Episodes
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It Ain't Gonna Happen: How to Find Meaning in a World Headed Over The Cliff w/ Eliot Jacobson
Is humanity simply a bacteria in a petri dish, heading for the inevitable edge? Do the climate markers prove it? I spoke with Professor Eliot Jacobson, a mathematician and former casino game protection expert who now spends his days tracking the most shocking climate data on the planet. From...
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Is the American Left Finally Rising? Radhika Desai on DSA, Trump and Capitalism’s Crisis
Radhika Desai returns to the Dilemma Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the American left, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Marxist Unity Group, and the increasingly open discussion of socialism and communism in American politics. Is something genuinely changing…
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Inside the Moral Collapse of Israel: Hadas Emma Kedar on Zionism and Its Future
Israeli-born artist, teacher and activist Hadas Emma Kedar joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about Zionism, Israel, Germany, the IDF, and the possibility of a radically different future. Hadas grew up inside Zionist culture and gradually came to see the ideology she had inherited as…
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Ex-Settler Explains Why Israel Is Spiraling and Why Zionism Can Shapeshift So Easily
Daniel Klein was born and raised in Efrat, one of the largest religious Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank. His family helped build the settlement movement, and he grew up immersed in its schools, institutions, theology, politics, and culture before serving as an IDF tank commander. In...
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Trump, Greenland, The Fight For the Top of the World - Militarization of the Arctic w/ Mia Bennett
In this conversation with geopolitical scholar Mia Bennett, we explore why the Arctic is no longer a frozen periphery but the front line of global power. From Vladimir Putin planting a Russian flag beneath the North Pole seabed to renewed nuclear tensions across the polar region, the Arctic has...
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What Do We Owe People Who Commit Horrific Crimes? Joseph Margulies on Forgiveness & Punishment
In this conversation, Joseph Margulies and I explore the difficult moral territory at the heart of his new book Cast Out: A Call for a Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration. What does a society gain—or lose—when it decides that certain people are beyond redemption? We talk about the…
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AI Acceleration, Climate Heating, Nuclear War: When The Global Goliath Collapses w/ Luke Kemp
Luke Kemp is a researcher of existential risk whose work spans the rise and fall of civilizations, the psychology of empire, and the future of humanity. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore whether history follows deeper patterns than we usually recognize—from the Paleolithic origins of...
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From the Middle Passage to Elijah McClain: The Persistence Of Anti-Black Bewilderment
Michael Sawyer is the author of The Door of No Return, a sweeping work that challenges conventional ideas about race, history, memory, and modernity. In this conversation, we explore his concept of anti-Blackness as something deeper than prejudice or discrimination—an organizing logic embedded...
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Sam Harris's Israel Defense & The Unchallenged Assumption He Seems To Know Is A Problem
In this essay, I respond to Sam Harris's recent comments on Israel, Gaza, Hamas, and why he refuses to debate many of his critics. My argument is not primarily about genocide, proportionality, international law, or even the details of Israel's military response. It is about something more...
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The Overlooked Idea That Could Solve The "Genocide" Problem with Scholar Dirk Moses
For decades, the word "genocide" has occupied a unique place in international law, collective memory, and political debate. But what exactly does it mean—and has the definition become too narrow to describe the forms of violence we witness today? In this conversation, Holocaust and genocide…
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Trita Parsi on Iran, Israel, Zionism, and America Finding It's Limits in Iran
Born in Iran in 1974, just years before the Iranian Revolution transformed the country forever, Trita Parsi has spent his life at the intersection of some of the most consequential political conflicts of the modern era. In this conversation, we trace his journey from childhood in…
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DEBATE: Did Zionism Steal Judaism? | Joshua and Amalek | The Jewish God | Animals and Morality
In round two with Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, the conversation expands far beyond politics into morality, theology, identity, and the strange psychological world created by modern Zionism. We explore the deep divide between Judaism as a religious covenant and Zionism as a nationalist political project,...
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Why This Holocaust Survivor Is So RARE In His Opposition to Zionism w/ Stephen Kapos
In this conversation, Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos reflects on surviving Nazi-occupied Hungary, the trauma of the Holocaust, and why he believes Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide. Kapos describes the terrifying atmosphere of Budapest in 1944, the yellow star houses, the deportations...
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Is There Something Modernity Refuses to See? | Justin Smith-Ruiu
Philosopher Justin Smith-Ruiu joins me for a deep conversation on Metaphysics, Consciousness, Philosophy of Science, Anthropology of Mind. Psychedelics, Ritual, Religion, Phenomenology, and the limits of modern materialism, centered around his new book ON DRUGS. Drawing on thinkers like Plato,...
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Deepfakes, AI Influencers, and Why Verification Is Failing
How do we know what is real anymore?In this conversation with Professor Siwei Lyu of the University at Buffalo, one of the leading researchers in AI generated imagery and deepfake detection, we explore the unsettling world of synthetic images, cloned voices, fake influencers, and manipulated…
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Elon Musk, The 22-Point Manifesto, "Muskism" & Tech's Antihumanism Philosophy | Tarnoff & Slobodian
What is “Muskism”? In this conversation, I sit down with Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian to unpack the political and moral philosophy behind Elon Musk—not just the man, but the ideology forming around him. Instead of another biography, we explore Musk as a symbol of a broader Silicon Valley...
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This Rabbi Explains How Zionism Turned Jews Into Symbolic Human Shields | Yaakov Shapiro
In this long-form conversation, I sit down with Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro—one of the most outspoken anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox rabbis—to explore one of the most misunderstood questions in modern politics: what is the relationship between Judaism and Zionism? Raised in suburban American Conservative...
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The Most Absurd Dataset I’ve Ever Seen and A Troubling Truth About Liberation
The attitudes in American on Israel and Palestine have flipped, we can't ignore the fact that violence may have "worked."There’s a deeply uncomfortable question at the center of political history: is violence ever justified—or even necessary—in the pursuit of freedom? In a widely shared debate,...
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Racism, Memory, and Erasure of the Roma People | The Acceptable Racism in Europe | Margareta Matache
I went into this conversation knowing almost nothing about the Roma. Which, as it turns out, is kind of an intentional result.Margareta Matache is a historian, author, and one of the leading voices on Roma history and anti-Roma racism. In this conversation, she walks me through a story that most…
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Emily Jashinsky: Conservatives and Leftists | What Remains Unbridgeable in the Horseshoe? | Iran War
This conversation with Emily Jashinsky dives into one of the strangest political moments in recent memory — where parts of the left and right are beginning to sound eerily similar. From “America First” to anti-war sentiment, distrust of institutions, and critiques of empire, we explore whether…
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Professor Jiang on His Painful Personal Path | Truth and Myth | A Search for Reality | Internet Fame
This conversation started with hesitation — both from my audience and from me. Professor Jiang has become a rapidly growing and deeply controversial figure online, with many warning me not to platform him at all. Accusations, clips, and labels were sent my way before we even spoke. So I went into...
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Peter Beinart on Epstein's Religion| Israel’s Iran Influence | Judaism at a Breaking Point
I sat down again with Peter Beinart to talk through what feels like a rapidly escalating and confusing moment — not just politically, but inside Judaism itself. We start with a question I’ve been asking a lot of people lately: how to talk about the Jeffrey Epstein files honestly, without dodging...
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The Hiroshima Myth | Israel, Iran Escalation | Why Nukes Are Pointless but Possible - Ward Wilson
As tensions escalate between Iran, Israel, and the United States, the question of nuclear war no longer feels abstract—it feels immediate. With ongoing strikes, threats to critical infrastructure, and fears of further escalation across the region, the possibility of a nuclear weapon being used is...
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Jeffrey Sachs: The Psychotic Iran War | Judaism’s “Chosen People” Problem | This Ends How?
In this wide-ranging conversation, economist and public intellectual Jeffrey Sachs discusses the rapidly escalating conflicts shaping today’s world—from the war with Iran and the crisis in the Middle East to the ongoing confrontation in Ukraine. We explore the deeper forces driving these…
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Can the Right and the Left Unite for Palestine? A Zionist General's Son Sees A Path w/ Miko Peled
In this conversation, Israeli-American author and activist Miko Peled — the son of a famous Israeli general — reflects on the current political moment surrounding Israel, Gaza, and the widening regional war. We discuss the silence in Israeli society around the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, the...
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MAGA Voters Wanted America First. They Wanted To End Foreign Wars. So, What Happened?
In this wide-ranging conversation, Jay Shapiro sits down with political economist Radhika Desai to unpack the war with Iran — how we got here, who is driving it, and whether we are drifting toward World War III. We examine the deeper crisis beneath the headlines: the senile phase of capitalism…
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Ilan Pappé on Israel and Epstein and Why Zionism has No Moral Limits
Is Israel entering a period of irreversible transformation?In this conversation, I sit down with Israeli historian and author Ilan Pappé to discuss his latest book, Israel on the Brink. Instead of looking backward, Pappé looks forward — imagining what the collapse of political Zionism could mean...
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Holy Books, Propaganda, and The Voice of Hind Rajab
After watching The Voice of Hind Rajab, I started thinking about doctrine — not religious doctrine, but cinematic doctrine. For decades, Hollywood films like True Lies and Rules of Engagement helped script a moral universe where Arab violence was irrational, Western violence was justified, and...
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Legal Innocence, Moral Failure: Epstein, Steven Pinker, and the Ethics of Looking Away
The Case of Steven Pinker and Alan Dershowitz, John Brockman and Sam Harris and a culture of "accepting" the culture...00:00 Clearing up the Brockman Point02:55 Allergic to Conspiracy05:07 Moral Questions are not Legal Questions10:40 Morality and Opportunity of Association12:50 The Case of Steven...
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RECKONING with Epstein and Indirect Benefit from R**E Culture #epsteinfiles #elonmusk
My thoughts on complicity and what it means to be "in the files"00:00 Intro02:19 Going Through Circles of Complicity09:05 The Intellectual Sphere (John Brockman)18:28 Sam Harris is "in the files"25:05 Just One Playground33:16 The Gatekeepers are Gross Men with Money33:54 If Elon Musk Offered Me...
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How Rational Thinking Fails at Morality
What if our most “rational,” science-minded moral frameworks are quietly justifying violence, domination, and erasure? In this video essay, I trace David Hume’s is–ought problem and follow a secular, compassionate, scientific worldview to its unsettling conclusions — from free will skepticism and...
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The $140,000 Poverty Line? An Economist Says the Economy Is Lying to You - Michael W Green
Michael W. Green is a successful Wall Street strategist, a frequent Fox Business guest, and—unexpectedly—the author of one of the most viral economic essays of the year. In his Substack series Yes... I Give a Fig, Green argues that the official U.S. poverty line is so artificially low that it...
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DISSECTING Sapolsky’s Incompatibilism: Morality In Biological Machines from Particles to Palestine
Robert Sapolsky makes one of the strongest cases against free will on offer today—but this conversation doesn’t stop at whether free will exists. It asks what follows. If no one could have done otherwise, what happens to morality, justice, dignity, and meaning? Hosted by Jay Shapiro, this episode...
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From joining the US RANGERS after 9/11 and serving with Pat Tillman to War Resistance - Rory Fanning
In this conversation, Jay Shapiro sits down with Rory Fanning, a former U.S. Army Ranger who served alongside Pat Tillman before becoming a war resister, educator, and outspoken critic of U.S. empire. Rory recounts his journey from elite military training and the mythology of manhood sold through...
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From Evangelical Zionism to Anti-Colonial Solidarity w/ Melani McAlister
In this episode I speak with Melani McAlister, professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University and author of the remarkable new book Promises Then the Storm — a journal she began on October 5th, 2023.This conversation moves through her life story: • growing...
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The ‘Crazy Uncle’ Was Right: Epstein, Israel, Africa & the Oligarchy
Imagine it’s Thanksgiving ten years ago. Your slightly unhinged Uncle Bob starts talking about a mysterious financier with a private island, underage trafficking, a bizarre “temple,” secret deals in Africa, ties to intelligence services, oligarch donors, and elite universities. You’d probably…
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How Zohran Mamdani's Exposes The True Bigotry of Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Western "Culture Talk"
Zohran Mamdani’s victory didn’t just shake New York politics — it cracked open a deeper fear that’s defined Western liberal discourse for decades. Figures like Sam Harris and Bill Maher built careers on the fantasy of the “Good Muslim” — the secular, assimilated, apolitical figure who makes the...
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The Rashomon Effect and a Death In Palestine
The Rashomon Effect - Multiple people witnessing the same event remember it in contradictory ways, often colored by their own self-interest, trauma, or worldview.Applied to the killing of Rafaat Alareer and a Tweet by Bari Weiss00:00 The Rashomon Effect02:58 The Killing of Rafaat Alareer04:24...
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The International Malcolm X: Gaza, Violence, and the Fight Against Colonialism w/ Michael Sawyer
Malcolm X was more than an activist or organizer. In this conversation, Michael Sawyer, author of Black Minded and the forthcoming The Door of No Return, takes Malcolm seriously as a philosopher who linked Black freedom in the United States to anti-colonial struggle in Palestine. We talk…
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How Zionism & Islamism Became Colonial Twins w/ Hamid Dabashi
Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi goes deep on empire, Iran’s revolutionary currents, and Palestine. We cover his “two nemeses” frame—global imperialism vs domestic tyranny—and why opposing one never excuses the other. He unpacks Islamism as a (once) liberation theology and its limits, the polyfocal...
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The False Lure of National Sovereignty and the Mirage of Liberation w/ Nandita Sharma
In this conversation with sociologist Nandita Sharma, we dig into the deep contradictions of nationalism, sovereignty, and the postcolonial state. Sharma argues that the nation is not a pathway to liberation but a mechanism of ruling that reproduces inequality, exclusion, and capitalist…
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Confessions of an Israel PR Insider: Manufacturing Consent In the Pews
A former Israel Consulate staffer for the U.S. Southeast—Brandt Burleson—breaks silence. For eight years he built church networks, wrote Bible-laced talking points, and helped run a PR machine that, in his words, “wrapped a starvation campaign in a Judeo-Christian bow.” He explains how Christian...
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Palestine, Petrodollars, and the Climate: The Converging Capitalist Crisis with Adam Hanieh
In this conversation with political economist Adam Hanieh, we trace the deep connections between fossil fuels, finance, Palestine, and the climate crisis. From his formative years in Ramallah during the Second Intifada to his current research, Hanieh explains how oil became the invisible…
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Fear of Nonviolence: A Life of Resistance and The Deportation of Mubarak Awad
In this conversation, I sit down with Mubarak Awad, often called the Gandhi of Palestine. Born in Jerusalem during the Nakba, Mubarak’s life has been defined by both tragedy and resilience — from burying his father as a boy, to dedicating his life to nonviolent resistance under occupation. We…
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Falling into the Zionism Vortex - My Failed Efforts with Coleman Hughes and Sam Harris
A final word on my efforts to help (no matter what you think) people like Coleman Hughes and Sam Harris avoid falling into the Zionist trap. Thoughts on Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza in 2005, and why we have so much trouble believing Israel’s stated intentions.00:00 Learned Skepticism of...
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Zionism, Gaza, & Starvation Motives Debating Israel & Palestine with Coleman Hughes Part 2 of 2
In Part 2 of this 2 part conversation, we dive deeper into Gaza after Israel’s 2005 “withdrawal”, examine the blockade, restrictions, and the motives of a “starvation policy.” We also explore Israel’s close relationship with apartheid South Africa, and disagree on what these alliances reveal…
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Justice vs Peace? Debating Israel & Palestine with Coleman Hughes Part 1 of 2
In part 1 of a 2 part conversation I attempt to engage with former co-host Coleman Hughes in a deep, difficult, and (hopefully) helpful debate about Israel, Palestine, Zionism, and the meaning of justice.We dig into:The “good guys vs bad guys” framing of Hamas and IsraelVillain origin stories and...
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Israel Crosses the Rubicon - Lessons from South Africa with Patrick Bond
In this wide-ranging conversation, political economist Patrick Bond joins me from Johannesburg to trace the lessons of South Africa’s struggles — from the fight against apartheid and Big Pharma to today’s battles over BRICS, Palestine, climate, and global capital. We dig into the meaning of...
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The Dollar, Gaza, and Marxist Analysis of Capitalism’s Violent Global Decline — with Radhika Desai
Political economist Radhika Desai offers a Marxist reading of today’s global crises — from Gaza to the dollar’s fragility. We unpack why she believes capitalism has reached its monopoly stage, why it cannot function without imperialism, and how those contradictions shape everything from U.S....
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Existential Authoritarianism vs Humanism Explained
Some thoughts on authoritarianism and humanism with a passage from Erich Fromm's Psychoanalysis and Religion from 195000:00 Authoritarianism as forms of "worship"08:36 Fromm on Authoritarian and Humanistic Trends within Religion14:00 What Humanism asks of us16:39 The upcoming lineup
About this show
Solving the problems of what to do next with some of today's top thinkers and writers.Hosted by Jay Shapiro.
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Jay Shapiro
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