Dilemma Podcast

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 pre-revolutionary Iran to exile and life in Sweden, exploring how displacement, identity, and history shaped his understanding of power, nationalism, and the Middle East. Along the way, we discuss the rise of the Islamic Republic, the experience of the Iranian diaspora, and how growing up between cultures influenced his worldview.From there, the conversation turns to Israel, Zionism, American foreign policy, and the decades-long struggle to reshape the political order of the Middle East. Parsi reflects on the assumptions that have guided policymakers in Washington and Tel Aviv for generations, the repeated efforts to isolate or transform Iran, and why so many of those strategies failed to produce the outcomes their architects expected. We explore the deep historical roots of today's conflicts, the changing balance of power in the region, and the gap between political rhetoric and geopolitical reality.Finally, we look ahead. What happens when the world's most powerful countries fail to achieve their stated goals? What new order emerges from that failure? Has the era of unchallenged American influence come to an end? And what does the future hold for Iran, Israel, the United States, and the wider world? This conversation is not only a look back at one remarkable life, but also an attempt to understand a historic turning point whose consequences will shape the decades ahead.00:00 Coming Up01:05 Intro to Trita Parsi 05:08 Parsi Born Into a Political Earthquake in Iran07:17 Growing Up In Sweden And Accepting It08:31 An Enemy of the Shah and The Islamic Republic10:06 Not Going Back To Iran13:48 What Don't We Get About 1979?18:01 The Simmering Revolution, Delayed By Intervention22:05 Dispersed Power of the Islamic Republic24:52 Iran's Incentives For Prolonging War28:40 Israel's Intentions Revealed About Turning Iran Back34:00 What About the Iranian Women's Freedom?40:48 Does Iran Care About the Palestinians?44:16 Zionism And Israel's Capacity Problem of Friends and Enemies47:01 Zionism Is The Problem47:57 The New Reality for the GCC and Saudi52:03 Who Would Be The Problem Then?52:47 Like, Subscribe, Share, Comment, And Next GuestsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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, asking whether the modern state of Israel fundamentally transformed — or even replaced — Judaism for millions of Jews in the diaspora. Along the way we discuss figures like Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the rise of religious nationalism in Israel, and why some Orthodox rabbis see Zionism not as the fulfillment of Judaism but as a revolt against it.The discussion also turns surprisingly personal and philosophical. We debate veganism, eating animals, moral obligation, atheism, divine command theory, and whether morality comes from God, reason, empathy, or something deeper built into consciousness itself. Rabbi Shapiro lays out the highly legal and covenantal logic of traditional Judaism, while I push from a humanist and philosophical perspective shaped more by moral intuition and existential questions than religious law. What follows is not a hostile debate but a genuinely curious and wide-ranging exchange about free will, suffering, identity, tradition, and the uncomfortable contradictions many modern Jews feel when trying to separate Judaism from Israel.We also get into antisemitism, pro-Palestine activism, Holocaust memory, diaspora identity, and the growing confusion around what words like “Jew,” “Zionist,” and “anti-Zionist” even mean anymore. Can someone reject Zionism without rejecting Jews? Did Zionism “steal” Judaism and redefine Jewish identity around nationalism and the state? Why do so many secular Jews feel trapped inside an identity they no longer religiously believe in? And what happens when a centuries-old spiritual tradition becomes fused to military power and ethnic politics? It’s a dense, funny, provocative, and deeply philosophical conversation that moves from Talmudic reasoning to modern propaganda, from theology to vegan ethics, and from suburban American Judaism to the crisis unfolding in Israel and Palestine today.For more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com 00:00:00 Coming Up…00:01:43 Roadmap To the Conversation00:05:28 A Strange Debate About Veganism and the Jewish God00:07:53 Golda Meir’s Masada Complex00:13:25 Dear Palestine, on Jewish Pacifism and the IDF00:18:35 Amalek and Canaan00:25:40 Interpretation of Texts00:29:06 How Flexible are the Texts00:37:41 How Popular Are His Views? Can You Tell By Looking?00:47:00 The Zionists Have A Country, What Do We Have?00:53:49 The Illusion of Zionism00:59:12 Real Jews and Rabbi Shach01:03:31 Palestine or Zionism? The Moral Character of the Jewish God01:09:59 1967 and The Diaspora Jew01:13:53 Jonathan Pollard and the Diaspora Jew01:21:11 DEBATE: Is Judaism Pacifist?01:28:02 David Hume, the Is-Ought Problem, and the Uncaused Cause01:34:07 God, Perfection, and Free Will01:41:03 Child Drowning in a Shallow Pond01:47:33 Humanism, Veganism, and Human Access to the Oughts01:54:40 If the Theology is Right The Slaughterhouse Disgust is a misguided Feeling01:58:08 Rabbi’s Daughter Stopped Eating Chicken02:01:13 Feelings Versus Theology And the God Question02:06:43 Why Is There Something… Moral? And Literal Torah02:13:13 Why Does This Moral Grounding Difference Matter?02:17:26 Rabbi Calls Me Authoritarian02:18:16 Rabbi Choses Veganism All Things Being Equal02:25:07 Rabbi’s 51st State Solution Actually Ends Yaakov’s Problem02:27:53 Alex Hershaft Holocaust Survivor Turned Animal Rights Activist02:29:14 OUTRO Moral Philosophy Response - Steel manning God02:33:53 What Humanism Actually Means02:39:30 Strange Bedfellows Against Zionism

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 to Auschwitz, and his family’s connection to the infamous Kastner rescue train, one of the most morally controversial episodes of the Holocaust. Together, we unpack the legacy of Rudolf Kastner, the negotiations with Adolf Eichmann, Bergen-Belsen, and the impossible moral dilemmas faced by European Jews under Nazi rule.But this conversation goes beyond history. We explore how the Holocaust shaped Zionism and the creation of a “new Jew” in early Israel, one that rejected weakness, compromise, and even many Holocaust survivors themselves. Kapos explains why some survivors became fiercely nationalistic while others, like him, came to see the dehumanization of Palestinians as a tragic repetition of history. We discuss Hannah Arendt, the Eichmann trial, the discrimination Holocaust survivors faced in Israel, and the psychological transformation of trauma into permanent militarization and fear.This is not a simple conversation, and it is not always comfortable. It is about memory, nationalism, survival, collaboration, propaganda, and the moral weight of history. Whether you agree or disagree, Stephen Kapos offers a perspective that is increasingly rare: a firsthand witness to the Holocaust speaking openly about Gaza, Zionism, and the lessons he believes humanity failed to learn. If this conversation matters to you, please like, subscribe, and share it so these stories are not lost.00:00 — Coming Up...01:21 — Intro Essay: Why This Conversation Matters06:18 — The Story of Rudolf Kasztner & the Rescue Train09:22 — The Moral Dilemma of the Kasztner Deal11:47 — Eichmann, Hannah Arendt & the “Banality of Evil”18:00 — Interview: Why Stephen Speaks Out at 88 Years Old22:15 — Nazi Occupation of Hungary & the Fall of Budapest28:13 — Jewish Life in Hungary Before the Holocaust30:22 — Why Stephen’s Family Rejected Zionism34:33 — Adolf Eichmann Arrives in Hungary38:45 — Who Was Rudolf Kastner?42:30 — “Blood for Goods”: Negotiating With the Nazis44:29 — Inside the Kasztner Holding Camp Columbus Street Camp46:35 — Escaping the Holding Camp & Going Into Hiding47:47 — Bergen-Belsen & Waiting for Switzerland51:14 — Hiding From the Nazis in Hungarian Villas53:31 — Was Kastner a Hero or a Collaborator?56:45 — Why Holocaust Survivors Were Discriminated Against in Israel59:32 — Stephen Kapos on Kastner’s Guilt01:02:55 — How Trauma Turned Into Israeli Nationalism01:04:30 — Fear, Propaganda & the Creation of Racism01:06:18 — “I Was Just Happy to See a Jewish Soldier”01:08:13 — When Zionism Became Impossible to Defend01:09:03 — Gaza, Dehumanization & the Failure to Learn From History01:11:35 — Trauma Loops and Seeing Nazis Everywhere01:15:22 — Germans Platoons Avoiding Children01:19:20 — Stephen Kapos On Hope And What Has Changed01:22:00 — Become A Monster To Avoid Monster01:25:00 — Why Are The Palestinians So Forgiving?01:27:40 — Palestinians Understand The Holocaust01:31:07 — "I Am Not Risking Anything At This Stage"01:32:28 — Outro And Next GuestBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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, Heidegger, Husserl, Descartes, Leibniz, Huxley, McKenna, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, Smith explores whether psychedelic experiences merely distort reality or instead reveal hidden dimensions of consciousness that modern Western philosophy has trained us to suppress. We discuss qualia, synesthesia, dreams, analogy versus truth, and the strange inadequacy of language when attempting to describe altered states. Along the way we explore object-oriented ontology, mysticism, the “excluded middle,” and why psychedelic experience often feels more real than ordinary waking life.The conversation moves far beyond the usual clichés about mushrooms and self-help. We discuss Aldous Huxley, R.C. Zaehner, Gordon Wasson, shamanism, cave paintings, ritual dance, Scythian burial mounds, Norse berserkers, Aztec peyote ceremonies, and the long human history of using drugs not merely for pleasure but for metaphysical exploration, warfare, revelation, and meaning-making. Smith argues that psychedelics do not contain some universal message, but instead “release a latent discourse,” amplifying symbols and structures already embedded within culture and consciousness itself. We explore why Western modern secular realism became so hostile to inner experience, why dreams and visions were downgraded in Western thought, and whether technological modernity flattened older modes of awe, transcendence, and participation in the cosmos.Toward the end, the discussion becomes deeply personal: atheism, ritual, Judaism, nostalgia, political religion, collective belief, and the moral dilemma of disenchantment. We talk about the difference between icons and idols, why ritual may possess value independent of literal belief, and whether humans—as Smith beautifully puts it—are creatures who “need the unnecessary.” From Apollo astronauts experiencing cosmic consciousness to psychedelic experiences that dissolve the boundary between self and world, this conversation asks a difficult question at the center of Smith’s book: do psychedelics actually help us think more clearly about reality, or do they simply force us to confront how mysterious consciousness already is?00:00 Coming Up...01:52 Intro to Justin Smith, Caveats on Drugs05:04 Mind and World: Philosophies Biggest Puzzle08:38 Some Channel Organization10:41 What Problem Is This Book Trying to Solve?16:13 Psychedelics, Synesthesia & Consciousness19:54 Breaking the Hallucination22:38 Plato vs Heidegger on Psychedelic Experience29:55 Phenomenology, Qualia & Reality33:24 Auto Experimentation39:46 Psychedelics and the “Excluded Middle”42:51 Oneiromancy vs Aristotle and Modern Science49:43 Witchcraft and Taking Seriously the Non Scientific52:48 Psychedelics as Rediscovery and Coming Home01:00:23 Levi-Strauss & “Latent Discourse”01:03:50 The Ethnographic Wassons01:09:45 “Humans Need the Unnecessary”01:15:21 Drugs In History01:19:03 More Than a Feeling01:21:31 The Apollo Astronaut Psychedelic Experience01:21:09 Galaxy Brain & Cosmic Consciousness01:25:05 Liebniz and Christianity01:30:52 Icon vs Idol01:40:46 Ritual, Religion & Collective Experience & The Moral Dilemma of Disenchantment01:48:00 Theology and Belief Commitment Variations01:54:40 Final Thoughts on Thinking Through PsychedelicsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 video. From AI girlfriends and scam artists to political propaganda and fake breaking news, we are entering a world where seeing is no longer believing.We talk about why “AI detectors” may be the wrong solution, why most people are already past the point of spotting fake images with the naked eye, and how verification itself is becoming unstable. If every image is already a processed representation of reality, what does authenticity even mean? We also discuss deepfake scams, revenge pornography, misinformation, metadata, provenance systems, and whether regulation can keep up with a technology that mutates faster than anyone can track.This is less about robot apocalypse fantasies and more about the quieter, more immediate danger, the erosion of trust, truth, and human connection. If AI is our generation’s splitting-the-atom moment, the real question is not whether the technology is good or bad, but whether society is prepared for what comes next.00:00 Intro01:43 The Real AI Threat Nobody Is Talking About03:38 Real or Fake? Entering the Deepfake Rabbit Hole06:01 AI Influencers, Fake Lives, and Digital Seduction08:09 Why AI Detection Is Failing10:47 Political Deepfakes and the IDF Hoodie Example12:04 Truth Is Slipping Away13:21 Testing AI Bias with Pro Palestine vs Pro Israel Images16:43 Why AGI Panic Distracts From the Real Problem17:00 Meet Siwei Lyu, Deepfake Forensics Expert18:21 How He Got Into AI Detection34:32 “Are You Real?” The Human Detection Problem44:22 Deepfakes as a Mutating Virus46:41 Can Machines Still Detect Synthetic Images?53:13 Authenticity vs Is It AI?59:00 Can Regulation Solve This?01:02:52 Voice Cloning, Scams, and Revenge Pornography01:07:17 How to Watermark Your Own Reality01:08:22 Politics, Propaganda, and the Collapse of Trust01:12:58 Can Society Adapt?01:15:08 Is This Worse Than Covid?01:18:05 Final Thoughts: Slow Down and BreatheBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 worldview shared by figures like Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, and the Palantir elite: a fusion of techno-utopianism, libertarian rhetoric, state power, surveillance, and anti-democratic ambition.We discuss Musk’s South African upbringing and its collaboration with Israel, the idea of “fortress futurism,” apartheid’s psychological legacy, and how those ideas evolved into a worldview obsessed with conquering politics rather than solving it. From simulation theory and Nick Bostrom’s superintelligence to the “woke mind virus,” transhumanism, and the erasure of the human person, we examine how Muskism turns morality into math and justice into an irrationality. Why does empathy become a threat? Why does “wokeness” become a virus? And what happens when billionaires start seeing themselves as the bootloaders for post-human civilization?We also explore Peter Thiel, PayPal, Thank You for Smoking, Sam Harris, Jared Kushner’s Gaza fantasies, AI hype, and whether Muskism is already collapsing under its own contradictions. Is Elon Musk a nihilist? A capitalist realist? A techno-messianic prophet? Or simply the final form of capitalism itself? This is a deep philosophical conversation about power, morality, technology, and what kind of future we are actually being asked, or forced, to accept.00:00 Coming Up...02:00 Intro to Muskism08:00 Finding a Through Line in Musk Madness11:21 Methodology to Understand the Chaos12:58 Psychological Profile of the Non-Introspective13:57 The Trouble with The Intellectual Portrait of the Digital Capitalist16:28 South Africa, Fortress Futurism, and Elon Musk's Childhood20:20 The Mecha and Transformers22:18 Beyond Musk, What Happened to the Utopian Internet Libertarianism27:04 Karp's Manifesto and the Honesty of the New Moment31:44 Thank You For Smoking and Post 9-11 Nihilism37:50 Soul Searching and Moral Philosophy42:44 Shadow People and NPC's49:09 Simulation Theory, Bostrom, and Transhumanism52:55 The Woke Mind Virus, Origins and Obsessions59:50 San Francisco as a Musk Microcosm 01:02:08 Steelmaning Musk's Future01:05:47 Wokeness as Justice or Legitimacy and Class Consent?01:11:18 Other "ism's" That Can Fight Muskism - Socialism01:17:35 End of Binary of the State and the Market01:23:13 Muskism is Hitting It's Limits01:25:58 The Answer At The Back of the BookBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Judaism with Israeli flags on the bimah, Hebrew school, bar mitzvahs, and an unspoken expectation to support Israel, I wanted to understand what exactly I inherited—and whether it had anything to do with Judaism as a religion at all.We begin with my own family story: my great-great-grandfather, a Satmar Jew in Hungary, was murdered in Auschwitz, while his daughter had left that world decades earlier for America. A few generations later, I inherited a version of Jewish identity shaped less by theology than by Holocaust memory and Zionist politics. Rabbi Shapiro argues that Zionism fundamentally transformed Judaism from a religion of covenant, law, and exile into a political nationalism—and in doing so, created deep moral and philosophical confusion for Jews like me who never believed in the theology but were still expected to defend the state of Israel.From the Holocaust and 1967 to female rabbis, the orange on the Seder plate, chosenness, antisemitism, and whether Judaism is a religion or an ethnicity, this conversation goes far beyond headlines. We discuss whether Zionism is a form of idolatry, why many religious Jews see Israel as a theological violation, and why the phrase “let Judaism be a religion and let Israel be a foreign country” might be the clearest way to understand the crisis. A serious philosophical conversation about faith, identity, history, and the moral catastrophe of Zionism... for the world... and for Judaism.00:00 Coming Up...01:46 Intro My Family Story: Satmar Roots, Auschwitz, and America11:27 My Opening Question: What Did I Actually Get Growing Up?21:13 What Do I Have To Do To Be A Jew?32:14 Jabotinsky and the Zionist Rejection of the “Exile Jew”39:19 I Didn’t Get Judaism—I Got Israel42:11 “Let Judaism Be a Religion, Let Israel Be a Country” Rabbi Shapiro’s Definition of Zionism57:06 Chosen People, Christians, and Jewish Identity01:04:00 Who Gets to Define Who Is a Jew?01:10:29 Are Religious Zionists Actually Religious?01:19:21 Holocaust Identity and Postwar American Judaism01:21:18 Moral Philosophy vs Divine Command01:27:12 Different Roads, Same Conclusion: Zionism Is Wrong01:44:18 The Best Zionist Argument: The Fear of Another Holocaust01:51:24 Would You Go Quietly? Zionists Killing Jews: The Case of Jacob de Haan01:55:48 1967 and the Zionist Transformation of American Judaism01:58:18 Final Thoughts: Obligation, Opportunity, and Another RoundBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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, Steven Pinker argues that nonviolent movements are not only more moral, but more effective, citing a dataset from Harvard’s Kennedy School as empirical proof. But when you actually examine that data, the argument starts to unravel. In this essay, I take a close look at how complex resistance movements are reduced to simplistic binaries—success or failure, violent or nonviolent—and how that kind of “counting” can distort reality to produce clean, convenient conclusions... which might be very wrong.Along the way, I explore the psychology of cognitive dissonance, the narratives we build to justify violence, and the difficulty—perhaps impossibility—of measuring something like liberation. This isn’t an argument in favor of violence, but a challenge to the idea that history, morality, and revolution can be neatly captured in a spreadsheet.00:00 Intro00:47 Is Violence Ever Justified?05:18 Pacifism and Violence What is Moral and What Works?07:23 Cognitive Dissonance Explained12:04 Three Pieces of the Argument on Liberation17:03 The Harvard Database25:11 Palestine Liberation and October 7th28:30 The Oppressors Know What They Are Doing31:40 Ghassan Kanafani: Poetry and Armed ResistanceBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 of us were never taught—one that spans centuries of exclusion, slavery, and persecution across Europe.We talk about:Who the Roma actually are (and why that’s a harder question than it sounds)The long history of Roma slavery in EuropeWhy anti-Roma racism still exists—and often goes unnoticedThe role of law and institutions in blocking assimilationThe Roma experience during the The HolocaustAnd how memory, politics, and identity shape what we choose to remember—and what we don’tThere’s also a moment in here where I ask a question that… reveals my own ignorance. She handles it with a level of grace that honestly made the conversation better. We also touch on language—specifically the word “gypsy,” which is controversial and, for many, offensive. The conversation ends with something really powerful: a reading inspired by James Baldwin’s famous letter to his nephew.00:00 Intro 01:36 Why I Held This Conversation Back 02:38 Discovering the Roma Story 04:03 Who Are the Roma? 08:00 Roma Slavery Explained 13:09 Origins: India to Europe 19:43 Poverty, Perception, and Stereotypes 26:59 The Problem with the Word “Gypsy” 33:24 What Is Anti-Roma Racism? 34:13 Why Assimilation Was Blocked 38:27 Race, Identity, and Power 49:03 The Roma in World War II 53:17 The Overlooked Holocaust Experience 01:00:49 Memory, History, and Justice 01:07:06 Baldwin, Letters, and Legacy 01:12:55 Final Reading 01:15:03 Where to Learn More BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 this convergence is real… or just a temporary alignment before everything snaps back.We get into the deeper philosophical divide driving politics today: how history should relate to the present. Is the United States acting as a global policeman — or an empire? And if it is an empire, can conservatives reconcile that with their own instincts toward nationalism and independence? Along the way, we confront difficult questions around Israel, Iran, the Rapture, Christian Zionism, and the economic realities underpinning global power.The conversation ultimately turns toward moral philosophy — justice, power, religion, and whether peace is something we can achieve, or only something that emerges from a deeper pursuit of justice. This is a rare, open dialogue across ideological lines — not to agree, but to understand before the window for these conversations closes.00:00:00 – Coming Up...00:01:38 – Intro to the Horseshoe00:05:27 – Who is Emily Jashinsky? Background & Political Identity00:09:45 – Where Is the Conservative Movement After Donald Trump?00:16:33 – Did Trump Cross the Line with Iran?00:20:10 – Why Did the U.S. Go to War in Iran?00:23:55 – The Left vs Right Divide on History (1953, Empire, and Iran)00:30:26 – Are Conservatives Breaking Away Over Israel?00:39:22 – Fear, Power, and Human Nature (Hobbes vs Alternatives)00:41:05 – Is Justice Even Possible — Or Just an Illusion?00:47:14 – Can Belief in the “Good West” Survive This Moment?00:54:20 – Why Are We Really at War? Power, Oil, and Economics01:03:23 – Would You Accept Empire If It Fed Your Family?01:11:15 – The Left’s Blind Spots: Religion, Culture, and Third Rails01:15:44 – Where To Find EmilyBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 this discussion with an open mind, but also with a responsibility to ask direct questions — about his views on the Holocaust, his use of language, and the frameworks he relies on to interpret the world. What followed wasn’t a takedown or an endorsement, but something more difficult and, I think, more valuable: a real attempt to engage with a lightning rod of narrative rejection.We cover a wide range of ground — from Jiang’s sudden rise on the internet to the deeper roots of how he sees history and power, as well as the painful childhood which shaped him and his battles with depression and alcohol. We get into secret societies, eschatology, and whether ideas like the Illuminati or Freemasons are meant literally or as interpretive tools. We debate the role of myth in shaping reality and national projects — from Masada to the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern geopolitics — and whether narratives around events like the Holocaust have been simplified, mythologized, or politicized in ways that both clarify and distort truth. Throughout, I push back on where I think explanations go too far, while also acknowledging where mainstream narratives can feel incomplete or unsatisfying.But what surprised me most was the personal side of the conversation. Behind the “Professor Jiang” persona is a teacher navigating sudden internet fame, scrutiny, and a very strange digital landscape. We talk about why people are drawn to voices like his right now — a growing distrust in institutions, a sense that official stories no longer hold, and the risk that comes with replacing one form of certainty with another. At its core, this is a conversation about how we search for truth in a world full of competing narratives — and how easy it is to lose our footing in the process.00:00 – Coming Up...02:08 – Intro and Caveats: Who Is Professor Jiang?05:00 – Origins: Childhood, Bullying & Path to Teaching10:22 – Credentials, Titles, and Intellectual Authority "Professor"12:12 – Predicting the Future: How Accurate Are You?14:04 – Secret Societies & Pattern Thinking Freemasons, numerology,20:12 – Myth vs Reality: How We’re Taught History22:40 – Holocaust Questions & the Search for Truth29:37 – When Myth Overtakes Truth33:26 – Masada: A Case Study in Myth-Making39:33 – Do These Frameworks Actually Predict Anything?43:15 – Where Conspiracy Thinking Goes Too Far48:33 – Religion, Power, and Human Behavior Judaism, Islam, and how belief systems shape conflict55:07 – My Own Experience with Judaism Personal reflection, upbringing, and interpretation01:02:27 – Kabbalah, Mysticism, and Meaning01:08:13 – Fear, Freedom, and the Human Condition Erich Fromm, existential anxiety01:10:21 – Should Some Truths Stay Hidden?01:18:16 – The Responsibility of Asking Questions01:23:16 – Why People Are Drawn to Him Now, Distrust, collapsing narratives01:28:18 – Final reflections on Bullsh!t High School History, Dead Sea Scrolls and DoubtBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 it, but also without feeding into something darker. That opens into a broader conversation about antisemitism, where the line is now, and whether that line has been blurred beyond recognition.From there we get into Judaism as religion vs ethnicity, the weird tension that creates, and how that plays into conversations about power, responsibility, and group identity. We talk about the Talmud, some of the passages that are going viral right now, and why pulling lines out of context is both dangerous and, at the same time, something people are obviously going to keep doing. We also come back to real-world experiences — synagogues, Israeli flags, community pressure, and what it actually feels like to navigate that space right now.At the end we zoom out to Israel, Iran, and where all of this might be heading. Beinart makes the case that you can talk about power, influence, and what Israel is doing without falling into antisemitic thinking — but also acknowledges how hard that’s becoming in the current climate. I’m trying to push on these questions as directly as I can, because I don’t think ignoring them is going to end well.00:00 Coming Up...02:10 Intro to Peter Beinart and Why I Keep Asking about Epstein's Religion06:49 A Flashback to "Not being and A$$hole"13:00 Where Are We Now (Let's Talk Epstein's Religion22:18 Jewish Doctrine and Harm23:19 An Attack on "Jewish Ambulances"30:50 The Talmud Says Some Crazy Stuff38:13 What if a Synagogue Supports Israel Publicly40:55 Religion and Dealing With Having Power46:00 Israel Leading America to War with Iran51:20 Why Didn't Epstein's Jewishness Help Him Not Do Harm?57:22 How Does the War on Iran Affect Jewish Conversation1:00:02 Jewishness as "Ethnicity, Race, Nationality, Religion"BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 no longer confined to history books. Ward Wilson joins me at a moment where the stakes are not theoretical: governments are actively making decisions that could shape whether this conflict stays conventional—or crosses a line humanity hasn’t crossed in 80 years.But underneath this urgency is something even more unsettling: the possibility that much of what we believe about nuclear weapons—their power, their usefulness, even their role in ending World War II—is based on myths. In this conversation, we unpack those assumptions while looking directly at the present crisis. If nuclear weapons don’t actually “win wars” or meaningfully improve military outcomes, then what exactly would happen if one were used in Iran? Would it change anything—or just kill hundreds of thousands and push the world into something far worse? This is a conversation about how dangerous ideas from the past are shaping decisions right now—and why misunderstanding nuclear weapons might be one of the biggest risks we face today.Ward Wilson Substack: https://substack.com/@wardhayeswilson00:00 – Coming Up01:13 – Intro to Ward Wilson and Next Dilemma Guests06:10 – A Hopeful Start07:10 – The Hiroshima Myth (Did the Bombs End WWII?)18:25 – Do We Overestimate Nuclear Weapons?20:25 – Deterrence Fails23:25 – Cuban Missile Crisis and the Apocalypse29:14 – The Real "Realists"34:03 – Who Actually Has Nuclear Weapons Today?41:40 – Do Nukes Prevent Invasions? (North Korea Argument)47:10 – Iran, Israel, Trump: Real Risk of Use?53:10 – Could Trump Just Press the Button? (No Failsafes?)57:16 – The Psychology of Using Nuclear Weapons01:05:02 – Final Thoughts: Hope vs RealityBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 conflicts, including the role of ideology, religion, and power in shaping modern geopolitics. Sachs also weighs in on controversial questions surrounding Zionism, debates about the idea of “chosenness” in Judaism, and how religious identity and historical narratives influence political decision-making. The discussion also touches on elite power networks, intelligence agencies, and lingering questions surrounding figures like Jeffrey Epstein and the shadowy intersections of influence, politics, and global strategy.Looking back over his extraordinary career advising governments during the economic transitions of Bolivia, Poland, and the former Soviet Union, Sachs reflects on the experiences that shaped his worldview. Once deeply embedded within the global policy establishment, he explains how decades of witnessing power up close—from Washington to Moscow—gradually led him to question the assumptions and incentives driving today’s foreign policy decisions. The result is a candid conversation about the psychology of power, the ideas that motivate leaders, and why Sachs believes the international system is drifting toward increasingly dangerous confrontations.00:00:00 Coming Up...00:01:58 Intro to Jeffrey Sachs00:04:16 Pivot Points and Philosophy Turns in Jeffrey's Life00:10:17 Resentment Toward US Foreign Policy and Deep State00:18:11 Free Market Undermined by Deep State00:27:28 Underestimating Zionism or Greed00:33:33 World War III Is Here?00:43:53 Making Bets We Must Win and War00:50:46 Malthus and Darwin00:55:24 Redistribution and the Elites01:00:45 Why Are There So Many Jews in the Epstein Files01:06:37 Keep Up with Jeffrey SachsJeffrey's Official YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@JeffreyDSachsOfficialBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 difference between Judaism and Zionism, and why Israel appears locked in what Peled describes as a culture addicted to permanent war. We also examine Israel’s long-running obsession with Iran and the deeper strategic logic behind endless conflict in the region.The conversation then turns to an unexpected development in American politics: growing dissent on the right from figures like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene who are questioning U.S. support for Israel’s wars. Could this moment of political fracture create strange new alliances around Palestinian freedom, or will it collapse under ideological differences? We explore whether the cracks appearing in the traditional pro-Israel consensus might signal a turning point for the future of Palestine.00:00 Coming Up...01:56 Intro to Miko Peled06:24 Miko Becomes Digestible07:14 Where Are We At?10:37 Why is Israel Obsessed With Iran13:13 Is Turkey Next? Does Israel Need an Enemy?15:25 Does Israel's Exodus Matter?20:07 The Israeli 2026 Elections21:39 Greta's Suitcase and a New Strategy26:41 Does Israel Care About Epstein29:37 Epstein And Judaism31:42 Judaism vs Zionism... Still37:04 Making Common Cause With the Right To Free Palestine43:47 Are We Close To Liberating Palestine?BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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, the instability of a declining American empire, Israel’s regional ambitions, and the dangerous psychology of leaders who treat war as a solution to structural decline. We also discuss China’s long strategic horizon, the illusions of “anti-war” Trumpism, and why empire cannot be disentangled from the violence it produces.But this isn’t only about geopolitics. We talk about moral collapse — from Epstein to elite impunity — and what it reveals about power at the top. We explore patriarchy and feminism globally and within Iran, the contradictions of Western liberal narratives, and why economic crisis so often turns outward into war. If we are on a path toward wider conflict, the real question is not just how it started — but who benefits, and whether the public can still interrupt the machinery of empire before it’s too late.00:00 Coming Up00:01:54 Intro on Radhika Desai, Epstein, and Iran00:06:07 Checking on the Anti War Trumpers00:11:43 Who Wanted War? Israel and AIPAC and Others?00:14:00 What the America Firsters Missing?00:19:21 America Was Never a White Society00:23:44 Where Does China Fit In?00:30:31 BRICS or Other International Orgs?00:35:05 World War III?00:41:59 But Isn't Iran Immoral and Anti Women?00:54:04 Zionism and the Dominos That Must Fall00:59:19 On Religion and Secularism01:03:11 The Epstein and Judaism Question01:11:49 More to Come on Epstein and JudaismBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 and what might replace it.We talk about the growing rift he describes as the “State of Judea” vs the “State of Israel,” the reported 270,000 Israelis who have left, the possibility of a one-democratic state by 2048, and whether international pressure — from the U.S., Europe, or the Global South — could fundamentally shift the trajectory.We also tackle difficult territory: U.S. politics, lobbying power, accusations of antisemitism, the Epstein discourse, and whether Israel’s strategic alliances are becoming more cynical and less moral.Is this a slow reform? A violent rupture? Or something no one is prepared for?This is a serious, nuanced discussion about power, legitimacy, and what history tells us about how states unravel — and rebuild.00:00:00 Coming Up...00:02:02 Intro: Israel on the Brink00:05:54 State of Judea vs State of Israel00:12:23 22 More Years... Really!?00:20:33 The United Nations and the Board of Peace00:26:55 Changing American Support00:33:15 Epstein, Israel, Judaism00:45:40 Antisemitism and Antizionism00:52:47 Annexation of The West Bank and War with IranBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Israel existed inside an unquestioned frame of necessity. Drawing on Jack Shaheen’s work in Reel Bad Arabs, this essay argues that blockbuster filmmaking became a kind of modern scripture — more powerful than any ancient text in shaping how we see good and evil. But that narrative monopoly is breaking. And when the story collapses, power gets nervous.00:00 Intro00:28 Part 1: Holy Doctrines04:55 Part 2: The New Mythmakers13:38 Part 3: Preimagined Terror22:20 Part 4 The Turning Tide31:34 Part 5 The Desperate StrategyBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Pinker15:01 Alan Dershowitz Asks Pinker for Advice23:58 What Could Pinker Know?28:36 What Can We Do?32:00 It's Not About YOU33:11 MeToo Again?34:17 Influence, Power, Men, and SexFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Money?39:19 Buying Gatekeepers and Buying Distribution Channels42:58 The Jewish Elephant in the RoomBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 utilitarian ethics to the “quarantine model” of justice, effective altruism, and systems that treat human suffering like a technical problem to be optimized. Along the way, we confront hurricanes, checkpoints, drowning children, colonialism, capitalism, Zionism, Palestine, and the limits of treating human beings like weather systems.This isn’t a rejection of reason or science — it’s a critique of how scientism, ascended in many popular thinkers like Sam Harris, Peter Singer, and even Sam Bankman-Fried, can be captured by power. We examine how good intentions, clean logic, and abstract models can end up endorsing moral nightmares. The question isn’t whether these arguments are smart — it’s what gets lost when suffering becomes a math problem, tragedy becomes an acceptable cost, and rational people stop asking who pays the price.00:00 Intro to Scientism01:27 Part 1: Imminent Danger02:34 Part 2: Consciousness & Moral Concern08:47 Part 3: Taking Action12:12 Part 4: The Problems12:33 Problem 1: Causality15:14 Problem 2: Distal & Systemic18:45 Problem 3: Entrenching Power23:34 Problem 4: Genuine Flourishing28:13 Part 5: ConclusionsALL MUSIC BY https://michigan25yearsago.bandcamp.com/BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 functions less as a measurement of hardship and more as a form of political gaslighting. People are told they’re doing fine, while privately feeling like they’re drowning.In this wide-ranging conversation, we unpack why Green’s argument struck such a nerve—and why it provoked such intense backlash. We explore the origins of the poverty line, the idea of a “precarity line,” and what happens when economic metrics lose touch with lived experience. From housing and dignity to inequality as a moral problem, this is a rare exchange between an economist steeped in markets and a philosopher deeply skeptical of their assumptions.The second half of the discussion widens the lens even further: capitalism and democracy, Trump, Venezuela, Gaza, global resource extraction, and whether economic systems require endless expansion to survive. Where Green believes the system can still be fixed, I push on whether some failures are structural—and whether people will ultimately reject material comfort if it comes at the cost of moral legitimacy. 00:00 – Coming Up...01:44 – Who Is Michael W. Green? Wall Street Viral Dissent05:04 – “My Life Is a Lie”: Why the Poverty Line Feels Fake12:26 – Poverty as Politics, Why Did this Hit Now?17:40 – Is Inequality a Moral Failure or Just a Stability Risk?23:06 – Morality within Markets24:45 – Precarity vs Poverty30:34 – Capitalism: Structural Failure or Corrupted System?37:17 – Democracy, Markets, and the Revolving Door43:20 – Trump, Business Logic, and Political Nihilism53:46 – Venezuela, Gaza, Ukraine & Resource Extraction01:05:34 – Can Countries Opt Out of the Global System?01:11:18 – Hobbes, Human Nature, and Competing Worldviews01:13:47 – Third Worldism and the Echo of the 19th Century01:20:00 – Talking Across DisciplinesFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 begins with Sapolsky’s core argument against free will and moves quickly into its consequences: shame, pride, punishment, and the temptation to replace moral responsibility with clean, mechanistic explanations. The question isn’t whether determinism is true—it’s whether we actually know how to live with it.Shapiro presses Sapolsky on an inverse worry often missing from incompatibilist debates: not the fear of losing free will, but the fear of escaping it. Drawing on Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom, the conversation explores whether rejecting free will can feel less like a tragedy and more like a cosmic relief—an escape from ambiguity, moral difficulty, and the burden of judgment. From there, the discussion turns to narrative, illusion, and meaning, engaging Wilfrid Sellars’s famous distinction between the scientific image and the manifest image of humanity. Are we making a mistake by treating narrative, responsibility, and moral language as expendable “illusions,” rather than as real features of human life that still matter even if they aren’t metaphysically ultimate?The conversation culminates in hard political and ethical cases—power, punishment, and the danger of focusing on proximal threats while ignoring distal causes. Using examples ranging from criminal justice to Israel–Palestine, Sapolsky and Shapiro debate the limits of the “quarantine model” and whether determinism risks being quietly hijacked by existing power structures. Can science describe causality without erasing dignity? Can morality survive without free will? And if humans are, as Sapolsky argues, recursive biological machines—what kind of responsibility, humility, and restraint does that actually demand of us?00:00:00 Coming up…00:01:22 Intro My Gripes with the Incompatibilists00:05:30 The Elevator Pitch Against Free Will00:07:52 Do We Really Want Free Will?00:12:43 Are Illusions Real?00:16:07 Meaning Without Free Will00:19:29 Replacing God with an Indifferent Universe for the Same Reasons?00:23:01 A Giant Naturalistic Fallacy?00:26:12 What to Quarantine? The “IDF” or a Palestinian Teenager?00:31:39 Proximal versus Distal Causes, the Palestinian Knife or Ideologies Like Zionism?00:34:43 Does the Quarantine Model Fizzle Out or Get Hijacked?00:42:19 Sellars, Philosopher and Scientists, And The Pact of Forgetting00:51:54 The Scientism and Utilitarianism’s Failure on Palestine, Sam Harris’s Mistakes00:54:58 Thomas Hobbes and Rousseau on Human Nature01:00:33 Free Enough Will, The Human Condition, and Engineering our Nature01:05:05 Walls as Quarantines and the Worry of Palantir01:10:56 Be Suspicious of The Desire for a Simple Diagnosis01:17:36 Connecting On Palestine and Escaping Through The Maze of UtilitarianismReferences…Wilfrid Sellars. Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man https://danielwharris.com/teaching/380/readings/Sellars.pdfRebecca Newberger Goldstein. The Philosophers and the Scientists Should be Friends https://secularhumanism.org/2017/12/cont-the-scientists-and-the-philosophers-should-be-friends/Johann Hari. Chasing the Scream. https://chasingthescream.com/Johann Hari. Lost Connections. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34921573-lost-connectionsThomas Hobbes Levitation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)Daniel Dennett and Gregg Caruso. Just Desserts https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Just+Deserts%3A+Debating+Free+Will-p-9781509545759Robert Sapolsky Father Offspring Conversations (that Warthog Story) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WhXs8_-kqU BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 recruitment. What began as a rite of passage, a test of courage and loyalty, slowly revealed itself as something else entirely.They talk about standing up to bullies, and what happens when you realize the bully wears your own uniform. The conversation ranges from the lies of the War on Terror to Israel–Palestine, from Pat Tillman’s legacy to Johnny Got His Gun, and from obedience to conscience. At its core, this is a story about transformation and redefining masculinity outside of domination and figuring out who the real freedom fighters are.00:00 Coming Up…01:35 Dilemma Podcast in 202603:17 Intro to Rory Fanning - Pat Tillman and Military Ads07:28 The Military and Ideas of Manhood09:24 Fathers, Sons, and Being Tough11:45 9/11 and Joining the Rangers13:33 Going To Afghanistan16:16 Confidence and a Military Recruitment Ad20:49 Doubting the Mission24:14 Addicted to The Rush28:07 Rory Meets Pat and Kevin Tillman29:29 Becoming a War Resister33:00 Religion and Resistance37:42 The Costs of Resisting40:40 The “B!tch” of the Unit and Pat Tillman Coverup45:16 The Brothers in Arms and the Cult50:44 Walking Across America54:00 The Original Question, Why Did 9/11 Happen?57:53 The Hypocrisy of the Empire and The Israel Issue1:06:53 Resisters Around the World1:09:21 What Aaron Bushnell Meant to The World1:12:57 War versus Resistance to War1:20:12 So, How Do You Become a “Man” and What’s Next?1:26:17 The Ancient Ritual of Walking to Find Yourself1:29:20 Johnny Got His Gun and The Palestine Baseball TeamCollection of military recruitment ads:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0JGV0RYwsshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tnJtLBQzQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_OCDJIT344https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqL_dRwRGXghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4hKXrgLH9Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClLofqNYYchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkwSbamEbqEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6xFB6lPlpQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OQ2KGiOuW0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMkLWNh37cIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_TlHJq1-4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edykj6fpRm4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVOdAPWxvz4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpmgPuidFb4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuSqpMnXvv8Palestine Baseball Team:https://www.baseballunited.com/teams/national/palestinehttps://www.instagram.com/baseballpalestine/?hl=enhttps://x.com/PalFedBaseballhttps://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/amid-death-and-destruction-palestines-baseball-dreams-survive/BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 up an evangelical Christian in North Carolina • discovering Amnesty International, human rights work, and the Middle East in 1982 • learning Arabic in Cairo • joining Mobilization for Survival in the late 1980s • working with queer and feminist organizers • being listed by the ADL as a “hate group” simply for recognizing the PLO • teaching the U.S. as an empire to a changing generation of students• Palestinian Poetry as ResistanceWe discuss Christian Zionism, the shifting landscape on American campuses, the rise of the alt-right, the weaponization of antisemitism, and why Palestine now resonates with Black, South Asian, Latino, and other marginalized communities.Melani argues that the human rights era has collapsed, that Gaza revealed the hypocrisy at the center of the old world order, and that what comes next must be a planetary consciousness rooted in ecology, sustainability, and the dignity of all people.At the end, Melani reads from one of the most powerful entries in her book — a passage I’ve set to original music from a close friend. Please stay for that.Melani’s book: Promises Then the Storm https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Then-...Music: https://michigan25yearsago.bandcamp.com/00:00 Coming Up…01:08 Palestine Exhaustion and McAlister’s Book06:55 Growing Up Evangelical to 1982 Israel Invasion of Lebanon10:45 The Christian Zionism Puzzle Piece13:40 McAlister Drops Messianic Christianity14:53 On Being a “Good Girl” and Religiosity17:57 Obiedence of Suicide Bombers19:02 Media Sources as American Zionist “Doctrine”21:52 The Next Wave of Protests23:53 McAlister’s Activist Path through Amnesty, MOBE, Academia31:59 Addressing Antisemitism, Living in Berlin, the Collapse of the Right36:04 The Legacy of the Jewish Left39:05 Judaism from Zionism and Israel40:35 A Journal Passage on Antisemitism44:04 Forgetting about Antisemitism and Weaponizing Antisemitism47:22 Palestinian Poetry, Darwish, and Anger50:03 “Identity Card”50:38 How Students Have Changed After Gaza57:00 Self Determination Beyond the Nation-State1:02:17 Oppressor-Oppressed Narratives1:06:05 Palestine is the Symbolic Center of the Decolonizing Struggle1:16:38 The End of the United Nations?1:20:25 We Should All Write Diaries1:22:30 October 14th. Free Palestine.

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 roll your eyes and wonder if he needed a psychiatric evaluation.Fast-forward a decade: victim testimony, court filings, FOIA dumps, leaked emails, and relentless reporting have confirmed that most of that “crazy” rant was… real. Not the Reddit fan-fic version — the documented, boring-legal-paperwork version. So what does that say about the world we actually live in?In this conversation, I sit down with Dropsite News investigative journalist Murtaza Hussain to talk about the system around Jeffrey Epstein: the money pipelines, the intelligence overlaps, the arms deals in places like Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Mongolia and beyond, and what the upcoming release of new Epstein documents might reveal.We talk about how to cover a story like this without feeding antisemitic conspiracies or Nick-Fuentes-style fantasies — while still being honest about the role of Israel’s covert networks, Western power, and the moral rot of a global oligarchy that likes to pretend it’s defending “democracy.”This is not a video about one “lone monster.” It’s about the empire that produced him.00:00 Coming Up…01:09 Crazy Uncle Bob Tells You About Epstein07:10 What Do We Do When The Crazy Uncle Is Right?14:35 Murtaza Hussain’s From Occupy To Epstein17:01 The Ethical Considerations of Explosive Reporting20:59 What is The Epstein Story… Really?25:36 The Smoking Gun Has Been Fired, Selling out Africa, and More to Come35:07 What About Blackmail?41:14 What is Coming Next From the Epstein Releases48:28 Oligarchy Destroys Democracy55:40 Simple Sex and Money At The End of the EmpireBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 West feel safe. But Zohran’s unapologetic politics, rooted in solidarity with Palestine and working-class liberation, expose the hollowness of that narrative. In this episode, we revisit Mahmood Mamdani’s landmark thesis in Good Muslim, Bad Muslim to understand why Zohran’s success provokes such hysteria — and what it reveals about how the West still divides the Muslim world into those it can use and those it must fear. From Sadiq Khan’s media approval to the wild panic surrounding Zohran’s rise, this essay is about power, empire, and the myths that keep them intact.0:00 Intro - A Perfect Science Experiment1:05 "We Want Those People Here In Our Society" - Sam Harris5:05 "They have to Say Aloud Our Western Values" - Bill Maher7:12 Bill Maher Brings Up Zohran's Ugandan Citizenship10:05 Sam Harris responding to "Stealth Islamists"17:27 Sadiq Khan vs Zohran Mamdani - What is the Dangerous Idea?18:20 Mamood Mamdani's Good Muslim, Bad Muslim29:04 The Colonial Fear of Zohran and Palestine Support32:04 What's Changed in the Last 10 Years?Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Sept 2002 by Mamood Mamdani https://jan.ucc.nau.edu/sj6/mamdanigo... BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM    / @jayshapirodilemmapodcast  For more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Perspective One - Bari Weiss, The Zionist Journalist12:42 Perspective Two - Rafaat, The Poet18:03 Perspective Three - IDF, The Killer20:20 Perspective Four - Me, The Onlooker25:01 The Exhausting Rashomon Problem, The Philosophical Problems, and "If I Must Die"Sources: https://electronicintifada.net/content/my-final-moments-refaat-alareer/50193https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2024-01/remembering-dr-refaat-alareer/https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/8/palestinian-people-mourn-the-death-of-refaat-alareerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refaat_AlareerBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Malcolm’s trip to Gaza, his push to move the fight to the global commons and the United Nations, and why he believed moral clarity must come before politics.This episode wrestles with the hardest question, the tension between violence and liberation. King’s nonviolence, the Panthers’ self-defense, Malcolm in the middle, what actually changes unjust systems, what counts as violence when power calls even peaceful disruption violent, and how that logic plays out in Gaza today. We connect Malcolm’s internationalism to Gen Z protests, the language of decolonization, and the growing refusal to blur anti-Zionism with antisemitism.If you care about Palestine and Gaza, if you want to understand Malcolm X beyond the poster and the pull quote, if you are trying to think honestly about means and ends, this one matters.BUY MICHAEL SAWYER'S BOOK HEREhttps://www.plutobooks.com/product/black-minded/READ ZIONIST LOGIC BY MALCOLM X HERE https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-viewpoint-us/mayjun_05/mayjun_05_21.htm00:00:00 Coming Up…00:01:08 Member Thanks…00:01:47 Before Thoughts - Michael Sawyer Intro00:02:50 Before Thoughts - A Spectrum of Violence. MLK, X, Black Panther00:16:21 Sawyer’s Path to Malcolm X00:26:42 Malcolm X as a Philosopher00:31:03 The Internationalism of Malcolm & Malcolm Goes to Gaza 00:35:48 Does the International Scope Hurt the Cause?00:41:49 On Malcolm’s view on Violence and Liberation00:53:50 Understanding the Systemic Enemy00:58:12 The Gen Z Protests from Kenya to Nepal01:04:31 The Questions Around Malcolm’s Assassinations01:09:25 The Black American and Judaism, Zionism and Marcus Garvey01:20:08 After Thought - My Next Guest and Wrestling as PoliticsBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 currents inside Islam, the 1979 revolution’s three forces (nationalism, Marxism, Islamism), sanctions and the erasure of Iran’s middle class, and why airstrikes only unify Iranians behind a garrison state. We discuss Gaza (denouncing Oct 7 while naming the ongoing genocide), BDS as civil disobedience, Israel as an American outpost, and a future beyond Zionism/Islamism. Plus: Iranian cinema’s philosophy (Kiarostami, Majidi), national trauma (1953, Iran–Iraq War), and how agonistic pluralism could reframe the region.00:00 Coming Up…01:31 Before Thought - Membership Thanks02:10 Before Thought - Dabashi Intro and Three Forces of Moral Politics09:55 Origins & Polyfocal Islam: Mecca/Medina as Blueprint13:34 Three Currents of Resistance: Socialism, Nationalism, Islamism22:07 Who is a Good Muslim? A Good Jew? Religion’s Double Edge26:48 Why is Israel so Obsessed with Iran?30:57 Iran, “The One That Got Away” and the Hostage Crisis39:57 Two Nemeses: Domestic Tyranny vs Global Imperialism43:31 The Enemy of My Enemy49:25 October 7, BDS, and Moral Consistency56:49 Violence and Liberation, and The Only Viable Political Horizon59:04 Optimism About The Future01:05:42 A Celebration of Iranian Cinema and Trauma01:12:14 After Thought - More on Violence and Liberation01:14:23 After Thought - Malcolm X in Gaza and my Next GuestIranian Films mentioned:Close UpThe RunnerThe Little StrangerThe Color of ParadiseHarold Lasswell on the Garrison State: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_LasswellMalcolm X in Gaza and Zionist Logic Article:https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialist-viewpoint-us/mayjun_05/mayjun_05_21.htmBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY ZOOM/LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/joinFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 domination. We explore her personal story of migration, the legacy of anti-colonial struggles, Palestine and Hawaii today, the meaning of indigeneity, and her call for a planetary commons beyond rulers, borders, and citizenship. This is a provocative, challenging, and visionary dialogue about what true freedom might mean in our time and what the counterfeit version of it might be.BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/join00:00 Coming Up…01:13 Become a Member02:30 Nandita Sharma - Before Thoughts07:46 The Elephant in the Room: Nationalism and a Personal Story12:23 Core Thesis of Home Rule16:17 Colonialism vs. National Sovereignty22:55 Nationalism Defined30:50 Are you Erasing Indigenousness?40:45 Palestine and the Trap of Nationhood52:12 History Didn’t Have to Be This Way58:14 The Vision of a Planetary Commons01:06:35 The Gen Z Protests and What Can We Do Now?01:15:03 No Borders and Migrant Struggles01:18:26 Palestinians Deserve Better Than a Nation State01:20:49 After Thought on “Decolonizing Our Conceptions of Freedom”01:23:56 Members Get the Spillover01:24:25 Next Guest PrepFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Zionist theology was leveraged to pressure politicians, how pastors were courted and choreographed, what he saw after October 7th (including raw screening sessions), why the line between “ally” and “apocalypse” talk got so blurry, and what finally broke his conscience. This is part confession, part anatomy of influence.BECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5NIku35U9thGG9WBJjE0sw/join00:00 Coming Up…01:24 Become a Member / A Random Email from Brandt04:04 From Pastor's Son to Israel’s “Useful Idiot”07:43 An Ad on LinkedIn Changes Brandt’s Life12:29 Courting the Christian Zionists for Israel20:01 What Brandt's Colleagues Really Thought of Apocalyptic Christian Zionists26:32 The Israeli Cynics and Messianic Fanatics29:17 October 7th and the Religious Danger of Atrocity Propaganda37:23 Thoughts on the Selective Outrage about Violence and Religion40:49 Brandt Loses His Religion In a Swamp of Religious Contradictions43:24 The Palestinian Narrative, The Jewish Messiah, and The Red Heifers 46:55 What Was and Wasn’t Included in the October 7th Screenings50:49 The Rigged Global Political Structures That Enable Narrative Framing55:20 “I Really Hated Myself”59:24 On Coleman Hughes, Curated Israel Trips, and False Information01:02:32 Where Christianity and Christian Zionism Goes From Here01:07:26 How Brandt Left / “There are Things That Are Worse Than Being Unemployed”01:12:44 After Thought / Humanizing Extreme Violence and Revisiting a Boy Named NemrFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 substrate of modern life, how Gulf petrodollars built today’s US-dominated financial order, and why Israel and the Gulf monarchies emerged as twin pillars of American power after 1967. We explore the global shift of oil toward China, the enduring grip of the dollar system, and why the liberation of Palestine must be understood as inseparable from struggles for climate justice and decolonization.Become a member to support my work and join the members only livestream where we can share ideas, critiques, responses, or other observations about our strange world. Final Sunday of each month. See you there!My interview on BettBeat Media on Israel, Zionism, Gaza, philosophy and more:    • Jay Shapiro EXPOSES the Truth About Israel...  Crude Capitalism by Adam Hanieh here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/2...Petrodollar Explained by Explains 101:    • America's Most Powerful Weapon Is Not Nuke...  00:00 Monthly Members Only Live Stream Announcement02:00 Coming up...02:34 Before Thoughts / “Our Analog World” and the Power of Oil12:30 From The Second Intifada to the Petrochemical Question15:38 The Ubiquitous and Invisible Age of Oil, The Substrate of Everything21:53 Western Capitalism, Colonialism, and the World Wars27:58 The Gulf States Become the “Oil Deposit That Matters”32:58 Post WW2 Anticolonialism and What Went Wrong in The Gulf States38:49 OPEC and an Attempt to Take Control of the Upstream41:08 Israel Works Itself Into the Region And Proves its “Value” in 196746:20 How Petro Monarchs Maintain Control52:09 Why Wasn’t Israel a Problem?56:58 The ‘73 OPEC Crisis, the Petrodollar System, and the Financial Structure Today1:08:06 Currency Wars, Climate Change, and China’s Rise1:16:00 The Sovereign Wealth Funds of the Gulf and The Arms Trade1:19:01 Israel and America’s Entangled Dollar Dominated Interests1:24:40 Disincentiving Fighting Climate Change1:28:35 Climate Justice and the Moral Horror of Palestine1:32:49 After Thoughts / Petrodollar Explained recommendation / HowTheLightGetsInFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 trace his extraordinary journey: his efforts to teach nonviolence in Palestine, his eventual deportation by Israel, and his continued commitment to peace and justice in exile. Mubarak reflects on his life’s work, the heartbreak of displacement, and his current feelings about the ongoing struggle. This is the story of a man who refused to give up on nonviolence, even when enemies were everywhere on both sides.Find more about Mubarak Awad at nonviolenceinternational.net00:00 Coming Up - Before Thoughts01:32 A Childhood Before The State of Israel06:29 Violence On The Horizon and "We all Hate The British"12:25 1947 and 1948 And Losing His Father24:10 1967 and Israel Bulldozes Awad's House and Hopes in Nasser29:06 Yale or Lee College? And Seeing American Segregation36:40 Learning about Gandhi41:21 Palestinian Resistance in the 80's55:25 The Anger in the Palestinian Movement1:02:11 Why Is Israel Threatened by Non Violence "The Prefer I Throw Bombs"1:04.40 The Unforgettable Nakba and "Who Lived In This House?"1:10:05 The First Intifada and Awad's is Targeted and Deported1:23:06 Leaving Palestine1:29:53 The Violence Today and Hamas's Form of "Resistance"1:36:15 What Happens Next? "The Cloud is now on Gaza"1:41:25 After ThoughtsFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 Israel and Coleman Repeating Lies09:02 Is Epstein a Mossad Agent? The Jonathan Pollard Pattern13:37 Disengaging from Gaza and the Intentions of the Blockade17:42 Advice: Leave The Free PressFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 about the motives behind Zionism and occupation. The conversation turns toward justice vs peace in practice, and the moral weight of denying dignity. Stay tuned after the debate for my “Afterthoughts,” where I break down Coleman’s argumentation and share further reflections on justice, intention, and the future of Palestine.00:00 Intro Before Thoughts00:43 When Israel "Left" Gaza in 200507:14 Why is Egypt Different than Gaza and Western Interests19:09 What is Preventing Democracy?22:09 Israel and Apartheid South Africa doesn't Matter?26:00 Unplugging Cultural Touchpoints in Palestine by Zionists33:08 Deciphering Motivations of Zionism37:58 Understanding the Villain and Palestinian Resistance51:29 The Essentialism Charge and Nefarious Zionist Motivations1:01:06 Starvation and Motivations of Ethnic Cleansing1:10:38 Stated Israeli War Aims and the Zionist Territorial Aims1:17:42 After Thought 1 - Justice vs Peace and Material Gains1:19:11 After Thought 2 - "What they Didn't Do" as an Argument1:21:57 After Thought 3 - This Could All Make Sense, And Hamas Accepts a Ceasefire1:23:10 After Thought 4 - South Africa Apartheid and Israel Ties1:26:18 After Thought 5 - Who Will Live in Gaza?1:31:41 After Thought 6 - On Starvation Media Coverage and Losing Humanity1:36:14 After Thought 7 - Read More1:38:35 After Thought 8 - If You are Mad at Jews... Voices Against the OccupationWatch "Courage in the Divide" from 1986 https://youtu.be/-2UucKQuVK8?si=5-3xNqaQEVAoXxqz Breakdown of the methodology of the Penn State Poll we discussed https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/poll-show-most-jewish-israelis-support-expelling-gazans For more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 why history mattersZionism, the Nakba, and displacement in 1948Justice vs peace — what Palestinians are really seekingWhy moderate Palestinian voices are often silenced or eliminatedU.S. empire, oil, and how global power structures fuel the conflictThis is not a “gotcha” debate — it’s an attempt to really surface the philosophical differences behind how we analyze Palestine and Israel today with far reaching implications.Ghassan Kanafani’s “Letter from Gaza” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThCEzFWLOQPART 2 HERE https://youtu.be/I7eofSg9wGo00:00 Coming Up - Before Thoughts04:35 The Hopes for the Conversation - Not Changing Minds but Display Difference08:09 Good Guys Bad Guys Israel v Hamas - What makes a Villain?17:04 Making Contact to the Nakba and talking about Neighbors23:59 The Zionist Motivations Pre 194826:16 Deciphering Intentions from History, Statements, Restraint33:30 What is the Palestinian Cause and How Would You Like to Achieve it?37:08 Essentialism and Skipping Over Nefarious Motivations42:59 The Motivations of the West and “Liberation” 48:09 Where is Palestinian Non Violent Resistance?53:03 After Thoughts - The "Jubilation" of Zionists and “Anger” of Palestinians in 194757:33 Ghassan Kanafani - And Picked Cherries in my HeadFor more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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 “sub-imperialism,” the hypocrisies of governments that talk left but walk right, and the urgent question of how to end genocide and ecological collapse in real time. What does internationalism look like after the failure of unipolar power? And can “power to the people” still break the system’s grip?0:00 – Coming Soon / Intro5:23 – From Wharton to Mandela’s Office14:36 – Where are we within capitalism and BRICS?22:33 – BRICS: Anti-Empire or Just Sub-Empire?31:06 – Slaying the Neoliberal Dragon35:14 My Enemy’s Enemy?39:23 Botha and the Rubicon43:25 Imperialism and Zionism and the Revolutionary Violence Moment52:50 The Hypocrisy of BRICS and Israel57:53 – “Hague-Schmague”: When International Law Collapses1:05:31 – Gaza and why won’t anyone do anything?1:15:17 – Western Liberals and “Zionism”?1:24:32 – After Thoughts and Next GuestLessons of Black Panther: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s02e07-the-lessons-of-black-panther-chloe-valdary/id1470490447?i=1000489634117For more from Jay visit whatjaythinks.com

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. foreign policy to BRICS. Gaza becomes a stark example of how imperial systems maintain power, revealing the collapse of Western moral authority and the violent logic built into capitalism itself.FREE DOWNLOAD (thanks to Knowledge Unlatched) Capitalism Coronavirus and War https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/59799 More from jay at whatjaythinks.com0:00:00 Coming Up…0:00:55 Before Thoughts — Questions Answered Through a Marxist Lens0:06:41 The Dinner Table Spark — Teenage Curiosity to a Career in Geopolitics0:13:30 Where Are We Now? — Or When are we according to Marx0:28:40 Capitalism as a Particular System — Cyclical Thinking, Historical Thinking & Western Decline0:37:03 The Hidden Rule — Why Capitalism Always Demands Exploitation & Imperialism0:43:04 Was the U.S. Ever in Charge? — Multipolarity in Past and Present0:59:00 BRICS at 51% — Can the Bloc Really Challenge Western Hegemony?1:08:01 From Gold to Bubbles — The Dollar’s Rise, Fall, and Fragile Future1:13:01 The Gaza Turning Point — Western Hypocrisy and the Loss of Moral Authority1:19:04 A Capitalist War — Gaza, Resources, and Built-In System Contradictions1:29:18 After Thoughts — Next Guests Patrick Bond Coleman Hughes and a Vinyl Record

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

In this video, anti-war libertarian Scott Horton joins me for a wide-ranging conversation on the true mechanics of American empire. We talk about the strange new alliances forming as both left and right confront the costs of endless war, the covert operations that fueled U.S. intervention in the Middle East, and how Israel fits into the broader imperial strategy. We also dive into the terror wars, the intelligence games behind Epstein, and why this moment might mark the beginning of a major political realignment.00:00:00 Coming up…00:00:54 Intro00:01:44 Scott’s Background00:03:56 The Moment Made by the Israel First/America First Clash00:10:12 “Why Do They Hate Us?” and Does Israel Fight “Our” wars?00:16:15 Left is not Liberal and Who Drives the Empire00:24:13 The Chip on Scott’s Shoulder00:25:19 How Is A Liberated Middle East “a danger”00:35:58 The American Mythology of Promoting Democracy00:42:45 The Moral Disgust of Gaza, Christians, and Exiting the Myths00:56:14 Cognitive Dissonance and Sadaam’s “connection” to 9/1101:12:59 State Worship, Liberals, and Israel as an “asset of economic Empire”?01:20:40 Occupy and MAGA, when Disillusionment meets in the streets01:27:17 Iran and Ghana and the Islam Variable01:31:37 Why They Hate Us… They told us!01:36:44 Practice Imagining Your Mom, Brother, Wife, Child… Dead01:42:20 “They Sound just like Texans”01:44:03 Onramps to a Better Conversation01:49:41 “Israel Does The Dirty Work”01:56:05 What’s Next?02:07:19 Outro Four Loose Ends

In this video, I explore the growing clash between “America First” and “Israel First”—a fracture exposing deeper contradictions in U.S. politics and global power. As figures like Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, Candace Owens start asking tough questions, many find themselves at the edge of a worldview built on a myth of liberal ideals of a professed intention of moral clarity. But that worldview—detached from history, blind to empire, and allergic to material analysis—can’t explain what’s happening and is perpetually open to exploitation.00:00:00 Intro00:01:01 The Israel First Clash and Sensing An Opening00:04:07 The Mechanisms of Empire and Conspiracy00:07:04 Three Paths After The First Step00:11:21 My Next Five Guests and My Focus00:14:32 The Entry Point of Moral Horror00:16:41 The Fear of Ambiguity00:20:02 The Threat of a Liberated Middle East00:22:51 “Liberal” vs “Left”00:26:58 The “Rational Compassion” of The War of Ideas00:28:42 The Secular Liberal Lens on the World00:30:25 Problem 1: The Downplaying of History00:34:51 Problem 2: Power Imbalances00:39:33 Problem 3: Overreliance on Stated Intentions00:44:46 A Feminist Revolution in Oman00:49:03 Wanting Something Under Someone Else’s House00:53:06 Self Defense as a Moral Shield00:56:12 Honorable Intentions?01:00:01 The Empire Lens of Analysis01:06:37 A Coup in Iran and Revealed Intentions of the West01:14:05 The Islam Variable: Ghana vs Iran01:19:57 Is This Liberation?01:23:50 Solving the “Collateral Damage” Problem with Surgical Surveillance01:29:40 Outro

I'm still waiting for a debate partner—so I've decided to start without one. In this video, I deliver my opening statement.Plus, I'm announcing a short break to focus on finishing my upcoming book about moral progress and technology.My essay "Be Careful In The Dark" is available here https://whatjaythinks.com/essays/2021... 00:00 Intro - My History with the IDW06:37 Intro - Then October 7th Happened10:56 ANNOUNCING A SHORT BREAK14:08 The Statement - "Sometimes War Is Necessary" and "Derangement"25:14 The Statement - When to "Resist" Arrest29:18 The Statement - Analogizing to the Palestinian Cause35:04 The Statement - Conditions to Resist41:03 The Statement - Sanitizing Colonialization and "Barbarism"45:40 The Statement - Worlds Ought We Not Resist?49:08 Outro - I Await the Response

Capitalist Libertarianism sells itself as the champion of freedom and personal choice—but what happens when the very systems we’ve unleashed are shaping our desires, not responding to them? In this video, I dig into the fundamental blind spots that libertarians (especially the free-market capitalist kind) tend to ignore. From psychological manipulation in advertising to global coordination breakdowns like the tragedy of the commons and the free-rider problem, I argue that the neat equations of “freedom = good outcomes” just don’t hold up. Especially not in a world where your attention, your data, and your impulses are being auctioned off in real time.To ground it all, we finish with a short watch-along of Milton Friedman’s 1980 documentary Free to Choose—a kind of holy text for the neoliberal era. I’m not here to dunk for the sake of dunking. I’m here to challenge some assumptions, explore alternatives, and ask whether "just letting the market decide" is really the kind of future we want—or just the one we can’t escape. Let’s watch together and think out loud.For the full Dilemma Archive including the mentioned Episode "Do I Smell Donuts?" whatjaythinks.com00:00 Intro: What I mean by Libertarian01:47 The Worlds We Want and the Worlds We Can't Resist04:43 Can Advertising Ever be Too Effective?11:22 The Base Capitalist Libertarian Assumption12:54 Mass Coordination Problems14:04 MCP One / The Stag Hunt15:39 MCP Two / First Mover Problems18:19 MCP Three / Free Rider Problem19:13 MCP Four / Tragedy Of The Commons22:13 Darwinian Evolution Misconception and the Range of Survival29:58 Watch Along Intro to Milton Friedman32:50 Free To Chose 10 Minute Watch-Along51:39 The Totalitarian Big Market Liberal and the Deluded Free Market Capitalists

In this conversation, Sophie Scott-Brown, historian and political philosopher, joins me to explore how anarchism isn’t just a theory, but a way of seeing, organizing, and acting in the world. We unpack the illusion of democracy, the dangers of temporary power, and what freedom actually means through an anarchist lens. When disaster strikes or institutions crumble, does anarchy step in as chaos—or as a natural form of human cooperation?More than just rebellion, anarchism is about rethinking power, human connection, and the structures we assume are necessary. We dig into direct action, mutual aid, the role of creativity, and even cryptocurrency—examining whether anarchism is best understood as a philosophy, an adjective, or a verb. If today’s systems are failing, what comes next? And could the answer have been here all along?00:00:00 Intro00:02:02 The Modern Collapse of Order and the Anarchist Lens00:05:45 Do We Have Democracy? Have We Ever?00:12:11 The Danger of Temporary Power00:24:23 The Structure And the Solutions00:32:19 Anarchy in a Disaster00:34:31 The Existential Purpose of Civilizations00:46:18 What Is Freedom To an Anarchist00:50:25 Anarchy And Human Connection00:58:59 Anarchy as Chaos and Anarchy as Possibility01:03:53 Nihilism Versus Anarchism01:10:24 The Radical Fifties and The First Cold War01:14:23 Cryptocurrency and Anarchy at Scale01:22:02 Is Anarchy a Philosophy or Adjective or Verb?01:24:03 Protest Versus Direct Action and When We Join The Conversation01:30:44 When Nihilism Burns Itself Out and The Necessary Anarchist Creativity

In Part 2, Ruth Kinna and I trace anarchism’s turbulent path through the 20th century—from early revolutionary violence to its erasure under Lenin, the Spanish Civil War, and the Red Scare in America. As anarchism was eclipsed by state communism and crushed by authoritarian forces, its ideas never disappeared. Instead, they resurfaced in free love movements, civil rights struggles, punk culture, and a quiet rekindling in academic and activist circles.But anarchism has always been more than just resistance—it’s a way of imagining and building beyond what exists. We explore how anarchist thought adapted in response to fascism, war, neoliberalism, and Cold War propaganda, and why its core principles—mutual aid, autonomy, and anti-authoritarianism—continue to re-emerge in times of crisis.whatjaythinks.com00:00:00 Intro00:00:27 Turn of the Century Anarchist Violence00:05:45 Artistry and Dreams of Anarchy and William Morris’s News From Nowhere00:12:30 The WWI Disaster for Anarchists00:15:13 The Anti-Colonial Anarchists and The Rise of Lenin00:19:54 Lenin Rebrands “Communism” and Eclipses Anarchism00:21:00 The Ideas Don’t Go Away, The Red Scare and Anarchy Is Outlawed in America00:23:09 Spain’s Temporary Anarchy Breakthrough00:31:33 WWII’s Destructive Demonstration and Anarchy’s Response through Alex Comfort00:37:42 The Leviathan, Moral Atrophy, and the Death Drive00:41:57 The Free Love and Civil Rights Anarchists Rediscover the Classics00:46:48 The Cold War Slander of Ideas00:51:16 Neoliberalism, Reagan, Thatcher, and Punk Anarchy00:57:20 The Anarchy Tradition and Identity01:01:04 Rallying Points, Headline Events, and a Rekindling of Anarchism01:06:55 The Journal of Anarchist Studies

In this conversation, I sit down with Ruth Kinna, historian of anarchism and professor of political theory, to explore the roots of anarchist thought—from Proudhon’s challenge to property to Bakunin’s clash with Marx to Kropotkin’s vision of anarchist communism. But first, we confront the towering figure of Thomas Hobbes, whose vision of human nature still shapes how we justify power today.What if anarchism isn’t chaos but a creative, practical response to domination? We track how anarchists challenged the state, capitalism, and even socialism itself, revealing a tradition that’s far more nuanced—and necessary—than its reputation suggests. This is Part 1, setting the stage for a deeper dive into how anarchism lives and breathes in today’s world.whatjaythinks.com00:00:00 Intro: A Renewed Interest in Anarchy and Libertarianism00:04:22 Intro: The Dark Shadow of Thomas Hobbes00:07:30 “Greed Is Good” and Human Nature00:15:18 Where Proudhon Begins and What Anarchy Isn’t00:20:00 Hobbes Builds the Sovereign Beast00:25:23 Proudhon Tries To Intellectually Slay the Dragon00:29:44 “Property Is Theft”00:33:17 The Enclosure Movements and The End of Free Shared Open Land00:38:14 Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”, and International Workers00:40:22 The Socialism Split, Marx vs. Bakunin00:46:04 The Paris Commune, Demise and Legacy00:50:25 How Should We Think About Marx00:55:56 Kropotkin Pushes “Anarchist Communism”01:01:45 What Is “Mine” Without Private Property?01:05:55 The American Interest in Anarchy01:10:55 Anti-Slavery Anarchy, Lucy Parsons and Emma Goldman

In this video, I talk with Peter Beinart about Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza and the cracks forming in Zionism. But first, I share a personal reflection: What if Judaism’s survival isn’t about being the Chosen People, but about Chosen Families? Could the very thing seen as a threat be what actually saves it? We dive into power, myth, and the future of Jewish identity in a post-Zionist world.00:00:00 Intro: The Unbroken Chain00:16:21 Inviting me back to Shabbat00:18:28 Dropping The Curtain Too Early on Jewish Stories of Victimhood00:21:31 When Did Peter See The Cracks in Zionism?00:24:45 The Painfully Broken Relationships00:26:56 Zionism As Colonialism and the American Parallel00:30:43 Uprooted People versus Unrooted People00:34:04 Our Failure To Speak Up And How Fix It00:37:11 Loving Israel to Death00:42:05 The Big Bad “G” Word for Jews00:45:38 The Book of Joshua and The Zionist00:49:11 The Jewish God and Zionism in a “Post Post Colonial World”00:55:14 The Problem of Blaming Jewish Brutalism on the Brutalism of the World01:00:22 How Did it Get This Bad and Will It Get Worse?01:02:42 What Do You Do At the Synagogue during the Prayer For Israel?01:06:19 The Criticism of Focusing on Jews while Palestinians Are Targeted?01:09:18 Outro and A Potential Future Guest

Donald Trump is often mocked for his bluntness, but what if his “no more bullshit” approach is actually revealing something deeper—something that both leftists and Trumpers can recognize about the world order? In this video, I break down what Trump’s honesty really exposes, from his bizarre Greenland purchase idea to his “Gaza Riviera” plan, and how it all connects to the long-standing contradictions of empire, neoliberalism, and self-determination. This isn’t a defense of Trump—far from it—but an attempt to speak across the political divide, to find where we actually agree on the failures of the system and where we fundamentally differ on what should come next.00:00 Intro The Honesty of Donald Trump00:58 The Weird Thing About Greenland0:4:28 A Giant Game of Risk06:40 Neoliberalism's Transactional Definition of Freedom10:59 Worlds We Want? Or Worlds We Can't Resist?13:08 A Century of Self Intertest vs Self Determination20:58 The Shared Skepticism of Global Power23:39 We Scared Ourselves25:58 When We Were Together AtOccupy Wall Street30:12 What's Wrong With Trump's Gaza Plan?37:03 Leftist Theory of Man at odds with Neoliberalism40:17 The Morality of "He Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins"

In this video, I sit down with journalist and whistleblower Jack Poulson to uncover the hidden world of surveillance, data brokers, and the quiet war on dissent. We explore how pro-Palestine protesters are being tracked, the real-time auctions selling your personal data, and the murky alliances between Big Tech, intelligence agencies, and the military. Jack breaks down the mechanics of AI-powered repression, from facial recognition threats to the Pentagon’s hands-off approach to ethical oversight. Alongside this, I examine the philosophy of data capture—how the “front door” of willing consent and the “back door” of clandestine access have converged into a powerful system of control... with some important vulnerabilities and weaknesses.Jack Poulson's Site : https://techinquiry.org/Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013) : https://youtu.be/hRJEYmodC08?si=2vBOdOGIfa7C2yHSWrath of Zion Investigation on Dropsite : https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-palestine-dox-new-york-facial-recognition-ai00:00:00 Intro: Jack Poulson the Google “Whistleblower”00:03:27 Intro: The Trackpad Dilemma and Ethical Surveillance00:08:30 Intro: The Open Front and Locked Back Door of Data Access00:27:30 Jack Poulson’s style of Journalism and the “Whistleblower Trap”00:33:30 How Surveillance Programs are Marketed00:37:47 The Wrath of Zion Investigation and Intimidation of Pro Palestine Protests00:47:35 Facial Recognition and What Can Be Done With Data00:52:26 Two Paths to the Data01:04:54 Apps and Terms and Conditions May Apply vs Direct Wiretaps01:13:25 Children’s Data and Zuckerberg’s Emojis01:16:42 Security and Privacy “Tradeoffs” and Advocacy to Journalism01:27:37 What Are They Trying to Build and Will Incompetence Save Us?01:39:07 U.S Tech Companies are Effectively Peers of the U.S. Government01:50:58 The Digital Dock Worker Who Refuses to Pass Along 1’s and 0’s01:57:42 Where Are the Vulnerabilities In This Digital Web02:04:47 What Constitutes a Contribution to a Bomb Being Dropped On Children?02:11:41 Keep Up With Jack