Happiness isn’t the goal

What can ancient Rome teach us about American democracy? The Roman Republic fell for a lot of reasons: The state became too big and chaotic; the influence of money and private interests corrupted public institutions; and social and economic inequalities became so large that citizens lost faith in the system altogether and gradually fell into the arms of tyrants and demagogues. It sounds a lot like the problems America is facing today. This week's guest, historian Edward Watts, tells us what we can learn about America's future by studying Rome's past. Host: Sean Illing, (@SeanIlling), host, The Gray Area Guest: Edward Watts, author, Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny and The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean Illing speaks with one of his heroes: Werner Herzog. Herzog is a filmmaker, poet, and author of the memoir Every Man for Himself and God Against All. The two discuss "ecstatic truth," a term invented by Herzog to capture what he's really after in his work, why he's interested in Mars, and whether he thinks humanity is destroying itself. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: Werner Herzog, author, Every Man for Himself and God Against All This episode was originally published in October of 2023. Support The Gray Area by becoming a Vox Member: https://www.vox.com/support-now Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How important is complexity? At The Gray Area, we value understanding the details. We revel in complexity. But does our desire to understand that complexity sometimes over-complicate an issue? Journalist and bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks so. This week on The Gray Area, Sean talks to Coates about his new book The Message, a collection of essays about storytelling, moral clarity, and the dangers of hiding behind complexity. The Message covers a lot of ground, but the largest section of the book — and the focus of this week’s conversation — is about Coates’s trip to the Middle East and the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Coates argues that the situation is not as complicated as most of us believe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In part three of our series on creativity, guest host Oshan Jarow speaks with philosopher of neuroscience Mark Miller about how our minds actually work. They discuss the brain as a predictive engine that builds our conscious experience for us. We’re not seeing what we see. We’re predicting what we should see. Miller says that depression, opioid use, and our love of horror movies can all be explained by this theory. And that injecting beneficial kinds of uncertainty into our experiences — embracing chaos and creativity — ultimately make us even better at prediction, which is one of the keys to happiness and well-being.  This is the third conversation in our three-part series about creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean revisits his interview with musician Laraaji, a pioneer of new age music who has recorded more than 50 albums since he was discovered busking in a park by Brian Eno. Laraaji and Sean discuss inspiration, flow states, and what moves us to create. This is the second conversation in our three shows in three days three-part series about creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is the relationship between creativity and artificial intelligence? Creativity feels innately human, but is it? Can a machine be creative? Are we still being creative if we use machines to assist in our creative output? To help answer those questions, Sean speaks with Meghan O'Gieblyn, the author of the book "God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning." She and Sean discuss how the rise of AI is forcing us to reflect on what it means to be a creative being and whether our relationship to the written word has already been changed forever. This is the first conversation in our three shows in three days three-part series about creativity. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Meghan O'Gieblyn (https://www.meghanogieblyn.com/) References: God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O'Gieblyn (Anchor; 2021) Being human in the age of AI. The Gray Area. (Vox Media; 2023) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-human-in-the-age-of-ai/id1081584611?i=1000612148857 Support The Gray Area by becoming a Vox Member: https://www.vox.com/support-now Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Children live with a beginner’s mind. Every day is full of new discoveries, powerful emotions, and often unrealistically positive assumptions about the future. As adults, beginner’s mind gives way to the mundane drudgeries of existence — and our brains seem to make it much harder for us to be happy. Should we be cool with that? We wrap up our three-part series on optimism with Paul Bloom, author of Psych: The Story of the Human Mind and Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning. He offers his thoughts on optimism and pessimism and walks Sean Illing through the differences between what we think makes us happy versus what actually does. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Paul Bloom (@paulbloom), psychologist, author and writer of the Substack Small Potatoes Support The Gray Area by becoming a Vox Member: https://www.vox.com/support-now Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sean Illing has a special message for all you listeners: Look at me! We’ve made our first-ever video episode. See Sean in conversation with Yuval Noah Harari. Watch it with your friends and family and your friend’s families and their family friends. It’s on YouTube right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhx1sdX2bow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Climate change has become synonymous with doomsday, as though everyone is waiting for the worst to happen. But what is this mindset doing to us? Is climate anxiety keeping us from confronting the challenge? Ayana Elizabeth Johnson thinks so. In part two of our “Reasons to Be Cheerful” series, she talks to Sean Illing about her new book, What If We Get It Right? and makes the case that our best chance for survival is acting as though the future is a place in which we want to live. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Humans are good learners and teachers, constantly gathering information, archiving, and sharing knowledge. So why, after building the most sophisticated information technology in history, are we on the verge of destroying ourselves? We know more than ever before. But are we any wiser? Bestselling author of Sapiens and historian Yuval Noah Harari doesn’t think so. This week Sean Illing talks with Harari, author of a mind-bending new book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks, about how the information systems that shape our world often sow the seeds of destruction, and why the current AI revolution is just the beginning of a brand-new evolutionary process that might leave us all behind. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling) Guest: Yuval Noah Harari (@harari_yuval) Support The Gray Area by becoming a Vox Member: https://www.vox.com/support-now Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices