This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live The Crowd returns triumphantly this week, for a rollicking conversation with one of Twitter's brightest and most iconoclastic personalities, Phillippe Lemoine. Phillippe writes the War on Science newsletter for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology , and is also working on a book on the recent history of Russo-American foreign policy. We begin the show talking about direct democracy, and whether "th...
Nov 18, 2022•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live The Crowd is back to two members this week, as we sat down to talk about Elon Musk's recent takeover of Twitter and what, if anything, it means. One of Musk's first posts as the owner of Twitter was retweeting a conspiracy theory about the recent attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband— is this a sign that Twitter will become more like Parler, or significantly less-censored corners of the internet? Liberals are furious ab...
Nov 02, 2022•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live American men are struggling across the board. Falling behind in school, rapidly shrinking as a share of students in higher education, overwhelmingly the victims of violent crime, males in the United States are increasingly alienated and disconnected from our economy and society. That's the argument of Richard Reeves, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and author of the acclaimed new book, Of Boys and Men: Why t...
Oct 14, 2022•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live It’s been a turbulent few months for the United Kingdom: the scandal-ridden departure of a prime minister, the death of a beloved queen, economic woes, and the accession of a less-beloved king. We decided it would be best to have an actual British person on the podcast to discuss it all with, so we invited Josh Glancy, columnist for The Sunday Times. We began by highlighting the strange contrast between the recent ...
Oct 04, 2022•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live The Crowd is flying solo (duo?) again for this week's episode, focusing on recent developments in the war in Ukraine, Iranian protests, and Europe's under-the-radar political upheavals. The Russian government recently declared a "partial mobilization" to aid in the war effort, and Vladimir Putin threatened to defend Russia's gains with nuclear weapons. How much affect will mobilization have on the course of the war...
Sep 26, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This podcast came after a whirlwind few weeks for the Crowd– Damir returned from his odyssey through the Balkans, and Shadi was the recipient of several Twitter pile-ons. Oh, and the Queen died. Before getting to all that, though, we ramble through a potpourri of other subjects. Damir gives relationship advice. Shadi tells us why he's against pets and hiking. A conversation about whether animals have souls turns in...
Sep 16, 2022•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast We did something a little unusual for this week: a crossover episode. We sat down with Susannah Black Roberts and Peter Mommsen—the hosts of Ploughcast, from Plough Quarterly , a Christian magazine of ideas and culture—for a conversation about the "post-liberal" movement as well as broader questions of the "common good" (does it exist?). All four of us are coming from vastly different perspectives and backgrounds, and that came out in our spirited conversation. Our conversation about the common ...
Sep 02, 2022•2 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Just as it has a past, liberalism has a future. The only question is whether this future will be compelling enough for those who have lost faith. We have our doubts. Which is why we wanted to talk to Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man and perhaps the foremost thinker on the development of modern political order. In his new book, Liberalism and Its Discontents , Fukuyama mounts a compreh...
Aug 26, 2022•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week's episode features one of Twitter's more controversial figures: Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale and author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them . In true Wisdom of Crowds fashion, we wanted a more measured and wide-ranging exchange of views than Twitter could provide, so we invited Stanley onto the podcast to discuss Trumpism and the Republican Party, the use of the word "fas...
Aug 21, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live The FBI's surprise "raid" on Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago this week has been hailed in some quarters as a triumph for the rule of law, and seen in others as signs of a slide into banana-republic status. We invited Jason Willick, a Washington Post columnist who writes on legal issues, to sit down with us and discuss the deeper implications of the event. True to the Crowd's ethos, we focused on fundamental ...
Aug 11, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live We welcomed a truly important thinker onto the podcast this week. Walter Russell Mead joined us to discuss his latest book The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People . Many critics of American foreign policy have long pointed to our long-standing relationship with Israel as proof of the power of the "Israel Lobby" to influence American politics. Mead's latest book shows that...
Aug 05, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, we had writer Nick Burns on the podcast. Nick's recent essay , "Why Live in America?" prompted Shadi to write his Monday Note for July 4th. We delve into the ways America is different than Europe, for good and for ill. Size, geography, culture, dynamism—all these twist and disfigure many European imports when they land on our shores. When educated Americans pine for a more European lifestyle, are they si...
Jul 29, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live We return to a question that the Crowd has been chewing over for the last month or so: why do things– political systems, regimes, parties– change? Do ideas really change the world? And can individual actions really have any effect on larger systems? Climate change, and whether we think world governments can mend their ways in time to avert the worst of the crisis, begins the discussion. We discuss whether governmen...
Jul 21, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week was a first for the podcast– we welcomed two guests, Michael Wear and Jane Coaston. Michael is a rare fish, an Evangelical Christian and a Democratic political strategist who worked as President Obama's director of faith outreach in the 2012 campaign, going on to lead Evangelical outreach for the Obama White House's faith based initiative. An article he recently wrote for his Substack, "This is How to End...
Jul 15, 2022•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week we sat down to debate America's greatness—or lack thereof. Somewhat to our surprise, we found a source of agreement between us: our belief in American exceptionalism, even if we have very different conceptions of the role of morality and "progress" in forging the American idea. Countries in Europe may have a more leisurely pace of life and higher levels of reported happiness, but is that really what Ameri...
Jul 08, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Jamie Kirchick joins us to discuss the triumph and sorrow of the gay experience in the nation's capitol. This is the story of The Secret City , Kirchick's genre-defining and panoramic history of the gay men and women who served in the halls of power, all the while in constant fear that they would lose their jobs and perhaps even their lives. It got worse before it got better. We discuss how the national security st...
Jun 24, 2022•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live A few weeks back, a book title caught our eye. It was called Two Billion Caliphs , written by Haroon Moghul. Mixing personal narrative and theological ruminations, it promised to offer a bold new vision for Muslims living in the 21st century. Being that we frequently talk about the importance of religion in the modern world, inviting Haroon on was a no-brainer. A rich episode ensued. We talked about how 9/11 did (a...
Jun 17, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week we invited the author Oliver Traldi on the podcast to talk about the role of experts in society and how we assess different kinds of skill, talent, and truth. Oliver, a writing fellow at Heterodox Academy and a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, is one of the most exciting young thinkers and writers around today—as evidenced by his recent tour-de-force of an essay titled " W...
Jun 12, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Ideas have consequences. From the early 2000s Matt Continetti, the author of the fascinating new book The Right , has worked at some of the leading institutions of American conservatism. He has seen firsthand how many of them fallen or lost their way. But where conservatism's critics see a movement that has become unrecognizable and even dangerous, Continetti sees instead a rich, vibrant, and messy war of ideas, in...
Jun 05, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week Shadi and Damir sat down to discuss the Uvalde mass shooting and its aftermath. Tragedy has struck the American psyche once again. The murder of innocent children has Americans groping for answers but the seemingly scripted discourse in the wake of such tragedies provides anything but solid answers. Are there really any viable legislative paths to prevent such terrible shootings? Must everyone “read the r...
May 30, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Shadi has been curious about whether he has diverged from the left since Bernie Sanders' campaign, so he invited the socialist thinker Daniel Bessner onto the podcast this week for a spirited discussion of first principles. Bessner is one of the most influential and important leftist intellectuals writing on foreign policy today. He is the Joff Hanauer Honors Professor in Western Civilization at the University of W...
May 15, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week we were joined by Molly Ball, bestselling author of Pelosi , to talk about how the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade will (or won't) change American politics for decades to come. Until a few days ago, Americans could act politically under the assumption that Roe was permanent. But it may not be. Ending Roe v. Wade would mean abortion would be decided by states, presumably according to the whims, desires...
May 08, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Much of the freakout about Elon Musk buying Twitter is based on an assumption that social media is integral to democracies and a critical tool for dissidents living in repressive regimes. But what if that assumption is overblown? Are the dustups over Twitter's new ownership really just a proxy war for the broader freedom of speech debate that has been ratcheting up recently? Just as Elon was talking up Twitter, Bar...
May 01, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, Elisabeth Zerofsky of The New York Times Magazine joins us after recent reporting trips in Paris and Berlin. In Part 1 , we talked about the upcoming French election and the rise of the far-right in France. The West is looking on nervously as President Macron tries to fend off a challenge from Marine Le Pen, a populist with ties to Putin. Regardless of the outcome, French voters have veered to the right—...
Apr 22, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, Shadi and Damir debate whether the war in Ukraine is breathing new life into the liberal idea. It seemed like liberalism might stage a comeback, but Putin-adjacent rightwing populists are still going strong in France and Hungary. Shadi insists he's a liberal who's critical of liberalism, which pushes Damir to question what exactly that means in practice. When is too much illiberalism too much? Also: Dami...
Apr 16, 2022•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week we were joined by Christine Emba, a columnist at the Washington Post and author of the fascinating new book Rethinking Sex: A Provocation . What resulted was the longest episode in Wisdom of Crowds history, delving into some uncharted territory. We discuss a lot of big topics—the perils of modern dating, the sex recession, consent, incels, marriage, porn, and Tinder hookup culture. If we have so much free...
Apr 05, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live In a classic wide-ranging episode, Shadi and Damir kick things off by noticing that the Ukraine War is no longer capturing “the discourse” as it did a week ago. Does how we consume media make it difficult for us to grapple with the moment’s most important stories? And does the same phenomenon make us overrate the importance of things like wokeness? As the conversation proceeds, and talk turns to Biden’s democracy-v...
Mar 29, 2022•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live What’s the nature of our enemy in Ukraine? Is it Putin, Russia, or authoritarianism? What are the sources of the West’s strength and its capacities for revival? And how should we think about evil in the world? The political philosopher Samuel Kimbriel joins Shadi and Damir to help unpack these questions, and many others in a wide-ranging philosophical discussion. In the subscriber-only portion of the episode, the d...
Mar 18, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live The firebrand journalist and author Glenn Greenwald joined us for a broad-ranging discussion on the war in Ukraine and the past few decades of American foreign policy. We tackled the comparisons between Russia's invasion, the Iraq War, and other disastrous American foreign policy failures. Does America's good intent set it apart from countries like Russia, or are we more similar than we care to admit? In the full s...
Mar 10, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, Berlin-based journalist and New York Times Magazine contributing writer Elisabeth Zerofsky joins us to discuss how Russia's invasion of Ukraine has changed Europe. What explains the righteous fury of previously pacific Germans? Shadi asks Elisabeth and Damir what a "red line" in Ukraine could possibly be—or if it even exists. For example, how might the United States respond in hypothetical scenarios of l...
Mar 04, 2022•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
