Smart Cookies

2026 has been a groundbreaking year for AI development - frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have not only reached frightening capability levels, but like the Hugging Face incident illustrates, they have also began to act autonomously in malicious ways. And yet instead of pausing their development, AI labs rush ahead, doing everything they can to win the "AI race," (whatever that means). But what if the end result of all this is the end of humanity itself? This is exactly what David Krueger, Assistant Professor in Robust, Reasoning, and Responsible AI at the University of Montreal, worries about. That's why he founded Evitable, a nonprofit whose mission is to inform and organise the public to confront societal-scale risks of AI, and put an end to the reckless race to develop superintelligence. We talk about AI skepticism, the pernicious ideology of AI CEO's and about our duty to organise and stop this madness before it's too late....

Most of us have probably wanted to lose some weight at some point or another, only to find out it's much easier said than done. And even if we actually managed to hit our goal, maintaining this new weight became all but impossible. Why is it so hard? It turns out that when trying to lose weight we aren't just fighting our daily temptations - we are taking on prehistoric mechanisms put there by evolution to ensure our survival. Couple that with our disastrous food environment, the growing obesity epidemic and fast lifestyles, and you've got a disaster on your hands. So how can we get out of this vicious loop? To find out, I turn to dr. Stephan Guyenet - a neuroscientist, obesity researcher and author of the bestselling book, "The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat."

It's no secret that the West is in terminal decline, while China continues to grow and is currently on the verge of overtaking the US as the biggest economy on the planet. Mainstream economics tells us that's impossible, since we supposedly live in the best system that was ever created. Which means something doesn't add up. Economist Steve Keen has an answer - our economic models are irreparably broken... In this sobering conversation Prof. Keen, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, explains why America remains a hopeless case, why China will continue to dominate world trade and finally, why the AI bubble is about to burst.

Michael Mann is a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Our Fragile Moment. He's also one of the most renowned climatologists in the world - and that's why I was over the moon when he agreed to have a chat with me... Given the extremely grim daily news on climate change, I ask Prof. Mann whether the fight for a habitable planet is over, how bad he thinks the upcoming El Nino will be, and finally, what kind of consequences do Trump's insane, climate denial policies have for the world's decarbonisation plans.

I'm super stoked to welcome back the legendary blogger, journalist and author of Enshittification, Cory Doctorow. This time around we tackle his latest book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It's Too Late. I ask Cory about the ideology behind the shameless AI push, the state of this technology in 2026, the billionaires lapping it up, as well as the feared AI bubble that Corey believes will tank the entire system.

I'm super happy to welcome dr. Christopher Harding, lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh, back to the show, to have a chat about his amazing upcoming book, "Barbarians: The First Century of European Encounter with Japan." This time around we talk about a myriad of fascinating episodes that arose from this dramatic exchange - the first Portuguese landing on Tanegashima, the curiosity their appearances caused, the introduction of Christianity in Japan, the growing power of the Jesuits and finally, the expulsion of all foreigners in 1641. Obviously we can't get past the infamous bromance between William Adams and Tokugawa Ieyasu that inspired the popular TV show Shogun. As a foreigner in Japan myself, I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of my favourite conversations this year.

Medieval historian and champion of the podcast, Prof. Nicholas Morton (from Nottingham Trent University) is back on the pod to talk about the feverish history of the Crusades - only this time, we explore the subject from the perspective of the Muslim nations who were fighting for supremacy in the tricky landscape of the medieval Middle East... What did they think when they first saw these unexpected strangers in their lands? Did jihad become a thing just like a holy war in Christendom? And why was it so important for Saladin to tear Jerusalem from Crusader's hands? We chat about all this and more in this action packed episode!

In 2015, Carlos Barragan, a young Spanish journalist working for The New York Times, received a surprise - his mother, having long being single, told him she finally met somebody on Tinder. The man's name was Brian and he was an American soldier stationed in Syria. Carlos' alarm bells however, started going off immediately - and sure enough, he quickly tracked "Brian's" IP address not to the US, but to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. Being intent on finding the scammer himself, he travelled to the country only to find himself embedded into the culture of the so-called Yahoo Boys - poor young men, who saw scamming Westerners as their only ticket out of the slums. Carlos' extensive experiences in Nigeria gave birth to his reportage book, The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers, which has been touted as the most anticipated non-fiction book of 2026 by most major publications. In this conversation we talk about his first journey to Nigeria, his life in the infamous Ikotun slum, the fates of his 4 main characters, but also about the loneliness epidemic in the West that's making this all possible.

Christopher Nolan's retelling of Homer's famous epic is causing a lot of sassy drama these days, so I thought it'd be appropriate to have a chat with a Greek Mythology expert, and pick his brain on what this foundational poem of Western literature is really about - because cause truth be told, I don't think I really know. Is The Odyssey about heroism? Homecoming? Fate? To find out, I talk to Prof. Peter Meineck, the renowned professor of Classics in the Modern World at NYU. And since the internet seems ablaze with controversy regarding Christopher Nolan's upcoming adaptation, we have a chat about that as well...

When we discuss Rome, we usually talk about the Emperors, the Warlords and the Conquerors, rarely about ordinary Romans... and almost never about the people who actually built it - the slaves. With her recently released book SERVUS: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire, historian Emma Southon attempts to shift that narrative. In this convo we talk about how one could became enslaved, what it was like to visit a Roman slave market, how slaves coped with the brutality of their everyday life, but also, why the Romans are so easy to roast.

In 16th century Europe, few events were as momentous as the German Peasants’ War - an explosive rebellion that shocked the ruling houses of the Holy Roman Empire. Driven by the ideas of Reformation, apocalyptic preaching and an all-out anger about the increasingly cruel conditions of serfdom, bands of peasants marched to war, during which they came close to overturning the entire feudal order… T o find out why the revolt started, how it engulfed an entire nation and why it ultimately failed, I talk to Lyndal Roper, a celebrated historian who's the 2026 recipient of the Holberg prize, and the author of the award winning book, Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War.

You're an ordinary German, living in 1920's Weimar when the Nazi party takes over - WHAT do you do? That's exactly the question that Katya Hoyer, "Britain's favourite German historian," wanted an answer to. For her latest book, Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, she spent years combing the Weimar archives, inspecting the fates of its citizens who were living through some of the most turbulent times in world history - what choices did they end up making? Did they resist, look away or even support Hitler's murderous regime? In this gripping conversation, Katja and I talk about Weimar's contrast to Berlin, Hitler's infatuation with the city... But also how it went from being the birthplace of Bauhaus to hosting the biggest concentration camp on German soil...

For at least 600 years, the lands of modern day Slovenia (where I'm from), belonged to the famous Habsburg dynasty. But how did this small aristocratic family from Switzerland come to form the first global empire in the world? Was the multi-ethnic monarchy really a "prison of the peoples" or was it in fact a modernising state?And most importantly - how come it all fell apart so quickly in 1918? In this lovely (and friendly) sparring session, prof. Pieter Judson, author of the seminal book The Habsburg Empire: A New History explains why the Habsburg Empire often gets a bad rep in history books, and why its high time we should change that.

Ever since their civilisation ceased to exist, the Ancient Greeks have been appropriated to suit various agendas. But what did they actually think and believe? For example - how did they see other, non-Greek people? Was sexual orientation even a thing in Ancient Greece? Did they ever wrestle with the institution of slavery? To help me find answers to my burning questions, I talked to Tony Spawforth, professor emeritus of ancient history at Newcastle University, and the author of the fantastic book, What the Greeks Did for Us.

It's a real pleasure having Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, back on the pod. Norman recently published a spiritual succession of his bestseller called Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age, which recounts the wild history of LSD... In this conversation we talk about the Nazi quest to find a truth serum, the crazy MKUltra plot concocted by the CIA, as well as Norman micro-dosing his mother to alleviate her Alzheimer's symptoms.

Despite it's mainstream presence for more than a decade, Bitcoin has yet to make a convincing argument about its use case. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency space has become the home of a fascinating subculture - that of the Bitcoin Bros. But who are these people? Why do they hinge their identity to this digital casino? And finally - do they actually believe in crypto, or are they in it for other reasons? As someone who actually used to work in the space (although reluctantly) I was more than happy to turn to Prof. Dan Cassino, author of the recently released book, Bitcoin Bros: Masculinity, Cryptocurrency, and the Future of Men.

Dr. Philipp Cozzolino is a research Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neuro-behavioral Sciences at University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies, where he investigates reports of past-life memories from children around the world. In this wonderful chat we discuss his work on death anxiety, the incredible testimonies of kids who claim to have lived before (as well as his thoughts on what might be going on), and finally, whether he thinks death is the end.

Luke Kemp, a research affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk researched 324 cases of societies, usually empires (which he called Goliaths) that collapsed - and soon found one thing they all had in common... In this (slightly terrifying) conversation we discuss the main questions featured in Luke's groundbreaking book, Goliath's Curse - questions like why are hierarchical societies always a bad idea, what usually goes wrong first and finally, why we seem to be heading for a collapse of our own.

I always wondered whether the Renaissance was a truly groundbreaking historical event - or has it become just a self-referential cliché? Talking to Prof. Kenneth Bartlett (author of The Renaissance in Italy: A History), I finally had a chance to ask... In this illuminating conversation we talk about the movement's main ideas, the timeless art they produced, the political intrigues of Florence, the House of Medici and finally, their creepy adversary, friar Savonarola.

What do Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump have in common? As cultural critic W. David Marx argues in his new book Blank Space, they are all generators and representatives of a MONOCULTURE that has taken over the planet. From VICE magazine's domination of the early 2000s and Kanye's forays into high fashion to the rise of the tech bros, we are living through a time in which everything seems to be increasingly turning into mush. But how did we get here? Listen to my convo with David here!

The era of neoliberal globalisation that has dominated economies 90's and early 2000's is coming to an end. But what comes next? Renowned economist and inequality researcher Branko Milanovic believes the world is entering a much more precarious phase, one in which countries bet on nationalist interests instead of free trade, but also a world in which China is rising and the West if falling. But what are the underlying drivers of this new order? And how will it play out in the real world? More in my conversation with Branko!

As someone who moved to Japan not too long ago I was always fascinated with the country's unique history, particularly with the question of how did a country so completely isolated from the industrial revolution become a global superpower in just a few short decades? How did it manage to totally transform its society, military and culture? And finally, where did it all go wrong? Join me and historian Christopher Harding, author of A History of Modern Japan, as we explore Japan's journey from the Edo period's isolation to the transformative Meiji Restoration, discussing how Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War marked its emergence as a modern power, only to later slide into the shadows of World War II fascism... But also, how the country faces new challenges today, balancing tradition with modernity in a world primarily marked by the rise of China.

The old version of the story went something like this - Homo Sapiens appeared in Africa around 2 to 300.00 years ago and for most of that time, we lived in small hunter gatherer communities, competing with other animals, sometimes more, and sometimes less successfully. That was, until one day we had a gnarly idea to start growing crops, build settlements and settle down for good. However, the mind-boggling discovery of the dazzling Gobekkli Teppe, has thrown this attractively simple narrative into question. But how is it possible that such an impressive complex of monuments, built 12.000 years ago (thousands of years before the first cities ever appeared), was put there by "simple" hunter gatherers... and most of all, why? To tackle these question I turn to Jens Notroff, a German archeologist who actually worked on the site for many years.

In the past 2 decades literacy rates have dropped dramatically... and so have our IQ scores. Writer James Marriott believes these two facts are connected. His Substack article, "The dawn of the post-literate society and the end of civilisation," in which he argues that the absence of reading might signify the end of our civilisation, caused a big stir online... In this conversation we talk about the history of reading, why this immense transfer of knowledge led to the breakdown of feudal society (while making us smarter), but also about how smartphones are fracturing our political systems while robbing us of our most cherished possession - our ability to think.

Joseph Kellner is a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union at the University of Georgia. He's also the author of the recently released book The Spirit of Socialism - Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse. Contrary to Western narratives, culture within the USSR wasn't an eternally grey monolith that we used to see in James Bond movies. Quite the opposite - it was a diverse, often flourishing organism. But what happened to it during the brutal dissolution of the Soviet Union? In this conversation, Prof. Kellner and I discuss the decline and the indescribable shock that accompanied the sudden dissolution of the USSR, before turning our attention to an explosion of wild, "exotic" cultural countries springing up in the new country of Russia.

Podcaster Joe Rogan keeps claiming that climate change doesn't really exist and that the Earth is in fact, cooling down, negating all available climate science (as well as plain observation). To address this misleading take, and the often cited Washington Post article accompanying it, I talk to Prof. David Armstrong McKay, climate scientist from the University of Sussex. We also talk about the rate of warming in 2025, the global lack of progress on climate targets, the danger of tipping points and whether the Paris Accords target of keeping the warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius is really dead in the water.

We all know it - the internet has become a huge garbage heap, guided by malignant algorithms and filled with useless apps, mind numbing social media and AI slop. In a word - it's shitty. But how did we get here? And how can we restore the better internet of old? Cory Doctorow, author of the groundbreaking book ENSHITIFICATION: Why Everything Was Built to Break, has a couple of ideas.

The horrific war that Israel is waging against the predominantly civilian population in Gaza has been going on for almost two years, and yet, the slaughter continues to this day. Why is that? To discuss one of the biggest crimes of our time, I talk Mouin Rabbani, an analyst, and commentator specialising in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. We discuss the Western world's immoral support for Israel, Hamas' aims, Netanyahu's plan for Gaza, the indifference of Arab states and finally, the chances for the latest peace plan brought forward by Donald Trump to succeed and finally end the genocide.

Few conflicts have been as impactful as the two Opium Wars fought between China and the Western powers during the 19th century. These unjust wars, unanimously won by the West, ultimately resulted in a series of devastating concessions and ushered in China's so-called century of humiliation, the memory of which is still shaping global politics today. But how did it all start? Why was Britain intent on pushing opium on this vast and ancient empire? And how come Qing dynasty China crumbled in an instant? In this episode of the Smart Cookies podcast, Yang-Wen Zheng, Professor of Chinese History at the University of Manchester, takes us through through this tricky, yet monumental chapter of global history.

Neoliberal capitalism is dead. But what kind of a system has replaced it? In the era of tech titans, weakening institutions and growing social tensions it's hard to get a grip on the forces that are governing our lives. Throw the chaotic administration of Donald Trump into the mix and the political landscape becomes truly unrecognisable. Are we living in the era of technofeudalism, platform capitalism or libertarian authoritarianism? And how do increasing political killings, such as the one of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, fit into the mix? Professor William Davis, sociologist and political economist, author of the impactful books Happiness Industry and Nervous States, takes us through these unprecedented and transitory times.

It's the middle of the 13th century and the Mongols have bulldozed their way through a host of Middle Eastern kingdoms like they are playing a strategy game with a cheat code. One after the other, the powerful Christian, as well as Islamic, states fell until there were almost none left on the map. The conquest of EVERYTHING seemed inevitable... However, in one of history's greatest upsets of all time, the Mongols finally met their match. This is the second part of the conversation with Prof. Nicholas Morton, author of the Mongol Storm, an unputdownable history of Mongol conquests of the Middle East. We talk about the mysterious Assassins, the fall of the Crusader States, and the rise of the Ottomans, an empire that will dominate the Mediterranean for hundreds of years to come...

The Byzantine Empire, Anatolian Seljuks, The Ayyubid Empire, Kingdom of Armenia, The Crusader States, The Abbasid Caliphate, the Nizari Assassins... this isn't a list of factions for a new Age of Empires video game, it's a snapshot of the Middle East in the middle of the 13th century - a time (and place) of incredible diversity, sophistication and struggle. All of these states, whether Christian or Muslim, are continuously interlocked into alliances and division, cooperation and armed conflict. But however different, they suddenly have 1 thing in common - the whispers of a TERRIFYING new power rising in the East, approaching their borders with unprecedented speed... How will they deal with this apocalyptic threat? Will they try diplomacy, submit or go to war? Will they stand together or fall separately? All of these questions are the subject of "The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East," a fascinating book by historian Nicholas Morton, professor of Medieval history at Nottingham Trent University. * This is the FIRST PART of our conversation. The SECOND part will be available next week... unless you're a PATREON subscriber. Then you can access it straight away!

In the mainstream media China still occupies the role of the main adversary of the West. It's usually portrayed negatively, as a belligerent country and a paragon of human rights abuses. But is China really just an endless Asian gulag, or is the picture a bit more complicated? To find out I talked to Kaiser Kuo, creator and host of the Sinica podcast, and former Director of International Communications at the Chinese search giant Baidu. In this wonderfully illuminating conversation we discuss inaccurate Western perceptions, China's unique political system, its breathtaking technological advances, as well as the realities and challenges of everyday life in a first-tier Chinese city in 2025.

The omnipresent problem of bad leadership in politics and business seems to be more pressing than ever. So why do we keep choosing incompetent leaders? What kind of people get ahead in the workplace? What does good leadership actually look like? And finally - do I have what it takes to fulfil my lifelong dream and become an effective basketball coach? Tune in to my convo with historian Martin Gutmann, author of the best-selling book The Unseen Leader, to find out!

Marci Shore is a historian, chair in European Intellectual history, a professor at the Munk School of Global affairs, and the author of The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. Since she's an expert in the history of totalitarian regimes, I ask her about Hitler's Nazi Germany, the brutal claustrophobia of Stalinism, the twisted psychology of Soviet purges and the totalitarian mechanisms that turned ordinary people into monsters. As prof. Shore recently made headlines when she announced she is leaving the US due to Donald Trump and his policies, we can't get past the question on how close current America is to a totalitarian state and even to civil war. Tovarishi and tovarischitze, you don't wanna miss this one!

What are the motivations of artificial intelligence CEO's, people like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Sam Altman? What kind of ideologies are animating Silicon Valley? Why are AI companies, such as Palantir, suddenly signing huge military contracts with the Pentagon? I addressed all of these questions to Nick Srnicek, Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy at King's College London and author of Silicon Empires: The Fight for the Future. Check out the full conversation on what our AI future holds here!

Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and former radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He's the author of The Ascent of Gravity, Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt you and Afterglow of Creation. His latest title, A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage details the mind-blowing science of black holes, and traces this, once preposterous idea to its obscure beginnings. In this interstellar conversation we discuss what would have happened if you managed to fall into a black hole, whether time travel is indeed possible, why black holes aren't really black and finally, why do we find them at the centre of every galaxy in space.

In light of a scandalous recent Guardian article which explored why Zoomers think we Millennials are profoundly uncool, I desperately needed some answers. So I turned to Dr. Carolina Are, an Innovation Fellow and a social media researcher at Northumbria University’s Centre for Digital Citizens. We proceeded to talk about the list of perceived millennial sins, the many different aesthetic sensibilities we inhabit, the various unique challenges that only Gen Z faces, the nature of cringe... and last but not last, about Goblin mode.

Dr. Christopher Dillon is Senior Lecturer in Modern German History at King’s College London who has authored many books and articles on the history of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. In this conversation we tackle the supposedly failing economy of the Weimar Republic, how this perception helped the Nazis take power, why big business supported Hitler, but also what economic policies did the Nazis actually implement? Obviously we can't get past the big elephant in the room, namely the often repeated notion that the Wall Street Crash of 1929 launched Hitler straight to the top of the weakened German State.

Welcome back to the second episode of the extraordinary history of the CRUSADES, with renowned historian Prof. Nicholas Morton from Nottingham Trent University. In this episode we discuss the unexpected military success of the First Crusade, the horrific massacres that followed, the resulting establishment of the Crusader States and the initiation of the Knights Templar - but also their ultimate demise, the grim reality of the so-called Children's Crusade and finally, Ridley Scott's epic crusader film, Kingdom of Heaven.

Nicholas Morton is an Associate Professor in Middle Eastern history at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, and has been teaching Medieval - Middle Eastern History, especially the history of the Crusades, since 2008. In the first part of our conversation on the CRUSADES, we talk about the conditions in medieval Europe at the turn of the 11th century, the religious ideas that made the prospect of a holy war possible in the first place... as well as the first military expedition that ventured to the Holy Land and it's completely unexpected success, that culminated in the eventual conquest of Jerusalem.

Dr. James Glattfelder is a theoretical physicist turned complexity scientist, who's interested in the really big picture, questions such as the nature of consciousness, the universe and reality itself. He's also the author of the book The Sapient Cosmos: What a modern-day synthesis of science and philosophy teaches us about the emergence of information, consciousness, and meaning. In this mind-bending conversation we talk about the stubborn limits of known science, mind-altering experiences, the problem of consciousness, as well as the wisdom of mystics and shamans that can help bridge the gap between the rational mind and the great beyond...

Tim McMahon is a sports writer and journalist covering the NBA for ESPN. He is also the author of the book, Wonder Boy: Luka Doncic and the Curse of Greatness. In this conversation we talk about Luka Doncic's beginnings in the NBA, his exceptional basketball talents and competitive nature, but most of all, we talk about his involuntary move to the Los Angeles Lakers, in what is quickly becoming one of the most controversial and shocking trades in the entire history of sports.

Sunil Amrith is a professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of four books, and a recipient of multiple awards including a MacArthur “Genius” fellowship. His latest book is called The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years. In this conversation we explore the impact the environment has on the development of civilisations - we begin a 1000 years ago in medieval China and the Mongol Empire, move on to Europe and it's violent push outwards, discuss the many effects that both world wars had on our planet, and finally try to offer a glimmer of hope in the days of the climate catastrophe.

Jake Adelstein was a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, from 1993 to 2005. He has also written for The Daily Beast/Newsweek, The Independent, and The Guardian, and is a regular contributor to The Atlantic Wire. However, most of us will probably be familiar with the name from the hit TV series Tokyo Vice, which is based on his memoir. In this conversation we talk about his pioneering career as a foreign journalist at a Japanese newspaper, his decades long reporting on crime, and also about the slow, but undeniable demise of the Yakuza.