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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Why humans need to matter
Why do humans have this deep need to feel like we matter?
Sean Illing talks with the philosopher Rebecca Goldstein about why “mattering”...
A brief update on the AI apocalypse
Something is definitely happening in the AI world, but how seriously should we take it? Is this another hype cycle or a genuine inflection point?
Consciousness is a mystery
What is consciousness, really?
We don’t know. Scientists aren’t sure. Philosophers can’t agree. All we have is the fact that it feels lik...
The end of world order as we know it
Venezuela. Greenland. Iran.
Things have been moving so quickly that we weren't even at war with Iran when we recorded this episode of The...
Alone in a cage with cocaine
Addiction is one of those words that seems obvious until you try to explain it. We tend to fall back on two simple stories. Either addiction is a mora...
Winging it in Iran
What the hell just happened in Iran?
The US launched an attack last weekend, and within hours, the explanations were already shifting. Is...
Of course you're anxious
We use the word “anxiety” to describe stress, dread, worry, panic, even vibes. Which just goes to show: We really don’t know what anxiety is, or where...
Gen Z men have baby fever
A lot of Gen Z men sound surprisingly excited about fatherhood. A lot of Gen Z women…do not.
And that divide — and the national handwrin...
Why mindfulness got weird
Mindfulness is everywhere now, which is kind of weird.
What started as a countercultural practice has become a productivity hack and a bi...
You’re right to bear arms
Sean talks to Atlantic writer Tyler Austin Harper about the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and why liberals are missing the point about Americ...
Happy news from Sean
The Gray Area with Sean Illing is now twice a week!
Look for new episodes every Monday and Friday, here in your ears and at...
The problem with gamifying life
Games are fun. Aren’t they?
When we play games — board games, video games, any kind of game — something magical happens. Ga...
America is football
Why do we love football so much? Why does this sport dominate American culture in a way nothing else can? Why does it feel essential even to people wh...
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...