Keen On America

Andrew Keen
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  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • UPDATED DAILY

Nobody asks sharper or more impertinent questions than Andrew Keen. In KEEN ON, Andrew cross-examines the world’s smartest people on politics, economics, history, the environment, and tech. If you want to make sense of our complex world, check out the daily questions and the answers on KEEN ON. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best-known technology and politics broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running show How To Fix Democracy and the author of four critically acclaimed books about the future, including the international bestselling CULT OF THE AMATEUR. Keen On is free to listen to and will remain so. If you want to stay up-to-date on new episodes and support the show, please subscribe to Andrew Keen’s Substack. Paid subscribers will soon be able to access exclusive content from our new series Keen On America – keenon.substack.com

  1. The Dangerous Myth of Neutrality Brian Soucek on Why Universities Should Take Sides

    9H AGO

    The Dangerous Myth of Neutrality Brian Soucek on Why Universities Should Take Sides

    "150 universities have adopted neutrality policies just since October 7th. I'm on the losing end of this trend." — Brian Soucek Universities keep claiming what they see as the moral high ground of neutrality. But Brian Soucek, who holds the MLK chair at UC Davis School of Law, believes that's a dangerous myth. In his new book, The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education, Soucek argues in favor of the biased university. His argument is that even (or, perhaps, particularly) when universities stay quiet, they're actually taking sides through their policies, their hiring, their building names, their actions. Silence isn't neutral. It's ideological. This fetish with neutrality is gaining in popularity, Soucek warns. Since October 7th, an estimated 150 universities have adopted neutrality pledges—pushed by well-funded efforts from the Goldwater Institute and others. Every pledge has a vague moral carve-out: universities will still speak when their "mission is at stake." But everyone has a mission and they are all different. That's the whole point. Soucek claims the moral high ground of pluralism. That's why he wants Boston College to be different from Yale, UC Davis different from University of Austin. The flattening of higher education into some imagined neutral sameness is what terrifies this classical liberal. The real crisis, Soucek insists, isn't self-censoring students or woke professors. It's the external threat of federal funding cuts, hostile state legislatures, a Trump administration that has declared DEI illegal without exactly making it so. Universities are staying quiet because, as one UC president put it, "We don't want to be the tallest nail." But Harvard's faculty spoke out through the AAUP, and it changed the conversation. For Soucek, silence isn't safety. It's surrender. Eventually everyone will become the tallest nail. And will be flattened by a hammer-wielding ideological foe. On the promise or threat of AI, Soucek is blunt: the idea of objective algorithms deciding what statues to take down or what books to read sounds to him "completely dystopian." We'd lose something essential if we stopped allowing communities to make these contested decisions differently, he says. For Soucek, that's not a bug of an otherwise unbiased university. It's the feature of any credible institute of higher learning.   Five Takeaways ●      Neutrality Is a Myth: Universities claim neutrality but act in non-neutral ways—through policies, hiring, building names. Silence is a choice, not an absence of choice. ●      150 Universities Signed Neutrality Pledges Since October 7th: Well-funded efforts from the Goldwater Institute are pushing this flattening of higher education. Soucek sees himself on the losing end. ●      The External Threats Are the Real Crisis: Not self-censoring students. Federal funding cuts are existential. Universities are staying quiet so as not to be "the tallest nail." ●      Pluralism, Not Homogeneity: Different universities should have different missions. That's why University of Austin is fine. New College Florida—where changes were imposed from above—is a disaster. ●      AI Objectivity Is Dystopian: Letting algorithms decide which statues to take down or which books to read? We'd lose something essential. Contested decisions should stay contested.   About the Guest Brian Soucek is Professor of Law and holds the Martin Luther King Jr. Chair at UC Davis School of Law. He is the author of The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education. He earned his JD from Yale Law School and his undergraduate degree from Boston College. References Concepts mentioned: ●      The Kalven Report was a 1967 University of Chicago faculty report on institutional neutrality. It's been revived by organizations pushing neutrality pledges. ●      The Goldwater Institute has funded efforts to get university boards to adopt neutrality policies modeled on the Kalven Report. ●      Heterodox Academy is a campus speech advocacy organization that estimated 150 universities adopted neutrality policies since October 7th. ●      FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) conducts surveys on campus self-censorship that Soucek references. Universities mentioned: ●      University of Austin is a new university founded by tech figures with a consciously different mission. Soucek supports its existence as an example of pluralism. ●      New College Florida was transformed by Governor DeSantis and Chris Rufo. Soucek calls it a disaster—changes imposed from above, not through shared governance. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify   Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction: The myth of neutrality (02:18) - A challenge to both Left and Right (03:15) - Is there really a free speech crisis? (05:33) - Who wants the neutral university? (06:48) - The Kalven Report and Goldwater Institute (07:54) - October 7th and Gaza (09:22) - Where does intolerance come from? (10:00) - Can courts be neutral? (11:24) - DEI and the university's mission (14:04) - Should universities speak out against Trump? (15:53) - Does the university tilt Left? (17:03) - MLK and the right to break unjust laws (20:13) - The myth ...

    32 min
  2. Progressive Populism Prevails: Charles Derber on How to Fight the Oligarchy

    1D AGO

    Progressive Populism Prevails: Charles Derber on How to Fight the Oligarchy

    "72% of Americans say they hate big corporations—including Republicans." — Charles Derber It's not just the right that's reacting against liberal democracy. Some progressives are also embracing populism. Charles Derber, longtime professor of sociology at Boston College, has a new book called Fighting Oligarchy: How Positive Populism Can Reclaim America. Rather than a dirty word, he argues, populism is an inevitable political response to the brutality of today's economy. We're in a disguised depression, he fears. Sixty percent of Americans say they feel one paycheck away from oblivion. 72% of Americans say they hate big corporations, Derber reminds us. Not just Democrats—Republicans too. Such hostility to large capitalist enterprises thus represents a kind of political supermajority. And Derber, a man of the left, sees this as fertile ground for what he calls positive populism. It's a politics that connects economic grievance to democratic renewal, the way the 1890s Populists did, the way the New Deal did, the way Martin Luther King did when he insisted you couldn't fight for civil rights without fighting against war and capitalism. But can positive populism coexist with American capitalism? Derber says no. American capitalism is too oligarchic, too individualistic, too hostile to collective identity. It's not compatible with positive populism and thus, in Derber's mind at least, not compatible with survival. But that doesn't involve a Soviet-style elimination of the free market. It means something more like Northern European social democracy: strong unions, universal healthcare, a government that actually intervenes on behalf of ordinary people. The trap, Derber warns, is nostalgia for the pre-Trump era. Going back to the supposedly "consensus" years of Bush, Obama and Clinton is a circuitous way of getting to another Trump. Today's street demonstrators—from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to New York City—understand this. According to Derber, demonstrations against ICE and MAGA are associating the immigration crackdowns with corporate oligarchy, and authoritarian political power with the economic power of big capitalism. And so positive populism will prevail. At least according to Charles Derber. Fight the oligarchy!   Five Takeaways ●      We're in a Disguised Depression: Sixty percent of Americans say they feel one paycheck away from disaster. This isn't radical rhetoric—it's mainstream public opinion. ●      Hatred of Corporations Is Bipartisan: 72-73% of Americans—including Republicans—say they hate big corporations. Derber sees this as fertile ground for positive populism. ●      Positive Populism Has Precedents: The 1890s Populists united white and Black workers. The New Deal gave ordinary people a stake. MLK linked civil rights to economics. These are the models. ●      Going Back to Pre-Trump Is a Trap: If Democrats return to Bush-Obama-Clinton centrism, they'll get another Trump. The resistance understands this. The establishment doesn't. ●      American Capitalism Is Incompatible: Positive populism can't coexist with American-style oligarchic capitalism. It needs transformation—not elimination of markets, but European-style social democracy.   About the Guest Charles Derber is a professor of sociology at Boston College and author of more than twenty books, including Fighting Oligarchy: How Positive Populism Can Reclaim America and Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relationships, and the Quest for Democracy. He is an old friend of Keen on America. References People mentioned: ●      Pepper Culpepper is an Oxford political scientist whose book Billionaire Backlash argues that backlash against billionaires could strengthen democracy. ●      Hélène Landemore is a Yale political scientist whose book Politics without Politicians makes the case for direct democracy. ●      William Jennings Bryan ran for President four times on a populist platform but, Derber argues, sold out the movement's anti-corporate thrust. ●      Martin Luther King Jr. argued that civil rights couldn't be separated from economic justice and opposition to war—a form of positive populism. ●      Bernie Sanders and AOC are examples of positive populists within the Democratic Party today. Historical references: ●      The 1890s Populist Movement united farmers and workers against the first Gilded Age oligarchy. Lawrence Goodwyn called it "the democratic moment." ●      The New Deal represented a form of positive populism with significant government intervention in markets and encouragement of union organizing. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify   Chapters:

    37 min
  3. He Was Somebody: David Masciotra Remembers Jesse Jackson

    2D AGO

    He Was Somebody: David Masciotra Remembers Jesse Jackson

    "American culture likes martyrs, not marchers." — David Masciotra, quoting Jesse Jackson A couple of days ago, a great American died. Jesse Jackson was 84. He was somebody. Even Donald Trump acknowledged the passing of "a good man"—which, as my guest today notes, Jackson probably wouldn't have appreciated. David Masciotra is the author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters, one of the most readable biographies of the African-American leader. Having spent six years covering him and more than 100 hours in conversation, he called Jackson a friend. Masciotra borrows from Jackson on Americans preferring martyrs to marchers. It's easy to celebrate him now that he's gone. But when Jesse was being Jesse—battling economic apartheid, registering millions of voters, building a Rainbow Coalition—he had many critics and enemies, including some of those hypocrites now praising him. Jackson's legacy is vast. After King's death, he focused on economic justice, securing thousands of jobs for Black workers and entrepreneurs. He ran for President twice, nearly winning the 1988 nomination. He pushed for proportional delegate allocation—without which Obama would never have won in 2008. He debated David Duke and, in Masciotra's words, "reduced him to a sputtering mess." He was the first presidential candidate to fully support gay rights. He slept beside gay men dying of AIDS in hospices. He marched with Latino immigrants from California into Mexico. But perhaps most relevant today: Jackson showed how to build a coalition that transcended racial politics without ignoring race. "If we leave the racial battleground to find economic common ground," MLK's spiritual successor insisted, "we can reach for moral higher ground." That's the populist strategy Masciotra believes the Democrats need now—a vision, he fears, trapped between the identitarian politics of its left and the milquetoast neoliberalism of its right flank.   Five Takeaways ●      Martyrs, Not Marchers: American culture celebrates civil rights leaders after they're dead. When Jackson was hard at it, he had enemies—including some now praising him. ●      Jackson Made Obama Possible: Jackson pushed for proportional delegate allocation. Without it, Obama—who won small states—would never have beaten Clinton in 2008. ●      Jackson Debated David Duke: And reduced him to a sputtering mess. Duke's response: "Jackson's intelligence isn't typical of Blacks." Jackson believed refusing debate only empowers enemies. ●      Race and Class Are Linked: Jackson showed you can't substitute race for class or use race to erase class. Leave the racial battleground for economic common ground. ●      Visionaries Win the Marathon: Jackson often lost the sprint but won the marathon. His Rainbow Coalition vision is what Democrats need now—and keep fumbling.   About the Guest David Masciotra is a cultural critic, journalist, and author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters. He spent six years covering Jackson and more than 100 hours in conversation with him. He is an old friend of Keen on America. References People mentioned: ●      Martin Luther King Jr. was Jackson's mentor. Jackson was an aide to King and was with him on the balcony the day he was assassinated. ●      David Duke, former KKK leader, debated Jackson in 1988. Jackson wiped the floor with him. ●      W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington represent a historic dichotomy in Black political thought. Jackson occupied space between positions. ●      Rosa Parks was eulogized by Jackson, who noted that she succeeded simply because "she was available." ●      Robert Kennedy shared Jackson's universal vision of coalition-building across racial lines. Organizations mentioned: ●      Operation PUSH was Jackson's organization focused on economic justice for Black Americans. ●      The Rainbow Coalition was Jackson's political movement seeking to unite Americans across race and class. Further reading: ●      Masciotra's UnHerd piece: "Jesse Jackson Transcended America's Racial Politics" About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify   Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction: A great man died (01:14) - Martyrs, not marchers (02:49) - Jackson in the context of King (05:07) - The Booker T.–Du Bois dichotomy (08:14) - Did Jackson make Obama possible? (11:15) - The marathon, not the sprint (13:25) - How a white guy from Chicago became Jackson's biographer (16:32) - Jackson vs. David Duke (20:43) - I Am Somebody: the origin (24:06) - Transcending racial politics (30:26) - The Rainbow Coalition as progressive populism (33:23) - What Jackson teaches us about leadership (36:26) - Will Jackson be remembered?

    41 min
  4. Books Are Dying (Again): Bethanne Patrick on the Enshittification of the Book Biz

    2D AGO

    Books Are Dying (Again): Bethanne Patrick on the Enshittification of the Book Biz

    "It truly is becoming a desert right now for book publicists." — Bethanne Patrick A couple of weeks ago, there was an "absolute bloodbath" at The Washington Post with hundreds of workers laid off and the book section totally gutted. Ron Charles, the beloved fiction editor, is gone. So is Becca Rothfeld, who described it in The New Yorker as "The Death of Book World." Today I'm talking to Keen on America's resident book expert, Bethanne Patrick of the LA Times, about what this latest bloodbath means not just for readers and writers, but also for the future of literary culture. The news is pretty grim. Patrick points out that we used to have a general public reading newspapers and general interest magazines like Time & Newsweek for guidance about what to read. Now we've splintered into much narrower reading groups, each told to care only about what they already care about. The New York Times might be thriving, but its dominance isn't healthy. No writer wants to hear, "The Times didn't pick up your book, so there won't be a review at all." Meanwhile, mass-market paperbacks are dying and while Patrick is unsentimental about their physical quality, she nonetheless bemoans the demise of a mainstream reading culture. There is, however, some good literary news. Spotify has struck a deal with Bookshop.org to sell physical books—enabling us to click a link while listening to a podcast and then buy the book, with proceeds supporting independent bookstores. And audiobooks are booming. Patrick defends them vigorously, citing research that shows listening to them stimulates the same part of the brain as the act of reading. When her husband discovered audiobooks, Patrick reports, he started reading longer books and, perhaps not uncoincidentally, more women novelists. And then, last but certainly not least, there's AI. ElevenLabs is doubling down on AI-generated audiobooks—cheaper, faster, and increasingly hard to distinguish from human narrators. Patrick is conflicted. She narrated Life B, her own memoir, and loved it. But the middle market is disappearing from audiobooks too: soon we'll have winner-take-all celebrity narrators at the top, crappy AI bots at the bottom, and nothing in between. It's the enshittification of books. Jeff Bezos is presumably fine with all of this. Someone's taking care of the bottom line somewhere—maybe his delightful new wife's plastic surgeon.   About the Guest Bethanne Patrick is the book critic of the LA Times and author of the memoir Life B: Overcoming Double Consciousness. She has written for The Washington Post, NPR, and numerous other publications. She is Keen on America's resident book expert. References People mentioned: ●      Ron Charles was the fiction books editor at The Washington Post. Patrick counts him as a dear friend. He has since started his own Substack. ●      Becca Rothfeld wrote "The Death of Book World" for The New Yorker and is author of All Things Are Too Small. She was also laid off from the Post. ●      Colleen Hoover is the self-published author of It Ends with Us. Patrick notes she's "doing just fine without mass-market paperbacks." ●      Maria Adelmann is the author of The Adjunct, which Patrick is currently reading and recommends. Publications and companies mentioned: ●      The Washington Post gutted its book coverage in what Patrick calls "a big blow for the literary world." ●      Bookshop.org is partnering with Spotify to sell physical books, with proceeds benefiting independent bookstores. ●      ElevenLabs is an AI company doubling down on AI-generated audiobooks with various tiers of service. ●      Libby is the app where many young readers now discover audiobooks through their libraries. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify   Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction: The Washington Post bloodbath (02:57) - Maybe Jeff Bezos's wife's plastic surgeon (03:35) - Do we need generalized criticism? (05:55) - The end of mass-market paperbacks (09:51) - Colleen Hoover is doing just fine (10:55) - Is New York Times dominance good? (13:21) - Flocking to Substack (15:38) - The LA Times and California stories (17:02) - Spotify's deal with Bookshop.org (20:50) - Are audiobooks real reading? (23:59) - ElevenLabs and AI audiobooks (28:33) - Enshittification and the shrinking middle (31:26) - Social media's uncertain future (35:12) - What Bethanne is reading

    38 min
  5. Protesting the Protesters: Bruce Robbins on the Protests over Vietnam, Gaza and Minneapolis

    3D AGO

    Protesting the Protesters: Bruce Robbins on the Protests over Vietnam, Gaza and Minneapolis

    "I'm much more likely to protest when I feel responsible—when violence is being done in my name." — Bruce Robbins As always, the media is full of stories about political protest. A Columbia University Gaza protester held by ICE claims to have been chained to her bed after a seizure. Our friends at FIRE are addressing the right to demonstrate against ICE in a house of worship. Obama is arguing that ICE demonstrators should have the right to demonstrate on the streets of Minneapolis. The US government, meanwhile, cheers protesters on the Iranian streets while cracking down on protesters at home. Today's guest isn't shy at pointing out that contradiction. Bruce Robbins is a professor at Columbia—ground zero for the Gaza encampments of 2024—and his new book Who's Allowed to Protest? argues against those who protest the protesters. Conservatives like David Brooks, Musa al-Gharbi, and others have dismissed campus demonstrators as "spoiled rich kids at elite schools" who are "just doing this to feel morally superior." Robbins points out that the same argument was used against Vietnam protesters in the 60s, against Greta Thunberg's climate activism, and against anyone whose cause appears in any way utopian. This reactionary critique never changes: they're privileged, they're not starving, so ignore their hypocritical whining. What drives people to protest? Robbins says it's a sense of moral responsibility. He confesses that he's much more likely to get off his couch when violence is done in his name—particularly as a Jew or an American. And he makes an interesting broader argument: that the conservative attack on student "elites" dangerously conflates educated elites with moneyed elites. The firefighters in LA were an elite team, he reminds us. Scientists are elites. We need expertise, Columbia's Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities says. The question is who controls this expert knowledge and who pays for it. I think Bruce Robbins has a point here. But some American student protesters, especially the Gaza crowd, do make themselves vulnerable to critics like Brooks and al-Gharbi. As I suggested to Robbins, if these smart kids at Columbia want to protest, then they should be smart about it. Especially by recognizing the moral complexities of the Palestine-Israel issue and by being able to convincingly explain why they chose to protest this injustice over everything else.   About the Guest Bruce Robbins is the Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is the author of Atrocity: A Literary History and numerous other books. His new book is Who's Allowed to Protest? (2026). He succeeded Edward Said in the Old Dominion chair. References People mentioned: ●      David Brooks wrote about "America Needing a Mass Movement"—though apparently not an anti-Israel one. Robbins finds his dismissal of protesters hypocritical. ●      Musa al-Gharbi is the author of We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, which Robbins takes issue with. ●      Edward Said held the Old Dominion chair before Robbins and was a visible Palestinian presence at Columbia. His office was trashed multiple times and he received death threats. ●      Mahmoud Khalil was a Columbia student arrested in his apartment lobby in front of his pregnant wife, jailed for 104 days, released by court order, and is now facing re-arrest. ●      Bari Weiss, now head of CBS News, tried to get Palestinian professors fired when she was a Columbia undergraduate, sponsored by the David Project. ●      Greta Thunberg faces the same "spoiled rich kids" critique that Gaza protesters face. Robbins sees the same silencing tactic applied to any protest that seems "disinterested." ●      Greg Lukianoff and FIRE are mentioned as free speech absolutists. Events mentioned: ●      Columbia 1968 preceded May 1968 in Paris. Apparently the Paris students asked Columbia students for advice on what to do after occupying a building. ●      The Columbia encampments of April 2024 made the university ground zero for Gaza protest in America. ●      Robbins was found guilty by Columbia for taking students to visit the encampment during his class on representations of atrocity. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction: Headlines full of protest (02:07) - The double standard on protest (03:32) - Lika Cordia and Mahmoud Khalil (05:46) - Is this just a Columbia issue? (07:44) - Brooks, al-Gharbi, and the broader argument (09:12) - Greta Thunberg and the spoiled-kids critique (10:11) - Do leftists have the same authoritarian impulse? (12:19) - Not rights but attention (13:09) - The 60s parallel: Vietnam and Oedipal nonsense (14:50) - Why Columbia became ground zero (16:47) - Bari Weiss and the David Project (19:03) - Bruce is found guilty (23:38) - Iran, Sudan, and what gets us off the couch (28:18) - Elite firefighters and respect for expertise (31:18) - Do protesters need to be better i...

    39 min
  6. Mercy Costs Money: Emily Galvin Almanza on the Price of Criminal Justice in America

    5D AGO

    Mercy Costs Money: Emily Galvin Almanza on the Price of Criminal Justice in America

    "We are still dealing with a system which tolerates rampant abuse of accused people." — Emily Galvin Almanza Back in April 2024, we interviewed Thelton Henderson, one of the first African American federal judges in America. What disturbed me about our conversation was that even though Henderson grew up in the late Jim Crow era, he didn't seem to think that America is a profoundly more just place now than it was back then. Today's guest clerked for Judge Henderson, and her new book suggests he's right. Emily Galvin Almanza is a public defender turned activist, and The Price of Mercy is her data-driven indictment of a criminal justice system that, as she puts it, "tolerates rampant abuse of accused people, tolerates the blatantly racist application of the law, and tolerates a total lack of transparency." According to Almanza, the numbers are damning: 80% of cases are misdemeanors. 80% of people prosecuted are poor enough to need a public defender. 70% of people in jail haven't been convicted—they just can't afford bail. California's gang database was 99% people of color, she says, and famously included literal babies listed as having "admitted their gang affiliation." And here's both the good and bad news: crime is actually down. If you're under 50, she notes, you're living through the safest period of your lifetime. The solutions aren't mysterious either—housing reduces arrest rates by 80%, after-school programs cut youth violent crime in half. That's all good news for us. But it remains bad for those being unjustifiably prosecuted. We just lack the political will to implement what works. And as Galvin Almanza points out, this isn't a federal issue: 87% of prisoners are in jail on state charges. Change happens at the local level—DAs, sheriffs, state legislatures. The fixes, she says, are realizable. We just need the collective political will. That's the price of mercy in America today. About the Guest Emily Galvin Almanza is Executive Director of Partners for Justice and teaches at Stanford Law School. A former public defender, she clerked for Judge Thelton Henderson. Her new book is The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America (2026). References People mentioned: ●      Thelton Henderson was one of the first African American federal judges in America, a civil rights pioneer for whom Galvin Almanza clerked. ●      Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, blurbed the book. Galvin Almanza agrees "without hesitation" that we're living in a new Jim Crow system. ●      Alec Karakatsanis coined the term "copaganda" for media narratives that undermine smarter criminal justice solutions. ●      Clara Shortridge Foltz was a 19th-century lawyer who coined the phrase "free and equal justice" and pioneered the public defender system. ●      Andrew Ferguson of GW University appeared on the show recently with a book warning about surveillance. Key statistics from the book: ●      80% of cases in the system are misdemeanors—trespassing, driving without a license, fare evasion. ●      80% of people prosecuted are poor enough to be assigned a public defender. ●      70% of people in jail haven't been convicted—they're awaiting trial and can't afford bail. ●      87% of prisoners are there on state charges, not federal—making this a local issue. ●      Every year of incarceration shaves two years off a person's expected lifespan. ●      Being incarcerated cuts a person's expected lifetime earnings in half. ●      Giving an unhoused person housing reduces their chances of future arrest by 80%. ●      After-school programs can reduce youth involvement in violent crime by 50%. Concepts discussed: ●      Cash bail is a $2 billion per year industry in America. Most civilized countries don't allow you to buy your freedom back from the government. ●      "Failure to protect" laws criminalize women who are present while an abusive partner also abuses their child—charging victims as perpetrators. ●      Self-defense laws were "designed with two men fighting in an alley in mind"—making them nearly useless for abused women who fight back. ●      Gang databases in California were 99% people of color and included babies listed as having "admitted their gang affiliation." About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction: Thelton Henderson (02:22) - Has anything changed since the 1960s? (03:31) - Why isn't there more outrage? (05:46) - Michelle Alexander and the New Jim Crow (08:52) - Why is the system this way? (10:49) - Democrats vs. Republicans on criminal justice (13:14) - Breaking the cycle of poverty and criminalization (16:53) - Crime is actually going down (19:15) - Peeing on your stoop is a sex crime (19:59) - Women in the system: failure to protect (23:09) - Moving past punishment (26:06) - Nobody wants to marginalize the police (28:16) - Black Lives Matter and the march toward justice (29:32) - The Minneapolis killings (33:04) - Two Americas: Epstein and cash bail (39:10) - Can technology help? (41:20) - The price of mercy

    40 min
  7. Two Years Till We're Cooked: The Death of White Collar Work and Other Human Things

    5D AGO

    Two Years Till We're Cooked: The Death of White Collar Work and Other Human Things

    "Two years from now, all white-collar jobs may be gone." — Dario Amodei (via Keith Teare) Keith Teare leads this week's tech roundup with a video he made on Google's Veo: one glass half-full of water, another half-full of spiders. It's a metaphor for the AI moment. The water represents the tools released in the past two weeks—Anthropic's Claude 4.6, OpenAI's CodeX 5.3—which Keith calls "beyond belief." The spiders represent the fear, which he acknowledges is not irrational. But maybe spiders are the wrong metaphor. Maybe we're the frogs being slowly boiled, not noticing the temperature rise until it's too late. The trigger was Matt Schumer's viral essay "Something Big is Happening," which got 50 million views by telling engineers to become AI experts immediately or become irrelevant. Keith tested the thesis: he built venturebets.io, a prediction market, in a single day. He automated That Was The Week so completely that his weekly workflow dropped from six hours to under one. But then Dario Amodei and Satya Nadella both said the quiet part loud: in two years, there may be no white-collar jobs left. Keith's response? The glass doesn't contain jobs—it contains the future of life. And he'd rather have time to make videos of spiders crawling out of glasses than spend six hours curating links. The rest of us may not have the luxury of choosing.   About the Guest Keith Teare is a serial entrepreneur and investor, founder of SignalRank, and author of the newsletter That Was The Week. He co-hosts the weekly tech roundup on Keen On America. References Essays discussed: ●      Matt Schumer's "Something Big is Happening" went viral with 50 million views, arguing that engineers must become AI experts immediately or face obsolescence. ●      Noah Smith published two essays: "The Fall of the Nerds" and "You Are No Longer the Smartest Type of Thing on Earth," arguing that humanity's destiny is now mostly out of our own hands. ●      Josh Tyrangiel wrote "America Isn't Ready for What AI Will Do to Jobs" in The Atlantic. ●      The Financial Times published "Anthropic's Breakout Moment" on the company's enterprise momentum. Tools and companies mentioned: ●      Claude 4.6 from Anthropic and CodeX 5.3 from OpenAI represent a "step change" in agentic AI—you give tasks, not prompts, and sub-agents complete them autonomously. ●      Google Veo is Google's video generation tool, which Keith used to create the glass-half-full-of-spiders metaphor. ●      Polymarket and Kalshi are prediction markets that Keith's new venturebets.io aims to match in quality. People mentioned: ●      Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, predicted that white-collar jobs may be gone in two years. ●      Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, echoed Amodei's prediction about the end of white-collar work. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts SpotifyChapters: (00:00) - The glass half-full of spiders (01:30) - Matt Schumer's viral essay (03:15) - Every week is the biggest week in AI (04:30) - Claude 4.6 and CodeX 5.3: a step change (06:00) - Keith builds a prediction market in a day (07:45) - Fear is a bad operating system (09:30) - What's actually changed with That Was The Week? (12:00) - Trusting the algorithm to read for you (14:00) - Noah Smith: You're no longer the smartest thing on Earth (16:00) - The rabbit vs. the tiger (17:30) - Google's quantum computer and parallel universes (19:00) - America isn't ready for what AI will do to jobs (20:30) - Amodei and Nadella: two years to no white-collar jobs (22:00) - What's in the glass is the future of life (24:00) - Anthropic's breakout moment (26:00) - Claude Code vs. CodeX: Keith switches sides

    43 min
  8. What is Love? Paul Eastwick on the New Science of Attraction

    FEB 14

    What is Love? Paul Eastwick on the New Science of Attraction

    "She's a ten to me and that's the part that matters." — Paul Eastwick If it's Valentine's Day, we must be talking about love. Paul Eastwick studies attraction and relationships at UC Davis, and his new book Bonded by Evolution takes aim at the "old science" that treated romance like a competitive market where everyone gets assigned a number. The incels, of course, ran with that research to compound their paranoia about the other sex. Eastwick says they got it wrong—and so, with the exception of Paul Eastwick, did most academics. When two people look at the same photograph and make a hot-or-not judgment, Eastwick explains, they only agree about 65% of the time. After they've known the person for months, agreement drops to barely better than a coin flip. So there isn't any universal hierarchy of desirability. What's real is that some people will think you're an 8 and others will think you're a 3—and that quirky disagreement explains most of what happens in the science of attraction. The problem is that dating apps make everything feel like they're in a market, thereby filtering out the "slow burn" people who need time to grow on you. Eastwick's advice, therefore, is forget swiping, reboot your social networks, throw candle lit dinner parties where nobody knows each other. It's more democratic, it takes longer, and it actually works. Happy V day everyone. About the Guest Paul Eastwick is Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he studies attraction and close relationships. He is the author of Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection (2026) and co-host of the podcast Love Factually with Eli Finkel. References Concepts discussed: ●      The mating market hypothesis treats attraction like an economic exchange where people are assigned desirability values and seek partners at their "level"—an idea Eastwick argues is far more limited than academics have assumed. ●      Limerence is the academic term for the intense, obsessive early stage of romantic attraction—what we might call infatuation or passion. ●      The Dunbar number (~150) represents the cognitive limit on stable social relationships—roughly the size of hunter-gatherer groups where our mating psychology evolved. ●      Pair bonding emerged in human evolution about two million years ago as brain size increased and children required longer periods of intensive parental investment. ●      Attachment theory describes the deep bonds that form when we trust someone to have our back, celebrate our successes, and support us through difficulty. Evolution and mating: ●      Human males became smaller relative to females and lost their sharp canines as women selected for men who were safe around babies—"the evolved male is the good caregiver and good dad." ●      Unlike gorillas with their harem-style mating, humans shifted toward pair bonding because helpless infants with expanding brains needed investment from both parents. ●      Polyamory research shows that people can form genuine attachment bonds with multiple partners—trust, wellbeing, and attachment levels match or exceed monogamous couples. Also mentioned: ●      Eli Finkel is Eastwick's co-host on the Love Factually podcast and author of The All-or-Nothing Marriage. ●      When Harry Met Sally (1989) depicts "one of the most beautiful friendships on screen," according to Eastwick, and holds up well on the friends-to-lovers pathway. ●      Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) was the subject of a recent Love Factually episode—"that MTV style of filmmaking" with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. ●      The incel and manosphere communities have taken 1990s attraction research and "run with it in some strange and unjustified ways." About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. Website Substack YouTube Apple Podcasts Spotify Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (00:36) - Happy Valentine's Day (01:42) - The pressure of Valentine's Day (02:34) - Old science vs. new science (03:02) - The incel corner of the internet (04:05) - We've lost the art of socializing (05:06) - Love as a market (06:52) - What happens after swiping (08:03) - Slow burn people (09:07) - Twos, fives, and tens (10:31) - The hot-or-not experiment (11:33) - Is there something un-American about this? (13:13) - The Dunbar number and hunter-gatherers (14:10) - Did love exist before modernity? (15:07) - Passion and limerence (16:39) - Looking for yourself or the other? (18:15) - Machine learning can't predict compatibility (19:43) - Why we pair bond: helpless babies (21:30) - Men got gentler and lost their canines (22:52) - What polyamory tells us (24:36) - Gen Z and the delay of first sex (26:48) - Paul's love life (27:44) - She's a ten to me (28:01) - Romcoms and Love Factually (31:08) - Advice: reboot your social networks

    38 min
See All (1K)

4.1
out of 5
81 Ratings

About

Nobody asks sharper or more impertinent questions than Andrew Keen. In KEEN ON, Andrew cross-examines the world’s smartest people on politics, economics, history, the environment, and tech. If you want to make sense of our complex world, check out the daily questions and the answers on KEEN ON. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best-known technology and politics broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running show How To Fix Democracy and the author of four critically acclaimed books about the future, including the international bestselling CULT OF THE AMATEUR. Keen On is free to listen to and will remain so. If you want to stay up-to-date on new episodes and support the show, please subscribe to Andrew Keen’s Substack. Paid subscribers will soon be able to access exclusive content from our new series Keen On America – keenon.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Andrew Keen
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1K
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Andrew Keen
  • Show Website
    Keen On America

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