We can enhance athletic performance, lose weight with a pill and even take psychedelics to alter consciousness. At what point does all this self-optimization become self-obsession? When does it get in the way of our humanity itself? My guest this week is the German biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, who believes scientific breakthroughs to extend our lives — and even put us in touch with the divine — are close at hand.

0:00 - Intro
01:40 - Investing in longevity, A.I. and psychedelics
6:06 - The vision for the Enhanced Games
13:45 - Normalizing enhancements for everyone
20:02 - Ozempic is the first of many...
30:00 - The five basics for health and well-being
36:52 - Psychedelics trips and spiritual revelations
59:20 - Christian skepticism
01:04:22 - "Jesus is not human-maxxing."

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. 

Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/opinion/better-sex-better-hair-better-sleep-humanmaxxing-is-here.html

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In an era defined by deep institutional distrust, a new trend within populist conservatism has emerged. It’s a sense that the federal government is keeping secrets and protecting the powerful at our expense. My guest this week is Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a conservative Republican from Florida who has quickly established herself as a political troublemaker. She’s challenging fellow lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — on issues like sexual harassment and ethics, but she doesn’t see her campaign to clean up Congress as in tension with her allegiance to President Trump. Luna has focused her first years in Congress on exposing what she views as coverups, from the Epstein files to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and longstanding government secrecy around U.F.O.s.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 01:31 - Luna's politics: "Conservative with a streak of populism"
• 08:07 - From chaos to conservative influencer
• 16:17 - Critiquing the ethics of Congress
• 24:55 - Presidential ethics and the Epstein files
• 36:25 - The U.A.P. activity at Eglin Air Force Base
• 41:02 - The "mosaic" around the J.F.K. assassination
• 47:50 - U.A.P. evidence
• 54:30 - Whistleblower retribution and protections
• 57:57 - Secret programs: "A stronger dose of strangeness"

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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The future of high-tech warfare has arrived. Just look to the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran to see how much drones and robots have remade the modern battlefield. Is the U.S. positioned to win wars in this new era? What are the ethical constraints of waging autonomous warfare? My guest this week is Christian Brose, the president and chief strategy officer of Anduril, a defense technology company building a slate of autonomous weapons and defense systems for the American military.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 03:18 - Drones on the Russia - Ukraine battlefield
• 8:17 - Iran's stalemate and American military readiness
• 17:11 - Anduril is more than a "Lord of the Rings" reference
• 25:33 - Force fields and a layered defense
• 31:12 - The challenges of "finicky" autonomous systems
• 44:44 - The ethics of automating the kill chain

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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What’s really driving the humanities crisis in higher education? As enrollment and reading decline, I asked Jennifer Frey, a professor of philosophy, what it was like to run a liberal arts program that was gutted. I wanted to know whether she thinks the age of A.I. could bring back the kind of education she says is fundamental to human formation.

• 00:00 - Intro
• 2:08 - Why study the humanities?
• 5:00 - Do the humanities mean more morality?
• 15:00 - Shakespeare vs. John Grisham
• 24:07 - The Tulsa Honors College
• 34:43 - Left-wing critiques and specialization
• 44:10 - Is conservatism a friend to liberal arts?
• 56:32 - Why the humanities are crucial in the age A.I.

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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The United States and China are really the only two countries that matter right now in shaping the A.I. future. As President Trump and President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, there’s a kind of Cold War atmosphere, with people talking about an A.I. arms race. But who is winning? Are we even in a race at all? Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it’s hard to call it a race because the U.S. and China have very different A.I. goals.

• 00:00:25 U.S. vs. China in A.I.
• 00:03:07 Everyday A.I. in China
• 00:07:41 China's A.I. chip limitations
• 00:12:14 China's A.I. advantage: energy & deployment
• 00:16:10 China's public mood on A.I.
• 00:19:44 AI, job displacement and social concerns
• 00:23:53 Robots for China's labor shortage
• 00:26:55 China's view on America's AGI fixation
• 00:31:16 Distilling A.I. models
• 00:38:39 U.S. needs more A.I. deployment
• 00:41:48 U.S. chip policy and the hawk's argument

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, 

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

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A stalemated war. Fractured alliances. A rival waiting in the wings. It feels to me that we’re having an “end of the American empire” moment. My guest this week, Ray Dalio, is an unlikely prophet of doom — the billionaire Bridgewater investor conquered Wall Street by studying history and mastering global trends. He foresaw the 2008 financial crisis,and these days he’s warning that the U.S. is repeating the patterns that ended great empires of the past.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:24 - The rise and fall of empires through big cycles
• 08:35 - Geopolitical tensions: China, Iran and the Suez Canal
• 14:27 - Fiat currency or gold?
• 24:19 - America’s coming ‘heart attack’
• 30:37 - Acts of nature, A.I. and technology
• 43:37 - ‘Could we have a Japanese future?’

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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Self-driving cars are here. But what kind of future will they bring: safe roads and extra time or dystopian traffic jams? My guest this week is Andrew Miller, who writes about self-driving cars and transportation policy. I love the open road, so I press him on what’s lost when we give away driving to the robots.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:27 - The sales pitch for Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox 
• 12:24 - How autonomous are autonomous cars? 
• 20:14 - Liability: Who is responsible for an accident?
• 31:56 - Political obstacles: Spying, data, labor
• 38:53 - 20:35: The good and bad scenarios
• 48:25 - Are we losing the “romance of the road”?

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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One question has haunted my investment strategy for years: What is cryptocurrency actually for? It feels as though the vibes are constantly shifting — one day it’s the dollar’s successor, and the next it’s little more than a meme. My guest this week is bitcoin evangelist Anthony Pompliano, the chief executive of ProCap Financial. We get into whether crypto is a bet against the American empire and whether its volatility is actually a strength.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:27 - Physical to digital: The evolution of financial assets
• 05:00 - The wealth inequality gap
• 09:58 - The global adoption of crypto
• 14:51 - Bitcoin vs. Ethereum
• 20:26 - Why "stability" is a financial lie
• 29:30 - A “digital savings account”
• 41:57 - The role of Bitcoin in political dynamics
• 56:05 - “A bet against America”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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President Trump has tested the limits of presidential power since he returned to office — from his assertion of total control over federal agencies to his war in Iran. But so far, many of Trump’s most aggressive moves have been stopped by the Supreme Court. 

My guest this week is Sarah Isgur, a conservative court watcher, who argues that the Supreme Court isn’t just a firewall against Donald Trump, but the real power center in American politics today.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:28 - Remaking the presidency: The hundred-year experiment
• 04:26 - Trump’s legal retribution campaign
• 09:15 - The Supreme Court’s strategy in the face of Trump
• 18:15 - “Looming" cases: Tariffs and birthright citizenship
• 28:23 - Supreme Court internal dynamics
• 43:32 - The future bench

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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How would you live if you knew when you were going to die? I sat down with the former Republican senator Ben Sasse to hear how he is facing his own mortality after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. For Sasse, cancer brings pain, but also clarity, sharpening his focus on the state of our politics, his wife and three children, and the God he expects to shortly meet.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:51 - Ben Sasse’s terminal diagnosis
• 07:14 - Oncology navigation and clinical trials
• 16:10 - Sasse’s career in the Senate and reflections on politics
• 32:55 - What could a civic-minded Senator achieve?
• 38:15 - Reforming academia and liberal arts
• 54:49 - Facing mortality: The “final enemy”
• 59:27 - Advice for the living
• 1:01:10 - The “prayer of pancreatic cancer”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Even if you don’t believe he walked on water, the teachings of Jesus still have a certain power. My guest this week, the New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, calls himself a “Christian atheist.” I asked Ehrman to come on the show to explore Jesus’ message, discuss how the Bible has shaped the morality of the Western world and explain what even the biggest skeptic can learn from one of mankind’s oldest texts.

• 0:00 - Intro
• 02:20 - Jesus’s moral teachings
• 08:15 - Ehrman’s path away from Christianity and faith
• 21:22 - The historical evidence for Jesus and the New Testament
• 33:26 - The challenges in interpreting the Gospels
• 52:07 - The contradictions in the New Testament
• 01:04:10 - Historical and geographical validity
• 01:09:25 - The visions and reality of the Resurrection 
• 01:19:21 - A “Christian atheist”

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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