43
September 7, 2026
How Feelings Make Us Smarter
Hidden Brain · Peter Salovey · 48 min
The case that emotion is not the opposite of reason but part of the machinery. Careful, unhurried, and quietly useful.
Previous episodes
Every good conversation,
still worth your time.
One choice for each day. Nothing to catch up on — browse if you like, or wait for tomorrow.
42
September 6, 2026
The Hidden Cause of the Industrial Revolution (with Ben Southwood)
EconTalk · Ben Southwood · 1 hr 14 min
A patient argument that the biggest change in human material life had causes we still misread. Roberts pushes back, which is the point.
41
September 5, 2026
385. Saint Patrick: Slave, Rebel, & Ireland’s Patron Saint (Ep 3)
Empire · William Dalrymple & Anita Anand · 55 min
A kidnapped teenager becomes a national symbol, and almost none of it happened the way the parade suggests. History as an argument about who owns a story.
40
September 4, 2026
Valeria Luiselli : Beginning Middle End
Between the Covers · Valeria Luiselli · 2 hr 45 min
David Naimon gives a serious writer the time serious writers rarely get. Slow, generous, and about form as a moral choice.
39
September 3, 2026
Nick Bostrom on What Happens if AI Solves All of Our Problems
Odd Lots · Nick Bostrom · 56 min
Instead of asking what goes wrong, Bostrom asks what is left for us if everything goes right. The uncomfortable question underneath the loud one.
38
September 2, 2026
Vanguard
Acquired · Ben Gilbert & David Rosenthal · 3 hr 48 min
The story of a company built to make itself less profitable on purpose, and how that quiet decision moved trillions. Long, and worth the whole length.
37
September 1, 2026
How memory changes you
The Gray Area · Sean Illing · 59 min
A conversation about memory as an act of construction rather than storage, and what that means for who you think you have been.
36
August 31, 2026
Patient Zero
Radiolab · Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich · 52 min
How a story about the beginning of an outbreak becomes a story about how we assign blame. Radiolab at its most patient and least sensational.
35
August 30, 2026
A road trip through the data center debate
Search Engine · PJ Vogt · 41 min
PJ Vogt drives to the places where the cloud actually sits and listens to the people who live beside it. Curiosity instead of a verdict.
34
August 29, 2026
Elizabeth I vs The Catholics: The Queen’s Spymaster (Part 1)
The Rest Is History · Tom Holland & Dominic Sandbrook · 1 hr 12 min
Espionage before there was a word for it: plots, ciphers and a state learning to watch its own people. Told at eye level, with the details that make it stick.
33
August 28, 2026
Joel Mokyr on Clans, Corporations, and a Culture of Growth
Conversations with Tyler · Joel Mokyr · 46 min
Mokyr has spent a career on why sustained growth started where it did, and Cowen pushes him past the textbook story into culture, clans and institutions.
32
August 27, 2026
364 | Stuart Firestein on How Science Relies on Ignorance and Failure
Sean Carroll's Mindscape · Stuart Firestein · 1 hr 16 min
Firestein argues that science runs on ignorance rather than facts, and Carroll lets the idea breathe. A rare hour that makes not knowing feel like a skill.
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