A Conversation about Political Psychology and Rhetoric

Artist, writer, and podcaster Dekker Dreyer had me on his show, Phantom Astronaut, today. (You can listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.) We covered a lot of ground, from the rhetoric of politics, to political psychology, to the way social media influences discourse.

I met Dekker when we stumbled across each other on Threads. He was saying smart things about the complexities of the issues around AI, in the face of a lot of overly-simplistic thinking from various corners.

Our conversation digs into the way personality impacts politics, how norms evolve, why smart people can end up believing and defending transparently silly things, and the role our contemporary media environment, including social media, shape the political environment and its culture.

If you’ve enjoyed what I’ve been writing lately in this newsletter, this podcast episode a good big picture exploration of how all these issues hang together. Give it a listen.