Frames of Space

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Darby Saxbe is a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and the writer behind the Substack "Natal Gazing." She is known for her research on parenthood and family formation.

Lyman Stone is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. He writes about how to address declining birth rates on his own Substack.

Darby and Lyman have argued with each other quite a bit online, but this is the first time they've ever spoken to each other in a live conversation.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with them about the extent to which pro-family policies can raise birth rates, the gap between liberals and conservatives on fertility rates, and how to fix our current levels of societal distrust.

Show Notes

"Why family-friendly policies don’t boost birth rates" by John Burn-Murdoch, The Financial Times

"It's Right-Wing to Love Your Family" by Lyman Stone

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Annie Lowrey is a staff writer at The Atlantic who focuses on economic issues like welfare policy, income inequality, and what an ideal tax policy would look like. She is the author of the recent book The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time—and How to Fix It.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about why it's so painful to file taxes in the US, why American bureaucracy is so cumbersome for so many people, and how Democrats and Republicans both contribute to the problem in their own ways.

Show Notes

The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time―and How to Fix It by Annie Lowrey

"The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero" by Patrick McKenzie, Bits About Money

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Cassie Pritchard is a leftist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She recently got into an online debate with Substack writer Scott Alexander about the direction that the US should take its economy: Scott believes that the country should focus more on economic growth, while Cassie believes that the country should focus more on reducing income inequality through redistribution.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about the main differences between liberals and leftists, why she thinks many liberals are disdainful of democracy these days, and the extent to which social media algorithms are a byproduct of capitalist incentives.

Show Notes

Cassie Pritchard's tweet on liberal happiness

"Contra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness" by Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten

"Liberalism Really Is Exhausted" by Cassie Pritchard

"Re: Re: Re: Pritchard On Liberal Happiness" by Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten

"Subjective Well-Being, Income, Economic Development and Growth" by Daniel W. Sacks, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers, Brookings

"This is Why People Hate the Government" from The Ezra Klein Show

Kevin Williamson is a national correspondent at The Dispatch, and he's one of the most incisive commentators on the American right these days. His commentary covers political issues like Trump's hold on the Republican Party, foreign policy issues like NATO's changing relationship with the US, and economic issues like why taxes need to increase in the future.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the problems with the US's federal budget deficit, why he wants to cut spending on Social Security, and the lasting effect that the MAGA movement will have on the US's standing with the rest of the world.

Show Notes

"Witless Ape Rides Helicopter" by Kevin Williamson, National Review

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

"Ignoring Scarcity at Our Own Peril" by Kevin Williamson, The Dispatch

Jeremiah Johnson is a staff writer at The Argument and a co-founder of the Center for New Liberalism. He is known for his commentary on social media; specifically, the effect that social media appears to be having on American politics in an age when liberalism seems to be under attack.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about which specific mediums of communication incentivize productive disagreement, whether social media is truly biased against liberals, and the effect that the online world might be having on social trust in the present day.

Show Notes

"Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite" by John Burn-Murdoch, The Financial Times

"The end of the gatekeepers" by John Burn-Murdoch, The Financial Times

"Can liberalism survive the algorithm?" by Jeremiah Johnson, The Argument

"Heterodox Research Roundup, June 2026" by Erin B. Shaw, Shiri Spitz Siddiqi, Dylan Selterman, and Phong P. Truong

Stephen Colbert Roasts Bush at 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner

"Young people are rich and miserable" by Jeremiah Johnson, The Argument

"Weekly Scroll: Freaks and Gatekeepers" by Jeremiah Johnson, Infinite Scroll

Ruy Teixeira is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a co-founder of the Substack newsletter "The Long View." He is known for co-authoring the 2002 book The Emerging Democratic Majority. The book argued that a series of structural shifts in the country, such as a growing nonwhite population and the politics of young voters, were quietly tilting the electoral terrain in the Democratic Party's favor.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about his objections to left-wing Democratic politics, the concept of the pundit's fallacy, and the manner in which he tries to speak with people that he disagrees with.

Show Notes

The Emerging Democratic Majority by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira

"Why Haven't the Democrats Completely Cleaned the Republicans' Clock?" from The Ezra Klein Show

Random Reddit Comment #1

Random Reddit Comment #2

Dan Williams is a philosopher at the University of Sussex, an associate fellow at Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, and the writer behind the Substack "Conspicuous Cognition." His commentary often focuses on the nature of cognitive bias, tribalism, and how all of this manifests in contemporary political discourse.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how his politics have changed since his teenage years, the extent to which social media is responsible for political extremism, and whether or not AI will end up stifling intellectual diversity through political homogenization.

Show Notes

"On becoming less left-wing (Part 1)" by Dan Williams, Conspicuous Cognition

"Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite" by John Burn-Murdoch, The Financial Times

Gary Winslett is a political science professor at Middlebury College and the writer behind the Substack "The Neoliberal Papers." He is a center-left Democrat who strongly supports free trade, the free market, housing deregulation, and more.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the US economy, past and present: the merits of Biden's economic policies, the effect that AI seems to be having on the labor market, and whether the Abundance agenda would work best as a type of Secret Congress legislation.

Show Notes

"Cato Institute 2022 Student Debt Cancellation National Survey"

"The prospects for left-wing populism" by Joseph Heath, In Due Course

Robert Wright is the author of the Nonzero Newsletter and the host of the Nonzero Podcast. He is known for his commentary on evolutionary psychology, and how humans evolved to benefit from cooperation and coordination on larger and larger scales as history has progressed forward.

His latest book "The God Test" posits that artificial intelligence represents the next leap forward for evolutionary history and civilization. His view is that, to prevent AI from destroying the world, the US needs to make some extremely important foreign policy decisions that will massively affect its relationship with China in the near term.

In today's episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the difference between zero-sum and non-zero-sum interactions, the importance of cognitive empathy in human communication, and how those two concepts can help the world prevent AI from causing civilizational collapse.

Show Notes

The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning by Robert Wright

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom

Charlotte Swasey is the writer behind the Substack "Medium Data" and the Director of Analytics at the Searchlight Institute. Her work on electoral strategy often highlights how getting elected involves a juggling act: you have to factor many different variables into account at the same time, not the least of which include fundraising, coalition unity, issue taking, and more.

In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about whether Democrats can successfully retake the Senate in November, why more funding doesn't necessarily help politicians win elections, and why the DNC is essentially 20 million organizations in a trench coat.

Show Notes

"A year of Trump, again" by Charlotte Swasey, Searchlight

"How Trump Targeted Undecided Voters Without Breaking the Bank" by Shane Goldmacher, The New York Times

"The DNC is going broke in slow motion" by Charlotte Swasey, Medium Data

The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics by Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld

"Platner, Bernie, and a hangover" by Charlotte Swasey, Medium Data

"Winning is everything. It also means nothing" by Lakshya Jain and Charlotte Swasey, The Argument