13 December 2025
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unprogrammed
Subscribe to unprogrammed via podcast or email
Apr 21, 2025 —
Nikita Petrov & Boris Shoshitaishvili
- Nikita: Leaving Russia. The psychedelic lineage. Humanity is a trip, not a species
- 16 years ago, Boris took such a good nap after visiting a sacred Ancient Greek site that he still thinks about it
- In The Dark Places of Wisdom: mystical practices at the root of Western civilization
- What makes us feel we belong: identity & community
- Humanity as a planetary force
- What makes us feel we belong: values & norms
- What makes us feel we belong: direct experience
- Psychedelics & meditation in service of planetary identity
- “To be” comes from the word “to grow”, “am” & “is” from “to breath”
- Rationalists
- How Socrates got himself killed
- What makes us feel we belong: awareness of inter-dependence
- Gaia, humanity, and AI are 3 generations of planetary forces
- Zizians. There’s something to be said about dogma
- “DMT, death, and nanobots are the same thing, somehow”
- Humanity is still being born
- Ideas are alive
- JFK’s “my fellow Americans” address, in which he casts the country as a peer to the citizen
- VR brings us back into the body
- The human experience is an image that arises from the play of ideas and matter
- Agency found in choosing one’s metaphors
- Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Message
- Homeric rhapsodes
- Conversation as distributed thinking
Aug 12, 2021 —
Michael Swaine & Orville Schell
- How much can the US influence Chinese policy?
- Who is to blame for current US-China tensions?
- Orville: There is a real ideological clash between the US and China
- Michael: Washington can’t resolve the Hong Kong crisis
- Balancing cooperation and competition
- What threat does China pose to the US?
- Demilitarizing the South China Sea
- To what extent should the US “decouple” its economy from China’s?
- Improving crisis management
Aug 9, 2021 —
Connor Echols & Jemima Pierre
- A primer on Haitian history
- America’s longstanding habit of interfering in Haiti
- The 2010 earthquake and its political fallout
- Jemima: Most Haitians see the US as an imperial power
- What we know about President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination
- Jemima: Haiti can’t hold new elections under the current government
- Ending on a (somewhat) hopeful note
Jul 28, 2021 —
Connor Echols & Achin Vanaik
- Contextualizing the rise of the authoritarian right in India
- Why are Prime Minister Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party so successful?
- What would it take for the BJP to lose power?
- Achin: Modi has accelerated India’s shift toward the West
- Hindu nationalism at home and abroad
- How US-China tensions could fuel an India-Pakistan nuclear arms race
- Why did India get nukes in the first place?
- Modi’s contradictory stance on vaccines
Jul 19, 2021 —
John Ikenberry & Patrick Porter
- John and Daniel Deudney’s piece, “The Intellectual Foundations of the Biden Revolution”
- Debating FDR’s foreign policy legacy
- Patrick: Projecting power abroad undermines democracy at home
- Is there tension between promoting democracy and fighting climate change?
- John: Biden is trying to reinvent liberalism for a new era
- Should Biden focus on relations with like-minded nations?
- The limits of liberal internationalism in the Middle East
- Is America an empire?
- Assessing Biden’s international efforts to ‘Build Back Better’
Jul 15, 2021 —
Stephen Wertheim & Thomas Wright
- Assessing Biden’s foreign policy
- How unusual was Trump’s approach to international affairs?
- When should the US be willing to work with authoritarians?
- Tom: Restrainers ignore America’s greatest foreign policy successes
- Does the US need troops in the Middle East?
- Stephen: We need a narrower view of US interests abroad
- Two approaches to democracy promotion
Jul 1, 2021 —
Heather Hurlburt & Kori Schake
- The role of the state in the digital age
- How should the US deal with China’s rise?
- Should America be more hawkish toward China than its Asian allies are?
- Kori on China policy: The US has to defend the rules-based order
- Heather: We have to make the international system live up to its promises
- Fostering better US-Europe relations
- Can the US get its act together at home?
Apr 5, 2021 —
Connor Echols & Madawi Al-Rasheed
- The rapid rise of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman
- Madawi: MbS is Saudi Arabia’s response to the Arab Spring
- Populism and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi
- Why Saudi Arabia cares so much about Iran
- Madawi: Don’t expect an Israeli flag in Riyadh quite yet
- How much can Biden influence Saudi policy?
- Has MbS bitten off more than he can chew?
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