Politics, culture, and philosophy through a radical liberal lens. Co-host of the Inner Life of Liberalism podcast.
After 101 episodes, it's time to move on to new projects.
April 05, 2026
Google's music-making AI makes songs. I just can't figure out why anyone would listen to them.
March 26, 2026
A podcast conversation.
March 11, 2026
Tabletop RPGs are story engines. Why would you want to tell only one kind of story?
February 11, 2026
It's okay to feel despair in the moment. But it's dumb to insist we've already lost.
February 04, 2026
It's not the year's best movie, but Spinal Tap 2 brought me the most joy.
December 24, 2025
A podcast conversation.
December 23, 2025
A late sequel that doesn't try to be a movie. It's a hangout—and it's exactly what it needs to be.
December 15, 2025
A podcast conversation.
December 12, 2025
Trump is shameless, yes. But he also has a fetish for humiliating himself.
December 05, 2025
In Trump 1.0, he'd back down when he was unpopular. Now he doesn't.
December 02, 2025
A conversation with Andy Craig and Shikha Dalmia
November 24, 2025
When you let rot into your coalition, your entire coalition eventually turns rotten.
November 06, 2025
Running against trans people failed and America proved itself a better place than the worst among us want it to be.
November 05, 2025
Decentralization, network overlap, and why we should all blog, too.
October 31, 2025
There are more of us than there are of them. And we have decency on our side.
October 19, 2025
People don't like jerks. But jerks think people instead can't handle their ideas.
October 11, 2025
The values and perspectives our political moment demands of us.
October 02, 2025
Before we can do politics well, we need to know why we do politics in the first place.
December 16, 2024
The more you ask follow-up questions, the worse the answers get.
December 13, 2024
Trump won't be around forever. And no one looks position to lead his movement without him.
December 09, 2024
Is it wrong to have a social media feed primarily of people you agree with?
November 18, 2024
We might just see a significant anti-Trump backlash in 2026 and 2028.
November 07, 2024
The worst happened, and America will be ruled, for four years at least, by fascism.
November 06, 2024
Mindful and compassionate attention and awareness are needed to get through what the country now faces.
November 06, 2024
Chatbots can help students understand concepts when their teachers can't.
November 05, 2024
It's not "political" when a game or movie isn't a bunch of straight white guys.
November 04, 2024
Change and diversity are inevitable and good—and our politics should reflect that.
November 01, 2024
Learning about ideologies exclusively from their opponents is a recipe for epistemic failure.
October 30, 2024
Going full-MAGA has hollowed out the GOP's talent pipeline. The party can barely staff itself, let alone govern.
October 30, 2024
Five persistent mental habits that sabotage ethical practice—and what to do about each.
October 29, 2024
A thought experiment about a mysterious box that reads and learns everything. Does that make it a thief?
October 29, 2024
The first principle of ethics is not causing harm—to others or to ourselves. A liberal politics follows from there.
October 29, 2024
A Trump loss won't end MAGA or restore the old GOP. Here's what it would actually mean for American politics.
October 18, 2024
A Lovecraftian dispatch from the front lines of the right-wing immigration panic machine.
September 10, 2024
Defining ethics and distinguishing it from morality is crucial for clear philosophical thought.
July 04, 2024
How the "Overton Paradox" explains the intra-liberal culture war.
May 10, 2024
Buddhism's Middle Way is not a call for moderation. It's a call for radical focus on what actually matters.
February 28, 2024
Substack's business model is unsustainable—unless they lock all their writers in.
February 27, 2024
Atheists can't make their case if they insist on straw-manning faith.
August 29, 2023
Our brains have limits on what they can think and what tools they can bring to thinking.
June 06, 2023
Liberal speech norms and deciding which ideas are worthy of engagement.
May 23, 2023
Moral panic about drag queens and gender fluidity isn't principled ethics. It's ideology constructed on personal hang-ups.
February 18, 2023
Conservative philosophy is mostly personal distaste for novelty dressed up in elaborate intellectual costume.
February 16, 2023
A podcast conversation with Stephanie Slade
April 06, 2022
The emancipatory and cosmopolitan case for radical liberalism. Hosted by Aaron Ross Powell.
March 23, 2022
A conversation with Cory Massimino
March 23, 2022
Liberty is dynamic. Conservatism is static. They cannot coexist.
February 04, 2022
Conservative ideology fundamentally contradicts individual liberty and self-determination.
February 04, 2022
Through sheer storytelling laziness, it tells us that nothing that came before mattered.
December 16, 2017