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PODCAST

Dilemma Podcast

Solving the problems of what to do next with some of today"s top thinkers and writers. Hosted by Jay Shapiro.

society & culture philosophy

All Episodes

00:50:33

Can the Right and the Left Unite for Palestine? A...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/03/10

In this conversation, Israeli-American author and activist Miko Peled — the son of a famous Israeli general — reflects on the current political moment surrounding Israel, Gaza, and the widening regional war. We discuss the silence in Israeli society around the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, the difference between Judaism and Zionism, and why Israel appears locked in what Peled describes as a culture addicted to permanent war. We also examine Israel’s long-running obsession with Iran and the deeper

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01:14:00

MAGA Voters Wanted America First. They Wanted To End...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/03/05

In this wide-ranging conversation, Jay Shapiro sits down with political economist Radhika Desai to unpack the war with Iran — how we got here, who is driving it, and whether we are drifting toward World War III. We examine the deeper crisis beneath the headlines: the senile phase of capitalism, the instability of a declining American empire, Israel’s regional ambitions, and the dangerous psychology of leaders who treat war as a solution to structural decline. We also discuss China’s long strategic

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00:58:23

Ilan Pappé on Israel and Epstein and Why Zionism has...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/26

Is Israel entering a period of irreversible transformation?In this conversation, I sit down with Israeli historian and author Ilan Pappé to discuss his latest book, Israel on the Brink. Instead of looking backward, Pappé looks forward — imagining what the collapse of political Zionism could mean and what might replace it.We talk about the growing rift he describes as the “State of Judea” vs the “State of Israel,” the reported 270,000 Israelis who have left, the possibility of a one-democratic state

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00:38:56

Holy Books, Propaganda, and The Voice of Hind Rajab

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/24

After watching The Voice of Hind Rajab, I started thinking about doctrine — not religious doctrine, but cinematic doctrine. For decades, Hollywood films like True Lies and Rules of Engagement helped script a moral universe where Arab violence was irrational, Western violence was justified, and Israel existed inside an unquestioned frame of necessity. Drawing on Jack Shaheen’s work in Reel Bad Arabs, this essay argues that blockbuster filmmaking became a kind of modern scripture — more powerful than

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00:39:09

Legal Innocence, Moral Failure: Epstein, Steven...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/10

The Case of Steven Pinker and Alan Dershowitz, John Brockman and Sam Harris and a culture of "accepting" the culture...00:00 Clearing up the Brockman Point02:55 Allergic to Conspiracy05:07 Moral Questions are not Legal Questions10:40 Morality and Opportunity of Association12:50 The Case of Steven Pinker15:01 Alan Dershowitz Asks Pinker for Advice23:58 What Could Pinker Know?28:36 What Can We Do?32:00 It's Not About YOU33:11 MeToo Again?34:17 Influence, Power, Men, and SexFor more from

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00:45:55

RECKONING with Epstein and Indirect Benefit from R**E...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/05

My thoughts on complicity and what it means to be "in the files"00:00 Intro02:19 Going Through Circles of Complicity09:05 The Intellectual Sphere (John Brockman)18:28 Sam Harris is "in the files"25:05 Just One Playground33:16 The Gatekeepers are Gross Men with Money33:54 If Elon Musk Offered Me Money?39:19 Buying Gatekeepers and Buying Distribution Channels42:58 The Jewish Elephant in the RoomBECOME A MEMBER - MONTHLY MEMBERS ONLY LIVESTREAM

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00:30:54

How Rational Thinking Fails at Morality

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/04

What if our most “rational,” science-minded moral frameworks are quietly justifying violence, domination, and erasure? In this video essay, I trace David Hume’s is–ought problem and follow a secular, compassionate, scientific worldview to its unsettling conclusions — from free will skepticism and utilitarian ethics to the “quarantine model” of justice, effective altruism, and systems that treat human suffering like a technical problem to be optimized. Along the way, we confront hurricanes,

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01:26:24

The $140,000 Poverty Line? An Economist Says the...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/04

Michael W. Green is a successful Wall Street strategist, a frequent Fox Business guest, and—unexpectedly—the author of one of the most viral economic essays of the year. In his Substack series Yes... I Give a Fig, Green argues that the official U.S. poverty line is so artificially low that it functions less as a measurement of hardship and more as a form of political gaslighting. People are told they’re doing fine, while privately feeling like they’re drowning.In this wide-ranging conversation, we

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01:23:21

DISSECTING Sapolsky’s Incompatibilism: Morality In...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/02/04

Robert Sapolsky makes one of the strongest cases against free will on offer today—but this conversation doesn’t stop at whether free will exists. It asks what follows. If no one could have done otherwise, what happens to morality, justice, dignity, and meaning? Hosted by Jay Shapiro, this episode begins with Sapolsky’s core argument against free will and moves quickly into its consequences: shame, pride, punishment, and the temptation to replace moral responsibility with clean, mechanistic

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01:32:06

From joining the US RANGERS after 9/11 and serving...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2026/01/07

In this conversation, Jay Shapiro sits down with Rory Fanning, a former U.S. Army Ranger who served alongside Pat Tillman before becoming a war resister, educator, and outspoken critic of U.S. empire. Rory recounts his journey from elite military training and the mythology of manhood sold through recruitment. What began as a rite of passage, a test of courage and loyalty, slowly revealed itself as something else entirely.They talk about standing up to bullies, and what happens when you realize the

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01:25:59

From Evangelical Zionism to Anti-Colonial Solidarity...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/12/01

In this episode I speak with Melani McAlister, professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University and author of the remarkable new book Promises Then the Storm — a journal she began on October 5th, 2023.This conversation moves through her life story: • growing up an evangelical Christian in North Carolina • discovering Amnesty International, human rights work, and the Middle East in 1982 • learning Arabic in Cairo • joining Mobilization for Survival in the late

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00:58:39

The ‘Crazy Uncle’ Was Right: Epstein, Israel, Africa...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/11/28

Imagine it’s Thanksgiving ten years ago. Your slightly unhinged Uncle Bob starts talking about a mysterious financier with a private island, underage trafficking, a bizarre “temple,” secret deals in Africa, ties to intelligence services, oligarch donors, and elite universities. You’d probably roll your eyes and wonder if he needed a psychiatric evaluation.Fast-forward a decade: victim testimony, court filings, FOIA dumps, leaked emails, and relentless reporting have confirmed that most of that

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00:35:10

How Zohran Mamdani's Exposes The True Bigotry of Bill...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/11/12

Zohran Mamdani’s victory didn’t just shake New York politics — it cracked open a deeper fear that’s defined Western liberal discourse for decades. Figures like Sam Harris and Bill Maher built careers on the fantasy of the “Good Muslim” — the secular, assimilated, apolitical figure who makes the West feel safe. But Zohran’s unapologetic politics, rooted in solidarity with Palestine and working-class liberation, expose the hollowness of that narrative. In this episode, we revisit Mahmood Mamdani’s

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00:28:29

The Rashomon Effect and a Death In Palestine

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/10/09

The Rashomon Effect - Multiple people witnessing the same event remember it in contradictory ways, often colored by their own self-interest, trauma, or worldview.Applied to the killing of Rafaat Alareer and a Tweet by Bari Weiss00:00 The Rashomon Effect02:58 The Killing of Rafaat Alareer04:24 Perspective One - Bari Weiss, The Zionist Journalist12:42 Perspective Two - Rafaat, The Poet18:03 Perspective Three - IDF, The Killer20:20 Perspective Four - Me, The Onlooker25:01 The Exhausting Rashomon

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01:22:50

The International Malcolm X: Gaza, Violence, and the...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/10/08

Malcolm X was more than an activist or organizer. In this conversation, Michael Sawyer, author of Black Minded and the forthcoming The Door of No Return, takes Malcolm seriously as a philosopher who linked Black freedom in the United States to anti-colonial struggle in Palestine. We talk Malcolm’s trip to Gaza, his push to move the fight to the global commons and the United Nations, and why he believed moral clarity must come before politics.This episode wrestles with the hardest question, the

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01:16:42

How Zionism & Islamism Became Colonial Twins w/ Hamid...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/10/02

Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi goes deep on empire, Iran’s revolutionary currents, and Palestine. We cover his “two nemeses” frame—global imperialism vs domestic tyranny—and why opposing one never excuses the other. He unpacks Islamism as a (once) liberation theology and its limits, the polyfocal currents inside Islam, the 1979 revolution’s three forces (nationalism, Marxism, Islamism), sanctions and the erasure of Iran’s middle class, and why airstrikes only unify Iranians behind a garrison state

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01:25:28

The False Lure of National Sovereignty and the Mirage...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/09/26

In this conversation with sociologist Nandita Sharma, we dig into the deep contradictions of nationalism, sovereignty, and the postcolonial state. Sharma argues that the nation is not a pathway to liberation but a mechanism of ruling that reproduces inequality, exclusion, and capitalist domination. We explore her personal story of migration, the legacy of anti-colonial struggles, Palestine and Hawaii today, the meaning of indigeneity, and her call for a planetary commons beyond rulers, borders, and

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01:19:35

Confessions of an Israel PR Insider: Manufacturing...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/09/09

A former Israel Consulate staffer for the U.S. Southeast—Brandt Burleson—breaks silence. For eight years he built church networks, wrote Bible-laced talking points, and helped run a PR machine that, in his words, “wrapped a starvation campaign in a Judeo-Christian bow.” He explains how Christian Zionist theology was leveraged to pressure politicians, how pastors were courted and choreographed, what he saw after October 7th (including raw screening sessions), why the line between “ally” and

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01:34:24

Palestine, Petrodollars, and the Climate: The...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/09/04

In this conversation with political economist Adam Hanieh, we trace the deep connections between fossil fuels, finance, Palestine, and the climate crisis. From his formative years in Ramallah during the Second Intifada to his current research, Hanieh explains how oil became the invisible substrate of modern life, how Gulf petrodollars built today’s US-dominated financial order, and why Israel and the Gulf monarchies emerged as twin pillars of American power after 1967. We explore the global shift of

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01:42:35

Fear of Nonviolence: A Life of Resistance and The...

Dilemma Podcast ·

2025/08/30

In this conversation, I sit down with Mubarak Awad, often called the Gandhi of Palestine. Born in Jerusalem during the Nakba, Mubarak’s life has been defined by both tragedy and resilience — from burying his father as a boy, to dedicating his life to nonviolent resistance under occupation. We trace his extraordinary journey: his efforts to teach nonviolence in Palestine, his eventual deportation by Israel, and his continued commitment to peace and justice in exile. Mubarak reflects on his life’s

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111 results

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