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Never Close the Inquiry

Nick Hagen

Never Close the Inquiry is for pushing back on black and white, us vs. them thinking in politics—for creating dialogue across the aisle, and for demystifying the right for the left and the left for the right. The goal is better conversations, better arguments, better solutions, better relationships, and, maybe, a few giant skips and a jump and a hitch-hike down the line, a better country.

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  • 27 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 15 min
  • English

Episodes 27

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  • S1 · E65
    Friday · 1 hr 35 min

    The Neophytes Are Now Democratic Members of Congress

    Episode 65 - The Neophytes Are Blue Da Ba Dee Da Ba Di Candidly, the Neophytes Are Really Surprised and Trying to Process Everything The Neophytes Are Giddy But Politely Trying to Hide It The Neophytes Hit the Barrel of a Blue Tsunami The Neophytes Just Woke From a Coma—Where Is Senator-Elect Ken Paxton? The Neophytes: Is It Too Much to Start Calling Texas “Tejas”? The Neophytes Order Signed Copies of Das Kapital The Neophytes Will Offer Legal Services to Trump Family Members in Exchange for a Qatari Jet For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E64
    October 30 · 1 hr 27 min

    The Neophytes Purchase a Controlling Stake in Anthropic

    Episode 64 - The Neophytes Purchase a Controlling Stake in Anthropic Actually, that may have been in a dream. Anyway, Anthropic filed its registration statement with the SEC and has started the clock to go public sometime in November. Reports indicate Anthropic is hoping to raise slightly more money than I have ever made at a $2 trillion valuation. If that number turns out to be accurate, Anthropic would make its public debut as one of the ten most valuable companies in the world. But what is Anthropic actually worth? Though the Neophytes have approximately as good an idea of how to value a company as we do a chance at making the Olympics in the long jump, an Anthropic investment comes with more and larger risks and unknowns than an investment in, say, a tire company. We don’t know how Anthropic and OpenAI, frontier AI labs who depend on other companies, including competitors, for infrastructure needs, will respond to increased competition from domestic and foreign rivals. We don’t know whether or how the government will get involved. We don’t know whether Anthropic’s revenue will continue to grow exponentially, which seems like a rather silly concern given its current exponential growth until you realize Anthropic’s baked-in-stone future spending commitments obligate it to make or borrow way, way more money. We don’t even know what exactly Anthropic’s products can do, and neither do they—hence the hullabaloo and prophecies of possible human extinction. We know what tires do, how they can be used, and that they’ll very likely keep doing tire things for the foreseeable future. The same cannot be said of AI. If you want the keen insight of sophisticated Wall Street professionals with money on the line, I would politely direct you elsewhere, but if you’re interested in a wide-ranging, sincere conversation about the current and future value and function of AI and the companies who provide it, you’re in moderate luck. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E63
    October 23 · 1 hr 17 min

    The Neophytes: War and Moral Obligations to Allies

    Episode 63 - The Neophytes: War and Moral Obligations to Allies In recent weeks, President Trump entered into a deal with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to purchase a large amount of Russian diesel fuel. The theory, as I understand it, is that Americans will be so grateful for the cheaper(? How much cheaper?) fuel and so unbothered by its source or the arguable betrayal of Ukraine they vote for Republicans in November. I don’t find the theory particularly compelling, but, to be fair, I’m not a Republican, I’m not the president, and my car doesn’t take diesel. Ukraine, understandably perturbed by America sending significant capital to Russia more than four and a half years into an existential war, attacked Russian oil refineries. One of Elon Musk or President Trump (hey! We just bought that!) then slowed Ukraine’s access to Starlink internet enough to render many of Ukraine’s drones and defensive weapons useless; after we recorded, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump called Musk to tell him to restore higher speed access. The reality is that not everyone believes we should be helping Ukraine or looking at Russia as an enemy (or, perhaps, looking at all), and there is no indication the debate will end soon. Also in recent weeks, anti-war conservative-of-a-kind Tucker Carlson, whose affection for Russia exceeds many Americans’ affection for America, interviewed the exceptionally English Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg in London. Among those segments that went viral enough to catch my attention, Carlson questioned whether the British made the right decision in going to war with Hitler (in Rees-Mogg’s view, they did) and argued that Russia has a much larger economy than the United Kingdom because, as I understood his argument, they have far more land and resources. Rees-Mogg retorted that the fact the United Kingdom has twice the GDP with half the people and approximately 1/70th the land mass is indicative that Russia is an economic failure. Carlson also argued Russia does not jail people for their speech, which Rees-Mogg rightfully laughed at. Anyway, all of this raises genuinely interesting questions about the obligations we have to our friends and allies. We did not enter World War I until April 1917, nearly three years after it started; we did not enter World War II until December 1941, over two years after it started. The United States has with our lovely oceans and their many distances long enjoyed a privilege of mercurial isolationism far beyond that of any other country, and we go back and forth, back and forth on how involved we want to be internationally and with whom. As Channing and I discuss, if Russia were to invade Albania, a NATO ally particularly dear to my heart, the American people would likely resist, at least emotionally, our sending troops to satisfy our treaty obligations. If Russia (we figure it’s likely to be Russia) were to invade England, we’d likely come on board more quickly. The reality is that with war, easy answers may not be good and good answers may not be easy. Which is why, of course, it’s something very worth talking about. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E62
    October 16 · 1 hr 9 min

    The Neophytes: The Death Penalty

    Episode 62 - The Neophytes: The Death Penalty The last couple of weeks may end up as their own chapter in the history of capital punishment in America. First, Tennessee tried and failed to execute convicted murderer Christa Pike, instead putting her into a coma after missing the vein with two not-quite-lethal injections; what comes next remains to be seen. Then, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Homeland Security announced they would livestream the execution by firing squad of convicted murderer, terrorist, and traitor Nidal Hasan. The decision was reversed after sustained public outcry (sadly, after the recording of this podcast), but it speaks to the current state of this administration that they managed to take the most unambiguously executable man in recent American history and increase opposition to the death penalty. Mabes, Channing, and I talk about all of it, from whether and why we should have the death penalty at all to how, if we do, it should be effectuated. Without spoiling too much, this may be the only podcast on the subject that seriously considers whether everyone executed in Alabama should be personally strangled by Governor Kay Ivey. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E61
    October 9 · 59 min

    The Neophytes (Don’t) Protect the Sun

    Episode 61 - The Neophytes (Don’t) Protect the Sun The House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act 308-117 in July. The Act would make Daylight Saving Time (i.e., summer time) permanent: there would be no falling back on a glorious night in November, and the Sun would rise just in time for Christmas brunch. Anyway, Senator Tom Cotton seems to agree with me that whatever we’re doing now is going just fine. President Trump (and Channing) do not. The President reacted in all circumspection, publishing the senator’s private cell phone number online. If anything, a good reminder not to give your number to someone just because he says he’s your president. That nonsense aside, Cotton’s main point is a good one: we tried this before and didn’t like it. In January 1974, Congress began a trial where DST was made permanent nationwide. By October, public opinion had soured enough they ended the trial early. That, to the senator and me, is good enough reason on its own not to try the experiment again. After discussing the Sun, we moved on to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: specifically, the lengths to which we’ll go to be accepted, our almost limitless ability to convince ourselves those lengths are okay, and what we can do to prevent giving up our morals to be more palatable to the group. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E60
    October 2 · 1 hr 4 min

    The Neophytes: Progressively Pestilential Polymarket

    Episode 60 - The Neophytes: Progressively Pestilential Polymarket We--your friendly local prudes--have been open about our abhorrence for prediction markets generally and scummity scum scum Polymarket specifically. Our antipathy was already on its way to a fresh peak after Polymarket recruited a long list of athletes and celebrities, some of them among the most popular of the last three decades--LeBron, Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Sue Bird, Spike Lee, Reggie Bush, and Richard Sherman, among others--to appear in a bajillion dollar ad legitimizing a particularly noxious form of sports gambling where the house, paid by skimming the top off every trade, cannot lose, and paycheck-to-paycheck young Americans sucked in by the prospect of quick money can and do. Polymarket is paying LeBron $15 million a year, which admittedly is close to double his current Sixers salary; he’s only worth $1.4 billion and may need the supplemental income. But it gets worse. According to investigations by the Wall Street Journal and Politico, as beautifully set forth in a fern-TV YouTube video (side note: fern has 5.55 million subscribers and this is the first I’m hearing of it; in certain respects, I am 1000 years old--Polymarket paid a series of online influencers to post videos portraying fake gambling wins without any disclosure that (i) they were paid, which is a violation of federal law by itself, or (ii) the wins were fake. To enable the filmed lies (the “fraud,” as we lawyers like calling it), Polymarket created a dummy website and app that allowed the influencers to manufacture bespoke “trades” and put fake $10,000 wins in Instagram videos in exchange for relatively small under-the-table payments directly from Polymarket’s chief marketing officer. Not great, Bob. Apropos of nothing, Donald Trump Jr. is a Polymarket investor and member of the board, and federal investigations into Polymarket have generally quieted down since approximately January 2025 or something along those lines. Tune in to hear the Neophytes say mean things about people actively making the world a worse place. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E59
    September 18 · 58 min

    The Neophytes Sow Panic: Robots Are Coming to Kill Us All

    Episode 59 - The Neophytes Sow Panic: Robots Are Coming to Kill Us All “Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it’s time for our viewers to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside?” “Yes I would, Kent.” Sage, timely counsel from the Simpsons. Anyway, you likely have read a bit about recent developments in the world of artificial intelligence—something about creating new video games with a single prompt and also annihilating our species before we even have a chance to vote on President Trump’s third term, let alone his fourth. AI executives have responded to whistleblowers’ fears by confirming them and calling for a global slowdown in development, which has provoked a strong response from just about everyone except our lawmakers. If this predicament has a precedent, I’m not sure what it is. Say what you will about nukes, they typically don’t drop themselves. Tune in to hear the Neophytes debate all of it as guided by my 23 AI-Related Observations and General Rules of Questionable Efficacy. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E58
    September 14 · 1 hr 21 min

    The Neophytes Bait Your Clicks: The American Dream Is Dead

    Episode 58 - The Neophytes Bait Your Clicks: The American Dream Is Dead Depending on who you ask and how careful you are with your definitions, far more people will tell you the American Dream is dead than will wave the flag and insist it lives. In a recent AP poll, only 22% of respondents ages 18-30 claimed to believe the American Dream, defined simply as the idea that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead, is still achievable. My view, and that of the other Neophytes, is more nuanced, although we are not ourselves in full alignment. What has long separated America from its peers is its shocking wealth, yes, but also its lack of true class distinctions. We have quasi-classes and clubs and a storied history of de jure and de facto racial discrimination, but with hard, well-targeted work and a good chunk of luck, you can be born with nothing and die with just about everything. That has not historically been as common elsewhere, where your last name can mean something it just can’t, or so rarely can, here. To the extent the American Dream depends only on a lack of formal class barriers and the possibility of immense wealth, it lives. But there is no question the America of today is much more expensive than that of yesteryear. The cost of housing has risen dramatically. So too with education. More and more wealth shifts to the already wealthy. If the American Dream is financial stability, a picket fence, and occasional family vacations to Disney World, it is mathematically materially less accessible than it was fifty years ago. I don’t see how rapid AI advances will do anything but make that more true. Is there hope? Of course, and plenty of it. But the problems that have brought so many to a rather fatalistic point of view won’t be fixed by magic or quickly. Tune in to hear the Neophytes talk about all of it (well, as much of it as we remembered in the moment). For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E57
    September 4 · 1 hr 8 min

    The Neophytes: Hawaiian Mongeese and Trump’s Foreign Policy

    Episode 57 - The Neophytes: Hawaiian Mongeese and Trump’s Foreign Policy In 1883, sugar plantation owners in Hawaii imported mongooses from Jamaica—where the India-native species had been introduced a decade earlier—to eat the rats ravaging the sugarcane crops. It isn’t difficult to see where the plantation owners were coming from: crops good, rats bad, how kill rats?, mongoose like rats probably, I get mongooses, this definitely not backfire. But, as seems to so often be the case when we supreme beings mess with nature, there was a problem: Rats are nocturnal; mongooses are diurnal. When the rats were awake, the sugarcane fields were mercifully devoid of foreign predators, and when the mongooses were awake, their intended targets were asleep in their rat beds. So, the mongooses, being hungry and at rather a remarkable advantage on predator-free islands, ate lovely Hawaiian birds at every point of the bird lifecycle, from egg to chick to adult. In Jamaica, the same story: The mongooses ate the lizards and birds while the rats napped. The importers solved no problems while creating substantial new ones. That was not the original intended topic of the podcast, but it proved a useful introduction for a discussion about President Trump’s foreign policy, which, to date, appears to have solved few problems while creating substantial new ones. Tariffs have not filled our coffers and do not appear to be putting us on the road to re-emergence as a manufacturing powerhouse, but they have worsened our economic relationship with any number of close allies around the globe. Russia and Ukraine are still at war. Instead of one highly controversial conflict in the Middle East we now have two, the second of which is impacting domestic prices for more than just oil and its derivatives. We have galvanized Europe to spend more on its own defense, but not in a way that has brought us closer. In Venezuela, the military executed a stunning extradition of Nicolas Maduro and we now have an oil deal that could eventually bear significant fruit, but Maduro’s successor-cum-American-puppet Delcy Rodriguez is wildly unpopular and both she and the oil deal may be gone as soon as Venezuela holds an open and fair election; saving the deal may mean saving the Rodriguez government, which would come with its own massive issues. In a word, it-feels-like-things-could-be-going-better. Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E56
    August 28 · 1 hr 12 min

    The Neophytes: What Is Twitch and How Does It Influence Elections?

    Episode 56 - The Neophytes: What Is Twitch and How Does It Influence Elections? First, we discuss incumbent newbie Senator Darline Graham’s win in her run-off in South Carolina’s Republican primary Tuesday evening. Her win came not long after she was booed during a debate for honestly admitting she couldn’t address a question about America’s national security interests in Taiwan and the South China Sea. Then, we turn to Twitch and the rise of streamers’ influence in politics. Leftist streamer Hasan Piker has been making life somewhat uncomfortable for Democrats recently, but he is just one of several young folks who have developed a substantial online-to-offline following via a path that, shall we say, might appear somewhat alien to Walter Cronkite. The strangest member of this perplexing new cohort might be Adin Ross, a 25-year-old fellow living in Florida who first gained popularity by playing NBA 2K online with Bronny James and has somehow translated video games into interviewing, among others, President Donald J. Trump. My personal favorite Ross moment might be him announcing via livestream that Andrew Tate had told him he would soon leave Romania, leading the Romanian authorities to arrest Tate and his brother Tristan. Anyway, I, as a relatively non-online person, do not understanding the streaming phenomenon. Mabes and Channing do, at least well enough to explain it to me. My short-form verdict: bad. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E55
    August 21 · 1 hr 12 min

    The Neophytes: Why Do Smart People Do Stupid Things?

    Episode 55 - The Neophytes: Why Do Smart People Do Stupid Things? If the Financial Times is to be trusted, the $35 billion recently lost by AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness represents the biggest trading loss of all time by nearly $20 billion. Congratulations, Leopold Aschenbrenner! The debacle has given rise to some interesting questions, like how does a good essay convince a bunch of very rich people to give tens of billions of dollars to a 24-year-old with zero investing experience? And do they have any money left to give to me? I also have no investing experience, and I’m sure I could cobble together something about robots taking over the world by 2032. Jokes aside, this is not the first time an empirically brilliant person—Aschenbrenner graduated from Columbia at 19 as valedictorian—has made what turned out to be an enormous bet the wrong way and lost big. It happens all the time, and the failures of our best and brightest, including those who serve in the government, can take a weed-whacker to trust in expertise generally. The downstream effects of elite failures can be unpleasant, as much schadenfreude as some may feel initially. Anyway, the Situational Awareness, er, situation—plus the startup accelerator Y Combinator’s investment in a mosquito-killing drone you can pre-order for a mere $1100, or $50 per month if you prefer renting your pest control technology—prompted a pair of fundamental questions: Why do smart people do stupid things? And is there a way for us to avoid the same traps? Listen to hear the Neophytes try to figure it out. Disclaimer: This title may get reused for other episodes. We haven’t talked about Congress in a minute. Stay tuned for more episodes coming soon with commentary on current events and interviews with people from across the political spectrum. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E54
    August 14 · 45 min

    The Neophytes: Trump, Mamdani, and Charisma

    Episode 54 - The Neophytes: Trump, Mamdani, and Charisma There is no question President Trump and Mayor Mamdani’s respective political positions differ somewhat, but there is also no question that both have succeeded where others would have failed because, for whatever reason, plenty of people are inclined to follow them. The Neophytes consider what exactly it means to be charismatic, who among other politicians might fairly be described as charismatic, and to what degree charisma is actually a good thing. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E53
    August 7 · 43 min

    The Neophytes Pirro Into the Nation’s Soul

    Episode 53 - The Neophytes Pirro Into the Nation’s Soul It’s been a tough week for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, one of the federal government’s top veterans of cable television. She did the wrong thing by going forward with indictments based on what she could have then known was insufficient evidence, did the right thing by dropping them via a 20-page legal mea culpa, and did the hard thing by standing up to the President and still(?)-Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in an Oval Office showdown. All in all, a whole lot of consternation that could have been avoided by (i) a competent initial renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; (ii) an honest assessment of the damage and subsequent competent fix of the Reflecting Pool; or (iii) fully reviewing available evidence before making rather bold pronouncements on national television. After discussing Kansas voters’ rejection of an elected Supreme Court, Channing and I dig into the problem of choosing people for their compliance over their competence. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E52
    July 31 · 39 min

    The Neophytes: So…How Socialist Is Democratic Socialism?

    Episode 52 - The Neophytes: So…How Socialist Is Democratic Socialism? Democratic socialists are surging, which is more than can be said for their more moderate political cousins. Mayor Zohran Mamdani is as talented a communicator as Democrats have had since President Barack Obama (who, unlike Mamdani, was not born in Africa), and the whole Graham Platner thing notwithstanding, DSA or DSA-supported candidates are going to be on more ballots this November than ever before. But what does it mean to be a Democratic Socialist (or democratic socialist), and what does it mean for Democrats that, at this uniquely vulnerable time for Republicans, candidates in key districts will be associated with calls to defund the entire Department of Defense? Much of what the DSA supports is legitimately popular—single payer healthcare tends to poll well, for example. And to the DSA’s genuine credit, its members stand for something, and their enthusiasm in campaign volunteering is unmatched. But it is difficult to imagine broad support for a party that wants to abolish prisons, various forms of law enforcement, and, ultimately, capitalism. It puts the famously competent, well-run, popular, not even remotely struggling Democratic Party in a bit of a pickle, and hands the famously competent, well-run, popular, not even remotely struggling Republican Party a lifeline. Here to talk about all of it, resident know-nothings and non-socialists Channing and Nick. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E51
    July 28 · 1 hr 50 min

    Why Christopher Nolan Matters: Two Nerds Sincerely Nerd Out About Their Favorite Director

    Episode 51 - Why Christopher Nolan Matters: Two Nerds Sincerely Nerd Out About Their Favorite Director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been in theaters since July 17th. Though it has already made approximately 8 bajillion dollars and earned rave reviews from most critics and lowly theater attendees, the film has fanned the eternal flame of the online culture war and is not without its detractors, including, notably, Emily Wilson, the best-selling translator from whom Nolan took at least some of his inspiration. If you are interested in a lengthy, contentious debate regarding the film’s merits or what it has to say about our politics, this is not the podcast for you. If you are interested in a thorough recitation of Christopher Nolan’s entire oeuvre and a fun discussion (i.e., we were having a blast) between two longtime fans as to why he matters to film and perhaps should matter to all of us, then look no further—you’re home. As luck would have it, my personal doctor, Dr. Justin Coles, happens to be (i) a friend since elementary school, (ii) a film major (I may or may not have appeared in one of his student films), and (iii) one of Earth’s biggest Christopher Nolan fans. We were in high school when Nolan burst into the mainstream with Batman Begins and The Prestige, and boy, did those movies make an impact on juvenile us. For 105 glorious minutes on this most recent Sunday (yes, both of us have already seen The Odyssey, him twice), we walked in delightful detail through Nolan’s entire career, from Following to The Dark Knight to Interstellar to Oppenheimer to The Odyssey, plus all the movies in between, and went back on forth on why Nolan matters to us, to film, and maybe to you. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E50
    July 23 · 1 hr 13 min

    Episode 50! The Neophytes Never Close the Self-Inquiry But Not in a Bad Way

    Episode 50! The Neophytes Never Close the Self-Inquiry But Not in a Bad Way Each of us has political biases. Figuring out (and confessing) what those biases are is interesting and difficult enough, but figuring out where they originally came from might be the real trick. For this special, historical, entirely unprecedented, unyieldingly riveting 50th episode of the Never Close the Inquiry podcast, the Neophytes take Thomas, our resident radical leftist, and Channing, our resident moderate righty, and ask a simple question: Why? As per usual, we left A looking for B and ended up somewhere around 13. That said, as natural—i.e., disjointed—as our conversations may be, there is a real point to asking each other and ourselves what our biases are, where they came from, and why they push us toward specific policies, especially where our basic moral framework may not provide clear political guidance. Perhaps this can be dismissed as a view based off little more than anecdotal evidence, but I believe that the better we understand our own instincts and their origin, the slower we are to judgment of the instincts of others, and the more inclined we are to seek to understand them. It is true that there is far more that unites us than divides us, but that fundamental reality can hide behind the clouds when we don’t understand why anyone believes what they believe. So, call this episode an attempt to model what we’d like to see repeated at scale. Not brought to you by Dr. Pepper and A&W, but we’d like it to be, so if you know anyone, let us know. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E49
    July 17 · 1 hr 33 min

    The Neophytes: The Complicated Legacy of Lindsey Graham

    Episode 49 - The Neophytes: The Complicated Legacy of Lindsey Graham At one point or another over the past decade, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Teflon Don of the Senate, offended just about everybody. He delivered emphatic broadsides both for and against President Trump, took moderate positions, took less moderate positions, and stuck to his (warning: pun) guns as to hawkish views not currently in vogue among the Republican base. Despite what mostly-reasonable observers could interpret as craven flip-flopping to ingratiate himself with whoever happened to be in charge, the eminently quotable, genuinely charming Graham never suffered a truly serious challenge in a primary or general election, and remained of influence with wildly different administrations of both parties. Perhaps of most interest to us, the easily distracted Neophytes, Graham seems to have been adored by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. The same cannot be said of plenty of those colleagues. And perhaps in that last bit there are useful lessons: among others, that serious disagreement on matters of policy need not bar us from being friends, AND that being friends can make it a heck of a lot easier to move toward agreement on matters of policy. I stand by my view that people are much more persuadable when they feel—and actually are—understood, and that it’s much easier to produce that understanding by asking sincere, open, curious questions than by analyzing from afar with “anyone who believes XYZ must be evil or, at best, stupid” as a starting point. Side note: the seat now occupied by the late senator’s sister was previously held by Strom Thurmond, a real piece of work who did not leave the Senate until he was 100. That seat held a grand total of four individual buttcheeks over a 70 year span. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E48
    July 10 · 1 hr 12 min

    The Neophytes: In Which the President Adds Graham Platner to the US Men’s National Team

    Episode 48 - The Neophytes: In Which the President Adds Graham Platner to the US Men’s National Team The terrific and inspiring US Men’s National Team’s foray in the World Cup ended with President Trump-centered controversy and a thumping at the feet of foreign waffle-makers, the ceasefire in Iran has ceased, and Graham Platner is on the outs in Maine after having been accused of, among other things, rape. Just weeks ago, we questioned where the line was regarding the character and past actions of a candidate, or whether there even was a line. Turns out, there is, both for the Neophytes and national Democrats, and Mr. Platner is on the wrong side of it. Platner did not drop out until the day after we recorded, but to parrot my younger self explaining to teachers, my parents, and, later, my bosses why I didn’t need to write anything down, we got the gist of it. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E47
    June 18 · 51 min

    The Neophytes Learn Politics from Jalen Brunson and Exult in Their Newfound SpaceX Riches

    Episode 47 - The Neophytes Learn Politics from Jalen Brunson and Exult in Their Newfound SpaceX Riches The Neophytes—each of whom invested in SpaceX at the age of 12—question who on earth would voluntarily wear Snapchat’s new $2200 Snap Specs, discuss the SpaceX IPO, and talk about what Knicks star and NBA champion Jalen Brunson can teach us about the limitations of using current metrics to forecast future development. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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  • S1 · E46
    June 12 · 1 hr 17 min

    The Neophytes Get a Tad Bleak About the Importance of Character in Politicians

    Episode 46 - The Neophytes Get a Tad Bleak About the Importance of Character in Politicians So what would you do in 2028 if it turned out one or both of JD Vance and Gavin Newsom (hypothetically, the candidates) were revealed to likely be responsible for a string of unexplained decades-old disappearances in a remote corner of the Ozarks or Sierra Nevadas? All else being equal, virtually everyone would choose a politician of high character over one of low character. But all else is never equal, and we are too often presented a choice between a mediocre person who shares few of our political views and a worse person who shares more. So what do you do? If experience and this conversation are any guide, most people, on both and every side of the political aisle, will pull the lever on matching political views almost no matter what. I’m not sure what that says about us or our system, but it isn’t fantastic. On the bright side, each us enjoyed a delicious low calorie beverage during the recording of this podcast. For more content and to subscribe to the Never Close the Inquiry newsletter, please visit neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com and follow on instagram @neverclosetheinquiry Please like, rate, comment, and subscribe! Get full access to Never Close the Inquiry at neverclosetheinquiry.substack.com/subscribe

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Showing 1–20 of 27 episodes