Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli, Straussianism, and the Character of Liberal Democracy
March 18, 2026
Harvey Mansfield argues that Machiavelli's concept of "effectual truth"—judging from cause to effect based on fact rather than intent—is the foundational seed of modern science.
Henry Oliver on Measure for Measure, Late Bloomers, and the Smartest Writers in English
March 4, 2026
Shakespeare's *
Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires
February 18, 2026
Population density, rather than governance alone, is argued to be the biggest historical constraint on African development, though density alone is insufficient for success.
Andrew Ross Sorkin on Market Bubbles, Banking Rules, and the Real Lessons of 1929
February 4, 2026
The debate over the 1929 stock market prices centers on whether the high valuations were justified by the subsequent century of American growth, or if they were purely a bubble inflated by excessive leverage, with Andrew Ross Sorkin emphasizing the role of leverage in the crash's severity.
Diarmaid MacCulloch on Christianity, Sex, and Unsettling Settled Facts
January 21, 2026
Christianity's early egalitarian instinct, evidenced by baptism replacing male circumcision as the entry rite, was a genuine innovation that was largely suppressed by later church traditions imposing ancient world patterns.
Brendan Foody on Teaching AI and the Future of Knowledge Work
January 7, 2026
Mercor pays top experts, like poets at $150/hour, to create rubrics and evaluations that teach frontier AI models, leveraging their expertise across billions of users.
Conversations with Tyler 2025 Retrospective
December 23, 2025
The 2025 production of *
Alison Gopnik on Childhood Learning, AI as a Cultural Technology, and Rethinking Nature vs. Nurture
December 17, 2025
Babies learn like scientists by systematically experimenting on the world to figure out the causal structure that could explain their data, a process that is often more rational and Bayesian than adult scientists exhibit.
Gaurav Kapadia on New York City, Investing, and Contemporary Art
December 10, 2025
Gaurav Kapadia believes increasing housing density in areas like Flushing, Queens, by replacing older single-family homes, is the best way to improve the city.
Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other
December 3, 2025
Dan Wang posits that America's infrastructure is optimized for car ownership and suburban life, while China's engineering focus leads to massive, state-driven infrastructure buildouts, though both systems have significant dysfunctions (e.g., US subways, Chinese healthcare).
Cass Sunstein on Liberalism and Rights in the Age of AI
November 26, 2025
Cass Sunstein believes liberalism is primarily vulnerable to external illiberal forces and inherent human tendencies toward cruelty or excessive order, rather than being self-undermining.
Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight and Fixing Broken Infrastructure - Live at the Progress Conference
November 19, 2025
Airport infrastructure could be radically improved by placing terminals underground and redesigning runway flow based on a crossbar switch model, but this requires privatizing infrastructure and inventing new revenue models beyond current regulatory limits.
Donald S. Lopez Jr. on Buddhism
November 12, 2025
The historical dating of the Buddha's life is highly contested among scholars, with estimates varying significantly, unlike the accepted theological details like the Buddha's 32 bodily marks.
Sam Altman on Trust, Persuasion, and the Future of Intelligence - Live at the Progress Conference
November 5, 2025
Sam Altman attributes OpenAI's increased productivity to better time allocation, effective delegation to strong hires, and quicker deal negotiations due to external demand.
Jonny Steinberg on South African Crime and Punishment, the Mandelas' Marriage, and the Post-Apartheid Era
October 28, 2025
South African policing is characterized by officers avoiding confrontation due to fear, gravitating only toward domestic violence calls where their presence is explicitly requested and grants them authority.
George Selgin on the New Deal, Regime Uncertainty, and What Really Ended the Great Depression
October 15, 2025
The New Deal's recovery was characterized by a strong initial burst following banking stabilization and gold revaluation, but it stalled due to policies like the NRA, with sustained recovery later relying on unintentional foreign gold inflows driven by European war fears.
John Amaechi on Leadership, the NBA, and Being Gay in Professional Sports
October 1, 2025
Organizational culture is fundamentally defined by the worst behavior that leadership tolerates, not by the exceptional actions of superstars like Michael Jordan.
Steven Pinker on Coordination, Common Knowledge, and the Retreat of Liberal Enlightenment
September 24, 2025
Common knowledge, defined as infinite loops of "I know that you know that I know," is the fundamental infrastructure enabling human coordination, from economic transactions to political authority, though it can be implicitly generated through salient signals like eye contact or public events.
David Commins on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, and the Future of the Gulf States
September 17, 2025
Wahhabism, a theological movement emphasizing active negation of deviation from correct Islamic belief, was essential for the state-building of Saudi Arabia in the 1700s, though its strictness was later qualified in regions like Mecca to accommodate other Muslim traditions.
Seamus Murphy on Photographing Patterns Across Cultures
September 3, 2025
Afghanistan's resilience and potential for progress lie primarily with its people and diaspora, despite persistent external interference and internal challenges like corruption and conflict.