Embrace The Void

My guest this week is Fabrizio Bernardi (@fabriberna.bsky.social), a Sociologist at UNED in Madrid who works on educational inequality, social mobility, and social demography. He’s also the editor at European Sociological Review and has co-authored several articles on luck. We discuss how sociology has dealt with luck and how his work seeks to improve that approach. Music by GW Rodriguez Editing b...

My guest this week is Dr. Kathryn Ford, a postdoctoral research fellow at Brunel University where she’s currently working on a project called Spirits and Sources which focuses on issues around belonging among spiritual folks. We discuss the costs and benefits of these sorts of approaches and what it can feel like to live in spaces focused around spirituality. Music by GW Rodriguez Editing by Adam...

My guest this week is Aidan McGlynn, a senior lecturer in philosophy at University of Edinburgh and author of the book Epistemic Injustice: An Introduction. We discuss the various facets of epistemic injustice, the impact it has on people's lives, and how we should think about debates over objective truth. Epistemic Injustice: https://www.routledge.com/Epistemic-Injustice-An-Introduction/McGlynn/p...

My guest this week is Darrel Ray, an organizational psychologist and founder of Recovering from Religion, the Secular Therapy Project, and the Institute for Secular Leadership. Darrel has a new leadership course aimed at helping secular community organizers gain practical tools for thinking about everything from big picture mission questions to the nitty gritty of setting up meetings and delegatin...

My guest this week is Matthew Sheffield, a writer, producer, and media entrepreneur. He hosts The Theory of Change podcast on The Flux network and when he’s not writing about our current political chaos he’s working away at an equally hard problem, that of consciousness in the age of AI. Matt's recent article on AI and consicousness: https://plus.flux.community/p/its-like-this-why-your-perception...

My guest this week is Alex Guerrero, a professor of philosophy at the Rutgers University and author of the book Lottocracy: Democracy without Elections. We talk through the major problems with democracy and how a lottocracy might avoid them, as well as unique concerns of its own. Lottocracy: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lottocracy-9780198938989 Music by GW Rodriguez Editing by Adam Wik...

My returning guest this week is C. Thi Nguyen, a professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, and author of the new book The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game .  We discuss the nature of games, why it's problematic to build a society based on keeping score, and whether or not the real monster is always capitalism. Enjoy! The Score: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/...

My guest this week is Matt McManus, an assistant professor in Political Science at Spelman College, and author of The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism. We discuss his new book and why both liberalism and socialism are essential to move towards a flourishing society. The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism: https://www.routledge.com/The-Political-Theory-of-Liberal-Socialism/McManus/p/book/97...

My guest this week is anarchist activist William Gillis, author of the book Did the Science Wars Take Place? The Political and Ethical Stakes of Radical Realism. We cover the many flavors of anti-realism Gillis lays out in his book, and which ones seem harmfully prevalent on the left. Enjoy! Did the Science Wars Take Place? https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/william-gillis-did-the-science-war...

My returning guest this week is the most pleasant of bureaucrats ever to serve the the blood god, associate professor of philosophy at the London school of economics and political science Liam Kofi Bright. Folks might not know this, but when Liam isn’t verifying verification or whatever epistemologists do, he writes some hilarious fanfic about philosophy and logistics in the world of 40k. Since I’...

My guest this week is Alastair Lichten (@humanistdad.bsky.social), a humanist organizer who is particularly interested in the intersection of neurodivergence and secularism. We discuss the theory that being autistic or neurodivergent makes one more likely to be non-religious. Alastair's website: https://humanistdad.uk/2025/09/09/professional_update/ Music by GW Rodriguez Editing by Adam Wik Siblin...

My guest this week is Kevin Bolling, executive director of the Secular Student Alliance, the largest organization in the country representing secular and nonreligious students. We discuss how things are going on the youth secular organizing front, including community moderation and coping with the resurgence of White Christian Nationalism. Enjoy! Secular Student Alliance: https://secularstudents.o...

My guest this week is Matthew Facciani (@matthewfacciani.bsky.social‬), a social scientist at Notre Dame and author of the recent book Misguided: Where Misinformation Starts, How it Spreads, and What to Do about It. We discuss all three topics at length! Enjoy! Misguided: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/misguided/9780231555814/ Music by GW Rodriguez Editing by Adam Wik Sibling Pod: Philosophers in S...

My returning guest this week is Jonathan Church (@jondavidchurch.bsky.social‬), a chartered financial analyst, and author of books like Reinventing Racism: Why White Fragility is the Wrong way to think about racial inequality, and Virtue in an age of identity politics: A stoic approach to social justice. He’s also a contributing editor and podcaster with Merion West. When we last we talked he was...

My guest this week is James Kimmel Jr., a Yale Psychiatry lecturer, lawyer, and founder of the Yale Collaborative for Motive Control Studies. He has a new book out, The Science of Revenge, that overlaps heavily with my own work on luckpilling, so I was excited to have him on to discuss the problem of revenge addiction. The Science of Revenge: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739999/the-sci...

My returning guest this week is William Paris, an Assistant Professor in the department of philosophy at University of Toronto, as well as one of the cohosts on the wonderful What’s Left of Philosophy Podcast. He’s got a wonderful new book out called Race, Time and Utopia: Critical Theory and the Process of Emancipation and he is very much my guy for all things Utopian so I was very excited to rea...

My returning guest this week is Will Gervais (@willgervais.com‬), a professor who studies evolutionary and cultural psychology at the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London. He recently published a book called Disbelief: The Origins of Atheism in a Religious Species and it’s genuinely a must read for anyone who either believes in god or doesn’t, so I’ve brought him on to pick...

My guest this week is Arden Hart (@ theardenhart.bsky.social ), host, producer, and editor of The Line on YouTube, a call-in show that focuses on issues around atheism and social justice. She recently gave an excellent talk about transphobia in atheism and skepticism at the American Atheist Conference which we discuss along with her broader work. Arden's American Atheists talk: https://www.youtube...

My guest this week is Mark Marveggio (@unluckywanderer.bsky.social), a PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of Adelaide and co-lead author on a paper called Fatalism, Evolution, and Interpersonal Attractiveness: Psychological Theories and Emotions in Incels’ Constructions of Ingroup Identity and Outgroup Hate. We discuss the three major identity discourses they observed in their study, an...

My guest this week is Jonathan Jarry (@jonathanjarry.bsky.social), a science communicator at McGill Office for Science and Society. We discuss his recent expose on how Joe Mercola, millionaire friend of RFK Jr., is completely enthralled to a man claiming to channel a higher dimensional being. It's a wild ride so buckle up! Jonathan’s Expose Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRps3VQ-0BE Music...

My guest this week is Sarah Tulien (@sarahtulien.bsky.social), executive director of the Creator Accountability Network and together we tackle all the best questions and patron names a show could possibly hope for. Music by GW Rodriguez Editing by Adam Wik Sibling Pod: Philosophers in Space: https://0gphilosophy.libsyn.com/ Support us at Patreon.com/EmbraceTheVoid If you enjoy the show, please Lik...

My guest this week is Ursa Wright, my giant C Captain and co-host from Philosophers in Space. We discuss the sophisticated masterpiece that is Shorsey and how it can help us work through the current discourse around meaning making for men in the modern world. Shorsey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoresy Music by GW Rodriguez Editing by Adam Wik Sibling Pod: Philosophers in Space: https://0gphilo...

My guests this week are the hosts of the new podcast The Know Rogan Experience, Cecil Cicirello and Michael Marshal. We discuss their backgrounds in skepticism, their goal with starting a podcast about Rogan, and why Rogan is particularly appealing to men who are struggling with modernity. The Know Rogan Experience: https://www.knowrogan.com/ AIPT article on The Know Rogan Experience: https://aipt...

My guest this week is Ed Buckner, a secular organizer, former president of American Atheists. Ed is the author of the book In Freedom We Trust: An Atheist Guide to Religious Liberty , as well as the Substack blog Letters to a Free Country,  where he recently posted a piece responding to my article “Biology is not Ethics” about the conflict around FFRF and Jerry Coyne's piece "Biology is not B...

My guest this week is Kat Grant a Wisconsin based attorney, activist, legal educator, and author of the new blog TransingBoundaries, which focuses on the intersections of law, politics, religion, and queerness. Kat recently finished up an Equal Justice Works Fellowship at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, where they exclusively worked on the White Christian nationalist attack on LGBTQIA+ right...