Dilemma Podcast

Is humanity simply a bacteria in a petri dish, heading for the inevitable edge? Do the climate markers prove it? I spoke with Professor Eliot Jacobson, a mathematician and former casino game protection expert who now spends his days tracking the most shocking climate data on the planet. From record-breaking ocean temperatures to the Earth's plummeting "albedo," we discuss the numbers that are...

Radhika Desai returns to the Dilemma Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the American left, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Marxist Unity Group, and the increasingly open discussion of socialism and communism in American politics. Is something genuinely changing in the United States—or are we simply seeing a new electoral moment inside the same old political...

Israeli-born artist, teacher and activist Hadas Emma Kedar joins me for a wide-ranging conversation about Zionism, Israel, Germany, the IDF, and the possibility of a radically different future. Hadas grew up inside Zionist culture and gradually came to see the ideology she had inherited as morally indefensible. We talk about that transformation, her experiences as an anti-Zionist activist, the...

Daniel Klein was born and raised in Efrat, one of the largest religious Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank. His family helped build the settlement movement, and he grew up immersed in its schools, institutions, theology, politics, and culture before serving as an IDF tank commander. In this conversation, Daniel shares an insider's account of life inside the religious Zionist world, the...

In this conversation with geopolitical scholar Mia Bennett, we explore why the Arctic is no longer a frozen periphery but the front line of global power. From Vladimir Putin planting a Russian flag beneath the North Pole seabed to renewed nuclear tensions across the polar region, the Arctic has become a stage for military posturing, resource competition, and great-power rivalry. As climate change...

In this conversation, Joseph Margulies and I explore the difficult moral territory at the heart of his new book Cast Out: A Call for a Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration. What does a society gain—or lose—when it decides that certain people are beyond redemption? We talk about the stories of people Margulies encountered through his work, including Lisa Montgomery, David Medina, Klete...

Luke Kemp is a researcher of existential risk whose work spans the rise and fall of civilizations, the psychology of empire, and the future of humanity. In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore whether history follows deeper patterns than we usually recognize—from the Paleolithic origins of human society and the agricultural revolution to the emergence of empires, colonialism, capitalism,...

Michael Sawyer is the author of The Door of No Return, a sweeping work that challenges conventional ideas about race, history, memory, and modernity. In this conversation, we explore his concept of anti-Blackness as something deeper than prejudice or discrimination—an organizing logic embedded within the modern world itself. Sawyer explains why the Middle Passage remains central to understanding...

In this essay, I respond to Sam Harris's recent comments on Israel, Gaza, Hamas, and why he refuses to debate many of his critics. My argument is not primarily about genocide, proportionality, international law, or even the details of Israel's military response. It is about something more fundamental: the framing of violence itself.Sam Harris often frames Hamas and similar movements as...

For decades, the word "genocide" has occupied a unique place in international law, collective memory, and political debate. But what exactly does it mean—and has the definition become too narrow to describe the forms of violence we witness today? In this conversation, Holocaust and genocide scholar Dirk Moses joins me to discuss the crisis unfolding within genocide studies, the fierce disputes...