What Don Quixote Knew

In early January, the US military seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, in a display of force that echoed its numerous past interventions in Latin America. Yet in this case, Trump’s justifications for the action made no mention of democracy, but cited, among other things, ...  Show more

‘Is it a bubble?’ John Lanchester asked in a recent LRB of the colossal amounts of money pouring into AI firms. ‘Of course it’s a bubble. The salient questions are how we got here, and what happens next.’ On this episode of the podcast, John joins Thomas Jones to discuss some pos ...  Show more

I had no idea how wild human history was before chatting with the geneticist of ancient DNA David Reich.

Human history has been again and again a story of one group figuring ‘something’ out, and then basically ...

The story behind Dr. Gerta Keller’s world-shattering scientific discovery that dinosaur extinction was NOT caused by asteroid impact, but rather by volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula, a discovery that highlights today’s existential threat of greenhouse gasses and climate ...  Show more

Can myth itself serve as a material force in struggles for liberation? Federico Campagna joins me to discuss how myth—too often dismissed as escapism or co-opted by reaction—can instead become a practice of imagination, solidarity, and survival. We look at myth’s place in anti ...

The girlies are joined by friend of the pod P.E. Moskowitz to discuss our collective brain atrophy and the ever-deteriorating state of thinking in our society. The binchies explore the stupidity of it all—how anti-intellectualism is both a tool of fascis ...