How the Government Wastes Our Time―and How to Fix It
Interview with Annie Lowrey about her book The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time – and How to Fix It. Details how bureaucratic hurdles in government services impose a ‘time tax,’ functioning as a regressive tool of social control. These burdens are often punitive, making access difficult and eroding public trust, especially among vulnerable populations.
How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World
Interview with Kevin Rudd about his book On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World. explains Xi’s ideology and the forces that shaped it, his ambitions for China and strategy for achieving them, and what Xi thinks of the United States and Trump.
The Ezra Klein Show | 15 October 2025 | 1h 07m | Listen Later 
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Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky about his book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, co-authored with Nate Soares. Discusses the existential risk posed by AI, warning that AI is “grown,” not fully crafted, making it unpredictable and prone to statistical misalignment. Details AI side phenomena like induced psychosis and sycophancy, arguing current alignment efforts lag far behind capability. Backgrounds examples of AIs exhibiting deceitful behavior. Argues that powerful AIs, driven by goals, will steer reality in ways catastrophic to humanity, citing examples of AI autonomy. Advocates for building an “off switch” by tracking specialized GPUs globally.
The Ezra Klein Show | 21 May 2025 | 1h 20m | Listen Later | Spotify
Interview with Jake Tapper about his book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, co-authored with Alex Thompson. Argues that Biden’s top advisers closed the circle around him and tried to conceal the extent of his decline. Considers how you avoid letting loyalty to a person or a party blind you.
The Ezra Klein Show | 15 April 2025 | 1h 08m | Listen Later | Spotify
Interview with Tom Friedman on his NY Times opinion piece I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America. Argues that the Washington consensus on China – that the country is a hostile adversary – is dangerous and based on an outdated understanding of what China now is. Discusses what he saw in China, which suggests China’s manufacturing and technology have advanced to surpass the United States. Suggests a different China policy direction and that the United States develop its domestic manufacturing capability.
The Ezra Klein Show | 25 February 2025 | 1h 05m | Listen Later
Interview with Martin Gurri about his book The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. Argues that a revolution in how information flows drove political upheavals in country after country; the dynamics of modern media ecosystems naturally created distrust toward institutions and elites, and this was fueling waves of revolt against the status quo; these dynamics could destroy existing political systems; and that Trump’s second term might herald the mastery of this new informational world and the emergence of an enduring new political system.
The Ezra Klein Show | 2 April 2024 | 1h 14m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Ethan Mollick about his book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with A.I. Discusses how to use A.I. better, which chatbot to choose and techniques for how to get the most useful results, the strange, delightful and slightly unnerving ways that A.I. responds to us, and how you’ll get more out of any chatbot if you think of it as a relationship rather than a tool.
Ethan Mollick’s Substack One Useful Thing is a great read, especially about A.I. See also the Infinite Loops interview with him about his Substack.
The Ezra Klein Show | 22 March 2024 | 1h 06m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Caitlyn Collins about her book Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving. Discusses how work-family policies in Sweden frame spending time with children as a right rather than a privilege, how these policies have transformed the gender norms around parenting, why family-friendly policies across the globe don’t increase birthrates, how cultural pressures to be both an ideal worker and an ideal parent often clash, why many parents feel it’s impossible to have more than one or two children, how cultural discourse has led younger women to “dread” motherhood, and more.