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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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S1 · E59
Friday · 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
S1 · E45
June 4 · 1 hr 48 min
The Neophytes Masculinely Discuss Masculinity
Episode 45 - The Neophytes Masculinely Discuss Masculinity Warning: the audio is a tad echoey because the SD card, afraid of this conversation being made public, self-corroded and didn’t record anything. Sadly for the card, we believe in redundancies—in this case, the iPhone which recorded the video. On Saturday, I read “Progressives Don’t Understand Masculinity” by the Last Blue Dog here on Substack. I read the transcript of the podcast discussion that prompted the article. Then, an hour or so later, I attended FitCon, which, per its name, is a fitness-focused convention with various competitions—Crossfit, boxing, strongman, roller derby, and literal armored combat, among others—and dozens of vendors selling supplements and apparel. The convention, of which I am a huge fan—yes, a very good friend happens to own it, but it actually is great—was very well-attended, and mostly by people who probably agree progressives don’t understand masculinity. That all got the ball rolling, and Mabes, Channing, and I, all straight white dudes, decided to talk about America’s masculinity crisis, what Democrats are missing, and what we think it means to be a man. Naturally, the conversation ended up going in many different directions, perhaps none of which really have all that much to do with politics, but what is the point of the podcast format if not to start with one plan and end with another entirely? Two more points: * I could not be a bigger fan of the Art of Manliness, which, per its tagline, “provides useful, actionable, no-fluff content to help men become better men in all areas of their life.” I would add that their content is refreshingly, remarkably apolitical and non-toxic (or however you want to put it). The husband and wife behind the website and podcast, Brett and Kate McKay, are here on Substack. I think them very much worth a follow. * The podcast ends with a reading of the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It’s my favorite didactic poem and the only one I have memorized. At some point, I might write a whole series of articles on the virtues it articulates. 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
S1 · E44
May 22 · 1 hr 13 min
The Neophytes Get Awfully Prudish About Prediction Markets
Episode 44 - The Neophytes Get Awfully Prudish About Prediction Markets Prediction markets, like Polymarket and Kalshi, allow users to purchase shares in certain real-world outcomes; or, in human speak, to bet on stuff. Like, all sorts of stuff. For example, a US special operations soldier recently made over $400,000 betting on the removal from office of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The soldier is in a fair amount of trouble—he’s been indicted for unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud—but his punishment, and the new frontiers of insider trading, are kind of beside the point. The point is that people—you, me, high schoolers, government employees, nuns probably—can place bets on stuff like the deaths of political leaders, the length of the war in Iran, the price of gas in a month, and all sorts of other strange stuff that has always been the subject of private bets, but never anything of this scale. As it turns out, we, the Neophytes, don’t like it. We’re not necessarily opposed to gambling, especially if it’s done with honor in the shadows with an offshore bookie probably in Thailand, but this brave new world where every sporting event is sponsored by a sportsbook and millions of people without fully developed prefrontal cortexes can lose money betting on the temperature in New York is not to our puritanical taste. But all of this raises legitimate questions: is there a valid use case for prediction markets? Do they provide something of real value? Or even if they don’t, to what degree should the government restrict them, if any? Anyway, please download the official Neophytes app to place a bet on the number of comments this episode generates. 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
S1 · E43
May 19 · 1 hr 13 min
Ultramarathons and the Joy of the Difficult
Episode 43 - Ultramarathons and the Joy of the Difficult Ultramarathoner, trainer, and nutritionist Jesse Rich and I have known each other since we were old enough to consciously know people. He was the one who unwittingly sparked my own love of fitness more than 25 years ago when he and a few of our fellow Cub Scouts could do more pullups than me on the bar at his house. More recently, Jesse has made a name for himself in the long distance trail running community. Among more than a dozen other podium finishes, he won the 2025 Run Rabbit Run 100 in and well around Steamboat Springs, Colorado. In isolation, it's hard to measure what his winning time of 17 hours and 43 minutes means--it's only when you see the runner-up came in over 83 minutes behind and 54 of 109 racers never finished at all that the magnitude of the accomplishment really starts to sink in (for the record, I had to look all that up). I invited Jesse on the podcast to talk about his running but also about the records set at the 2026 London Marathon, where three male runners broke the previous all time record and two broke the fabled two hour mark, and the top female runner broke the all time women's world record. And we did talk about that and the advances in nutrition that seem to have enabled it, but what started as a running-focused conversation became something much wider. Jesse runs absolutely incredible distances, often alone, with no phone and no music. He spends more uninterrupted time with his thoughts than I likely have in my entire life. I couldn't help but be thrown back to a recent interview I did with attorney and AI entrepreneur Kimball Parker, who spoke of living to the peak of our license as humans even as we are able, if we so choose, to cede more and more ground to computers. I don't think we all need to run ultramarathons, but I hope we can learn something from those who do. I left our conversation genuinely inspired--in part to run further and higher, but more generally to consciously test and raise my limits and do everything I can to remain human. Technology is great, but so are we. 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
S1 · E42
April 28 · 1 hr 21 min
Two of Three Neophytes Discuss Political Violence and Challenges to Norms
Episode 42 - Two of Three Neophytes Discuss Political Violence and Challenges to Norms Well, we had another topic ready to go, and then someone tried to shoot the President again. So, the original plan went out the window, and Channing and I discussed the attempted shooting and political violence generally, pushing norms, the lack of true dealmakers in political office, and the consequences of a system that promotes ideological purity over the flexible pragmatism that moves us forward. 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
S1 · E41
April 21 · 1 hr 43 min
The Three Neophytes Again Discuss Iran and Maybe Some Ideas for Fixing Everything Wrong with our Politics
Episode 41 - The Three Neophytes Again Discuss Iran and Maybe Some Ideas for Fixing Everything Wrong with our Politics The Iran War/Conflict continues apace, and whether we have a clear objective and clear, palatable way to achieve it remains up for some debate. President Trump and Secretary of War Hegseth have yet to solve an increasingly severe communications problem, the President is feuding with the Pope and/or our Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, and gas prices are going to have well-heeled liberals ready to look past that whole DOGE thing and give Elon Musk’s Tesla another chance. Chanman, Mabes, and I talk about all of it—what we lack in focus we make up for in, well, hopefully something. This episode is not brought to you by Diet Dr. Pepper, some Monster coffee thing Mabes was drinking, and Cafe Rio, Utah’s best vaguely Mexican-inspired food, but it could be (if you known anyone at any of our non-sponsors, 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
S1 · E40
March 2 · 1 hr 25 min
The Three(!) Neophytes Discuss the Ongoing Conflict in Iran
Episode 40 - The Three(!) Neophytes Discuss the Ongoing Conflict in Iran In this episode, recorded Sunday afternoon in Salt Lake City, Thomas and I are joined by our longtime friend Channing Elggren for a robust back-and-forth on the conflagration in the Middle East: we discuss what this means for the United States, what it means for Iran, and what it means for the region writ large. We don’t claim to be anything more than what we are: three friends, more than 7,000 air miles from danger, trying to figure out what to make of a world we will likely never experience except through a screen or the pages of a book. It is likely that more Iranians were killed during the January crackdown on protests than Americans lost their lives on 9/11 and in the entirety of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars that followed--I hope we, as Americans, never, ever forget how lucky we are; I hope further that our awareness of that luck informs a sense of responsibility, not one of superiority. As to what that means, I don’t really know--I suppose that’s for us to figure out together. 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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