The Wright Show

If Bob and Greg can’t bridge America’s tribal divide, who can? ... One cure for tribalism ... How tribalism triumphs over ideology ... Is Trump crazy like a fox, or just crazy? ... Greg: Identity politics is "nothing but division" ... Does language policing help Trump? ... Fox News in the scheme of things ...

David: Strong national spirit is wonderful so long as it’s inclusive ... Trump makes liberals rethink their suspicion of the intelligence community ... David: Party loyalties may not withstand this century’s unique problems ... Why Trump's seeming ambivalence about domestic abuse allegations could drive off moderate Republicans for good ... David’s new book, Trumpocracy, surveys Trump’s damage to the American Republic ...

Ann's new book on child prodigies, Off the Charts ... Will a child prodigy become an adult non-prodigy? ... The cautionary tale of Bobby Fischer ... The prodigy's "adolescent crisis" ... How people misunderstood Amy Chua, the "Tiger Mom" ... The insanity of the college admissions gauntlet ... Child prodigies inspire sympathy. Their parents? Not so much. ...

Matt: Why I resigned from Newsweek ... Why is the Manhattan DA investigating Newsweek's parent company? ... Populism, polarization, and page views ... The lost world of the dominant newsweekly ... Henry Luce's hidden editorializing at Time ... Can the newsweekly’s original mission be realized in the digital age? ...

How Jeff went from science journalist to meditation teacher ... Jeff’s new book, co-authored with Dan Harris: Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics ... How ADD and bipolar tendencies shaped Jeff's practice ... The life-changing experience of falling out of a tree while on mushrooms ... The interaction between mindfulness, not-self, and suffering ... Jeff takes a stab at defining enlightenment ... The varieties of consciousness ... How meditation can shift your priorities ...

The time Michael thought he was being abducted by aliens ... Michael's new book, Heavens on Earth ... Deepak Chopra's afterlife ... Why uploading your brain to achieve immortality makes no sense ... Is radical life extension just bunk? ... The Second Coming, presented by Ray Kurzweil ... What consolation can the atheist offer to the dying? ... The spookiest thing that's ever happened to Michael ...

Striking parallels between Buddhism’s Mara and Christianity’s Satan ... How Stephen’s opera Mara came to fruition ... Bob and Stephen argue about the true meaning(s) of "enlightenment" ... How much authority should a secular Buddhist ascribe to the Buddha? ... The perils of clinging to the dharma ... Stephen’s unusual place in the Buddhist world ...

Tim explains what it means to believe in free will ... Biology and free will ... Science and casuality ... Why Tim takes seriously the "naive stance" on free will and moral responsibility ... Is subjective experience irreducible? ... Determinism and deism ... Philosophy departments aren’t as atheistic as you’d think ...