Keen On America
Andrew Keen hosts a daily interview podcast where he cross-examines the world's smartest people on politics, economics, history, the environment, and tech. Named one of the '100 most connected men' by GQ, Keen is also the author of four books including the international bestseller 'Cult of the Amateur'. The show aims to help listeners make sense of our complex world through sharp and impertinent questions.
Episodes
We Are (Not) the Champions: Why Silicon Valley Isn’t Providing an AI Human Dividend
What’s the truth about our AI future? Our guests have different takes. On the one hand, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee predict a $7 trillion future for just three AI startups in 2027. On the other, Salima Bhimani doesn’t believe that Silicon Valley has the imagination to create the moonshot to address our jobless future. For That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare, it’s a time for what he c
The The Profitable Art of Dumb Meme Coins: Nicholas Anthony on Trump's $636M Gain & His Fans' $3.8B Loss
“Just because I think something is dumb doesn’t mean I think it should be illegal.” — Nicholas Anthony on meme coins Earlier this month, Elizabeth Warren called for an SEC investigation of Donald Trump’s meme coin. Is the Pope Catholic? No surprise there. More revealing are other critics of the “presidential” token which netted our Grifter-in-Chief $636 million last year. Take, for exampl
The Next Moonshot Won’t Come from Silicon Valley: ex-Google X’er Salima Bhimani on How to Invent Now
“If we continue to build for people and not with people, we won’t have a say in what this technology will look like or do in ten or twenty years.” — Salima Bhimani Finally some inventive news in our summer of Luddite discontent. Salima Bhimani spent six and a half years at Google X’s moonshot factory as its first Chief Strategist for Responsible Tech. So thank her for the (responsible) ma
Apocalypse Past, Present and Future: James Crawford’s Dispatches from the Frontiers of Extraction
“When will be the end of thus exhausting the earth, and how far will avarice finally penetrate?” the Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder asked in 77 AD. Two thousand years later, the answer seems clear. At least according to the contemporary Scottish natural historian James Crawford. In his new book, The Vanishing Earth, the Edinburgh-based Crawford provides dispatches from what he ca
Citizen Twain: Jeff Jarvis on Hot Type, the Magnificent Machine That Gave Birth to Mass Media
“Our language is valuable, and we’ve gotta hold on to that. That’s the most human thing we have.” — Jeff Jarvis Last week, to celebrate episode 3,000 of the show, the New York Times’ Sam Roberts articulated the art of the obituary. Borrowing from Citizen Kane, he described it as the Rosebud method. Obits are all about life (death only figuring as an afterthought), Roberts explained, so hu
Yes, January 6 Was an Organized Religious Coup: Rep. Jared Huffman on the Christian Nationalist Menace
“Most people do not understand that this attempted coup was a religious event.” — Congressman Jared Huffman on January 6 We’ve featured many stark warnings about the threat of American Christian nationalism from journalists, activists, and religious scholars. Today, that warning comes from inside the government. In No Prophets, Californian congressman Jared Huffman warns that the threat o
Our Seven Trillion Dollar Future: Dave McClure & Aman Verjee Burst the AI Pessimism Bubble
“Anthropic will be a $3 trillion company, SpaceX $2 trillion, and OpenAI $1 to $1.5 trillion by Q2 of next year.” — Dave McClure Yesterday, Keith Teare and I debated the circularity of the AI economy. Today, two of Silicon Valley’s most experienced investors, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee, not only straighten out this supposed “circularity” but also burst the pessimism bubble that envelops
The Scarlet Summer of Our Luddite Discontent: Opening Up on AI Shame & Anthropic Watermarks
“I don’t feel any shame at all recruiting an army of AI agents to help me accomplish my goals. But I think society is trying to make me feel shame.” — Keith Teare Welcome to the summer of America’s luddite discontent. Not only are left and right calling for an AI ban, but tech loathing has even infiltrated Silicon Valley in the form of Anthropic’s decision to watermark Claude’s output. Th
The Machines Will See You Now: Anmol Madan's Human Roadmap to AI Health Care
“The machines today are like toddlers learning how to walk. They stumble. They’re not very good. They make mistakes.” — Anmol Madan One in three American adults are already using AI for health information — with or without their doctors’ permission. The machines, in other words, are already seeing us. This will chill some Americans in our summer of luddite discontent. For others, however,
The Roman Road to the Ruin of its Republic: Michelle Berenfeld’s Lessons from Antiquity
“The Romans did that many, many times — until normal had changed so radically that there was nothing left of the republic to protect.” — Michelle Berenfeld on getting “back to normal” Are we Rome (yet)? Michelle Berenfeld fears we are. Back in April of last year, the professor of classics at Pitzer College published “The Roman Way to Trash a Republic” in the Atlantic. And now Berenfeld ha
The Yesterday of the Jackal: Joby Warrick Meets Carlos, the World’s Original Super-Terrorist
“He’s not a trustworthy witness to his own story. Everything is ten times bigger and better than it really was — except when he was accused of crimes, in which case he can’t really remember anymore.” — Joby Warrick on Carlos the Jackal Yesterday, WOLA’s Adam Isacson and John Walsh described how the US government has appropriated the term “narco-terrorism” to justify their Latin American
The Deadly Americans: Adam Isacson & John Walsh on MAGA's Killing Rampage in Latin America
“Each one of these is individually a crime scene, and the United States is the responsible actor.” — John Walsh With America preoccupied (as always) with war in the Middle East, another kind of killing is taking place at its back door. Since early September of last year, the United States military has bombed 67 small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific and assassinated 221 supposed
Are They Dead Yet? Sam Roberts on the Art of the Obit
“Obituaries are about life, about the lives that people have lived. Death only figures in one sentence.” — Sam Roberts This is, remarkably, episode 3,000 of Keen On America — three thousand conversations since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010. Fitting, then, that today’s guest has written nearly 1,500 obituaries for the New York Times. Sam Roberts is a reporter on the Times’ obitua
Is Jurassic Park Playing in Silicon Valley? Renée Jones on the Unicorn Stampede in Startup Finance.
“By operating in secrecy, they’re able to avoid or evade accountability — and, in many instances, engage in anticompetitive behavior or even fraud.” — Renée M. Jones on unicorns Twelve years ago there were 39 unicorns — private companies worth a billion dollars or more. Today there are over 1,400, collectively valued above $7 trillion, with the twin beasts of Anthropic and OpenAI at the f
Three Deadly Days in August: James M. Scott on Truman, Hirohito & the Two Bombs That Ended the War
“There is a big chasm between defeat and surrender. Surrender is inherently a political decision.” — James M. Scott Exactly eighty-one years ago, on August 9, 1945, the United States dropped its second nuclear device on Nagasaki. Three days earlier, on August 6, the Enola Gay dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. Little Boy and Fat Man. Our nuclear Rubicon had been crossed. Three days in A
Let Them Eat Intelligence: A Silicon Valley Eulogy for the Working Class
“Intelligence is 100 percent human. AI is a tool created by humans to distill, digest, and distribute intelligence.” — Keith Teare The working class died this week — at least in Palo Alto. Delivering the eulogy in our regular That Was The Week tech summary is my co-host Keith Teare. “Humans create intelligence,” (whatever that means) the Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur tells us. And so,
The United States of Protest: Gloria Browne-Marshall on the Engine Room of American Democracy
“Democracy didn’t fall out of the sky. It was earned. It was created, and it was made manifest through protest.” — Gloria Browne-Marshall Yesterday, Casey Michel described a United States of Oligarchy where the wealthy cosy up to dictators and destroy democracy. Today, Gloria Browne-Marshall describes a parallel America. In A Protest History of the United States, she explores 500 years of
The Banality of the Deal: Casey Michel on the United States of Oligarchy
“Jared Kushner is one of the most powerful American diplomats of the twenty-first century — and he has no skill set to speak of that I can see.” — Casey Michel Four years ago, the muckraking journalist Casey Michel came on this show to discuss how the United States has built the greatest money-laundering scheme in history. That pre-Trump 2.0 America, he says, looks quaint. His new book, U
Is Google Evil? Claire Stapleton on Bad Bosses, Bullshit Jobs, and Her Great Escape from Big Tech
“We were still trying to change the world from the inside… and the empire struck back.” — Claire Stapleton on the Google Walkout Earlier this week, the New York Times published an op-ed on how to fight back against big tech which included a reading list from previous guests on the show like Karen Hao, Yanis Varoufakis and Astra Taylor. Not included was Claire Stapleton’s Don’t Be Evil: Ba
The Only Certainty Is Uncertainty: Stuart Firestein on Science in the Age of Tony Fauci
“Uncertainty is what tells you that science is reliable. It’s the people who are absolutely certain that you have to watch out for.” — Stuart Firestein The physician-scientist Tony Fauci is having a rough week. His newly revealed diary has even disappointed traditional allies at The Atlantic and The New Yorker who see the hitherto liberal saint of the pandemic as both too intimate with po
How to Say No to Fascism: Curtis White’s Anti-Manifesto of Resistance
“Misbehave, make something beautiful, and try to win.” — Curtis White’s motto for resistance How to say no to fascism? Curtis White, the literary thinker dubbed “the splendidly cranky utopian,” has published what he calls a “manifesto” of “resistance.” On Resistance, the 75-year-old White told me, is his last work of non-fiction. He still has worlds to invent, novels to write. Enough with
Who’s Afraid of the AI-Enabled Author? On “Real” Creativity & Cheating in Our Age of AI Slop
“The human part is 99 percent. The AI part is maybe 1 percent — even if 100 percent of the manuscript was dumped onto the page by AI.” — Keith Teare on writing with AI What is “real” authorship in our AI age? For That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare, all authorship, even the most AI-enabled, is real. It’s the cave-dwelling Luddites who are the sloppy ones. For Keith, true creativity, i
No, Not Everybody Needs a Therapist: Amy Morin on America's Epidemic of Mental Weakness
“Not everybody needs therapy. I’m a therapist and I’ll tell you first.” — Amy Morin Is an epidemic of mental weakness sweeping America? Readers of the Wall Street Journal certainly might think so, given a couple of recent articles. In one, it reports on burnt-out singles who are using spreadsheets to evaluate their dates. In the other, young adults are taking their phones to social events
The Robin Hood of the Book Biz: How Andy Hunter's Bookshop.org Is Standing Up to Amazon.
“Evil is reductive. But the impact of the business is evil, even if the intent isn’t.” — Andy Hunter on Amazon Network effects transformed Amazon from a startup internet bookshop into today’s $2.44 trillion everything store. The more ubiquitous its affiliate program became, the more powerful Amazon became. But, in today’s digital economy, winner-take-all might not be winner-always-take-al
Should the American Pope Debate the American President? Jack Hanson on the Radical Reformation of the Catholic Church
Should the American Pope debate the American president about good and evil? The shameless Trump, one suspects, would relish a noisy cage match with a rival American celebrity. But Leo XIV has quietly declined the invitation — a refusal that the Catholic scholar Jack Hanson insists is neither cowardice nor convenience. Rather, as Hanson argues in this month’s Harper’s cover story, “Radical
Why Volodymyr Zelensky Is the World’s Only Living Statesman: Steven B. Smith on the Leadership America Lacks
“The statesman is an educator who leads through language — who gives a people the language they need to think about themselves.” — Steven B. Smith on what makes a statesman Was Odysseus a statesman? The Yale political philosopher Steven B. Smith — who, by the way, can’t beg, steal or borrow a ticket to Christopher Nolan’s cinematic epic — offers a cautious yes. While Odysseus wasn’t exact
An American Circus of Skulls: Paul Stob on Phrenology, the P.T. Barnum of Pseudosciences
“It’s too easy to look back at sciences of the past and say they were all fools. The exact same thing is gonna happen two hundred years from now when people look back at us.” — Paul Stob on the lessons of phrenology Step right up. Over the road from P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in 19th century New York stood the city’s more metaphorical circus — the Phrenological Cabinet, where admission
How to Walk from Mumbai to San Francisco: Saumya Roy Navigates the Cracks in the American Dream
“There is the burden of being homeless and the burden of being judged for it.” — Saumya Roy on poverty in America How does the world look at America in the MAGA age? This is our third conversation drawn from How We See It, a collection of essays about America from the excellent new publication The Dial. In the first, The Dial’s Paris-based editor Madeleine Schwartz offered a very French v
Kill Bill or Kill Keith? Why Using AI to Author Books Might Not Be in the Interest of Man
“It’s a realization of my individual self, not an alienation of it.” — Keith Teare on the book he wrote with AI in a week Welcome to episode 2984 of the show. A week is certainly an age in AI time. Since last week’s “Who Owns Intelligence” show, That Was The Week publisher Keith Teare has used AI to write an entire book entitled, surprise surprise, Who Owns Intelligence. No wonder, as Kei
The Strange Death of the American Front Porch: Molly Brady on Land, Law, and the Lost Art of Neighborliness
What has made this moment feel different is not the anxiety about incivility, which has always been there, but rather the performance of it. It’s relentless.” — Molly Brady on incivility in the age of the smartphone Whatever happened to the American front porch? Builders killed it to save money, says the Harvard law professor Molly Brady — and with this death went one of the key stages on
How a Turkey Voted for Xmas: Ricardo Semler on Why One Boss Wants the End of All Bosses.
“It’s like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.” — Ricardo Semler on why bosses won’t let their workers vote on them Ricardo Semler might be the most anti-boss boss in the history of corporate bosses. Thrown into his Austrian immigrant father’s São Paulo manufacturing firm at seventeen, the young Brazilian ripped up the rulebook — no dress codes, no time clocks, a ten-page cartoon manual
Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: Is Ben Barnes the Last Moderate Texan Democrat?
“I could not get under oath and swear that I know exactly how Kennedy died in Dallas.” — Ben Barnes, who helped advance JFK’s fatal Texas tripIn Texas, there’s nothing in the middle of the road, Jim Hightower famously quipped, but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. But Ben Barnes has spent seven decades disproving him. Elected as a Democratic moderate to the Texas legislature at 21, Spea
The American Way of Violence: Mike McIntire on Guns, Greed, and a Daily Trickle of Bloodshed
“You didn’t have to look someone in the eye while you extinguished their life, and you could do it from a distance.” — Mike McIntire on what the gun changedIs there an American way of violence? Earlier this month, the film critic David Thomson blamed gory Hollywood movies, like Coppola’s Godfather, for glorifying it. Today’s guest has an even more brutal answer. According to Mike McIntire
The Seduction of the American Mind: Emily Eakin on Her Life in French Theory
“Theory said, it doesn’t matter what you’ve read. It’s how you read.” — Emily Eakin on the seduction of the FrenchmenWhen I was a graduate student at Berkeley in the Eighties, there was a bewildering rage for Frenchmen. Foucault in history, Derrida in literature, Althusser in political philosophy, Lacan in psychology. Not that anybody could quite explain what any of them meant — which onl
A $14 Billion Glitter Glue Gospel: Michael Blanding on the Wealthiest Christian Nationalist Family You've Never Heard Of
We’ve done plenty of abstract shows on American Christian nationalism. But this one is about a single family: the Greens of Oklahoma City, owners of the Hobby Lobby retail empire, and probably the wealthiest Christian nationalist family you’ve never heard of. According to investigative writer Michael Blanding, the Greens have amassed a $14 billion fortune from selling glitter glue and pop
Homer's Hollywood Odyssey: Joel Christensen on How Christopher Nolan Gave Us the Odysseus We Deserve
“I want someone who has regrets. I want someone who’s learned the hard way. I want someone who understands that life is made of those messy compromises.” — Joel Christensen on the Odysseus he hopes to see in Matt Damon Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is out — the controversial movie of the year, much of the controversy raging before anyone had seen a frame. So, before either of us had see
Who Owns Intelligence? The Smart Wealth of Nations
In 1776 — that same year America declared its independence — Adam Smith published the equally revolutionary The Wealth of Nations, his founding explanation of national economic value. Two hundred and fifty years later, Tim O’Reilly argues in the free-market Economist that Elon Musk and his fellow tech barons are building a monarchical form of capitalism that the proto-democratic Smith wou
Trump Points, Justice Shoots: Jonathan Rauch Looks Back (Without Anger) at the First Six Months of 2026
“We have a Justice Department which is now 100% the political pawn of the president,” warns Brookings senior fellow Jonathan Rauch. “He points, and they shoot.” Point and shoot. Like an old Kodak camera. Not exactly assuring words, you might think, from a man who begins our conversation looking back at the first six months of 2026 by announcing that he’s significantly less alarmed than he
We All Hallucinate Reality: Turi Munthe on Why We Think What We Think
“If you can only explain the arguments of the other side because they’re mad or dangerous or dumb, the problem is with you.” — Turi Munthe On yesterday’s show, the psychiatrist Sally Satel described how Americans imagine their own mental condition differently, depending on their politics and age. Which is a nice segue for today’s conversation with the Anglo-French journalist turned media
Who's Addicted to Addiction? Sally Satel on the Social Media Trials & America's Therapeutic Culture
“You can do as many brain scans as you want, but you’ll never be able to distinguish an impulse that wasn’t resisted from one that’s irresistible.” — Sally Satel on why social media addiction can’t be proven in court When Meta and YouTube lost the so-called landmark social media addiction trial back in March, there was jubilation inside and outside the courtroom. Finally, Big Tech seemed
The Art Restorer Who Came in From the Cold: Daniel Silva on Gabriel Allon, the Truest Fake Spy
The Israeli art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon is as real as George Smiley or Hercule Poirot. He even has his own Wikipedia page. The CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel describes herself on X as a friend of Gabriel Allon before she gets around to mentioning her husband, the best-selling thriller writer Daniel Silva who, of course, is the creator of Allon. As with all successful litera
A Time for Monsters: David Masciotra Looks Back in Anger at the First Six Months of 2026 in America
The leftist cultural critic David Masciotra isn’t happy with the state of America in the first half of 2026. His dislike of the MAGA crowd goes without saying. But his anger at the state of progressive politics is more noteworthy. So far, he says, 2026 has been — to borrow from Antonio Gramsci — a time for monsters both on the left and right. With its “Epstein class” vocabulary, knee-jerk
Ten Days That Didn’t Shake the World: Is it 1905 in AI Time?
Will 2026 be one of those grand historical years that change the world — like 1917, 1789 or 1968? Not according to Keith Teare, publisher of That Was The Week newsletter and co-host of our weekly tech roundup. For Keith, the best historical analogy is 1905, the year of the first abortive Russian revolution. The year that didn’t change the world. Keith’s latest tech newsletter asks “What T
From Istanbul With Love: Kaya Genç on How Turkey is Watching Trump's America
“Someone said, oh, you look like Steve Bannon, and I love you for that… No, I just shaved my hair and lost some pounds.” — Kaya Genç on Trumpism’s global fanbase The NATO circus rumbled into the Turkish capital of Ankara this week resembling more of a gun show than an alliance summit. Ringmaster Donald J. Trump promised Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the F-35s and lifted the very sanctions that Tru
The End of the End of Geography: Mehran Gul on Why Innovation is Happening in America & China — but Nowhere Else
“A place that doesn’t have great philosophers will not have great technologists either.” — Mehran Gul on Europe’s inexplicable underperformance The digital revolution, we were promised, would mean the end of geography. From Beijing to Birmingham to Berlin to Barcelona, anyone could invent anything anywhere, and so the geography of innovation would no longer matter. But that’s not the way
The Glory of Small Things: Ian Bogost on How To Be Enchanted by Diet Coke Cans & Plane Tickets
“I crack the tab open, and I feel the cold metal… I hear the tink and give of the aluminum. And maybe when I’m done, I crush it into a small patty.” — Ian Bogost on the everyday enchantment of a Diet Coke can Don’t sweat the small stuff is one of the most persistent (and annoying) mantras of the self-help industry. But the counter-intuitive Atlantic columnist Ian Bogost advises the opposi
How the Democrats Screwed Bernie: Tad Devine on the 2016 Campaign, the Rigged Economy, and What’s at Stake in 2028
“America has a rigged economy held in place by a corrupt system of campaign finance.” — the message Tad Devine and Ben Tulchin developed for Bernie Sanders, which tested highest in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2015 How the Democrats Screwed Bernie. It could have been coined by Donald Trump. That was Tad Devine’s first objection when his editor floated it. But as Devine, Bernie Sanders’ chief
A Sudden Flicker of Light: Has David Thomson Fallen Out of Love With the Movies?
“For all the paperwork of democracy — government by and for the people — we have become a citizenry of spectators who simply want to be entertained. And we are accustomed to the realization that we can’t do anything about what’s on the screen.” — David Thomson Has the prolific film critic David Thomson fallen out of love with the movies? That’s the question I began my conversation with Th
Was the Colonization of North America a Genocidal Project? David Silverman on the Tragic Fate of Native Americans
“White Americans considered themselves chosen by God to possess the continent and lord it over others — and they saw Native people as indelibly savage and fated by God to extinction.” — David J. Silverman Was the colonization of North America a genocidal project? That is the delicate question David J. Silverman confronts in his powerful new book, The Chosen and the Damned: Native American
Universal Basic Capitalism: The Next American Revolution Or More Trickle Down Economics?
“The pinnacle of capitalism is still flawed. Any idea that it’s perfect — this idea of the perfect union — is deeply flawed as a concept and always has been.” — Keith Teare With July 4 finally done, we can look forward to the next American revolution. Just as AI is revolutionizing the economy, so too are radical ideas about harnessing this disruption for the benefit of all Americans. One
The United States of Oddity: Madeleine Schwartz on How the World Sees America at 250
“What is happening today in America is part of a global political turn — and what’s odd is how little the American people seem to realize it.” — Madeleine Schwartz So we’ve finally arrived. America is 250 today. But where, exactly, have we come? How should we think about the United States of America on July 4, 2026? Rather than peering inwards, Madeleine Schwartz — the Paris-based founder
America's Grand Faustian Bargain: Alexander Mikaberidze on How the Louisiana Purchase Made the United States
Tomorrow, America will celebrate its birth. But the decisive moment, even the real birth of modern America, argues Alexander Mikaberidze in his new book The Louisiana Purchase: The Grand Bargain and the Making of America, may not have been 1776 at all. It was 1803, the year of the Louisiana Purchase. The year Thomas Jefferson bought the future from Napoleon Bonaparte. This was the moment
Dear America — Happy Fucking Birthday: Christopher Hooks on an Exhausted United States at 250
“There’s a kind of exhaustion and resentment — maybe sometimes feeling a little foolish about still feeling attached to some idea of this country that seems like it’s maybe not holding that strong or that healthy anymore.” — Christopher Hooks Happy fucking birthday, America. No, not my tasteless language. These words adorn the cover of the July 2026 issue of the 175-year-old Harper’s, Ame
How We Disappear: Thomas Mullaney’s All-Too-Personal History of Information
“The second law of thermodynamics is not to be negotiated with.” — Thomas S. Mullaney The second law of thermodynamics is non-negotiable. The universe will end. Every human being dies. Everything decays and every record disintegrates. So why record history? Why bother remembering? These are the questions that the Stanford historian Thomas S. Mullaney addresses in his intriguing new book,
If I Perish, I Perish: Katie Gaddini on the Army of Esthers Powering the American Right
“If I perish, I perish.” — the chant Katie Gaddini heard from Esther’s Army at the National Mall, weeks before the 2024 election Back in 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Margaret Atwood came on the show to talk about The Handmaid’s Tale — her warning of how trad wives, to borrow a contemporary phrase, could be exploited by an evangelical patriarchy. Five years later, the Stanford fell
Russian-American Confessions: Jamison Firestone on Putin’s Russia and a Criminal American Dad
“My brothers always think: what would Jesus do? And they do that. I think: what would dad do? And I do the opposite.” — Jamison Firestone What do you do if your dad was a multimillionaire conman, crack addict, and owner of New York’s most expensive brothel? If you’re Jamison Firestone, you transform yourself into his antithesis. You go to law school. You go to post-Soviet Russia and estab
The Apotheosis of Donald Trump? Peter Wehner on Madness, Mayhem and How Trump Eludes Shakespearean Tragedy
“His descent is in a sense our descent.” — Peter Wehner on Trump at 80 Donald Trump turned 80 two weeks ago. But Peter Wehner’s timely Atlantic piece, “The Apotheosis of Donald Trump,” isn’t much of a birthday present. Wehner even suggests that for all Trump’s madness, mayhem and malevolence, the orange octogenarian eludes Shakespearean tragedy. So no historic hall of infamy for Donald. H
Payback’s a Bitch: AI Sovereign Wealth Funds, the Fake Andrew Keen, and America’s Inevitable Decline
“The frontier AI companies invited the government into the room. Now the government is beginning to behave as if it owns the door, the guest list, the schedule, and the product roadmap.” — Keith Teare Last week, I was away in Europe. So Keith Teare ran our That Was The Week show solo — with a chillingly authentic Andrew Keen bot. So realistic, in fact, that the fake version sounds (to me,
Down the Democratic Drain: Justin Gest on How Migration Is Unintentionally Strengthening Authoritarianism Around the World
“You cannot expect a society to open its doors if there is no way to close them. You cannot expect a society to open its gates if there is no gate to open.” — Justin Gest It’s a counterintuitive and deliberately provocative argument. Rather than bolstering open societies, migration actually benefits authoritarianism. And it’s the argument that Justin Gest makes in his new book, Democratic
Is London Really Falling? Patrick Radden Keefe's Search for Truth in the Most Invisible of Cities
“Narrative remains a pretty unbeatable delivery device for information.” — Patrick Radden Keefe Has London really fallen? That’s the question Patrick Radden Keefe — staff writer at The New Yorker and bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing — addressed in his new book, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth. One thing for sure is th
The Best and Worst Thing About America: Konstanty Gebert on the Interlibrary Loan and Yalta
“The United States and America are not the same thing. The United States is a government, an administration. America is an idea — and that idea is still there, even when the government is not.” — Konstanty Gebert What is the best thing about America? At least when viewed from Warsaw. For Konstanty Gebert — Polish-Jewish journalist, Solidarity activist, co-founder of Gazeta Wyborcza, and o
We No Longer Dream of the United States: Bartosz Wieliński on America, Poland, and the Suicide of a Superpower
“People in my generation worshipped the United States during communism. Everybody wanted to flee to the US. It was the land of the dream. And now we confront a different type of country, different type of politics — and we don’t dream of the US anymore.” — Bartosz Wieliński I’m just back from Warsaw where I spent an afternoon at the offices of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s liberal newspaper o
Let’s Agree to Disagree: Maciej Kisilowski on How to Save Democracy From Deplorables on All Sides
“If your opening position is: your views are beyond the pale, you are deplorable, there is no space for you in democracy — then how on earth do we expect anything other than revolutionary conservatism as a response?” — Maciej Kisilowski For Americans concerned about the fragility of their democracy, Poland offers some reassuring news. Having experienced its own illiberal blip, democracy i
Life After GDP: Tim Jackson Returns to 1968 to Excavate a Post-Capitalist Future
“The Gross National Product measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile.” — Robert F. Kennedy, University of Kansas, March 18, 1968 It is June 5, 1968. An eleven-year-old English boy is watching the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on his black and white television. That little boy is Tim Jackson — now one of Britain’s most influential critics of capitalism. He had no idea t
Middlewomen: Laura McGrath on the 25 People Who Control American Fiction
“Just 25 literary agents represent more than half of all prizewinning novelists in the 21st century. The agent is the unacknowledged legislator of the literary field.” — Laura McGrath We think of publishers and editors as the ultimate tastemakers. As those godlike gatekeepers controlling what we read. But if you’re looking for literary gods, Laura McGrath argues, then you need to look at
What Makes Us Human? Kate O’Neill on the H Word, Verbal Slop, and the Meaning of Tech Humanism
“AI companies are taking advantage of our natural tendency to ascribe an inner life to our interlocutors. They profit when you think the chatbot cares.” — Kate O’Neill If we don’t like someone, we call them a fascist. And if we like them, we say they are a humanist. The F and H words. Both meaningless in our sloppy, bot-infested age. But maybe I’m just a cranky anti-humanist. Even anti-hu
Never Invite Sally Quinn: The Illustrious Washington Hostess on Ben Bradlee, Jill Biden and the Sexiness of Silence
“I considered it elder abuse. She put him through the paces, not only before the debate, but after. She should have gotten him out of there immediately.” — Sally Quinn on Jill Biden and the debate Today’s guest is amongst America’s most verbal octogenarians. No, not you-know-who. Sally Quinn is the illustrious Washington DC hostess, writer and commentator. The almost 85-year-old does impr
Gerontocracy in America: Samuel Moyn on How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth
“Age is the modality in which class is lived in America today.” — Samuel Moyn Yesterday we had 91-year-old Mordecai Kurz on the show. Tomorrow, it will be 84-year-old Sally Quinn. But today’s guest, the Yale legal historian Samuel Moyn, has a bit of a problem with old people. His new book, Gerontocracy in America, argues that the old folks are hoarding power and wealth in America. For Moy
The Trouble with Trillionaires: Mordecai Kurz on Capitalism, Democracy, and the Second Gilded Age
“Between 1980 and 2019, the billionaires gained $25 trillion. By today it’s probably $35 trillion. The question is who will pay for reform? You go where the money is.” — Mordecai Kurz Keynes observed that in the long run, we are all dead. The nonagenarian Stanford economist Mordecai Kurz agrees. Which is why he has no patience for the tech utopians’ promise of abundance for all of us in t
The Vanishing Black Family: Delano Squires on Marriage, Moynihan, and the Crisis in Black America
“Second wave feminism taught women that femininity was weak, masculinity was toxic, marriage was oppressive, the home was a prison, and children are a burden.” — Delano Squires Sixty years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, which was immediately attacked by the left as victim-blaming and by the right as an admission of state responsibili
A Century of Orations: Nathan Perl-Rosenthal Listens to 2,500 Voices of the American Revolution
“As early as 1805, you had orators getting up there — barely twenty years after American independence was recognised by Great Britain — saying: the Republic is over. We’ve had it. So there is a tradition of calling it the end times.” — Nathan Perl-Rosenthal It’s less than three weeks until America’s big birthday bash. But what exactly will be celebrated this 250th Independence Day? In The
Up to the Stars and Down into the Gutter: Elon Musk's Ascent/Descent to SpaceX and White Nationalist Violence
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” Oscar Wilde wrote in his 1892 play Lady Windermere’s Fan. This week, Elon Musk managed — not for the first time — to be simultaneously in the stars and the gutter. SpaceX’s IPO valued his rocket company at $2 trillion — making Musk, officially, a trillionaire, the richest person in the world by a very large margin. The s
No Statecraft for Old Men: Jack Watling on the New Rules of Power in a Chaotic World
“Power trumps money fundamentally. And I think we’ve seen the extent to which these companies are very subservient to the US government. Because the US government can break them in an instant.” — Jack Watling on whether Anthropic and OpenAI can become geopolitical players In Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel No Country for Old Men, an ageing Texas sheriff finds himself outmatched by a killer o
The David Frum Show: Frum on Gatsby, Trump the Fascoid and What It Means to Be an American
“That’s not the America that I believed in and that I chose to merge my fate with.” — David Frum on Trump’s predatory foreign policy What does it mean to be an American? It’s a slippery question — especially for those of us born outside the United States. Take, for example, David Frum, the Toronto-born writer and Presidential speechwriter who coined the phrase “Axis of Evil” in 2002. Back
Save San Francisco’s Soul: Jonathan Weber on Technology and Politics in the City By the Bay
“The same creative and political forces that gave rise to [San Francisco’s] boom nearly engineered its collapse.” — Jonathan Weber In Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the quintessential San Francisco movie, the villain points to an old painting of the city and tells Jimmy Stewart that San Francisco has changed. The real city has been lost, he says. Somebody has stolen San Francisco’s soul. The vetera
Brooklyn Al Primo Posto: Vincent Coppola’s Magical Memoir of the Church, the Mafia and the Gowanus Canal
“I never knew, and I was a bright kid. I didn’t know who the mayor of New York was, but I could tell you the names of all the mafia guys on the corner.” — Vincent Coppola So we finally found a Coppola for the show. No, not Francis Ford. But somebody just as cool and even more authentic. The longtime Newsweek reporter Vincent Coppola grew up in Brooklyn three subway stops from Manhattan, b
Trump Finally Gets the Priceless Book He Deserves: Ben Fountain on How Rasputin Swims the Potomac
“The hyperreal is the real. The surreal is the real in The United States. We’ve reached that point. The absurd is the real. And so that’s what I was trying to capture in the book.” — Ben Fountain Our absurdist-in-chief wants a $250 banknote with his face on it. But the satirist Ben Fountain gives the President something even more valuable. In his new novel Rasputin Swims the Potomac, Foun
The Unexceptional Exceptionalism of the United States: Michael Mandelbaum on the American Way of Foreign Policy
“The United States has conducted an unusually ideological foreign policy, an unusually economic foreign policy, and an unusually democratic foreign policy. These three features have been present from the eighteenth century to the present.” — Michael Mandelbaum Is there an “American way” of foreign policy? Does that make the now almost 250 year-old republic unique? Michael Mandelbaum, auth
The Jeffrey Epstein of Antiquities: Matthew Campbell on the Man Who Got Away With Stealing the Gods,
“Objects in museums have to come from somewhere. The stories of how they came to be in those collections often involve laws being broken, unethical behaviour, and extreme violence.” — Matthew Campbell Imagine a gay Jeffrey Epstein who set up shop in Thailand. Only rather than peddling young girls, he traded in bodybuilders and priceless antiquities. That’s the story of the British émigré
D-Day for AI: How to Create an End Game That Will Benefit Everyone
“AI represents successful capitalism. What we have alongside that is unsuccessful government. Government has no plan — left or right.” — Keith Teare It’s the 82nd anniversary of D-Day. On June 6, 1944, there was an unambiguous end game — the defeat of Nazi Germany. But today, end games are more controversial, especially in terms of harnessing the AI revolution to benefit everyone. For Kei
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