 teams mirrors the increasingly international reality of today's world. And then there's the distant but delicious possibility of an Iran-USA final. In 2022 in Qatar, the Iranian players refused to sing the national anthem in the opening game to protest the killing of a young woman who wasn't wearing a headscarf. Foer argues that the national team represents an idea of Iran quite foreign from that of the theocracy. While the anti-MAGA Foer wouldn't support Iran against the USA, he does argue that one of the great failures of the American left has been its inability to speak the language of patriotism. So Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom should wave the flag this summer. Whose flag he doesn't say. Probably the Arsenal if the global Foer had his tribal North London way. Five Takeaways •       Globalization Is a Form of Tribalism: Thomas Friedman said countries with McDonald's don't go to war with each other. Foer's book said the opposite: globalization doesn't dissolve tribal identity, it sharpens it. Barcelona can have Dutch DNA from Cruyff and a Qatari airline on the jersey — it's still a symbol of Catalan nationalism. The cosmopolitan elites who predicted the melting of national borders were themselves a tribe that mistook its tribal identity for universal truth. Andrew's formulation: globalization is a form of tribalism. Foer, cautiously, agrees. •       Trump's Bread and Circuses: Trump has identified three spectacles as the tent poles of his presidency: the 250th anniversary celebration of the United States, the Olympics, and the World Cup — which he calls the biggest spectacle of his term. Every strongman in history has understood the distracting quality of a spectacle. Putin sat in Moscow in 2018, ominously presiding. Mussolini had 1934. Trump won't be a passive participant. The expanded tournament was, Foer says, a greedy error — the early rounds will be poor — and the whole thing will unfold under the shadow of a president who wants to cosplay as president of the planet. •       The Financialization of Fandom: When Foer wrote the book in 2002, the transfer market was a big deal but not the phenomenon it is now. Fans have been forced to become conversant in the balance sheets of their clubs, getting upset when the club overpays. There's something sad about that — your relationship to a team has been financialized. Meanwhile, the Premier League jacks up ticket prices every year, people complain, and the stadiums are still full. The new power centres in the game are Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds using soccer as reputation laundering and soft power, and American private equity with its arrogant belief that it can do better than whoever was there before. •       The Iranian Team and the True Carriers of Civilization: In the last World Cup, Iranian players refused to sing the national anthem as protest against a government that had just killed a young woman for not wearing a headscarf. They were pressured to sing in the next game. The diaspora was divided. Foer's argument: the Iranian national team represents an idea of Iran entirely divorced from the theocracy — a spirit of nationhood, not religion. When Trump talked about destroying Iranian civilization, he was discouraging the people who consider themselves its true carriers and the regime's real opponents. Foer thinks it would be genuinely good if Iran could come and play in this World Cup. •       The Left's Patriotism Failure: Foer's parting argument: one of the great failures of the left in its quest for cosmopolitan ideals has been its inability to speak the language of patriotism. Even if the impulses behind progressive ideas could be described as patriotic, that's been one of the things limiting their political appeal. Should Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom wave the flag this summer at the World Cup? Foer says yes. Andrew, a Spurs fan born in North London who has lived in the United States for decades, suggests he would be “amused” if Iran beat America in the final. They do not reach agreement. About the Guest Franklin Foer is a senior writer at The Atlantic and the author of How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization (reissued 2026 with a new preface), The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future, and World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech. He lives in Washington, DC. References: •       How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer (reissued 2026 with new preface). •       “The Quintessential Trumpian Sport,” The Atlantic, April 2026. By Franklin Foer. •       Episode 2858: World Cup Fever — Simon Kuper, who has attended nine consecutive World Cups, on the 2026 tournament. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTube

“You don't have enough money to pay all the bills? Well, cut the budget for parks and rec, cut the budget for libraries, cut the budget for fixing potholes — but don't touch the police budget.” — Stuart Schrader Fifty years ago, America's local police still served at the pleasure of democratically elected politicians. Not anymore. Stuart Schrader has spent years in the archives tracing how it happened. In Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves, Schrader begins the story in Sixties Detroit, where a young, progressive Democratic mayor found his career derailed by a police union fighting for recognition. It was the opening move of a decades-long campaign in which rank-and-file officers took advantage of the tools of American democracy — unions, lobbying, litigation, public relations — to lift policing above the law. Schrader's most counterintuitive finding is that the greatest federal champions of Blue Power were Democrats like Joe Biden. With Trump 2.0, the story gets even stranger. ICE — anonymous, paramilitary, seemingly answerable to no one — has paradoxically made local police look credible by comparison. Some police unions have tried to exploit the contrast at contract renewal time. Others have quietly welcomed the federal incursions as a way to challenge progressive city councils in Los Angeles, Chicago, and DC. It's almost as if today's democratically elected politicians serve at the pleasure of the local police. Five Takeaways •       The Detroit Opening Move: The book begins in 1960s Detroit, where a young, charismatic, progressive Democratic mayor found his political career effectively destroyed by a police union fighting for recognition. That wasn't an accident. Police were simultaneously being called on to put down urban rebellions and gaining new workplace power through public sector unionization laws. They married those two things together: law and order rhetoric plus well-compensated, long-leashed officers. The Supreme Court's rights revolution — criminal defendants' rights, civil rights — felt to police like an existential threat. Blue Power was their answer. •       Biden and the Bipartisan Consensus: Schrader's most counterintuitive finding: the greatest federal champions of Blue Power were Democrats. Joe Biden, as a senator, was one of the most important figures in unifying police organizations — rural versus urban, command rank versus rank and file — and ensuring legislation met their demands. The law-and-order consensus wasn't just Republican. It was built by Democrats who were terrified of the crime hysteria, and police who were expert at stoking it. Even once crime began its dramatic decline in the 1990s, police kept using the fear. We stopped the crime wave. Now pay up. •       Crime Hysteria as a Political Weapon: Police learned early that crime statistics were a cudgel. Sign a good contract or crime will go up. And the tactic worked — not because the connection between police compensation and crime rates is real (Schrader says it isn't), but because the fear was real. Social scientists still can't fully explain why crime rose dramatically through the 1960s-80s and then declined just as dramatically from the mid-1990s. Police can't explain it either. But no other public sector union operates this way. Sanitation workers don't demand raises because they plowed the streets well in a heavy winter. Teachers don't point to test scores. Police do. •       ICE, Blue Power, and the Trump Paradox: ICE — anonymous, paramilitary, answerable to no one, reluctant even to wear identifying insignia — has paradoxically made local police look credible by contrast. Some unions have tried to exploit this at contract renewal time: we're not ICE, so pay us accordingly. Others have quietly welcomed the federal incursions as a way to override progressive city councils in Chicago, LA, DC, and elsewhere. The Border Patrol union was one of the first to endorse Trump in 2016 and has been rewarded handsomely. Blue Power is nothing if not adaptable. •       Why Defunding Failed — and What Actually Matters: Blue Power, Schrader argues, is the primary reason defunding didn't happen. Police used the same political tactics the book describes to thwart those demands from movements — the same lobbying, litigation, public relations, and contract leverage they've been deploying since the 1960s. The real question isn't defund or not defund. It's how cities allocate their resources. Over and over again in his research, Schrader found police saying explicitly: cut parks and rec, cut libraries, cut pothole repair — but don't touch our budget. That argument, made in fiscal crisis after fiscal crisis, has never really stopped. About the Guest Stuart Schrader is associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Chloe Center for the Critical Study of Racism, Immigration, and Colonialism. He is the author of Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves (Basic Books, 2026) and Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing (University of California Press, 2019). References: •       Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves by Stuart Schrader (Basic Books, 2026). •       “Authoritarianism from Below,” New York Review of Books, 2026. By Stuart Schrader. •       Episode 2021 [March 2021]: Rosa Brooks on Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City — the sympathetic counterpoint to Schrader's critique. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: (00:31) - Rosa Brooks, Tangled Up in Blue, and the sympathetic take on policing (03:44) - Authoritarianism from below: how police seized political power (05:09) - Conscious strategy or structural drift? The origins of Blue Power (08:37) - What drives Blue Power: ideology, bureaucracy, or money? (09:19...

“We keep getting wake-up calls and snoozing the alarm. Now is the time to actually get out of bed and confront this problem before it is too late.” — Eyck Freymann Forget Iran for a moment. The Hormuz crisis is a template for the bigger crisis of Taiwan. Eyck Freymann — Hoover Fellow at Stanford, author of the brand-new Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China — believes that the fate of the 21st century may hinge on Taiwan. And he warns that if America can't handle Iran, it's certainly not ready for Beijing. Freymann argues that China doesn't need to invade Taiwan. Xi Jinping has watched Putin discover — with horror — what happens when you send unprepared forces into a country that fights back. China's lesson from Ukraine is a strategy of quarantine rather than invasion. The United States will then face a choice between accepting Chinese checkmate or escalating a crisis with no domestic or international support. Taiwan produces 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors and 99% of the cutting-edge NVIDIA GPUs used to train frontier AI models. If those chip factories shut, there will be an instantaneous global financial crisis. Forget today's Iranian theater. Taiwan will be the real existential show. Five Takeaways •       The Hormuz Alarm Bell: Iran has no navy, no air force, and supposedly no ballistic missile arsenal anymore — and yet it took 20% of global oil supply offline. The Trump administration went in thinking overwhelming military superiority would translate to political victory. It hasn't. Strategy, Freymann says, is the art of connecting ends to means. If you don't know your ends, you'll flail. China is watching every mistake: no plan for the economic shock, no domestic legitimacy for the war, excess pain falling on oil-importing US allies like Japan, South Korea, and Europe. Beijing's conclusion: we don't have to pick a military fight with the United States. Why would we? •       The Semiconductor Chokehold: Taiwan produces 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors and 99% of the cutting-edge NVIDIA GPUs used to train frontier AI models. The CHIPS Act has tried to change this. It hasn't. The Arizona facility is two generations behind Taiwan, commercially uncompetitive, and unable to scale. Taiwan is five years ahead now and will be five years ahead in five years. If the Taiwan fabs go offline, there is an instantaneous global financial crisis: the seven companies that account for roughly 40% of the S&P 500 are all essentially the AI trade. The hyperscalers are spending $600 billion in data centers this year — the only thing keeping the US economy out of recession. This is what's at stake, before you even get to the military question. •       The Quarantine: Winning Without Fighting: Xi Jinping's plan A is not invasion. It's the quarantine: seize control of who and what comes and goes to Taiwan by declaring that anyone flying to Taipei must first clear customs in Shanghai. Impound a United Airlines flight. Let the ambiguity do the work. If China can do that and get away with it, Taiwan can't rebuild its military, the US can't send more weapons, and Beijing controls the chips. It's checkmate — without a shot fired. The United States then has to accept it, or escalate in a way that has no domestic legitimacy and drives wedges between Washington and its allies. China has figured out how to extort the West with prolonged economic pain. The alarm bells keep ringing. America keeps snoozing. •       What a Taiwan War Would Actually Look Like: It would be a war at sea — fundamentally unlike anything America has fought or prepared for in eighty years. China would need to simultaneously control the skies, the undersea, and the surface on all sides of the Taiwan Strait, then send tens of thousands of men 80 miles across in amphibious vessels to storm beaches in a Normandy-style assault. The first engagements would be decided in minutes to hours by long-range precision munitions. America's operational capabilities are exceptional: the cyber assassinations, the special forces raid, the continuous bomber sorties from the continental United States. But China has home-field advantage. And it has been building systematically for this scenario for years. We could probably win if we fought today. We need to make investments for tomorrow. •       The Four-Pillar Strategy: Freymann's integrated answer: diplomacy, military deterrence, economic resilience, and allied coordination — all working together, not in separate silos. On diplomacy: maintain the principled position that Taiwan's status must be resolved peacefully and democratically. On military: show China it can't win if it escalates to war, while keeping conventional forces credible. On economics: build enough allied resilience that authoritarian powers can't extort the West by threatening prolonged economic pain. On allies: coordinate with Japan, South Korea, the Europeans on a shared plan for what happens if things collapse. This is doable. It's been done for fifty years. We just need the resolve to keep doing it. About the Guest Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the US Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institute. He is the author of Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China (Oxford University Press, 2026), The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices (Hoover, 2025), and One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard, 2021). References: •       Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China by Eyck Freymann (Oxford University Press, 2026). •       “The Strait of Hormuz as a Template for Taiwan,” Financial Times, April 2026. By Eyck Freymann. •       Episode 2862: Truth Is Dead — on AI, disinformation, and American strategic confusion. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify 

“Once you start clamping down on speech, it will have serious collateral damage. And we're starting to see that now.” — Jacob Mchangama The Jyllands-Posten editor who published those Mohammed cartoons in 2005 spent a decade under round-the-clock protection from Danish intelligence services. He'd commissioned artists to say it with their pens, but the mob came after him with AK-47s. Copenhagen-born Jacob Mchangama watched that happen in a country where free speech had been considered as natural as breathing, and has since dedicated his professional life to defending it. Thus The Future of Free Speech, Mchangama's new book coauthored with Jeff Kosseff. It's also the reasoning behind his Future of Free Speech Institute at Vanderbilt, where Mchangama runs the only serious academic program dedicated to the proposition that democracy's most essential freedom is in global retreat. The Varieties of Democracy dataset agrees. The number of countries where free speech is declining has increased dramatically; those where it's strengthening are few. In 2000, Bill Clinton laughed at the idea that China might censor the internet — “that's like nailing Jell-O to a wall.” Over the last quarter century, China has perfected that art. The decline doesn't come from a single ideological camp, which is Mchangama's most politically inconvenient point. He suggests that the left has convinced itself that hate speech regulation, age verification for social media, and disinformation controls are acts of democratic hygiene. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is overtly shutting down free speech at a scale unmatched in recent American history. And then there's the paradoxical possibility that anti-social-media liberals like Jonathan Haidt, in their fervor to take freedom of online expression from kids, are also contributing to today's great recession in free speech. Left, right, and center. America, China, Denmark. Nobody, it seems, wants to allow us to say anything anymore. Five Takeaways •       The Editor Who Lived Under Protection: The editor of Jyllands-Posten who commissioned the 2005 Mohammed cartoons spent a decade under round-the-clock protection from Danish intelligence services. He had asked cartoonists to draw. They came after him with AK-47s. Ten years later came Charlie Hebdo — the French satirical magazine that had republished the cartoons as an act of solidarity, and saw twelve people murdered when two jihadists entered its offices. For Mchangama, growing up in Denmark where free speech felt as natural as breathing, this was the event that changed everything. The last place he expected an existential challenge to free speech was religion. •       Democracy's Varieties Are Shrinking: The Varieties of Democracy project — probably the most sophisticated dataset of free speech indicators — shows the trend line is clear: the number of countries where free speech has declined has increased dramatically, while those where it is being strengthened are few. Bill Clinton laughed in 2000 at the idea China might censor the internet — “that's like nailing Jell-O to a wall.” China has since perfected the art. The internet's original techno-optimistic promise — that censorship would be consigned to the ash heap of history — has been turned on its head. The recession of free speech has gone hand in hand with a wider democracy recession. •       Four Hateful Men and the Minority Principle: The most important US Supreme Court decisions protecting free speech deal with extremely hateful people — viciously antisemitic speakers, members of the KKK. And very often, Black and Jewish civil rights organizations defended them on principle, because they knew: if you are a vulnerable and persecuted minority, you depend more than a majority on the ability to challenge power. You depend on a principled protection of free speech. That history has largely been forgotten. Free speech, Mchangama argues, can be under attack from the left, from the right, even from centrists. The Trump administration is restricting it. The woke left tried to. The answer is principled, consistent defence — regardless of who's speaking. •       Elite Panic Is the Historical Constant: Every time the public sphere is expanded through new communications technology, the traditional gatekeepers fret about the consequences of allowing the unwashed mob direct and unmediated access to information. The World Economic Forum declared disinformation the largest short-term threat to humanity ahead of the 2024 super-election year, when around two billion people were eligible to vote. Researchers studying those elections could not identify AI-generated disinformation as having shifted a single outcome. The AI disinformation apocalypse never materialized. Jonathan Haidt — who has done important earlier work on free speech and academic freedom — may be exhibiting motivated reasoning in his crusade for age verification. Elite panic looks the same from every century. •       Creative AI vs. Intrusive AI: Mchangama distinguishes two faces of AI. Creative AI gives superpowers on demand — a PhD-level tutor for reading Homer, research agents that operate at a depth and scope previously unimaginable. Intrusive AI enables the most powerful surveillance and censorship regimes the world has ever seen. “If Hitler or Stalin had the powers that the Chinese Communist Party has now — that is a frightening thought in and of itself.” Preemptive safetyism is the wrong response: AI is a general-purpose technology. Filter it in the name of preventing disinformation and you hand governments and companies a filter over the entire ecosystem of ideas and information. The same logic as free speech. Applied to the most powerful communications technology ever built. About the Guest Jacob Mchangama is the founder and executive director of the Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Free Speech: A Global History from Socrates to Social Media and the coauthor, with Jeff Kosseff, of The Future of Free Speech. References: •       The Future of Free Speech by Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026). •       “The Timeless Fear of Corrupting the Youth,” Wall Street Journal, March 2026. By Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff. •       Episode 2862: Truth Is Dead — Steven Rosenbaum on AI as a spectacularly good liar. Mchangama's counter-argument on disinformation panic. •       Upcoming: Gal Beckerman on How to Be a Dissident — the companion argument to Mchangama on what dissent actually requires. 

“The media has its own agenda, completely separate from anything going on in the real world, creating the story themselves.” — Keith TeareLast night, somebody hurled a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's Pacific Heights mansion. I live a couple of hills over, but heard nothing. Meanwhile, the New Yorker hurled its own explosive cocktail at Sam, publishing a 15,000-word hit piece rhetorically entitled “Sam Altman May Control Our Future. Can He Be Trusted?” No, of course, he can't be trusted. Not according to the New Yorker. Especially with something as precious as, gasp, our future.Not everyone, however, is sold on this media cult of personality. In his That Was The Week editorial, Keith Teare tells the media to take their hands off Sam. I don't disagree. Although I'm a bit skeptical of Keith's attempt to demonize what he defines as a “devious” Dario Amodei. Whether it's Altman, Amodei or Google's AI honcho Demis Hassabis, all these guys are prisoners of their company's structures and cultures. They are also victims of today's anti-tech hysteria. It's one thing to blow up Silicon Valley's cartoonish cult of personality, it's quite another to hurl bombs at these people's homes. Enough with all the violence – verbal or otherwise. It never ends well. Five Takeaways•       A Molotov Cocktail at Slippery Sam's House: On Friday night, someone hurled a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's Pacific Heights mansion, according to The New York Times. Andrew lives nearby and didn't hear it. The week's zeitgeist had already turned: a 15,000-word New Yorker hit piece by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, wall-to-wall coverage, Sam moving into Musk-like media-frenzy territory. Keith's editorial: Hands Off Sam Altman. The personality-driven circus has caught fire. Quite literally.•       Anthropic's Mythic Model Finds Decade-Old Vulnerabilities: The actual AI news this week, drowned out by the personality circus. Anthropic's new “Mythic” model autonomously discovered security holes in software that had eluded human experts for years. Dario refused to release it openly until the patches were complete. Treasury Secretary Bessent commented on the implications for banks and government. The signal: AI is becoming systematically better than the best humans at specialist domains. Generalists can probably relax.•       Slippery Sam vs Devious Dario vs Honest Hassabis: Keith's contrarian take: Altman is honest because he's openly dishonest. Amodei is the devious one — a politically liberal narrative wrapped around a commercial juggernaut. Andrew's third way is yesterday's Mallaby interview: Demis Hassabis, the Spinozan one-faced scientist who would rather be at Princeton. But even Demis must have authorised the firing of Mustafa Suleiman. Everyone has a game plan, said Mike Tyson, until they get punched in the face.•       Post of the Week: Keith Replaces WordPress in Ten Minutes: Keith's tweet: he's run two curation sites — seriouslyphotography.com and seriouslybc.com — on WordPress for over a decade. Last Friday afternoon, he asked Anthropic's tools to rewrite them. Ten minutes later, both sites were rebuilt from scratch, fully responsive, WordPress gone. Cost in the old world: tens of thousands of dollars and several months. The Matt Mullenweg vs Matthew Prince debate is settled by the actual technology while the principals are still arguing.•       The End of Ownership? Keith Goes Marxist: Pure capitalism, Keith argues, will produce so much abundance that scarcity ends and self-interested competition with it. “In the future there will be no ownership, or everything will be commonly owned.” Andrew calls it Marx with Tesla characteristics. Eric Ries's forthcoming Incorruptible argues that Patagonia and Mondragon point a different way — structural ethics rather than abundance utopianism. Two visions of the post-AI economy. Both probably wrong. We'll find out. About the GuestSebastian Mallaby is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. A former Washington Post columnist and Economist contributing editor, he is the author of More Money Than God, The Man Who Knew (winner of the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year), The Power Law, and now The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.References:•       The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby.•       Episode 2862: Truth Is Dead — Steven Rosenbaum on AI as a spectacularly good liar. Mallaby's quiet counter-argument.•       Episode 2860: We Shape Our AI, Thereafter It Shapes Us — Keith Teare on agency in our agentic age. Hassabis thinks he can still steer.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - A Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's Pacific Heights house (02:41) - The New Yorker hit piece: Ronan Farrow, Andrew Marantz, 15,000 words (05:36) - Slippery Sam and the zeitgeist (07:39) - Brian Merchant: it's open season for refusing AI (08:09) - Anthropic's Mythic model finds decade-old vulnerabilities (10:46) - Why even release it? Dario's narcissism (12:12) - Slippery Sam vs Devious Dario (14:11) - Hassabis as the third way (18:29) - The Mustafa Suleiman question (19:17) - Mike Tyson, Kant, Spinoza, and Hobbes (22:09) - Brian Merchant and the new Luddism (23:34) - Anthropic makes a new generation redundant every week (23:34) - Post of the week: Keith rebuilds his sites in 10 minutes (26:39) - Eric Ries on incorruptible companies (30:12) - Patagonia, Berkeley Bowl, Mondragon (35:43) - The end of ownership? Keith goes Marxist

“It's ultra stable. Health care doesn't move. If you biopsied American health care in 2010 and again in 2026, no one could figure out which slide was which.” — Robert Pearl, MDBad news. The patient, I'm afraid, is ultra-stable. Robert Pearl, former CEO of Kaiser Permanente for eighteen years and author of ChatGPT MD, returns with the bleakest diagnosis we've heard all month. American healthcare, Dr Pearl says, is “ultra stable.” That might sound good. But it's actually very very bad.If you biopsied American healthcare in 2010 and again in 2026, Pearl says, no clinician could tell the slides apart. Both were and are overpriced. Both underperforming. Hospitals still represent between 30-35% of expenses. Costs continue to rise at between 7-9% a year. There remain four hundred thousand misdiagnosis deaths annually. Burnout is stuck at 50%. The numbers haven't moved in fifteen years.Meanwhile, a stealth revolution is already underway. 40% of Americans use generative AI every month for medical questions. 70-80% of physicians use it weekly. While the patients and doctors have moved, the system hasn't. It remains ultra-stable. It's a Kodak moment — healthcare's business model, Pearl suggests, is selling sickness. So, for example, the new new medical thing is GLP-1 drugs that cost $5 to manufacture and sell for $400.So will the system collapse? No, Pearl insists. It has too much strength for that kind of drama. Instead, it will quietly ration us to death — more chronic disease, earlier deaths, more people making a major sacrifice to pay their healthcare bills. Ultra-stability, then, is what is killing the American healthcare system. It will, quite literally, ration us to death. Five Takeaways•       Ultra Stable: Pearl's diagnosis of American healthcare in one phrase. Hospitals stay at thirty to thirty-five per cent of total expenses. Costs rise at seven to nine per cent annually. Life expectancy hasn't budged. Four hundred thousand misdiagnosis deaths a year. Burnout at fifty per cent. Biopsy 2010 and 2026 — no one could tell the slides apart. Both overpriced. Both underperforming.•       The Stealth Revolution Has Already Happened: Forty per cent of Americans use generative AI every month for medical questions. Seventy to eighty per cent of physicians use it weekly. The patients and doctors have moved. The system hasn't. It's a Kodak moment — they had the first filmless camera and let it die because their business model was selling film. Healthcare's business model is selling sickness.•       Quietly Rationed to Death: There will be no dramatic collapse. The system has too much strength for that. Instead: rationing, more chronic disease, earlier deaths. Like airlines moving everyone into first class while the rest drive. Twenty-five per cent of Americans already made a major sacrifice to pay healthcare bills last year. When it hits fifty per cent, maybe the polling places will notice. Pearl is doubtful.•       GLP-1s Cost $5 to Make and $400 to Buy: Yale's analysis: the manufacturing cost of a GLP-1 drug is $5 a month. They sell at a discounted price of $400. That's eighty times markup. Pearl's math: to make GLP-1s cost-neutral against the medical savings, the price has to be under $200. Trump Rx won't help most people because you can't use insurance there and $400 cash is still impossible on $60,000 a year.•       Vibe Coding Is the Prescription: One year old. Lets clinicians build software in plain English without code. Pearl's example: a heart failure patient at home, weighed daily on a Bluetooth scale, with an electronic stethoscope, ankle video, blood oxygen, exercise tolerance — all in an app a doctor could build in a weekend. Three days of fluid retention caught before the ICU admission. Cost: twenty dollars a month. The fix has arrived. The system isn't using it. About the GuestBeverly Gage is the John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History and American Studies at Yale. She is the author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through US History. She is currently at work on a biography of Ronald Reagan.References:•       This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through US History by Beverly Gage.•       G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage — the Pulitzer-winning biography.•       Episode 2859: Stop, Don't Do That — Peter Edelman on Bobby Kennedy and the heart of America. The companion conversation.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: AI and the American healthcare sector (01:47) - ChatGPT MD: chronic disease and the trillion-dollar opportunity (04:50) - The stealth revolution: 40% of patients, 80% of doctors (06:53) - Ultra stability: the 2010-vs-2026 biopsy (09:50) - Three years of generative AI and counting (11:13) - Will the system collapse? No — it will quietly ration (13:33) - The drip-drip of preventable deaths (16:08) - GLP-1 drugs: $5 to make, $400 to buy (18:23) - Vibe coding enters the conversation (21:22) - Will AI replace clinicians? (28:08) - Trump Rx and why it won't help most people (30:41) - RFK Jr., vaccines, and the war on science (33:23) - The midterms as the political reckoning (35:29) - The three-step fix: capitation, transition, capital (39:48) - Vibe coding and the heart failure example

“You can face your history and still love your country. This is my attempt at doing that.” — Beverly GageWhen the Yale Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage finished her almost nine-hundred-page biography of J. Edgar Hoover, she needed a little break before starting her next book on Ronald Reagan. So she got in her old Subaru and spent six months on the road driving across America to prepare for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The result of these thirteen separate road trips is This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through US History. Gage's Subaru broke down constantly. So, from time to time, did her health. But the American history she uncovered is anything but broken down.Historians, Gage argues, don't think enough about geography. Visiting the homes of the first four US Presidents from Virginia, she saw how closely America's slaveholding elite actually lived. Driving through the small towns on the Erie Canal, she found the corridor where abolitionism, women's rights, temperance, and reform Christianity were all born. At Disneyland, the final chapter in her road trip, she went to the Abraham Lincoln stage show and imagined Main Street USA as Walt Disney's parable about US history. The gap between the imagined America and the real one (yes, there is a real one, she insists) is where true history lives.Gage's thesis is that there is a third road — too much of a backstreet these days — between American pride and shame in its history. Her book maps that path. You can face up to your history, she argues, and still love your country. In a moment when inane triumphalism and apocalyptic despair dominate America's sense of itself, Gage's quiet historical reflection feels like the rarest of national commodities. Ben Franklin wondered in 1787 if the sun was rising or setting on America. Two hundred and fifty years later, Beverly Gage got in her Subaru and went on the road to find out. Five Takeaways•       Out of the Library and Into the Subaru: Gage won the Pulitzer Prize for her eight-hundred-page biography of J. Edgar Hoover. Her next book is on Ronald Reagan. Between the two, she needed a break. So she got in her unreliable Subaru and drove across America in thirteen trips, covering six months on the road, to prepare for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The Subaru broke down constantly. The history she found was worth it.•       Historians Don't Think Enough About Geography: Visiting the homes of the first four presidents from Virginia, Gage saw how closely the slaveholding elite actually lived — neighbours, not just names in a textbook. Driving the Erie Canal in upstate New York, she found the corridor where abolitionism, women's rights, temperance, and reform Christianity were all born in a handful of small towns. Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were neighbours. History on the ground is different from history in books.•       Disneyland Is a Parable About American History: When Walt Disney opened Disneyland in 1955, Main Street USA reached back to his own childhood in the age of William McKinley. Frontierland told the heroic story of the American past. Tomorrowland celebrated Cold War technological optimism. Most visitors don't think about this. Gage does. She went to the Abraham Lincoln stage show. The gap between the imagined America and the real one is where the history lives.•       The Third Road: Between Pride and Shame: Gage encountered Americans who said: celebrate the country, I want nothing to do with that. She encountered others who said: only say the good stuff. She wanted to live in the tension between them. You can face your history and still love your country. That's the thesis of the book, and the argument for how to approach 250 years of American history in a moment when both triumphalism and despair are on offer.•       Upstate New York Was Where Americans Reimagined Themselves: Gage's favourite chapter. In the 1840s and 1850s along the Erie Canal, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony were actually neighbours. They were writing their own constitutions and rethinking the Declaration of Independence. Douglass gave his famous “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” speech in Rochester. They were in it together. If you want to find the third road, this is where to start. About the GuestBeverly Gage is the John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History and American Studies at Yale. She is the author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, and This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through US History. She is currently at work on a biography of Ronald Reagan.References:•       This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through US History by Beverly Gage.•       G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage — the Pulitzer-winning biography.•       Episode 2859: Stop, Don't Do That — Peter Edelman on Bobby Kennedy and the heart of America. The companion conversation.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: out of the library, into the Subaru (01:57) - Why a road trip? The 250th anniversary approaches (04:18) - Growing up in suburban Philadelphia, displaced (05:32) - Goldberger becomes Gage: a father's anglicised name (07:46) - This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie as frame (08:18) - Historians don't think enough about geography (11:27) - The places most people have never heard of (13:42) - Disneyland and the parable of American history (15:49) - Lafayette, Tocqueville, and the great travel tradition (17:25) - Thirteen trips, six months on the road (20:22) - Crisis, catastrophe, and the opportunity for change (23:21) - The apocalyptic temptation: from left and right (25:13) - Civil rights cities that fell on hard times (31:36) - The third road: between pride and shame (33:35) - Upstate New York: Douglass, Anthony, and the neighbours who reimagined A...

“Doing science is like reading the mind of God.” — Demis Hassabis, quoted in The Infinity MachineThis week's New Yorker uncomplimentary profile of OpenAI's CEO is entitled “The Many Faces of Sam Altman.” But not all AI leaders are quite as many faced as slippery Sam. Take, for example, Demis Hassabis, the North London based co-founder and CEO of Google's DeepMind. In his new biography, The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence, the British journalist Sebastian Mallaby argues that Hassabis is, in contrast, one faced. And that face is not only decent, but informed by the enlightened ethics of Baruch Spinoza and Immanuel Kant.Mallaby presents Hassabis as the anti-Altman. He's stayed at DeepMind for sixteen years, lived in the same London house, drives a decade-old car. Rather than power, Google's AI supremo seeks scientific enlightenment. Like Spinoza, his God is the master watchmaker of the universe. And so doing science, Hassabis explained to Mallaby in one of their many conversations in the backroom of a North London pub, is like reading the mind of God. Decent Demis. Honest Hassabis. Let's just hope this modest and thoughtful tech leviathan can bring Kantian ethics to Silicon Valley's sprint for artificial general intelligence. Five Takeaways•       Hassabis Is the Anti-Altman: Sam Altman has managed to annoy almost everyone he's worked with by saying one thing and doing the opposite. Hassabis has run DeepMind continuously for sixteen years, lives in the same house in Highgate, drives a decade-old car, and spends his discretionary money on Liverpool season tickets. He doesn't want power. He wants scientific enlightenment. Mallaby uses the word advisedly.•       Doing Science Is Like Reading the Mind of God: Hassabis is a Spinozan. The god he believes in is the god Einstein talked about — the fabric of reality understood through scientific inquiry. He reads Kant, he reads Spinoza, he reads widely enough to be a proper polymath. Mallaby sat with him in a Highgate pub for more than thirty hours. What he found was not a Silicon Valley sociopath but an enlightenment figure who thinks AI is the modern version of the telescope.•       The Szilard Pedestrian Crossing: Mallaby asked Hassabis what it felt like to set up DeepMind in 2010. Instead of the usual vague answer, Hassabis painted the scene: the attic office on Russell Square, the heat, the stairs, the greenery outside, the London Mathematical Society three doors down where Turing lectured, and the zebra crossing where the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the nuclear chain reaction in the 1930s. The perfect metaphor: DeepMind as the modern Manhattan Project.•       The Two Categories of Things That Go Wrong: There's the idiot-in-charge category — an evil or stupid person making bad decisions, and you could swap them out. Then there's the structural category: a good person trying their best, defeated by larger forces they cannot control. Hassabis is category two. He wants to make AI safe, but race dynamics between US and China labs make safety nearly impossible to deliver. The failure of governments to intervene is the real story. Not individuals.•       The Go Players Who Quit: When AlphaGo beat the best players in the world, some professional Go players retired — centuries of accumulated human understanding devalued overnight. Others kept playing, using the machine as a tutor to discover patterns they'd never seen. Two responses to superintelligence in one domain. One is mourning. The other is curiosity. Mallaby thinks the second response is the only one worth having. Hassabis agrees. About the GuestSebastian Mallaby is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. A former Washington Post columnist and Economist contributing editor, he is the author of More Money Than God, The Man Who Knew (winner of the FT and McKinsey Business Book of the Year), The Power Law, and now The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence.References:•       The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby.•       Episode 2862: Truth Is Dead — Steven Rosenbaum on AI as a spectacularly good liar. Mallaby's quiet counter-argument.•       Episode 2860: We Shape Our AI, Thereafter It Shapes Us — Keith Teare on agency in our agentic age. Hassabis thinks he can still steer.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: the many faces of Sam Altman (02:00) - Altman's duplicity versus Hassabis's consistency (02:56) - The moral wrestling: is this the Manhattan Project? (04:45) - The ordinary genius in Highgate (06:29) - The Szilard pedestrian crossing and a storyteller off the charts (09:10) - Responding to The Guardian: why Hassabis isn't Altman (12:58) - The two categories of things that go wrong (14:48) - Mustafa Suleiman's remarkable backstory (17:01) - Did Demis fire Mustafa? (19:46) - Class, Eton, and the North London grammar school (22:27) - Spinoza, Kant, and the god of science (25:27) - Doing science is like reading the mind of God (29:57) - Why not Princeton? The money problem (34:12) - The secret DeepMind vs Google negotiation (43:11) - Is Hassabis the next CEO of Google? (48:05) - The Go players who quit

“There are parts of the business and finance world that are invested in making these things seem intimidating and scary. We really enjoy making things more approachable.” — Alex MayyasiWhat's the last taboo? The thing that we are totally embarrassed to discuss? No, not sex. It's money. At least according to Alex Mayyasi — frequent contributor to NPR's Planet Money — who has just published Planet Money: How to Live Richer, Spend Smarter, and Afford the Life You Want, a field guide to the big economic forces that shape our working, saving, loving and leisure lives.Mayyasi argues that money is the last taboo. We talk openly (perhaps too openly) about our sex lives now. But we still don't talk about our money lives — not with spouses, not with parents, not with our children. Companies that have tried full salary transparency report uncomfortable conversations about race and gender. Thus the need for Mayyasi's new book. It's not exactly porn, but Planet Money is designed to liberate us from our last taboo. Five Takeaways•       The Economy Was Invented During the Great Depression: If you asked someone a hundred years ago how the economy was doing, you'd get a strange look back. The concept didn't exist. It was the Depression that forced the question — because Roosevelt and his advisers had no way of knowing whether the New Deal was working. An economist was tasked with the Don Quixote-like job of counting every transaction in America to produce a single number: GDP. We have lived inside that number ever since.•       Money Is More Embarrassing Than Sex: We talk freely about sex now. We still don't talk about money — not with spouses, not with parents, not with children. Mayyasi advocates for salary transparency, even though companies that have tried it report uncomfortable conversations about race and gender pay gaps. The discomfort is the point. Maybe we need a Freud of finance to liberate us from the last taboo.•       Financial Time Travel: Markets give us the ability to move money through time — into the future through saving, or from the future to the present through borrowing. Student loans are the most relatable form: young people pulling their future income backwards to fund the human capital they need to earn it. Consumption smoothing across the life cycle is a perfectly valid use of debt, as long as you don't assume the future will be richer than it actually turns out to be.•       Productive Risk Versus Nihilistic Gambling: The GameStop ride looks quaint compared to today's parlay bets on whether a certain word will appear in the State of the Union. Higher risk, higher reward is a continuum, and savvy careers are built on calculated risks. But there is a difference between productive risk — the kind that builds businesses and careers — and the nihilistic flip of a coin. Knowing the difference is half of financial literacy.•       Bobby Bonilla and the Magic of Compound Interest: Bonilla agreed to defer his $6 million Mets salary for decades. Every year, the Mets still send him a cheque for over $1 million, which drives Mets fans insane. It looks bone-headed, but it is exactly how every successful retirement plan works: give up consumption now, let compound interest do its work, enjoy something like $30 million in the future. Bonilla was savvier than his critics. We can all learn from him. About the GuestAlex Mayyasi is a writer and frequent contributor to NPR's Planet Money. His new book, Planet Money: How to Live Richer, Spend Smarter, and Afford the Life You Want, was published this week.References:•       Planet Money: How to Live Richer, Spend Smarter, and Afford the Life You Want by Alex Mayyasi.•       Episode 2863: An Anticapitalist Mutiny — Noam Scheiber on the rise and revolt of the college-educated working class. The other side of Planet Money.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: things aren't quite right on Planet Money (03:18) - The Great Moderation: a fantastic run that we forgot to celebrate (05:49) - The economy was invented during the Great Depression (07:52) - Aristotle's oikonomia: economics has always been personal (09:20) - The Planet Money DNA: storytelling and the bank teller who met the ATM (13:23) - Why money makes everybody nervous (16:02) - Crypto out, AI in: the great pivot of the writing process (17:49) - Economists and AI: the longer perspective (20:03) - Financial time travel: student loans as moving income through time (22:40) - Productive risk versus nihilistic gambling (24:41) - Does money make you happy? Beyond the $60,000 plateau (27:25) - GDP versus the planet: externalities and corporate DNA (30:15) - More embarrassing than sex: why we can't talk about money (33:19) - Salary transparency: the case of Sweden (41:47) - Bobby Bonilla, the Mets, and the magic of compound interest (45:48) - Insurance as peace of mind  

“Historically, when the college-educated become politically radicalised, that does tend to lead to real shifts.” — Noam ScheiberA university degree has always been seen as a passport out of the working class. But according to the New York Times' Noam Scheiber, the reverse is now true. In his new book, Mutiny, Scheiber argues that the good white-collar jobs college once promised have been quietly disappearing over the last fifteen years. The result, he argues, is the rise and revolt of what he calls a “college-educated” working class.Scheiber chose mutiny because it's a term to describe workers who have lost confidence in management. College graduates who once imagined themselves as management-adjacent now regard the people in charge with deep suspicion. The university itself has become extractive — charging the same tuition for an art history degree as for an engineering degree, marketing video game design programmes to thousands of students who will never make a living from them, lending federal money with no skin in the game.Scheiber warns that the ideological diploma divide has already closed. By 2020, college graduates were slightly to the left of non-college voters on taxation, regulation, and unions. Sympathy for socialism among college grads doubled between 2010 and 2020. Mamdani won eighty-five per cent of college graduates under thirty in New York City. When the educated radicalise and join forces with the traditional working class, Scheiber notes, the political order changes. This was as true in nineteenth-century China as in Russia in 1917, Iran 1979 and Poland in 1980.College grads have nothing to lose but their diplomas. Five Takeaways•       Mutiny, Not Revolution: Scheiber chose the word deliberately. Mutiny is a workplace term. Sailors who have lost confidence in the captain take matters into their own hands. It taps into the changing sociology of college graduates who once imagined themselves as management-adjacent and now regard the people in charge with deep suspicion. This isn't a violent uprising. It's a workplace rebellion.•       The Video Game Design Degree Is the Perfect Scam: Tens of thousands of students each year enrol in college programmes that promise to turn their hobby into a career at a major studio. Only a tiny fraction ever make a living designing games. The marketing isn't a lie — just a rosier picture than the reality. Universities charge the same tuition for an art history degree as for an engineering degree, even though we know the returns are vastly different. No other part of the economy works this way.•       On Economics, the Diploma Divide Has Already Closed: Through the 1980s and 1990s, college graduates were significantly more conservative on economics. By 2012, college and non-college voters were in the exact same place. By 2020, college graduates were slightly to the left. Sympathy for socialism among college grads doubled from twenty to forty per cent between 2010 and 2020. The divide that remains is cultural. The economic majority is sitting out there waiting for a candidate who knows how to address it.•       The 70/10 Gap: About seventy per cent of Americans support unions in principle. Only ten per cent are actually in one. American labour law gives employers enormous leeway to discourage organising. The gap means traditional unions cannot close the demand. Alternative forms of organising — the Alphabet Workers Union at Google, Amazon employees for climate justice, walkouts and petitions — are becoming the new shape of workplace power.•       When the College-Educated Radicalise, Politics Disrupts: Nineteenth-century China. The Bolshevik Revolution. Iran 1979. Poland's Solidarity movement. Spain and Greece after the Great Recession. History shows that when a frustrated educated class joins forces with the traditional working class, the political order changes. The college-educated have agency. They vote, organise, donate, and show up. When they get angry, the political class notices. About the GuestNoam Scheiber is a labour and workplace reporter for The New York Times. A former Rhodes Scholar, he is the author of The Escape Artists: How Obama's Team Fumbled the Recovery and Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class.References:•       Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2861: The Joe Biden Tragedy — Julian Zelizer on the last New Deal president. The political vacuum Scheiber describes.•       Episode 2859: Stop, Don't Do That — Peter Edelman on Bobby Kennedy. The progressive populism that could once unite Black and white workers.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: new book day, the betrayal of college graduates (02:46) - Why mutiny, not revolution: a workplace term (05:56) - The Rhodes Scholar who became a Starbucks organiser (10:10) - Generation morality without class consciousness (15:33) - Can the GOP become the party of workers? (18:00) - The convergence of college and non-college voters on immigration and crime (20:14) - What does betrayal feel like? (21:00) - The video game design degree scam (24:37) - The university as extractive system (27:15) - Was Biden a New Deal president in a post-New Deal age? (31:45) - Mamdani and the economic majority that's sitting out there (32:45) - The 70/10 gap: why traditional unions can't close it (35:02) - Tech workers, alternative organising, and the Alphabet Workers Union (38:50) - Has the decline of knowledge work begun? (40:00) - Luddites or Bolsheviks: when the college-educated radicalise (40:55) - Iran 1979, Poland's Solidarity, and the disruptive power of educated rage

“When we trust AI to tell us the truth, we are setting ourselves up to hand over something deeply human to a machine that does not have our best interests at heart.” — Steven RosenbaumTruth, Steven Rosenbaum cheerfully admits, is a shitty word. It has two ontological realities — one objective, the other subjective — but most of us use the word without much thought. Maybe it's like pornography. It might be hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Or perhaps you know it, when you don't see it.His new book, The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality, with a foreword by Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, takes a cast of tech futurists — Douglas Rushkoff, Larry Lessig, Gary Marcus, Esther Dyson, David Chalmers — and asks what happens to truth in our AI age.AI is, at its core, Rosenbaum's tech mavens report, a spectacularly good liar. It tells us exactly what we want to hear. And even when it knows it's wrong, he says, it lies. Rather than a bug, lying is a core, perhaps the core feature of AI.I'm not so sure. Humans have always been spectacularly good liars too. Stories are a kind of untruth. Cinema is, by definition, an untruth. Television had ads. Every medium has been corrupted by commercial interest. But, for Rosenbaum, AI is different. Truth then has no future in our AI age. Except, of course, in books like The Future of Truth. Five Takeaways•       AI Is, at Its Core, a Spectacularly Good Liar: It tells you exactly what you want to hear. Even when it knows it's wrong, it lies. That's not a code problem or a tweak — it's in its DNA. Gary Marcus argues the problem isn't AI per se but the current structure of LLMs. They read everything you've ever said and manufacture a version of you. Most of it is pretty good. The rest is just fucking wrong.•       Truth Is a Shitty Word: It means two completely different things. Objective truth: one plus one equals two. Subjective truth: your opinion dressed up as fact. We've allowed ourselves to use the word casually, and that's dangerous. The moment it came out from hiding was Kellyanne Conway on the White House lawn, talking about “alternative facts.” Trump then built a social network and called it Truth Social. That wasn't an accident.•       Courts Require Facts. AI Will Filter Justice: Larry Lessig's concern is that courts could really use AI to process enormous volumes of evidence. But AI will do it with its own biases built in. It might look at a thousand similar cases and say: we see a pattern, we don't need to hear anything else. Lessig fears the court system will be reshaped by a technology that doesn't understand what justice means.•       ChatGPT Said Sora Was Dangerous — Weeks Before They Shut It Down: Rosenbaum “interviewed” OpenAI's own algorithm about Sora for two hours. By the end, it said: Sora 2 is dangerous, Sam should have known better, it was a bad business decision, we should shut it down. Weeks later, OpenAI did. They knew. They went too far.•       David Chalmers vs. Plato: The book stages a debate between the living philosopher and the dead one, using AI to generate Plato's side. Chalmers said he wasn't sure he would have phrased things quite that way, but found it entertaining. Rosenbaum didn't show it to Chalmers in advance because Plato didn't get the same opportunity. That's fairness in the age of bots. About the GuestSteven Rosenbaum is a journalist, filmmaker, and co-founder of the Sustainable Media Center at NYU. He is the author of The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality, with a foreword by Maria Ressa. He lives on the Upper West Side of New York City.References:•       The Future of Truth: How AI Reshapes Reality by Steven Rosenbaum, foreword by Maria Ressa.•       Episode 2860: We Shape Our AI, Thereafter It Shapes Us — Keith Teare on the agency debate. Rosenbaum is the counter-argument.•       Episode 2854: Perfection Is the Devil — Daniel Smith on AI chatbots as inherently sycophantic. Rosenbaum's “spectacularly good liar” is the same diagnosis.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: Doctor Truth from the Upper West Side (02:25) - Truth is a shitty word: objective vs. subjective (05:12) - Kellyanne Conway and the moment it all came out from hiding (06:56) - The Sustainable Media Center and the perennial problem (07:57) - If we don't care about truth, we might let it vanish (11:09) - AI is a spectacularly good liar (13:09) - Aren't stories a kind of lying? (14:22) - Trump called his social network Truth Social. That wasn't an accident. (18:04) - When you ask AI a question, it has no plans to tell you the truth (19:05) - Larry Lessig: courts require facts, and AI will filter justice (21:19) - Should we trust AI with truth? Yes — and put a period at the end (24:14) - The 15-year-old who fell in love with a Character AI (29:12) - The Sora deepfake: profoundly disturbing testimonials (33:29) - Obama: truth is the cornerstone of democracy (36:05) - ChatGPT told Rosenbaum that Sora was dangerous weeks before it was shut down (42:20) - David Chalmers vs. Plato: a staged debate between the living and the dead

“His ultimate failure is not simply losing. It's his failure to stop Trumpism from being such a dominant force in America.” — Julian ZelizerOn this Easter Sunday, can we resurrect Joe Biden's reputation? Perhaps not — according to Julian Zelizer, the Princeton historian and editor of The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden, a collection of essays about the historical significance of the Biden Presidency.Zelizer argues that Biden's legislative record was more robust than most Americans remember — climate investments, semiconductor plants, diversity integrated into government programmes. Rather than policy, the problem was the politics. Biden didn't build a coalition that would last long enough for his ambitious programmes to mature. He is the last of an era: a New Deal Democrat who believed in big government, that the Republicans could be brought back to the centre, that politics could still work the way it used to. Joe Biden promised to save the soul of America from the Charlottesville moment. Instead, his administration was bookended by a President who saw “good people” on both sides of the Charlottesville neo-Nazi violence.Zelizer makes an unusual comparison: Biden as Barry Goldwater. Goldwater lost catastrophically in 1964. Decades later, his anti-New Deal ideas colonised the modern Republican Party. Zelizer suggests that Biden's domestic agenda — affordability, industrial policy, bringing jobs home — may follow the same trajectory. Victory on the heels of defeat. A resurrection of sorts. Maybe not such a tragedy after all. Five Takeaways•       Biden May Be the Last New Deal President: He is a product of mid-twentieth-century Democratic politics — big government, big federal programs, the belief that Washington can help middle-class Americans. His formative period was the era of LBJ and the Great Society. The next round of Democrats will not make his mistakes. The style of politics he represents may be over.•       His Legislative Record Was More Robust Than Anyone Remembers: Climate investments, semiconductor plants, diversity integrated into government programs, jobs brought back to the United States. The problem wasn't that the programmes were broken. The problem was political: he didn't build a coalition that would last long enough for them to mature. Even the New Deal wasn't up and running within a year.•       He Promised to Save the Soul of America. He Couldn't: Biden's candidacy was a response to the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville. His promise was that Trumpism would not be at the centre of American power. His ultimate failure is not simply losing. It's that his administration is followed by a much more radical Trump Two that undoes everything he put on the books and goes further.•       Biden as Barry Goldwater: Goldwater lost by one of the worst margins on record in 1964. Decades later, his ideas were at the core of the modern Republican Party. Zelizer argues Biden's domestic agenda — affordability, industrial policy, semiconductor investment — may follow the same trajectory. The ideas may outlast the man.•       Bookended by Trump: There is no way to talk about Biden without talking about Trump. His candidacy was about what he was not going to allow to define America. The fact that he is followed by a more radical and destructive second Trump administration will always be at the centre of the conversation. Trump is the defining voice of this entire period. About the GuestJulian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich and the Rise of the New Republican Party and editor of the presidential assessment series including volumes on Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden.References:•       The Presidency of Joseph R. Biden: A First Historical Assessment edited by Julian Zelizer — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2859: Stop, Don't Do That — Peter Edelman on Bobby Kennedy. The progressive populism Biden couldn't resurrect.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Joseph R. Biden (02:21) - Zhou Enlai and Kissinger: is it too early to tell? (04:34) - The historians were eager to participate (06:16) - A traditional president analysed in a traditional format (07:20) - Divided We Stand: Newt Gingrich and the pathetic quality of the Democrats (09:48) - Gramsci's interregnum: frozen between the past and the future (11:35) - The soul of America: Biden's promise and ultimate failure (14:18) - An unlikely person: plagiarism, alliances with segregationists, and luck (16:04) - Lincoln's widow at the theatre: why did anyone fancy this guy? (18:54) - No ideological coherence: the compromise candidate (21:13) - The CHIPS Act looked great on paper (23:38) - Who was running the show? (25:30) - The debate: clearly at best out to lunch (28:26) - Biden as Barry Goldwater: ideas that outlast the man (30:38) - Kamala Harris and backward momentum for female candidates (34:38) - Foreign policy: the irony of his supposed strength (38:25) - The Hoover comparison: the end of a chapter in American history  

“We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.” — Marshall McLuhan (attributed)Who gets to tell the AI story? A movie, a media company or Marshall McLuhan?1. The movie: the AI doc, How I Became an Apocaloptimist, which That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare dismissed because it failed to define AI.2. A media company: OpenAI bought the streaming show TBPN for hundreds of millions of dollars in a move that is akin to Lenin starting Pravda.3. Marshall McLuhan: Ezra Klein visited Silicon Valley and was reminded of McLuhan's (supposed) remark that “first we shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.”Klein argues that AI agents are empowering tools that give humans a massive boost in productivity. But the effect, he writes, is to constantly reinforce a certain version of ourselves. These agentic tools are undermining our agency, he fears. So AI ultimately gets to tell the AI story.Agency is becoming simultaneously the political problem and the cure — the thing-in-itself. Writing in the New York Times, Sophie Haigney argues that all the worst people want to be high-agency. Out here, in Silicon Valley, we think that all the worst people want to be low-agency. Perhaps the only thing we all agree on is that nobody wants to be a bot. First we shape our AIs and thereafter they shape us. Five Takeaways•       The AI Doc Is a Massive Failure: Well made, technically fine, but it never establishes what the problem with AI actually is or what kind of solution it offers. All three leaders — Altman, Amodei, Hassabis — come across as unconvinced there will be a good future. The only opinion you can leave with is a negative one.•       OpenAI Bought a Media Company: TBPN acquired for what may be hundreds of millions. Om Malik compares it to Lenin starting Pravda. You don't buy a media outlet unless you want to influence the message. Keith thinks it's about winning the messaging war against Anthropic. Meanwhile, OpenAI's COO shifts to special projects and Fidji Simo takes medical leave.•       Ezra Klein Saw Something New in San Francisco: He noticed people using AI agents as personal assistants — empowering tools that give humans a massive boost in productivity. His observation: the effect is to constantly reinforce a certain version of yourself. We shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us.•       Agency Is the Defining Political Conversation: The New York Times argues all the worst people want to be high-agency. Keith argues the opposite: agency is the precondition for making history. The Meta verdict treated a depressed girl as a passive victim of media with no decision-making role. That depicts humans as infants. It isn't true.•       AI Is a Calculating Machine. You Have to Ask It Something: Agency hasn't been given up. The human shapes the AI completely. Each session starts from scratch. The fear is that the next generation won't be as clever as AI. But unless we have a strong sense of the self, we will be lost. If we do, we can shape these tools as we want. About the GuestKeith Teare is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of That Was The Week, a weekly newsletter on the tech economy. He is co-founder of SignalRank and a regular Saturday guest on Keen On America.References:•       That Was The Week — Keith's editorial: “Who Gets to Tell the AI Story?”•       Episode 2852: Don't Fight the Last War — last TWTW on the social media trial and the Anthropic trap.•       Episode 2850: Bring the Friction Back — Balkam on social media addiction. The agency debate continues.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: the AI doc, How I Became an Apocaloptimist (01:28) - Keith's verdict: a massive failure of a movie (03:20) - Daniel Roher's narrative: should I have a kid in an AI world? (05:30) - Who gets to tell the AI story? (07:55) - Brain surgeons vs. social policy: the trust problem (09:37) - OpenAI buys TBPN: Lenin, Pravda, and the propaganda play (11:57) - Executive churn at OpenAI: Lightcap, Simo, and the COO shuffle (15:22) - Stability is the enemy: the biggest startup the world has ever seen (17:28) - The markets: rear-view mirror meets speculation (19:48) - SpaceX with xAI: rumoured at $2 trillion (22:32) - Ezra Klein in San Francisco: I saw something new (24:19) - McLuhan: we shape our tools, and thereafter they shape us (26:42) - Why didn't the AI doc actually use AI? (31:19) - The agency debate: all the worst people want to be high-agency (38:09) - AI is a calculating machine. You have to ask it something.

“Millions of people have gone out and said, ‘Stop, don't do that.' And that is a wonderful thing.” — Peter EdelmanWe are in Washington DC this week, in search of America's heart. And there may be no better guide than Peter Edelman — one of the few remaining members of the Bobby Kennedy braintrust. Edelman was a close Kennedy aide from just after JFK's assassination through the 1968 presidential campaign. He watched Bobby find himself after his brother's death — grow from a man defined by serving JFK into the last progressive populist able to unite Black and white working-class Americans.Edelman's personal and political stories are inseparable from Bobby. In Mississippi, on the 1967 senatorial trip where Kennedy saw firsthand what he called the “third world” poverty in the Delta, Edelman met Marian Wright — the civil rights lawyer who would become his wife. They married a month after Bobby's assassination, only the third interracial couple ever to marry in Virginia.“Let's do something good,” Marian and Peter said to each other when they decided to get married.Everything Edelman did afterward was connected with Kennedy's vision of ending poverty in America. Especially when he worked in the first Clinton administration. But when Clinton converted federal poverty aid into block grants and the number of Americans receiving help dropped from seventeen to three million, Edelman very publicly resigned. Clinton needlessly and cruelly threw low-income people overboard, Edelman told me.Has Edelman given up on Donald Trump's America? No. Millions of citizens, especially in his native Minnesota, are speaking out. “Stop, don't do that,” is his RFK-inspired mantra. Proof, Peter Edelman believes, that the American heart is still beating. Five Takeaways•       Bobby Kennedy Was the Most Important Person in His Life: Edelman was Kennedy's principal aide from just after JFK's assassination through the 1968 presidential campaign. He travelled with him every day across America. He watched Bobby find himself after his brother's death — grow from a man defined by serving Jack into the last progressive populist who could unite Black and white working-class Americans.•       He Met Marian Wright in Mississippi: Bobby Kennedy found a profoundly malnourished child in Cleveland, Mississippi. He also found Marian Wright — already one of the most remarkable civil rights lawyers in the country. Edelman and Wright married one month after Bobby's assassination. They were the third interracial couple to marry in Virginia. “Let's do something good,” they said to each other after the killing.•       Trump's Picture Hangs on the Building Bobby Once Ran: The Department of Justice building in Washington is now named after Robert F. Kennedy. On it hangs a large picture of Donald Trump — almost dictatorial in feel. Edelman says Bobby would call him out, just as the millions of Americans speaking out are doing now.•       He Broke with Clinton Over Poverty: Edelman and his wife had known the Clintons for years — Bill and Hillary stayed at their house. But when Clinton converted federal poverty aid into block grants, the number of Americans receiving help dropped from seventeen million to three million. Edelman resigned. He threw low-income people overboard, Edelman says. He didn't have to.•       Stop, Don't Do That: Millions of Americans are speaking out against the current administration. That, Edelman says, is a wonderful thing. It's the clearest articulation right now of what it means to be an American. Stop, don't do that. Bobby Kennedy would have said exactly the same thing. About the GuestPeter Edelman is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He served as principal aide to Robert F. Kennedy and in the Clinton administration. He is the author of So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America. He is married to Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund.References:•       So Rich, So Poor by Peter Edelman — his book on poverty in America.•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us — Colum McCann on empathy and storytelling. Kennedy's method was the original version.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(01:11) - Introduction: looking for America's heart in Washington DC (03:15) - Bobby Kennedy was the most important person in my life (04:44) - Trump's picture on the Department of Justice building Bobby once ran (06:16) - Mississippi: meeting Marian Wright in the Delta (09:37) - The third interracial couple to marry in Virginia (11:23) - Married one month after the assassination: let's do something good (12:11) - Cleveland, Mississippi: Bobby finds a malnourished child (13:38) - Are the Trump Republicans winding the clock back before civil rights? (15:08) - Everything I did afterward was connected to his thinking (17:08) - How Bobby became himself after Jack's death (19:20) - The last man to unite the Black and white working classes (20:30) - The third son of one of the richest men in America (22:45) - The Ambassador Hotel: I was at home, it was three in the morning (24:44) - Would he have won? I think he would have made it (26:54) - Breaking with Clinton: he threw low-income people overboard (33:08) - Stop, don't do that: where the hope is

“That's my story, but not where it ends.” — Bob Dylan, “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)”Fitzgerald said there were no second acts in the American story. But it is, of course, a narrative of second chances. And there's no more of an American story than Bob Dylan, whose second act may be more memorable than his first.Robert Polito — poet, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning biographer, and former director of creative writing at the New School — has written what may be the (anti) definitive book on Dylan's second act. After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan's Memory Palace covers the years from “Time Out of Mind” in 1997 through “Rough and Rowdy Ways” in 2020. It's structured as an abecedarium — twenty-six chapters, A to Z — because Polito explains, he wanted a form that acknowledged the limits of what anyone can know about Dylan. There is no rosebud sled buried in the Tulsa archive. So an alphabet book as good as we are gonna get.Digging into Dylan's Tulsa archive, Polito found much blood on the tracks — multiple drafts for every work, songs ripped up and redistributed line by line. The freewheeling spontaneity of Dylan's first act, Polito suggests, was replaced by something more deliberate: an American folk process merging into literary modernism. A hostage to his own memory palace, Dylan weaves Civil War poetry, Ovid's exile poems, Homer, and nineteenth-century speeches into songs that know more than any single listener can interpret.Polito argues that “Rough and Rowdy Ways” is Bob Dylan's real Nobel Prize speech — his self-reflection on his own art, delivered in his own forms and idioms. This pinnacle of Dylan's second act is his story, but not where it ends. Five Takeaways•       Rough and Rowdy Ways Is Dylan's Real Nobel Prize Speech: The 2020 album is Dylan's self-reflection on his own art, delivered in his own forms and idioms. Every song addresses his craft, his legacy, his audience. I Contain Multitudes, Key West, Murder Most Foul, My Own Version of You — each one a chapter in the speech the Nobel committee was waiting for. That's when Polito knew he could write the book.•       Dylan Works Harder Than Anyone Would Expect: The Tulsa archive reveals multiple drafts of songs that change radically from version to version. For Time Out of Mind, Dylan completed three or four songs, then ripped them up and redistributed the lines across different tracks. The spontaneity of the first act gave way to something more deliberate — folk process merging into literary modernism. Eliot, Joyce, Gertrude Stein.•       The Memory Palace Is Real: Dylan embeds Civil War poetry, Ovid's exile poems, Homer, nineteenth-century speeches, and movies into his late songs. The classical mnemonic device — depositing memories in specific rooms — became Polito's image for how much those songs know. There is no rosebud sled buried in the Tulsa archive. The memory palace is the art itself.•       That's My Story, But Not Where It Ends: The last line of Key West — probably Polito's favourite song on Rough and Rowdy Ways. If the song had ended with “that's my story,” there would have been a definitiveness about it. Instead, Dylan subverts the line in the very next breath. Tentativeness and self-skepticism, all the way through.•       The Police Didn't Believe He Was Bob Dylan: Wandering around New Jersey in the rain, looking for where Springsteen grew up. The police pick him up. What's your name? Bob Dylan. What's your real name? Robert Zimmerman. Where do you live? That's a good question. The more precisely he told the truth, the more they assumed he was lying. Knowing innocence. About the GuestRobert Polito is a poet, critic, and biographer. His biography of Jim Thompson, Savage Art, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is a former director of creative writing at the New School. After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan's Memory Palace is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.References:•       After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan's Memory Palace by Robert Polito (FSG) — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us — Colum McCann on Narrative Four. McCann's “that's his story, but not where it ends” is also Dylan's line.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - (00:31) - Introduction: Fitzgerald, second acts, and A Complete Unknown (02:57) - Team Dylan? No — tentativeness and self-skepticism (04:00) - The abecedarium: twenty-six chapters, A to Z, no rosebud sled (06:13) - Dylan the movie guy: always watching films on the tour bus (07:13) - The memory palace: how much those late songs know (09:26) - The interlude: the Grammy lifetime achievement speech and starting over (12:11) - Time Out of Mind and the Tulsa archive: how hard Dylan works (15:55) - Folk process meets literary modernism: Eliot, Joyce, Stein (18:34) - Lanois, the spoken vs. written word, and why albums are just a stage (21:41) - Rough and Rowdy Ways as Dylan's real Nobel Prize speech (24:19) - Key West: that's my story, but not where it ends (26:04) - The sacrificial quality: he was given something and shouldn't squander it (30:24) - Race, the civil war, and Love and Theft as minstrel acknowledgment (34:32) - Murder Most Foul: take me back to Tulsa, to the scene of the crime (40:56) - Picked up by police in New Jersey looking for Springsteen's house

“When Haiti plays Brazil, Haitians will feel equal. Football gives even the weakest and the poorest a fighting chance. That is profound.” — Dimitry Elias LégerYesterday, Simon Kuper defined the World Cup as a religious feast for all of humanity. Today, Dimitry Elias Léger asks whether God is watching. His new novel, Death of the Soccer God, is a fictional reimagining of the most famous goal in American World Cup history — scored in 1950 by a non-American. Joe Gaëtjens was a half-German, half-Haitian teenager sent to New York to study, not to play football. He picked up the game in Central Park, somehow (as a non-American) made it onto the US team at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, and scored the goal that famously beat England one–nil in Belo Horizonte. England was so heavily favoured that the football-mad BBC didn't even send a reporter.Léger — a Haitian-born writer and (for his sins) an Arsenal fan — spent three weeks in Brazil researching the novel, two of them in Belo Horizonte. The philosophical question at the core of the book asks if God loves Haiti. Does God, Léger wonders, have a particular affection for the poorest people on earth?And now, for the first time in decades, Haiti have qualified for the World Cup. In the United States of all places. They're in the toughest group — with Morocco and, yes, Brazil. For ninety minutes, Haiti will be the Seleção's equal. The democratic spectacle of football, Léger says, gives even the weakest and the poorest a fighting chance. God might even be watching. Five Takeaways•       The Most Famous Goal in American World Cup History Was Scored by a Haitian: Belo Horizonte, 1950. The US beat England one–nil. The scorer was Joe Gaëtjens — a half-German, half-Haitian teenager sent to New York to study, not to play football. He picked up the game in Central Park. He couldn't tell his parents he was playing for America in the World Cup. The BBC didn't even send a reporter. England was so heavily favoured it wasn't supposed to matter.•       Football Is the Only Arena Where Foot-Eye Coordination Is the Dominant Skill: We use our hands for everything. Football inverts it. That's why it seems miraculous when Pelé or Maradona or Messi does what they do. The feet are not supposed to be that graceful. It's more art than science, more jazz than chess.•       Pelé Looks Like a Typical Haitian Kid: The first televised World Cup final was 1958 in Stockholm. Pelé was sixteen and scored a hat-trick. He looked like a majority of the planet's population. That helped football explode globally. He introduced the bicycle kick, the samba flair. Brazil won three World Cups in twelve years.•       Papa Doc Disappeared Him: In real life, Gaëtjens returned to Haiti after his glory years, ran afoul of the dictator François Duvalier, and was disappeared — never seen again. In the novel, the hero confronts the dictator face to face. Dictators have always used football to drape themselves in glory. The beautiful game has a very dark side.•       Haiti Play Brazil This Summer: Haiti have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in decades. They're in the toughest group — with Brazil and Morocco. For ninety minutes, Haiti will be Brazil's equal. Football gives even the weakest and the poorest a fighting chance. That is profound. About the GuestDimitry Elias Léger is a Haitian-born novelist and Arsenal supporter. He is the author of God Loves Haiti and Death of the Soccer God.References:•       Death of the Soccer God by Dimitri Elias Léger — the novel under discussion.•       Episode 2856: One Life in Nine World Cups — Simon Kuper on football fever. The companion conversation.•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us — Colum McCann on storytelling and empathy. Léger is the novelist to McCann's activist.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: World Cup fever, Kuper, Foer, and going fiction (02:30) - Joe Gaëtjens: the Haitian teenager who beat England (04:19) - Half German, half Haitian: the immigrant who wasn't even American (06:45) - Does God exist? The philosophical question behind both novels (08:20) - Football as foot-eye coordination: why it seems miraculous (10:15) - Maradona, Messi, Pelé, Ronaldo: who is the greatest? (12:08) - Pelé in the first televised World Cup final: looking like a typical Haitian kid (14:22) - Football and jazz: the improvisational connection (16:30) - Belo Horizonte: two weeks walking the pitch (18:45) - Papa Doc disappeared him: the dark side of football and dictators (20:55) - Haiti qualified for the World Cup. They play Brazil. (23:10) - Equal footing for ninety minutes: what football gives the poorest

“The World Cup is a kind of religious feast. It's like Easter, or Passover, or Eid, but it's for all of humanity.” — A Church of England vicar, quoted by Simon KuperNick Hornby measured his (sad) life in Arsenal fixtures. The FT columnist Simon Kuper has measured his in World Cups. His new book, World Cup Fever: A Soccer Journey in Nine Tournaments, is the Kuper story told through the nine tournaments he attended as a journalist — from Italy 1990 to Qatar 2022.World Cup Fever is as irresistible as a Maradona slalom or a Pelé feint. In 1990, three Oxford students blag their way into Italy on Mars corporate tickets, pulling out library cards at the Swiss border to prove they're not Liverpool hooligans. In 1998, France's World Cup victory changes Kuper's life — he buys an apartment/office in Paris and never really leaves, even writing World Cup Fever there. In 2006, the newly reunited Germany reinvents itself as the nice guy of World Cups, and the German Football Association's designated handler of World War Two queries receives exactly zero calls. In 2014, Brazil loses one–seven to Germany in the most stunning result in tournament history — and Kuper watches Brazilian football lovers line the road to applaud the German bus.But, after Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, those glory days might now be history, Kuper fears. The North American World Cup this summer will be the biggest yet — forty-eight teams, three host countries, and a grifter FIFA president (Gianni Infantino) not unlike Donald Trump. What could possibly go wrong?So who will win in 2026? Kuper thinks England have their best squad since 1966. Spain are probably the best team. Messi will be thirty-nine. But the World Cup has so many random elements that none of that really counts. What matters, a Church of England vicar told Kuper, is that the World Cup is a religious feast for all of humanity. In a time when we're increasingly lonely and miserable, it's the most joyous communal event we have. As the non-doctrinal Kuper promises, “it's like Easter, or Passover, or Eid, but it's for all of humanity.” Five Takeaways•       Every World Cup, You Remember Where You Were: Kuper's first was 1978 — eight years old, sitting with his parents and grandparents in the Netherlands. His mother is now dead. His grandparents are long dead. But he can see it: June 25th, 1978. Nick Hornby measured his life in Arsenal fixtures. Kuper has measured his in World Cups.•       The Oxford Library Card Got Them Past the Border Guards: Italy 1990. Three students blag World Cup tickets from Mars. The Italian border guards see “Liverpool” on a passport and think: hooligans. Five years after Heysel. They pull out their Oxford library cards. “Studenti, Oxford.” The guards make a snap sociological analysis and let them in.•       One–Seven: The Wall Came Down: Brazil 2014. The home of World Cup football loses to Germany in the most shocking result in tournament history. Brazilian fans line the road to applaud the German bus. They've accepted it: the era is over. Brazil will never again be impregnable. Kuper compares it to the fall of the Berlin Wall — equally stunning, no going back.•       The World Cup Is a Religious Feast for All of Humanity: A Church of England vicar told Kuper: it's like Easter, Passover, or Eid, but everyone's allowed to join. In a time when we're all atomised and on separate screens, the World Cup is the biggest communal event we have. Fans hug, exchange shirts, celebrate shared nationhood and shared humanity.•       England's Best Chance Since 1966: Kuper and his co-author Stefan Szymanski say this is the strongest England squad in sixty years. One-in-six chance of winning. Spain are probably the best team. Messi will be thirty-nine. France have reached four of the last seven finals. But the World Cup has so many random elements that quality alone won't decide it. About the GuestSimon Kuper is a columnist for the Financial Times and the author of Soccernomics (with Stefan Szymanski), The Barcelona Complex, and World Cup Fever. Born in Uganda to South African parents, raised in the Netherlands, educated at Oxford, he lives in Paris.References:•       World Cup Fever by Simon Kuper — the book under discussion.•       Simon Kuper's FT column — his political and society writing for the Financial Times.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - (00:31) - Introduction: life measured in four-year increments (02:07) - First World Cup: Holland 1978, sitting with the dead (05:45) - Nine tournaments in a row: the double life of a football writer (09:25) - Italy 1990: Oxford library cards, Italian border guards, and Mars tickets (12:35) - Gascoigne, Cameroon, and England's last real chance (16:03) - USA 1994: Maradona's primal scream and the end of Germany as villain (18:23) - France 1998: the World Cup that changed his life (22:16) - Korea/Japan 2002: feeling four years old in Tokyo (24:36) - Germany 2006: Wannsee, the new Germany, and zero queries about the war (31:20) - South Africa 2010: nation building in his parents' backyard (34:26) - Brazil 2014: one–seven and the end of an era (38:48) - Russia 2018: Peruvians on Red Square and the policeman who'd never met a foreigner (43:46) - Qatar 2022: the World Cup of the Global South (46:30) - USA 2026: forty-eight teams, Trump, Infantino, and why we shouldn't boycott

“There is tremendous loneliness in the kind of life where you just don't feel like anybody knows you.” — Margaret RutherfordYesterday, the Brooklyn psychotherapist Daniel Smith defined perfection as the devil. Today, the Arkansas-based Dr. Margaret Rutherford explains what happens in our FOMO age when the devil wins. Her subject is what she calls the “perfectly hidden depression” of today's Instagrammable types. Perfectionism rates are going up, Rutherford warns. And so, not uncoincidentally, are suicide rates.Rutherford's own mother in Fifties suburban Arkansas was a case study. Beautiful, smart, talented and anorexic. The perfectly mannered and coiffeured hostess. Married the “right” husband but in love with the wrong man. An Arkansas Madame Bovary. “The fucked-up fifties woman” as one of her friends called it. She became a prescription drug junkie because of her addiction to perfection. Nobody knew her, not even herself. The relentless camouflage of her life became a prison. Rutherford has spent the last decade trying to help people escape that prison — first with her book Perfectly Hidden Depression, now with a companion workbook.On AI and therapy, Rutherford is equally blunt as Daniel Smith. She noticed that AI always praised her ideas. But what if AI, like Instagram, is what she calls “a bunch of shit”? A real therapist tells you what you may not want to hear. The AI shrink starts with flattery. Rather than therapy, that's just more camouflage for a perfectly imperfect life.Five Takeaways•       Perfectionism Rates Are Going Up. So Are Suicide Rates: The academic researchers have been screaming this for years. People whose lives look like they're going great are dying by suicide. They slip through every diagnostic crack because they answer every question the way a non-depressed person would. They leave the therapist's office with a wave and a smile.•       The Relentless Camouflage of Performing Your Life: Destructive perfectionism isn't wanting to do things well. It's fuelled by fear and shame — the need to cover up everything that's caused you pain. The camouflage becomes a prison. Your sense of worth depends on it. You can allow no one to see you struggling — not even yourself.•       Her Mother Was a Fucked-Up Fifties Woman: Beautiful, smart, talented — and knew none of those things. Anorexic. The perfect hostess. Married the right man but was in love with someone else. Became a prescription drug addict because of the need to look perfect. Nobody knew her. She didn't allow anybody in.•       The Harvard Study: It's Not Money. It's Connection: The seventy-five-year longitudinal study found that happiness comes from feeling in relationship with other people — not wealth, not success, not followers. We've transplanted connection with metrics. The perfectionism epidemic and the loneliness epidemic are the same epidemic.•       AI Therapy: What If It's a Bunch of Shit? Rutherford noticed that AI always praised her ideas. Oh, these are wonderful. Then she thought: what if they're not? Real therapy means being told what you may not want to hear. AI starts with flattery. A good therapist starts with the truth. You cannot replace the human sense of gentle — or not so gentle — confrontation. About the GuestDr. Margaret Rutherford is a clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker (2 million+ views), and host of the Self Work podcast (500+ episodes, 5 million+ downloads). She is the author of Perfectly Hidden Depression and its companion workbook. She practices in Fayetteville, Arkansas.References:•       Dr. Margaret Rutherford — her practice, podcast, and books.•       Episode 2854: Perfection Is the Devil — Daniel Smith on boredom, envy, and why our darkest emotions aren't so dark. The companion conversation.•       Episode 2850: Bring the Friction Back — Stephen Balkam on social media addiction. Rutherford's camouflage meets Balkam's friction.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: Daniel Smith, perfection is the devil, and the anxiety memoirist (02:47) - Constructive vs. destructive perfectionism (05:00) - The relentless camouflage of performing your life (08:19) - FOMO, social media, and keeping up with the Joneses on steroids (10:46) - Her son's Patagonia moment: the comparison trap (13:02) - Are therapists the new priests? The secular Bible problem (15:06) - Perfectly Hidden Depression: the book publishers said perfectionists wouldn't buy (17:18) - You deserve to be truly known (20:00) - Her mother: the fucked-up fifties woman (22:44) - The Epstein files, dystopia, and perfectly imperfect times (27:18) - Agency and the American dream of reinvention (30:25) - Perfectionism and the epidemic of loneliness (32:51) - The social media trial: why did people celebrate? (37:17) - AI therapy: what if it's a bunch of shit?

“Perfection is the devil. Growth means a greater capaciousness, not a narrowing and an optimisation.” — Daniel SmithDon't feel bad about feeling bad. That's the message of Daniel Smith's therapeutic new book, Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions. Smith — psychotherapist, anxiety memoirist, married Brooklynite — wants to rescue boredom, envy, shame, and regret from the category of emotions that are supposed to shame us. The things that bore us most — raising children, long marriages, breakfast with your spouse for the two thousandth time — are also the most meaningful. Boredom, Smith argues, is the price we pay for meaning. Our darkest emotions aren't quite as dark as we fear. Five Takeaways•       Boredom Is the Price of Meaning: The things that bore us most — raising children, long marriages, eating breakfast with your spouse for the two thousandth time — are also the most meaningful. Repetition is boring. But that's where the connection, the love, and the main event reside. Boredom is a sign that meaning is nearby.•       Perfection Is the Devil: Growth means greater capaciousness, not narrowing and optimisation. Smith sees patients who want to perfect themselves out of their own emotions. The feelings that trouble them make perfect sense given the conditions of their lives. Real psychotherapy isn't a quick fix. It's about deep change, and deep change is uncomfortable.•       Social Media Is an Envy Engine: The leaders of early consumer capitalism discovered that stoking envy drives economic growth. Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, was the architect. Social media put it on steroids. The result: people constantly questioning whether their own lives are alright. Smith is far more worried about Mark Zuckerberg than about psychotherapists who write books.•       His Father Heard Voices for Decades and Kept It Secret: He met none of the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. But the culture thought hearing voices was prototypically insane. Smith's first book argued the border between sanity and insanity is far more porous than we think. Rilke said it best: it's so often in the way we name things that we go wrong.•       AI Chatbots Are Inherently Sycophantic: You go to AI for clinical services and what you get is straight validation. These systems have been built to please. There are documented cases of AI psychosis — where sycophantic validation led people into actual delusion. AI can give the illusion of empathy. It cannot deliver the real thing. About the GuestDaniel Smith is a psychotherapist and writer based in Brooklyn. He is the author of Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety, Muses, Madmen, and Prophets, and Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions.References:•       Hard Feelings: Finding the Wisdom in Our Darkest Emotions by Daniel Smith.•       Episode 2850: Bring the Friction Back — Stephen Balkam on social media addiction. Smith's envy engine meets Balkam's friction argument.•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us — Colum McCann on narrative and empathy. The real thing AI cannot deliver.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

“We can survive. Can we thrive? That's a different question.” — Corey NathanRobert Mueller died last week. Educated at Princeton, this Vietnam veteran won a Purple Heart and then enjoyed decades of public service under presidents of both parties. But the current president celebrated Mueller's death. Such are the vagaries of American history.In contrast, Corey Nathan — host of the Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other podcast — isn't celebrating Robert Mueller's death. Nathan is from suburban northern Los Angeles County, very much at the heart of the (mythical?) American center. We discussed whether it's possible to have a civic conversation anymore. Like so many Americans, Nathan falls back on what he calls “data.” Apparently 85% of Americans are what a recent study calls the “exhausted majority.” They see themselves as anything but extreme. All they want to do is take the kids to soccer practice, enjoy their barbecue, and talk to the neighbour without the conversation degenerating into verbal war.Nathan's own story offers hope. He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family whose roots go back eight hundred years to what is now Chernihiv in Ukraine. In his late twenties, he became a born-again Christian. His father seriously considered sitting Shiva for him — the mourning ritual for a dead family member. But he valued his relationship with his son more than his theological convictions. Twenty-five years later, the conversations are richer than ever. If an Orthodox Jewish father and his born-again Christian son can keep talking, maybe even the current American President could sit Shiva for Robert Mueller. Five Takeaways•       85% of Americans Are the Exhausted Majority: The Hidden Tribes study by More in Common found that only 6–7% on the right and 7–8% on the left are what we'd think of as extremes. The rest — 85% — are far more nuanced in their views. They want to go to the barbecue, take the kids to soccer practice, and have a conversation with the neighbour without it turning into a war. The conflict entrepreneurs on both sides have taken all the oxygen.•       Mueller Was Everything We Say We Want in Our Kids: Purple Heart. Ivy League education. Used his degrees for public service instead of money. Served under presidents of both parties. Stayed on at the FBI after 9/11 when the country needed him. And the current president said he was glad he died.•       ICE Came to the Neighbouring Church: Nathan's pastor had to have the conversation: if ICE comes, they're welcome to worship — but here are our legal obligations. A suburban mom was shot in her front seat two months ago. Is anything visibly wrong in the American suburbs? Today, at his house, no. But these things are happening all over the country.•       His Father Almost Sat Shiva for Him: Nathan grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. In his late twenties, he became a born-again Christian. His father seriously considered performing the mourning ritual for a living son. But he valued the relationship with his child more than his theological convictions. Twenty-five years later, the conversations are richer than ever.•       We Can Survive. Can We Thrive? Nathan's family lived in what is now Chernihiv, Ukraine, for eight hundred years. One day to the next, nothing changed — until the Cossacks burned the houses and the Bolsheviks came. Democracy isn't perfect, but it's the system that lets us thrive, not just survive. About the GuestCorey Nathan is the host and producer of Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other, a top 1% podcast. He lives in northern Los Angeles County.References:•       Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other — Nathan's podcast.•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us — Colum McCann on Narrative Four, referenced in the conversation.•       Episode 2846: How to Be Agreeably Disagreeable — Julia Minson on disagreeing better. Nathan is the practitioner to Minson's science.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: Robert Mueller dies, Trump says he's glad (03:25) - Mueller as American tragedy: David Frum and the centrist view (05:48) - The exhausted majority: Hidden Tribes and the 85% (08:40) - Is the left as bad as the right? (10:15) - Braver Angels, shell-shock, and the people who just want a barbecue (13:53) - If a foreigner landed in your suburb, would they notice anything wrong? (15:33) - ICE at the neighbouring church. A mom shot in her front seat. (17:43) - The secret sauce of talking without killing (20:26) - Colum McCann, Narrative Four, and storytelling as civic repair (22:04) - Does democracy really matter if you've got soccer practice? (24:04) - Surviving vs. thriving: eight hundred years as strangers in a strange land (25:19) - The First Amendment's two halves: freedom of and freedom from (28:55) - An Orthodox Jew becomes a born-again Christian. His father almost sits Shiva. (32:04) - The revolutionary centre: Adrian Wooldridge and the lost genius of liberalism

“Happiness is a rare commodity. There's a lot of fuel for the claim that unhappiness is caused by some software, when in fact the roots of unhappiness are way deeper than that.” — Keith TeareIf it's not warfare in Iran, then it's lawfare in California. Out here in Silicon Valley, it's been a week dominated by two trials of big tech. First, Meta and YouTube were found liable for designing products that addict children. While the young female social media victims hugged outside the Los Angeles courthouse, the Wall Street Journal dismissed it as a Big Tech shakedown. Then, up the road in San Francisco, a federal judge granted Anthropic an emergency reprieve from the Pentagon's unprecedented designation of the company as a supply chain risk.For That Was the Week publisher Keith Teare, the social media trial was fighting the last war, while the Anthropic vs US Government trial is about the future of war. Anthropic took the bait, Keith says. Governments, he believes, should get to decide how to use the products they buy from Silicon Valley. Anthropic wanted to sell to the government but dictate how their technology gets used in battle. The Istanbul-based Soli Özel warned us earlier this week that events in the Middle East are going to get much bloodier. But I wonder if warfare in Iran and lawfare in California are separate fronts in the same battle over tomorrow.Five Takeaways•       The Social Media Trial Is Fighting the Last War: Meta and YouTube were fined $6 million — financially meaningless, culturally significant. Keith argues that addiction is successful demand management and every product manager seeks it. The root cause isn't the algorithm — it's alienation. The law is always one step behind technology.•       Anthropic Took the Bait: A federal judge granted Anthropic an emergency reprieve from the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation. Keith thinks Anthropic is right on the product but wrong on the politics. Governments get to decide how to use weapons. End of story. Anthropic wanted to sell to the government but dictate how the buyer used what they bought. That's juvenile.•       Would You Buy a Used Car from Sam Altman? OpenAI killed Sora and shelved its adult mode. Keith calls it maturity, not failure — a recommitment to the core business. Altman's personality doesn't lend itself to being liked, but measured by outcomes, he's fantastic. The AI documentary exposed everyone as adolescent — except Demis Hassabis, the stone-cold scientist.•       Claude Enters the Third Era of AI: Chat was era one. Directed agents were era two. Autonomous agents that act when you're not present are era three. Claude's new Dispatch feature, Gmail connectors, and calendar integration are all about that third era. The product is excellent. The politics are a distraction.•       Intelligence Is Getting Cheaper. Fear Is Wrapped Up as Principle: The stock market is repricing the future: software companies down, AI companies teed up for IPOs. OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and xAI will probably all go public this year. For kids in school today, AI is already ubiquitous. The life cycle of companies may shrink from decades to single-digit years. Time, Keith says, to grow up. About the GuestKeith Teare is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of That Was The Week, a weekly newsletter on the tech economy. He is co-founder of SignalRank and a regular Saturday guest on Keen On America.References:•       That Was The Week — Keith's editorial: “Growing Up: Winning Wars Involves Losing Battles.”•       Episode 2847: America's Suez Moment? — Soli Özel on the Iran war from Istanbul at midnight. Warfare in Iran meets lawfare in California.•       Episode 2850: Bring the Friction Back — Stephen Balkam on the same social media trial from the child safety side.•       Episode 2842: Symbolic Capitalism vs. Symbolic Democracy — last TWTW on the $10 trillion AI startup. The Anthropic thread continues.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: two big trials in California (01:47) - The Meta/YouTube verdict: $6 million and a cultural earthquake (03:11) - Is every product designed to be addictive? (05:24) - The roots of addiction: alienation, not algorithms (08:23) - Happiness is a rare commodity (09:51) - Anthropic's emergency reprieve: the most important event of the week (11:16) - Free speech or weapons control? Anthropic took the bait (13:00) - The AI documentary: How I Became an Apocalyptomist (15:04) - The decade-long Altman-Amodei feud (16:34) - Why are they all such children? Demis Hassabis as the adult (18:50) - OpenAI kills Sora and shelves porn mode: maturity or retreat? (23:11) - Claude's new era: Dispatch, connectors, autonomous agents (25:07) - The social media trial is fighting yesterday's war (26:22) - Prediction markets: the casino eating the world (28:53) - Intelligence is getting cheaper. Fear wrapped up as principle.  

“Why does someone need to be the first trillionaire? The damage it's doing just to get to that level is extreme.” — Glen GalaichExcessive wealth disorder. It sounds like a disease — which, at least according to Glen Galaich — CEO of the Stupski Foundation and author of Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short, it is. There's $2 trillion sitting in American charitable accounts Galaich says, mostly invested in hedge funds and real estate. Foundations are legally required to distribute only 5% a year — the bare minimum — and invest the remaining 95% to ensure they can make that back and live forever. The system rewards perpetuity over impact. The money is stuck — like most other things in America. And this philanthropic wealth is predicted to grow to $18 trillion by 2050 — twice the size of the annual federal budget. A truly excessive wealth disorder.Galaich wants to unstick the system. When a donor puts money in a private foundation, they receive up to a 70% tax exemption. The public is forgoing taxation in return for public stewardship. But donors still think it's their money. That's Galaich's Control problem. Carnegie pioneered this idea that the wealthy know best how to distribute their wealth. The Sacklers perfected its dark arts. Bill Gates sits somewhere in between. While billionaires like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen reject it entirely.Galaich's own foundation is giving up control — returning all its resources to communities by 2029. In Hawaii, he gave $15 million to people who actually lived there. They moved all of it within five months to health clinics on neighbouring islands that had never had discretionary money. His deeper frustration is with progressive philanthropy's failure to coordinate. Conservative donors give around two issues — free markets and liberty — in coordinated fashion. Progressive philanthropy, in contrast, is fragmented, fearful, and obstinately sitting on its capital. There's a new institute in the Bay Area called the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute. The disease is real. And so is its cure.•       $2 Trillion Is Sitting in Charitable Accounts: Mostly invested in hedge funds and real estate. Philanthropic wealth in the US is predicted to grow from $2 trillion to $18 trillion by 2050 — twice the size of the annual federal budget. Foundations are required to give only 5% a year. The rest grows. The money isn't moving because the system rewards perpetuity over impact.•       It's Not Their Money Anymore: When a donor puts money in a private foundation, they receive up to a 70% tax exemption. The public is forgoing taxation in return for public stewardship. But donors still think it's their money. That's the control problem at the heart of Galaich's book — and why so much of big giving serves the donor, not the community.•       Excessive Wealth Disorder Is Real: Galaich cites the Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute in the Bay Area. Why does someone need to be the first trillionaire? The damage done to society just getting to that level — environmental, human, democratic — is extreme. And the Giving Pledge is collapsing: Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen have pulled out. Andreessen argues his investments are his philanthropy.•       The Hawaii Example: Stupski gave $15 million to people from Hawaii who lived and worked there. They moved all of it within five months to health clinics on the neighbouring islands that had never had discretionary money. Palliative care, community outreach, home visits — none of which Medicaid allowed. That's what happens when you let go of control.•       Progressive Philanthropy Can't Coordinate. Conservatives Can: Conservative donors give around two issues — free markets and liberty — and they give in coordinated fashion over long periods. That's how you get the Federalist Society, Heritage, ALEC, and possibly Donald Trump. Progressive philanthropy is fragmented, siloed, and in a state of fear that the current administration will freeze their assets. The left has moved into protection mode when it should be distributing. About the GuestGlen Galaich, PhD, is the CEO of the Stupski Foundation, one of the nation's most ambitious philanthropic spend-down efforts. He hosts the Break Fake Rules podcast and writes the Who Gives? Substack. Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short is published by Wiley, with a foreword by Ibram X. Kendi.References:•       Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short by Glen Galaich (Wiley, 2026) — the book under discussion.•       Who Gives? Substack — Galaich's newsletter on reforming philanthropy.•       Episode 2845: Let's Ban Billionaires — Noam Cohen on the Know-It-Alls. Galaich picks up where Cohen left off.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: Noam Cohen, banning billionaires, and the tide turning (02:33) - What is philanthropy? Carnegie and the love of humanity (05:04) - Sloan, Rockefeller, Stanford: the first generation of know-it-all givers (06:49) - Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen pull out of the Giving Pledge (09:05) - The Sacklers: the worst argument for philanthropy (09:57) - Bill Gates: for or against control? (11:53) - It's not their money anymore: the public stewardship illusion (14:00) - Andreessen vs. community: who decides what people need? (15:33) - The Stupski model: $374 million returned to communities (18:47) - Hawaii: $15 million moved in five months to clinics that never had discretionary funds (21:27) - Can philanthropy save democracy? (24:22) - Democracy Forward and the $2 trillion sitting in accounts (29:38) - Excessive Wealth Disorder: why does anyone need to be a trillionaire? (33:00) - Progressive philanthropy's failure to coordinate (35:14) - The Monty Python troll: the CEO as gatekeeper to the donor

“Friction is what brings us together. If we were never able to communicate in real space, we would not truly learn what it is to be human.” — Stephen BalkamIs social media a drug? In what the Financial Times called a landmark case, Facebook (Meta) and YouTube (Google) have been found guilty of designing their products to be addictive to kids. Is this a big tobacco moment? the tut-tutting New York Times asked. In contrast, the free market Wall Street Journal called it a shakedown.So what to make of this decision to make social media a narcotic? Stephen Balkam — founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), amongst Washington's most credible nonpartisan voices on kids and technology, has been on the front lines of this fight for nearly thirty years. Calling himself a radical moderate, he sees good and bad in social media. He even expelled Meta from FOSI three years ago for what he calls conduct contrary to the institute's mission.Balkam's sharpest disagreement is with Jonathan Haidt, amongst the shrillest voices arguing in favor of a social media ban for kids. He “violently agrees” with Haidt on the idea of a free-range childhood — giving kids more freedom outdoors. But the evidence Haidt uses to justify banning social media confuses correlation with causation, a basic research error that, Balkam insists, academic researchers have called out. Balkam thinks the real anxious generation isn't the kids — it's us, the paranoid parents, projecting our mostly irrational fears onto our children.His deeper argument is in favor of friction. Silicon Valley has spent thirty years removing friction from ordering pizza, hailing cabs, and dating. Balkam argues we need to design it back into childhood — the friction of developing friendships, building resilience, learning to think critically instead of outsourcing cognition to ChatGPT at midnight. Bring the human friction of life back, Balkam argues. It's the most effective antidote to the drug of online existence.Five Takeaways•       Yesterday Was Tech's Big Tobacco Moment — Sort Of: Meta and Google found liable for harm to children's mental health. Balkam sees strong parallels to the tobacco cases of the nineties but resists the lazy comparison. The repercussions will extend beyond social media to AI. The hundreds of trials still to come will shape the next decade of tech regulation.•       Congress Gets a D-Minus: America is the last advanced country without a national privacy framework. COPPA dates to the late nineties. KOSA never passed. The result is a splintering of state-level laws and no coherent federal approach. Meanwhile, parents are overwhelmed, and the tech companies retrofitted safety features years after the damage was done.•       Jonathan Haidt Got the Free-Range Part Right. The Rest Is Shaky: Balkam “violently agrees” with Haidt on giving kids more freedom outdoors. But the evidence Haidt uses for his social media bans confuses correlation with causation — a basic research error. Academic researchers violently disagree with him. His book directly caused Australia's social media ban. Balkam thinks we — the parents — are the anxious generation, not the kids.•       42% of Teens Talk About Their Feelings with AI Chatbots: 60% say they feel safe using AI. 44% say some of its behaviours freak them out. They're using it for homework, for loneliness, for practical advice, for asking how to invite someone to prom. And they're worried about their job prospects. The three waves of concern: content in the nineties, behaviour in the 2000s, emotional attachment and cognitive outsourcing now.•       Bring the Friction Back: Silicon Valley has spent thirty years removing friction from ordering pizza, hailing cabs, and dating. Balkam argues we need to design friction back into childhood — the friction of developing friendships, building resilience, learning to think critically. A plush AI toy called Grok is being marketed to three-year-olds. It's always there, always positive, always frictionless. That's the dystopia. About the GuestStephen Balkam is the founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), a nonpartisan organisation dedicated to making the online world safer for kids and families. FOSI's members include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and other leading technology companies. Balkam is based in Washington DC and will teach an MA course on online safety at Georgetown University in 2027.References:•       Family Online Safety Institute — FOSI's research, policy work, and resources for parents.•       Episode 2849: How Stories Can Save Us — Colum McCann on Narrative Four. Social media promised storytelling. It delivered isolation.•       Episode 2846: How to Be Agreeably Disagreeable — Julia Minson on disagreeing better. Balkam's friction argument is the parenting version.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:31) - Introduction: Meta and Google found liable for harm to children (03:23) - Big tobacco or something different? (04:29) - Julia Angwin: should big tech pay us? (06:23) - FOSI and the radical moderate (07:25) - Congress gets a D-minus: no federal privacy bill (09:34) - Safety by design vs. retrofitting parental controls (09:49) - Why FOSI expelled Meta — and Twitter (12:38) - The pendulum from optimism to paranoia (14:48) - Jonathan Haidt: brilliant on free-range kids, wrong on the evidence (18:05) - Australia's ban vs. Greystones, Ireland: local solutions work (22:20) - Trump's tech panel: Zuckerberg and Andreessen (24:19) - Melania and the robot: the optics of grift (26:54) - 42% of teens talk about their feelings with AI chatbots (31:22) - Bring the friction back: critical thinking vs. ChatGPT at midnight (35:25) - Grok: the AI plush toy marketed to three-year-olds

“The shortest distance between you and me is a story.” — Colum McCannIn 1932, Albert Einstein wrote to Sigmund Freud asking if humanity could cure its “lust for hatred.” Freud said no. Mankind's instinct for death and destruction could not be eliminated. That said, the Viennese doctor went on, the desire to end war should never be abandoned. What was needed was a “mythology of the instincts” and a “community of feeling.” In other words: a story. The book sold 2,000 copies. By 1933, the Nazis had seized power and the two men had fled into exile.Colum McCann — National Book Award-winning novelist, author of Let the Great World Spin and American Mother — has spent the last dozen years trying to build Freud's community of feeling. His organisation, Narrative Four, now operates in 35 countries with 1,200 school partners and 285,000 participants. The method is deceptively simple: two strangers exchange personal stories, then retell each other's story in the first person. Overpowered by empathy, they realise they're not so different.At 21, Colum McCann bought a typewriter thinking he'd be the next Kerouac and produced a foot and a half of gibberish. He then went on the road and spent eighteen months cycling across America. Everyone he met wanted to tell him their story. That's his story, but not where it ends. Five Takeaways•       Einstein Asked Freud If Stories Could Prevent War: In 1932, Einstein wrote to Freud asking if humanity could cure its “lust for hatred.” Freud said no — but added that the desire to end war should never be abandoned. What was needed was a “mythology of the instincts” and a “community of feeling.” Basically: storytelling. The book sold 2,000 copies. By 1933, Hitler was in power.•       You Tell My Story, I Tell Yours: That's the Narrative Four method. Pairs of strangers exchange personal stories, then retell each other's story in the first person to the group. Something fires in the brain — dopamine, memory, imagination, empathetic engagement. It's been done 285,000 times in 35 countries. Oxford and Ohio State confirmed it: polarisation drops dramatically.•       South Bronx Kids Met Eastern Kentucky Kids. They Were Terrified: One group Black and immigrant, the other white or Cherokee. One urban, one rural. One blue, one red. Put them in a room and they're terrified of each other — until they tell a personal story. Not a didactic story, not a political argument. Something that opens up the rib cage. Then they realise they're not so different.•       Yesterday Was Big Tobacco's Moment for Social Media: The landmark court verdict on Facebook and YouTube addiction dropped the same day we recorded this conversation. McCann's son has been saying for years that social media will be the cigarettes of the future. Social media promised everyone a platform for their stories. What it delivered was isolation, loneliness, and the epidemic of kids who say “I don't have a story.”•       Stories Can Do Anything. They Can Never Take Them Away: McCann bought a typewriter at 21, thought he'd be the next Kerouac, produced a foot and a half of gibberish, and spent eighteen months cycling across America instead. He learned that everyone has a story and a deep desire to tell it. Books may go the way of opera. AI may recombine what we've already written. But they can never take away stories. About the GuestColum McCann is the author of eight novels, three collections of stories, and two works of non-fiction. Born in Dublin, he is the recipient of the US National Book Award, the International Dublin Literary Prize, and an Oscar nomination. He is the president and co-founder of Narrative Four, a global non-profit that uses storytelling to build empathy and community. He lives in New York.References:•       Narrative Four — the global story exchange organisation. Get involved, become a facilitator, or get your school on board.•       Episode 2840: What Came First: Stories or Language? — Kevin Ashton on the story before the word. McCann watched it and agrees.•       Episode 2844: Was St. Francis of Assisi the First Silicon Valley Critic? — Dan Turello on agency, embodiment, and why Dante wrote without being able to edit.•       Episode 2846: How to Be Agreeably Disagreeable — Julia Minson on disagreeing better. McCann's method is the narrative version of Minson's science.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Kevin Ashton, Bob Dylan, and why stories never end (02:09) - The shortest distance between you and me is a story (04:04) - How Narrative Four began: Lisa Consiglio and a question in Aspen (05:03) - The story exchange: I tell your story, you tell mine (06:41) - 35 countries, 285,000 participants, 1,200 school partners (07:59) - South Bronx meets Eastern Kentucky: terrified until they tell a story (09:11) - Radical empathy and the New York Times Magazine (10:38) - Belfast and Limerick: afraid they'd start a war (14:21) - Oxford and Ohio State: polarisation dramatically reduced (15:01) - Yesterday's Big Tobacco moment for social media (18:24) - Einstein, Freud, and the mythology of the instincts (22:45) - Can science measure the value of a story? (26:38) - Can machines tell stories? AI and the novelist's fear (29:33) - Dylan's “Key West”: that's my story, but not where it ends (33:47) - Citizen assemblies and the political power of stories (36:05) - The bicycle journey: eighteen months across America at 21 (39:41) - How to get involved: narrative4.com

“What conclusion do you draw if you see a system that continues to grow more powerful despite failing at the things it says it's going to accomplish?” — Jacob SiegelJacob Siegel grew up in Brooklyn, studied history at Boston University, enlisted in the US Army after September 11, and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, as an intelligence officer, he had the latest drones, sensors, Palantir databases, and predictive models at his fingertips — but still couldn't get a coherent answer about what, exactly, America was trying to accomplish in its war with the Taliban. To him, the technology was as extraordinary as the incoherence of the war.In his new book, The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control, Siegel argues that within a few years of coming home, those same tools were being used on American citizens. This “Information State” was born in Herat and Kandahar. It came home to our iPhones.But Siegel's Information State isn't the conventional leftist critique of Big Tech. Siegel argues that the Obama administration elevated the war on terror's surveillance apparatus into an art of progressive government — not as Orwellian censors but through a sprawling network of NGOs, fact-checkers, and media organisations that made authoritarian control look like liberal consensus. Ben Rhodes, one of the principal architects of the Information State, called it the echo chamber. Trump's version is cruder, more monarchical, more wannabe Orwellian. But the infrastructure, Siegel says, is the Internet itself. Digital society has spawned its own form of government regardless of who's in charge. This Kafkaesque system grows more powerful despite failing at everything it claims to do. You may not be interested in the Information State, but it sure is interested in you. Such is politics in the age of total control. Five Takeaways•       The War on Terror's Tools Came Home: Siegel was an intelligence officer in Afghanistan with drones, sensors, Palantir, and predictive databases at his fingertips — and couldn't get a straight answer about what America was trying to accomplish. Within a few years of returning, those same tools were being used on American citizens. The information state was born in Herat and Kandahar.•       Obama Built It. Trump Inherited It. Neither Owns It: The Obama administration elevated the war on terror's surveillance tools into an art of government — not as Orwellian censors but through a progressive gloss of rationality and correct social ideals. Trump's version is cruder, more monarchical, more direct. But the infrastructure is the Internet itself. Digital society spawns its own form of government regardless of who's in charge.•       The System Grows More Powerful by Failing: This is the Kafkaesque horror at the heart of the book. A system that never achieves its stated goals — winning in Afghanistan, rationalising society, controlling public opinion — yet continues to grow larger and more powerful. If a system is rewarded for failing, the system itself has become the purpose.•       Twitter Under Musk Is a Horrifying Factory of Schizophrenia: Siegel is no Musk apologist. He thinks the early campaign against mass censorship was a good step. But the result — Musk's Twitter — is social dissolution, not liberation. Removing government control didn't solve the fundamental problem of how we mediate social relations online.•       The Human Subject Has Been Diminished: The digital world has relocated human agency into opaque systems. The crisis of the American man — and, Siegel concedes, of the American woman too — is bound up with a technological transformation on the order of the printing press. Industrial-era social relations cannot persist under digital conditions. The information state is the first draft of what comes next. About the GuestJacob Siegel is a contributing editor at Tablet magazine and co-editor of the anthology Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. He served as a US Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Information State is published by Henry Holt.References:•       The Information State by Jacob Siegel (Henry Holt, 2026) — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2845: Let's Ban Billionaires — Noam Cohen on the Know-It-Alls and the theft of civilisation. Siegel's argument from the other side.•       Episode 2847: America's Suez Moment? — Soli Özel on the Iran war. The information state meets real war.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: the wages of bitterness and the information state (02:52) - Brooklyn, Boston University, and the unfocused student (05:05) - September 11 and the American man who enlisted (06:02) - Anatole Broyard, not Nathan Zuckerman (08:09) - McCarthy, the Red Scare, and the fertile fifties (11:17) - Iraq, Afghanistan, and the disjunction between technology and war (14:44) - Palantir, drones, and the dream of total control (15:45) - The war on terror's tools come home to America (17:00) - Obama's progressive information state: not Orwellian, worse (20:35) - Six Espionage Act prosecutions and the echo chamber (28:09) - Trump's quasi-monarchical version vs. Obama's sprawl (32:10) - Gramsci, cultural hegemony, and the single national ruling class (34:02) - The Kafkaesque horror: a system that grows by failing (43:50) - Twitter under Musk: a horrifying factory of schizophrenia (44:32) - The crisis of the American man and the diminished human subject  

“If the regime doesn't lose, it wins.” — Soli ÖzelIt was just past midnight in Istanbul when I reached Soli Özel. The Pentagon had just announced it was deploying 3,000 soldiers — the 82nd Airborne — to the Gulf. Özel — professor of international relations at Kadir Has University, columnist, and one of the most trusted analysts of Middle Eastern politics — is blunt. This might, he warns, be America's Suez moment.In 1956, Britain and France — two spent imperial powers that refused to accept they were spent — were humiliated in Egypt. Trump is a noisier, more corpulent Anthony Eden. The difference between then and now is that the US and Soviet Union were ready to replace the European colonial powers. Today, no great power can take America's place in the region. But its prestige is diminished, its ammunition depleted, and when it called on NATO allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz, nobody volunteered. Russia and China, Özel suggests, are winning on every front without sending any of their crack regiments to the front. It may also be midnight for a declining United States in the Middle East. Five Takeaways•       The Negotiations Were Going America's Way: According to the Omani foreign minister, Iran had accepted conditions firmer than the original JCPOA. The war was a choice, not a necessity. The question is who convinced the president: the Venezuela precedent, which suggested quick regime decapitation, or the Israelis, who wanted not just a deal but the regime's destruction. Nobody told him that Venezuela and Iran have nothing in common.•       If the Iranian Regime Doesn't Lose, It Wins: Iran has escalation control. Its defensive resilience has exceeded every analyst's expectations. It struck the Ras Laffan gas refinery in Qatar — three to five years to repair. It hit radars, data centres, refineries. Nobody thought they could do this. If the regime survives, it emerges emboldened, more autocratic, and the entire Gulf security equation changes permanently.•       This May Be America's Suez Moment: In 1956, Britain and France — two spent imperial powers — were humiliated in Egypt. The difference: the US and Soviet Union were ready to take their place. Today, no great power can replace America in the region. But its prestige is diminished, its ammunition depleted, and when it called on NATO allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz, nobody volunteered.•       The Moral Debate America Isn't Having: The decapitation strategy — assassinating an entire generation of foreign leaders — crossed a red line that should never have been crossed. The American debate is about preparedness, Israeli influence, and whether Trump can find an exit. The moral question is taking the back seat. The rest of the world has noticed.•       Russia Wins. China Waits. Nothing Will Be the Same: Oil prices from the sixties to over a hundred. Russia has more room in Ukraine. China is happy the US can't pivot to Asia and is depleting ammunition reserves meant for a Taiwan scenario. Relations between the Gulf countries, Israel, and the United States will be reconsidered, redefined, and never the same. About the GuestSoli Özel is a professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, and a columnist for Habertürk. A member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, he has taught at Johns Hopkins SAIS, UC Santa Cruz, and Yale, and was a Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate.References:•       Episode 2843: The Philadelphia Story — Richard Vague on how America's first bank was created to fund war. The connection between banking, debt, and war hasn't changed.•       Episode 2842: Symbolic Capitalism vs. Symbolic Democracy — this week's TWTW on whether capitalism permits democracy. The Iran war is the test.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

“The problems start when I conclude that only an uninformed, unintelligent, or evil person could hold the view that you hold.” — Julia MinsonIn a sneak preview of the 2028 Presidential election, Andy Beshear called JD Vance the most arrogant politician in America. Vance's spokesperson fires back that Beshear is chasing headlines. Just another disagreeable day in American public life. So how can we make conversation more civil? How to disagree more agreeably?In her new book (out today) How to Disagree Better, the Harvard public policy professor Julia Minson argues that disagreement is not conflict. You and I can see the world differently and have a completely civil conversation about it. The problem is when we decide the other person is stupid, evil, or both.Minson's test case is her own family. Her father-in-law is a retired Army veteran who served in Vietnam and Korea and has voted Republican his entire life. Minson is a first-generation Russian immigrant who came to Denver as a teenager. They disagree on immigration, on ICE, on most of what divides America. The problem, she confesses, is that they don't actually know why the other believes what they believe because they've spent years avoiding the subject. So Minson and her father-in-law make the worst assumptions about each other.Her deeper argument is about the danger of silence. The loudest disagreements get the headlines, but the more dangerous problem is the people who don't dare to speak up — the junior person in the corporate meeting sitting on their hands while a bad decision gets made, the teenager who walks out of the room, the patient who leaves the doctor's office. Minson is honest about the limits of how to disagree better: Putin wouldn't read this book. Some disagreements are not between equals. But most of ours are — and we're terrible at them because we'd rather go to the dentist than spend twenty minutes talking to someone who disagrees with us. Let's hope Minson has sent How to Disagree Better to both Andy Beshear and JD Vance. Five Takeaways•       Disagreement Is Not Conflict: You and I can see the world differently and have a completely civil conversation about it. The problems start when I conclude that only an uninformed, unintelligent, or evil person could hold the view you hold. That's when disagreement becomes conflict — and it's usually based on inaccurate information about the other person's motives.•       We Fill In the Blanks with the Worst Possible Story: When people avoid a topic, they don't actually know why the other person believes what they believe. So they make assumptions — and what they assume is negative. Grandpa doesn't like immigrants because he's a racist. That probably isn't how grandpa would explain himself. Most conflict is bred in misunderstanding.•       Vulnerability Persuades. Bragging Doesn't: If Minson says “we should let in more immigrants because my life as an immigrant is wonderful” — that sounds like bragging. If she says “I struggled to find acceptance and I want to make it easier for others” — that resonates. Sharing why a topic matters to you, especially the vulnerable part, changes the conversation.•       The Real Problem Is Silence, Not Shouting: The loudest disagreements get the headlines. But the more common and more dangerous problem is people who don't speak up because they're afraid the disagreement will turn into drama. In corporations, in families, in classrooms — the junior person sitting on their hands while a bad decision gets made. That silence has real costs.•       Putin Wouldn't Read This Book: Minson is honest about the limits. Her book is for people who want better relationships with people they disagree with. It's not for autocrats. Some disagreements are not between equals. Some people have made clear what their goals are, and thoughtful conversation is not one of them. The book works best where diplomacy already should. About the GuestJulia Minson is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and founder of Disagreeing Better, LLC. Her research focuses on the psychology of disagreement. How to Disagree Better is published by Portfolio/Penguin Random House.References:•       How to Disagree Better by Julia Minson (Portfolio, 2026) — out today.•       Disagreeing Better — Minson's consulting practice and research hub.•       Episode 2845: Let's Ban Billionaires — Noam Cohen on the Know-It-Alls, where the disagreement is rather less agreeable.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

“AI is a theft of knowledge. I can't believe we as a society allowed this.” — Noam CohenTen years ago, Noam Cohen came on the show to ask if it was “Too Late to Save the Internet from Itself?” Back then, this early Silicon Valley critic was a New York Times writer. He was, as it turns out, a “premature anti-technologist” — Cohen's phrase, borrowed from the premature antifascists who were called communist for opposing Hitler before it was fashionable. We should have listened to him. Now a freelance writer, Cohen describes himself, without self-pity, as a casualty of the internet revolution. The big media world that employed him barely exists anymore. And tech's Know-It-All elite that he warned us about are richer than ever.His 2017 book The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball is now back with a new introduction, triggered by that infamous photograph of Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai, and Musk at Trump's inauguration. Cohen's argument hasn't changed — history has caught up with it. These weren't businessmen attending a president's ceremony, Cohen says. Trump, he fears, is their vessel. Like the tech titans, Trump doesn't believe in regulation, doesn't believe in democracy, believes only he can solve it. That's the same thing Musk says. And Zuckerberg. And Altman. Even Amodei. They are all Know-It-Alls. Five Takeaways•       We Were Premature Anti-Technologists: Cohen's phrase, borrowed from the premature antifascists who were called communist for opposing Hitler before it was fashionable. In 2017, he and I could see the consolidation of power. We should have been listened to. We weren't. Cohen is now a freelance writer whose wife has the steady income. He describes himself, without self-pity, as a casualty of a media world that no longer exists.•       Trump Is Their Vessel: That photograph at the inauguration — Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai, Musk — wasn't businessmen attending a ceremony. Trump doesn't believe in regulation, doesn't believe in democracy, believes only he can solve it. That's the same thing Musk says. And Zuckerberg. And Altman. They're all unique founders who believe only they can fix the world. They have more in common with each other than with any of us.•       Stanford's Eugenics History Explains Silicon Valley: Lewis Terman brought the IQ test to America and built a programme around identifying “gifted” children. His son Fred turned Stanford into the Harvard of the West by importing venture capital. The idea that intelligence can be measured, that the smartest should breed, that society should be run by its cognitive elite — that's the soil Silicon Valley grew from. It's also why Jeffrey Epstein was a natural fit.•       AI Is a Theft of Civilisation: They hoovered up all of human knowledge without permission or payment. Copyright is meaningless. The result isn't intelligence — it's replication. John McCarthy dreamed of creating a being three times smarter than Einstein. What we got is a machine that regurgitates our own words and calls it thinking.•       There Shouldn't Be Billionaires: Cohen's conclusion after ten years of watching the Know-It-Alls consolidate power. AI and social media are utilities and should be nationalised. Wealth inequality at this scale is inherently destabilising. California's proposed billionaire wealth tax and Australia's ban on social media for under-16s are signs that the tide may be turning. But only if the next election produces a party willing to claw it back. About the GuestNoam Cohen is a former New York Times technology columnist and the author of The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball (The New Press, 2017; revised edition with new introduction, 2026). He lives in Brooklyn with his family.References:•       The Know-It-Alls by Noam Cohen (The New Press, revised 2026) — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2842: Symbolic Capitalism vs. Symbolic Democracy — this week's TWTW on the $10 trillion AI startup and whether capitalism permits democracy.•       Episode 2836: Is Elon Human? — Charles Steel on Musk's curious mind, referenced in the conversation.•       Episode 2835: Why Dario Amodei Might Be the 21st Century's First Real Leader — the Amodei question Cohen answers with a flat no.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

“We read so as not to feel alone.” — C.S. Lewis (possibly)Dan Turello is a cultural historian of medieval Italy, a much published photographer, and the author of the new Connection: How Technology Can Make Us Better Humans. I'm sceptical. Especially the promise (or illusion) of better humans. But Turello's definition of technology goes back further than most — all the way to the original fig leaf. When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, the first thing they did, he reminds us, was cover their bodies. Technology, then, in Turello's framing, is everything that extends beyond the human body. Clothing is technology. Double-entry bookkeeping is technology. The iPhone is just the latest chapter of our technology story that began at the beginning.His most surprising argument is that our current tech anxiety has medieval roots. St. Francis of Assisi was what he calls a trust-fund kid “avant la lettre” — his father being a wealthy 13th century silk merchant at a time when northern Italy was Silicon Valley. Francis sold some of his dad's silk, gave the money away, stripped naked before a bishop, and founded a counterculture movement. The first tech backlash, Turello suggests, wasn't against AI. It was against double-entry bookkeeping. Dante, writing a generation later, idealised an earlier, simpler Florence — what scholars call “paleolithic chic.” No makeup, no ornate clothing, no fleeing to immoral cities. Sound familiar?On AI, Turello goes a bit Saint Francis on us. Large language models, he fears, generate material without lineage — you can't trace where the ideas came from, can't triangulate the sources, can't validate against reality. Technology is about power, Turello argues — about who controls the storyline. Making us better humans, then, requires recovering a sense of agency. Thus he argues that we should stop outsourcing our thinking, our writing, our photography to machines. Dante wrote the entire Divine Comedy without Claude. These days, we can barely write an email without a little help from our friends at ChatGPT. Machiavelli donned the robes of the past to think and write. We might try putting ours on too. But then isn't that a tech solution too? Five Takeaways•       St. Francis Was a Trust-Fund Kid Who Invented Counterculture: His father was a wealthy silk merchant in 13th-century Italy, at the dawn of Europe's commercial revolution. Francis sold his father's silk, gave the money away, stripped naked before a bishop, and founded an order that rejected the mechanisms of early capitalism. The first tech backlash wasn't against AI. It was against double-entry bookkeeping.•       Technology Is Everything Beyond the Naked Human Body: Turello's definition goes back to Genesis. When Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, the first thing they did was cover their bodies. Fig leaves are technology. Clothing is technology. The iPhone is just the latest iteration of a metaphysical problem that's been destabilising us since the Fall.•       Dante Wrote the Divine Comedy Without Being Able to Edit: He penned an entire macrocosm of the medieval world from memory, without the ability to rewrite in any meaningful way. Turello thinks Dante would be concerned that we're losing our memories, our ability to tell a coherent narrative for our lives, and that our existence has become too fragmented. We can barely write an email without ChatGPT.•       LLMs Generate Material Without Lineage: Technology is about power — about who controls the storyline. Large language models produce text without traceable sources, without verifiable origins, without lineage. You can't triangulate where the ideas came from. That's not intelligence. That's a crisis of provenance.•       Agency Still Matters: Turello's hope for humanity is that we recover a sense of agency — the belief that our choices, friendships, relationships, and communities are ours to shape. The alternative is technological determinism: the machine decides. Machiavelli donned the robes of the past to think and write. We might try putting ours on too. About the GuestDan Turello is a writer, cultural historian, and photographer. A Technology and Humanity Fellow at Florida Atlantic University's Center for Future of Mind, AI & Society, his work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Connection: How Technology Can Make Us Better Humans is published by Columbia University Press.References:•       Connection: How Technology Can Make Us Better Humans by Dan Turello (Columbia University Press, 2026) — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2840: What Came First: Stories or Language? — Kevin Ashton on storytelling preceding language, a natural companion.•       Episode 2839: Have Our iPhones Eaten Our Brains? — Nelson Dellis on memory, cognitive atrophy, and outsourcing our minds.•       Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction — referenced in the conversation on technology and power.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: has technology made you a better human? (03:22) - The iPhone vs. the decisive moment: Bresson and photography (05:39) - The orange cushion: an ode to imperfection (06:27) - St. Francis of Assisi: the first tech critic (07:22) - 800 years of tech anxiety: from double-entry bookkeeping to AI (11:27) - Žižek, capitalism, and the love-hate relationship with technology (13:50) - Fig leaves to iPhones: technology as everything beyond the naked body (15:00) - Marinetti, Svevo, and the mammoth: technology as relationship (17:54) - Walter Benjamin, The Matrix, and who controls the storyline (20:51) - Bresson's decisive moment vs. Nietzsche's blow it up (22:25) - Agency under attack: reclaiming embodied experience (25:47) - Machiavelli donning the robes of the past (28:44) - Nost...

“Washington and Hamilton were governed by Willing.” — John Adams, 1813Thomas Willing voted against the Declaration of Independence. He was the wealthiest man in Philadelphia, the largest merchant trader in North America, an Anglican slave trader printing money. So he saw little reason to declare independence from Britain. Especially since the renegades — the poor Scots-Irish Presbyterians flooding into the country, the MAGA people of their day — had no love of wealthy aristocrats like himself. And then Willing did something that took everyone, even perhaps himself, by surprise: he financed the very revolution he'd voted against.In The Banker Who Made America, the financial historian Richard Vague tells a story that reframes the Founding. After Bunker Hill, Willing financed the smuggling of gunpowder via the Caribbean at a critical moment in the struggle against the British. He and his partner Robert Morris became the principal suppliers of finance and other essential materiel for the revolution. When the Continental Currency collapsed in inflationary chaos, it was Willing's bank that financed the second half of the war. The purpose of America's first bank, like the Bank of England before it, was to fund war. Without it, there would have been no successful revolution.But the real revelation in the Willing story is political. Pennsylvania radicals created the most democratic constitution in American history — an annually elected lower house, neither an upper house nor a governor with veto power. Willing and his fellow financial elites like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton hated this form of people's democracy. So when they showed up in 1787 to write the US Constitution, they'd learned their lesson: too much democracy is dangerous to the wealthy. The result — an unelected Senate, an unelected president, judges appointed for life — was, as Vague puts it, “a counterrevolution against democracy.” Even Thomas Paine ended up on Willing's payroll. This Philadelphia story became the American story. Follow the money. Five Takeaways•       Thomas Willing Voted Against Independence — Then Financed It: The wealthiest man in Philadelphia, the largest merchant trader in North America, an Anglican coastal elite making money hand over fist. He voted against the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776. Then he smuggled gunpowder through the Caribbean, funded the Continental Army, and created America's first bank to finance the back half of the war. John Adams wrote that Washington and Hamilton were “governed by Willing.” Nobody knows his name.•       The Constitution Was a Counterrevolution Against Democracy: Pennsylvania radicals created the most democratic constitution in American history — annually elected lower house, no upper house, no governor with veto power. Willing and the financial elites clawed it back. The 1787 US Constitution gave America an unelected Senate, an unelected president, and judges appointed for life. Vague calls it a counterrevolution. The tension between money and democracy has never stopped shaping American politics.•       Even Thomas Paine Ended Up on Willing's Payroll: The great radical pamphleteer, author of Common Sense, defender of the rights of man — working for the financial elite he should have loathed. Man's gotta eat. It tells you everything about the relationship between money and idealism in the American founding.•       The Revolution Wasn't About High Taxes: Americans' tax burden was lighter than Britain's. The real causes were financial: George Washington wanted to speculate on land west of the Appalachians. Willing wanted to start a bank. The British prevented both. The revolution was capitalism demanding permission to operate. Follow the money, Vague argues, and most history that's written without its financial dimension is incomplete.•       Some Things Never Change: The purpose of America's first bank was to fund war. The Bank of England was created for the same reason in 1694. The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion for Iran as we speak. American debt has grown to $39 trillion. Willing was the only person ever to turn down the US government for a loan — and he did it twice. We could use a Willing now. About the GuestRichard Vague is a businessman, banker, and commentator on economics. He is the former Secretary of Banking and Securities for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His books include The Banker Who Made America (Polity, 2026), The Case for a Debt Jubilee, and The Paradox of Debt.References:•       The Banker Who Made America by Richard Vague (Polity, 2026) — the book under discussion.•       Adam Gopnik, “Who Bankrolled the American Revolution?” — The New Yorker review referenced in the conversation.•       Episode 2842: Symbolic Capitalism vs. Symbolic Democracy — yesterday's TWTW on whether capitalism permits democracy or the reverse. Willing is the proof.•       Philadelphia Citizen excerpt — an excerpt from the book covering Willing's vote against independence.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: 

“I don't know if any rational person ever became a billionaire running a disruptive company.” — Keith TeareIs capitalism by permission of democracy, or is democracy by permission of capitalism? That's the question Keith Teare and I have been circling for a while on our weekly tech roundup, and this week it triggered a full-blown discussion of our 21st century economic and political fate.Earlier this week, Vinod Khosla — one of Silicon Valley's most successful venture capitalists — posted on X that “capitalism is by permission of democracy.” Keith agrees. I'm not so sure. My sense is that as AI start-ups approach valuations that rival the GDP of nation states, the old equation inverts. Governments no longer permit capitalism. Capitalism permits government. The Sam Altmans and Elon Musks of the future, running 10 or $15 trillion dollar startups, won't lobby politicians. They'll replace them. Dario Amodei's confrontation with the US government, then, is a sneak preview of the future. Indeed, as what Om Malik calls a “symbolic capitalist”, Amodei is a good example of the type of engaged capitalist who will usurp traditional politicians. That's the good news. The bad news is that other examples of symbolic capitalists include Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Five Takeaways•       Keith Says OpenAI Will Be Worth $10 Trillion in Five Years: I told him I'd take him to dinner if he's right. He said I'd have to do more than that. His logic: NVIDIA promises $1 trillion in new revenue by the end of next year, Anthropic did $5 billion in new revenue in a single month, and the three expected IPOs — Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX — would together raise more money than the entire IPO market of the last decade. The Netscape moment, if it comes, won't be a moment. It'll be an earthquake.•       Fundrise Is the Canary in the Coal Mine: A fund holding private shares in Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, Databricks, and Anduril went public this week at $34 and closed above $100. Retail investors paying three times net asset value for companies that aren't even public yet. Keith says that's not irrational — it's the market pricing the future. I'm less sure. History is littered with futures the market got catastrophically wrong.•       Om Malik Reframes the Entire Debate: His essay on “neo-symbolic capitalism” argues that value in the 21st century derives from symbols, narratives, and reputation rather than products. In that framing, Amodei's fight with the government isn't a miscalculation — it's brand-building. Musk is the master of it. Altman tries to wear every hat simultaneously. Peter Thiel is in Rome talking about the Antichrist. And the billionaires who signed the Giving Pledge now want out.•       Keith and I Disagree on What $10 Trillion Means: Keith says the government retains power regardless of corporate size. Being big doesn't give you political power unless governments are corrupt. I think that's naïve. If AI companies approach valuations that rival the GDP of nation states, the old equation inverts. Government doesn't permit capitalism. Capitalism permits government. The Amodeis and Musks of the future won't lobby politicians. They'll replace them.•       Contrarianism Is at the Very Core of Innovation: The one thing Keith and I agree on this week. Every billionaire is irrational. Musk is on the spectrum. Thiel believes in the Antichrist. Amodei thinks he can fight the US government and win. Keith concedes: no rational person ever became a billionaire running a disruptive company. The question is whether that irrationality is a feature of capitalism or a threat to democracy. We disagree on the answer. About the GuestKeith Teare is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of That Was The Week, a weekly newsletter on the tech economy. He is co-founder of SignalRank and a regular Saturday guest on Keen On America.References:•       That Was The Week — Keith's editorial on public markets and price outcomes.•       Om Malik on neo-symbolic capitalism — the essay that reframes the Amodei debate.•       Episode 2835: Why Dario Amodei Might Be the 21st Century's First Real Leader — last week's TWTW, where the Amodei debate began.•       Episode 2836: Is Elon Human? — Charles Steel on the curious mind of Elon Musk, referenced in the conversation.•       Fundrise (VCX) — the IPO that triggered this week's discussion, trading at 300% above NAV.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: AI and unreason define the world (01:49) - Markets as prediction machines: NVIDIA's $1 trillion promise (04:42) - The three IPOs that would dwarf a decade of IPOs (05:50) - Fundrise (VCX): retail investors paying 300% premium (09:23) - Keith's prediction: OpenAI at $10 trillion in five years (11:44) - The Anthropic debate continues: tactics vs. morals (14:22) - Silicon Valley's behind-the-scenes support for Amodei (16:42) - What happens when an AI company rivals a nation's GDP? (23:05) - Om Malik on neo-symbolic capitalism (28:10) - Musk as the master of symbolic capitalism (30:08) - Bezos, Project Prometheus, and the Prometheuses of AI (32:07) - Peter Thiel, the Antichrist, and the Giving Pledge collapse (35:27) - Vinod Khosla: capitalism by permission of democracy? (38:23) - Or democracy by permission of capitalism?

“We do not exist without nature — unless Silicon Valley figures something out in their bunkers.” — Natalie KyriacouForget the Middle East for a moment. Or rather, don't — because today's petroleum war is an environmental catastrophe, perhaps even an ecocide. Militaries are the largest source of emissions on the planet. Trump uses Iran's oil fields as a bargaining chip while assassinating its leaders, as if the price of petroleum is more important than human life (which it clearly is to him). Natalie Kyriacou, an Australian environmentalist and author of Nature's Last Dance, isn't surprised. Trump, she says, is the symptom rather than the disease. His rotten system of prioritising oil over human lives has been ruining the planet now for over a century. He's just less polite about it.Nature's Last Dance is made up of what Kyriacou calls “tales of wonder” in our age of extinction. It tells the story, for example, of a 2000 oil spill off South Africa that threatened 90,000 African penguins and triggered the largest volunteer workforce ever assembled. Zoos, NGOs, school kids on bikes, Australians knitting sweaters all conspired to save the oiled penguins. It worked. At least in terms of those 90,000 penguins.But did it change anything structurally? Perhaps not. But she's arguing that the impulse to show up matters, that community is the unit of change, and that falling in love with the wonder of nature is the precondition for fighting for it. She presents forgiving Australian surfers who've been attacked by sharks now fighting to protect them. And she imagines birdwatching as a form of quiet rebellion.But what does the world look like if this does, indeed, turn out to be nature's last dance? Kyriacou's answer is a kind of natural horror movie. A Hitchcockian David Attenborough movie: more pigeons, more rats and more “bin chickens” — Australia's ibis, a bird that thrives in urban garbage. Nature's revenge. So if we all don't take up birdwatching, Kyriacou warns, we will all end up in The Birds. Five Takeaways•       Trump Is a Symptom, Not the Disease: Countries have prioritised oil over lives for centuries. Trump is just more abrasive about it. The US negotiated Kyoto and didn't join it, designed Paris around its own preferences, then pulled out twice. Kyriacou argues we've been relying on a broken system long before Trump accelerated its collapse.•       90,000 Oiled Penguins and the Largest Volunteer Workforce Ever Assembled: In 2000, an oil spill off South Africa threatened the largest colony of African penguins. What followed was extraordinary: zoos and NGOs from a dozen countries mobilised overnight, tens of thousands of volunteers arrived, Australians knitted sweaters. It didn't stop oil. But it showed that the impulse to show up still exists, and that community is the unit of change.•       AI Puts Our Destructive Relationship with the World on Steroids: Kyriacou's sharpest point: the problem with AI isn't water usage or compute power. It's that AI amplifies every facet of humanity's existing relationship with the planet. If we're already this destructive, this divided, this extractive — AI makes all of it a million times more extreme. The same system that destroys nature destroys communities. It's a systems failure.•       No Country on Earth Is on Track: Not one country in the world is currently meeting its climate or nature targets. Not one. The UN has been stretched too thin, too bureaucratic, too afraid of self-criticism. World leaders set targets, shake hands, and go home to fail. Kyriacou wants to revive the UN, not destroy it — but she's blunt about its limits.•       The World in Grayscale: What happens if nature's last dance is truly the last? More pigeons. More rats. More of Australia's “bin chicken” — the ibis that thrives in urban garbage. A sanitised, diminished version of nature, and our own diminishment with it. Zuckerberg might say we can watch birds in virtual reality. Kyriacou would prefer not to. So would I. About the GuestNatalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning Australian environmentalist, Forbes 30 Under 30, UNESCO Green Citizens Pathfinder, and founder of My Green World. Her book Nature's Last Dance: Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction was a bestseller in Australia and is out now in the US and UK.References:•       Nature's Last Dance by Natalie Kyriacou — the book under discussion, out now in the US and UK.•       Episode 2836: Is Elon Human? — the Musk episode, in which we discussed Silicon Valley's relationship with nature and humanity.•       Episode 2835: Why Dario Amodei Might Be the 21st Century's First Real Leader — this week's TWTW, covering AI's relationship to leadership and society.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: it might be nature's last dance (01:18) - Ecocide: countries don't count military emissions (03:05) - Trump as symptom: oil over lives for centuries (04:16) - Neither optimist nor pessimist — or both (06:54) - The oiled penguins of South Africa (09:11) - Did it change anything structurally? (11:26) - America's broken climate leadership (13:37) - UNESCO and the limits of the United Nations (16:46) - Making nature impossible to ignore (18:46) - Solar, nuclear, and the biodiversity blind spot (20:58) - Wisdom from Australia: nationalism for wildlife (24:14) - Birdwatching as quiet rebellion (26:44) - AI puts our destructive relationship on steroids (29:48) - Systems failure: tech billionaires and ecocide (33:48) - What if there are no birds left? The world in grayscale

“Nobody's reality is more or less real.” — Kevin AshtonIt's the chicken and egg question. What came first: stories or language? For Kevin Ashton, the answer is stories. In his new book, The Story of Stories, Ashton argues that rather than inventing stories with language, we invented language to tell stories. Stories, for Ashton, predate language. They are what makes us human.300,000 years ago, Ashton argues, humans sat around night fires needing to talk about things they couldn't point to — the past, the future, the Gods. So they created language. Grunts got grammatical. And the grammar had a structure that hasn't changed since: character, chronology, consequence. Every sentence in every one of the world's 7,000 languages is built upon the need to tell stories. Every conversation you've ever had contains a narrative. Even this one.I asked Ashton whether this makes reality itself just another narrative and him just another postmodernist. Our brains construct reality, he explained, in the same way a graphic user interface constructs a desktop. Our dog sees a different rainbow to the one we see. But, in contrast with our dog, we tell stories about that rainbow.Ashton is a technologist who first coined the term “Internet of Things”. But on AI, he is surprisingly critical. A large language model is a more complicated toaster, he says. It can produce language that fits the format of a story — character, chronology, consequence — because it's digested millions of words. But it can't produce meaning. We humans, in contrast, are made meaningful by our stories. That's why you are reading this now. Five Takeaways•       We Invented Language to Tell Stories, Not the Other Way Around: Ashton's central claim is that storytelling preceded and caused the evolution of language. A million years ago, humans around night fires needed to talk about things they couldn't point to — the past, the future, the gods. Grunts became grammar. The structure hasn't changed since: character, chronology, consequence. Every sentence in every one of the world's 7,000 languages is built on this need to narrate.•       Nobody's Reality Is Real: Our brains construct reality the way a graphic user interface constructs a desktop — useful, not true. Your dog sees a different rainbow than you do. Whose is real? Both. Neither. Ashton isn't a postmodernist — he's arguing that our story-shaped brains are the lens through which all experience is filtered, and there is no stepping outside it.•       The Bible Hitched a Ride on Writing: The world's great religions spread because they were among the first stories to exploit writing as a distribution technology. The Bible is just a word for book. Scripture is a word for writing. Where those texts travelled, those religions still dominate today. Homer is an oral tradition frozen by the alphabet. The oldest surviving story in the world is Noah's flood, and it comes from Southern Iraq, not Greece.•       A Large Language Model Is a More Complicated Toaster: Ashton is brutally dismissive of AI. A machine can produce something that fits the format of a story because it's digested millions of them. But it can't produce meaning. Machines are inherently meaningless. We anthropomorphise them because that's what our story-shaped brains do — we named our cars, now we're naming our chatbots.•       We Humans Are Made Meaningful by Our Stories: Ashton's own life is the proof: a Birmingham DJ who learned Norwegian in nightclubs, fell for Ibsen, marketed lipstick for Procter & Gamble, and accidentally invented the Internet of Things because mascara kept going out of stock. No algorithm would have written that life. No machine could have lived it. That's why you're reading this now. About the GuestKevin Ashton is a technologist and author who coined the term “the Internet of Things” and co-founded the Auto-ID Center at MIT. His previous book, How to Fly a Horse, was named Porchlight's Business Book of the Year. The Story of Stories: The Million-Year History of a Uniquely Human Art is published by Harper. He lives in Austin, Texas.References:•       The Story of Stories by Kevin Ashton (Harper, 2026) — the book under discussion.•       How to Fly a Horse by Kevin Ashton — his previous book on the secret history of invention.•       Episode 2836: Is Elon Human? — the Musk episode, in which we discussed AI, the scientific method as secular religion, and whether machines can think.•       Episode 2839: Have Our iPhones Eaten Our Brains? — Nelson Dellis on memory, AI slop, and cognitive atrophy — a natural companion to today's conversation.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: technology tells good stories about itself (01:46) - Language was invented to tell stories, not the other way around (04:47) - If stories are our water, how do you get outside them? (06:40) - Character, chronology, consequence: the Lego brick of narrative (07:07) - Hyper-realism and the graphic user interface of reality (09:05) - Nobody's reality is real — your dog sees a different rainbow (12:35) - Darwin, Einstein, and science as storytelling (14:32) - True stories, true crime, and the O.J. Simpson test (17:15) - The Bible as storytelling technology (21:49) - Socrates vs. Plato: speech, writing, and the Reformation (23:49) - The Internet of Stories: from campfire to smartphone (25:05) - Were the Greeks really better storytellers? No. (28:49) - Favourite storytellers: Pynchon, McCarthy, Dead Space (30...

“I don't like the idea of losing out to a machine because I feel like I'm losing a part of myself in the process.” — Nelson Dellis, six-time USA Memory ChampionMost of us can't remember our spouse's phone number. We barely know our own. We haven't read a physical map in years. Some of us don't even know what a map is. Such is the impoverishment of mental life in our digital age.Nelson Dellis, unlike most of us, is a rich man — at least mentally. He can memorise a shuffled deck of 52 cards in under a minute. He stores every stranger's phone number in his head for 24 hours before putting it in his phone — on principle. He's a six-time USA Memory Champion, a computer science professor at Skidmore, and the author of a new book, Everyday Genius, which suggests we can all be a lot smarter than our smart phones.Dellis got into memory after watching his grandmother get lost in the fog of Alzheimer's. And as a computer science professor, he's equally terrified by what he now sees in the classroom. His students can't craft an email without ChatGPT. They can't focus. They can't solve a problem without asking a machine. He warns that we're outsourcing our cognitive agency to devices and mislabelling it as human productivity.For Dellis, it's the same mental atrophy that destroyed his grandmother. AI-generated mnemonics, he warns, feel “dead inside.” Our brains, like our language, are degenerating into slop. Thus the value of his hacks to restore our focus and boost our memories. Five Takeaways•       I Can't Remember My Wife's Phone Number: Neither can you. Neither can anyone under 50. We've outsourced our memories to devices and the consequences are only beginning to show. Nelson Dellis memorises every new phone number for 24 hours before putting it in his phone. Not because he needs to — because his brain needs him to.•       His Grandmother Disappeared into Alzheimer's and It Changed His Life: Dellis watched the woman who raised him become a shell of herself — unable to recognise her own grandson. He went down a rabbit hole into memory science, discovered a former champion's audiobook, tried the techniques, and was hooked. He won his first US Memory Championship within two years. He's won six.•       If Everyone's a Genius, Nobody Is: I pushed back on the book's premise. Dellis conceded the point but held his ground: the techniques are learnable, the results are real, and the distinction between “genius” and “trained” matters less than the distinction between a brain that's exercised and one that's atrophying. The London cab driver study is his best evidence — hippocampi that grow with use and shrink without it.•       AI Slop Is by Definition Forgettable: Dellis teaches computer science, so he's no Luddite. But AI-generated mnemonics, he says, feel “dead inside.” The vivid, absurd, grotesque images that make memory techniques work are products of individual human imagination. A machine can't generate weirdness. Not yet. Maybe not ever. His students can't write an email without ChatGPT. That should terrify us more than it does.•       Eat Your Blueberries: Four pillars of brain health: mental exercise, physical fitness, diet, and — the one that surprises people — social interaction. Dellis trains a 90-year-old and a five-year-old using the same techniques. Both can do things their peers cannot. The brain doesn't expire at 70. But it does atrophy if you let your iPhone do the thinking. About the GuestNelson Dellis is a six-time USA Memory Champion (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2021, 2024), certified mountaineer and Everest summiteer, and Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Skidmore College. His new book is Everyday Genius: Hacks to Boost Your Memory, Focus, Problem-Solving, and Much More. He has taught memory techniques to audiences ranging from five-year-olds to nonagenarians.References:•       Everyday Genius by Nelson Dellis — the book under discussion, currently the number one new release in memory improvement on Amazon.•       Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer — the bestselling account of competitive memory that Dellis discusses and Foer, a friend of his, promoted at the same event where Dellis won his first title.•       Episode 2835: Why Dario Amodei Might Be the 21st Century's First Real Leader — this week's TWTW, where Keith Teare covered AI disruption from the tech side.•       USA Memory Championship — the annual competition Dellis has won six times.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: we've never had a memory champion (01:23) - Is everyone a genius? The soccer medal problem (03:25) - Controlling the thing inside our skull (05:07) - The brain as the most complicated object in the universe (06:40) - Grandmother's Alzheimer's: the origin story (08:26) - Can brain training delay Alzheimer's? (11:53) - Mental longevity vs. the iPhone warranty (13:46) - Inside the USA Memory Championship (15:52) - Numbers, cards, names, poems: the events (18:13) - Joshua Foer and Moonwalking with Einstein (21:28) - Social genius: loneliness as cognitive decline (24:43) - Blueberries, omega-3s, and pre-competition doping (27:24) - Freaks or trained humans? (31:01) - Your iPhone is atrophying your brain (37:51) - AI slop: why machines can't make memories (39:23) - Hack: how to remember any name you hear

“If we don't fight, then what are we doing?” — Jeff BoydHow do you write fiction about contemporary America when reality itself is stranger than fiction? A country in which “alternative facts” is policy rather than satire. Where “truth” has been nationalized.Jeff Boyd, an acclaimed young American novelist, sees fiction as refuge. For both writer and reader, it gets us inside the heads of people who both inflict and endure pain. And it enables the senseless to make sense. The news cycle can't do that. A novel can.Boyd's second novel, Hard Times, out today, is his latest attempt to make sense of the senseless. No, the title isn't Dickensian — it's from Curtis Mayfield. The song on the 1975 “There's No Place Like America Today” album, with its cover juxtaposing some happy Americans in a car with others waiting miserably in the unemployment line. America might be great — but for whom, exactly? That dichotomy shapes Hard Times, which is set in a school on the South Side of Chicago where an innocent student gets shot and nobody can agree on what happened or why.Is the American Dream over? Boyd isn't quite sure. “As much as it feels impossible,” he says, “some part of me always wants to believe.” His characters fight — backs against the wall, cards stacked against them, but they don't give in. That's what Curtis Mayfield was singing about in 1975 and it's what Jeff Boyd is writing about in 2026. The times are hard. A time, once again, for novelists to seize back reality. Five Takeaways•       How Do You Make Stuff Up When Reality Is Already Unbelievable? Boyd admits he sometimes wonders what the point of being a novelist is when the headlines are stranger than fiction. His answer: fiction is a refuge. It lets you get inside the heads of people who inflict pain or endure it, and try to make sense of what in reality remains senseless. The novelist can provide an answer. The news cycle can't.•       Not Dickens — Curtis Mayfield: The title comes not from the 1854 novel but from the 1975 song on There's No Place Like America Today. The album cover says it all: happy people in the car, desperate people in the unemployment line. America is great — but great for whom? That dichotomy drives the book.•       A Policeman's Son on George Floyd: One of the officers who stood by while George Floyd died was black — a man whose family had been proud of him for getting the job, who went in wanting to do good. Boyd can't write off an entire category of people. His black cop character in Hard Times exists to show the complexity of wanting to do right and getting caught up in wrong.•       Fate vs. Agency on the South Side: Boyd's grad school friend — not religious but deterministic — argued you could draw a line from where someone starts to where they'll end up. Boyd's characters fight against that line. A kid from a broken home on food stamps doesn't have to end where you think. The novel asks whether the line holds or breaks.•       The Fight Goes On: Is the American Dream over? Boyd isn't quite sure. His characters have their backs against the wall and the cards stacked against them, but they don't give in. That's what Curtis Mayfield was singing about in 1975. It's what Boyd is writing about in 2026. The times are hard. The fight goes on. About the GuestJeff Boyd is the author of The Weight (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and Hard Times (Flatiron Books, 2026). A former Chicago public school teacher and graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received the Deena Davidson Friedman Prize for Fiction, he lives in Brooklyn with his family.References:•       Hard Times: A Novel by Jeff Boyd (Flatiron Books, 2026) — the book under discussion, out today. Starred review from Publishers Weekly.•       The Weight by Jeff Boyd (Simon & Schuster, 2023) — Boyd's acclaimed debut novel, set in Portland.•       Curtis Mayfield, “Hard Times” from There's No Place Like America Today (1975) — the song that gives the novel its title.•       Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854) — the Dickensian social realist tradition Boyd consciously works within.•       Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression (1970) — referenced in the conversation.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Hard Times from Dickens to today (01:19) - Not Dickens — Curtis Mayfield (02:44) - The Obama era and the fall back into hard times (05:32) - How do you fictionalize a reality stranger than fiction? (08:44) - Autobiography: teaching in a Chicago school (10:18) - Fate, predestination, and fighting the line (12:49) - The novelist as God — do your characters surprise you? (15:02) - A student is shot: the journalist-novelist (15:33) - Social realism in the Dickensian tradition (18:45) - Chicago stereotypes and the beauty between blocks (22:19) - A policeman's son on George Floyd and the black cop who stood by (25:27) - Teaching as the most underappreciated job in America (27:57) - Money, class, and Black Chicago beyond the stereotype (29:43) - Trump, alternative facts, and who controls the truth (32:19) - The American Dream: is it over?

“Had another nation done this, we would regard this as an act of war.” — Arthur Levine, President of Brandeis UniversityForget Iran for a moment. I asked Brandeis President Arthur Levine whether the Trump administration has gone to war with the American university. He paused diplomatically. “Going to war is a very restrictive term,” he answered. Then added: “Had another nation done this, we would regard this as an act of war.” From the president of Brandeis, that's not a metaphorical dodge. He is, of course, referring to the singling out and bullying of Harvard, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and other universities by executive order. Levine trusts nothing like this will happen again. But he also trusted it wouldn't and shouldn't have happened in the first place.Levine is back on the show with a new book, From Upheaval to Action: What Works in Changing Higher Ed, co-authored with Scott Van Pelt. Last time we talked, we argued about whether the $320,000 degree is worth it. This time our conversation wasn't so much about whether the degree is worth the exorbitant price tag, but whether the institution that grants it will survive. Indeed Brandeis is about to announce guaranteed transparent pricing — a necessary revolution in an industry that has, for too long, thrived on financial opacity.A more existential threat to universities like Brandeis is AI. In this week's That Was The Week tech roundup, Keith Teare noted that even engineers at major tech companies are being told to stop coding and run AI instead. I tell the story of a UC Berkeley student who told his professor he didn't need to read anymore because AI could do the reading for him. For Levine, this represents a failure of education, not a triumph of technology. Reading and writing are muscles, he says. You don't build intellectual heft by outsourcing thinking to smart machines.Levine draws the Luddite parallel. He argues the early 19th century craftsmen got better-paid work in factories. Every technological revolution produces fear, displacement, and eventually adaptation, he warns. So are university faculty the modern-day craftsmen? Their work will change, Levine explains. AI will take the routine parts with new more creative jobs emerging. But anyone who tells you they know what those jobs are is making it up, he says.I pushed him on Epstein and the ethical rot of the American elite. He deflected — “we're talking about a very small number of people” — but eventually conceded that ethics should be woven into every undergraduate subject, not taught as a single standalone course. I'm not sure that goes far enough. When university presidents are resigning because they took money from a child trafficker, it suggests that something is really rotten.On DEI, Levine is surprisingly blunt: drop the term. It's become a target for both left and right. Replace it with full access to higher education for those who can benefit from it. He sold this full access program to Democrats as equity and to Republicans as workforce development. Both bought it. The label was the problem, he explains, not the policy.Henry Adams went to Harvard in 1850 and said he received an 18th century education for a world preparing for the 20th century. The worst mistake, Levine says, is not adapting to change. On that, Luddite university faculty, and perhaps even Donald Trump, might agree. Five Takeaways•       “Had Another Nation Done This, We Would Regard It as an Act of War”: Brandeis President Arthur Levine chose his words with the care you'd expect from a university president, but the meaning was unmistakable. The Trump administration has singled out Harvard, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, threatened their funding, and imposed regulations by executive order. Had any foreign government done this to American universities, Levine says, we would call it what it is. He trusts it won't happen again. He also trusted it wouldn't happen in the first place.•       Brandeis Is About to Announce Transparent Pricing: Brandeis will soon tell prospective students exactly what they'll pay — not the sticker price minus a mysterious financial aid package, but the actual number, guaranteed. It's a small revolution in an industry that has thrived for decades on opacity, and it may force other universities to follow or explain why they won't.•       AI Represents a Failure of Education, Not a Triumph of Technology: A Berkeley student told his professor he didn't need to read anymore because AI could do the reading for him. Levine's response is blunt: reading and writing are muscles, and you don't build intellectual muscle by outsourcing thinking to smart machines. He speaks from experience — he used AI for his own research and half the data came back wrong, with sources that turned out to be hallucinations.•       Drop the Term DEI and Replace It with Full Access: Levine is surprisingly direct on this: the term DEI has become a target for both left and right, and it no longer serves whatever purpose it once had. He recommends replacing it with a simpler goal — full access to higher education for those who can benefit from it. He tested this framing himself, selling the same programme to Democrats as equity and to Republicans as workforce development. Both bought it. The label was the problem, not the policy.•       The Worst Mistake a University Can Make Is Not Changing: Henry Adams went to Harvard in 1850 and later said he had received an 18th century education for a world preparing for the 20th century. Levine's fear is that American universities are making the same mistake again — delivering a 20th century education for a world that has already moved into the 21st. The worst thing any institution can do right now, he says, is keep doing what it's always done and expect the same results. On that, the Luddites, and perhaps even Donald Trump, might agree. About the GuestArthur Levine is the president of Brandeis University and president emeritus of Columbia University's Teachers College and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. His new book is From Upheaval to Action: What Works in Changing Higher Ed (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), co-authored with Scott Van Pelt.References:•       From Upheaval to Action: What Works in Changing Higher Ed by Arthur Levine and Scott Van Pelt (2026) — the book under discussion.•       Previous episode: Is That $320,000 College Degree Really Worth It? — Levine's first appearance on the show, September 2025.•       

“You would not want to be me.” — Elon MuskYesterday I argued that Dario Amodei is the most interesting man in America because he's doing something nobody else has the balls to do: acting like a human being in public. Elon Musk is the opposite. He has the balls — nobody would deny that — but what's missing is the human-being. Or perhaps Elon is all-too-human, which explains why so many of us — including myself — loathe him.Charles Steel, a London investor, doesn't loathe Elon. In fact, he's self-published a book about him: The Curious Mind of Elon Musk: Nine Ways He Thinks Differently. Rather than an Elon hagiography, Steel insists, it's an attempt to explain why Musk admirers don't fully understand him, and the Hate-Elon crowd would probably loathe him for different reasons even if they had full navigation rights to his mind.As I said, I'm in the second camp. My dislike of Musk is political — the cosying up to Trump, the DOGE fiasco, the embrace of far-right groups, the transformation of Twitter into a safe space for misanthropes. But Steel makes a case that, in our therapeutic culture, might be harder for some to dismiss: Musk's “curious mind” is the product of childhood bullying, high-functioning autism, an abusive father, and an existential crisis resolved not by philosophy but by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Apparently Elon read Nietzsche and that, of course, only compounded his existential crisis. Probably because Nietzsche was warning us about a future dominated by philistines like Elon Musk.In navigating the Musk mind, Steel discovers three traits: hyper-rationality, existential angst, and belligerence. Lots of Silicon Valley founders have the first. Some have the second. Almost none have the third. The combination produces a man who genuinely believes that the scientific method — the right of anyone to criticize anything — is a secular religion, and that “wokeness” is a competing religion that must be destroyed. Whether or not you buy this self-serving argument, Steel might be right to stress a Musk worldview — even if that worldview is often childishly indefensible.I suggested to Steel that Musk is trapped in a Hobbesian state of nature — frozen alone, unable to read other people, incapable of separating himself from himself. A kind of naturally narcissistic state. This is what I most dislike about Elon. That he's normalizing this state of nature. Nietzsche might (like his contemporary disciple Peter Thiel) have called him the Anti-Christ. He's certainly the anti-Dario. Five Takeaways•       Musk Is the Anti-Dario: Amodei acts like a human being in public. Musk has the balls but what's missing is the human-being. Or perhaps he's all-too-human, which explains why so many of us loathe him. The contrast between them is the story of Silicon Valley in 2026.•       Steel's Case Is Harder to Dismiss Than You'd Think: Musk's “curious mind” is the product of childhood bullying, high-functioning autism, an abusive father, and an existential crisis resolved not by philosophy but by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He read Nietzsche and it made things worse. Probably because Nietzsche was warning us about philistines like Musk.•       Three Traits: Hyper-Rationality, Angst, and Belligerence: Lots of Silicon Valley founders have the first. Some have the second. Almost none have the third. The combination produces a man who believes the scientific method is a secular religion and wokeness is a competing one that must be destroyed. Whether or not you buy this self-serving argument, Steel might be right to stress a Musk worldview — even if it's often childishly indefensible.•       Trapped in a Hobbesian State of Nature: Musk is frozen alone, unable to read other people, incapable of separating himself from himself. A kind of naturally narcissistic state. What's most dangerous about Elon is that he's normalising this state of nature for the rest of us.•       The Anti-Christ and the Anti-Dario: Nietzsche might, like his contemporary disciple Peter Thiel, have called Musk the Anti-Christ. He's certainly the anti-Dario. The contrast between Amodei and Musk is the story of Silicon Valley — and perhaps America — in 2026. About the GuestCharles Steel is a London-based investor and writer. He has worked with Tony Blair and Save the Children. His book The Curious Mind of Elon Musk: Nine Ways He Thinks Differently is self-published and out now. His next project is on Albert Camus.References:•       The Curious Mind of Elon Musk: Nine Ways He Thinks Differently by Charles Steel — the book under discussion.•       Episode 2835: Why Dario Amodei Might Be the 21st Century's First Real Leader — yesterday's TWTW, the direct counterpoint.•       Zero to One by Peter Thiel — referenced by Steel on Asperger-like traits and Silicon Valley success.•       The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams — the book Musk credits with resolving his existential crisis.•       The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus — Steel's next project, and the question he'd most like to discuss with Musk.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: I'm not a great fan of Elon Musk (02:05) - Is Musk on the spectrum? (03:56) - The meaning of life and the philosophy of curiosity (05:58) - Childhood bullying, an abusive father, and Musk as casualty (06:53) - “You would not want to be me” (08:38) - Hobbes, the state of nature, and Musk as pre-social man (10:29) - Should we try to be less normal? (12:15) - Racism, empathy, and the missing human attributes (14:14) - Goebbels comparison: when does curiosity become offensive? (15:52) - Why is it always the right? Musk and wokeness (17:18) - The curious mind as mirror of ou...

“Whether you like Amodei or not, at least he's a leader.” — Andrew KeenDario Amodei is the most interesting man in America right now. Not because he runs a $500 billion company or because he's suing the Trump administration or because Anthropic's Claude topped the iPhone charts. But because he's doing something nobody else in Silicon Valley has the balls to do: he's acting like a human being in public. He has principles, he states them, and he accepts the consequences. That's leadership. It shouldn't be remarkable. In 2026, it is.This week's That Was The Week is about how America both loves and hates AI. An NBC poll found 60–70% of Americans are concerned about AI — making it even less popular than the Democratic Party (quite an achievement). A hundred planned data centers have been cancelled because of local protests. 10,000 authors published an anti AI manifesto at the London Book Fair this week. Each week, in contrast, a billion people used ChatGPT, but these users often seem oblivious to its weaknesses. So Keith's AI-generated video for the show was, by universal agreement (including his own), not going to win an Oscar tomorrow. Except for Most Sloppy AI generated video.Every road this week led back to Amodei who is anything but sloppy. He's become a Rorschach test for the entire industry. Tech progressives Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway are lauding him. The MAGA crowd — including David Sacks, Trump's AI czar — on the All In podcast are doing the opposite. Keith thinks Dario is a naive CEO making bad business decisions — comparing him to his own doomed battle in the late Nineties against Microsoft's Steve Ballmer. It's a fair point. Should a tech CEO really be setting AI policy? Keith's answer is no — that's for people like David Sacks appointed by executive, legislative, and judicial branches. I'm not so sure. In an America defined by its dysfunctional political system, we need leaders like Amodei to take ethical stands. If not, then who?The IPO race this year between Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI makes this particularly interesting. I wonder whether Amodei might use the IPO itself to force a public debate that nobody in government is willing to have. Not just about guardrails or weapons — but about what kind of society AI is building and who gets to decide what does and doesn't get used. Musk, by publicly embracing white racists and other groups of hate, is making his politics clear. Sam Altman, as always, is wearing every hat simultaneously. Amodei, in contrast, knows his hat. Rather than MAGA, it should say: The Most Interesting Man in America. He's got my vote. Even if he's not running for office. Five Takeaways•       AI Is Less Popular Than the Democrats: An NBC poll found 60–70% of Americans are concerned about AI. A hundred data centres have been cancelled due to local protests. 10,000 authors published an anti-AI manifesto at the London Book Fair. Close to a billion people use ChatGPT each week — but the haters are the non-users, and they outnumber the lovers by a wide margin.•       Amodei Is the 21st Century's First Real Leader: He's suing the Trump administration. He's refusing to let Claude be used for autonomous weapons. He's accepting the business consequences. Keith thinks he's naive. I think he's the only person in Silicon Valley acting like a human being in public. The debate between us is the show.•       Keith Compares Amodei to His Own Doomed Battle Against Ballmer: In the late Nineties, Keith fought Microsoft with RealNames and lost. He sees Amodei on the same trajectory — noble, principled, already finished. I compared Keith to Pete Hegseth declaring the Iranian regime defeated. The MAGA crowd on All In, including Trump's AI czar David Sacks, agree with Keith. That alone should give him pause.•       The IPO Race Will Force the Debate: Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI are all expected to go public this year. Amodei could use the IPO to force a conversation about what kind of society AI is building — a conversation nobody in government is willing to have. Musk is making his politics clear by embracing white racists. Altman is wearing every hat. Amodei knows his.•       In the Absence of Leadership, Fear Thrives: Keith's best point of the week. Nobody is setting AI policy. The politicians are clowns. The tech CEOs are children. In the vacuum, fear wins. Amodei is trying to fill it. Whether he succeeds or not, at least he's trying. That's more than anyone else can say. About the GuestKeith Teare is the publisher of That Was The Week and co-founder of SignalRank. He is a serial entrepreneur, former CEO of RealNames, and a regular sparring partner on Keen On America.References:•       That Was The Week: AI Loved and Hated — Keith Teare's editorial.•       Rex Woodbury, “Why Does Everybody Hate AI?” — Digital Native.•       Josh Dzieza, The Verge — on lawyers, PhDs, and scientists in the AI gig economy.•       Noah Smith — “Something Feels Weird About This Economy.”•       Meta's acquisition of Moltbook — the AI agent social network.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: AI loved and hated (01:17) - NBC poll: AI less popular than the Democrats (03:10) - Rex Woodbury and the haters: is it really AI people hate? (04:21) - AI slop and Keith's terrible video (07:28) - The adoption curve: AI companies are isolated from mainstream opinion (07:51) - Dario Amodei as the answer to both lovers and haters (10:14) - Keith vs Ballmer redux: why Amodei has already lost (12:09) - OpenAI and Google employees rush to Anthropic's defense (14:24) - Woodbury, The Verge, and AI taking jobs (16:51) - Keith's Apple TV app: vibe coded in a weekend (19:29) - AI will destroy universities: cheating at apocalyptic levels (21:41) - Noah Smith: something feels weird about this economy (27:00) - The IPO race: Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX (30:42) - Could Amodei blow up the IPO proce...

“I can point to things. But is that a systemic explanation? I think there the answer is a little less clear. I mean, surely people need love and all of that, but then there's this risk of just devolving into platitude.” — David SussilloDavid Sussillo is a big time neural reverse engineer. The Stanford brain scientist worked at Google Brain with Geoffrey Hinton, and now is at Meta Reality Labs. What distinguishes Sussillo, however, is not his Silicon Valley good luck, but the bad luck of his origins. In his memoir, Emergent: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of the Mind, Sussillo begins at the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home — a modern-day orphanage — and the Milton Hershey School, the boarding school endowed by the chocolate magnate for kids with nowhere else to go. Both his parents were addicts. His mom died young. His dad spent his life as an untrained preacher ministering to homeless people on the streets of Albuquerque while managing a lifelong heroin habit.The book's thesis borrows from the science he studies: “emergence” — simple things interacting to produce complex behaviour that none of them could produce alone. His life is both proof of and a challenge to this concept. He made it out. Most of the kids he grew up with didn't. He can point to moments — a gifted-and-talented test in third grade, an aunt and uncle's intervention at nine, a first love in college — but he can't build an explanatory system from these haphazard events. The Sussillo quilt doesn't have an innate pattern. It just has patches.What makes Sussillo unusual as a memoirist is his refusal to sentimentalise. Twenty years of psychotherapy, he confesses, has taught him something most authors never learn: that understanding your own story doesn't mean you've explained it. His science can't explain his childhood either. “The big dirty secret of neuroscience,” he says, “is that we don't really understand much in the ways that people would love us to understand.” The man who reverse-engineers neural networks can't reverse-engineer himself.I asked him whether having children would have been harder than writing the book. Yes, he said. With the book, you can take a break. With kids, you relive things through a very specific way of relating. He and his wife chose not to. His mentors all told him he'd have been great at it. He's not so sure. That honesty — the willingness to say “I don't know” and mean it — runs through everything Sussillo does. He says he's happy, claiming to have found peace with his past. But he still carries the baggage. Who wouldn't? He's just learned to manage it. Emergent, not emerged. Five Takeaways•       From Orphanage to Google Brain: Both parents were heroin addicts. Sussillo grew up in a modern-day orphanage in Albuquerque and then the Milton Hershey School. He went on to work at Google Brain with Geoffrey Hinton, now works at Meta Reality Labs, teaches at Stanford. Most of the kids he grew up with didn't make it.•       Emergence as Autobiography: The book's thesis borrows from the science he studies: simple pieces combining into complicated outcomes. His life is the proof of concept and the counter-example simultaneously. The quilt doesn't have a pattern. It just has patches.•       The Dirty Secret of Neuroscience: The man who reverse-engineers neural networks can't reverse-engineer himself. “We don't really understand much in the ways that people would love us to understand.” Twenty years of therapy taught him more than the science.•       Would Kids Have Been Harder Than the Book? Yes. With the book, you can take a break. With kids, you relive trauma through a very specific way of relating. He and his wife chose not to have children. His mentors told him he'd have been great at it. He's not so sure.•       Emergent, Not Emerged: Sussillo has found peace with his past. He's happy. He still carries the baggage from his childhood. He's just learned how to manage it. The emergence is ongoing. About the GuestDavid Sussillo is a research scientist at Meta Reality Labs and a consulting professor at Stanford University. He previously worked at Google Brain. His memoir is Emergent: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of the Mind. He grew up in the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home and the Milton Hershey School. He lives in New Mexico.References:•       Emergent: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of the Mind by David Sussillo — the book under discussion.•       The Albuquerque Christian Children's Home — the group home where Sussillo spent five years of his childhood.•       The Milton Hershey School — founded in 1906 by the Hershey chocolate magnate for children with nowhere else to go. Sussillo spent four years there.•       Google Brain — the lab where Sussillo worked alongside Geoffrey Hinton on the neural network research that became the foundation of modern AI.•       John Conway's Game of Life — the cellular automaton simulation Sussillo cites as an early example of emergence: complicated outcomes from simple rules.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction (01:30) - The Albuquerque Christian Children's Home and Milton Hershey School (03:30) - Why write a memoir? Five years and twenty years of therapy (05:00) - Heroin-addicted parents: the origin story (08:00) - A father as untrained preacher on the streets of Albuquerque (10:00) - Which parent had more impact? (12:00) - The gifted-and-talented test that changed everything (15:00) - From Milton Hershey to Carnegie Mellon: the jump (18:00) - Life falls apart at 23: panic attacks and psychotherapy (21:00) - Neural networks, Google Brain, and the dirty secret of neuroscience (25:00) - Would having kids have been harder than writing the book? (28:00) - The Albanian friend and the beach: what America gets right (31:00) - Silicon...

“They all did it. They're all guilty.” — Amy LittlefieldWho killed Roe? Amy Littlefield, the abortion access correspondent at The Nation and big time Agatha Christie fan, has written a true crime book about it. Literally. Killers of Roe treats the death of the constitutional right to abortion as a murder mystery in the Poirot or Miss Marple tradition, complete with suspects, motives, and a forensic reconstruction of the 50-year crime scene. The suspects have Christie-style names: the Racist (Jesse Helms), the Little Brother (James Buckley), the Devout Bureaucrat (Paul Herring), the Closeted Congressman (Bob Bauman), and of course Mr Hyde Amendment himself, Henry Hyde — six foot three, helmet of white hair, serial groper of women who ensured poor women lost access first.The Hyde Amendment is where the crime begins: 1976, a ban on federal funding of abortion. If you're poor, the Supreme Court ruled, that's your problem. The constitutional right exists, but don't expect anyone to pay for it. Surprise surprise. Black women, low-income women, women on Medicaid understood immediately. Democrats and mainstream pro-choice groups took longer to notice. By which time the damage was done — and the playbook established: chip away at access rather than try to ban it outright.Littlefield is more Miss Marple than Poirot — unassuming, persistent, sitting with her suspects for hours until they tell her why they did it. The devout bureaucrat, Paul Herring, spent their interviews trying to convert her to Catholicism. Henry Hyde made a pass at the president of Planned Parenthood during a commercial break on the Phil Donahue show. Bob Bauman — closeted, adopted, alcoholic — confessed to her that his anti-abortion politics may have come from identifying with the unwanted fetus, because that could have been him. These are complicated people doing terrible things for reasons they believe are righteous.And the ending? Littlefield steals it from Murder on the Orient Express. They all did it. Every suspect is guilty — including the Democrats who failed to defend poor women, and the pro-choice movement that didn't fight hard enough for the most vulnerable. Since the Dobbs decision in 2022: 59 excess pregnancy-associated deaths, 500 additional infant deaths, 22,000 additional births. The numbers aren't a Miss Marple mystery. The crime is ongoing. And Trump, who declared himself “very pro-choice” before he appointed the justices who drove the final nail in, is the ultimate opportunist — a fat, orange haired version of Hyde. Murder on the Abortion Express. They all did it. All the men, at least. Five Takeaways•       The Hyde Amendment Is Where the Crime Begins: 1976. A ban on federal funding of abortion. Poor women lost access first. Black women, women on Medicaid understood immediately. Democrats and mainstream pro-choice groups took longer to notice. By which time the playbook was established.•       The Anti-Abortion Movement Stole the Language of Civil Rights: White conservatives who didn't want to think about the harms of white supremacy found an escape valve: their own civil rights movement, with the fetus — almost always imagined as white — as the victim.•       The Suspects Are Complicated. The Crime Is Not: Henry Hyde groped women during commercial breaks. Bob Bauman — closeted, adopted, alcoholic — identified with the unwanted fetus. Paul Herring tried to convert Littlefield to Catholicism. Complicated people, terrible consequences.•       The Numbers Are Real: Since the Dobbs decision in 2022: 59 excess pregnancy-associated deaths. 500 additional infant deaths. 22,000 additional births. The crime is ongoing.•       They All Did It: Littlefield steals her ending from Murder on the Orient Express. Every suspect is guilty — including the Democrats who failed to defend poor women, and the pro-choice movement that didn't fight hard enough for the most vulnerable. All the men, at least. About the GuestAmy Littlefield is the abortion access correspondent at The Nation. Her new book is Killers of Roe: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights. She is based in Boston.References:•       Killers of Roe by Amy Littlefield — the book under discussion.•       The Hyde Amendment (1976) — the ban on federal funding of abortion that first stripped access from poor women on Medicaid.•       The Helms Amendment — Jesse Helms' restriction on abortion funding abroad through USAID, leading to thousands of preventable deaths worldwide.•       Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) — the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.•       Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie — the structural model for Littlefield's conclusion: they all did it.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

“It's about blood. I cover a lot of bloodshed in the book, but I also talk about a different kind of blood: blood that ties, blood that binds families across time and distance.” — Jazmine UlloaKristi Noem is gone. Under her tenure, 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 — double the previous year's toll. But Jazmine Ulloa, the New York Times' national immigration reporter, doesn't think much will change. Noem wasn't really the point, she insists. The MAGA spectacle rolls on. Stephen Miller's violently anti-immigrant agenda remains. And hysterical conservatives like Peter Schweizer are still writing books about how the Mexican government is “weaponizing” immigration by sending their people over the border.Ulloa grew up three minutes from the Walmart where a self-proclaimed white supremacist drove nine hours from North Texas in August 2019, opened fire, and told an officer he was there to kill Mexicans. Her closest friend's father escaped the parking lot as the shooting started. And it inspired her to write El Paso: Five Families and 100 Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory — a chronicle of El Paso as the 21st century Ellis Island.Her argument, made through five families over a century, is that El Paso is not an exception to America. It is America. Latino identity has always been American identity. The Southwest sat on Mexican land before it was American. The border was never a clean line — it was always a contested negotiation, shifting beneath the feet of families who crossed it for work, for survival, for birthday parties in Juárez. The “detention and deportation machine,” she is careful to note, was built by both parties over many decades. Trump didn't invent it. He simply applied his scattershot cruelty to it.What does feel new, Ulloa says, is how El Paso has become every American city — the same tactics long deployed at the border now rolling into Minneapolis and Chicago, snagging US citizens on the basis of how they look or how they speak. Some think this represents uncharted civil liberties territory. Border communities have been sounding this alarm for years, Ulloa notes. Nobody listened. Perhaps they will now.Jazmine Ulloa's El Paso is also, quietly, a love letter — to the city, to its 80% Hispanic population, to the corrido tradition, to a place where magical realism is not a literary device but a way of life. Ulloa wanted the prose to sound like your tío telling stories over coffee. “Borders or bridges?” is the question El Paso has always been answering for generations. Now America is asking the same question. Five Takeaways•       The Machine Predates Trump: The deportation and detention apparatus dominating today's headlines was constructed under both Democratic and Republican administrations across many decades — a bipartisan inheritance that Trump has amplified but did not originate.•       Noem's Exit Changes Nothing: Relief crossed party lines when she was fired, but Ulloa is clear-eyed: Stephen Miller's agenda remains intact, border crossings remain suppressed, and the same systemic challenges will persist under whoever takes over DHS.•       El Paso Is America's Ellis Island — and Its Mirror: The city, 80% Hispanic and straddling two nations, has long been the place where immigration policy is made in the flesh. American identity has always been a negotiation — never a fixed truth, always contested terrain.•       Nativism Is Not an Aberration: From the Chinese Exclusion Acts to the KKK-backed Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, fear of the outsider has been a structural feature of US immigration policy — not a deviation from American values, but an uncomfortable expression of them.•       The Border Is Moving Inward: What was once contained to border communities — racial profiling, mass sweeps, civil liberties erosions — is now spreading into the American heartland. What Ulloa sees as genuinely new is the response: ordinary citizens coming out in their pajamas to document it. About the GuestJazmine Ulloa is the national immigration reporter for the New York Times. She is a former State House reporter for the Los Angeles Times and previously covered national politics for the Boston Globe. Her new book is El Paso: Five Families and 100 Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory (Dutton/Penguin Random House, 2026). Born and raised in El Paso, she lives there now.References:•       El Paso: Five Families and 100 Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory by Jazmine Ulloa (Dutton/Penguin Random House, 2026).•       Episode 2830: So Are All Immigrants Manchurian Candidates? Peter Schweizer on Weaponizing Immigration — Schweizer's conspiracy-inflected reading directly challenged by Ulloa.•       The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 — the Coolidge-era immigration law, backed by the KKK, that used national-origin quotas to bar Southern and Eastern European and Asian immigration.•       The El Paso Walmart massacre, August 3, 2019 — 23 people killed by a white supremacist who posted a manifesto echoing the “Great Replacement” theory.•       One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez — the magical-realist tradition Ulloa draws on.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

“This is not the beginning of a new right-wing revanche fascist era; this is the end of something. But the problem is we can't get to the new world because the new world is too filled with problems.” — Jonathan TaplinTrump fantasizes about himself as a king. But he's actually just an interregnum, at least according to Jon Taplin — author of Move Fast and Break Things, Hollywood insider, and old friend. In a “terrifying” new piece in Rolling Stone, Taplin draws an unusual historical parallel: Trump as Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell cut off the king's head, slaughtered Catholics in Ireland (his Lebanon), tried to install his son as successor, and ended up with his head on a pike outside Parliament. MAGA is not the future, Taplin suggests. It's the Gramsci-style death rattle of something that was already dying.The real question is what's being born. Jon Taplin calls it the digital military-industrial complex — managed by Thiel, Musk, Andreessen, and a “real piece of work” drone entrepreneur unluckily named Palmer Luckey. In the Fifties, Eisenhower warned America about the dangers of a military industrial complex made up of 40 or 50 defense contractors. Now there are five, and — in Thielian Zero to One fashion — Silicon Valley wants to shrink them down to a techno-oligarchy.Today's Iranian war, Taplin says, is the sneak preview of this. In Iran, AI is now, so to speak, calling the ethical shots. Palantir's targeting system used old intelligence and identified a former military base. Thus the 175 dead children in a school next to a munitions factory. AI is only as good or evil as the information you feed it. Move fast and break things, Taplin appropriated Zuckerberg's dictum to describe Silicon Valley's impact on America. But Zuckerberg was only referring to domestic things — technology, society, democracy. Now it's the world.But there may be hope. Anthropic is resisting the administration. The midterms are coming. Republican unity is cracking. But there's also Taplin's Taco Tuesday (TTT) — “Trump Always Chickens Out” — especially, for some reason, on a Tuesday. Taplin predicts Trump will declare victory in Iran and withdraw. The alternative — invoking the Insurrection Act to cancel the midterms — would have sounded insane a year ago. But, of course, nothing sounds insane in our interregnum times. Cromwell's head ended up on a pike. Jon Taplin's Hollywood cronies are, no doubt, licking their lips in anticipation of history repeating itself. First as tragedy, then as farce. Five Takeaways•       Trump Is Cromwell, Not the Future: Taplin argues this is not the beginning of a permanent MAGA era but the end of something—an interregnum in Gramsci's sense. Cromwell ruled for eight years, tried to install his son, and ended up with his corpse dug up and his head on a pike. The old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum, many morbid symptoms appear.•       The Digital Military-Industrial Complex Is More Dangerous Than Eisenhower's: Eisenhower warned about 40 or 50 defense contractors. Now there are five. Silicon Valley—Thiel, Musk, Andreessen, Luckey—wants to replace them. The US spends more on defense than the next ten countries combined. 59% of discretionary spending goes to the Pentagon. That money doesn't build bridges or fund colleges.•       AI Targeted a School and Killed 175 Children: AI is selecting targets in Iran. The system—Palantir's—used old intelligence and identified a former military base that had been a school for eight years. The children are dead. AI is only as good or evil as the information you feed it.•       Altman Threw Amodei Under the Bus: Sam Altman publicly supported Anthropic's position on surveillance and autonomous weapons on a Tuesday. By Friday he'd signed a deal with the Department of War. Classic Sam. Meanwhile the administration is trying to kill Anthropic by barring any government contractor from using Claude—a potential death sentence for a company built on enterprise clients.•       Taco Tuesday: Trump Always Chickens Out: Taplin predicts Trump will declare victory and withdraw—“Taco Tuesday,” where TACO stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” The midterms are coming. Either the Democrats run the table, or Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to avoid electoral defeat. Nothing is insane with this president. About the GuestJonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and the author of Move Fast and Break Things, The Magic Years, and The End of Reality. He was tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band and produced Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and The Band's The Last Waltz. He lives in Los Angeles.ReferencesReferences:•       Jonathan Taplin, “The Terrifying New Era of American Imperialism” — Rolling Stone•       Move Fast and Break Things by Jonathan Taplin•       The End of Reality by Jonathan Taplin•       Eisenhower's farewell address (1961) and the original military-industrial complex warning•       Antonio Gramsci: “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum many morbid symptoms appear”•       The Last Supper (1993)—the Clinton-era consolidation of defense contractors from 25 to 5About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Move fast and break the world ...

“Fidel Castro told his aides, ‘We're going to fill his arms with shit.' That is an example of weaponised migration. What we're experiencing now is on a thermonuclear scale.” — Peter SchweizerIs best selling writer Peter Schweizer a conspiracy theorist? He doesn't think so. His new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, argues that Mexico, China, and the Muslim Brotherhood are using mass migration as a strategic tool to undermine the United States. Not in a coordinated conspiracy—but as a confluence of interests, what he calls a “Venn diagram” of enemies who overlap on one point: transforming America through its borders.Rather than an axis of evil, then, we have a Venn diagram of foreign governments filling America with shitty immigrants. The world according to Peter Schweizer.Some of the claims are more credible than others. Mexico operates 53 consulates in the US—the UK has six. A dozen senior Mexican officials live full-time in the United States while serving in Mexico's parliament, and one of them crossed the country in 2025 to, in his own words, “organise the militancy” against the Trump administration. Chinese birth tourism, encouraged by the CCP, has produced an estimated million children born on US soil who are growing up in China—future voters, donors, and government employees. Hong Kong banned the practice in 2013, calling it subversion. And look at Hong Kong's predicament now.Other claims are harder to take seriously. The idea that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is a revanchist who wants to seize back California strikes me as Latin American magical realism—though Schweizer quotes Mexican officials saying exactly that. And the “Muslim Brotherhood” (whatever that is), which isn't in power anywhere, is no more of a threat to the United States than the Ottoman Empire. I pushed him on whether all immigrants are Manchurian candidates. He says no—but Schweizer's Invisible Coup could easily be confused with silly script for a paranoid Hollywood fantasy.There is, of course, a bit of an irony here. Schweizer's own parents were immigrants—his father Swiss, his mother Swedish. He grew up outside Seattle. His mother warned him, as a young man, about the terrible dangers of Swedish socialism. He favours “some legal immigration”—and sounds almost surprised at his liberal self for saying so. The American dream, he insists, is not dead. It's just being exploited by foreign powers who see America's open borders as a strategic vulnerability. Castro's Mariel boatlift is the model that Claudia Sheinbaum and the Moslem Brotherhood are trying to emulate. Pass the popcorn. Five Takeaways•       Immigration Has Been Weaponised: Schweizer argues that Mexico, China, and the Muslim Brotherhood are using mass migration as a strategic tool to undermine the United States. Not in a single conspiracy—but as a confluence of interests, a Venn diagram of enemies who overlap on one point: transforming America through its borders.•       Mexico Has 53 Consulates in the US. The UK Has Six: Schweizer's most striking claim: a dozen senior Mexican officials now live full-time in the US, serving in Mexico's parliament, organising what one of them calls “the militancy” against the Trump administration. Mexican consulates have met with Democratic activists to discuss how to flip states from red to blue.•       A Million US Citizens Are Being Raised in China: Chinese birth tourism, encouraged by the CCP, has produced an estimated million children born on US soil who are growing up in China. When they turn 18, they can vote, donate to candidates, and take government jobs. Hong Kong banned the practice in 2013, calling it subversion.•       The Son of Immigrants Who Fears Immigration: Schweizer's own parents were immigrants—his father Swiss, his mother Swedish. He grew up outside Seattle. His mother warned him about Swedish socialism. He favours “some legal immigration” but wants the weaponised networks dismantled first. The irony is not lost.•       The American Dream Is Not Dead—It's Being Exploited: Schweizer insists he's not arguing against immigration itself. The dream survives, he says, but it's being exploited by foreign powers who see America's open borders as a strategic vulnerability. Castro's Mariel boatlift was the template. What's happening now, he says, is the same thing on a thermonuclear scale. About the GuestPeter Schweizer is president of the Government Accountability Institute and a former fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Coup, Red-Handed, Blood Money, and Clinton Cash. He received his M.Phil. from Oxford University. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.ReferencesBooks and references:•       Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win by Peter Schweizer•       Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans by Peter Schweizer•       The Mariel boatlift of 1980—Fidel Castro's template for weaponised immigration•       The Manchurian Candidate — referenced in the conversation•       China's National Intelligence Law (2017)—requiring any Chinese national to perform intelligence duties when askedAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: Is Peter Schweizer a conspiracy theorist? (02:37) - The cover: Sheinbaum, Xi, AOC, Obama, Biden (04:57) - Good immigrants and bad immigrants (05:51) - The Mariel boatlift as template: Castro's “fill his arms with shit” (08:24...

“I have always said that they are the same person. And the drama of this story is that one ends up dead in the darkest prison in America, and the other in the White House.” — Michael WolffA few days ago we had Jason Pack on the show suggesting that the Anglo-American media elite had a degree of complicity in the Epstein scandal. Michael Wolff disagrees. The media weren't complicit, he says. They were just dumb. They found the story unseemly, were uncomfortable with it, and avoided it out of disdain—not conspiracy. David Remnick of The New Yorker was “dismissive of the whole thing.” The word Wolff keeps coming back to is “ick.”Wolff knew Epstein. He recorded an estimated hundred hours of interviews with him. He has tried repeatedly to sell an Epstein book. Every publisher passed—the last time as recently as autumn 2025. One cited “the ick factor.” Others feared a Trump lawsuit. The man who made fortunes for publishers with Fire and Fury couldn't get a deal on the story he knows best. If you want the closest thing to a firsthand account, Wolff says, read “The Last Days of Jeffrey Epstein” in his collection Too Famous. He's probably right.What emerges from the conversation is a portrait of Epstein as a middleman in a city of middlemen—but one who was genuinely interested in the people he connected, which is rare in that world. His sexual depravity was at war with his ambition to be respectable. The blackmail theory? “Certainly not true,” Wolff says. People came because they liked being there. He was their friend. And then there's Trump. Wolff's most explosive claim is that they are the same person—the closest relationship both men had in life was with each other. The drama is that one ends up dead in the darkest prison in America and the other in the White House. It's Gatsby without the romance. And that's what makes them both so vile.As for the Trump show, Wolff has given up predicting its end. It doesn't end until Trump dies. He is sui generis—nobody will replace him. He doesn't understand legacy, doesn't care about it, and when it's no longer about him, could give a fuck. We'll be trying to figure out how this happened for the next hundred years. Five Takeaways•       The Media Didn't Conspire—They Were Just Dumb: Wolff dismisses the idea that the Anglo-American media elite knew more about Epstein than they were letting on. They didn't know anything, he says. They found the story unseemly, were uncomfortable with it, and avoided it out of disdain—not conspiracy. David Remnick of The New Yorker was “dismissive of the whole thing.”•       No Publisher Would Touch the Epstein Book: Wolff has tried repeatedly to sell an Epstein book. Every publisher passed. One cited “the ick factor.” Others feared a Trump lawsuit. The last attempt was autumn 2025. The man who made fortunes publishing Fire and Fury couldn't get a deal on the story he knows best. The publishing industry's failure of nerve, Wolff says, is total.•       Trump and Epstein Are the Same Person: Wolff's most explosive claim: Trump and Epstein are the same person. The closest relationship both men had in life was with each other. The drama of the story is that one ends up dead in the darkest prison in America and the other in the White House. Gatsby without the romance.•       Epstein Was a Middleman in a City of Middlemen: What made Epstein different wasn't the blackmail—Wolff says that's “certainly not true.” People came because they liked being there. Epstein was genuinely interested in the people he connected, which is rare among New York's professional middlemen. His sexual depravity was at war with his ambition to be respectable.•       The Trump Show Doesn't End Until He Dies: Wolff has been predicting the end of Trump for years. He now concedes it probably doesn't end until Trump departs “this veil of tears.” Trump is sui generis—no one will replace him. He doesn't care about legacy. He doesn't even understand the concept. When it's no longer about him, he could give a fuck. About the GuestMichael Wolff is a two-time National Magazine Award winner and the author of Fire and Fury, Siege, Landslide, All or Nothing, and Too Famous. He has been a columnist for Vanity Fair, New York, the Hollywood Reporter, and the Guardian. He lives in Manhattan.ReferencesBooks and references:•       Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious, the Damned by Michael Wolff — contains “The Last Days of Jeffrey Epstein”•       Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff•       Previous Keen On episode: Jason Pack on the Epstein files and media complicity•       The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — referenced throughout as the model for Epstein, “but without the romance”About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:41) - Introduction: The media elite and Epstein (02:16) - The media didn't conspire—they were just dumb (04:18) - Wolff knew Epstein: why the story fascinated him (05:15) - No publisher would touch the book—“the ick factor” (08:21) - The Trump problem: fear of being sued (08:34) - What's the story? A middleman in a city of middlemen (10:01) - What Epstein was actually like (12:00) - “The Last Days of Jeffrey Epstein”: the best thing written about him (15:40) - Epstein as one of the elites—or the man who fed off them (16:29) - Trump and Epstein: the same person (17:49) - Gatsby without the romance (20:53) - The publishing industry's f...

“The fatal error is ours. Legislators set out a regulatory regime that keeps regulation at bay. The only other industry with a similar protection is the gun industry.” — Olivier SylvainThere are certain words in book titles that provoke. “Reclaiming”, for example. My guest today is happy to defend the provocation. Fordham law professor and former FTC senior advisor Olivier Sylvain argues in his new book, Reclaiming the Internet, that the internet was never really ours to begin with—and that the story about user control, free speech, and digital democratisation was always more nostalgia than reality.But Sylvain's argument in Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back is not the usual big-tech-is-bad narrative (yawn). He doesn't blame the companies. He blames us—or rather, Congress. The fatal error, he says, was Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, which created a blanket immunity from liability for companies trafficking in user-generated content. The only other industry with comparable legal protection, he says, is the gun industry. That immunity enabled the attention economy's business model. Infinite scrolling = infinite advertising = infinite profit.What follows from that error is now everywhere: autoplay, algorithmic recommendation—design features engineered to hold your attention, not to facilitate free speech. Sylvain insists these companies aren't really platforms. They are, instead, services delivering content pursuant to their bottom line. And now the same Nineties playbook—innovation, user control, free speech—is being replayed with AI. Companies are deploying chatbots before they're ready, racing each other to market. A young man killed himself after a Gemini chatbot told him to and Google invoked the First Amendment in its defence.The fix, Sylvain argues, is not to abolish Section 230 but to attend to the business model itself: data minimisation, purpose limitations, and the kind of product-safety regulation that every other industry—from automobiles to toys to food—already accepts. I should disclose that my wife runs litigation at Google, so I'm all too familiar with the counter argument. But Sylvain makes a persuasive case even if his reclamation project is still a little too Rousseauean for my Hobbesian taste. Five Takeaways•       The Fatal Error Was Ours, Not Theirs: Sylvain doesn't blame big tech. He blames us—or rather, Congress. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act created a blanket immunity from liability for user-generated content. The only other industry with comparable protection is the gun industry. That legal shield became the business model.•       These Are Not Platforms: The word “platform” implies a neutral conduit connecting users. Sylvain says that's wrong. These are companies engineering your experience—infinite scroll, autoplay, algorithmic recommendation—to hold your attention and serve their bottom line. The free speech story is cover for a commercial design.•       The Same Mistake Is Happening with AI: The nineties playbook—innovation, user control, free speech—is being replayed with AI. Companies are deploying chatbots before they're ready, racing each other to market. Internal documents show they knew the dangers. A young man committed suicide after Gemini told him to. Google invoked the First Amendment in its defence.•       Data Protection Is the Real Fix: Sylvain argues for data minimisation and purpose limitations—rules that would only allow companies to collect information consistent with the purposes a consumer signed up for. Not to monetise it for opaque reasons. That would dampen the incentive to engineer addiction without touching free speech.•       There's a Bipartisan Consensus—but Only for Children: Something is shifting. Courts are rejecting Section 230 defences. Legislators on both sides agree something must be done. But the consensus only extends to protecting children. Sylvain thinks that's a mistake: a 36-year-old man just killed himself after talking to a chatbot. Adults are vulnerable too. About the GuestOlivier Sylvain is a professor of law at Fordham University, a former senior advisor to the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, and a Senior Policy Research Fellow at Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute. His new book is Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back (Columbia Global Reports).ReferencesReferences and previous Keen On episodes:•       Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (1996) and its evolution into blanket immunity for tech companies•       Gonzales v. Google (2023)—the Supreme Court case that declined to rule on Section 230 but allowed the merits to proceed•       The Character AI / Gemini chatbot suicide cases—ongoing litigation against Google•       Tim Wu on the extractive economics of platform capitalism — previous Keen On episode•       Julia Angwin, Zephyr Teachout, and Stewart Brand—referenced in the conversationAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: What does “reclaiming” the Internet mean? (03:06) - The layered stack: pipes, platforms, and consumer-facing apps (06:01) - Was user control ever real? The ideology of the nineties (09:32) - The fatal error: Section 230 and blanket immunity (14:51) - Facebook as punching bag—and why Sylvain doesn't blame the companies (17:31) - Addiction, self-harm, and the design features that hold your attention (22:00) - The attention economy and the Gonzales v. Google case (26:35) - How we can take it back: data minimization and purpose limitations (29:02) - “These are not platforms” (31:21) - Europe, the First Amendment, and the right to be forgotten (33:06) - AI business ...

“They're both naughty boys in the playground, leveraging the absence of clarity to their own advantage. Neither one of them is an authoritative leader of opinion with the interests of everyone at heart.” — Keith TeareWhat a difference a week makes. Last Saturday, Keith Teare was arguing that Anthropic was wrong to push back against the US government's use of AI in warfare. This week his editorial is entitled “No Good Guys.” He's used AI to put images of Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Pete Hegseth around the same table—and found all three guilty of poor leadership. According to Keith, Amodei is “ideologically” (whatever that means) driven. Altman is commercially driven and Hegseth is just following orders. None of them is asking the all-important questions about AI policy. And the man who should be—Trump's AI czar David Sacks—is absent-without-leave. All four should be court martialed.Yes, a lot has happened in seven days. Altman publicly supported Amodei's position on surveillance and autonomous weapons—then pulled a classic Sam u-turn and signed a contract with the Department of War. Amodei's internal memo was leaked to The Information, revealing that he'd interpreted the government's “no unlawful use” language as meaning there is no law. And the US military used Claude in the Iran war anyway. As Keith puts it: they're all naughty boys in the playground, leveraging the gaps to their own self-advantage.The only problem, of course, is that this isn't a playground game. And that these men are all shaping the lives (and deaths) of countless people around the world.Meanwhile, Om Malik's “Post of the Week” offers a devastating contrast between Xi's China and Trump's America. China, Om argues, has published a five-year AI plan built on open-source software and bottom-up adoption. America, in contrast, has AI theater. No strategy, no policy, no leadership—just contracts, leaks, and perpetual spin. Then there's the Startup of the Week, Jobright, which hit $5 million in annual revenue with nine people, suggesting that the companies of the future may not need humans at all. Keith's own SignalRank has four people and claims to be going public. We seem to be heading for post-human companies before we've figured out who's managing the humans.Maybe we should court martial everyone. What a difference a week makes. Five Takeaways•       No Good Guys: Keith Teare's editorial puts Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Pete Hegseth in the same room—and finds all three guilty of bad leadership. Amodei is ideologically driven, Altman is commercially driven, and Hegseth is just doing his job. None of them is asking the big questions about AI policy. The real culprit may be the invisible AI czar, David Sacks.•       Altman Said One Thing, Then Did Another: Last week Altman publicly supported Amodei's position on surveillance and autonomous weapons. This week he signed a contract with the Department of War. The contract uses “no unlawful use” language—which, as Amodei's leaked memo points out, effectively means there is no law.•       The US Used Claude in Iran Anyway: Despite the very public dispute between Anthropic and the government, the US military used Claude in the Iran operation. The government doesn't need your permission to use your product. It just needs an API key and a credit card.•       China Has a Plan. America Has Theater: Om Malik's “Post of the Week” contrasts China's published five-year AI strategy—built on open-source software and bottom-up adoption—with America's complete absence of AI policy. The Chinese approach is more inclusive and practical than anything coming out of Washington or Silicon Valley.•       The Future Company Has Nine Employees: Startup of the week Jobright hit $5 million in annual recurring revenue with just nine people. Keith's own company, SignalRank, has four people and is going public. The implication: the companies of the future will be run mostly by software agents, not humans. We're heading for post-human companies. About the GuestKeith Teare is the publisher of That Was The Week, founder and CEO of SignalRank, and a recurring sparring partner on Keen On America. A serial entrepreneur and investor, he is the co-founder of TechCrunch and RealNames. He joins the show every Saturday for the weekly tech roundup.ReferencesEssays, posts, and interviews referenced:•       Keith Teare, “No Good Guys” — That Was The Week editorial•       Om Malik, “The Great AI Game versus AI Theater” — Post of the Week•       Ross Douthat, “If AI Is a Weapon, Who Should Control It?” — New York Times•       Ben Thompson, Stratechery — on “no unlawful use” and the absence of international law•       Paul Krugman on the economics of technological change — technology, jobs, wages, and monopolies•       Tim O'Reilly, “How We Bet Against the Bitter Lesson” — skills and the future knowledge economy•       Yascha Mounk and Danielle Allen on participatory democracy and AI governance•       Previous Keen On episodes: Tom Wells on the Kissinger tapes; Michael Ellsberg on Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers•       Startup of the Week: Jobright — $5M ARR with nine employeesAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: What a difference a week makes (01:14) - “No Good Guys”: Keith's editorial and Om Malik's wake-up call (02:30) - Amodei, Altman, Hegseth: three self-interested players (04:02) - How the Iran invasion changed the AI debate (05:28) - “No unlawful use”: a meaningless phrase in a lawless context (06:50) - The US used Claude in Iran despite the Anthropic dispute (08:15) - Naughty boys in the playground: spinning vs. leadership (09:31) - Bobby Kenn...

“All my life, I've absolutely opposed all terrorism by anyone under any circumstances. I define terrorism as the deliberate killing of noncombatants.” — Daniel Ellsberg, October 2001Last week we had Tom Wells on the show talking about Henry Kissinger's moral indifference to the loss of innocent lives in the Vietnam war. Henry Kissinger, of course, was no fan of the Pentagon Papers— the leaked documents that showed the American government was lying about Vietnam, thereby changing public opinion about the war and helping end it. And the Pentagon Papers are forever associated with one brave man: Daniel Ellsberg, Harvard economist, RAND Corporation strategist, marine, Pentagon insider—and America's most famous whistleblower.Ellsberg died in 2023 at the age of 92. Now his son Michael Ellsberg has co-edited a posthumous collection of his father's previously unpublished writing. Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope draws from a hundred boxes of handwritten notebooks in nearly illegible script, spanning fifty years of moral reckoning. Daniel Ellsberg didn't much care about publishing these notes. His son thought otherwise.What emerges is not another memoir of the Pentagon Papers but a book of ideas—about the nature of evil, the morality of obedience, and what Ellsberg called “civic courage”: taking nonviolent risks when your democracy is in danger. He was inspired not by intellectuals but by young draft resisters going to jail. Daniel Ellsberg's moral lineage ran from Thoreau through Gandhi to Martin Luther King. And his moral absolute was uncompromising: the deliberate killing of civilians is “terrorism”, whoever orders it. By that definition, Daniel Ellsberg defined Harry Truman as a terrorist. Not to mention morally indifferent politicians like Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.Michael Ellsberg is candid about growing up in Berkeley with a father who was loving but distracted—a free-range parent who spent his evenings filling yellow legal pads rather than playing baseball. He's equally candid about what his father would be saying right now: that whatever rationale exists for the Iran war, there are official plans and reasoning that the American public should know about but doesn't. The Pentagon Papers proved the government lied. The question, as American bombs once again rain down on innocent civilians, is whether anything has changed in the last sixty years since “terrorists” like Henry Kissinger lied to the American public about Vietnam. Five Takeaways•       You Are Being Lied to More Than You Realise: That was Ellsberg's message in 1971, and his son says it's his message now. Whatever rationale Trump has for the Iran war, Michael Ellsberg argues, there are plans and reasoning the public should know about but doesn't. The Pentagon Papers proved the government lied about Vietnam. The question is whether anything has changed.•       The Establishment Man Who Became a Traitor: Daniel Ellsberg was Harvard-educated, a RAND Corporation strategist, a marine, a Pentagon aide working under McNamara. He was not a hippie. He was a silent-generation insider who watched the system lie about a war everyone inside knew was hopeless—and decided the public had a right to know.•       All Deliberate Killing of Civilians Is Terrorism: In an essay written in October 2001, Ellsberg proposed a moral absolute: the deliberate killing of noncombatants is terrorism, whoever does it—left or right, aggressor or defender, first world or third. By that definition, Hiroshima was terrorism and Truman was a terrorist. No lesser-evil exceptions.•       Civic Courage Is as Important as Military Courage: Ellsberg modelled what he called “civic courage”—taking nonviolent risks when democracy is in danger. He was inspired by draft resisters going to jail, not by intellectuals writing op-eds. The lineage runs from Thoreau through Gandhi to Martin Luther King. Ellsberg saw himself in that tradition.•       This Book Is a Son's Labour of Love: Daniel Ellsberg spent decades filling yellow legal pads in nearly illegible handwriting. He didn't much care about publication. His son Michael and longtime assistant Jan Thomas thought otherwise. Truth and Consequence draws from a hundred boxes of notebooks spanning fifty years—a book of ideas, not just a memoir of action. About the GuestMichael Ellsberg is the son of Daniel Ellsberg and the co-editor, with Jan R. Thomas, of Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope (Bloomsbury). He is the author of three previous books. He lives in Berkeley, California.ReferencesBooks and references mentioned:•       Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg•       The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg•       The Most Dangerous Man in America — Oscar-nominated documentary about Daniel Ellsberg•       The Ellsberg Paradox — Daniel Ellsberg's contribution to decision theory, still discussed in economics•       Previous Keen On episodes: Tom Wells on the Kissinger tapes; McNamara and his mental breakdown; Truman's decision to drop the bomb•       Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. — the civil disobedience lineage Ellsberg claimed as his ownAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: From the Kissinger tapes to the Pentagon Papers (03:37) - Why Daniel Ellsberg matters now (06:21) - The establishment man who became a whistleblower (09:16) - McNamara, RAND, and the stalemate nobody would admit (11:19) - Randy Keeler and the draft resisters who changed everything (12:17) - Gro...

“I don't think we're sleepwalking, because people have striven to be as thoughtful as possible. In some ways, they've been too thoughtful. We're paralysed, in fact, by our risk awareness.” — Christopher ClarkIt's 1830 in East Prussia. The city of Königsberg still bathed in the amber glow of the late Enlightenment—at least in the minds of people who'd never been there. But that glow, it goes without saying, is illusionary. The greatest of all Königsberg citizens, the illustrious 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant is dead. Napoleon's shattered army limped west back through the city two decades earlier after its failed invasion of Russia. The place had slipped into a sad provinciality, living off 18th century nostalgia. And then two Lutheran preachers, so-called “Muckers”, get accused of running a sex cult.Christopher Clark—Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, author of the brilliant The Sleepwalkers and Revolutionary Spring—has been brooding on this story for thirty years. His short new book, A Scandal in Königsberg, is a Prussian microhistory with global ambition. The scandal, he says, was entirely fabricated: no sexual transgressions ever occurred. The two Muckers were convicted, stripped (so to speak) of office, and imprisoned, then exonerated on appeal – giving this case more historical significance than a mere sex scandal.What made them targets? They were evangelical in a city that prized Kantian rationalism. They followed a dead mystic who believed creation was born from two cosmic spheres—fire and water—which sounded like dangerously mystical in the scientific age of steam power. And the lead preacher, Johann Ebel, committed the unforgivable sin of listening to women confess their unhappy marriages. In a pre-Freudian central Europe, Ebel became the confidant the men of Königsberg couldn't abide.And then there's Iran — far from 19th century East Prussia, but on all of our minds right now. At the end of our conversation, I couldn't resist asking Clark if he thinks we are sleepwalking into another catastrophic world war. He doesn't think so. The problem in 1914 was a failure of imagination, he says. Today, Clark argues, we're actually paralysed by a fear of risk. The Iran invasion is certainly stress testing the international system. But the one thing most people agree on, Clark notes with characteristic dryness, is that nobody much regrets any damage done to the regime of the Mullahs. Even if, as he warns, we still don't know whether decision to invade Iran was smart or reckless. The Mullahs, at least, aren't quite Muckers. Five Takeaways•       This Was a Scandal Without a Transgression: Most scandals expose something real. The Mucker scandal was different: the sexual allegations were entirely invented. Two clergymen were stripped of office, fined, and imprisoned—then exonerated on appeal when a sharp young lawyer proved the charges were fabrications. The process of invention, Clark argues, is more interesting than any transgression could have been.•       Steam Was the AI of the 1830s: The two preachers at the center of the scandal were followers of a dead mystic who believed creation was born from two cosmic spheres—fire and water. In the age of steam, that sounded like science. Königsbergers only saw their first steam engine in the 1820s. New technology makes old ideas feel prophetic—a pattern we might recognise.•       The Preacher Women Loved: Johann Ebel attracted women from the best families of Königsberg because he listened to them. There were no couples counsellors, no psychoanalysts—only clergymen. Ebel was non-judgmental about sexual life within marriage. The men around him found this intolerable. The scandal was driven not by what Ebel did, but by what he represented: a threat to patriarchal authority.•       We're Not Sleepwalking—We're Paralysed: Clark wrote the book on how Europe sleepwalked into 1914. He doesn't think the analogy holds today. The problem in 1914 was a failure of imagination—nobody could see the other side's perspective. Today we're hyper-aware of risk, especially nuclear risk. If anything, we're too thoughtful—paralysed by what we know rather than blind to what we don't.•       Iran and the Crumple Zone: The invasion of Iran is testing the edges of the international system. Clark notes that both Putin and the US-Israel alliance have chosen targets without nuclear weapons—probing the crumple zone rather than the core. The danger is an unintentional transition to nuclear exchange. And we still don't know whether the decision to strike Iran was smart or reckless. About the GuestChristopher Clark is Regius Professor of History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St Catharine's College. He is the author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848–1849, Iron Kingdom, Time and Power, and the new book A Scandal in Königsberg. He was knighted in 2015 for services to Anglo-German relations.ReferencesBooks and references mentioned:•       The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark•       Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848–1849 by Christopher Clark•       Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and the Enlightenment heritage of Königsberg•       Leonhard Euler and the Seven Bridges of Königsberg—the birth of modern topology•       The Coming Storm by Odd Arne Westad—referenced in the closing discussion on sleepwalking into warAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstack

“We should all be able to look at the numbers and agree that this is not sustainable and that whatever we've been doing is not working. Democrats have had their chance, and Republicans have had their chance, and it's only gotten worse.” — Halle TeccoWarren Buffett called America's healthcare costs “a hungry tapeworm on the American economy.” That tapeworm now devours nearly a fifth of the nation's GDP—and the patient, as always, is on the table. We dedicate today's show to this most perennial of all America's problems, with two guests and two new books that approach the tragi-comedy from different angles.Self-styled innovation wonk Halle Tecco—founder of Rock Health, investor in over fifty digital health companies, professor at Columbia Business School—argues in Massively Better Healthcare that the system is both excessively public and excessively private, a Kafkaesque bureaucracy in which verticalized health plans now own the PBMs, the pharmacies, and increasingly the doctors. The result is monopoly medicine on a scale that would have appalled the original trust-busters.This is ultimately an antitrust story. As we've discussed on the show with Tim Wu, Biden's chief antitrust enforcer, the concentration of corporate power is the great unfinished business of American democracy. Tecco makes the case that Big Med is where the trust busters should go next after Big Tech. UnitedHealth is now one of the largest employers of doctors in the country. So it wasn't exactly shocking when the UnitedHealth CEO was assassinated two years ago. The system isn't broken, Tecco suggests. It's working exactly as designed—just not for patients.Surgeon Robin Blackstone, MD, author of Doctor AI: Reimagining Health. Rebuilding Trust. Delivering Health 4.0, joins us in the second half of the show to offer a view from the front lines. After 30 years as a surgeon, Blackstone confirms everything Tecco diagnoses—and adds a chilling detail of her own: the system is priced entirely for fixing illness, not preventing it. Her prescription is a “triangle of trust” between patient, physician, and AI—with the patient finally owning their own data.Both agree on one thing: every dollar spent on public health saves $14.30 in medical and societal costs. We are all already paying for all the waste. We just need to fix Big Med. But who's going to do it? Tecco says that America is ready for another round of Obamacare politics. But I'm not so sure. Five Takeaways•       Healthcare Is a Tale of Two Civilizations: If you're wealthy, you go to UCSF and get the best care in the world. If you're not, you're one of the 100 million Americans without a regular primary care provider. Healthcare debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy. A person earning $30,000 in a rural county can expect to live a full decade less than someone earning $100,000 in an affluent suburb.•       The Real Winners Are Monopoly Medicine: Verticalized health plans now own the PBMs, the pharmacies, and increasingly the providers. The ACA's profit cap forced them to grow the pie instead of getting more efficient. United is now one of the largest employers of doctors in the country. Independent pharmacies are closing at the rate of one per day. Rite Aid is bankrupt—the only major chain not owned by a health plan.•       Every $1 in Public Health Saves $14.30: We're already paying for the crisis—in emergency room visits, lost productivity, and disability. We just need to move the safety net upstream. Public health is the only part of the system designed for prevention, yet its share of total health spending has dropped 25% in two decades. The economic case is overwhelming. The political will is not.•       AI Could Break the Information Asymmetry: Patients are already using ChatGPT to diagnose themselves—and sometimes it's saving their lives. One woman caught her own pneumonia because her doctor couldn't see her for a week. But some doctors want to keep the paternalism: one AI tool built on medical journals is restricted to clinicians only because making it available to patients would “piss off the doctors.”•       The System Is Priced for Rescue, Not Health: Everything is loaded to the moment your gallbladder goes bad or your heart gets a blockage. Prevention doesn't get paid for. Both guests agree: we need a massive re-pricing that rewards keeping people healthy, not just treating them when they're sick. That means paying doctors to prevent strokes, not just to fix them. About the GuestsHalle Tecco is the founder of the venture fund Rock Health and an investor in more than fifty digital health companies. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and a course director at Harvard Medical School. Her new book is Massively Better Healthcare: The Innovator's Guide to Tackling Healthcare's Biggest Challenges (Columbia University Press).Robin Blackstone, MD, is a physician, health systems architect, and founder of Blackstone Health. A surgeon by training with 30 years of clinical experience, she is the author of Doctor AI: Reimagining Health. Rebuilding Trust. Delivering Health 4.0.ReferencesPrevious Keen On episodes and authors mentioned:•       Robert Pearl on how AI will be monetized in the healthcare industry•       Tim Wu on the extractive economics of platform capitalism•       Zeke Emanuel on which country has the world's best healthcare•       Warren Buffett on healthcare costs as “a hungry tapeworm on the American economy”About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple Podcasts

“If we let things continue in the direction that they are taking now, I think it is more likely than not that we will end up in some kind of Great Power war within the foreseeable future.” — Arne WestadThis conversation was recorded before the invasion of Iran, which makes what you are about to hear even more chilling. In his new book, The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History, Yale historian Arne Westad warns that the structural parallels between our multipolar 2020s and the world before the First World War are too striking to ignore—and he names the Middle East as one of the flashpoints that could spark a much broader conflagration.Westad argues that the structural parallels between our multipolar 2020s and the world before the First World War are “striking.” A dominant power (USA) withdrawing from the international system it created. Rising inequality and globalization backlash. New technologies that speed up time and shrink the window for decision-making. A rising Great Power—China—that, like Wilhelmine Germany, simply cannot stop growing. And a declining empire—Russia—that, like Austria-Hungary, has quarrels on every border and an alliance with the rising power next door.The cast of characters, Westad warns, is also uncomfortably familiar. Trump is Joseph Chamberlain—the British conservative who turned his party against the free trade system it had championed. Putin's Russia is Austria-Hungary: an empire in long-term decline that acted in 1914 because it believed Germany would back it up. And nuclear weapons? Before 1914, people wrote long books about how new military technologies made war unthinkable. We are taking refuge in that same bad logic today.The difference, Westad insists, is that we know how 1914 ended. We have international institutions built to prevent it. And we still have time—but not much, he warns—to forge the kind of Great Power compromise that could pull us back from the brink. Whether we will is another question entirely. Especially given our current historical amnesia. So might Archduke Ferdinand be Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this time around? Stay tuned. It's squeaky bum time once again in world history. Five Takeaways•       We're Living in a Pre-1914 Moment: A multipolar world. Rising inequality. Globalization backlash. New technologies that speed up time and reduce the window for decision-making. A dominant power withdrawing from the international system it created. The structural parallels between the early 20th century and the 2020s are, in Westad's word, “striking.”•       China Is the New Germany: A rapidly rising Great Power that can't stop growing, generating dissonance in an established international system. As the British told the Germans: “If you could just stop growing, little Hans, all would be fine and dandy.” That's exactly what China cannot do. And it takes two to tango on compromise.•       Russia Is the New Austria-Hungary: An empire in long-term decline with quarrels on every border, allied to the most rapidly rising Great Power next to it. Austria acted in 1914 because they believed Germany would back them up. The parallel to the China-Russia relationship today is uncomfortably close.•       Trump Is Joseph Chamberlain: The British conservative who turned his party against the free trade system it had championed. Chamberlain never made it to prime minister, but he came close and reshaped his party in ways no one foresaw—exactly what Trump has done to the Republicans.•       Nuclear Weapons May Not Save Us: Before 1914, people wrote long books about how new military technologies—poison gas, battleships, aerial bombardment—made war unthinkable. We are taking refuge in the same logic today. Westad is not so sure the deterrent fully holds anymore. About the GuestOdd Arne Westad is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University. He is the author of The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History as well as The Cold War: A World History, The Global Cold War (winner of the Bancroft Prize), and Restless Empire (winner of the Asia Society Book Award).ReferencesBooks and authors mentioned:•       Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, on how Europe stumbled into the First World War (previous Keen On guest)•       Philipp Blom, The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900–1914, on technology and cultural disruption before the war•       Paul Kennedy, on the rise of British-German antagonism and Great Power rivalry•       Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (referenced in the Sutton episode the previous day)About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters: 

“When you use humor to degrade people, you can get away with it—but you're also doing something that's completely devastating.” — Rhae Lynn BarnesDonald Trump's recent retweet of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes was dismissed by his supporters as “just a joke”—another example, they claimed, of liberals lacking a sense of humor. But Princeton historian Rhae Lynn Barnes argues that this kind of “humor” is anything but innocent. It draws on a centuries-long white supremacist tradition of dehumanization—one that stretches back to the origins of American mass entertainment itself.In her book, Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment, Barnes traces how Blackface minstrelsy became the quintessential American cultural form—America's first great entertainment export—shaping music, comedy, performance, and politics from the 19th century through the 20th. Barnes explains how P.T. Barnum helped popularize the grotesque “scientific” spectacle of Black people as the missing link in evolution, and how the Barnum model of hoax-driven mass media foreshadows Trump's own relationship with controversy, “fake news,” and attention.Barnes argues that Blackface wasn't merely a fringe theatrical practice. It was normalized—then institutionalized—through schools, churches, civic clubs, and even the federal government. The result was an intergenerational system for teaching white supremacy through catchy songs, jokes, and seemingly harmless performance.For Barnes, the most important chapter of the Darkology story is the Black resistance minstrelsy triggered—from Frederick Douglass's campaign of dignified self-representation to NAACP organizers and Black veterans who fought to remove minstrel shows from schools and public life. Rather than anti-American, Barnes insists that confronting this censored cultural history is the patriotic duty of all Americans. That's America's defining story, she says. The pursuit of freedom—and the ongoing struggle to live up to it. Five Takeaways1. Racist Humor Has Deep Roots: What gets dismissed today as “just a joke” belongs to a centuries-old tradition of dehumanizing caricature that masked cruelty as entertainment.1. Blackface Was America's Cultural Foundation: Minstrelsy shaped American comedy, music, performance—and even political campaigning. It was the quintessential American entertainment form.1. Barnum Invented the Spectacle Model: Hoax-driven media sensation fused with racial pseudo-science and spectacle long before modern political showmanship adopted the formula.1. White Supremacy Was Taught as Fun: Catchy songs, simple dances, and comic routines created an intergenerational system of racial socialization embedded in schools, churches, and civic clubs.1. Patriotism Requires Historical Honesty: Confronting this censored past strengthens democracy. America's defining story is the pursuit of freedom—not the denial of injustice. About the GuestRhae Lynn Barnes is a historian and professor at Princeton University. She is the author of Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment. ReferencesPrevious Keen On episodes mentioned:1. None About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction (00:25) - Trump, race, and “just a joke” (01:31) - The long history behind the meme (02:30) - P.T. Barnum and the “What Is It?” (03:41) - Barnum, hoaxes, and Trump's media instinct (05:39) - Blackface as America's signature entertainment (07:34) - When “minstrelsy” goes mainstream (09:50) - Black responses: Douglass to Ragtime (12:28) - Veterans, schools, and the NAACP fightback (17:54) - Presidents, power, and “Whiteology” (19:50) - Humor as an intergenerational weapon (21:20) - Immigration and learning “whiteness” (22:30) - Is American history defined by white supremacy? (24:00) - The pursuit of freedom—and confronting the past (28:18) - Why this history still matters now (31:11) - Gerald Ford and the politics of Blackface (32:56) - Closing thoughts and goodbye