Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Philosophy and political history • Capitalism, oligarchy, populism, democracy • Media ecosystems, conspiracy thinking, deep state • Big Tech, AI, internet privatization, surveillance capitalism • Social media attention, addiction, burnout • Racism, immigration, Israel/Palestine conflict
This podcast presents audio versions of video essays that connect philosophy, history, and politics to contemporary life. Across the episodes, the host uses major thinkers and historical case studies to examine how ideas shape societies and how societies, in turn, shape what people take to be common sense. A recurring focus is “history” itself: whether it progresses or declines, how narratives about the past influence political action, and how historical memory can be mobilized in public debate.
Many installments explore political economy and modern power, including capitalism, consumerism, oligarchy, populism, lobbying, and the role of philanthropy in corporate influence. The show also scrutinizes institutions that mediate public reality—mainstream media, partisan news ecosystems, and online platforms—alongside topics like propaganda, conspiracy thinking, and culture-war dynamics.
Technology is another major thread, especially the political and psychological consequences of the internet, social media, surveillance capitalism, AI, automation, robotics, and attention capture. Several episodes frame these developments as contests over control, ownership, and autonomy, asking what it means to remain capable, employable, or “AI-proof” in a rapidly changing economy.
Interwoven with these structural themes are episodes on moral psychology and the formation of beliefs, including racism and scientific racism, immigration attitudes, addiction and burnout, anger, and the conditions that make ordinary people complicit in harmful systems. The show also offers guided introductions to influential philosophers and traditions—such as Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, Stoicism, and Socrates—using their concepts to illuminate present-day dilemmas around reason, freedom, responsibility, and democracy.
|
Episodes:
|
Dreams Beyond the Algorithm
2025-Dec-09
86 minutes
|
Burnout: The Hustle Century
2025-Dec-06
88 minutes
|
The End of the End of History
2025-Dec-03
49 minutes
|
How the Deep State really works
2025-Dec-01
79 minutes
|
Populism: A Complete Guide
2025-Jun-20
85 minutes
|
10 Steps to Becoming AI Proof
2025-Jun-13
17 minutes
|
Monopoly World: Oligarchy & Authoritarianism
2025-Apr-22
85 minutes
|
Capitalism: In-Depth
2025-Mar-18
311 minutes
|
Marx: A Complete Guide to Capitalism
2025-Mar-11
134 minutes
|
The Rise and Fall of the Mainstream Media
2025-Mar-05
133 minutes
|
How AI was Stolen
2025-Jan-02
180 minutes
|
The Real Harm of Social Media
2024-Sep-14
30 minutes
|
The Origins of the Israel/Palestine Conflict
2024-Sep-11
30 minutes
|
Does History Progress?
2024-Aug-24
41 minutes
|
Can History Decline?
2024-Aug-21
46 minutes
|
Hegel: A Complete Guide to History
2024-Jan-18
124 minutes
|
How Socrates Beat Addictions
2024-Jan-14
14 minutes
|
The Roots of Modern Democracy
2024-Jan-07
40 minutes
|
Why Culture Wars Matter
2024-Jan-01
21 minutes
|
What Red Pill Philosophy Gets Wrong
2023-Dec-28
39 minutes
|
Being Outside Changes How You Think
2023-Dec-24
22 minutes
|
Stoicism's Major Flaw
2023-Dec-18
49 minutes
|
How New Addictions Are Destroying Us
2023-Dec-12
36 minutes
|
How Big Tech is Ruining Your Attention
2023-Dec-07
27 minutes
|
How the Internet Was Stolen
2023-Dec-01
129 minutes
|
Why Our Idea of History is a Poison
2023-Nov-27
18 minutes
|
The First Critics of Modern Life
2023-Nov-22
31 minutes
|
Why German History is Different
2023-Nov-17
27 minutes
|
Kant: A Complete Guide to Reason
2023-Nov-14
71 minutes
|
What the Evidence on Immigration Says
2023-Apr-18
32 minutes
|
Tucker Carlson's Paranoid Mind
2022-Oct-20
50 minutes
|
How Fox News Changed The World
2022-Oct-17
84 minutes
|
Our Consumer Society
2022-Oct-15
84 minutes
|
Free Will Is Political
2022-Oct-13
19 minutes
|
Putin's Sense Of Russian History
2022-May-19
36 minutes
|
How The Atom Bomb Changed How We Think
2022-May-12
30 minutes
|
MrBeast: Capitalism & Philanthropy
2022-May-12
80 minutes
|
Thinking About Changing The World
2022-Apr-12
20 minutes
|
Our 'Age Of Anger'
2022-Apr-08
53 minutes
|
How Robotics Will Control You
2022-Apr-05
37 minutes
|
Spinoza A Complete Guide To Life
2022-Feb-24
52 minutes
|
Why The Internet Hasn't Fixed Democracy
2022-Feb-11
30 minutes
|
How The Nature Nurture Debate Is Changing
2022-Jan-14
36 minutes
|
The BIG Problem With The Metaverse
2021-Dec-23
23 minutes
|
The Surprising Philosophy Of Dirt
2021-Dec-18
17 minutes
|
Would You Have Been A Nazi?
2021-Dec-16
22 minutes
|
The Psychology Of Racism In Jim Crow America
2021-Dec-14
40 minutes
|
Scientific Racism and Immigration: A History
2021-Dec-12
26 minutes
|
What The Sea Can Teach Us About Ourselves
2021-Dec-10
18 minutes
|
Is Wokeism a Civil Religion?
2021-Nov-02
23 minutes
|
What Makes Us Postmodern?
2021-Oct-29
30 minutes
|
Wokeism
2021-Oct-27
31 minutes
|
The Invention Of Individual Responsibility
2021-Oct-25
52 minutes
|
Is Equality Natural?
2021-Oct-22
20 minutes
|
What Makes Us Modern
2021-Oct-19
25 minutes
|
Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Ideology
2021-Jul-07
30 minutes
|
Jordan Peterson Critique: Philosophy & Responsibility
2021-Jul-02
37 minutes
|
Baby Boomers VS Millennials: A History of the Coming Revolution
2021-May-29
39 minutes
|
5 Useful Things I’ve Learned from the Existentialists
2021-May-13
24 minutes
|
Being Us: Communities, Organisations, & Politics of Authenticity
2021-Apr-30
17 minutes
|
Being You: The History and Philosophy of Authenticity
2021-Apr-26
42 minutes
|
Kierkegaard: An Introduction
2021-Mar-24
18 minutes
|
Steven Pinker & Human Nature: Nasty or Nice?
2021-Mar-06
29 minutes
|
Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan
2021-Mar-04
18 minutes
|
Zygmunt Bauman: Moral Relativism & The Holocaust
2021-Feb-09
16 minutes
|
How We Become Genocidal: The Holocaust
2021-Jan-30
61 minutes
|
Inviting the Tigers to Tea: Demagogues in America
2021-Jan-19
16 minutes
|
Foucault: Criticisms & Method
2021-Jan-14
15 minutes
|
Foucault: Madness & Civilization (History of Madness)
2021-Jan-11
25 minutes
|
Heidegger & Descartes: Being-in-the-world, Care, Anxiety & Existentialism
2020-Dec-26
12 minutes
|
Descartes' Error: Antonio Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis
2020-Dec-24
15 minutes
|
Descartes Introduction: Meditations
2020-Dec-22
19 minutes
|
Francis Bacon: Introduction to Induction & the Scientific Method
2020-Nov-27
15 minutes
|
Francis Bacon: A Critique
2020-Nov-21
11 minutes
|
Empires of Modernity: The East India Company and the Anarchy
2020-Nov-18
31 minutes
|
Great Barrington Declaration: Science and Politics
2020-Nov-16
16 minutes
|
Proudhon: Introduction to Mutualism
2020-Nov-14
16 minutes
|
Proudhon: What is Property?
2020-Nov-12
17 minutes
|
Isaiah Berlin: Two Concepts of Liberty
2020-Nov-10
15 minutes
|
Foucault: Nietzsche, Genealogy, History
2020-Aug-13
14 minutes
|
Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, & Utopia
2020-Aug-12
15 minutes
|
Rawls A Theory of Justice: Comments, Utilitarianism, Rights
2020-Aug-12
27 minutes
|
The Flesh Of Modernity
2020-Aug-06
26 minutes
|
John Rawls: Property-Owning Democracy
2020-Jul-28
11 minutes
|
Introduction to Rawls: A Theory of Justice
2020-Jul-03
16 minutes
|
Statues, Philosophy, & Civil Disobedience
2020-Jun-22
12 minutes
|
The Spanish Flu: Lessons
2020-Jun-11
23 minutes
|
Thomas Kuhn: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
2020-May-27
14 minutes
|
The Historiography of the Police
2020-May-15
12 minutes
|
The Fist of Modernity: A History of the Police in Britain
2020-May-15
21 minutes
|
What is Modernity? Foucault, Governmentality, & the Plague
2020-May-05
18 minutes
|
Romanticism: Covid-19, Climate Change, & Critique
2020-Apr-24
19 minutes
|
The Philosophy of Creativity & The Castle of Indolence
2020-Apr-22
15 minutes
|
Pandemics: The Politics of Trust & Optimism
2020-Apr-14
12 minutes
|
Coronavirus & Scapegoats: Rene Girard
2020-Apr-14
15 minutes
|
Stoicism & Coronavirus
2020-Apr-05
11 minutes
|
Metaphors We Live By & Coronavirus
2020-Apr-02
13 minutes
|
Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
2020-Apr-02
12 minutes
|
The Myth of Sisyphus: Responding to a Pandemic
2020-Mar-26
13 minutes
|
Introduction to Stoicism
2020-Mar-26
22 minutes
|
Rene Girard: An Introduction
2020-Mar-26
12 minutes
|
The Culture Industry: Adorno and Horkheimer
2020-Mar-06
17 minutes
|
Adorno and Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment - Introduction
2020-Mar-06
24 minutes
|
Bourdieu: Cultural Capital and the Love of Art
2020-Mar-06
15 minutes
|
Introduction to Bourdieu: Habitus
2020-Mar-06
11 minutes
|
Introduction to Baudrillard
2020-Feb-27
30 minutes
|
Introduction to Deleuze: Difference and Repetition
2020-Feb-27
16 minutes
|
Introduction to Foucault
2020-Feb-19
24 minutes
|
Introduction to Jacques Derrida: Deconstruction
2020-Feb-19
17 minutes
|
John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism
2020-Feb-16
8 minutes
|
John Stuart Mill: On Liberty
2020-Feb-16
10 minutes
|
