AJ Weekly - The Not So Weekly Podcast

Nick Harkaway wrote: "Don't tell me the end justifies the means, because it doesn't. We never reach the end. All we ever get is means." AJ takes it apart — from politics to his own life — and asks the uncomfortable question: if the road is the only part you actually live, what kind of person are you becoming on it? Content Note: Created with AI assistance. All ideas and editorial...

AJ runs through the stories everybody talked about this week — Canada and the EU launching an Alliance for the Future in Montreal, Alberta officially voting to remain, a record 47.9 million Americans voting early before the midterms, G20 ministers refusing to pose for a photo with Lavrov, and the Brewers ending a 57-year wait with a World Series win. Source, headline, sarcasm, and a closing monolo...

What if Star Trek's transporter actually existed? You step onto the platform. Your body is disassembled molecule by molecule, and moments later you're reconstructed somewhere else—complete with your memories, personality, and everything that makes you who you are. But did you actually travel? Or did the original you disappear while someone indistinguishable from you woke up believing they...

a government with a built-in constituency, immigration at a scale the system can't absorb, the COVID-era military information operations that changed how he sees things, and why he doesn't buy the Trump-vs-Carney showdown. His thesis: the problem isn't one politician — it's a system where the powerful stay on top while the rest pick sides and fight each other. (8 min, monologue) Co...

What if good and evil aren't as simple as we think? If there can be no good without evil, does one define the other? And if we're all capable of both, what does that say about the idea of being a “good person”? This week, AJ goes down a philosophical rabbit hole about morality, choice, human nature, and the uncomfortable possibility that being good isn't about being incapable of evil.....

"There is no in here in here. There is no out there out there. Nothing is everything altogether." This week he tries to figure out what the hell he meant — and whether the boundaries we live inside are real, or just the interface our brains hand us Content Note: Created with AI assistance. All ideas and editorial direction are human-generated.

AJ runs through the stories everybody talked about this week — Alberta's separation vote on the eve of the ballot, a deadly incident at CFB Wainwright, the Bend, Oregon school shooting, Trump waiving his own Russia sanctions bill, and France's ninth day of burning protests. Source, headline, sarcasm, and a closing monologue. Three minutes, every Sunday. Content Note: Created with AI assist...

Ayn Rand believed your life belongs to you. She rejected collectivism, challenged traditional ideas about self-sacrifice, defended rational self-interest and became one of the most controversial defenders of individual freedom. But Rand wasn't simply a champion of selfishness. Her philosophy raises a harder question: how do you live for yourself without losing your responsibility to others? Co...

"Your boos mean nothing. I've seen what you people cheer for." — and builds it into something bigger: why the crowd doesn't deserve an equal vote in your life, what real individuality actually looks like, and the difference between standing alone and being lonely. Content Note: Created with AI assistance. All ideas and editorial direction are human-generated.

AJ runs through the stories everybody talked about this week — Canada's jobs bloodbath, the Weston family buying Boots, Alberta's flirtation with leaving, Trump vs. Tom Cotton's phone number, two infamous obituaries, and France's president doing his best Bond villain. Source, headline, sarcasm, and a closing monologue. Five minutes, once a week, every Sunday. Content Note: Created...

Why do we turn a missed text into a conspiracy, a coincidence into a pattern, and a simple problem into an elaborate theory? In this episode of AJ Weekly , AJ explores Occam’s Razor—and why its real value isn't simply choosing the “simplest” answer. It's learning to recognize how many assumptions we're making, when our brains are filling gaps with stories, and why sometimes the most in...

AJ saw a Guardian op-ed declaring that getting fit could turn you into a rightwing jerk — and had a thought. This isn't journalism anymore. It's rage bait, engineered to make you mad, keep you scrolling, and turn you into the product. How the outrage machine works, why it works on you even when you know better, and the one thing that actually fights back. Content Note: Created with AI assi...

what if America had never become a superpower — would the world be more peaceful, or would someone else have filled the vacuum? From the 1953 Iran coup to the nature of power itself, he asks whether history repeats, continues, or still gives us a choice. Content Note: Created with AI assistance. All ideas and editorial direction are human-generated.

What if being too rich could actually be morally wrong? Limitarianism argues that there should be an upper limit to how much wealth one person is allowed to have. Not just a tax. Not just redistribution. A ceiling. The argument sounds reasonable at first: extreme wealth can create political power, distort democracy, and leave resources unused while others struggle. But then comes the uncomfortable...

Richard Feynman said he’d rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned. So why are we becoming so afraid to ask? In this episode, AJ explores certainty, dogma, science, tribalism, intellectual humility—and why the ability to question what we think we know may be more important than having all the answers. Content Note: This episode was created using AI-assis...

What if consciousness came before matter? Physicist Tom Campbell believes reality may be far stranger than we think. In this episode, we explore his Theory of Everything, virtual reality, quantum physics, consciousness, and one unsettling possibility: What if the universe isn't producing consciousness… but consciousness is producing our experience of the universe? Maybe reality isn't what...

A Catholic takes a closer look at Martin Luther—the monk who challenged one of the most powerful institutions on Earth and changed Christianity forever. Hero, rebel, troublemaker, reformer… or all of the above? This isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about authority, conscience, corruption, and the dangerous power of asking questions nobody wants asked. Content Note: This episode was created using A...

We’re often told that economic interdependence creates peace. Countries that trade together, invest together, and depend on each other have too much to lose from war. But what if we’ve got the causality backwards? What if peace creates the stability, trust, and security required for interdependence to exist in the first place? And what happens when that trust disappears? In this episode, we look a...

Does capitalism make people greedy... or does it simply force us to confront something that has always existed? In 1979, Milton Friedman dismantled one of the most common criticisms of capitalism with a single question. In this episode, we unpack why that exchange still matters today, explore the difference between inequality and injustice, and examine the uncomfortable truth that no political sys...

We live in a world where everyone is expected to have an opinion on everything. Social media rewards instant reactions. Politicians spin. Corporations craft narratives. Influencers chase engagement. Then comes Immanuel Kant with a simple but devastating principle: "There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe." This e...

Long before psychology, self-help, and social media, a group of men and women abandoned civilization and walked into the Egyptian desert. Not because they hated the world. Because they believed the greatest battle wasn't out there. It was inside the human mind. Seventeen centuries later, their observations about distraction, pride, anger, anxiety and meaning may be more relevant than ever. Con...

Sharks have been swimming through Earth's oceans for roughly 450 million years. That's before trees. Before dinosaurs. Before Pangaea. This episode explores what that astonishing timeline reveals about evolution, extinction, survival, and our tendency to see ourselves as the center of history. Content Note: This episode was created using AI-assisted writing and voice technology. All ideas...

A dam breaks. Everyone agrees people need help. But there are two very different ways to respond. One asks for volunteers. The other asks for government. Both claim to be compassionate. Only one allows you to say no. This episode explores the difference between voluntary charity and state-enforced solutions, why intentions aren't the whole story, and why the method of helping may matter just a...

Elon Musk believes the odds that we're living in "base reality" may be far lower than most people think. But is the simulation hypothesis science, philosophy, or simply an elegant mathematical argument? In this episode, AJ takes a deep dive into Musk's own words, unpacking the logic behind the simulation hypothesis one step at a time. From the evolution of video games and artific...

History isn’t just facts. It’s stories. Symbols. Heroes. Villains. Tonight, AJ breaks down how modern society mythologizes movements, sanitizes history, and turns complex events into moral lessons… and why questioning those narratives makes people uncomfortable. Content Note : This episode was created using AI-assisted writing and voice technology. All ideas and editorial direction are human-gener...