Psychologist and author Scott Barry Kaufman joins Reason 's Nick Gillespie to discuss his new book Rise Above , which challenges the growing embrace of victimhood as identity. They explore how traits such as neuroticism and vulnerable narcissism are shaping modern culture, why social media rewards grievance over growth, and what it really takes to develop a more flexible, empowered sense of self. Kaufman reflects on his own journey from special education to Carnegie Mellon and beyond, explains w...
Jun 18, 2025•52 min
Today's guest is the former MTV video jockey and current Fox News personality Kennedy , who emerged in the 1990s as a leading voice of Gen X when it came to politics and culture. Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with her about how a generation raised on neglect, nuclear nightmares, and Nirvana forged an ethos of irreverence and independence that still matters today. Kennedy explains her evolution from a teen Republican who swooned over Dan Quayle to a principled libertarian, why the culture of alt...
Jun 11, 2025•49 min
Today's guest is Helen Lewis , a British journalist and podcaster who is a staff writer for The Atlanti c . Her new book is The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea , and it explores how the definition of what it means to be a genius has changed radically over the centuries, how it became linked to all sorts of weird biological theories, and how Elon Musk has come to personify genius in our time (and whether his failure at the Department of Government Efficiency spells the end of h...
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr 35 min
Today's guest is the legendary journalist and New Yorker staffer Lawrence Wright . He is the author of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief ; The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 ; and The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid . Wright talks with Reason 's Nick Gillespie about The Human Scale , his new novel set in the war-torn Middle East, and why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict keeps burning even as most of the 20th century's conflicts have cooled. The...
May 28, 2025•1 hr 4 min
Did mainstream conservatives and libertarians lose a generation of young men to the post-liberal, reactionary right? Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with C. Bradley Thompson, author of the Substack newsletter The Redneck Intellectual, and Jeremiah Johnson of the Center for New Liberalism, who wrote the article "Weak Men Create Hard Times: And Weak Men Love a Strongman." This conversation was recorded live on Wednesday May 21. The post C. Bradley Thompson and Jeremiah Johnson: Rise of the 'MAGA Ma...
May 23, 2025•1 hr 2 min
"You don't get conned because you're stupid—you get conned because you're human." That's the message of this week's guest, Brian Brushwood . He's an Austin-based magician, podcaster, and professional skeptic. With shows like Scam Nation and The Modern Rogue , he's taught millions of us how to upgrade our B.S. detectors in a world where truth is more up for grabs than ever before. Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with him about World's Greatest Con , Brushwood's mind-blowing podcast where he reveal...
May 21, 2025•51 min
Are you part of the growing stoicism movement ? Built on virtue, reason, and self-control, the ancient Roman philosophy is gaining popularity in a world that just seems to get crazier and crazier. Today's guest is a self-described stoic. Robert Rosenkranz is the author of The Stoic Capitalist: Advice for the Exceptionally Ambitious , which takes a deep dive into how stoic principles can lead to personal, financial, and social success. Rosenkranz charts his path from a small, cramped family apart...
May 16, 2025•52 min
Today's guest is evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins , whom Reason 's Nick Gillespie interviewed last fall in Milwaukee as part of his "Final Bow" tour . Gillespie and Dawkins talked about why he believes science can't thrive without freedom, why gender ideology is starting to look a lot like Soviet Lysenkoism , and why some truths—like the binary nature of biological sex—shouldn't be up for political negotiation. Dawkins discusses his new book, The Genetic Book of the D...
May 14, 2025•1 hr 34 min
"I feel fear… because they're somewhat vindictive people. I don't care who you are, having this set of people mad at you is not comfortable." That's today's guest, Cliff Asness , talking about President Donald Trump, his administration, and his supporters. Asness is the outspoken billionaire co-founder of AQR Capital Management. He is also a pioneer in quantitative finance, University of Chicago Ph.D., and self-described " part-time Republican and full-time libertarian. " He talks bluntly about ...
May 09, 2025•52 min
Today's guest is Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Pinker and Reason 's Nick Gillespie discuss recent shifts at Harvard toward greater institutional neutrality and free speech, while warning that threats to academic freedom now come from both internal ideologies and external political forces—including pressure from the federal government under President Donald Trump. Pinker defends the role of federal science funding but cautions against political micromanagement of academia, emphasizing the n...
May 07, 2025•59 min
Today's guest is John Arnold —the former Enron wunderkind and billionaire philanthropist (and Reason Foundation supporter) who's determined to hack America's most expensive and least accountable public sector systems in areas such as criminal justice, education, and pensions. (Fun fact: He was once called " the most hated man in pensionland " by Governing magazine due to his reform efforts.) Reason 's Nick Gillespie and Arnold talk about why public pensions are so out of control and how to fix t...
Apr 30, 2025•51 min
Jeffrey Singer, a Cato Institute fellow and longtime surgeon, argues that government overreach in health care undermines patient autonomy, which should be the guiding principle in medical decision making. Drawing from historical examples and personal experience, he critiques licensing laws, the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) drug approval monopoly, and Certificate of Need (CON) regulations as protectionist measures that limit competition and innovation. Singer contends that private institu...
Apr 23, 2025•52 min
Today's guest is Harvard economist Jason Furman , who was one of former President Barack Obama's chief economic advisers and an architect of the Affordable Care Act . These days, he's in the news for his withering critique of former President Joe Biden's dismal economic record and two-fisted attacks on President Donald Trump's trade policy. We talk about Furman's defense of global markets, Obamacare's unfulfilled promises, and why he now thinks the national debt and AI are bigger deals than he u...
Apr 16, 2025•53 min
Today's guest is Mark Clifford, former editor in chief of the South China Morning Post whose recent book, The Troublemaker , chronicles the life of Jimmy Lai, a man who escaped mainland Communist China to Hong Kong as a child and went on to become a self-made billionaire. But now at age 77, Lai is a political prisoner, currently on trial in China for his unwavering criticism of the government, particularly as it relates to a pro-democracy publication he founded called Apple Daily. Clifford and R...
Apr 09, 2025•58 min
Satire is a powerful force for political and cultural change. But is it even possible in a world that outstrips our imagination on a daily—or even hourly—basis? Today's guests are two young novelists who are redefining satire in the 21st century. Leigh Stein is the author of Self Care , which is set at a women's wellness startup where things go very wrong. Her next novel, If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You , takes place at a social media hype house and comes out in August. Julius Taranto ...
Apr 02, 2025•52 min
You've probably heard about microdosing , which involves taking a small, "sub-perceptual" dose of psychedelics like LSD or psilocybin on a regular basis to ward off depression, anxiety, and chronic pain—or to optimize focus and boost energy. Today's guests are James Fadiman and Jordan Gruber , authors of the new book Microdosing for Health, Healing, and Enhanced Performance . Fadiman, a Stanford-trained research psychologist who has been working with psychedelics since the early 1960s, populariz...
Mar 26, 2025•59 min
Today's guest is Reason Senior Editor Brian Doherty , who has just published Modern Libertarianism: A Brief History of Classical Liberalism in the United States . His previous books include Radicals for Capitalism , the indispensable history of the libertarian movement, and titles covering the Ron Paul revolution, gun rights, Burning Man, and underground comics. Modern Libertarianism analyzes the political and cultural legacies of figures such as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, Mi...
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr 4 min
This week's guest is Rachel Barkow, a professor of law at New York University and the author of the book Justice Abandoned: How the Supreme Court Ignored the Constitution and Enabled Mass Incarceration , which was just released this month. Barkow and Reason 's Billy Binion talked about the importance of the presidential pardon power—which is a controversial topic these days, after former President Joe Biden used it to preemptively pardon Anthony Fauci and members of his own family, and President...
Mar 12, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Our guest today is Alton Brown , who for years hosted Good Eats on the Food Network and brought his interest in science to the making of dinner. He's currently touring the country , and he has also just published Food for Thought , a great collection of essays about food, culture, and his life on and off the screen. In this episode, Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with Brown about how food transcends politics, why fusion cooking isn't cultural appropriation, and why there's always room for Jell-O...
Mar 05, 2025•59 min
Today's guest is Columbia University linguist and New York Times columnist John McWhorter . In 2021, he published Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America , which argued that politically correct "antiracism" was not only a new religion but a dangerous form of illiberalism that quashed free expression, individual liberty, and social progress. McWhorter talks with Reason 's Nick Gillespie about how far we've come since 2021—and whether we are entering a new era of open debate and...
Feb 26, 2025•49 min
Jim O'Shaughnessy is a superstar investor and venture capitalist who leads O'Shaughnessy Ventures and hosts the popular Infinite Loops podcast. He's also the coauthor of the new collection Two Thoughts , which compiles provocative quotes from figures ranging from Sam Adams and Ludwig von Mises to Frank Zappa. O'Shaughnessy chats with Reason 's Nick Gillespie about the power of free minds and free markets to improve the world, why societies thrive or perish, and how to build a better "bullshit de...
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 24 min
The Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, taking down with it the threat of international communism, right? Today's guest says no, writing that, "Far from dead, Communism as a governing template seems only to be getting started." Sean McMeekin is a historian at Bard College and the author of the mesmerizing book To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism . Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with him about the history of communism, how its focus on forced equality is inheren...
Feb 12, 2025•1 hr 21 min
Today's guest is Nico Perrino , executive vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), director of the 2020 documentary Mighty Ira , which profiles the longtime head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the author of a forthcoming book on the triumph of civil libertarians. He's also the host of the popular podcast So to Speak , which takes an "uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your ri...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 3 min
One of the very first things that Donald Trump did after being sworn in as president was to make good on promises to reduce both legal and illegal immigration . He even issued an executive order ending birthright citizenship, a right guaranteed by the Constitution's 14th Amendment. That order has already been blocked by a federal judge, and its fate may well end up being decided by the Supreme Court. But calls for less immigration are super popular, with 55 percent of Americans saying current le...
Jan 29, 2025•57 min
"Even paranoids have real enemies," said the poet Delmore Schwartz, who was both clinically paranoid and definitely on to something, according to today's guest: Michael Shermer , the founder of Skeptic magazine , Substack superstar , and author of many best-selling books about rationalism, the evolution of morality, and pseudoscience. He quotes Schwartz in his latest book, Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational , to drive home the point that big, world-changing secret plots happen a...
Jan 22, 2025•53 min
This week's guest is Christina Dent, whose organization, End It For Good, seeks to change the approach to addiction from a criminal justice issue to a health-centered one. But Dent is not your typical anti–drug war activist. She's an evangelical Christian who believes legalizing drugs is the conservative thing to do—a position she adopted after an encounter she had as a foster mom. Reason' s Billy Binion and Dent talked about her conservative religious upbringing, the surprising history of the w...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 26 min
" Tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary," says Donald Trump, who made many promises throughout the 2024 presidential race to raise the cost of imports from China, Mexico, and Canada—America's three biggest trading partners. But are Trump's tariffs a good idea or a terrible one? And is the era of free trade coming to a close? That's the topic of today's Reason Interview . Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with Dartmouth economist Douglas Irwin , author of Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Today's guest is Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun famous for her activism against the death penalty. In the early 1980s, Prejean met a prisoner on death row—Elmo Patrick Sonnier—after an activist asked her to write him a letter. She served as Sonnier's spiritual adviser and accompanied him to his death, which inspired her work against capital punishment. Her 1993 book, Dead Man Walking , was made into a movie starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, who won an Academy Award for her portrayal o...
Jan 01, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Few figures have literally and figuratively electrified American culture the way Bob Dylan has. He released his first album in 1962, won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, and continues to perform about 100 concerts a year at the ripe age of 83. His life is chronicled in the new movie A Complete Unknown , starring Timothée Chalamet. But what's the meaning—or meanings—of Bob Dylan, who sang at Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, became a born-again Christian in the 1970s, and wrote a ...
Dec 25, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Today's guest is Penny Lane , the acclaimed documentary filmmaker whose previous works include Listening to Kenny G and Hail Satan? , both of which formed the basis of previous Reason interviews linked in the show notes. Her exceptional new film is Confessions of a Good Samaritan . It's currently streaming on Netflix and follows her experience as an "altruistic" kidney donor, or one who gives an organ away to an anonymous stranger. Reason 's Nick Gillespie talks with Lane about how she came to m...
Dec 18, 2024•50 min
