NewsSociety & Culture

Interesting Times

New York Times Opinion

The first draft of our future. Mapping the new world order through interviews and conversations. Every Thursday, from New York Times Opinion.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Play

Open in

20 episodes
weekly
Avg 58 min
English

Episodes 20

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Thursday · 1 hr 13 min
Ross Douthat and Ezra Klein on the Art of Persuasion
“Interesting Times” is on a brief hiatus. Before we return next month, we’re bringing you an interview from “The Ezra Klein Show” with Ross Douthat about his 17 years as a conservative columnist at The New York Times. But Ross and Ezra go back even further, to the nascent days of political blogging. They talk about the seismic changes they’ve witnessed in the media industry over the years and the art of changing minds.
August 13 · 1 hr 4 min
Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint for a 150-Year Life: Is It Worth It?
For my final episode as host of “Interesting Times,” I wanted a fitting finale — a conversation that encapsulates the ambition of this show: examining how seemingly radical ideas are steadily entering the mainstream of American politics, technology and culture. Few ideas are as radical as the hope of significant life extension and the quest to live forever. My guest today thinks he can outrun death. After selling his tech company for hundreds of millions of dollars and experiencing a profound r
August 6 · 43 min
Scott Galloway: America Abandoned Its ‘Unremarkable’ Young Men
What does a liberal solution to the masculinity crisis look like? As men fall behind in the American educational system and the economy, they’re looking for meaning — and often find it in the wrong places. My guest today is Scott Galloway, a professor at N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business. Galloway is an unlikely masculinity guru — he’s a liberal academic, a business founder and a married father. He had a lot to say about the social and economic reasons young men seem to be struggling, but he’s
July 30 · 52 min
How Older Americans Hoard the Future
American leaders are staying in office past their prime. Boomers are reluctant to relinquish control — from political offices to corner offices — to the detriment of their juniors. In a society where the elderly hold so much power, should younger generations revolt? My guest today is Samuel Moyn, a professor at Yale Law School, and he argues that American democracy is distorted by the power of the old. We discuss how seniors have hoarded wealth and influence and how Americans can renew an interg
July 23 · 1 hr 3 min
Iran, China, Canada? A Defense of Trump’s Grand Strategy
Is President Trump’s grand strategy unraveling? The United States is at war with Iran, China is ascendant, Russia and Ukraine are stalemated and American allies are openly questioning our commitment to them. Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of defense for policy, joins me to discuss the state of America’s foreign policy and he makes the case that Trump’s approach to our allies and adversaries is making us stronger.
July 16 · 58 min
A Vision of a ‘Society Without Capitalism’
Democratic socialists are having a moment. But can they actually remake the Democratic Party — and the American economy — in their image? My guest today, Bhaskar Sunkara, is longtime democratic socialist, and he makes the case that socialism has a universal appeal that transcends our current politics and will ultimately triumph against capitalism.
July 9 · 1 hr 2 min
‘ I'm Worried About Weimar America’
The work of Rod Dreher has a consistent theme: doom. He believes the collapse of Christianity has ushered civilizational decline in Europe, that we’ve traded our humanity for comfort, and he worries that totalitarianism is around the corner for the United States. “I’m worried about Weimar America,” he tells me. “It may not be Hitler 2.0, it may not be Stalin 2.0. It might be something all American, but it’s not going to be what we’re used to.” It’s best not to dismiss him; he’s been right before
July 2 · 6 min
The Unifying Speech We Won’t Get This Independence Day
My fellow Americans: On this 250th anniversary of our great republic, I think we’re unlikely to have a unifying address from any politician. So, I thought I’d get a little dressed up and offer one myself.
June 25 · 55 min
Is it Time for a New Sexual Revolution?
The growing alienation between men and women is, to my mind, one of the biggest stories of our time. It’s warping our politics and culture through the rise of misogynistic influencers on the right and a growing sense of feminist despair on the left. My guest this week believes that our problems today can be traced back to the sexual revolution. She argues that it reset relations between the sexes in a fundamentally negative way and ultimately benefited men. Louise Perry is a columnist for The
June 18 · 1 hr
JD Vance on the Morality of the Trump Administration
“If you think this is a bad deal, what is your alternative?” Critics of JD Vance think that his key role in the Iran negotiations may end up being an albatross around his neck. (“If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD,” President Trump said in France this week.) But in our conversation, the vice president seemed buoyant and eager to play the salesman, insisting that the deal is better than the pact President Barack Obama sealed in 2015. I asked him about his initial opposition to the war, his
June 11 · 1 hr 11 min
Better Sex, Better Hair, Better Sleep: ‘Humanmaxxing’ Is Here
We can enhance athletic performance, lose weight with a pill and even take psychedelics to alter consciousness. At what point does all this self-optimization become self-obsession? When does it get in the way of our humanity itself? My guest this week is the German biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, who believes scientific breakthroughs to extend our lives — and even put us in touch with the divine — are close at hand.
June 5 · 1 hr 21 min
Anna Paulina Luna Wants Everything Disclosed
In an era defined by deep institutional distrust, a new trend within populist conservatism has emerged. It’s a sense that the federal government is keeping secrets and protecting the powerful at our expense. My guest this week is Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a conservative Republican from Florida who has quickly established herself as a political troublemaker. She’s challenging fellow lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — on issues like sexual harassment and ethics, but she doesn’t see he
May 28 · 59 min
Our Military Is Built for the Wrong Century
The future of high-tech warfare has arrived. Just look to the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran to see how much drones and robots have remade the modern battlefield. Is the U.S. positioned to win wars in this new era? What are the ethical constraints of waging autonomous warfare? My guest this week is Christian Brose, the president and chief strategy officer of Anduril, a defense technology company building a slate of autonomous weapons and defense systems for the American military.
May 21 · 1 hr 3 min
A Defense of a Liberal Arts Education in the Age of A.I.
What’s really driving the humanities crisis in higher education? As enrollment and reading decline, I asked Jennifer Frey, a professor of philosophy, what it was like to run a liberal arts program that was gutted. I wanted to know whether she thinks the age of A.I. could bring back the kind of education she says is fundamental to human formation.
May 14 · 53 min
China's Not the Problem. We Are.
The United States and China are really the only two countries that matter right now in shaping the A.I. future. As President Trump and President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, there’s a kind of Cold War atmosphere, with people talking about an A.I. arms race. But who is winning? Are we even in a race at all? Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it’s hard to call it a race because the U.S. and China have very different A.I. goals.
May 7 · 51 min
A Legendary Investor on How to Prevent America’s Coming ‘Heart Attack’
A stalemated war. Fractured alliances. A rival waiting in the wings. It feels to me that we’re having an “end of the American empire” moment. My guest this week, Ray Dalio, is an unlikely prophet of doom — the billionaire Bridgewater investor conquered Wall Street by studying history and mastering global trends. He foresaw the 2008 financial crisis,and these days he’s warning that the U.S. is repeating the patterns that ended great empires of the past.
April 30 · 57 min
Why Are We Still Driving?
Self-driving cars are here. But what kind of future will they bring: safe roads and extra time or dystopian traffic jams? My guest this week is Andrew Miller, who writes about self-driving cars and transportation policy. I love the open road, so I press him on what’s lost when we give away driving to the robots.
April 23 · 1 hr 5 min
A Bitcoin Evangelist Tries to Convert Me
One question has haunted my investment strategy for years: What is cryptocurrency actually for? It feels as though the vibes are constantly shifting — one day it’s the dollar’s successor, and the next it’s little more than a meme. My guest this week is bitcoin evangelist Anthony Pompliano, the chief executive of ProCap Financial. We get into whether crypto is a bet against the American empire and whether its volatility is actually a strength.
April 16 · 59 min
Trump Is the End of a 100-Year Experiment
President Trump has tested the limits of presidential power since he returned to office — from his assertion of total control over federal agencies to his war in Iran. But so far, many of Trump’s most aggressive moves have been stopped by the Supreme Court. My guest this week is Sarah Isgur, a conservative court watcher, who argues that the Supreme Court isn’t just a firewall against Donald Trump, but the real power center in American politics today.
April 9 · 1 hr 7 min
How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying
How would you live if you knew when you were going to die? I sat down with the former Republican senator Ben Sasse to hear how he is facing his own mortality after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. For Sasse, cancer brings pain, but also clarity, sharpening his focus on the state of our politics, his wife and three children, and the God he expects to shortly meet.

Showing 1–20 of 20 episodes