The Portal

In this solo episode, Eric shares three related audio essays. In the first essay, Eric admits that he has spent the last four years asserting that Donald Trump represented an Existential Risk, but without the usual contempt for his supporters. Here, Eric finally responds to the frequent requests for clarification of his unusual position, by beginning to explain what is behind his view of the Trump and MAGA phenomena.  In the second essay, Eric discusses the odd phenomena of Trump's post election strategy of contesting the election, and what to make of all those who refuse to accept Biden's apparent win despite the state of the legal battles and election certifications. In the last essay, Eric discusses loyalty in the context of close relationships where there are accusations of impropriety, and uses the framework set out to provide context for Sam Harris' public displeasure with still unnamed members of the Intellectual Dark Web. N.B. Eric and Sam have recently discussed the matter privately to make sure they have a generally shared mutual understanding of the events. Thank you to our sponsors:Netsuite by Oracle: Netsuite.com/portalExpressVPN: ExpressVPN.com/portalBlinkist: Blinkist.com/portalSkillshare: Skillshare.com/theportalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you don't know Douglas Murray, in the estimation of the The Portal, this may well be the most important voice you will hear from the United Kingdom for some time. In the tradition of De Tocqueville and Alistair Cook's famous "Letter from America," Douglas Murray is America's true friend. He is not the man who tells you that you look great and laughs at all your jokes, but the one who pulls the big mac out of your mouth, flushes your cigarettes down the toilet, locks your liquor cabinet and personally drives you to rehab until you straighten yourself out. I have met many men who train in combat sports, or extoll the virtues of masculinity. However, I know of none braver than Douglas Murray. In our time, this is one voice of relentless reason that everyone needs to hear.Thank you to our sponsors:Skillshare: Skillshare.com/ThePortal for a free trial of premium membershipIndeed: Indeed.com/Portal free $75 creditNetsuite: Netsuite.com/Portal for a free product tourTheragun:Theragun.com/Portal Try risk-free for 30 daysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you have ever wondered whether you were crazy when everyone else claims to see things differently than you do, this is the episode for you.Book clubs are everywhere and we are always asked for book recommendations. But what about the great Essays, Interviews, Conversations, Aphorisms, Shaggy Dog Stories, Lyrics, Courtroom Testimonies, Poems, Movie Scenes, Jokes and the like? Sadly, there is almost never a club in which to discuss them. Yet there are Essays and offerings in other intellectual formats that are just as profound and meaningful as any book while having the advantage of being much more in keeping with modern attention spans. The Portal seeks to fill this obvious lacuna. We thus finish out the regular first year of the Portal Podcast with an inaugural episode of an experiment: The Portal Essay Club. In this episode Eric reads aloud an astonishing essay from 1944 by Arthur Koestler which changed his world. In the essay, Koestler wrestles with a difficult question that has plagued independent thinkers for ages: what if everyone who is supposedly 'normal' is actually a maniac living in a dream world? What if the only sane ones appear crazy just as the crazy appear sane? During the episode, Eric first reads aloud the essay "The Nightmare That Is A Reality." and then discusses paragraph by paragraph what makes this one of the most profound yet often forgotten essays to have appeared within the twilight of living memory (1944 as it happens). We hope you will enjoy this experiment and let us know what you would like to see appear next in this series. Thanks for a great first year. Thank You From Our Sponsors Mack Weldon: For 20% off your first order visit www.mackweldon.com AND ENTER PROMO CODE: PORTALExpressVPN: Protect your online activity today at www.expressvpn.com/PORTAL and get an extra 3 months FREE on a one-year package.NetSuite: Receive your FREE guide – “Seven Actions Businesses Need to Take Now” and schedule yourFREE Product Tour at www.netsuite.com/PORTAL Unagi Scooters: Get $150 off your own Unagi E500 electric scooter while supplies last at www.unagiscooters.com PROMO CODE PORTAL See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the pillars of the American Dream has been that of seeing your children go to college. And, for the many families that can't afford the cost of soaring university tuitions, a new controversial institution has arisen to address the problem. That institution is Sugar Baby University, a tuition assistance campaign that attempts to allow attractive young women, and a smaller number of handsome young men, find generous older men to date in the quest to complete a new version of the American Dream by graduating debt free in an era which has made it all but impossible to discharge student debt even in personal bankruptcy since 2005.This year, Sugar Baby University is 'graduating' it's fifth class with thousands of alumni in its network that stretches from coast to coast and includes institutions of higher education from local community colleges to research universities and ivy league colleges. If you know many young graduates, the chances have been increasing that one of them has quietly matriculated in response to the crisis of crushing debt payments. Yet despite widespread awareness of the program on campuses by students and financial aid advisors via word of mouth, the world of Universities and mainstream media news outlets have tacitly given their approval to the campaign by remaining strangely silent as tuitions have continued to climb an unbelievable average of 8-9% per year.In this episode we do not pass judgement on Sugar Baby University, it's parent company 'Seeking Arrangement' or it's spokesperson Kimberly De La Cruz, who is our guest. Rather, we celebrate their openness to discuss the situation, and question, instead, the universities, politicians, media, and the lending industry, who have quietly created the desperate need for this program which they do not openly discuss and prefer not to address at all. We also note that Kimberly is approximately 15 years from the date she took on her own student loans which leaves her still approximately $50,000.00 in debt. We have asked her to start a GoFundMe campaign so that we could make a contribution of $1000 dollars to let her know that we appreciate her honesty in being willing to talk openly about the terrible crisis on which her very business and livelihood now depends. I ask my listeners, who can easily afford it, to simply donate $10 dollars as a simple show of appreciation and solidarity with a woman who I have no doubt would, if it were possible with the wave of a wand, put her own company out of business by making attending college the beginning of a new American Dream, rather than the start of a familiar financial nightmare. If $10.00 is too much, pledge the minimum you can just to send a message of solidarity. The show now gets hundreds of thousands of listens per episode. A small number of contributions will go a long way. Lastly: She's not the one asking for this. I am. And thank you.  https://www.gofundme.com/f/em369-no-more-student-loans  Thank you to our SponsorsPitney Bowes: FREE 30-day trial PLUS a FREE 10-pound scale to get started at pb.com/PORTALSkillshare: 2 free months of Premium Membership at Skillshare.com/PORTALFour Sigmatic: receive 15% off your order at Foursigmatic.com/PORTALBlinkist: start your FREE 7 day trial AND get 25% off a Premium Membership and up to 65% off audiobooks https://blinkist.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With this release, we try something a little different on The Portal. We begin an initiative to search for ways to feature members of the vibrant Portal sub-communities as part of the podcast itself, by requesting that listeners send in their questions around the prompt: “Mass media, markets, and human malware.” The questions that came in were interesting and enlightening, and we hope that you may find the answers similarly useful.We look forward to hearing your feedback on this new format as we continue to expand and experiment on The Portal. Hope you enjoy this episode.Thanks To Our SponsorsBlinkist: Get 25% off a Premium Membership and a 7-day free trial Blinkist.com/PORTALBoll and Branch: Get FIFTY DOLLARS OFF any sheet set at Bollandbranch.com Code PORTALExpressVPN: Get an extra 3 months FREE on a one-year package ExpressVPN.com/PORTALAthletic Greens: 20 FREE travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase AthleticGreens.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New Yorker writer and book author Andrew Marantz and Eric became friends shortly before the 2016 election when Andrew set off to write the first profile of Eric and Geometric Unity, his theory of Physics. Coming from similar ethnic and politically progressive backgrounds they found plenty of common cause. With the rise of Trump, they then found themselves in subtly different places with Andrew more directly concerned with the rise of the Alt-right and Eric convinced that the Alt-right was likely a response to the transformation of the Democratic Party begun under Bill Clinton into a serious threat to National unity. In this conversation from November of 2019 in New York City, they discuss Andrew's theories of the rise of the alt-right and internet trolling as well as the research from his 2019 book Antisocial:  Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation. They also explore the contradictions between traditional and woke versions of progressivism and where all of this may be leading the republic. Particularly interesting given the 2019 time of this conversation is the concern with civil unrest and revolution which was shortly to play out in the American street a few months later.  Thanks To Our SponsorsPitney Bowes: FREE 30-day trial PLUS a FREE 10-pound scale - pb.com/PORTALSkillshare: 2 free months of Premium Membership at Skillshare.com/PORTALTheragun: Try Theragun RISK-FREE for THIRTY-DAYS - Theragun.com/PORTALWine Access: Get $20 off your first purchase of $50 or more - Wineaccess.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stephon Alexander is a first class jazz musician as well as a first rate physicist and a professor at Brown University. As the New President of the National Society of Black Physicists, Eric sits down with Stephon over a good deal of wine to discuss particles, politics, blackness and STEM, and other matters as they look back on the last decade of their friendship and their sprawling discussions across music, politics, mathematics, physics and beyond.  Thank You to Our Sponsors:Athletic Greens: atlethicgreens.com/PORTALBoll and Branch: bollandbranch.com promo code PORTAL Skillshare: skillshare.com/PORTALFour Sigmatic: foursigmatic.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Investor Balaji Srinivasan is a highly original thinker in Silicon Valley on Biotech to Blockchain and everything in between. Most recently, he was quite early in warning us about the Corona virus and was ridiculed for his efforts by many in the world of institutional sense-making. That is before people realized he was not wrong, but simply early.In this episode Eric talks to Balaji on the topic of what it was like to see the future before it arrived and what his crystal ball suggests about what is likely to happen next. As Balaji understands our world, the Corona virus presents a complex set of challenges that will strongly discriminate between those who can pass it's tests and those who will fail them. He sees this resulting in functional Green Zones which will become dominant in the future and Red Zones which will be characterized by dysfunctional responses. Presumably this new divide will then be expected to take over from the "North-South" divide between industrialized and developing nations. Thank You to Our Sponsors:Personna: www.amazon.com/personna use the code RAZORS25 for 25% offFour Sigmatic: foursigmatic.com/PORTAL for 15% discountBlinkist: Blinkist.com/PORTALWine Access: Wineaccess.com/PORTAL $20 off your first purchase of $50 or moreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the first episode of The Portal which was 100% recorded at home, during quarantine, under social isolation. The guest is none other than my own son Zev Weinstein and the recording was timed to straddle his midnight transition from being 14 into being 15 years old. Zev is currently a 9th grader who occasionally posts to his YouTube Channel GenerationZ (https://www.youtube.com/c/GenerationZW) and his Twitter Account @Zev__Weinstein (https://twitter.com/Zev__Weinstein). In this episode, we sit down to discuss history, poetry, COVID19, jewish humor and other issues, as well as the three questions I am frequently asked about on the topic of parenting: A) What is the proper approach to parenting a child whose learning differences are significant? B) Do you have any novel approaches to parenting? C) What is the best way to parent young boys in a world that cannot find a shared positive vision of masculinity worth celebrating? Rather than attempt to answer these questions entirely on my own, I thought it would make sense to bring Zev onto The Portal to discuss them with me in his own distinct voice. I hope you will enjoy this episode in the spirit with which it was recorded, and that you will encourage Zev to speak on issues of Generation Z. They are already quite well equipped to discuss how they view the generations above them in handling the world, whose stewardship they will soon inherit. Thank You to Our Sponsors:Express VPN: Expressvpn.com/portalPitney Bowes: pb.com/PORTALSkillshare: Skillshare.com/PORTALMack Weldon: mackweldon.com PROMO CODE: portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital is a leading mind in the current wave of venture capitalists making waves. While aware of each other for some time, in this episode Josh sits down with Eric for their first meeting. Together the two explore various topics from comparing notes on their encounters with Jim Watson of DNA fame, to talking about what society gets wrong and how to see that as a source of opportunity. It is frequently asked what makes a great venture capitalist. This conversation reveals that it is likely not one thing but a combination of rigor, breath, flexibility of mind, openness, self-skepticism and mental courage to take on the unknown. That is because the myriad concerns that arise in any early stage attempt to grab the future by the tail from only the information available to us in the present will easily overwhelm those with narrow specializations. As the conversation takes many twists and turns, Josh's flexibility is put to the test as he freely doles out numerous wise observations from his wealth of experience.Thank You to Our Sponsors:Personna: Amazon.com/personna and use the code RAZORS25Wine Access: Wineaccess.com/portalExpress VPN: Expressvpn.com/portalQuip: Quip.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is said that there is not one American dream but many, and few have lived more than JD Vance. Growing up in Appalachia on the border between poverty and the lower working class, JD knew economic fear first hand as well as the cultural devastation of the region's post-coal era. Working his way up, he joined the elite US Marine Corps and entered Yale University to attend the countries most exclusive Law School. Not content to stop there, he found his way to Venture Capital in San Francisco while marrying into a multicultural relationship with a wife of Indian descent, herself supercharged with a dynamism informed by the classic immigrant experience.  So it was something of a surprise when JD became a national best selling author with his book Hillbilly Elegy which poignantly tells the tale of growing up in a family under pressure rocked by one of the most difficult economic experiences to be found anywhere in the United states. Eric and JD sit down to discuss the history of coal and politics, the evolving American Left in the era after the demise of organized labor. Through it they discuss the difficulty of finding out footing in the collision and disappointment of so many American dreams which all too frequently remain tantalizingly out of reach for the majority of those who dare to dream them. Thank You To Our SponsorsLamps Plus is offering up to FIFTY PERCENT OFF HUNDREDS of lights, furniture anddécor go to Lampsplus.com/portalSkillShare: Get two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free at Skillshare.com/portalAthletic Greens: Claim your special offer today of 20 FREE travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase go to athleticgreens.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ryan Holiday is a master manipulator with a cool head, and keen eye for social observation and a big heart. Eric sits down with the Author of "Conspiracy" and tries to get a self-confessed former manipulator and one of the top emerging millennial social analysts to tell us how he unweaves society's artifices to see what is really driving our current moment across many areas. Ryan is a unique voice who uses stoicism to remain intellectually detached but without seemingly succuming to emotional or moral disinterest in the issues of our day. With a background in marketing and media. he has gone beyond mere vice signaling to try to help people see how open they are to having their own media and digital habits weaponized against them. In some ways, one could say that he has migrated from grey-hat mind hacker to a white hat analyst and conversationalist helping us to better understand ourselves using ancient wisdom in a modern moment.  This interview was recorded slightly before the quarantining and so is interesting to think of in light of what is about to happen. Thank You to Our Sponsors:Four Sigmatic: foursigmatic.com/portalPersonna: Amazing.com/personna and use the code RAZORS25 Blinkist: Blinkist.com/portalTheragun: theragun.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before the great indooring due to the Pandemic of 2020, Eric sat down with conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat to discuss his book "The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success." Over champagne flutes filled with bubbly, the two discussed the various ways that the success and excesses of American Capitalism were now distorting the American Dream into a dystopian fever vision, making it far harder to wake up from this stasis in time to avoid the previous fates of fallen empires. Thank You to Our Sponsors:Pitney Bowes: pb.com/portalWine Access: wineaccess.com/portalSkillshare: skillshare.com/portalMack Weldon: mackweldon.com and enter promo code PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former National Security analyst turned author Jamie Metzel has written a book called Hacking Darwin. The book attempts to use storytelling to explore where we are as the new era of rewriting our cells and ourselves gets into full swing. Here he sits down with Eric to explore the negatives and positives of our seemingly ineluctable future of God-like power to rewrite biology. Together they discuss the role of story telling and fiction in understanding cutting edge science, the limits of bio-hacking regulation and the rise of mainland China as the outlying superpower of state sponsored experimentation. Thank you to our sponsors:Personna Razors: Amazon.com/personna Code RAZORS25Express VPN: Expressvpn.com/PORTALBoll and Branch: BollAndBranch.com and use code PORTALLamps Plus: lampsplus.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Portal Special Presentation- Geometric Unity: A First LookSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric Lewis is an open portal, a wonderful friend and one of the most important pianists in the world by our measure. As such, we will not bother with further notes for this episode. If you love the quest of the show as well as authentic soulful music, this is your guy. We simply sat down at a famous Yamaha grand piano at The Village recording studio in Los Angeles and this is the interview that transpired. Thank You to Our Sponsors:Theragun: Theragun.com/PORTALWine Access: WineAccess.com/PORTALAthletic Greens: AthleticGreens.com/PORTALQuip: GetQuip.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this second episode of the Portal to be released during shelter-in-place restrictions during the Corona Virus Pandemic, we release an older discussion with Daniel Shmachtenberger on whether there is any plausible long term scenario for human flourishing confined to a single shared planet. Daniel is seen as a leader of the growing Game B subculture of the human potential movement. This group bets that there is a second evolutionary stable strategy for cohabiting not based on conflict or rivalry, even for life raised in Game A (i.e. standard evolutionary and economic environments based on scarcity and rivalrous goods. Eric asks Daniel about where the bright spots and progress might be in this movement which refuses to accept the fate that that Eric has elsewhere put forward as the Twin Nuclei Problem of having unlocked the power of both Cell and Atom in the early 1950s without the wisdom to use it. Thank You To Our Sponsors:Athletic Greens: AthleticGreens.com/PortalMack Weldon: MackWeldon.com - enter promo code PORTALFour Sigmatic: FourSigmatic.com/PortalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

James O'Keefe is a dangerous man. He records people without their knowledge and publishes the results using the full power of our technological toolkit. He is well versed in the details of the law as to what can and cannot be legally recorded and/or published without the consent or even awareness of his targets. He is willing to risk prison to capture his stories and he has developed a policy of not settling out of court, even when it would be financially advantageous to do so. Clearly, he is willing to risk ruin and hatred for what he is doing, and is therefore not a man to be lightly trifled with. In this episode, Eric sits down with James to try to understand the mutant future of journalism as it reckons with the power of new technology, while continuing to move away from traditional newspapers and reporting. Eric tries to discover what is truly motivating O'keefe and why he would want to come on a show that has been so openly critical of his organization. James has many who see him as a crusading hero. He has also been accused of unethical deception, trespassing, entrapment, selective editing, and an entire litany of ethics complaints from traditional media. Oddly, however, more standard reporters working for traditional news desks openly discuss among themselves the professional need to deceive their targets in order to get the truth, or at least the story. Such strategies include using disingenuous flattery, pretending to be the source's friend, threats, the lure of fame, and a host of other edgy techniques to get people to say things that the reporter knows will likely be personally disastrous for the person being quoted. This raises the question of just what it is that makes James O'Keefe different from a more mainstream reporter. Is it his method, more than his chosen targets? Is it that he really doctors his footage or instead that he has revived older journalistic techniques to hunt new journalists? This interview may not answer all of these questions, but we hope it may prove to be a conversation unlike any you have previously heard on this topic.Our Sponsors:Skillshare: Skillshare.com/portalBlinkist: Blinkist.com/portalPitney Bowes: PB.com/PortalVincero: VinceroWatches.com - use code PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over half a year ago, immediately following the reported death of Jeffrey Epstein, Eric recorded a solo episode that he never released in hopes that its subject matter would be overtaken by investigative journalism. As this has not happened, it is being released with some trepidation in March of 2020 due to the issue of state involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.  Eric discusses his memories of his single bizarre meeting (circa 2004?) with Jeffrey Epstein in Epstein's 71st St townhouse in Manhattan. While at that meeting, Eric was surprised by Epstein's strange behaviors and came to the conclusion that it was highly unlikely that Epstein was likely to be the money manager he claimed. Instead, Eric came to the conclusion that the person with whom he was sitting was more probably a construction of one or more intelligence agencies, interested alternatively in powerful actors and scientists.This 15 year hypothesis and Epstein's mysterious death lead to Eric's four questions: A) Where are the newspaper stories tracking the financial records from the Villard House offices on Madison Avenue of Jeffrey Epstein's hedge fund and financial management firm J. Epstein & Co.? Who holds these records? What trades do they show? Who were the prime brokers? Where are any former employees who executed trades? Was there never a hedge fund at all? If not, is the inexplicable Epstein fortune and the missing Robert Maxwell fortune actually one and the same fortune? B) Where are the newspaper stories detailing the known border crossings where Ghislaine Maxwell's passports were last presented to the immigration agents of any government? Where was her last known social engagement? Is she continuing to file and pay taxes? Why is she not being sought by law enforcement and where is the government request for any information as to her last whereabouts? How did this person simply vanish in a world where Tech tracks everyone at all times? Where did her digital trail run cold? C) Where are the newspaper stories asking whether Jeffrey Epstein was known to be connected to any US or foreign intelligence agencies? Where are the on-the-record stories asking if the US and its allies categorically deny refusing to work with any known child sex traffickers? Why has have such questions not terminated in at least a categorical denial or "no comment" response or even a refusal to discuss "sources and methods"? D) Why is there no routine call from Journalists, Senators, Congressmen and women, Academics, Clergy or Business leaders for hearings into the intelligence communities in the wake of Epstein and related affairs, as there was during the 1970s when the Church and Pike committees uncovered dirty tricks campaigns against lawful citizens? Why are these agencies now protected and immune in a way that they were not previously? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In a world which is often slow-moving and even stagnant, there are always sectors and individuals who buck the trends. In this episode of The Portal, Eric sits down with his favorite surfing hero Kai Lenny who is pioneering a new approach to big wave surfing. By availing himself of the latest technology and dedicating his life to innovation and discipline, all-around waterman Kai Lenny is redefining what is possible with boards and waves. Whether it is kite surfing, hydrofoils, paddle boards or towing into monster waves, Kai is not only riding, but playing in the biggest surfable waves as if they were up to an order of magnitude smaller. Eric attempts to understand Kai's approach to innovation and how he can be so carefree and seemingly casual when he is always flirting with death within some of the most powerful structures and forces nature can through at a single individual from Jaws in Maui to Nazaré in Portugal.Please Subscribe to the Podcast wherever you listen to The Portal and make sure to check out our YouTube channel and click the bell icon to be notified when our next episodes appear! Hope you enjoy this.  Our SponsorsAthletic Greens - Get 20 FREE travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase AthleticGreens.com/portalTheragun - Try Theragun risk-free for 30 days or your money back Theragun.com/portalWine Access - Get $100 off your first purchase of $250 or more WineAccess.com/portalClear - Get your first two months of CLEAR for FREE at Clearme.com/portal See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Philosopher and University of Chicago Professor Agnes Callard sits down with Eric on this episode of the portal. Agnes is a champion of the philosophical tradition of attempting to detach the capacity for inquiry and reason from the fog of feelings and societal taboos that often keep us from delving deeper into the questions that animate our lives. Agnes began this unusual back and forth by writing an article about status negotiation in first meetings shortly after the pair first met. Eric and Agnes then use the opportunity of this episode to continue this line of thought by exploring the limits of courage and meta-cognition within the examined life of a modern Philosopher. This results in a real-time exploration by two people who mutually respect each other as to whether they can actually negotiate a detached discussion in real time on the very issues of status, feeling, and taboo that may divide them and/or arise between them. As Agnes has written thoughtfully about the many layers of anger, the conversation culminates by exploring dyadic feelings of hurt and indignation with which we all struggle and suffer in our relationships. Ultimately the two finish this experimental conversation with good cheer, together with a wish to continue the discussion at a later date under continuing mutual fondness and admiration.Our SponsorsPost your job today at Indeed.com/PORTALFor 20% off your first order, visit mackweldon.com AND ENTER PROMO CODE: portalReceive 15% off your Four Sigmatic purchase go to foursigmatic.com/PORTAL See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric sits down with leading fitness geek, guru, thinker and human guinea-pig Ben Greenfield to learn how one of the world's most highly regarded trainers and fitness experts cuts through the nightmare that is our medical literature. The academic and medical literature in health and medicine is a disaster. Studies are performed and reported in non-standard and idiosyncratic ways which are then further distorted by a press often looking more for headlines and scoops than facts and rigor. In this episode we get to ask one of the most sought after fitness optimizers how ordinary people can better understand their own minds, brains and bodies in light of the cacophony of 'expert' opinion. Ben, here in his role of master pedagogue, gives detailed implementable answers as well as simple to follow priorities that sum up his years of study and training for the mere mortals who wish to better everything in their lives by tackling health at the fundamental level.  Our SponsorsPitney Bowes: Special offer for a FREE 30-day trial PLUS a FREE 10-pound scale using PB.com/PORTAL Blinkist: Try it FREE for 7 days AND save 25% off your new subscription using Blinkist.com/PORTALAthletic Greens: 20 FREE travel packs valued at $79 with your first purchase using Athleticgreens.com/PORTALSkillShare: Two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free Skillshare.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Historically, fighting obscenity and indecency charges has always been a central part of the free speech movement. Jim Morrison, Mae West, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin have all been arrested for exciting the public in ways that authorities have found threatening. Recently, however, the erotic and comedic arts have undergone more cryptic attacks via Operation Chokepoint, "cancellation", "no platforming", and inadequate press coverage given to cases of legal intimidation (e.g. the federal case under Miller v California standards brought against director John Stagliano). In this episode, Eric sits down with the business woman who created the enduring character of the unlikely top pornstar Riley Reid. Continuing the theme of the DISC (Distributed Idea Suppression Complex) we discuss issues like Operation Chokepoint and obscenity law as well more subtle issues like the difficulty of finding vendors willing to cross the Rubicon to work with legal erotic businesses. Ashley, in the role of the Riley Reid character, has defied all pornographic convention by embracing body positivity, forgoing plastic surgery and opting for natural body hair at times. Additionally she has made a social statement by doing a popular artistic scene which makes a political and business case for greater transsexual acceptance. Her main tool appears to be a palpable human decency and sweetness coupled to an uncanny ability to assess, manage and survive extreme business risk within a poorly understood industry that has confounded all expectations. While this episode is generally not explicit, it is not for everyone given the content and so listener discretion is advised. Our SponsorsAthletic Greens: Get 20 FREE Athletic Greens Travel Packs, valued at $79, with your first purchase athleticgreens.com/portalBlinkist: try it FREE for 7 days AND save 25% off your new subscriptionBlinkist.com/portalQuip: Join over THREE MILLION healthy mouths and get your first refill FREE todayQuip.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Roger Penrose is arguably the most important living descendent of Albert Einstein’s school of geometric physics. In this episode of The Portal, we avoid the usual questions put to roger about quantum foundations and quantum consciousness. Instead we go back to ask about the current status of his thinking on what would have been called “Unified Field Theory” before it fell out of fashion a couple of generations ago. In particular, Roger is the dean of one of the only rival schools of thought to have survived the “String Theory wars” of the 1980s-2000s. We discuss his view of this Twistor Theory and its prospects for unification. Instead of spoon feeding the audience, however, the material is presented as it might occur between colleagues in neighboring fields so that the Portal audience might glimpse something closer to scientific communication rather than made for TV performance pedagogy. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Prof. Penrose.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All of our Mice are Broken. On this episode of The Portal, Bret and Eric sit down alone with each other for the first time in public. There was no plan.There was however, a remarkable story of science at its both best and worst that had not been told in years. After an initial tussle, we dusted off the cobwebs and decided to reconstruct it raw and share it with you, our Portal audience, for the first time. I don't think it will be the last as we are now again looking for our old notes to tighten it up for the next telling. We hope you find it interesting, and that it inspires you younger and less established scientists to tell your stories using this new medium of long form podcasting. We hope the next place you hear this story will be in a biology department seminar room in perhaps Cambridge, Chicago, Princeton, the Bay Area or elsewhere. Until then, be well and have a listen to this initial and raw version.Our Sponsors:Quip: Getquip.com/portalWine Access: Wineaccess.com/portalIndeed: Indeed.com/portalBlinkist: Blinkist.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This "housekeeping" (cough cough) episode of The Portal is only for the hard core listeners who launched this experiment with us. This year we begin to take on the idea of the Distributed Idea Suppression Complex or "DISC". From "Terms of Service" changes, to selective enforcement of rules, peer review, "Strategic Silence", 'authoritative sources only', deboosting, shadow banning, down ranking, "unbiasing", "Good Censorship", 'diversity and inclusion' oaths, 'cancel culture', no-platforming, mob shaming, certification requirements, "trust and safety" and quality control, we are surrounded by others interested in various forms of idea suppression who would prefer to work in private. Obviously some, but not all, of those ideas are truly dangerous. But many of those ideas never reached us because they threatened institutional players rather than public safety. This is the year we begin to do the unthinkable: attempt to fully reveal and slip the DISC. Stay tuned to the Portal for 2020. Or feel free to unsubscribe right now before we change it up...hope to see you soon.Our SponsorsTwo whole months of unlimited access Skillshare.com/PORTALGet your first free refill at Getquip.com/PORTALTwenty free travel packs with your first purchase Athleticgreens.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Somewhere on the road between Stalingrad and Forever21, something essential got misplaced amidst the bathos. Eric works through a bottle of Red wine on air with social, literary and artistic theorist Anna Khachiyan (co-host of the explosive and popular Red Scare podcast) to find out what is brewing on the anti-woke Left among the intellectual daughters of Camille Paglia. Anna takes us through her project of the reconstructed feminine combining irreverent intellectual dominance with a return to valuing motherhood informed by her claims on Soviet & American heritage. The intellectual foundation of the intersectional “oppression Olympics” and reparations discussion is further dissected amidst the twin specters of the Armenian & Jewish genocides which mysteriously appear not to register at all with today’s progressives. No puppies were eaten during this podcast, but an ambient trigger warning is otherwise in order for those with exquisite sensitivities. Caveat emptor and welcome to the Grand Finale of the inaugural year of “The Portal.” See you all again in 2020!Skillshare: Get two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free Skillshare.com/PORTALChili: Save up to $300 on Chili sleep systems with visit chilitechnology.com/PORTALPhlur: Get 20% off your FIRST custom Phlur sample set phlur.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Eric sits down with Tyler Cowen to discuss how/why a Harvard educated chess prodigy would choose a commuter school to launch a stealth attack on the self-satisfied economic establishment, various forms of existential risk, tech/social stagnation and more. On first glance, Tyler Cowen is an unlikely candidate for America's most influential economist. Since 2003, Cowen has grown his widely read and revered economics blog Marginal Revolution with lively thought, insight and prose resulting in a successful war of attrition against traditional thinking. In fact, his well of heterodox thinking is so deep that there is an argument to be made that Tyler may be the living person with the most diverse set of original rigorous opinions to be found in any conversation. The conversation takes many turns and is thus hard to categorize. We hope you enjoy it. Wine Access: Get $100 off your first purchase of $250 or more wineaccess.com/PORTALExpressVPN: Get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free when you signup at expressvpn.com/PORTAL Lamps Plus: Get up to 50% off HUNDREDS of lights, furniture and décor between November 25 and December 24lampsplus.com/PORTALFour Sigmatic: Get 15% discount on all orders placed on foursigmatic.com/PORTAL See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Garrett Lisi, the so called "Surf Bum with a Theory of Everything (or T.O.E.)", is a PhD theoretical physicist who has refused to be captured by the theoretical physics community. By making shrewd investments, he has avoided holding meaningful employment for his entire adult life. Instead, he lives in Maui and travels the world chasing the perfect wave.In this episode Garrett and Eric sit down to discuss the current status of Garrett's ideas for a final theory based on a mysterious object called E8, perhaps the oddest of mathematical symmetries to be found in the universe. Garrett and Eric have held each other in mutual “contempt” for over a decade. By vacationing together and staying in each others' homes, they had hoped to hone and deepen their mutual disgust for each other's ideas. However, as the theoretical physics community moved away from actually trying to unify our incompatible models of the physical world, it became intellectually unmoored, and drifted toward a culture of performative Cargo Cult Physics. The antagonists were thus forced by necessity to develop a begrudging admiration for each other's iconoclasm and unwillingness to give up on the original dream of Einstein to unify and understand our world. The discussion is rough but a fairly accurate depiction of scientific relationships belonging to a type that is generally not shown to the public. This may be uncomfortable for those who have been habituated to NOVA, The Elegant Universe, or other shows produced for mass consumption. We apologize in advance.Skillshare: Get two months free when you sign up at Skillshare.com/PORTALWine Access: Get $100 off your first purchase of $250 or more at Wineaccess.com/PORTALChili: Save up to $300 on Chili sleep systems visit Chilitechnology.com/PORTALBlinkist: Try it FREE for 7 days AND save 25% off your new subscription Blinkist.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happened to the Mathematical and Scientific art movement after MC Escher? It went underground. In this episode of the Portal, Eric begins tracking down the leaders of this hidden movement; one that is smuggling higher level science into transcendent art forms. Eric had to coax one the movement’s foremost members, London Tsai, to come out of obscurity where he had been preserving his mathematical art in sarcophagi of unopened bubble wrap sitting for decades in various New York City studios. London is just the first of these New Escherians we’ll be profiling. These modern day Prometheans are stealing higher level mathematics from the professorial priesthood replacing the Seraphim and Cherubs of antiquity with topological paintings, protein sculptures, and light symphonies that speak to our hearts, minds and desires for transcendence. The podcast will be released later with video showing a taste of Tsai's groundbreaking work. Lamps Plus: Get up to 50% OFF hundreds of lights, furniture and décor between November 25 and December 24 go to Lampsplus.com/PORTAL Wine Access: Get $100 off your first purchase of $250 or more visit Wineaccess.com/PORTAL Skillshare: Two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free visit Skillshare.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this cordially combative episode, Eric sits down with Russian chess legend, multiple-year champion and (inarguably) one of the greatest players of all time, Garry Kasparov. The two discuss transcending AI-induced demotivation, AI brilliancy (and lack thereof), the perilous time for global democracy in Russia, America and globally and Garry's penchant for risking his life for what he believes in. Beyond Chess, Garry is an active political dissident and truth seeker; founding the Russian "United Civil Front" and speaking out against Putin since his retirement from the game in 2005, he's an ardent defender of democracy in Russia and abroad. 1997 was also a watershed year for Garry; it was the year that AI - in the form of IBM's Deep Blue - was able to beat the best chess player in the world (Kasparov). Since then, Garry's been thinking deeply about the role of a newly positioned mankind in the world of a rising AI. From tech displacement to political unrest, please enjoy this wide ranging episode covering some of the most crucial issues of our time. ExpressVPN: Visit expressvpn.com/PORTAL you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free!Four Sigmatic: Visit foursigmatic.com/PORTAL to get a 15% discount on all ordersSkillShare: Visit Skillshare.com/PORTAL and get two months free when you sign up See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Vitalik Buterin sits down with Eric to discuss ethereum, the wider world of crypto and heterodox economics.Taking note of the new development of blockchain in 2010, Eric wrote an essay called “Go Virtual Young Man”. A few years later, a Thiel Fellow named Vitalik created a virtual machine with an idiosyncratic smart contract system and a currency. Ironically, Eric had recently become a Managing Director at Thiel Capital. Perennially circling each other intellectually, the two now sit down in person to discuss economic paradigm shifts, crypto and the future of online sovereignty and social coordination. Wine Access: WineAccess.com/Portal to get $100 off your first purchase of $250 or moreChili Technology: chilitechnology.com/PORTAL Save up to $300 on Chili sleep systems with 25% off the chiliPAD(code: portalchili) or 15% off OOLER (code: portalooler)Phlur: phlur.com/portal to get 20% off your FIRST custom Phlur sample set!Blinkist: blinkist.com/portal try it FREE for 7 days AND save 25% off your newsubscription.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Portal, Eric talks to one of his closest friends, neuroscientist, philosopher and meditation-guru, Sam Harris. When Sam and Eric sit down they generally agree about a large number of things. So in this experiment of a session, Eric attempts to push the relentlessly reasonable and methodical Sam out of his comfort zone to highlight their genuine differences. These include: beliefs on religion, the logic of voting for unreasonable candidates, Jeffrey Epstein's demise, the competence of the press, the ethics of immigration and more. Skillshare: Go to Skillshare.com/PORTAL to start your two months of unlimited access todayBoll and Branch: For a limited time get fifty dollars off when you go to Bollandbranch.com/PORTALFour Sigmatic: FourSigmatic.com/PORTAL and use discount code PORTAL to get a 15% discount on all ordersExpress VPN: Get 3 extra free months when you sign up for a year using Expressvpn.com/PORTALSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric sits down with Julie Lindahl, author of "The Pendulum". What happens when an ethnically German girl growing up in Brazil gets curious to finally make sense of her family history to stop the cycle of dysfunction? Julie Lindahl’s new book "The Pendulum" shows us what it can take to find a portal out of inter-generational trauma. Eric welcomes his house-guest Julie Lindahl to tell her extraordinary story on this episode of The Portal. The episode is raw and recorded at home on a hand held device; there will be no video.Four Sigmatic: FourSigmatic.com/PORTAL and use discount code PORTAL to get a 15% discount on all ordersChili Pad chilitechnology.com/portal and use code “PORTALCHILI”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric sits down with friend, philosopher, comic, actor and fighter Bryan Callen for a wide ranging conversation on camaraderie, conflict and comedy. Over the course of 2+ hours, the two discuss difficult topics like the holocaust, gender dynamics and the legacy of the enlightenment on the eve of the 2020 presidential election. Bryan and Eric oscillate between levity and intensity as they navigate these hard-to-broach topics. Hilarity and good insights ensue. Four Sigmatic: FourSigmatic.com/PORTAL and use discount code PORTAL to get a 15% discount on all ordersSkillshare: Skillshare.com/PORTAL for 2 months of Skillshare freeExpressVPN: ExpressVPN.com/Portal for 3 months freeWine Access: WineAccess.com/Portal for $150 offSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of the Portal, Eric checks in with his friend Andrew Yang to discuss the meteoric rise of his candidacy; one that represents an insurgency against a complacent political process that the media establishment doggedly tries to maintain. Andrew updates Eric on the state of his campaign and the status of the ideas the two had discussed as its foundation when it began. Eric presents Andrew with his new economic paradigm; moving from an 'is a [worker]' economy to a 'has a [worker]' economy. The two also discuss neurodiverse families as a neglected voting block, the still-strong but squelched-by-the-scientific-establishment STEM community in the US, and the need to talk fearlessly - and as a xenophile - about immigration as a wealth transfer gimmick. Sponsors:Reverse-Sponsor: https://www.drbronner.com/Skillshare: Skillshare.com/PORTAL for 2 months of Skillshare freeBoll and Branch: BollandBranch.com $50 off with promo code: PORTAL No risk, 30 day trial period with free shippingSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric sits down with Bret Easton Ellis; the two Gen X’ers graduated from rival high schools in a disaffected 1982 Los Angeles that inspired Ellis’ first novel “Less Than Zero”. In this conversation, they reflect on LA, Generation X, and the different notions of childhood held by Gen x and Millennials. Sponsors:Phlur: phlur.com/portal for 20% offBoll and Branch: BollandBranch.com $50 off with promo code: PORTAL No risk, 30 day trial period with free shippingFour Sigmatic: FourSigmatic.com/PORTAL and use discount code PORTAL to get a 15% discount on all ordersSkillshare: Skillshare.com/PORTAL for 2 months of Skillshare freeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jocko Willink is a man who radiates decency. He is also part of a community of warriors drawn to test themselves in the crucible of deadly combat against an evil and implacable foe. Eric sits down with Jocko Willink to learn how this cerebral Navy SEAL and hero of the battle of Ramadi against ISIS managed to bring military discipline home to the fight for personal freedom in peacetime writing kids books that teach ‘extreme ownership’ and radical accountability to children. Give warriors a chance, and then subscribe to The Portal to be sure to catch our next and future episodes when they drop.Sponsor:Netsuite: netsuite.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beyond New Atheism: is a constructive adult relationship possible between atheism and religion?On this episode of the portal, Eric hosts leading conservative rabbi David Wolpe and explores the possibilities for, and problems with, a new synthesis of atheism and religion in our modern era that avoids special pleading.Sponsors of this episode of The Portal:Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com/portalExpressVPN: https://www.expressvpn.com/portalNetsuite: https://www.netsuite.com/portalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if everything we are taught in economics 101 is not only wrong, but may even be setting us up for populism, dictatorship or revolution? On this episode of the Portal, Eric is joined by renegade Economist Professor Timur Kuran whose theory of Preference Falsification appears to explain the world wide surge towards populism, and is now threatening to rewrite the core tenets of modern economics. This could well be the most important economist you’ve never heard of.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode 3 of The Portal is with film director Werner Herzog.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is the portal?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to The Portal. Episode 1 is a conversation with Peter Thiel. Please subscribe to The Portal anywhere you listen to podcasts, and leave us a rating and review in Apple Podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Portal is hosted by Eric Weinstein. Subscribe in iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.