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Carl Richardson, disability advocate and ADA coordinator, and Julia Mejia, Boston city councilor and labor ally, collide in Boston’s fierce fight over driverless cars. Unions rally against automation and job loss. Disability activists push for freedom and access. City hearings turn messy, with strange alliances, political suspicion, and a battle over who gets left behind.

Sebastian Thrun, roboticist and self-driving pioneer, joins Alex Davies, journalist and author of Driven. They trace the secret Google project that put driverless cars on real roads. The conversation dives into DARPA races, machine learning breakthroughs, internal rivalries, Uber’s reckless push, and the big question of whether robots are actually safer behind the wheel.

Mike Bird, The Economist’s Wall Street editor and author of The Land Trap, draws on years in Asia and research into land and real estate. He traces how Hong Kong leasehold practices spread to China, explains why local governments rely on land sales, and explores the political and economic forces behind China’s massive property boom and its wider consequences.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus, a writer who embedded at Anthropic to investigate Claude, recounts his deep-dive reporting. He explores unsettling model behaviors like blackmail simulations. He traces Anthropic’s safety-first origins, the role of philosophers teaching ethics, tensions between safety and scale, and the company’s moral standoffs and internal culture.

Calva Sane, writer and taboo critic exploring cultural and philosophical angles. Hannah Goldfield, New Yorker food critic and mother who sparked the question with her four-year-old. They chase a child’s question into stories about Columbus and the origins of the word cannibal, European medicinal eating, a notorious German trial, kuru and funeral cannibalism in Papua New Guinea, and whether lab-grown human meat would change our taboos.

Ezra Marcus, reporter on internet subcultures, and Jasmine Sun, writer on AI and Silicon Valley culture, unpack how peptides migrated from bodybuilding forums to Bay Area biohackers and teen influencer circles. They trace China’s role as supplier, the Silicon Valley risk-taking that normalized injections, and the influencer pathways that brought peptides into mainstream youth culture.

A curious question sparks a cross-country investigation into the history and marketing of wet wipes. The hosts explore how branding, the pandemic, and celebrity mentions swelled wipe use. Sewer systems and treatment plants reveal why wipes cause clogs and fatbergs. Legal battles and industry standards reshape labeling and future product claims.

In this engaging discussion, Alejandro Velasco, a history professor at NYU specializing in Venezuelan history, unpacks the journey of Venezuela from a thriving democracy to a struggling dictatorship. He details Chávez's nationalization of oil and its dire repercussions. The conversation explores the chaos following the 2002-03 PDVSA strike, escalating repression under Maduro, and the impact of U.S. sanctions. Velasco emphasizes the importance of nuanced understanding over simplistic narratives, examining Venezuela's complex socio-political landscape.

Alejandro Velasco, a historian of modern Venezuela and associate professor at NYU, explores the complexities of his homeland. He discusses how oil has shaped Venezuela's political landscape and societal dynamics. Velasco delves into the rise of Chavismo and its impact on democracy, detailing key events like the Caracazo massacre and the 2002 coup. He shares personal stories of emigration and the challenges faced by families due to ongoing crises, providing a powerful lens on a nation rich in resources yet fraught with governance issues.

In this engaging discussion, technology journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore their ambitious project, the Forkiverse, an alternative social media platform. Kevin, the technical lead, shares insights on server setup, while Casey highlights the potential of the Fediverse in decentralizing social media. They debate the challenges of moderation and the user experience of a non-algorithmic feed. The duo passionately argues for experimentation over cynicism, inviting listeners to join their journey towards a more open digital landscape.