The Gray Area with Sean Illing

What does it mean to have a good life when so much feels wrong? In this episode of The Gray Area, guest host Jonquilyn Hill speaks with Vox journalist Rachel Wilkerson Miller about her forthcoming book, The Nice Life. Rachel argues that even when we feel anxious or unsettled, we can build a satisfying life through curiosity, friendship, creativity, and generosity. Jonquilyn and Rachel explore how to find joy in difficult times, take pleasure in ordinary things, and share that pleasure with others. Guest Host: Jonquilyn Hill, host of Explain It To Me Guest: Rachel Miller, Vox Senior Even Better & Lifestyle Editor We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can prediction markets serve a purpose beyond gambling? In today’s episode, guest host Miles Bryan speaks with professor Finn Brunton in a conversation based on his recent Harper’s article, “The Chaos Machine: Prediction Markets and the Triumph of Crypto-Anarchy.” The two explore alternative visions for prediction markets: as tools for gathering collective knowledge, or as a way to undermine the institutions we rely on. They discuss whether putting money on the line brings us closer to the truth, how betting can create incentives to manipulate events, and what we risk when more of our shared reality becomes something to wager on. Host: Miles Bryan, Vox Senior Producer and Reporter Guest: Finn Brunton, Professor at the University of California, Davis We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens to a society when its members become increasingly wary of one another, and relationships break down based on gender lines? In today’s episode, guest host Christine Emba speaks with pollster and writer Dan Cox about his new book Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection. They consider how and why men and women in America are growing apart, rising safety concerns among young women, and the widening political divide on gender lines. Host: Christine Emba, columnist and author Guest: Dan Cox, Director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Generation Uncoupled. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is there a humane way for the state to kill someone?  Guest host Miles Bryan sits down with New York Times Magazine writer and ProPublica reporter Pamela Colloff to pull back the curtain on critical flaws in America's approach to the death penalty. From the tragedy of wrongful convictions to the profound impact capital punishment  has on victims' families, can the death penalty ever truly be justified? Drawing on decades of reporting and a new book, Catch the Devil⁠, Colloff examines the reality of executions in states like Florida, the prevalence of unreliable jailhouse informants, and why a system built on human judgment can never be infallible.Guest Host: Miles Bryan, Vox Senior Producer and Reporter Guest: Pamela Colloff, author of Catch the Devil We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is wanting to be rich selfish? Does making money require exploiting other people? Or can the pursuit of wealth actually benefit society? In this episode guest host Sally Herships speaks with philosopher Jason Brennan about his book, Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich. Jason makes the case that both wanting money and earning money are signs that we’re creating value for society. In this conversation, they explore why society believes money corrupts relationships, what wealthy individuals owe to society, and the cultural differences around money and wealth. This episode was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect. Host: Sally Herships, journalist and director of the audio program at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. (Find Sally’s work here). Guest: Jason Brennan, professor of philosophy and public affairs at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/member Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Gray Area is taking a break today — but we’ve got something special for you. We’re dropping an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Unexplainable from Vox. In it, host Sally Helm considers whether or not it’s ethical to kill lantern flies, an invasive species that has gained a foothold on the East Coast of the US.In the episode Sally explores what we owe other living creatures, how squishing bugs changes us, and what we should do when there is not a single clear moral path. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We were told that airing our personal trauma in public would set us free. Instead, we got “the trauma script,” celebrity branding, and performative empathy. In today's episode, guest host Christine Emba talks with cultural theorist and professor Catherine Liu, author of Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering. In this scathing book, Catherine argues that our modern obsession with the "trauma script" isn't a radical act of liberation, but rather a distraction from widening economic inequality. They discuss why identity pluralism has eclipsed class struggle, how public therapy speak undermines democratic debate, and why we must move away from commodified self-absorption to focus on collective political and economic change. Guest Host Christine Emba, columnist and author Guest: Catherine Liu, author of Traumatized: The New Politics of Public Suffering We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's episode, Vox senior reporter and producer Miles Bryan talks with writer Daniel Kolitz about his piece for The Baffler, "Paid Phones." Kolitz explains what it felt like to be among the first wave of workers displaced by generative AI. The two of them talked about how fintech payday loan apps use hidden fees and subscriptions to profit off of desperate borrowers, and how an online community on Reddit is organizing a quiet resistance against predatory lenders.  Guest Host: Miles Bryan, Vox Senior Producer and Reporter Guest: Daniel Kolitz, author of Paid Phones . We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What should a college teach? How to think? How to find a career? How to be a good citizen? What about how to acquire money, influence, and power? In today’s episode, guest host Bryan Walsh speaks to journalist and writer Theo Baker about his investigation into Stanford University, where Baker was an undergrad student at the time. He entered the school as a bright-eye freshman, eager to build a career in tech. He left disillusioned by the school’s culture. His book reveals an insidious relationship between Silicon Valley and Stanford, where power, money, and success are prized higher than ethics, education, and the wellbeing of students. Guest Host: Bryan Walsh, Senior writer, Coefficient Giving Guest: Theo Baker, author of How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why does it feel so hard to start a family today? How much of that is truly a personal choice? In this episode of The Gray Area, guest host Christine Emba sits down with journalist Anna Louie Sussman to discuss her new book, Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty. Together, they look past the surface-level "cost of living" arguments to explore how economic volatility, climate anxiety, and the commodification of reproduction are reshaping the way millennials and Gen Z think about parenthood. Guest Host Christine Emba, columnist and author Guest: Anna Luise Sussman, author Inconceivable: The Impossibility of Family in an Age of Uncertainty We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is "adulthood" a moving target? For millennials, hitting the milestones of the past — homeownership, secure careers, and financial independence — feels tougher than ever. We aren't just having our individual midlife crises; we are simultaneously navigating economic, cultural, and existential crises too. Guest host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with Amil Niazi, columnist at The Cut, to explore why this stage of life feels so precarious. From the domino effect of the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the traditional career path, to the pressures of the "sandwich generation" — caretaking for both children and aging parents — we break down why the millennial experience is fundamentally different from generations past. Host: Jonquilyn Hill, host of Explain It To Me Guest: Amil Niazi, columnist The Cut We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 spent a year trying to answer those questions, and documented the experience in her new book Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change. In this episode, which originally aired in March of 2025, Sean speaks with Olga about the science of personality change, the work it takes to change yourself, and what makes up a personality, anyway. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Olga Khazan, author of Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’ve all heard that "sitting is the new smoking," but the research behind that phrase goes much deeper. How bad is sitting for you really? In this episode guest host Bryan Walsh is joined by Manoush Zomorodi — host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour and author of Body Electric — to explore how our sedentary, screen-filled lives are reshaping our physical health from the neck down. Manoush shares findings from her own clinical trial, where she partnered with scientists to determine the minimum amount of movement the human body actually needs to function. Whether you're a desk jockey or a parent concerned about screen time, this conversation offers a practical, science-backed approach to reclaiming your physical health in a digital world. Guest Host: Bryan Walsh, Senior writer, Coefficient Giving Guest: Manoush Zomorodi, Host, TED Radio Hour and author of Body Electric. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are we truly alone in the universe? Despite the lack of hard evidence, belief in aliens and UFOs, officially known as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), has shifted from the fringes to the center of mainstream culture. In this episode of The Gray Area, host Jonquilyn Hill is joined by Adam Kirsch, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the new book We Want to Believe: How Aliens Went Mainstream and Why It Matters. They explore why our fascination with extraterrestrial life persists and what that need to believe tells us about our current relationship with authority, scientific expertise, and even spirituality. The search for aliens has become the ultimate self-portrait of humanity. Host: Jonquilyn Hill, host of Explain It To Me Guest: Adam Kirsch, Senior editor, The Atlantic and author of We Want to Believe We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Have you noticed the bad vibes around dating lately? Whether you’re swiping on apps or scrolling through social media, it’s easy to feel like the romantic landscape has become a battleground — at least, for the heterosexual among us. This pervasive feeling of hopelessness and negativity — often called "hetero-pessimism" — is everywhere. But is this cynicism the actual picture, or is it just another digital trap? In this episode of The Gray Area, host Jonquilyn Hill is joined by Magdalene J. Taylor, senior editor at Playboy. Together, they dissect why we’ve become so hostile towards straight dating, the disconnect between our online expectations and real-world reality, and why Magdalene is making a radical case for "hetero optimism." Host: Jonquilyn Hill, host of Explain It To Me Guest: Magdalene J. Taylor, senior editor for Playboy We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is it ever okay to put a price on a kidney? Why is it illegal to sell an organ, but perfectly legal to sell blood plasma? This episode explores the world of "repugnant transactions" — the markets we find morally offensive — and asks why we ban certain markets as "gross" or "unethical" while ignoring others that might cause more harm. In this episode of The Gray Area, host Bryan Walsh sits down with Nobel laureate Alvin Roth, who wrote the recent book Moral Economics, to discuss how markets are the key to understanding our most deeply held social values. They break down why society chooses to ban certain transactions, how those choices affect real lives, and whether we can use "market design" to save people without violating our ethical standards. Host: Bryan Walsh, Vox Editorial Director Guest: Alvin Roth, Professor of Economics at Stanford University and author of Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 stitches fragments into stories, and those stories — true or not — are what we end up calling our life, and sometimes, our collective history. Today’s episode is a rerun of an interview that originally published last year with Charan Ranganath, a neuroscientist and author of a book called Why We Remember. The two discuss the strange alchemy of remembering and how the stories our minds create end up creating us. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Charan Ranganath, neuroscientist and author of Why We Remember We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sigmund Freud is probably the most famous psychoanalyst. Yet many of his theories have been critiqued or discredited. So is there anything we can still learn from the father of psychoanalysis? In today’s episode Sean speaks with professor Mark Solms, author of The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing. Mark argues that while Freud may have been wrong about many things, he was right about one important thing: the human mind cannot be fully understood on purely biological terms. He believes that modern psychiatry has become focused on treating mental suffering like a chemical problem, instead of focusing on emotional and psychological aspects. Sean and Mark discuss the conscious versus the unconscious mind, whether psychoanalysis is the best therapy, and why Freud is still relevant today. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The internet is rife with chatter about “heteropessimism,” the feeling that gender relations are broken and heterosexual relationships are doomed. But is this just cynical discourse, like a coping mechanism for bad dates? Or is this a symptom of a much deeper, systemic breakdown? In this episode of The Gray Area, guest host Jonquilyn Hill is joined by Sarah Jones, senior writer for The Intelligencer. Together, they peel back the performative irony to look at the harsh realities of dating in a post-Dobbs, politically volatile United States. From the economic structures that make leaving bad relationships feel impossible, to the "manosphere" versus the "pink pill," Sarah and Jonquilyn discuss why we are struggling to connect — and why "hopeful pessimism" might be the most responsible way to build a future. Host: Jonquilyn Hill, host of Explain It To Me Guest: Sarah Jones, senior writer, IntelligencerWe would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens when we read less? What does that do to our ability to understand complex ideas, or even think for ourselves?In today’s episode, guest host Jonquilyn Hill speaks with Atlantic staff writer Rose Horowitch. In her recent cover story, Rose argues that we are entering a postliterate age. Although we’re surrounded by text — like emails, text messages, and notifications — we no longer have an interest in reading longer, book-length content. Jonquilyn and Rose discuss how the digital age has transformed the way we consume information, what deep reading teaches us that scrolling can't, and how being postliterate is changing our politics and culture. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Gray Area is taking a short break this week — but we’ve got something special for you. We’re dropping an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Unexplainable. In it, host Noam Hassenfeld and Vox senior reporter Sigal Samuel explore one of the biggest dilemmas facing growing families: How much should parents decide about their children’s future from prenatal testing alone? Noam and Sigal wrestle with the moral dilemmas surrounding genetic testing, parental choice, and the limitations of trying to predict the future. Host: Noam Hassenfeld, Host of Unexplainable Guest: Sigal Samuel, Vox Senior Reporter Listen to more Unexplainable episodes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unexplainable/id1554578197Read Sigal’s advice column here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/459003/designer-babies-embryo-selection-polygenic-testing-ethics We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with writer and philosopher Ian Bogost about his new book The Small Stuff. They discuss what modern life has lost in its pursuit of convenience, efficiency, and optimization. From stick shifts to coffee cups, lawnmowers, and smartphones, Bogost argues that many of the small sensory experiences that once connected us to the physical world have quietly disappeared. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Ian Bogost We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The internet is changing. For years our primary gateway to the internet has been search engines: we ask a question, a list of websites pops up, and we choose which ones to click on. But we are rapidly headed towards a different model, one in which AI-generated answers to our questions are our primary gateway to the internet. How we got here starts with Google. In today’s episode, guest host Miles Bryan interviews journalist Ryan Broderick to discuss “Google zero,” a point in time when Google stops pointing us towards a list of search results and instead only produces AI-generated answers. Miles and Ryan discuss the evolution of the internet, how search engine optimization changed content production, why AI may fundamentally change how we find information, and what the future of search might look like. Host: Miles Bryan, Vox Senior Producer and Reporter Guest: Ryan Broderick, Editor-in-Chief of Garbage Day We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean Illing talks with neuroscientist Gregory Berns, author of The Self Delusion. Berns claims that the idea of a unified, persistent self is a kind of illusion, and that we are better understood as multiple selves at different moments in time, tied together by a story — which is what we call our identity. Sean and Greg also talk about whether the brain is a computer, how perception works, the limits of thinking too much about thinking, and what psychedelics can do to disrupt and change the stories we tell about ourselves. This episode originally aired in November of 2022. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Gregory Berns (@gberns), author; professor of psychology and distinguished professor of neuroeconomics, Emory University We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For years, right-wing influencers and politicians have pushed the conservative movement to have more controversial, anti-establishment views. Why are some of those figures now upset about where the movement has ended up? In today’s episode, guest host Bryan Walsh speaks with Vox Senior Correspondent Zack Beauchamp about conservatives who decry the extremist direction that the right is moving but refuse to recognize the role they played in pushing the movement in that direction. The two discuss US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), pundit Ben Shapiro, podcaster Candace Owens, the drivers of conservative extremism, and what the party might look like after Donald Trump. Guest Host: Bryan Walsh, Vox Senior Editorial Director Guest: Zack Beauchamp, Vox Senior CorrespondentRead Zack’s essay: The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Birth rates are dropping and global population growth is slowing. Why? We’re heard all the different speculation: It’s the economy. It’s housing costs. It’s the feminists. But what if the biggest driver is that thing we all carry in our pockets? In today’s episode, guest host Christine Emba speaks with data journalist John Burn-Murdoch about declining fertility rates across vastly different cultures and economies. They discuss the role smartphones might play in this phenomenon, why governments have struggled to reverse the trend, and how dropping birthrates could change our economy and culture. Guest Host Christine Emba, columnist and author Guest: John Burn-Murdoch, Chief Data Reporter for The Financial Times We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI was supposed to make our lives better. Instead, it’s made many of us scared and angry. Communities are protesting data centers across the country, and polling shows most Americans think AI is moving too fast.In today's episode, guest host Miles Bryan talks with independent journalist Jasmine Sun, who argues that public attitudes toward AI are undergoing a fundamental shift. Jasmine argues that AI is seen not simply as a technology to adopt, but as an elite political project to resist. The two discuss “AI populism,” the parallels with the Industrial Revolution, how public opinion about AI may affect US politics, and how the leaders of Silicon Valley are unprepared for the growing backlash against AI. Guest Host: Miles Bryan, Vox reporter and senior producer Guest:Jasmine Sun, journalist Find Jasmine’s Substack here: https://jasmi.news/ We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with writer Liz Bruenig about faith, doubt, and the experience of believing in God in a modern, skeptical age. They discuss religious experience, the limits of science, the appeal of cynicism, Dostoevsky, beauty, mystery, and whether belief is ultimately a choice. They also explore why religion persists and whether living with uncertainty is itself a form of faith. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Elizabeth Bruenig (@ebruenig) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with journalist David Wallace-Wells about a looming climate event that could make 2027 one of the hottest years ever recorded. They discuss the return of El Niño, why some scientists are calling it a “Godzilla El Niño,” and what it could reveal about the future of global warming. They also explore climate adaptation, political complacency, extreme weather, technological progress, and whether humanity is prepared for the world it’s creating. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who are America’s heroes? Who deserves our admiration and a place in our nation’s story? In today’s episode, guest host Jonquilyn Hill talks with constitutional law professor Kermit Roosevelt about his book The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story, which argues that America’s most important ancestors are not the founding fathers but the heroes of Reconstruction. The two discuss the importance of founding myths, why Americans are constantly fighting over “the real America,” and what it means to be American. Guest Host: Jonquilyn Hill, Host of Vox’s Explain It To Me podcast Guest: Kermit Roosevelt, constitutional law professor and author of The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy about the crisis lurking beneath America's political dysfunction. Murphy’s new book “Crisis of the Common Good” argues that the country is suffering from a collapse of connection, belonging, and purpose. They discuss loneliness, powerlessness, liberalism, democracy, Trumpism, corporate power, social media, and why so many Americans feel disconnected from their communities, their institutions, and each other. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Sen. Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with Atlantic writer Charlie Warzel about the increasingly weird experience of being online. They discuss AI-generated content, bots, algorithms, the “dead internet theory,” and why so much of the web now feels artificial, manipulated, or unreal. They also explore psyops, conspiracy culture, social media, and the deeper question lurking beneath the AI boom: What are human beings actually for? Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with journalist Jordan Ritter Conn about his book “American Men,” an intimate look at four men trying to figure out what manhood and masculinity have given them versus what they have cost them, and what to do with the gap between the men they think they’re supposed to be and the men they actually are. They talk about being fathers and sons as well as about violence, shame, ambition, male friendship, loneliness, and why being a “good man” might mean finally letting go of the desire to perform manhood. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Jordan Ritter Conn (@jordanconn) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who gets to decide what’s taught in college classrooms? And should the answer be different at private colleges than at public universities? In today’s episode, guest host Avishay Artsy speaks to philosophy professor Martin Peterson about why Texas A&M University asked him to stop teaching part of Plato’s “Symposium.” The two discuss academic freedom, who gets to decide what’s taught in university classrooms, and the value of Plato’s writing. The episode explores what happens when politics and educational values collide on campus. Host: Avishay Artsy, Vox Supervising Producer Guest: Martin Peterson, Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine about attachment, insecurity, and why our relationships shape us more than we think. They discuss his updated framework for anxious, avoidant, and secure attachment styles, why being ignored or excluded can feel so threatening, and how small everyday interactions can either calm the brain or send it spiraling. They also dig into childhood dynamics, therapy, conflict, friendship, loneliness, and different ways we can build more secure lives.Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Amir Levine, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author of Secure: the revolutionary guide to creating a secure life We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with writer Sigal Samuel about AI successionism, the growing movement that sees artificial intelligence as humanity’s rightful successor. They discuss why some people in the AI world think humanity should be replaced, how this vision borrows from old religious ideas about salvation and transcendence, and why artificial intelligence is a dangerous thing to worship. This episode was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Sigal Samuel (@SigalSamuel) Click here to read Sigal’s article on AI successionism. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with dream scientist Michelle Carr about what dreams are, why we have them, and what they might reveal about the mind. They discuss nightmares, lucid dreaming, memory, consciousness, and whether dreams are just random brain noise or a kind of overnight therapy. They also explore why dreams feel so real and what the strange world of sleep can teach us about waking life.Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Michelle Carr We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Americans have absorbed the Protestant work ethic: the idea that our value as human beings – and our eventual salvation – is determined by how hard we work. Political philosopher Elizabeth Anderson explains how this evolved, why it pervades everything, and why it’s no longer serving us.This episode originally aired in January of 2024. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Elizabeth Anderson, professor of public philosophy at the University of Michigan. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with writer Christine Emba about the strange and increasingly anti-social world young people are inheriting online. They discuss the rise of “looksmaxxing,” the manosphere, Gen Z’s retreat from dating and sex, and how the internet has transformed what might have been normal insecurities into a permanent state of anxiety and self-optimization. Along the way, they explore loneliness, intimacy, masculinity, social media, and what happens to a society when human connection starts to feel unbearable. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Christine Emba (@ChristineEmba) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with University of Chicago psychologist Nicholas Epley about the strange gap between our need to be social and how social we choose to be. They explore why we underestimate how good conversations will feel, why awkwardness looms so large in our minds, and how small acts of connection can make us happier, less lonely, and more open to the people around us. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Nicholas Epley We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Almost a decade ago, Tom Nichols warned that Americans were losing respect for expertise. He didn’t expect things to get this bad. Sean talks with Nichols about his 2017 book “The Death of Expertise” and what’s happened since: why people don’t just distrust experts but actively push back against them, how the internet turns bad ideas into communities, and why a society that can’t agree on basic facts can’t function for long. They also dig into the deeper causes: loneliness, narcissism, and the weird psychology of living in a world where everything “just works.” Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with writer David Epstein about why unlimited freedom and endless choice often make us less creative, less focused, and less fulfilled. They discuss the hidden power of constraints, the psychology of attention, why humans struggle with too many options, and how useful limits can help us do better work and live more meaningful lives. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: David Epstein (@DavidEpstein) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

College was supposed to be a ticket to a better life. A degree meant a good job, a decent salary, and a brighter future. That promise is breaking down. For many graduates, a college degree no longer guarantees economic security or upward mobility. In today’s episode, guest host Miles Bryan talks with reporter and author Noam Scheiber about his new book, Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class, which argues that the economic prospects for college graduates have steadily eroded since the mid-2000s. The result is scrambling our politics. Miles and Noam discuss why college graduates are increasingly drawn to socialist politicians like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani, why they’ve become some of the strongest supporters of organized labor, and how economic frustration among educated workers could transform the American political landscape. Host: Miles Bryan, Vox reporter and senior producer Guest: Noam Scheiber, New York Times reporter and author of Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working ClassWe would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If someone asked you to describe the state of the world right now, odds are you’d reach for the bad news first: political division, AI panic, war, ecological crisis, unraveling everywhere. And none of that is imaginary. But Rebecca Solnit thinks the pessimistic view is incomplete. We’re good at seeing catastrophe and reversal, and much worse at seeing the slower, more positive transformations that unfold over decades. Solnit’s new book, The Beginning Comes After the End, is an argument for noticing those changes without denying the darkness of the present. She joins Sean to talk about hope, backlash, political despair, and why fragile victories are still victories worth defending. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Rebecca Solnit  We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with Vox senior correspondent Anna North about the strange rise of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. They explore why MAHA resonates, especially with younger people, how legitimate concerns about food and public health blur into conspiracy thinking, and why social media has become such a powerful engine for both. They also discuss the collapse of trust in institutions, the emotional logic behind wellness movements, and what it would take to rebuild trust in science and public health. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Anna North (@annanorthtweets) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with psychologist Dacher Keltner about the science of awe and why it might be one of the most important emotions we have. They explore how awe quiets the ego, shifts our attention away from ourselves, and reconnects us to other people, nature, and larger patterns of meaning. Along the way, they discuss why music, moral courage, and even grief can trigger awe, how modern life may be starving us of it, and what it reveals about the limits of reason, the power of the body, and the deeper ways we make sense of being human. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Dacher Keltner We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Everyone says having kids changes your life. That’s true. But it’s not the whole story. Sean talks with author Derek Thompson about fatherhood, how raising kids can shock you, and why parenting feels not so much “hard” as “nonstop.” They explore the weird psychology of loving something more than yourself, the loss of control over your own time, and the bittersweet realization that every moment with your child is already slipping away. Also: why two kids is not just twice the work, and why you might still want to get on the ride anyway. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks with psychologist Alison Gopnik about how children think, learn, experience the world, and why their minds may be more powerful than ours in some crucial ways. They explore the idea that kids are the “research and development” wing of the human species, built for exploration, curiosity, and discovery, while adults are optimized for focus, efficiency, and getting things done. Along the way, they discuss why children notice things we’ve stopped seeing, what we lose when we grow up, and what parenting reveals about love, care, and the nature of intelligence itself. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Alison Gopnik (@AlisonGopnik) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court is aggressive on almost everything. Except the internet. Sean talks with Vox’s Ian Millhiser about a surprising pattern at the Court. While the Court has been eager to reshape schools, healthcare, and civil rights law, it has consistently taken a cautious, almost hands-off approach to regulating the internet. They unpack a recent case involving music piracy, the broader legal fight over who’s responsible for what happens online, and why even a highly ideological Court seems wary of breaking the digital world. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Pentagon has spent years building AI tools to help identify targets, speed up battlefield decisions, and make war more “efficient.” What started as an effort to analyze drone footage has grown into something bigger and much more unsettling. Sean talks with Bloomberg’s Katrina Manson about Project Maven, the Defense Department’s long-running push to bring AI into warfighting. They discuss how these systems actually work, what “human in the loop” really means, why autonomy is no longer some far-off sci-fi scenario, and what happens when the speed and scale of machine decision-making collide with the fog of war. This episode was produced in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Katrina Manson (@KatrinaManson) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back in 2015, before President Donald Trump, before January 6, before all the craziness of the last decade, Matt Yglesias made a blunt prediction: American democracy is doomed. Guest host Zack Beauchamp talks with Matt about what that argument got right, what it missed, and why the real problem might not be any one politician but the structure of the system itself. They get into presidential power, partisan loyalty, why Congress keeps folding, and how the two-party system might be quietly making everything worse. They also discuss what it would actually take to fix it — or whether things have to completely break first. Host: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) Guest: Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does it mean to be “woke”? It's become a catch-all term to smear or dismiss anything that has any vague association with progressive politics. So anytime you venture into an argument about “wokeness,” it becomes hopelessly entangled in a broader cultural battle. Today’s guest, journalist and professor Musa al-Gharbi, helps us untangle “wokeness” from its fraught political context. The author of the book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, al-Gharbi discusses what effects the movement is and isn’t having on our society. This episode originally aired in November 2024. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Musa al-Gharbi (@Musa_alGharbi) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s easy to forgive other people because you don’t have to live inside their head. Forgiving yourself is different and much, much harder. Sean Illing is joined by philosopher Myisha Cherry to talk about what it actually means to forgive yourself without letting yourself off the hook. They discuss the difference between guilt and shame (one can push you to repair, while the other just makes you want to hide), why even small screwups can leave a lingering moral aftertaste, and how regret can either trap you in self-reproach or become fuel for doing better. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Myisha Cherry (@myishacherry) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kalle Lasn has been trying to jam consumer culture for decades. Now he thinks that was only the beginning. Sean talks with the Adbusters founder about advertising, culture jamming, meme warfare, surveillance capitalism, and why he believes the old left-right political script is dead. Lasn argues that consumer culture is not just shallow or manipulative but part of a system pushing us toward collapse. His answer is bigger than protest and weirder than reform. He wants a cultural revolution that starts with new ideas, new language, and maybe an entirely new politics. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling)  Guest: Kalle Lasn (@KalleLasn) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Gray Area is taking a short break this week — but we’ve got something special for you. We’re dropping an episode from one of our favorite podcasts, Unexplainable. In it, host Emily Siner explores deceptively simple questions: What is a musical note? And how did something as fundamental as the note A become standardized across the world? It’s a story about science, history, and the hidden complexity behind the sounds we listen to every day.We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why do humans have this deep need to feel like we matter?  Sean Illing talks with the philosopher Rebecca Goldstein about why “mattering” is not the same thing as being important, how the hunger for validation can go really, really badly, and the different ways we try to justify our lives to ourselves. Love. God. Winning. Greatness. Service.  Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Rebecca Goldstein, author of The Mattering Instinct We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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? Sean Illing talks with journalist Kelsey Piper (formerly of Vox, now at The Argument) about what’s changed, why AI “agents” are a different beast than yesterday’s chatbots, and why the debate is stuck between two lazy positions: total panic or total shrug. They get into the incentives driving the labs, what “alignment” even means, and why the real fear isn’t Terminator-style robots, but powerful systems sliding into everything before we’re ready. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Kelsey Piper (@KelseyTuoc) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 like something to be you right now. Beyond that, human consciousness remains a complete mystery. Sean talks with Michael Pollan about his new book, A World Appears, which is about what we do and don’t know about consciousness and why it continues to be one of the great miracles of nature. They get into why consciousness has proven so hard to define, whether the self is real or just a useful fiction, what psychedelics and meditation reveal about the mind, and why even serious neuroscientists are starting to question strict materialism. Along the way, they wander into plant intelligence, AI psychosis, ego death, and the unsettling possibility that not knowing might actually be the right place to land. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Michael Pollan, author of A World Appears (@michaelpollan) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com, or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Gray Area with Sean Illing. It’s only March, but it’s been a long year.  The war in Iran is only the latest sign that something deep is shifting in our global politics.  Alliances fraying. Norms weakening. Democracies wobbling. So what exactly is happening? Is the liberal international order slowly eroding? Is it just going through a particularly turbulent chapter? Or are we watching it all collapse? Sean talks with Zack Beauchamp, author of Vox’s On the Right newsletter, about the global democratic backslide and whether the American-led liberal order is slipping, imploding, or just going through a rough patch. Their conversation, which was recorded before the conflict in Iran, digs into the Greenland saga, alliance politics, and why democratic decay can be both obvious and hard to see at the same time.  Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 moral failure or it’s a brain disease that robs people of agency entirely. But neither of those stories feels complete. Today’s guest is philosopher Hanna Pickard, author of What Would You Do Alone in a Cage With Nothing But Cocaine? Pickard argues that it’s a harmful mistake to treat addiction as either sin or sickness. Instead, it’s a form of behavior that’s shaped by trauma, isolation, identity, social conditions, and often deep psychological pain. Sean and Hanna talk about her theory of addiction and why our society has built the cage that so many people are trying to escape. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Hanna Pickard, author of What Would You Do Alone in a Cage With Nothing But Cocaine? We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What the hell just happened in Iran? The US launched an attack last weekend, and within hours, the explanations were already shifting. Is this regime change? Will it be a few days? A few months? Several years? By the time you’re listening to this, the situation may have moved again. So this is a quick, emergency TGAF about where things currently stand. Sean calls up Wall Street Journal national security reporter Alex Ward to walk through what we actually know, what we don’t, and what could come next. They talk about the risk of regional escalation, the “break it and walk away” strategy, and why the range of possible outcomes right now is…uncomfortably wide. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Alexander Ward (@alexbward) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 it comes from, or what we’re supposed to do with it. Today’s guest is philosopher Samir Chopra, author of Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide. Chopra argues that anxiety is a permanent feature of being human and the price of being a free, self-conscious creature in an uncertain world. Sean and Samir talk about the difference between fear and anxiety, why modern life seems engineered to keep us on edge, and what Buddhism, existentialism, and Freud can teach us about the anxious mind. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Samir Chopra, author of Anxiety: A Philosophical Guide We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 handwringing about it — says a lot about the changing status of men and women in this country, and the uncomfortable realization that for American policymakers, not all children are created equal.  Today’s guest is Vox reporter and bestselling novelist Anna North, who covers kids, parenting, and American family life. She writes the Vox newsletter Kids Today, and her latest chart-topping novel is Bog Queen. She recently reported on the gap between young men and young women on parenthood and what that might tell us about gender roles, relationships, and the future of family formation in a politically polarized country. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Anna North  We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mindfulness is everywhere now, which is kind of weird. What started as a countercultural practice has become a productivity hack and a billion-dollar app ecosystem. On one level, it’s great that more people are meditating. But somewhere along the way, the whole thing got flattened. When mindfulness is mainly about optimizing your output, we’ve probably missed the point. Today’s guest is Jon Kabat-Zinn, pioneer of the American mindfulness movement and author of the mega-bestseller Wherever You Go, There You Are. Jon’s work helped bring meditation into medicine, schools, sports, and everyday life. He’s also spent decades reminding people that mindfulness isn’t about escape, self-improvement, or becoming some perfectly serene version of yourself. Sean and Jon talk about what mindfulness actually is, why being present is so damn hard, and what happens when industry turns meditation into another tool for self-optimization. This episode originally aired in December of 2023. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. If you enjoy our reporting and want to hear more from Vox journalists, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/vox. Each month, our members get access to exclusive videos, livestreams, and chats with our newsroom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean talks to Atlantic writer Tyler Austin Harper about the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and why liberals are missing the point about American gun culture and the right to bear arms.  Beyond that, Tyler asks an important question: If you really believe we’re sliding toward authoritarianism, how can you argue that the public should disarm?  Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Tyler Austin Harper (@Tyler_A_Harper) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday. If you enjoy our reporting and want to hear more from Vox journalists, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/vox. Each month, our members get access to exclusive videos, livestreams, and chats with our newsroom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Youtube.com/vox for your eyes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Games are fun. Aren’t they? When we play games — board games, video games, any kind of game — something magical happens. Games allow us to explore, to create little worlds where we can be different versions of ourselves. But when we turn life into a game — where we have to get the best grade, or the most money, or the most “likes” — then games stop being fun. Why is that? This week Sean speaks with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen about what a game really is, the difference between playing for enjoyment and playing to win, and why games lose their magic when the stakes become real. Thi argues that the things we value in life are increasingly captured by grades and likes and downloads and step counts and a thousand other metrics that quietly rewrite what we want and what we think makes us happy. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: C. Thi Nguyen, author of The Score We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 who barely like sports? And what does it say about us that we keep watching, even as the risks and contradictions become harder to ignore? Today’s guest is Chuck Klosterman, cultural critic and bestselling author, whose new book Football tries to explain the game at the height of its power. Sean and Chuck talk about how football became the defining spectacle of modern America, why it’s easily the best television show we’ve ever seen, and why it presents a ton of moral dilemmas we can’t really solve.  Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Chuck Klosterman, author of Football We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why is it so hard for America to build things? Bridges take years to construct. Housing costs are soaring. Transit systems are crumbling. And we’re struggling to update our infrastructure to prepare for the climate crisis. Even when there’s broad agreement that something needs to be done, collective action feels impossible. Why is that? Today’s guest is Marc Dunkelman, author of Why Nothing Works, a book about the modern American experience of watching government fail. He argues that by giving too many people the power to say “no,” we’ve stymied our collective progress. Marc and Sean discuss an inherent tension in American politics: the need for effective, centralized power and a deep fear of its abuse. They trace how that tension has played out across American history, from the clashes between Jefferson and Hamilton, through the New Deal’s Tennessee Valley Authority, to the backlash against figures like Robert Moses. Marc argues that our current system — born out of a reaction to too much top-down authority during the late 20th century — has produced paralysis, dysfunction, and a deep distrust of government. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Guest: Marc Dunkelman (@MarcDunkelman), author of Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress — and How to Bring It Back. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members This episode was supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures. Vox had full discretion over the content of this reporting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 us don’t feel that way. And when we don’t, the pressure to be happy makes everything worse. Sadness feels like failure. Grief feels like a personal mistake. Depression becomes something to hide. But what if dark moods aren’t problems to fix? What if they’re part of being human? Today’s guest is philosopher Mariana Alessandri, author of Night Vision, a book about how to honor the emotions we usually try to outrun. It’s not a celebration of sadness, but Alessandri calls bullshit on the culture of toxic positivity and the idea that happiness is something we’re supposed to choose on command. Sean and Mariana talk about why Americans are addicted to the light, why “cheering people up” often backfires, how Stoicism shaped our emotional habits, and what it looks like to sit with grief instead of shaming ourselves for feeling it. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Mariana Alessandri (@mariana.alessandri), associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley and author of Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. This holiday season, your membership goes further: when you join Vox as an annual Member, we’ll gift a free membership to a reader who can’t afford it. By joining today, you’ll get 30% off for an annual membership, and we’ll match your membership. And if you can’t afford it, visit that same link to apply for a free membership through our gift program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 anger — forgiveness is necessary. At least that’s what we’re told over and over again: By forgiving, we can set ourselves free.But is there a cost to forgiveness? Are we forgiving too quickly and too often? Today’s guest is philosopher Myisha Cherry, whose book Failures of Forgiveness critiques our cultural obsession with forgiving those who have done us wrong. She’s not against forgiveness — that would be weird — but she says we ought to be more intentional about why we do it, more aware that the expectation to practice forgiveness often lands on the most vulnerable people, and more concerned about what gets lost when we treat forgiveness as the only path to healing.  Sean and Myisha discuss the 2015 Charleston church shooting, the legacy of slavery, and the real difference between accountability, reconciliation, and simply moving on. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Myisha Cherry (@myishacherry), associate professor of philosophy at the University of California Riverside, and author of Failures of Forgiveness: What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better. This episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. Vox had full discretion over the content of this reporting. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. This holiday season, your membership goes further: when you join Vox as an annual Member, we’ll gift a free membership to a reader who can’t afford it. By joining today, you’ll get 30% off for an annual membership, and we’ll match your membership. And if you can’t afford it, visit that same link to apply for a free membership through our gift program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean’s guest today is Daniel Kolitz, author of a remarkable Harper’s story on “gooning.”  They talk about this emerging subculture and how it reflects back on the larger world, from the economics of attention to the rise of short-form everything. Kolitz explains why the Gooniverse isn’t just about porn, how hyperkinetic media rewires our sense of pleasure and patience, and why this is really a story about how society is changing in ways we might not like. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Daniel Kolitz, author of The Goon Squad We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of ⁠⁠The Gray Area on YouTube⁠⁠.. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. This holiday season, your membership goes further: when you join Vox as an annual Member, we’ll gift a free membership to a reader who can’t afford it. By joining today, you’ll get 30% off for an annual membership, and we’ll match your membership. And if you can’t afford it, visit that same link to apply for a free membership through our gift program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 today is Brad DeLong, an economic historian at UC Berkeley and author of Slouching Towards Utopia. They talk about the difference between getting richer and living well, and why the real hinge of the 21st century might be attention rather than growth. DeLong explains how AI could make life easier or simply make us more distracted, why the world’s progress continues even as American politics falters, and what smart policy could do for the people left behind by technological change. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: J. Bradford DeLong, economic historian and author of Slouching Towards Utopia We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members This episode was supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures. Vox had full discretion over the content of this reporting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 if awkwardness isn’t a flaw to fix but a window into how we live together?  Sean’s guest today is Alexandra Plakias, associate professor of philosophy at Hamilton College and author of Awkwardness: A Theory. They talk about why awkwardness isn’t a personal problem but a social one, how power and privilege shape who gets to be awkward, and why our fear of discomfort often keeps us from saying what really matters. This episode originally aired in November of 2024. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Alexandra Plakias, associate professor of philosophy and author of Awkwardness: A Theory We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We use “Orwellian” to describe everything from campus dust-ups to authoritarian crackdowns. But what did George Orwell actually stand for, what did he get wrong, and what can we learn from him about our age of surveillance capitalism and distraction? Sean’s guest is Laura Beers, historian at American University and author of Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the 21st Century. They dig into Orwell’s defense of truth over ideology, his crusade against euphemism, his experience with propaganda and persecution in Spain, and why 1984 and Animal Farm only capture part of his project.  Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Laura Beers, historian and author of Orwell’s Ghosts We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. But what if none of that’s true? Sean’s guest today is Robert Sapolsky, a biologist and neuroscientist at Stanford University and author of Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. They dig into Sapolsky’s claim that free will is an illusion and discuss what the science says about genes, stress, culture, and how all this research might reframe the way we think about meritocracy, blame, punishment, and even hatred. This episode originally aired in November of 2023. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Robert Sapolsky, biologist and neuroscientist at Stanford University and author of ⁠Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will⁠. We’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you thought of this episode by emailing thegrayarea@vox.com or leaving us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of ⁠The Gray Area on YouTube⁠. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: ⁠vox.com/members⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 in key sectors. Clean energy is scaling faster than anyone predicted. Real progress is happening. It’s just not happening in the way we imagine it. Sean’s guest today is Hannah Ritchie, Deputy Editor at Our World in Data and author of Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change. They discuss why our picture of the planet is so distorted, why despair can be as dangerous as denial, and what a truly energy-abundant, livable future could look like. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Hannah Ritchie, author of Clearing the Air We’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you thought of this episode at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members This episode was supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures. Vox had full discretion over the content of this reporting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 control. Streaming platforms that are packed with ads. Services that used to be free, but are now behind paywalls. It’s not your imagination — it’s enshittification, the process by which good platforms turn bad… and it’s starting to happen outside the internet as well. Sean’s guest today is Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. They discuss how the web became enshittified, why monopolies are the true engine behind our digital decay, and what it would mean to build a freer, fairer, and more human internet. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Cory Doctorow (https://x.com/doctorow), author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. We’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you thought of this episode at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is America at a tipping point? Sean Illing talks with Barbara Walter, one of the world’s leading experts on violent extremism and domestic terror. She’s the author of How Civil Wars Start, about how democracies unravel from within, and a professor at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. Walter talks to Sean about the warning signs she’s seeing in the US, why polarization and party identity become combustible, and what lessons we can draw from other countries. They also discuss what an American civil war might look like in the 21st century, the social and informational dynamics that accelerate breakdown, and whether America still has a path away from the brink. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Barbara Walter, professor at UC San Diego and author of How Civil Wars Start We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 stitches fragments into stories, and those stories — true or not — are what we end up calling our life, and sometimes, our collective history. Sean’s guest today is Charan Ranganath, a neuroscientist and author of a book called Why We Remember. The two discuss the strange alchemy of remembering and how the stories our minds create end up creating us. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Charan Ranganath, neuroscientist and author of Why We Remember We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 media into a push-not-pull entertainment feed, and what happens when human editors inside the company can override the algorithm. A few days after they spoke, TikTok was in the headlines again. So they jumped on a follow-up call to unpack the latest twists in the saga of who will ultimately control the app's US-operations. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Emily Baker-White, reporter and author of Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over TikTok The Gray Area has been nominated for a Signal Listener’s Choice Award. Vote for The Gray Area here: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2025/shows/genre/thought-leadership We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show. Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Sun is more hopeful than you might expect. That’s because, for the first time, we have a genuine alternative: Solar and wind energy are now the cheapest, fastest-growing sources of power on Earth. The revolution has already begun. This week, Sean is joined by McKibben to talk about the peril and promise of this moment. They explore how close we are to catastrophe, why each fraction of a degree of warming matters, and how the fossil fuel industry is fighting a desperate last stand. They also discuss the politics of energy in the age of Trump, why Texas and Utah may hold surprising lessons, and how cheap, abundant power could transform not just the climate fight but democracy itself. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Bill McKibben, climate activist and author of Here Comes the Sun We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show. ⁠⁠This episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Free speech is often treated as a timeless and sacred right. But what if it’s more myth than reality? This week, Sean is joined by historian Fara Dabhoiwala, author of What Is Free Speech? They trace the history of free expression from 18th-century pamphleteers, to John Stuart Mill, to the digital platforms that dominate our lives today. They explore why speech is never just “speech,” how context and power shape who gets heard, the dangers of harmful speech, and the challenges of regulating platforms in a global media environment. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Fara Dabhoiwala, historian and author of What Is Free Speech? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show. Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: http://vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 a person can accumulate. They talk about how extreme inequality affects democracy, the role of money in politics, and why limiting personal wealth benefits everyone, including the super rich. Host: Sean Illing (⁠⁠@SeanIlling⁠⁠) Guest: Ingrid Robeyns, ⁠⁠professor⁠⁠ and author of Limitarianism: ⁠⁠The Case Against Extreme Wealth⁠⁠ This episode originally aired in January 2024 We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. You can watch new episodes of ⁠⁠The Gray Area on YouTube⁠⁠. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: ⁠⁠vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America has a hard time building stuff. Roads. Trains. Bridges. Housing. Everything takes seemingly forever. Meanwhile, China seems to have no trouble at all: high-speed rails, solar panels, electric cars, bridges, ports, all churned out at breakneck speed. Why is that? Sean's guest is Dan Wang, author of the new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. They discuss the policies and mindset that allow China to tackle remarkable feats of engineering, the advantages and drawbacks of America’s "lawyerly society," and what China and America must learn from each other. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Dan Wang, author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future This episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought! Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. We read and listen to everything, and might use your comments and questions in future episodes. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members and watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A loose movement of radical intellectuals is driving American politics.  They’re called the “New Right,” and they share a basic hostility to American liberal democracy, a real desire to fundamentally overhaul it, and real influence in the White House. But why do they think that? How much influence do they really have? And what would a response to their rising prominence look like? Today’s guest is Laura Field, a political theorist who’s spent a lot of time in the conservative intellectual world cataloging the wild world of far-right thinking for her book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.  She speaks with guest host Zack Beauchamp, author of Vox newsletter On The Right, about why ordinary Americans should really, definitely, and absolutely care what a handful of thinkers are putting out on obscure Substacks and YouTube channels. Host: Zack Beauchamp Guest: Laura Field We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Almost every tech platform is designed to grab and hold your attention, to keep you clicking, scrolling, and buying for as long as possible. Sports gambling has become one of the clearest examples of this. The industry has created frictionless apps on your phone that let you bet on everything from March Madness to a pregame coin toss to who wins a minor league British dart tournament. While betting has become easier — and arguably fun — the cost of these apps is much higher than the money that is won and lost on them. Today’s guest is Jonathan D. Cohen, author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling. He and Sean discuss the rise of sports betting, why the industry targets young men in their advertising, the social costs of frictionless sports gambling, and how the industry could be improved. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Jonathan D. Cohen, writer and author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of ⁠The Gray Area on YouTube⁠. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: ⁠vox.com/members⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 is there still time to reclaim the weird, untapped potential of the digital world? This week, Sean is joined by Douglas Rushkoff. He’s a media theorist, author of Survival of the Richest and Team Human, and host of the Team Human podcast. They trace the arc of the internet from its utopian beginnings to its corporate capture, and explore what it would take to build something different. Along the way, they talk about the loss of weirdness, the logic of capitalism, the dangers of scale, and the difference between systems thinking and systems feeling. They also reflect on whether it’s still possible to use technology to foster a more connected and communal life. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and host of Team Human We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show. Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What comes after the human? We’re living through multiple crises — ecological, technological, political. But beneath all of that is something even deeper: a crisis of the self. Who are we, really? How did we come to see ourselves as separate from the world, from each other, from the systems that sustain us? And what if that way of thinking is what got us into this mess? Today’s guest is Mark C. Taylor, philosopher, cultural critic, and author of After the Human. Mark and Sean discuss the philosophical roots of climate change, the dangers of individualism, the false promise of techno-utopianism, and what it might mean to shift from seeing ourselves as isolated egos to members of a vast, interdependent web. They talk about AI, death, Hegel, Descartes, hope, and why ideas matter. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Mark C. Taylor, philosopher and author of After the Human: A Philosophy for the Future. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American higher education is under attack. Project 2025 laid out the battle plan pretty clearly: Get rid of the Department of Education, shut off federal funding, take control of the accreditation system, and take down diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. And in the end, change what students are encouraged to study and what professors are allowed to teach. The questions we’re left with is why? And is it working? Today’s guest is Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University. He’s a vocal defender of higher education. But he’s also honest about where things have gone wrong and what needs to change. Michael and Sean discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to change universities and colleges, the potential societal effects of that effort, political biases on campus, the dangers of ideological conformity, and the value of a college education (what is even the point of going to college any more?). Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University and author of numerous books including Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters and The Student: A Short History. Mentioned in this episode: Host Sean Illing’s interview with reporter James Walsh about AI on campuses. We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 tomorrow. Keep the faith. But maintaining that kind of blind hope is hard. When our hopes are dashed, we often feel defeated. In a world that’s filled with lots of dark clouds and very few silver linings, perhaps we need a better way to balance our hope and our pessimism. In today’s episode, Sean interviews philosopher Mara van der Lugt about her new book Hopeful Pessimism. The two talk about how to sustain hope when you’re feeling pessimistic, the pitfalls of blind hope, and what the climate movement can teach us about staying motivated when success is unlikely. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Mara van der Lugt, lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews and author of Hopeful Pessimism. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 to offload their assignments. AI tools can write essays, make study guides, and even complete whole assignments. So what is the point of higher education? In today’s episode, Sean speaks with journalist James Walsh about his recent article, "Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College." The two discuss how students are using AI to finish their assignments, how colleges are (and aren’t) responding to these challenges, and whether you can learn to think when something else does the thinking for you. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: James Walsh, features writer for New York magazine's Intelligencer. Read James’s article: "Everyone is Cheating Their Way Through College." Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 just politically. But culturally. What kind of country are we living in? And what kind of future are we heading toward? In today’s episode, Sean and Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp try to answer these difficult questions. They discuss Trump’s successes and failures, how he appeals to his supporters, and how the left can respond to the Trump administration. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Zack Beauchamp, Vox senior correspondent and the author of the On the Right newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here. Listen to Sean’s previous interview with Zack about the state of right-wing politics here. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, the American right has stayed on brand: the economy. Low taxes. Free markets. Deregulation. Those have been the buzzwords for more than half a century. But that doctrine is now being challenged by other conservatives who envision a future in which America’s trade deficit is lower, manufacturing returns to the US, and Americans buy more American-made products. Is this future even possible? Economist Oren Cass thinks it is. In today’s episode, the founder of the think tank America Compass speaks to Sean about right-wing economic populism. The two discuss a conservative, pro-worker approach to economic policy, Cass’s plan to bring manufacturing back to the US, and what types of behavior economic policy should incentivize. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Oren Cass, chief economist and founder of American Compass. Editor of The New Conservatives: Restoring America's Commitment to Family, Community, and Industry. Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sebastian Junger came as close as you possibly can to dying. While his doctors struggled to revive him, the veteran reporter and avowed rationalist experienced things that shocked and shook him, leaving him with profound questions and unexpected revelations. In his book, In My Time of Dying, he explores the mysteries and commonalities of people’s near-death experiences. In this episode, which originally aired in May 2024, he joins Sean to talk about what it’s like to almost die and what quantum physics can tell us about the afterlife. Host: Sean Illing (⁠⁠@SeanIlling⁠⁠) Guest: Sebastian Junger, journalist and author of ⁠⁠In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face With the Idea of an Afterlife⁠ Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Almost nothing stands the test of time. Machiavelli's writings are a rare exception. Why are we still talking about Machiavelli, nearly 500 years after his death? What is it about his political philosophy that feels so important, prescient, or maybe chilling today? In this episode, Sean speaks with political philosopher and writer Erica Benner about Niccolo Machiavelli’s legacy. The two discuss The Prince, Machiavelli’s views on democracy, and what he might say about the Trump administration were he alive today. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Erica Benner, political philosopher, historian, and author of Be Like the Fox Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: voxmedia.com/survey. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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-status position. Some of us love this endless climb. But lots of us, at least once in our lives, find ourselves asking, "What’s the point of all this ambition?"Historian and author Rutger Bregman doesn’t think there is a point to that kind of ambition. Instead, he wants us to be morally ambitious, to measure the value of our achievements based on how much good we do, by how much we improve the world. In this episode, Bregman speaks with guest host Sigal Samuel about how to know if you’re morally ambitious, the value of surrounding yourself with like-minded people, and how to make moral ambition fashionable. Host: Sigal Samuel, Vox senior reporter Guest: Rutger Bregman, historian, author of Moral Ambition, and co-founder of The School for Moral Ambition Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Show Notes Vox’s Good Robot series can be found here: Episode 1 Episode 2 Episode 3 (discusses the "drowning child thought experiment" and effective altruism) Episode 4 Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 mind about your most deeply held beliefs? Are you pre-disposed to be more rigid or more flexible in your thinking? That’s what political psychologist and neuroscientist Leor Zmigrod wants to know. In her new book, The Ideological Brain, she examines the connection between our biology, our psychology, and our political beliefs. In today’s episode, Leor speaks with Sean about rigid vs. flexible thinking, how our biology and ideology influence each other, and the conditions under which our ideology is more likely to become extreme. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Leor Zmigrod, political psychologist, neuroscientist, and author of The Ideological Brain Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 lives in different — and very unequal — ways. Covid hasn’t disappeared, but the crisis has subsided. So do we have enough distance from it to reflect on what we got right, what we got wrong, and what we can do differently when the next crisis strikes? Professor Frances E. Lee — co-author of In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us — thinks we do. In this episode, she speaks with Sean about how our politics, our assumptions, and our biases affected decision-making and outcomes during the pandemic. Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Frances E. Lee, professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton and co-author of In Covid's Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members Help us plan for the future of The Gray Area by filling out a brief survey: ⁠voxmedia.com/survey⁠. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices