Episode 46: The Real Josh Knobe

David and Tamler cross the border into Denis Villeneuve's taut and propulsive thriller Sicario, the story of an FBI agent who gets pulled into a task force drawn from the shadiest elements of the US government. The assignment: to disrupt, infiltrate, and take down a major Mexican ...  Show more

David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgi ...  Show more

Sean Illing talks with psychologist Paul Bloom about his new book The Sweet Spot, and whether it's necessary to experience suffering in order to live a fulfilling, meaningful life. They discuss the rich philosophical history of the question: what does it mean to be happy? They al ...  Show more

Robert Sapolsky is a Stanford neuroscientist and primatologist. He’s the author of a slew of important books on human biology and behavior, including most recently Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. But it’s an older book he wrote that forms the basis for this c ...  Show more

After creating and running Parks and Recreation and writing for The Office, Michael Schur decided he wanted to create a sitcom about one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: What does it mean to be a good person? That’s how The Good Place was born. Soon into the ...  Show more

Sean Illing talks with evolutionary anthropologist David Samson, whose new book Our Tribal Future delves into how tribalism has shaped the human story — and how we might be able to mitigate its negative effects in the future. Sean and David discuss how and when tribal organizatio ...  Show more