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Mel Robbins: Stop Arguing Against Your Dreams and Write Down Five a Day
Mel Robbins coaches a 46-year-old actor back toward her dream and shares three ways we kill our dreams and a five-dreams-a-day habit.
Peter Woit on Theories of Everything, Twistors and Why String Theory Is Not Even Wrong
Columbia mathematician Peter Woit explains why string theory failed, how math and physics are converging, and why twistors excite him.
Red Queen
In a kingdom split by blood, a poor Red thief discovers she has a power only the ruling Silvers should have, and is hidden at the heart of their court.
Matt Walker on Why We Sleep: Caffeine, Dreams, Memory, Insomnia and the Cost of Short Sleep
Sleep scientist Matt Walker and Lex Fridman debate sleep, caffeine, dreams, memory, insomnia, fasting and whether sacrificing sleep for passion is worth it.
Disappearing in plain sight: three CIA veterans on how disguise really works
Former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez describes the art of disguise and lifelike masks, former covert officer Mike Baker takes Joe Rogan inside the CIA's disguise unit, and former covert officer Andrew Bustamante explains disguises, cover legends and artificial relationships. Three former CIA officers describe the same craft, which is a practical lesson in how identity is read and how it can be changed.
Never taught, quietly ashamed: how missing sex education blocks intimacy
Emily Morse says most people had little or no accurate sex education and names shame as one of three desire killers, urologist Rena Malik answers what is normal and takes up insecurities and shame, and Mo Isom argues that the church's silence about sex left young believers struggling in secret. Their shared message is that many people's trouble with sex starts with shame and missing information, which can be put right.
How cartels and gangs actually rule: lessons from Tijuana and Medellin
Former Tijuana counter-narcotics officer Ed Calderon explains what the cartels actually are and how corruption works, UFC fighter Daniel Rodriguez describes paying his way into a cartel leader's cell during eight months in a Tijuana jail and what he learned about Mexico's cartels, and economist Chris Blattman explains how Medellin's gangs keep the peace. Their accounts show organized crime as something that works through corruption and can keep order as well as break it, which changes what it would take to weaken it.
Ross Ulbricht: the FBI agent who caught him and two calls for freedom
Former FBI agent Chris Tarbell explains how he tracked down and arrested Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht and discusses murder for hire, regret and the war on drugs, while libertarian Dave Smith and anarchist Michael Malice each call for Ulbricht to be freed. Hearing the investigator beside the two who want him out shows both what the case rested on and why others want him released.
When money becomes a leash: debanking, digital currencies and Bitcoin as exit
Alex Gladstein of the Human Rights Foundation calls money the missing human rights issue and Bitcoin a freedom tool for people living under dictatorships, Niall Ferguson discusses the threat of central bank digital currencies, Marc Andreessen describes debanking and soft totalitarianism, and Coinbase's Brian Armstrong ties crypto to economic freedom. Read together, they treat control over payments as a form of power over people, which turns an argument about finance into one about civil liberties.
Nothing is unhackable: cyber defense lessons from a reporter, agent, fraudster and soldier
Reporter Nicole Perlroth explains the market for zero-day flaws and names two-factor authentication as the one fix, former cybercriminal Brett Johnson describes social engineering and the architecture of trust, former FBI agent Chris Tarbell gives practical cybersecurity advice for companies and individuals, and retired Army cyber officer Bill Thompson explains why nothing is unhackable. Perlroth and Johnson both dwell on social engineering, so the lesson is that simple habits can matter more than sophisticated tools.
When charities profit from problems: the nonprofit critique from comics to a candidate
Joey Diaz asks where charity money really goes, Tony Hinchcliffe and Joe Rogan talk about USAID and the charity business, Taylor Sheridan describes nonprofits that profit from problems, and California candidate Steve Hilton ties homelessness spending to nonprofits and Skid Row. Their common question is whether money given to fix a problem actually reaches it, a test worth applying to any cause that asks for funds.
Biden's condition, the debate and his exit: what five podcast guests saw
Tim Dillon talks about Biden's condition and why he stays, Jimmy Dore describes the media's reversal after the debate, Michael Malice discusses Biden's exit and media spin, former CIA officer Mike Baker covers Biden and the media during the Harris-Walz campaign, and progressive Cenk Uygur addresses Biden's exit. Several of these conversations were recorded within days or weeks of the debate or the withdrawal, so together they show how the same question looked as events unfolded.
The Hunter Biden laptop: how six podcast guests take it up
JD Vance takes up the laptop story together with censorship and media bias, Dave Smith places it beside Russiagate and the intelligence agencies, Ben Shapiro discusses it alongside media history and Elon Musk's Twitter, journalist Michael Shellenberger raises it with Joe Rogan, and Sam Harris and progressive David Pakman each address it with Lex Fridman. Three of them set it beside censorship, the intelligence agencies and Twitter, which is why the episode keeps returning as a test of how platforms and the press handle a story.
That Mexican OT on Joe Rogan: A Bay City Childhood, Rap as His Mother's Dream, and Keeping It Playful
Texas rapper That Mexican OT tells Joe Rogan about a wild Bay City childhood, rapping since age four, gratitude, and why his next project is called Recess.
Dr. Russell Kennedy on Healing Anxiety, Part 2: Nighttime Worry, Generational Cycles and Getting Out of Your Head
Dr. Russell Kennedy answers listener questions on nighttime anxiety, anxious parents and racing thoughts, with body-first tools for healing the alarm.
Dr. Amy Shah on Hunger vs. Cravings: Dopamine, Ultra-Processed Food and the Gut-Brain Connection
Dr. Amy Shah explains why cravings run on dopamine not hunger, how ultra-processed food hijacks mood, and simple habits to reset your gut and appetite.
Never Split the Difference
The FBI's former top kidnapping negotiator shows how listening, labeling emotions and asking the right questions win better deals than compromise.
Jay McClelland on Neural Networks, Connectionism and How Cognition Emerges
Cognitive scientist Jay McClelland recalls the birth of neural networks with Rumelhart and Hinton and explains how mind emerges from simple units.
Jamie Metzl on the COVID Lab Leak Hypothesis, China's Cover-Up and the Future of Human Genetics
Jamie Metzl lays out his circumstantial case for a Wuhan lab origin of COVID-19, critiques the WHO probe, and explores genetic engineering's future.
Fahim Anwar on Joe Rogan: Lance, a Tonight Show for His Parents, Shadowbans and Fear Factor Stories
Comedian Fahim Anwar and Joe Rogan talk self-released specials, his alter ego Lance, parents, shadowbans, toxoplasmosis, Fear Factor and Muhammad Ali.
Gender medicine and schools: what five Rogan guests bring up
JD Vance discusses gender medicine for minors alongside pharmaceutical incentives, Christopher Rufo and James Lindsay criticize gender ideology and queer theory in schools, Bridget Phetasy brings up gender policy and detransitioners, and Andrew Wilson takes up children and gender medicine. Rufo and Lindsay are declared critics, so the case heard here leans one way, and it is worth knowing what that case is before judging it.
Status, death anxiety and the primitive mind: why political tribes harden
Will Storr explains ideologies and the culture war as games for status inside a group, Sheldon Solomon describes experiments in which reminders of death change behavior and connects economic pain and identity to demagogues, Tim Urban, in two conversations, contrasts the higher mind with the primitive mind and idea labs with echo chambers, and Jonathan Haidt describes defend mode and group stupidity in his case against social media. Storr, Solomon and Urban each trace political hostility to ordinary human psychology, which means the same forces work on one's own side as well.
Paul Stamets on Agarikon, the Stamets Stack, Microdosing Data and Psilocybin's History
Mycologist Paul Stamets shares agarikon vaccine research, microdosing data on the Stamets Stack, wild mushroom stories and his case for legal psilocybin.
The Obesity Code
A kidney specialist argues that obesity is driven by insulin, not calories, and that eating real food less often, with regular fasting, is the lasting fix.