The Unspeakable: Patreon Only

Early access to August 23, 2021 edition Of course this one is long.  It's Sam Harris!Sam Harris is a giant in the world of podcasting. His podcast, Making Sense, which began in 2013 under the name Waking Up, averages more than a million downloads per episode. He is also a philosopher and neuroscientist, a meditation expert, the author of several bestselling books, and a prominent voice in both the “new atheist movement” and in “heterodox” intellectual circles, which has led him to have public debates and disagreements with other high profile thinkers. Meghan and Sam cover lots of ground in this long conversation, including the perils of confusing messaging around vaccines, the cowardice of institutional leadership in the face of social media mobs, and why the debate format can be, as Sam puts it, “a commercial for the limitations of conversation.” Most of all, they talk about what Meghan calls the question of “how not to ruin the dinner party,” which can happen when people who think too much about all of this stuff (like they do) engage in intellectual nitpicking and ruin everyone’s fun.Note: This is an ad-free version of the show, as always, though there is a short promo for Bridget Phetasy's podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome. This is part of the deal with Podcast One and I hope you can endure it. Bridget is a former guest on The Unspeakable and you should check out her podcast if you haven't already. Guest BioSam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author of five New York Times best sellers, include The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, and Waking Up. Sam hosts the popular Making Sense podcast and is also the creator of the Waking Up app, which offers a modern, rational approach to the practice of meditation and an ongoing exploration of what it means to live a good life. Sam has practiced meditation for over 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

Early access to August 16, 2021 editionFrank Bruni spent more than 25 years at The New York Times, the last ten of them as a columnist on the opinion page. In June, he left the column to become a professor of public policy and journalism at Duke University. Frank spoke with Meghan about the difficulties—maybe the impossibility— of writing a weekly opinion column while also maintaining  intellectual humility and engaging with your own uncertainty. The author of many books, including a book about higher education, Frank explained how “campus craziness” tropes have been distorted by the media even though students continue to disagree about free speech and administrators continue to pander to a small minority of loud extremists. He also talked about an ongoing medical issue that threatens his eyesight and about which he writes in a forthcoming book.Guest Bio:Frank Bruni was a New York Times opinion columnist from 2011 to 2021. He has also served as a White House correspondent, Rome bureau chief and chief restaurant critic for the Times. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers and his newest book, The Beauty of Dusk, about affliction, aging and his brush with blindness, will be published early next year. He ended his op-ed column in June 2021 and moved from New York to North Carolina to become a professor of public policy and journalism at Duke University, but continues to write a popular weekly newsletter (www.nytimes.com/BruniLetter) for the Times.

Early (and ad free!) access to August 9, 2021 edition This week, Meghan talks with legendary sex and relationship columnist Dan Savage. Recounting thirty years of correspondence from people seeking advice, Dan reflects on how anxieties and concerns have changed over the decades. Whereas he once got mostly practical questions about sex, he now hears from people who describe a relationship dynamic and ask some version of “am I the asshole?” Dan also talks about how he’s become gentler over the years in doling out advice, the legacy of his famous “It Gets Better” campaign, and his discomfort with Meghan’s “favorite” issue, the surge in transgender identity declarations among young people. (That’s not really her favorite issue.)Meghan also announced some new developments with the podcast, including the first ever Unspeakable Zoom hangout for listeners on August 19. To learn more and to register, click here.Guest Bio:Dan Savage is an author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBT activist. He writes Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column, and hosts the popular Savage Lovecast. He is the author of several books including The Kid, It Gets Better, The Commitment, Skipping Toward Gomorrah, American Savage, and Savage Love. In 2010, Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.

Early access to August 2, 2021 editionIn this very special, guest-free episode of The Unspeakable Podcast, Meghan talks to her listeners about the now ubiquitous concept of the “mid-career pivot.” Drawing from her experience as a longtime freelance writer who has had to shift her entire work philosophy to accommodate a changing media landscape, Meghan shares several ideas and at least one pet theory. That theory  has to do with the ways that Generation X is in an especially precarious position when it comes to this pivot, mostly because they’re too young to retire but too old to be digital natives. She also talks about launching the podcast exactly a year ago, the challenges of promoting it, and the show’s recent move to the Podcast One network.

Early access to July 26, 2021 editionNote: This episode contains brief music interstitials. The reason is that I am preparing to make the podcast available for advertisements and this requires "ad markers," which is what those interstitials represent. As a Patreon supporter you will continue to get ad-free editions no matter what.Science writer Tom Chivers is the author of How To Read Numbers: A Guide To Statistics In The News (And Knowing When to Trust Them) which he co-wrote with his cousin, the economist David Chivers. He came to Meghan’s attention recently because of an article he wrote for the British publication, UnHerd, where he serves as science editor. That article, entitled Twitter Trolls Mentally Ill?, was a response to a widely circulated statement by the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote about defamation she’d experienced from a former student and about how the language of empathy and self-care is now often repurposed as a cudgel. Tom's piece expanded on some of these ideas, suggesting that mental health struggles and personality disorders have become engines of social media and that the kind of behavior that’s rewarded on places like Twitter is sometimes the same behavior that’s associated with diagnoses like Borderline Personality Disorder. Tom spoke with Meghan about this article and about related ideas in his book, including the ways misperceptions of harm can turn people into catastrophists.Relevant links:Are Twitter Trolls Mentally Ill? by Tom ChiversIt Is Obscene by Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieTom Chivers websiteGuest Bio:Tom Chivers is science editor at UnHerd and the co-author with David Chivers of How To Read Numbers: A Guide To Statistics In The News (And Knowing When to Trust Them). He is a two Tim winner of the Royal Statistical Society’s “statistical excellence in journalism” award.

Note: Exciting News! The show is in the process of moving to the Podcast One platform. The "official" launch probably won't be for a few weeks, but the public feed has moved to that platform as of next week. This changes nothing about how the podcast is accessed by the public and will not affect the Patreon feed at all, which will continue to be ad-free and available early to all subscribers. As some of you noticed, there were a few technical glitches yesterday on the main feed, but I think they've been ironed out. I'll update you more as this rolls out. Thanks, as always, for your generous support as the show moves forward. Early access to July 19, 2021 edition Approximately 554,000 Americans experienced homelessness last year, and over half of were in California. In Los Angeles County alone, 66,000 people were unhoused in 2020, a 16 percent increase from the previous year. Shawn Pleasants is an advocate for the homeless in Los Angeles who often speaks about policy issues and ideas for addressing the crisis. He was also homeless himself for ten years, living for most of that time in an encampment in Koreatown, where he and his longtime husband dealt with medical problems, addiction issues, street violence and tried several times to find jobs and housing. Shawn also happens to be a Yale graduate who once worked on Wall Street and later owned his own business. The stories of how he entered and finally escaped homelessness are remarkable. But even more remarkable is his perspective on the bigger crisis. Shawn spoke with Meghan about not just the day to day life of someone living on the street but also what city and state officials are getting wrong about when they talk about how to fix the problem.Guest Bio:Shawn Pleasants is an advocate for unhoused people in Los Angeles. A former banker and business owner, he lived on the street for ten years. He has been housed since late 2019.