Think Again A Big Think Podcast

"Experimental philosopher" and science writer Jonathon Keats, who famously created pornography for plants and sold real estate in the alternate dimensions proposed by string theory, believes that we "need to ascend to the meta level" to find creative ways of reopening closed conversations. His new book You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, explores the myth and the relevance of a self-mythologizing sometime genius, sometime crackpot whose vast imagination holds some keys to solving the massive problems we now face as a species.  On this week's episode of Think Again–a Big Think Podcast, Jonathon and host Jason Gots discuss social taboos, Fuller's legacy, the "mediated" nature of contemporary life, the power of comedy in society, and so much more.  Surprise discussion clips in this episode: Jim Gaffigan on political correctness in comedy, Dan Savage on sex education, and Mary Roach on diharrhea in the armed forces.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sex toy book parties! Penis transplants! Decomposition labs! These are just a few of the places the intrepid, New York Times bestselling author Mary Roach takes us in hilarious, curiosity-driven books like Bonk:: The Curious Science of Sex and her latest, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. It's some of the best, most engaging science writing out there.  On this week's episode of Think Again–a Big Think Podcast, Mary and host Jason Gots discuss some of the above, then enter more the more abstract territory of dark matter, Nietzche's atheism, and emotional connection with artificial intelligence. It's a weird and wonderful talk adventure.  Surprise discussion clips in this episode: Philosopher Simon Critchley on Nietzsche, Physicist Lisa Randall on Dark Matter, Sherry Turkle on Emotions and AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Jones is a Tony and Obie award-winning playwright and performer. She's unlike any other artist in her uncanny ability to create, become,  and instantly switch between characters, convincingly inhabiting their physicality and their consciousness. Sarah's 2004 one woman show BRIDGE & TUNNEL channeled the symphony of voices that make up New York City's five boroughs. She returns this fall to the Manhattan Theatre Club with SELL/BUY/DATE, in which she plays all characters in a sex-ed class from the future that doubles as a brilliant, satirical commentary on life in 2016.  On May 20th, 2016, almost exactly a year after we launched, Think Again did an episode live with Sarah Jones as part of NYC Podfest, at CakeShop NYC. Host Jason Gots knew in advance that Sarah might be slipping into and out of character, but not which characters, or when. Over the course of the hour, Sarah became and responded to the surprise discussion clips as Rashid, an out-of-work rapper, Lorraine, a Jewish grandmother, Bella, a millen

The stakes are extraordinarily high in this election. We’re at a crossroads. I think the current politics are a continuation of the fight we’ve been having since the ‘60s.The expansion of an African-American middle class, the changes in family norms, in gender and sexual norms . . .Lots of people felt threatened by that. Lots of people resisted that.  But the war is only going to be settled now.  – Sean Wilentz Sean Wilentz is a Princeton professor and the Bancroft-Prize-Winning Author of The Rise of American Democracy. He’s also a major music historian and the author of Bob Dylan in America, and the official historian of Bob Dylan’s website. His new book The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics argues that there are two keys to understanding American politics––the theme of party politics and outsider resistance to it, and the theme of economic and social egalitarianism. He argues that all positive change in American political history has happened within the system of par

“It’s funny or it’s not funny. In the end, people are not coming  to my show because I’m not cursing” – Jim Gaffigan Jim Gaffigan is a Grammy nominated stand-up comedian and the New York Times best-selling author of “Dad is Fat” and other books, and he’s about to launch the second season of  his semi-fictitious TV show, The Jim Gaffigan Show.  On this week's episode of Think Again - a Big Think Podcast, Jim and host Jason Gots talk about the gift of loving what you do for a living, "othering" people we disagree with, and how bigotry is a bipartisan phenomenon. Trump comes up, as do The Simpsons, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, New Yorkers' weird ideas about the Midwest and vice versa, and Jim's Grandpa (sort of).   Surprise discussion clips in this episode: Princeton historian Sean Wilentz on the Trump phenomenon, Dan Pontefract on working with purpose.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"That is one of the most mysterious things about human existence: that we are made by what would break us, repeatedly. That life is hard, and the only guarantee we have is that even at our moments of greatest accomplishment, something will happen that we didn’t expect." – Krista Tippett Krista Tippett is the Peabody award-winning host of the radio program and podcast On Being, in which she and her guests discuss the deeper mysteries of the universe and human existence, which can be difficult things to talk about. Her new book is called Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living. It distills and organizes some of the insights she’s gained over 12 years of talking to spiritual, scientific, artistic and social pioneers about many, many things, but maybe fundamentally about how to live a good life.  On this week's episode of Think Again - a Big Think Podcast, Krista and host Jason Gots discuss the things that are most difficult and most necessary to talk about––the divides across which our words

“Whenever we start seeing people as other, we just get lost. There were so many decent cowboys trying to do the right thing. And so many decent First Nation people trying to do the right thing. And there were so many liars, and cheaters, and people trying to get ahead. So many people with short term goals screwing everything up.”  After his breakout roles in Dead Poets Society and Reality Bites, actor, director, and author Ethan Hawke has followed his own path as an artist, starting a theater company, writing two novels, acting in decade-spanning film productions directed by Richard Linklater including, most recently the amazing Boyhood. He’s just published his first graphic novel, which he wrote with artist Greg Ruth. It’s called  INDEH: A Story of the Apache Wars, and its tells a complex and very human story of relations between the Apaches and the white Americans who ultimately took over their lands.  On this week's episode of Think Again - a Big Think Podcast, Ethan Hawke and host Jason Gots discuss fathe

Novelist and essayist Geoff Dyer is one of the English language's most mordant and poetic observers of art, travel, and human behavior. He's the winner of the National Book Critics Circle  Award for Criticism and the Windham Campbell Prize for Nonfiction. In his most recent book White Sands, weaving stories about places to which he has recently traveled with images and memories that have persisted since childhood, Dyer tries “to work out what a certain place—a certain way of marking the landscape—means; what it’s trying to tell us; what we go to it for.” On this week's episode of Think Again - a Big Think Podcast, Dyer talks revenge, hallucinogens, the criminal brain, Geoff's disappointing trip to see the Northern Lights and more, and there is a spontaneous William Blake smackdown, much to the chagrin of host Jason Gots.  Surprise discussion clips in this episode: Michael Gazzaniga, Lawrence Krauss, and Maia Szalavitz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Death, Bob Marley, parenthood, gratitude, and what to do in the face of incalculable suffering. These are just a few of the topics raised in this episode's vulnerable, searching discussion with Tony, Emmy, Obie, and two-time Golden Globe award-winning actress and author Mary-Louise Parker. She’s won many awards -- Tony, Obie, Golden Globe, Emmy -- for her roles in the Showtime series Weeds, the TV miniseries of Angels in America, and the play Proof, among other things. Unbeknownst to many people until now, she’s also a seriously talented writer. Her first book,  Dear Mr. You, is a series of letters to men, real and hypothetical, living and dead, who have had a meaningful impact on her life.  Surprise interview clips from Henry Rollins and Ralph Rivera set Mary-Louise and host Jason Gots off on a conversation about the limits of empathy, the power of music, and the fact that likability is way overrated.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"When you’re writing a novel, it’s agony. It’s complete agony. It’s a horrible thing to put yourself through. All of the instinctive kind of rushes of creativity, the energized outpourings, anybody can do that. That’s not what makes you a writer. The bit of this job that makes you a writer is when you don’t feel like that. When you feel like you never deserved to even imagine that you could have been a writer. When you hate every word that you’ve made. When you doubt every single part of your brain. To sit down in that space and work because you’ve got a deadline to meet, because you’ve got a novel to write. You know to ignore your brain in that moment, because your brain is defeating you. You have to be able to trust your hand." – Kate Tempest, in this episode  Kate Tempest is a force of nature. She won the coveted Ted Hughes award for her epic poem Brand New Ancients, which she toured internationally as a stage show to massive critical acclaim. Her novelistic 2014 rap album Everybody Down takes hip-hop in

I’m starting to feel that what people in the future will actually want is something that feels small. That feels like not everyone has access to it. You’ll see more people making a modest living and less people making these massive superstar livings.   – Chris Gethard, in this episode.  Why was having his "big break" sitcom bomb a blessing in disguise for Chris Gethard, creator of the beloved Chris Gethard Show  "the most bizarre and often saddest talk show in New York City"? What do comedians and con artists have in common? When your authenticity and approachability make you famous, how do you maintain them?  On this week's episode of Think Again - A Big Think Podcast, Chris and host Jason Gots go deep into these topics and more.  Surprise discussion clips in this episode: Maria Konnikova and Baratunde Thurston.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Fear is just a monster motivator. It sells many a car and harnesses many a vote.”  – James McBride, in this episode.  Fear, says National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author James McBride, was the most powerful force in the life of James Brown, the Godfather of Soul. It drove him to become "the hardest working man in show business", to hoard massive stashes of cash beneath hotel room carpets, and to seek temporary refuge in drugs. It also drove him to leave one of the most astonishing musical legacies in American history, redefining R&B, Soul, and Funk music in the process.  This, along with surprise interview clips from Charles Duhigg, Steven Pinker, and A.O. Scott, is the spark that sets James McBride and host Jason Gots off on a conversational journey with many twists and turns that touches on violence, virtual reality, and what it's like to be in a writer's room with Ta-Nahesi Coates, James McBride, David Simon (creator of The Wire) and Pulitzer Prize winning historian Taylor Branch. 

"The problem with our time is that we look at people for their utility value.", says Douglas Rushkoff, author of Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus.  Since the late Middle Ages, Rushkoff argues, money and businesses have been programmed to extract more and more value from humans and the earth. The priority of endless growth has led to scorched-earth policies that put humans out of work and destroy the planet,  But we programmed the system in the first place, says Rushkoff, and we can reprogram it. Join him and Think Again host Jason Gots for a searching discussion of our many, many alternatives to a robot dystopian future.  Surprise conversation-starters in this episode from novelist Joshua Cohen, communication expert Nancy Duarte, and personal growth expert Tara-Sophia Mohr. And here's Jason Gots' article on Rushkoff's new book, which Jason really, really liked.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Puett teaches one of three most popular undergraduate courses at Harvard, on ancient Chinese philosophy and ethics: Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Moism, and more. What keeps students coming back year after year to this seemingly esoteric subject? Puett promises that if you take the ideas in his course seriously, they will change your life. He captures these ideas in his new book The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, co-authored with Christine Gross-Loh.  On this week's episode of Think Again, Puett and host Jason Gots discuss free will, Western individualism, and more, with surprise prompts from interview clips with Jesse Ventura and Nobel Laureate physicist Frank Wilczek.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's episode Joshua Cohen, author of the "great American internet novel" Book of Numbers, says that if a cliché sticks around long enough it can become a prayer. In conversation with host Jason Gots and prompted by video interview clips featuring Henry Rollins and Nikhil Goyal, Cohen delves into secret languages, the horrors of childhood, and the dangers of overexplaining. It's a punchy and penetrating dialogue with one of our most original living authors.  “Just don’t unpack shit. Let’s make the world more opaque.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Authenticity is something that cannot be fabricated." – Sarah Kay  On this week's episode, poet Sarah Kay, whose 2011 TED talk "If I Should Have a Daughter" has been viewed over 9 million times, shares her thoughts on who gets (and who doesn't get) to have a voice, on the power of authenticity and vulnerability, and on what she'd do if the world were in imminent danger of destruction by an asteroid.  And stay tuned for a shatteringly beautiful song/poem at the end.  Surprise Big Think interview clips from Josh Ritter, Lewis Black, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson spark a thoughtful, playful, far-ranging conversation between Sarah and host Jason Gots. It's deep fun.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Put 8 year old Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders together in a progressive 2nd grade classroom. What would happen?  Since the dawn of compulsory schooling America has been experimenting on young minds with pedagogies and systems of control that arguably do more to prepare kids for a life of servitude than of independent thought and civic engagement.  20 year old Nikhil Goyal, author of Schools on Trial, argues that mainstream US public schools do more harm to children than good, and that we need to rethink them from the bottom up.  Clips from comedian Paul F. Tompkins, Jesse Itzler, and Helen Fisher launch Goyal and host Jason Gots on a passionate & intense discussion that keeps coming back to our messed up education system and what we ought to do about it.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"I’m always pulled toward anything that helps me figure out how to live a meaningful and substantive life." – Maria Popova What does real friendship look like? How can something written a thousand years ago help us to navigate our lives in the 21st century?  On this week's Think Again, host Jason Gots speaks with Maria Popova, the creator, writer, and editor of Brain Pickings, a labor of love that  has grown into a massive web media presence -- a blog, newsletter, twitter feed and more that shares timeless wisdom from authors past and present about how to live a meaningful life.  Maria reads the poem Possibilities by Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska, which, along with three surprise interview clips with William Shatner, Howard Gardner, and Jon Kabat-Zinn sparks a far-ranging and revealing conversation on friendship, modern anxiety, and so much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"As human beings we all have this flaw, which is to think that there’s a right way of doing things. And it’s just bullshit." – Amanda Palmer on Think Again  Artist Amanda Palmer is a practitioner of radical trust –– On tour, she couch surfs with fans from all over the world. She's allowed fans to sign her naked body after shows. Through the online crowdfunding platform Patreon, she empowers her fans to support her work one "thing" at a time.  On this week's Think Again, Amanda and host Jason Gots have a lively, free ranging discussion on the spectrum from unfiltered expression to highly polished art, #blacklivesmatter , Apple's privacy fight with the FBI, and whether or not and to what extent the internet is turning us all into a bunch of narcissistic idiots.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“We all have so much power that we don’t use. And I think it’s because of cynicism,  which is a toxic spiritual state. Cynicism is a refuge for cowards.” –– Cory Booker Why do so many of us choose to remain in a state of "sedentary agitation" about America's problems when there are so many things we could do to help? This is the core question of UNITED, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker's powerful new political biography.  And it surfaces again and again on this week's THINK AGAIN as Senator Booker and host Jason Gots talk race, poverty, hope, and apathy in America, 2016.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices