Podcast
The Gray Area with Sean Illing
Hosted by Vox · EN
The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday. From the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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Introducing Unexplainable
Mar 27, 2021Tap to summarizeUnexplainable is a new podcast from Vox about everything we don’t know. Each week, the team look at the most fascinating unanswered questions in science and the mind-bending ways scientists are trying to answer them. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Learn more: vox.com/unexplainable Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unexplainable/id1554578197Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0PhoePNItwrXBnmAEZgYmt?si=Y3-2TFfDT8qHkfxMjrJL2g Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Can artificial intelligence be emotionally intelligent?
Jul 6, 2020Tap to summarizeWhen we talk about AI, we’re often talking about a very particular, narrow form of intelligence — the sort of analytical competence that can win you games of GO or solve complex math equations. That type of intelligence is important, but it’s incomplete. Human affairs don’t operate on reason and logic alone. They sometimes don't operate on reason and logic at all.In 1995, computer scientist Rosalind Picard wrote a paper and subsequent book making the case that the fields of computer science and AI should take emotion seriously, and providing a framework for how machines could come to understand, express and monitor emotion. That project launched the field of “Affective Computing” and today Picard is the founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at MIT, and a leading inventor and entrepreneur in affective computing. In this conversation, Picard and I discuss the importance of emotional cognition to human decision-making, how emotion-tracking technology is being used to help disadvantaged populations (but could also be used to bring about dystopian results), how affective computing deals with the subjective expressions of human emotions, what studying affective computing taught her about interacting with other humans, why Picard believes the goal of AI technology should be to “empower the weak”and “reduce inequality,” and much more.Book recommendations: The Bible (stick around for the reasoning behind this one)Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comPlease consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas.New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)Credits:Producer/Editer/ Jack-of-all-audio-trades Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →A master class in organizing
Mar 16, 2020Tap to summarizeThe Bernie Sanders campaign is an organizing tour-de-force relative to the Joe Biden campaign; yet the latter has won primary after primary — with even higher turnouts than 2016. So does organizing even work? And, if so, what went wrong?Jane McAlevey has organized hundreds of thousands of workers on the frontlines of America’s labor movement. She is also a Senior Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center and the author of three books on organizing, including, most recently, A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy.McAlevey doesn’t pull her punches. She thinks the left builds political power all wrong. She thinks people are constantly mistaking “mobilizing” for “organizing,” and that social media has taught a generation of young activists the worst possible lessons. She thinks organized labor’s push for “card check” was a mistake, but that there really is a viable path back to a strong labor movement. And since McAlevey is, above all, a teacher and an organizer, she offers what amounts to a master class in organizing — one relevant not just to building political power, but to building anything.To McAlevey, organizing, at its core, is about something very simple, and very close to the heart of this show: how do you talk to people who may not agree with you such that you can truly hear them, and they can truly hear you? This conversation ran long, but it ran long because it was damn good.References: No Shortcuts by Jane McAleveyRaising Expectations and Raising Hell by Jane McAleveyBook recommendations: Democracy May Not Exist But We'll Miss it When its Gone by Astra TaylorI've Got the Light of Freedom Charles M. PayneOn Tyranny by Timothy SnyderNew to the show? Want to check out Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere)Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comCredits:Engineer - Cynthia GilProducer/Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →Barbara Ehrenreich on UBI, class conflict, and collective joy
Feb 24, 2020Tap to summarizeIn the late 90s Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover as a waitress to discover how people with minimum wage full-time jobs were making ends meet. It turned out, they weren’t. Ehrenreich’s book Nickled and Dimed revealed just how dire the economic conditions of everyday working people were at a time when the economy was supposedly booming. It was a wake up call for many Americans at the time, including me who picked up the book as a curious college student. Since then Ehrenreich, a journalist by trade, has written on a vast range of topics from the precarity of middle-class existence to the psychological and sociological roots of collective joy to human mortality to her own attempt, as an atheist, to grapple with mystical experiences. Needless to say, this is a widely ranging conversation. References: Living with a Wild God by Barbara EhrenreichNatural Causes by Barbara EhrenreichDancing in the Streets by Barbara EhrenreichNicked and Dimed by Barbara EhrenreichFear of Falling by Barbara EhrenreichHad I Known by Barbara EhrenreichNew to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide.The “Why We’re Polarized” tour continues, with events in Austin, Nashville, Chicago, and Greenville. Go to WhyWerePolarized.com for the full schedule!Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comCredits:Engineer - Cynthia GilProducer/Editor - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →Tim Urban on humanity’s wild future
Feb 10, 2020Tap to summarizeI’ve been a fan of Tim Urban and his site Wait But Why for a long time. Urban uses whimsical illustrations, infographics, and friendly, nontechnical language to explain everything from AI to space exploration to the Fermi Paradox. Urban's most recent project is an explainer series called “The Story of Us." It began as an attempt to understand what is going on in American politics today, and quickly turned into a deep exploration into humanity's past: how we evolved, the history of civilization, and the way our psychologies have come to interact with the world around us. My initial theory of this conversation was that Urban’s work has interesting points of convergence and divergence with my book. But once we got to talking, something more interesting emerged: Based on his reading of human history, psychology, and technological advancement, Urban has come to believe we are at an existential fork-in-the-road as a species. A hundred years from now, Urban thinks, our species will either advance so significantly that we will no longer be recognizable as human beings, or we will so lose control of our progress that the human story will end in a destructive apocalypse. I’m less convinced, but open to the idea that I’m wrong.So this, then, isn’t just a conversation about politics and polarization in the present. It’s more fully a conversation about whether the politics of the present are distracting us from the forces that are, even as we speak, deciding our future.References: Dave Robert’s piece on Tim Urban’s aversion to politics My conversation with Andrew Yang Book recommendations: A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu Atomic Habits by James ClearNew to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide.My book is available at www.EzraKlein.com.The “Why We’re Polarized” tour continues, with events in Portland, Seattle, Austin, Nashville, Chicago, and Greenville. Go to WhyWerePolarized.com for the full schedule!Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comCredits:Producer - Jeff GeldResearcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →Nathan Robinson’s case for socialism
Jan 6, 2020Tap to summarize“Socialism” is simultaneously one of the most commonly used and most confusing terms in American politics. Does being a socialist mean advocating for the complete abolition of capitalism, markets, and private property? Does it mean supporting a higher tax rate, Medicare-for-all, and Sen. Bernie Sanders? Or does it simply mean a deep hatred of systemic injustice and the institutions that perpetuate it? In his new book Why You Should be a Socialist Nathan J Robinson, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Current Affairs magazine, attempts to shed light on these questions. In his writing, Robinson distinguishes between a “socialist economy” (think collective ownership, worker cooperatives, single-payer health care) and what he calls a “socialist ethic": a deep sense of moral outrage that animates agents of radical change. This distinction may sound like a dodge, but I think Robinson gets at something here that — while hard to understand from the outside — is crucial to understanding today's left politics. We also discuss: - The central role of democracy to the socialist worldview- What it means to be a “libertarian socialist”- What Robinson's socialist utopia would look like - Why so many socialists have turned on Sen. Elizabeth Warren in favor of Sen. Bernie Sanders - Robinson’s special loathing for South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg- What he believes Sanders’s “political revolution” would look like- The lessons of Jeremy Corbyn- Whether the deep difference between liberals and socialists is temperament - Why “public vs. private” is often a false choice- The challenge of economic growth And much more. Book recommendations: Understanding Power by Noam ChomskyThe Anarchist FAQ by Ian McKay The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:Leftists vs. Liberals with Elizabeth Bruenig Matt Bruenig’s case for single-payer health careWhy my politics are bad with Bhaskar SunkaraNew to the show? Want to listen to Ezra's favorite episodes? Check out The Ezra Klein Show beginner's guide. My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.comYou can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app. Credits:Producer and Editor - Jeff GeldEngineer- Cynthia GilResearcher - Roge Karma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →Failing towards Utopia
Jun 21, 2019Tap to summarizeNice Try! is a new podcast from Curbed and the Vox Media Podcast Network that explores stories of people who have tried to design a better world, and what happens when those designs don't go according to plan. Season one, Utopian, follows Avery Trufelman on her quest to understand the perpetual search for the perfect place. Enjoy this special conversation between Ezra and Avery and an excerpt from the recent episode Oneida: Utopia, LLC, and subscribe to Nice Try! for free in your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →Anniversary special: Rachel Maddow
Feb 18, 2019Tap to summarizeTo celebrate The Ezra Klein Show's third anniversary, I’m listening back to the very first episode: a conversation with Rachel Maddow. Rachel is, of course, the host of MSNBC's primetime news show and a best-selling author. But she took a winding path to cable news — a path that included scheming to disrupt skinhead rallies, radical AIDS activism at the height of the plague, a gig as a sidekick on drivetime morning radio, and a stint at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. We talk about all of that in this conversation. We also cover our shared love of dogs, Rachel's favorite graphic novels, and why part of her show preparation process is to avoid reading op-ed columns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribe →The world according to Ralph Nader
Feb 4, 2019Tap to summarizeRalph Nader needs no introduction. But if your knowledge of Nader mostly consists of his 2000 campaign for the presidency, his career does demand some context. Nader is one of America’s truly great policy entrepreneurs, and arguably one of its great ideologists. The consumer safety movement he founded and led has saved, literally, millions of lives. His idea of what it means to be a public citizen is deeply rooted in American traditions, but largely, and lamentably, lost today in national American politics.And Nader is still active. Writing books. Writing columns. Releasing podcasts. He’s never stopped. He has led, and continues to lead, one of the most fascinating lives in American political history.In this conversation, we talk about everything from his theories of the media to his approach to political change to how he hired and advised “Nader’s Raiders.” We discuss Howard Schultz’s third-party presidential campaign, whether America is a better country than it was 50 years ago, the differences he sees between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and which parts of life he believes should be de-commercialized. I’ve long wanted to interview Nader, to ask him about the parts of his career, and of his philosophy, that I knew less about. It was a pleasure to get the chance.Book Recommendations:The CEO Pay Machine: How it Trashes America and How to Stop It by Steven CliffordThe Fifth Risk by Michael LewisImpeaching the President: Past, Present, and Future by Alan HirschSkin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas TalebThe Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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TED’s Chris Anderson on the lessons of listening
Dec 20, 2018Tap to summarizeYou know TED. Black stage, red accents, wireless mic, one speaker. Billions of views each year. TED is more than a conference now; it’s a meme: “Thanks for coming to my TED talk” closes Tumblr and Twitter posts. Chris Anderson is the guy that took TED from tiny conference to global juggernaut. Today, he’s TED’s chief curator and the host of the TED Interview podcast. But I wanted him on the show for something specific — his success with TED relied on answering two questions this podcast has left me obsessed with: 1. How do you convince an audience, or even yourself, to listen openly to what’s being said? 2. How do you find ideas, research, and activists that the media is otherwise overlooking? In this conversation, Anderson offers a visual I love: "the steel door of skepticism" that can slam down on us when we know we don't want to listen to what we're about to hear. How to get control of that door is a topic worth meditating on, and it's the focus of this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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