Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

We can enhance athletic performance, lose weight with a pill and even take psychedelics to alter consciousness. At what point does all this self-optimization become self-obsession? When does it get in the way of our humanity itself? My guest this week is the German biotech entrepreneur Christian Angermayer, who believes scientific breakthroughs to extend our lives — and even put us in touch with the divine — are close at hand.

0:00 - Intro

01:40 - Investing in longevity, A.I. and psychedelics

6:06 - The vision for the Enhanced Games

13:45 - Normalizing enhancements for everyone

20:02 - Ozempic is the first of many...

30:00 - The five basics for health and well-being

36:52 - Psychedelics trips and spiritual revelations

59:20 - Christian skepticism

01:04:22 - "Jesus is not human-maxxing."

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. 

Read the full transcript here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/opinion/better-sex-better-hair-better-sleep-humanmaxxing-is-here.html

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In an era defined by deep institutional distrust, a new trend within populist conservatism has emerged. It’s a sense that the federal government is keeping secrets and protecting the powerful at our expense. My guest this week is Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a conservative Republican from Florida who has quickly established herself as a political troublemaker. She’s challenging fellow lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats — on issues like sexual harassment and ethics, but she doesn’t see her campaign to clean up Congress as in tension with her allegiance to President Trump. Luna has focused her first years in Congress on exposing what she views as coverups, from the Epstein files to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and longstanding government secrecy around U.F.O.s.

00:00 - Intro

01:31 - Luna's politics: "Conservative with a streak of populism"

08:07 - From chaos to conservative influencer

16:17 - Critiquing the ethics of Congress

24:55 - Presidential ethics and the Epstein files

36:25 - The U.A.P. activity at Eglin Air Force Base

41:02 - The "mosaic" around the J.F.K. assassination

47:50 - U.A.P. evidence

54:30 - Whistleblower retribution and protections

57:57 - Secret programs: "A stronger dose of strangeness"

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

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The future of high-tech warfare has arrived. Just look to the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran to see how much drones and robots have remade the modern battlefield. Is the U.S. positioned to win wars in this new era? What are the ethical constraints of waging autonomous warfare? My guest this week is Christian Brose, the president and chief strategy officer of Anduril, a defense technology company building a slate of autonomous weapons and defense systems for the American military.

00:00 - Intro

03:18 - Drones on the Russia - Ukraine battlefield

8:17 - Iran's stalemate and American military readiness

17:11 - Anduril is more than a "Lord of the Rings" reference

25:33 - Force fields and a layered defense

31:12 - The challenges of "finicky" autonomous systems

44:44 - The ethics of automating the kill chain

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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What’s really driving the humanities crisis in higher education? As enrollment and reading decline, I asked Jennifer Frey, a professor of philosophy, what it was like to run a liberal arts program that was gutted. I wanted to know whether she thinks the age of A.I. could bring back the kind of education she says is fundamental to human formation.

00:00 - Intro

2:08 - Why study the humanities?

5:00 - Do the humanities mean more morality?

15:00 - Shakespeare vs. John Grisham

24:07 - The Tulsa Honors College

34:43 - Left-wing critiques and specialization

44:10 - Is conservatism a friend to liberal arts?

56:32 - Why the humanities are crucial in the age A.I.

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, Interesting Times with Ross Douthat.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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The United States and China are really the only two countries that matter right now in shaping the A.I. future. As President Trump and President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing, there’s a kind of Cold War atmosphere, with people talking about an A.I. arms race. But who is winning? Are we even in a race at all? Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it’s hard to call it a race because the U.S. and China have very different A.I. goals.

00:00:25 U.S. vs. China in A.I.

00:03:07 Everyday A.I. in China

00:07:41 China's A.I. chip limitations

00:12:14 China's A.I. advantage: energy & deployment

00:16:10 China's public mood on A.I.

00:19:44 AI, job displacement and social concerns

00:23:53 Robots for China's labor shortage

00:26:55 China's view on America's AGI fixation

00:31:16 Distilling A.I. models

00:38:39 U.S. needs more A.I. deployment

00:41:48 U.S. chip policy and the hawk's argument

(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)

Thoughts? Email us at interestingtimes@nytimes.com. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel, 

Interesting Times with Ross Douthat

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Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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