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The Smart Cookies podcast

Zaza

Deep-dive conversations with the world's leading minds. European host Zaza looks beyond the mainstream to explore history, technology, philosophy, psychology, and science.

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23 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 1 hr 8 min
English

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Episodes 23

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S1 · E96
September 3 · 1 hr 21 min
"AI Will Be The Last Mistake Humanity Ever Makes..." With Prof. David Krueger
2026 has been a groundbreaking year for AI development - frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have not only reached frightening capability levels, but like the Hugging Face incident illustrates, they have also began to act autonomously in malicious ways. And yet instead of pausing their development, AI labs rush ahead, doing everything they can to win the "AI race," (whatever that means). But what if the end result of all this is the end of humanity itself? This is exactly what David Krueger, Assistant Professor in Robust, Reasoning, and Responsible AI at the University of Montreal, worries about. That's why he founded Evitable, a nonprofit whose mission is to inform and organise the public to confront societal-scale risks of AI, and put an end to the reckless race to develop superintelligence. We talk about AI skepticism, the pernicious ideology of AI CEO's and about our duty to organise and stop this madness before it's too late....
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S1 · E95
August 26 · 1 hr 9 min
Staying Healthy In The Age Of The Obesity Epidemic. With Dr. Stephan Guyenet
Most of us have probably wanted to lose some weight at some point or another, only to find out it's much easier said than done. And even if we actually managed to hit our goal, maintaining this new weight became all but impossible. Why is it so hard? It turns out that when trying to lose weight we aren't just fighting our daily temptations - we are taking on prehistoric mechanisms put there by evolution to ensure our survival. Couple that with our disastrous food environment, the growing obesity epidemic and fast lifestyles, and you've got a disaster on your hands. So how can we get out of this vicious loop? To find out, I turn to dr. Stephan Guyenet - a neuroscientist, obesity researcher and author of the bestselling book, "The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat."
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S1 · E94
August 14 · 1 hr 10 min
The Future Is Chinese - Here's Why. With Prof. Steve Keen
It's no secret that the West is in terminal decline, while China continues to grow and is currently on the verge of overtaking the US as the biggest economy on the planet. Mainstream economics tells us that's impossible, since we supposedly live in the best system that was ever created. Which means something doesn't add up. Economist Steve Keen has an answer - our economic models are irreparably broken... In this sobering conversation Prof. Keen, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, explains why America remains a hopeless case, why China will continue to dominate world trade and finally, why the AI bubble is about to burst.
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S1 · E93
August 9 · 45 min
Are We Losing the Climate Change Fight? With Prof. Michael Mann
Michael Mann is a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Our Fragile Moment. He's also one of the most renowned climatologists in the world - and that's why I was over the moon when he agreed to have a chat with me... Given the extremely grim daily news on climate change, I ask Prof. Mann whether the fight for a habitable planet is over, how bad he thinks the upcoming El Nino will be, and finally, what kind of consequences do Trump's insane, climate denial policies have for the world's decarbonisation plans.
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S1 · E92
July 28 · 48 min
Why AI Won't Replace Workers, But Will Crash The Economy. With Cory Doctorow
I'm super stoked to welcome back the legendary blogger, journalist and author of Enshittification, Cory Doctorow. This time around we tackle his latest book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It's Too Late. I ask Cory about the ideology behind the shameless AI push, the state of this technology in 2026, the billionaires lapping it up, as well as the feared AI bubble that Corey believes will tank the entire system.
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S1 · E91
July 18 · 1 hr 33 min
What The Japanese Thought Of The First Westerners... And Vice Versa. With dr. Christopher Harding
I'm super happy to welcome dr. Christopher Harding, lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh, back to the show, to have a chat about his amazing upcoming book, "Barbarians: The First Century of European Encounter with Japan." This time around we talk about a myriad of fascinating episodes that arose from this dramatic exchange - the first Portuguese landing on Tanegashima, the curiosity their appearances caused, the introduction of Christianity in Japan, the growing power of the Jesuits and finally, the expulsion of all foreigners in 1641. Obviously we can't get past the infamous bromance between William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu that inspired the popular TV show Shogun. As a foreigner in Japan myself, I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of my favourite conversations this year.
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S1 · E90
July 1 · 1 hr 8 min
What Were The Crusades Like From The Muslim Side? With Prof. Nicholas Morton
Medieval historian and champion of the podcast, Prof. Nicholas Morton (from Nottingham Trent University) is back on the pod to talk about the feverish history of the Crusades - only this time, we explore the subject from the perspective of the Muslim nations who were fighting for supremacy in the tricky landscape of the medieval Middle East... What did they think when they first saw these unexpected strangers in their lands? Did jihad become a thing just like a holy war in Christendom? And why was it so important for Saladin to tear Jerusalem from Crusader's hands? We chat about all this and more in this action packed episode!
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S1 · E89
June 18 · 1 hr 13 min
The Wild Lives of Nigerian Romance Scammers | Carlos Barragan
In 2015, Carlos Barragan, a young Spanish journalist working for The New York Times, received a surprise - his mother, having long being single, told him she finally met somebody on Tinder. The man's name was Brian and he was an American soldier stationed in Syria. Carlos' alarm bells however, started going off immediately - and sure enough, he quickly tracked "Brian's" IP address not to the US, but to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. Being intent on finding the scammer himself, he travelled to the country only to find himself embedded into the culture of the so-called Yahoo Boys - poor young men, who saw scamming Westerners as their only ticket out of the slums. Carlos' extensive experiences in Nigeria gave birth to his reportage book, The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers, which has been touted as the most anticipated non-fiction book of 2026 by most major publications. In this conversation we talk about his first journey to Nigeria, his life in the infamous Ikotun slum, the fates of his 4 main characters, but also about the loneliness epidemic in the West that's making this all possible.
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S1 · E88
June 4 · 58 min
Why The Odyssey Is Actually About A Broken War Veteran | Prof. Peter Meineck
Christopher Nolan's retelling of Homer's famous epic is causing a lot of sassy drama these days, so I thought it'd be appropriate to have a chat with a Greek Mythology expert, and pick his brain on what this foundational poem of Western literature is really about - because cause truth be told, I don't think I really know. Is The Odyssey about heroism? Homecoming? Fate? To find out, I talk to Prof. Peter Meineck, the renowned professor of Classics in the Modern World at NYU. And since the internet seems ablaze with controversy regarding Christopher Nolan's upcoming adaptation, we have a chat about that as well...
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S1 · E87
May 27 · 1 hr 22 min
Ancient Roman Slavery: The Cruel Reality Behind The Empire | Dr. Emma Southon
When we discuss Rome, we usually talk about the Emperors, the Warlords and the Conquerors, rarely about ordinary Romans... and almost never about the people who actually built it - the slaves. With her recently released book SERVUS: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire, historian Emma Southon attempts to shift that narrative. In this convo we talk about how one could became enslaved, what it was like to visit a Roman slave market, how slaves coped with the brutality of their everyday life, but also, why the Romans are so easy to roast.
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S1 · E86
May 16 · 1 hr 12 min
The German Peasants' War: The Bloody History Of Medieval Rebellion | Prof. Lyndal Roper
In 16th century Europe, few events were as momentous as the German Peasants’ War - an explosive rebellion that shocked the ruling houses of the Holy Roman Empire. Driven by the ideas of Reformation, apocalyptic preaching and an all-out anger about the increasingly cruel conditions of serfdom, bands of peasants marched to war, during which they came close to overturning the entire feudal order… T o find out why the revolt started, how it engulfed an entire nation and why it ultimately failed, I talk to Lyndal Roper, a celebrated historian who's the 2026 recipient of the Holberg prize, and the author of the award winning book, Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War.
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S1 · E85
May 8 · 1 hr 5 min
Weimar And The Terrifying Speed Of The Nazi Takeover Of Germany | Katja Hoyer
You're an ordinary German, living in 1920's Weimar when the Nazi party takes over - WHAT do you do? That's exactly the question that Katya Hoyer, "Britain's favourite German historian," wanted an answer to. For her latest book, Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, she spent years combing the Weimar archives, inspecting the fates of its citizens who were living through some of the most turbulent times in world history - what choices did they end up making? Did they resist, look away or even support Hitler's murderous regime? In this gripping conversation, Katja and I talk about Weimar's contrast to Berlin, Hitler's infatuation with the city... But also how it went from being the birthplace of Bauhaus to hosting the biggest concentration camp on German soil...
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S1 · E84
April 27 · 1 hr 8 min
Why Did The Habsburg Empire Suddenly Collapse? | Pieter Judson
For at least 600 years, the lands of modern day Slovenia (where I'm from), belonged to the famous Habsburg dynasty. But how did this small aristocratic family from Switzerland come to form the first global empire in the world? Was the multi-ethnic monarchy really a "prison of the peoples" or was it in fact a modernising state?And most importantly - how come it all fell apart so quickly in 1918? In this lovely (and friendly) sparring session, prof. Pieter Judson, author of the seminal book The Habsburg Empire: A New History explains why the Habsburg Empire often gets a bad rep in history books, and why its high time we should change that.
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S1 · E83
April 13 · 1 hr 13 min
Ancient Greece History: Debunking Myths On Race and Culture | Prof. Tony Spawforth
Ever since their civilisation ceased to exist, the Ancient Greeks have been appropriated to suit various agendas. But what did they actually think and believe? For example - how did they see other, non-Greek people? Was sexual orientation even a thing in Ancient Greece? Did they ever wrestle with the institution of slavery? To help me find answers to my burning questions, I talked to Tony Spawforth, professor emeritus of ancient history at Newcastle University, and the author of the fantastic book, What the Greeks Did for Us.
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S1 · E82
April 1 · 55 min
Nazi Human Experiments: The True History Of World War II Truth Serums | Norman Ohler
It's a real pleasure having Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, back on the pod. Norman recently published a spiritual succession of his bestseller called Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age, which recounts the wild history of LSD... In this conversation we talk about the Nazi quest to find a truth serum, the crazy MKUltra plot concocted by the CIA, as well as Norman micro-dosing his mother to alleviate her Alzheimer's symptoms.
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S1 · E81
March 21 · 1 hr
Cryptocurrency And Masculinity: Why Some Men Risk Everything On Bitcoin | Dr. Dan Cassino
Despite it's mainstream presence for more than a decade, Bitcoin has yet to make a convincing argument about its use case. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency space has become the home of a fascinating subculture - that of the Bitcoin Bros. But who are these people? Why do they hinge their identity to this digital casino? And finally - do they actually believe in crypto, or are they in it for other reasons? As someone who actually used to work in the space (although reluctantly) I was more than happy to turn to Prof. Dan Cassino, author of the recently released book, Bitcoin Bros: Masculinity, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of Men.
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S1 · E80
March 8 · 1 hr 19 min
The Psychology Of Past Life Memories: Near-Death Research Explained | Dr. Philipp Cozzolino
Dr. Philipp Cozzolino is a research Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neuro-behavioral Sciences at University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies, where he investigates reports of past-life memories from children around the world. In this wonderful chat we discuss his work on death anxiety, the incredible testimonies of kids who claim to have lived before (as well as his thoughts on what might be going on), and finally, whether he thinks death is the end.
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S1 · E79
February 17 · 1 hr 22 min
Historical Collapse Explained: Why Civilizations And Empires Fall | Luke Kemp
Luke Kemp, a research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk researched 324 cases of societies, usually empires (which he called Goliaths) that collapsed - and soon found one thing they all had in common... In this (slightly terrifying) conversation we discuss the main questions featured in Luke's groundbreaking book, Goliath's Curse - questions like why are hierarchical societies always a bad idea, what usually goes wrong first and finally, why we seem to be heading for a collapse of our own.
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S1 · E78
February 9 · 1 hr 10 min
The Renaissance Explained: History Of The Medici, Popes, And Florence | Prof. Kenneth Bartlett
I always wondered whether the Renaissance was a truly groundbreaking historical event - or has it become just a self-referential cliché? Talking to Prof. Kenneth Bartlett (author of The Renaissance in Italy: A History), I finally had a chance to ask... In this illuminating conversation we talk about the movement's main ideas, the timeless art they produced, the political intrigues of Florence, the House of Medici and finally, their creepy adversary, friar Savonarola.
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S1 · E77
January 28 · 1 hr 2 min
The Death Of Subculture: Why Modern Pop Culture Sucks Now | David Marx
What do Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump have in common? As cultural critic W. David Marx argues in his new book Blank Space, they are all generators and representatives of a MONOCULTURE that has taken over the planet. From VICE magazine's domination of the early 2000s and Kanye's forays into high fashion to the rise of the tech bros, we are living through a time in which everything seems to be increasingly turning into mush. But how did we get here? Listen to my convo with David here!
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