Ep. 288: Confronting Your Phone

Ep 386: Was 2025 a Great or Terrible Year for AI? (w/ Ed Zitron) 2025 was a year that was saturated in AI news, from Deep Seek, through claims of economic “bloodbaths,” to GPT-5, Sora, and Chatbot gir...

5 Jan 2h 23min

In this replay of a classic episode from March 2024, Cal discusses his transformative experience using a small analog notebook to tackle a complicated problem in his life. He makes the broader argumen...

29 Des 20251h 9min

In our annual holiday episode, Cal tackles one of the questions he’s asked most often: What should I read? But with a twist. He recommends six books that are not from the self-help or advice genre tha...

22 Des 20251h 16min

Earlier this fall, the activist, novelist, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth published an anti-technology polemic called “Against the Machine.” To say it hit a nerve is an understatement. In the months tha...

15 Des 20251h 35min

Last month, Derek Thompson published an intriguing essay that made waves in technology criticism circles. It was titled: “Everything is Television.” In today’s episode, Cal takes a closer look at this...

8 Des 20251h 19min

In today’s episode, Cal reviews some of his favorite advice from legendary writers (plus a bonus piece of advice from his own craft). Within each suggestion, he finds a general idea that can apply to ...

1 Des 20251h 38min

There has been a lot of loose talk online recently about the capabilities of existing AI tools. In this episode, Cal reacts to a specific recent clip from the Joe Rogan podcast in which the guest argu...

24 Nov 20251h 18min

When companies began instituting return-to-office plans after the pandemic, a disproportionate number of women chose instead to leave the workforce. Why? The obvious answer is that they wanted the fle...

17 Nov 20251h 55min