Category: Interviews

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Mike welcomes back George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan to talk about his latest collection, Self Help is Like a Vaccine: Essays on Living Better.

Topics Mike & Bryan discuss include:
– obese people and anti-vaxxers
– Bryan’s life of appeasement
– the value of betting on politics
– poverty and substance abuse
– reasons to spend more time in a bubble
– quality vs quantity in converts

Bryan’s Substack: Bet on It

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Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

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Mike talks with Kurt Gray, a Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. They talk about his recently released book, Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground.

Topics Mike and Kurt discuss include:
– what Jonathan Haidt gets wrong
– myths of human nature
– dehumanization and moral conflict
– social media as a Godzilla movie
– why people only want ‘their’ facts
– the importance of perceived harm
– how to connect, invite, and validate

Kurt Gray on X
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Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

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Mike talks with Justin Talbot Zorn, who has served as Legislative Director to three Members of Congress and is a Senior Adviser to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. In his policy and communications work, Justin specializes in climate, innovation, manufacturing, and economic competitiveness. In this conversation, Mike and Justin focus on PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ and environmental policy.

Topics Mike and Justin discuss include:
– why the US Air Force isn’t cleaning up water it contaminated with PFAS
– the military’s big PFAS problem
– costs and benefits of cleaning up PFAS in the water supply
– what to expect concerning PFAS regulation in the Trump administration
– plausible worst and best-case scenarios for the next four years

Justin’s article on Trump’s testicle shrinking deregulation.

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Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

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Mike talks with Jeremy Young, PEN America’s Freedom to Learn program director, about the recently released report, America’s Censored Classrooms, 2024.

Topics Mike & Jeremy Discuss Include:
– how big of a problem educational censorship is
– where it’s happening
– the deviousness of ‘stealth censorship’
– institutional neutrality and viewpoint diversity
– how universities are responding to censorship attempts
– what to expect from the incoming Trump administration

PEN America on X

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Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

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Mike welcomes back Heather Cox Richardson, a professor of history at Boston College and author of the “Letters from an American” Substack. Professor Richardson is also the author of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, which has recently come out in paperback.

Topics Mike & Heather discuss include:
– why the elections went so well for Republicans
– why Harris’ messaging failed to carry the day
– the media and political misinformation
– leftism and liberalism in contemporary America
– voter (mis)understanding of economics
– why Heather is still optimistic

Here’s Mike’s 2023 interview with Heather Cox Richardson.

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Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

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Mike talks with Stephen J. Ducat, an author, political psychologist, psychoanalyst, and former psychology professor in the School of Humanities at New College of California. They discuss Professor Ducat’s most recent book, Hatreds We Love: The Psychology of Political Tribalism in Post-Truth America.

Topics Mike and Stephen discuss include:
– why tribal loyalty often overrides material self-interest
– demonizing outsiders to reinforce in-group virtue
– conservative disgust vs liberal disdain
– the ‘malignant, intuitive genius’ of Donald Trump
– the dark side of political purity
– the importance of being morally multi-lingual

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Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike talks with Mark Green, founder of The Democracy Project, twice-elected Public Advocate for New York City, and the author of multiple books, the latest being, The Inflection Election: Democracy or Fascism in 2024?, which they discuss in this episode.

Topics Mike and Mark discuss include:
– the importance of the 2024 presidential election
– if Donald Trump is a fascist
– if Trump is an existential threat to American democracy
– why Mike has more faith in the Supreme Court than Mark does
– the rise of right-wing populism in democracies around the world
– election integrity and public faith in elections
– responsibility for the ‘culture wars’
– if Trump is so awful, why nearly half of all voters support him

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Check out the Sustainable Planet podcast, as well as the free Sustainable Planet Substack.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.

The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what’s broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | PocketCasts | Overcast

Mike talks with Pedro Domingos, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. He’s an AI researcher, tech industry insider, and author of the best-selling book The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World. Recently, he’s turned his hand to political fiction, in the often hilariously funny novel 2040: A Silicon Valley Satire, which is very funny but also has plenty to say about serious issues facing us concerning technology and politics/

Topics Mike and Pedro discuss include:
– why we should speed up, not slow down AI development
– the serious AI dominance threat from China
– why our big concern should be incompetent AI
– AI transparency and bias
– how AI makes direct democracy possible
– the limits of AI direct democracy
– reasons to be optimistic about AI and politics

The Politics Guys on Facebook | X

Check out the Sustainable Planet podcast, as well as the free Sustainable Planet Substack.

Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.