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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with writer and philosopher Matthew Crawford about the creeping tyranny of the "Smart City"—a vision of the future where urban life is optimised by data, and human unpredictability is treated as a "bug" to be fixed. But what is the spiritual cost of a "frictionless" existence? As tech giants begin to govern like nation-states and cars become subscription services that can be throttled from afar, Crawford asks the question: are we building paradise, or a "glorious, collisionless" prison? From the defiance of skateboarders to the ULEZ "Blade Runners" destroying cameras in London, they discuss the fight to reclaim the "unruly felicities" of a life truly worth living.

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Crispian Mills knew he’d be onstage as he’s from a “family of professional show-offs” but they begged him not to be an actor. He talks here about his extraordinary showbusiness childhood and the band that emerged from it full of psychedelia, echoes of the East and warm invitations to join the First Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs. Along with …

… his mother Hayley Mills playing him Tubular Bells to get him to sleep - “profoundly scary”

… Roman Polanski’s ‘special’ Marlboro cigarettes when filming Tess in Brittany

… grandfather John Mills being “discovered” by Noel Coward in Singapore and memories of him playing Gershwin and Cole Porter on the piano

… “you need talent and hard work but nobody makes it without luck”

… what the record store hippie told him when he bought Deep Purple In Rock aged 12

… leather jacket, polka dot shirt, Brian Jones bowl haircut, My Bloody Valentine gig – “I’d found my tribe!”

… supporting Oasis at Knebworth – “I couldn’t see how they were going to cut it”

… Adam and the Ants, Rock Me Amadeus and playing Ramones songs in the school band

… returning from Rishikesh in 1995 and watching the Beatles’ Super-8 clips: “as if we’d been on the same holiday”

… nostalgia for the big TV and radio events of the ‘90s

… Shirley Manson’s speech about the “tragedy” of the 21st C music business

… and Kula Shaker’s Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show – “oil slides, pure analogue!”

Tickets for their 2026 tour here: https://kulashaker.co.uk/pages/live

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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As Evan gets Hurumo’s employees up and running as fully-functioning colleagues (with support from Maty), he learns what it’s really like to spend your days managing, collaborating with, and socializing alongside autonomous AI agents. And he quickly sees one of the significant cracks in the facade of the AI employee future: It’s one thing to get your agents to start acting like real employees. It’s something else entirely to get them to stop.

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“All bands are sad stories,” Peter Doggett points out, but is there a more woven, moving and, at times, farcical tale than that of the Beach Boys? It gives the sound of them a greater melancholy and resonance with every passing year. As his fascinating new book Surf’s Up reveals, nothing that happened is straightforward and very little as simple as it sounds. We talk here about …

… Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys’ creation myth

… what started their revival

… why they’d never have survived beyond 1962 without Mike Love

… was Derek Taylor’s ‘Brian is a genius’ campaign partly to explain his procrastination and eccentricity?

… the chaos of SMiLE and the long shadow of the Beatles

… Murry Wilson’s “superstar” ambitions and original plan for the group

… the days when they looked like Old Testament prophets or hippies from Central Casting

… Dennis and Manson, Carl v the draft, Mike Love’s arrest … scandals that would have sunk them in the days of social media

… the “Brian as victim trope” and his extraordinary appearance on “The Tension Behind the Music”

… when Bart Simpson turned them down

… can anyone name a good Beach Boys album cover?

… and the band’s future, a controlled touring franchise with no original members

Order Peter Doggett’s ‘Surf’s Up: Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfs-Up-Brian-Wilson-Beach/dp/1917923341

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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Audio reporter Samantha Broun says young people are "full of life, complicated, passionate, confused, and they want to talk and want to be heard." That's why Sam offers them her curiosity and her caring ear for her project "Small True Things."  Rob spoke to Sam in October for Sound School on the mainstage at the annual Audio Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

How can we explain the rise of loneliness in our world? In episode 148 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the difference between loneliness and solitude, how loneliness could help explain the rise of fascism in the US, and the public health implications of loneliness. What is the male loneliness epidemic, and does it truly exist? Does the state have a moral obligation to address the loneliness of its citizens? And do we have a fundamental human right to connection? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts get into the etymology of loneliness and discuss the type of companionship that animals offer humans.

Works Discussed:

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Kimberley Brownlee, Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights and Freedoms

Bouke de Vries and Sarah A. Rezaieh. “Political Philosophy and Loneliness”

Bouke de Vries, “State Responsibilities to Protect us from Loneliness During Lockdown”

Samantha Rose Hill, "Where loneliness can lead"

Zohar Lederman, “Loneliness as Lack of Solidarity: The Case of Palestinians Standing Alone”

Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being

David M. Peña-Guzmán and Rebekah Spera, Professional Philosophy and Its Myths

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

 Jill Stauffer, Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of Not Being Heard

Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Loneliness

Enjoy our work? Support Overthink via tax-deductible donation: https://www.givecampus.com/fj0w3v

Join our Substack for ad-free versions of both audio and video episodes, extended episodes, exclusive live chats, and more: https://overthinkpod.substack.com/

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Patti Smith, “the Godmother of Punk,” has lived a wild life and accumulated so much wisdom in the process. In the 1960s and ’70s, Smith was a fixture of the New York City creative scene — hanging out with the likes of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Allen Ginsberg and Robert Mapplethorpe. Merging her own poetry with an ace backing band, she became a global rock star. Then she gave it up, moved to Michigan, raised a family, and remade herself into a best-selling author. Her stunning memoir “Just Kids” won the National Book Award and is one of the books that I’ve kept returning to, again and again.

There is clearly something unusual about Smith. People who know her have described her as “shamanistic.” But even for those of us who will never become rock stars, there’s something inspiring — and oddly relatable — in how she thinks about life. So I was excited to have the opportunity to sit down with her and learn more.

Smith is out with a new memoir, “Bread of Angels,” and is on tour for the 50th anniversary of her breakthrough album, “Horses.” We talk about that book and that album and so much more: the boundless curiosity that drives her; the books that shaped her; her childhood communion with a snapping turtle; what Andy Warhol was like; what color she thinks the soul is; and a lot more that’s hard even to describe.

This episode contains strong language.

Mentioned:

“Pan’s Labyrinth” by Guillermo del Toro

Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm

Bread of Angels by Patti Smith

Just Kids by Patti Smith

“The Dark Blot” by Gérard de Nerval

“Genie” by Arthur Rimbaud

“Guernica” by Pablo Picasso

“The Last Supper” by Andy Warhol

Book Recommendations:

The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Poetry of Sylvia Plath Edited by Claire Brennan

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Michelle Harris, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Caryn Rose.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Member of the seminal band Cocteau Twins and co-founder of the record label Bella Union, Simon Raymonde reflects on both experiences, his relationship with his music industry father, and more in the new memoir, In One Ear: Cocteau Twins, Ivor Raymonde and Me.

How can we reclaim the internet? Tom Sutcliffe and guests discuss the digital age - its supporters and discontents.

Tech critic Cory Doctorow introduces his new book Enshittification, a blistering diagnosis of how online platforms have decayed — from innovation to exploitation — and what we can do to make it better for ordinary users.

Novelist and broadcaster Naomi Alderman draws on history in Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today, arguing that we’ve lived through information crises before, and that lessons from the invention of writing and the printing press can help us navigate today’s digital turbulence.

Journalist Oliver Moody, the author of Baltic: The Future of Europe, discusses Estonia’s radical embrace of digital governance, and what it reveals about the possibilities — and limits — of a truly connected state.

Producer: Katy Hickman