The Lost Loophole

Kurt Gödel was a genius mathematician and logician, considered by many scholars to be as influential as Aristotle. He was also buddies with fellow geniuses Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern, the co-creator of Game Theory.

In 1947, Gödel told Morgenstern and Einstein he had identified an inner contradiction in the U.S. Constitution while studying for his citizenship test: the type of loophole that could plunge the United States into a dictatorship not unlike the Nazi regime Gödel had escaped when he immigrated from Austria.

So, what was the loophole? Over the years, everyone from Constitutional law scholars to laypeople on Reddit have wondered. Endless Thread plumbs the depths of Gödel's galaxy brain with the help of philosopher, writer and Gödel expert Rebecca Newberger Goldstein — and learns some surprising lessons about artificial intelligence, a German shorthand called Gabelsberger, and democracy along the way.

Show notes:

Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (Amazon)
Oskar Morgenstern's account of Kurt Gödel's naturalization (Institute of Advanced Study)

This episode was produced by Grace Tatter. It was co-written by Grace Tatter and Ben Brock Johnson, co-hosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson, and edited by Meg Cramer and Dave Shaw. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(461)

How to Dim the Sun, from Marketplace's How We Survive

The climate crisis is escalating. We have to decarbonize our economy, but we’re moving too slowly. So, what’s the backup plan? This season of How We Survive is about engineering nature: large-scale in...

17 Jul 37min

Socials for Sale

Most of us know the internet isn't a particularly private place. Yet there's a certain feeling of anonymity that comes with sharing online — our words and stories mixed in with millions of others. It'...

10 Jul 31min

Encore: Adrián and the Whale

This episode was originally published on March 21, 2025. There are moments that define each of our lives. Some we can predict: graduations, marriages, births, deaths. Others? Not so much. And in th...

3 Jul 24min

Comfort maxxing on the interwebs

Sit back, relax and get cozy. As a matter of fact, why not put on your baggiest of clothes and burrow down in your snuggiest of blankets? This week on Endless Thread, Ben and Amory are comfy-maxxing....

26 Jun 25min

Back to the Backrooms!

Once upon a dimly lit hallway, Ben and Amory stumbled onto a beloved brainchild of the internet: Backrooms. It began as a "creepypasta"— a horror story or concept that originates online and often beco...

19 Jun 22min

Endless Thread on OnlyFans

Journalist Leon Neyfakh — known for the podcasts Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Backfired — wanted to know more about the massively popular and sprawling online ecosystem of OnlyFans. What are its nearly 400...

11 Jun 36min

Leave a message after the beep

Jeremy Rellosa used to watch TV shows and movies from the '90s and revel in how the characters walked around untethered to a smartphone, with no expectations of constant connectivity. So he decided to...

4 Jun 25min