Wisdom of Crowds

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live After Hamas fighters massacred hundreds of Israeli civilians, Israel is now massed on Gaza’s borders ahead of an operation that will likely devastate the Palestinian population. This week, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic sit down and unpack their complex thoughts and feelings about what is going on. What is the appropr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live What are the most valuable parts of our transient lives and how does our appraisal of them change as we age? This week, Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic take a step back from larger questions around current events to visit a recurring theme at Wisdom of Crowds around meaning. The episode centers around Damir’s recent Mo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live As the leaders of the major political parties show stark signs of advanced age, their supporters are bending over backwards to defend their own while criticizing their opponents. Politics at its purest. This week, Shadi and Damir return from summer break to dive into the latest developments in D.C. as the next electi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, we’re pulling one of our favorite and most explosive episodes from the archive. This one, from May 2022, with socialist intellectual Daniel Bessner on the role of America on the world stage. We encourage all of you, especially our newest Substack subscribers, to have a listen and tell us what they think in...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Capitalism is a revolutionary force. It is not conservative. So why have conservatives gone along with market fundamentalism for so long? Sohrab Ahmari, a convert to Catholicism, has been known as a culture warrior. This time he returns to the podcast to make a surprising argument. Ahmari, the founder and editor of C...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live We’re living in the most prosperous time in human history with more material abundance and comfort — and yet something just feels… off . This week, Shadi Hamid and Samuel Kimbriel take a trip to the heartland to find out what that something is. In this special live recording from the Lyceum Movement ’s Tallgrass Idea...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live At a time of disruption in the workforce, rapidly shifting gender norms, a dearth of role models and declines in mental health, men are facing a distinct set of challenges that are prompting a renewed understanding of masculinity. For the last few years, viral right-of-center personalities have dominated the conversa...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Are Muslim communities increasingly tilting to the right ? After about two decades of being alienated by Republicans, American Muslims continue to align themselves with the Democratic Party. But as the country polarizes and the progressive agenda makes gains, writers like our guest find it increasingly untenable for...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Does the United States Supreme Court’s legitimacy hang in the balance — or is it itself the balance keeping the union centered? After handing down blockbuster decisions this term on gerrymandering, executive authority and affirmative action, the highest court in the land is facing fierce criticism from progressives i...

Shadi, Christine, and Sam head to Aspen to record a live episode of the show. The crowd gets involved. The broad topic of the conversation was decline. We don’t always know how to express it, but many of us feel it: There’s something wrong with America today. The mood is tense. More Americans say they won’t have children because of climate change and other future catastrophes. But are things reall...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live There is the Europe of politics. There is the Europe of ideas. But there is also the Europe of actual people, who live, love, die, and dream. How they live and how they hope is shaped by mass migration, climate change, the war in Ukraine, and any number of other disruptions. Who are they and what do their lives actua...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live How important are ideological labels and how might they change over the next generation? A lot is on the minds of Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic this week as the two go on a winding discussion about political identity and ideological shifts amid a tribalistic political culture. The guys discussed the rarity of promine...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Why is therapy replacing God on dating apps? If bad things happen, were they “meant to be”? When we say that everything happens for a reason, what do we even mean? This week, Shadi and Damir are back on the podcast together with close friend and guest Rachel Rizzo to discuss her stunning new essay , “ Do Liberals Hav...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live As organized religion declines, particularly among younger Americans, a constellation of spiritual and sense-making phenomena appear to be taking its place. This week, Damir Marusic and Editor-at-Large Christine Emba are joined by the author Tara Isabella Burton whose upcoming book Self-Made: Creating Our Identities...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Are big ideas still possible? Are there any “new” ideas left—and what makes an idea new in the first place? If we need new ideas to shake ourselves out of decadence, we should be careful what we wish for. Wokeness is one such “comprehensive framework.” Others might prove similarly frightening. This week, Shadi is joi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, Damir stages an intervention for Shadi. Lately, Shadi’s become gradually detached from the world of current events and political media. Damir probes to understand why, therein unraveling an episode that goes off the beaten path to discuss progress, happiness and meaning at a time when everything feels exis...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Can a cohesive nation survive without a common identity or shared values? That question is at the heart of this week’s podcast with political theorist David Polansky . Last week, David’s essay in Wisdom of Crowds rebutted the claim that the Israelites can be understood as a modern nation. Throughout history, various...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live Why is Trump such a formidable candidate, despite everything? How can someone who lies so readily be seen as authentic? With the Republican presidential campaign heating up, Sam Adler-Bell —co-host of “ Know Your Enemy ” and one of the most fascinating leftist writers around today—returns to the podcast to argue that...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live An anti-natalist subculture has flourished for years online. These days, it feels like it’s taking hold in the real world. This week, writer and internet historian Katherine Dee and Editor-at-Large Christine Emba join Shadi and Damir to make sense of this underground phenomenon—and its broader implications for how we...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live With the world feeling increasingly unstable, Damir and Shadi turn to foreign policy. Can the United States can back its bluster abroad, including in defense of Taiwan?  All of this is happening as Donald Trump re-enters the national spotlight. The guys contrast the former president's manic approach to deterrence wit...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live With artificial intelligence threatening to take over our imaginations, Shadi and Damir this week decided to talk through some of the philosophical quandaries with none other than political philosopher and Wisdom of Crowds contributing writer Samuel Kimbriel. The Crowd takes on ChatGPT, existential risk, "the simulat...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live In Part 2 ( available here for subscribers), Damir sets out a dark theory. Could the arrival of true mass democracy, where social media makes everyone far too interested in politics, actually be encouraging demagoguery? And can a democratic system withstand repeated assaults by such unscrupulous political entrepreneu...

This week, we're bringing you something special: our first recording with a live audience! Hosted by the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets and moderated by the center's director, Jen Murtazashvili (a friend of the Crowd), we had a freewheeling discussion about Shadi's new book, The Problem of Democracy . Shadi made his case for decoupling democracy and liberalism—what he...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live This week, we were excited to have author Luke Burgis on the pod, to talk about a hot topic: desire. Specifically, mimetic desire—the idea that desires are often generated through our human propensity to copy each other. He's written an excellent book, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life , that affe...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wisdomofcrowds.live In recent months, Shadi has drawn a lot of online ire for saying that liberals were needlessly (and harmfully) catastrophizing ahead of the November midterms. We decided to talk to one of Shadi's smartest and most eloquent critics on this count—our friend Damon Linker, a former columnist at The Week and current autho...