The Gray Area with Sean Illing
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The Gray Area with Sean Illing
The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in...
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How we built a government that can’t build anything
Why is it so hard for America to build things?
Bridges take years to construct. Housing costs are soaring. Transit systems...
It’s okay to not be okay
It’s not always the most wonderful time of the year.
Every December, we’re told to be merry and stay positive. But a lot of...
Forgiveness is optional
You have to forgive people who wrong you…right? The world is filled with injustice and wrongdoing, and to live in the world — to not be consumed by an...
Across the Gooniverse
Sean’s guest today is Daniel Kolitz, author of a remarkable Harper’s story on “gooning.”
They talk about this emerging subculture and ho...
What counts as progress?
We’ve never had more wealth, more data, or more ways to be entertained. So why doesn’t it feel like progress?
Sean’s guest...
You’re not awkward — the world is.
We all know what awkwardness feels like. It's that jolt of discomfort when the social script breaks down, and no one knows what to do next. But what i...
Truth in an age of doublethink
We use “Orwellian” to describe everything from campus dust-ups to authoritarian crackdowns. But what did George Orwell actually stand for, what did he...
The case against free will
We all think of ourselves as authors of our lives. The difference between our happy ending and someone else’s tragic one are the choices we each make....
What the climate story gets wrong
The story we tell about climate change is mostly a story about loss. But look to the data, and that story starts to fall apart. Emissions are peaking...
The Great Enshittening
Open a browser and you can feel it instantly: everything online just feels… worse. Search results that look like ads. Social feeds that you don’t cont...
America chose violence. Now what?
Is America at a tipping point?
Sean Illing talks with Barbara Walter, one of the world’s leading experts on violent extremi...
You must remember this?
We like to think of memory as a record of the past. But that’s not really what it is. Memory doesn’t keep the past — it can also remake it. It stitche...
Why TikTok matters
This week, Sean talks with Emily Baker-White, author of Every Screen on the Planet, about why TikTok feels uniquely addictive, how it turned social me...
The sun will save us
Bill McKibben has spent four decades warning us about climate change. Much of what he predicted has come true. And yet, his new book Here Comes the Su...
How much free speech is too much?
Free speech is often treated as a timeless and sacred right. But what if it’s more myth than reality?
This week, Sean is jo...
Imagine there's no billionaires
How much money is too much?
In today’s episode, political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns tells Sean that we need to cap the amount of wealth...
America's lawyers vs. China's engineers
America has a hard time building stuff. Roads. Trains. Bridges. Housing. Everything takes seemingly forever. Meanwhile, China seems to have no trouble...
So, what exactly is the “New Right?”
A loose movement of radical intellectuals is driving American politics. They’re called the “New Right,” and they share a basic hostility to American...
America is losing big on sports betting
Almost every tech platform is designed to grab and hold your attention, to keep you clicking, scrolling, and buying for as long as possible.
It’s time to get weird
The internet was supposed to set us free. But somewhere along the way, it became a tool for surveillance, extraction, and control. What happened? And...
What if humans went extinct next Friday?
What comes after the human?
We’re living through multiple crises — ecological, technological, political. But beneath all of...
Can college survive Trump?
American higher education is under attack. Project 2025 laid out the battle plan pretty clearly: Get rid of the Department of Education, shut off fede...
Hopeful pessimism
We live in a culture obsessed with hope. We are trained to believe that being hopeful is the key to success. Stay positive. The sun will come out tomo...
If AI can do your classwork, why go to college?
What’s the point of college if no one’s actually doing the work? It’s not a rhetorical question. In the age of AI, it's incredibly easy for students t...
Is Trump winning?
We’re nearly six months into Donald Trump’s second term as president, and a lot of us are still trying to figure out what that actually means. Not jus...
A right-wing economist makes his case
For decades, the American right has stayed on brand: the economy. Low taxes. Free markets. Deregulation. Those have been the buzzwords for more than h...
What "near death" feels like
Sebastian Junger came as close as you possibly can to dying. While his doctors struggled to revive him, the veteran reporter and avowed rationalist ex...
Machiavelli on how democracies die
Almost nothing stands the test of time. Machiavelli's writings are a rare exception.
Why are we still talking about Machiav...
Do you have moral ambition?
We’re told from a young age to achieve. Get good grades. Get into a good school. Get a good job. Be ambitious about earning a high salary or a high-st...
The science of ideology
What do you do when you’re faced with evidence that challenges your ideology? Do you engage with that new information? Are you willing to change your...
A new analysis of the pandemic
There are lots of stories to tell about the Covid pandemic. Most of them, on some level, are about politics, about decisions that affected people’s li...
Halfway there: a philosopher’s guide to midlife crises
Philosophy often feels like a disconnected discipline, obsessed with tedious and abstract problems. But MIT professor Kieran Setiya believes philosoph...
Whatever this is, it isn’t liberalism
What exactly is the basis for democracy?
Arguably Iiberalism, the belief that the government serves the people, is the stone on which mod...
A new way to listen
We have an exciting announcement! Vox Members now get access to ad-free podcasts. If you sign up, you’ll get unlimited access to reporting on vox.com,...
The beliefs AI is built on
There’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to artificial intelligence. Technologists love to talk about all the good these tools can do in the world,...
Stop comparing yourself to AI
Why do we keep comparing AI to humans?
Jaron Lanier — virtual reality pioneer, digital philosopher, and the author of several best-sellin...
Democrats need to do something
American government has a speed issue. Both parties are slow to solve problems. Slow to build new things. Slow to make any change at all.
...
How to live in uncertain times
Humans hate uncertainty. It makes us feel unsafe and uneasy. We often organize our lives to avoid it. When it's foisted upon us, we don’t always know...
How to sink into silence
How often do you find silence? And do you know what to do with it when you do?
Today’s guest is essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer. His latest...
How to change your personality
If you could change anything about your personality, anything at all, what would it be?
And why would you want to change it?Writer Olga Khazan s...