The Wright Show

How the new media landscape exacerbates tribalism ... Can science and reason help combat tribalism? ... Why tribal behavior comes naturally to humans ... Want to succeed on social media? Try ridicule and moral condemnation! ... Why virtual reality may not help you understand the plight of others ... Trump's masterful exploitation of empathy ... If a magic therapy "cured" Harvey Weinstein, would punishment still be necessary? ... Why social science is, and will stay, liberal ...

Richard's new book, The Goodness Paradox ... Why Jane Goodall's view of chimpanzees took a turn for the darker ... Proactive violence (a human specialty) vs. reactive violence ... Richard's "execution hypothesis" for how early humans dealt with violent males ... Bob offers an alternative explanation for the domestication of our species ... How our cousins the bonobos became nicer than our cousins the chimps ... Richard's explanation for the evolution of moral sense ... Is war a part of human nature? ...

Alfred North Whitehead and his "process philosophy" ... "Process theology," which features a changing, non-omnipotent God ... A God of persuasion, not coercion ... Whitehead's conception of divinity ... Whitehead’s God and Christian theology ... Waiting, or not waiting, for God ... Beauty and the divine ... How Whitehead’s God solves the problem of evil ...

What is polyamory? ... The evolutionary origins of romantic jealousy ... How polyamorous couples manage jealousy, insecurity, and time ... Bob extols the benefits of long-term monogamy ... Geoffrey’s advice for young men who can’t find romantic partners ... Do smaller polyamorous communities get a little, well, incestuous? ... Why are fewer young men having sex regularly? ... Geoffrey: The ethics of polyamory set it apart from casual dating ...

Paul Shapiro’s new book, Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World ... Why conventional meat production is inefficient and unsustainable (not to mention cruel) ... Recent innovations in lab-cultured protein, fat, and even leather ... Will cultured meat ever become affordable? ... How plant-based “meat” and “dairy” have gained market share in the past decade ... Paul: History won’t look kindly on our treatment of animals ... How Paul's company is working to reduce meat consumption ...

Randy's new book, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings ... What's the function of grief? ... Good for your genes but bad for you ... Evolutionary explanations for low mood/depression ... What Freud got right ... Orgasms and natural selection ... Social media, the digital crack cocaine ...

What does Christianity have in common with Pabst Blue Ribbon? ... Young Bob and young Tripp's critical readings of the Bible ... Tripp: Human dignity doesn’t fit into a reductive materialist worldview ... Do all Christians believe in divine intervention? ... Could a deistic God have created Jesus? ... Spiritual practices for the overly judgmental (pretty much everyone) ... Tripp’s culture shock upon returning to North Carolina ... Paul Tillich and the dialogue between culture and faith ... Tripp: Oprah is the spiritual leader of the one percent ...

Jason’s tenure as editor of MIT’s Technology Review ... Jason says he never, ever feels offended ... Why Jason’s investment firm didn’t back a new gene editing technology ... Is current gene-editing technology a “moral and therapeutic dead end”? ... How to regulate a future designer baby business ... What makes CRISPR gene-editing technology revolutionary? ... 3D-printing and the future of gun control ... Will mind-reading technology kill romantic love? ... The theoretical limits of "thought identification" technology ...

Douglas's new book, Team Human ... Remembering when people behaved better online than IRL ... Douglas was optimistic about the Internet. Then came capitalism. ... Imagining a better Facebook ... Douglas: "Being human is a team sport" ... Tribalism and the Internet ... The false promise of "disruption" ... How capitalism complicates Douglas’s life ...

What's the philosophical status of materialism? ... Gideon’s views about math lead him to reject materialism ... Does the existence of consciousness disprove materialism? ... Taking the simulation hypothesis seriously ... How lucky are we to be alive right now? ... Teleology and moral realism ...

Lindsay, a Golden Globe–winning movie producer, discusses the Academy Awards ... Lindsay's experience working on This Is Spinal Tap ... The psychology of a great film ending ... Why there's no sequel to When Harry Met Sally ... Art vs. craft in screenwriting ... Should movies be moral? ... Is a male conscience different from a female conscience? ... A film that sounds like it's great vs. one that actually is ...

John, a theologian and philosopher, explains postmodern Christianity ... Why postmodernism is not "linguistic idealism" ... Religion's tendency to literalize ... What Paul Tillich and Jacques Derrida thought about "the unconditional" ... John: The Scriptures present a poetic, topsy-turvy vision of life ... Where do our aspirations come from (if anywhere)? ... Have art, literature, and social activism replaced religion? ... Is there a link between the unconditional and Buddhism's "unconditioned"? ...

Could evolution be conscious? ... Teleology vs. teleonomy ... A purposeful universe is possible, sure—but is it likely? ... The trouble with Stephen Jay Gould’s views on the evolution of complexity ... It’s “like something” to be an individual human. Could it be like something to be a society? ... The news from epigenetics: Heredity works in weirder ways than we knew ...

What is the “G” factor in human intelligence? ... Fortunately for Scott and Bob, intelligence is about more than mentally rotating 3D objects ... What Psych 101 classes get wrong about Abraham Maslow’s “self-actualization” ... Is there a right way to self-actualize? ... What is personality? ... How self-actualized is Bob? He took Scott’s test to find out. ... The “Dark Triad” (and why we need a little darkness) ... Gender differences in narcissism ...

Ivo's new book, The Empty Throne ... Trump's foreign policy: zero-sum and transactional ... What is NATO for these days, anyway? ... The hubris of Clinton and Bush vs. the caution of Obama ... Bob: It's not like the US was playing by the rules pre-Trump ... Did the US go beyond the UN mandate in Libya? ... Did Syria lead to Trump? ... The wrong way to deal with China's rise ...