The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.

https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast

Eine durchschnittliche Folge dieses Podcasts dauert 1h6m. Bisher sind 657 Folge(n) erschienen. Alle 4 Tage erscheint eine Folge dieses Podcasts.

Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 32 days 2 hours 54 minutes

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episode 87: Chris Hayes on whether Trump should be removed from office


In the aftermath of Trump’s bizarre, dangerous North Korea tweets, I’ve been fixated on a question: Should Trump be removed from office?   The mechanisms we have for curbing a dangerous presidency are limited, at least as we normally think about them. Though legal scholars argue over the founders’ intent, impeachment is thought to be a remedy for executive criminality, while the 25th Amendment is only meant to be used amid physical and mental incapacitation...


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 August 15, 2017  1h9m
 
 

episode 86: Sen. Michael Bennet on why this is a dismal, sociopathic era in Congress


Michael Bennet is an accidental senator. He was unexpectedly appointed to fill an open seat after Ken Salazar joined the Obama administration. He had never run for elected office before, or served in a legislative body. Perhaps that’s why he’s always, in my experience, been appropriately shocked by how the US Congress actually works. Since joining the Senate (and winning reelection in 2010 and 2016), Bennet has become one of its more effective members...


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 August 8, 2017  1h21m
 
 

episode 85: What’s scary isn’t Trump’s illiberalism but America's acceptance of it


Yascha Mounk is a lecturer at Harvard, a columnist at Slate, and the host of The Good Fight podcast. He’s also an expert on how democracies backslide into illiberalism — which was the topic of our first conversation on this podcast. But when Mounk and I last spoke, fears of Trump’s illiberal instincts seemed to have been overblown. This was an administration too incompetent to be authoritarian...


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 August 1, 2017  1h7m
 
 

episode 84: Julia Galef on how to argue better and change your mind more


At least in politics, this is an era of awful arguments. Arguments made in bad faith. Arguments in which no one, on either side, is willing to change their mind. Arguments where the points being made do not describe, or influence, the positions being held. Arguments that leave everyone dumber, angrier, sadder. Which is why I wanted to talk to Julia Galef this week...


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 July 25, 2017  1h34m
 
 

episode 83: Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia, the first psychologist to run a jail


Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart calls the 8,000-person Cook County Jail the largest mental health institution in the country. Thirty percent of its inmates have diagnosed mental health issues, and the number with undiagnosed conditions is thought to push the true percentage much higher. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Dart chose Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia, a psychologist, to run it. What is surprising is that Jones Tapia is the first mental health profession to run a jail...


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 July 18, 2017  1h11m
 
 

episode 82: Eddie Izzard on World War I, cake or death, and marathoning


Now that I've gotten Eddie Izzard to re-derive his famed "cake or death?" routine in real time, I'm ending this podcast. Always good to go out on top. Okay, maybe I won't actually end it. But this episode was a thrill to do. Eddie Izzard has long been one of my favorite comics. I've watched his specials more times than I can count. And this conversation was a real pleasure...


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 July 11, 2017  1h11m
 
 

episode 81: Avik Roy and Ezra debate the Senate GOP's health bill


According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate GOP’s health care bill — officially known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act — will lead to 22 million fewer people with health insurance and plans with such high deductibles that low-income people won’t be able to afford them. On the bright side? Massive tax cuts for the rich. It’s not a widely popular vision — the bill is struggling to attract Republican support, and is polling between 12 and 17 percent. But it does have defenders...


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 July 3, 2017  1h29m
 
 

episode 80: danah boyd on why fake news is so easy to believe


danah boyd is an anthropologist and computer scientist who studies the way people actually use technology. Not the way we wish we used technology, or the way we hope we will use technology, but the way we actually use it.“Technology,” she says, "is made by people. In a society. And it has a tendency to mirror and magnify the issues that affect everyday life...


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 June 27, 2017  1h30m
 
 

episode 79: Al Franken on learning to be a politician


Sen. Al Franken’s new book, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, is the rare politician memoir that’s actually interesting. And note that I said interesting, not funny (though it is also funny).Most books by politicians are about how they’re not really politicians — they’re authentic, they’re honest, they shoot from the hip, they still remember what it was like growing up in a mill town raised by feral dogs and subsisting on nothing but hay...


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 June 20, 2017  58m
 
 

episode 78: Zephyr Teachout on suing Trump, fighting corruption, and breaking monopolies


Zephyr Teachout is a law professor at Fordham University, the author of Corruption in America, one of the lead lawyers in the emoluments case that’s been brought against Donald Trump, and a former gubernatorial and congressional candidate. Which is all to say that Teachout is someone who knows a lot about political corruption, and so we dive deep into that topic in this podcast...


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 June 13, 2017  1h34m