The Wright Show

Paul’s new book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning ... Why do we get pleasure from some kinds of suffering? ... The many forms of self-flagellation ... Paul: I don’t think we pursue the good only because it gives us pleasure ... How do we derive meaning from suffering? ... Paul: You cannot have a meaningful life without suffering ... Does Buddhist meditation risk severing us from important relationships with others? ... Is parenting pleasurable? ... Making progress on the hedonic treadmill ...

Could a McAuliffe loss bring about a Dem meltdown? ... Mickey: Most Americans don’t care about Build Back Better social spending ... Bob: There’s a breakdown of trust within the Democratic Party ... More possible evidence in favor of the lab leak hypothesis ... Should Biden withdraw from Syria and Iraq? ... Bob: Most people in the Blob are sincere in their beliefs ... Could Tucker run for president to the right of Trump? ... Mark Zuckerberg, mayor of the metaverse ... Bob: God bless Louis Dekmar ... Parrot Room preview: The special guest’s identity revealed, Huma Abedin’s claim that a senator made a pass at her, RIP Mort Sahl, Mickey’s friend gives up their electric car, and how Bob got mauled by Frazier ...

How Tom and Bob wound up talking about the Blob ... Why Tom wants to retire the term "the Blob" ... Is the "Restrainers vs. the Blob" framing useful? ... Chomsky's misunderstood view on how money corrupts discourse ... Tom questions the value of understanding Vladimir Putin's perspective ... Does the Blob undermine America's national interest? ... Engaging a diverse, evolving Blob ...

Mickey: Sinema’s tax plan is screwing up the infrastructure bill ... Bob: It’s a political mistake to cut free community college ... Did Biden accidentally commit to defending Taiwan against attack? ... Why you shouldn’t worry about China’s new missile ... JD Vance’s weird tweet about Alec Baldwin ... Can Trump be convinced not to run in 2024? ... Bob: Steve Bannon is still an extremely dangerous person ... US Covid numbers remain inscrutable ... Parrot Room preview: What Dave Chappelle said about Mike Pence, Merrick Garland’s conflict of interest, how to bribe Trump into staying out of the race, death threats in politics, more car advice, Bob takes another crack at besting Mickey’s joke, meditation retreats, Bob defends “the pounce move,” Alec Baldwin, King Juan Carlos’s sex drive, and the French election ...

Steve’s new book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters ... Are humans inherently logical? ... What is “motivated reasoning”? ... How attribution error distorts our public discourse ... How Steve deals with criticism of his work ... Bob’s defense of whataboutism ... Did evolution make us moral—or at least moralistic? ...

Trump finally crosses the line for Mickey (again) ... Why is Trump threatening to undermine Republicans in the midterms? ... Mickey: It’s smart politics to dump the child tax credit ... Are some of Dave Chappelle’s jokes antisemitic? ... Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s less-than-flattering appraisal of Colin Kaepernick ... Is Steve Bannon going to jail? ... Bob: “The jury is out” on the possibility of democracy in China ... Parrot Room preview: Supply chains, Michael Wolff’s account of Jeffrey Epstein’s theory of Trump, Walgreens closes stores over crime, Nick Kristof's possible gubernatorial run, more evidence of Ben Rhodes’s blobishness, David Shor, Terry McAuliffe’s chances in Virginia, a roadblock to Mickey’s coup theory, the new Velvet Underground doc, Steven Pinker and the left, a genitalia joke face-off, Facebook’s thought policing, and help for boomers ...

Aryeh's new YouTube channel ... The early technological innovations of Bloggingheads ... Bloggingheads's curatorial principles ... How the #Resistance media further alienated Trump supporters ... Is journalistic neutrality an obsolete concept? ... Why did the "cool kids" in the US media get the Iraq invasion so wrong? ... The powers and limitations of the UN Security Council ... Bob: "The pandemic is actually a much more complex problem than climate change" ... Why Aryeh's show is getting its own YouTube channel ...

Joe Manchin’s infrastructure shell game ... The Monty Hall problem explained ... What does Bernie want from the infrastructure deal? ... If the Taliban collapses, can Biden count it as a win? ... The exaggerated claims about China’s “incursion” into Taiwan’s "airspace" ... Should we gird ourselves for a Trump 2024 run? ... Why isn’t Biden giving more pushback to the left? ... The Pandora Papers are more consequential than they seem ... Bob: Biden should loosen patent protections on Covid vaccines ... Mickey: There’s new evidence for the lab leak hypothesis ... Mickey’s theory of Ozy founder Carlos Watson ... Parrot Room preview: Bob asks Mickey for car advice, the Iron Dome vote, Bob congratulates Mickey on last week’s outstanding joke, Bob tells a less outstanding John Wayne Bobbit joke, Facebook’s worst week ever, Bob’s near-death experience, a dream about Mort Kondracke, a new Parkinson’s treatment, and talking about Robert Kagan to ward off fascism ...

Sam's new book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War ... The murky legal standing of the Forever War ... Obama’s transition from traditional war to “humane” war ... Are presidents incentivized to keep war going forever? ... Sam: The true face of war is domination, control, and security ... How Vietnam changed the US’s approach to war ... What drives the demand for more humane war? ... Americans’ rising skepticism of Forever War ...

Reconstructing Pelosi’s infrastructure dealmaking ... Does Biden actually need both infrastructure bills to pass? ... Time for some game theory (to explain infrastructure negotiations) ... Positive pandemic news: Declining US case rates, Merck’s new drug ... Is Havana Syndrome real? ... Mickey: We should have empathy for whites who fear being replaced by foreigners ... What the Guinean coup shows us about the GWOT ... Was there political motivation behind the botched Kabul drone strike? ... Why were there 12,000 Haitians in Del Rio, Texas? ... Parrot Room preview: The demise of Ozy, Mickey’s stolen joke, a The Best and the Brightest anecdote, Mickey’s bad newsletter advice, why Bob doesn’t like Tommy Vietor, Bob explains why Mickey triggered him last week, a nominee for a Parrot Room guest, the mystery of the cloned horse, and the legal definition of “reckless disregard” ...

Matt and Chris's podcast, Decoding the Gurus ... What makes a guru a guru? ... Are we living in an age of secular gurus? ... Chris: I have an issue with "unevenly applied" skepticism ... Scott Adams's selectively "pro-science" stance ... Eric and Bret Weinstein's grievance-based worldviews ... Is self-aggrandizement a Weinstein family trait? ... The sinister forces supposedly closing in on Eric Weinstein ... Does social media's emphasis on "followers" encourage the creation of gurus? ...

Pelosi preps for infrastructure vote with trouble all around ... The cost of zero sum politics: the wrath of the voters ... Throwing Biden into the ash heap of history ... What do Manchin & Sinema really want? ... Is Mickey feeling schadenfreude over Biden’s Haitian immigrant debacle? ... Bob worries that Biden seems vibrant enough to run for re-election ... Is America heading toward a cold war with China? ... What Bob Woodward’s version of the Mark Milley story missed ... Mickey no longer sure Rocking the Casbah in Saudi was a good idea ... Mickey vs Bob on Ezra Klein’s supply-side progressivism column ... Quick covid update ... Hunter Biden in the Parrot Room ...

Remembering Michael Brooks ... The existential stakes of enlightenment ... Overcoming the affective dimension of cognitive bias ... Bringing broader awareness to the concept of cognitive bias ... Cognitive bias and the roots of war ... The folly of feedback loops ... Quelling our primitive retributive impulses ... Taking a mulligan in your meditation practice ... Focusing on the hindrances ... Can you fail at meditation? ...

Mickey proposes a parking garage-based theory of everything ... Bob’s plan for passing Biden’s "soft infrastructure" bill ... Mickey does some Monday morning quarterbacking for Larry Elder ... Bob’s near-death experience with British food ... Was Mickey truly “in it to win it” in his Senate race? ... Were Mark Milley's calls to China justified? ... The perverse incentives of the anti-China nuclear sub deal ... Mickey’s exhaustion-induced supermarket hallucination ... Would Biden’s budget really transform American life? ... Parrot Room preview: Facebook’s whitelist, the Dixie Chicks "cancellation," loneliness, a Las Vegas shooting rabbit hole, Bob's push to get Mickey on a dating app, the US Open, Elizabeth Holmes on trial, the mystery of Trump’s attraction to Putin, and that Nicki Minaj tweet (you know the one) ...

Oliver's new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ... Oliver outlines “compatibilism,” the idea that free will and determinism can coexist ... Bob: Everyone should be a free will agnostic ... The occasionally dramatic consequences of arguments against free will ... Would determinism require us to reform our approach to criminal justice? ... A (possible) quantum hack for free will vs. determinism ... Bob thinks compatibilism is bullshit ... ... ... but Oliver tries to persuade him there's something to it ... Oliver: No position on free will and determinism is free of contradiction ...