PODCAST · society
The Portal
by Kast Media
The Portal is an exploration into discovery, including conversations with thought leaders. Host Eric Weinstein, Managing Director of Thiel Capital, brings his unique expertise and diverse roster of guests for a wide range of discussions, including science, culture, business, and capitalism. The show will feature people whose lives demonstrate that portals into what we would normally consider impossible, are indeed possible. Guests include presidential candidate Andrew Yang, NY Times bestselling author Sam Harris, and retired Navy Seal and creator of the hit business podcast Jocko Willink.
Episodes
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42: Cashing Out My Trump & IDW Positions
In this solo episode, Eric shares three related audio essays. In the first essay, Eric admits that he has spent the last four years asserting that Donald Trump represented an Existential Risk, but without the usual contempt for his supporters. Here, Eric finally responds to the frequent requests...
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41: Douglas Murray - Heroism 2020: Defense of Our Own Civilization
If you don't know Douglas Murray, in the estimation of the The Portal, this may well be the most important voice you will hear from the United Kingdom for some time. In the tradition of De Tocqueville and Alistair Cook's famous "Letter from America," Douglas Murray is America's true friend. He is...
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40: Introducing The Portal Essay Club - What if everyone is simply insane?
If you have ever wondered whether you were crazy when everyone else claims to see things differently than you do, this is the episode for you. Book clubs are everywhere and we are always asked for book recommendations. But what about the great Essays, Interviews, Conversations, Aphorisms, Shaggy...
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39: Admission To Sugar Baby U.
One of the pillars of the American Dream has been that of seeing your children go to college. And, for the many families that can't afford the cost of soaring university tuitions, a new controversial institution has arisen to address the problem. That institution is Sugar Baby University, a…
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38: Mass Media, Markets, and Human Malware: A Portal Q&A
With this release, we try something a little different on The Portal. We begin an initiative to search for ways to feature members of the vibrant Portal sub-communities as part of the podcast itself, by requesting that listeners send in their questions around the prompt: “Mass media, markets, and...
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37: Andrew Marantz - Surfing the Wake of The Woke
New Yorker writer and book author Andrew Marantz and Eric became friends shortly before the 2016 election when Andrew set off to write the first profile of Eric and Geometric Unity, his theory of Physics. Coming from similar ethnic and politically progressive backgrounds they found plenty of…
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36: Dark Matter, Black Matters and All That Jazz
Stephon Alexander is a first class jazz musician as well as a first rate physicist and a professor at Brown University. As the New President of the National Society of Black Physicists, Eric sits down with Stephon over a good deal of wine to discuss particles, politics, blackness and STEM, and...
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35: Balaji Srinivasan - The Heretic & The Virus
Investor Balaji Srinivasan is a highly original thinker in Silicon Valley on Biotech to Blockchain and everything in between. Most recently, he was quite early in warning us about the Corona virus and was ridiculed for his efforts by many in the world of institutional sense-making. That is before...
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34: Zev Weinstein - On Parenting, Boys & Generation Z
This is the first episode of The Portal which was 100% recorded at home, during quarantine, under social isolation. The guest is none other than my own son Zev Weinstein and the recording was timed to straddle his midnight transition from being 14 into being 15 years old. Zev is currently a 9th...
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33: Josh Wolfe - The Mind Financing The Future
Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital is a leading mind in the current wave of venture capitalists making waves. While aware of each other for some time, in this episode Josh sits down with Eric for their first meeting. Together the two explore various topics from comparing notes on their encounters with Jim...
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32: J. D. Vance - American Dreams and Nightmares
It is said that there is not one American dream but many, and few have lived more than JD Vance. Growing up in Appalachia on the border between poverty and the lower working class, JD knew economic fear first hand as well as the cultural devastation of the region's post-coal era. Working his way...
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31: Ryan Holiday - Conspiracy, Manipulation & other Pastimes
Ryan Holiday is a master manipulator with a cool head, and keen eye for social observation and a big heart. Eric sits down with the Author of "Conspiracy" and tries to get a self-confessed former manipulator and one of the top emerging millennial social analysts to tell us how he unweaves…
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30: Ross Douthat - The Rave Before the Fall
Just before the great indooring due to the Pandemic of 2020, Eric sat down with conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat to discuss his book "The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success." Over champagne flutes filled with bubbly, the two discussed the various ways...
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29: Jamie Metzl - The Bio-Hacker will see you now, Ready or Not
Former National Security analyst turned author Jamie Metzel has written a book called Hacking Darwin. The book attempts to use storytelling to explore where we are as the new era of rewriting our cells and ourselves gets into full swing. Here he sits down with Eric to explore the negatives and...
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A Portal Special Presentation- Geometric Unity: A First Look
A Portal Special Presentation- Geometric Unity: A First Look See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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28: Eric Lewis - The Singular Genius of Elew
Eric Lewis is an open portal, a wonderful friend and one of the most important pianists in the world by our measure. As such, we will not bother with further notes for this episode. If you love the quest of the show as well as authentic soulful music, this is your guy. We simply sat down at a...
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27: Daniel Schmachtenberger - On Avoiding Apocalypses
In this second episode of the Portal to be released during shelter-in-place restrictions during the Corona Virus Pandemic, we release an older discussion with Daniel Shmachtenberger on whether there is any plausible long term scenario for human flourishing confined to a single shared planet.…
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26: James O’Keefe - What is (and isn't) Journalism in the 21st century
James O'Keefe is a dangerous man. He records people without their knowledge and publishes the results using the full power of our technological toolkit. He is well versed in the details of the law as to what can and cannot be legally recorded and/or published without the consent or even awareness...
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25: The Construct - Jeffrey Epstein
Over half a year ago, immediately following the reported death of Jeffrey Epstein, Eric recorded a solo episode that he never released in hopes that its subject matter would be overtaken by investigative journalism. As this has not happened, it is being released with some trepidation in March of...
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24: Kai Lenny - To Play and Flirt with Giants
In a world which is often slow-moving and even stagnant, there are always sectors and individuals who buck the trends. In this episode of The Portal, Eric sits down with his favorite surfing hero Kai Lenny who is pioneering a new approach to big wave surfing. By availing himself of the latest...
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23: Agnes Callard - Courage, Meta-cognitive detachment and their limits
Philosopher and University of Chicago Professor Agnes Callard sits down with Eric on this episode of the portal. Agnes is a champion of the philosophical tradition of attempting to detach the capacity for inquiry and reason from the fog of feelings and societal taboos that often keep us from...
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22: Ben Greenfield - Wheat From Chaff in Human Fitness
Eric sits down with leading fitness geek, guru, thinker and human guinea-pig Ben Greenfield to learn how one of the world's most highly regarded trainers and fitness experts cuts through the nightmare that is our medical literature. The academic and medical literature in health and medicine is a...
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21: Ashley Mathews (aka Riley Reid) - The mogul and brains behind America's Sweetheart
Historically, fighting obscenity and indecency charges has always been a central part of the free speech movement. Jim Morrison, Mae West, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin have all been arrested for exciting the public in ways that authorities have found threatening. Recently, however, the erotic…
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20: Sir Roger Penrose - Plotting the Twist of Einstein’s Legacy
Roger Penrose is arguably the most important living descendent of Albert Einstein’s school of geometric physics. In this episode of The Portal, we avoid the usual questions put to roger about quantum foundations and quantum consciousness. Instead we go back to ask about the current status of his...
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19: Bret Weinstein - The Prediction and the DISC
All of our Mice are Broken. On this episode of The Portal, Bret and Eric sit down alone with each other for the first time in public. There was no plan. There was however, a remarkable story of science at its both best and worst that had not been told in years. After an initial tussle, we dusted...
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18: Slipping the DISC: State of The Portal & Chapter 2020
This "housekeeping" (cough cough) episode of The Portal is only for the hard core listeners who launched this experiment with us. This year we begin to take on the idea of the Distributed Idea Suppression Complex or "DISC". From "Terms of Service" changes, to selective enforcement of rules, peer...
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17: Anna Khachiyan - Reconstructing The Mystical Feminine From The Ashes Of “The Feminine Mystique”
Somewhere on the road between Stalingrad and Forever21, something essential got misplaced amidst the bathos. Eric works through a bottle of Red wine on air with social, literary and artistic theorist Anna Khachiyan (co-host of the explosive and popular Red Scare podcast) to find out what is…
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16: Tyler Cowen - The Revolution Will Not Be Marginalized
In this episode, Eric sits down with Tyler Cowen to discuss how/why a Harvard educated chess prodigy would choose a commuter school to launch a stealth attack on the self-satisfied economic establishment, various forms of existential risk, tech/social stagnation and more. On first glance, Tyler...
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15: Garrett Lisi - My Arch-nemesis, Myself.
Garrett Lisi, the so called "Surf Bum with a Theory of Everything (or T.O.E.)", is a PhD theoretical physicist who has refused to be captured by the theoretical physics community. By making shrewd investments, he has avoided holding meaningful employment for his entire adult life. Instead, he…
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14: London Tsai - The Reclusive Dean of The New Escherians
What happened to the Mathematical and Scientific art movement after MC Escher? It went underground. In this episode of the Portal, Eric begins tracking down the leaders of this hidden movement; one that is smuggling higher level science into transcendent art forms. Eric had to coax one the...
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13: Garry Kasparov - Avoiding Zugzwang in AI and Politics
In this cordially combative episode, Eric sits down with Russian chess legend, multiple-year champion and (inarguably) one of the greatest players of all time, Garry Kasparov. The two discuss transcending AI-induced demotivation, AI brilliancy (and lack thereof), the perilous time for global...
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12: Vitalik Buterin - The Ethereal Prince and His Virtual Machine
In this episode, Vitalik Buterin sits down with Eric to discuss ethereum, the wider world of crypto and heterodox economics. Taking note of the new development of blockchain in 2010, Eric wrote an essay called “Go Virtual Young Man”. A few years later, a Thiel Fellow named Vitalik created a…
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11: Sam Harris - Fighting with Friends
On this episode of The Portal, Eric talks to one of his closest friends, neuroscientist, philosopher and meditation-guru, Sam Harris. When Sam and Eric sit down they generally agree about a large number of things. So in this experiment of a session, Eric attempts to push the relentlessly…
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10: Julie Lindahl: Shaking the poisoned fruit of shame out of the family tree
Eric sits down with Julie Lindahl, author of "The Pendulum". What happens when an ethnically German girl growing up in Brazil gets curious to finally make sense of her family history to stop the cycle of dysfunction? Julie Lindahl’s new book "The Pendulum" shows us what it can take to find a…
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9: Bryan Callen - Cracking Wise
Eric sits down with friend, philosopher, comic, actor and fighter Bryan Callen for a wide ranging conversation on camaraderie, conflict and comedy. Over the course of 2+ hours, the two discuss difficult topics like the holocaust, gender dynamics and the legacy of the enlightenment on the eve of…
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8: Andrew Yang - The Dangerously Different Candidate The Media Wants You To Ignore
In this episode of the Portal, Eric checks in with his friend Andrew Yang to discuss the meteoric rise of his candidacy; one that represents an insurgency against a complacent political process that the media establishment doggedly tries to maintain. Andrew updates Eric on the state of his…
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7: Bret Easton Ellis - The Dark Laureate of Generation X
Eric sits down with Bret Easton Ellis; the two Gen X’ers graduated from rival high schools in a disaffected 1982 Los Angeles that inspired Ellis’ first novel “Less Than Zero”. In this conversation, they reflect on LA, Generation X, and the different notions of childhood held by Gen x and...
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6: Jocko Willink - The Way of the Violent Intellectual
Jocko Willink is a man who radiates decency. He is also part of a community of warriors drawn to test themselves in the crucible of deadly combat against an evil and implacable foe. Eric sits down with Jocko Willink to learn how this cerebral Navy SEAL and hero of the battle of Ramadi against…
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5: Rabbi Wolpe - “So a Rabbi and an atheist walk into a podcast...”
Beyond New Atheism: is a constructive adult relationship possible between atheism and religion? On this episode of the portal, Eric hosts leading conservative rabbi David Wolpe and explores the possibilities for, and problems with, a new synthesis of atheism and religion in our modern era that...
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4: Timur Kuran - The Economics of Revolution and Mass Deception
What if everything we are taught in economics 101 is not only wrong, but may even be setting us up for populism, dictatorship or revolution? On this episode of the Portal, Eric is joined by renegade Economist Professor Timur Kuran whose theory of Preference Falsification appears to explain the...
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3: Werner Herzog
Episode 3 of The Portal is with film director Werner Herzog. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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2: What Is The Portal?
What is the portal? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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1: Peter Thiel
Welcome to The Portal. Episode 1 is a conversation with Peter Thiel. Please subscribe to The Portal anywhere you listen to podcasts, and leave us a rating and review in Apple Podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Welcome to The Portal
The Portal is hosted by Eric Weinstein. Subscribe in iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Portal is an exploration into discovery, including conversations with thought leaders. Host Eric Weinstein, Managing Director of Thiel Capital, brings his unique expertise and diverse roster of guests for a wide range of discussions, including science, culture, business, and capitalism. The show will feature people whose lives demonstrate that portals into what we would normally consider impossible, are indeed possible. Guests include presidential candidate Andrew Yang, NY Times bestselling author Sam Harris, and retired Navy Seal and creator of the hit business podcast Jocko Willink.
HOSTED BY
Kast Media
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Portal have?
The Portal currently has 44 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Portal about?
The Portal is an exploration into discovery, including conversations with thought leaders. Host Eric Weinstein, Managing Director of Thiel Capital, brings his unique expertise and diverse roster of guests for a wide range of discussions, including science, culture, business, and capitalism. The...
How often does The Portal release new episodes?
The Portal has 44 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Portal?
You can listen to The Portal on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Portal?
The Portal is created and hosted by Kast Media.
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