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The former head of the CIA joins the guys and things get wonky. The (mostly) unredacted conversation covers everything: Russia, China, college basketball, AI, spy novels, and what it takes to become an intelligence officer. What does the former top spy remember most about his time as a hostage at the Farm’s Special Operations Training Course?

Chris is doing journalism, so Ben talks football. Another father-son football episode with Ed and Carmen Policy. Can you build a common culture for front office white-collar workers and on-field warriors? How has a salary cap made the NFL more competitive, and can baseball learn anything from it? Did high school failure help create the 49ers dynasty? Gambling’s a big problem, but after the Supreme Court’s ruling, what’s the path forward? Why is Youngstown, OH the epicenter of football? Ben Sasse's WSJ piece on how playing football builds character: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/america-needs-its-boys-to-play-football-5b9673de?st=Qmuz3H&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

First return guest, Katherine Boyle, joins the guys to pick up where they left off. How can technology strengthen families? Why do boys need risks? How can women combine work and motherhood? Don’t we all need some suffering? Come for the deep questions, stick around for the autonomous boats, rebuilt shipyards, and American builders.

Technology, idolatry, time, and habits. Andy Crouch joins the gang to talk about technology, work without rest, and rest. How radical is an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year? How does rest make us better at work? Is anybody a digital native? Golf, magic, acorn (not cogs) metaphors. It’s a wild ride.

World renowned for his beauty and his above-average thoughtfulness, Yuval Levin joins the guys. Why does he describe his work as gratitude for America? Why can’t you script a career path? Why do we overcomplicate questions of virtue? Is it true that Ben once sheared a sheep with Yuval in western Nebraska? All this and so much more.

Ok, they’ll bite. What’s a university? Ben and Chris are joined by legendary university president E. Gordon Gee. Public trust is in collapse, the core curriculum looks like a Cheesecake Factory menu, the math doesn’t add up, and college football looks a heckuva lot like professional football. The guys cover it all. Boy do Stirewalt and Gee love West Virginia.

The guys do some deep work. Prolific author and computer scientist Cal Newport joins the podcast. The gang talks about why email is a slog, what sparks human creativity, why the good life needs thoughtful deliberation, why Slack is a bummer, why the apocalyptic AI warnings are out of control, why productivity is different than busyness, and what we can do about it.

You write; they talk. Bicycle gangs are good, schools are overrated, chronological snobbery is bad, vocations are always plural, and Chris waxes poetic about his favorite hot dog.

The guys get fancy when Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia, joins the pod. (Again with the historians.) The guys talk about Churchill and the Special Relationship between the United States and Great Britain. What was Churchill’s political philosophy? What did the wilderness years teach him? What’s the deal with the “Black Dog” anyway? And who would win in a cage match: Teddy Roosevelt or Winston Churchill?

Everyone knows the Warrior Poets get the headlines, but do Warrior Historians deserve the recognition? Do free societies produce better soldiers? How do leaders know when to be disagreeable? H.R. McMaster joins the guys to talk about the history of tanks, the dynamics of leadership and teamwork, and his reading list of American heroes. James Webb — Fields of Fire  James R. McDonough — Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat  Charles B. McDonald — Company Commander: The Classic Infantry Memoir of World War II Leo Tolstoy — The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories  Michael Shaara —The Killer Angels  Anton Myrer — Once An Eagle  John Keegan — The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme  Lewis Sorley — Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Time  Carlo D'Este — Patton: Genius for War, A – The Definitive Portrait of the Complex and Misunderstood American Warrior

Everything’s great and nobody’s happy? Megan joins the guys to talk about affluenza.  Each generation has to figure it out — so take some risks, make some bad decisions, and embrace scar tissue.

History, storytelling, and America, baby! Ken Burns joins the guys to talk about the work he’s done to translate the American experience to a wide audience. What makes a good documentary? What’s the deal with professional historians? Is “The Ashokan Farewell” a true playlist banger?

Ok, they’ll bite. What is poetry? Poet and critic Dana Gioia joins the guys to talk about poetry. How do poems reward the reader? What can verse tell us about memory? What’s the deal with poets?

As America celebrates 250 years, the guys talk with Jeff Rosen about the pursuit of happiness. Did Ben Franklin and John Adams really see it the same way? Does self-government depend on reading and virtue? How was Milton an influence on the Founders? Also… poetry?

Ben and Chris talk with one of the most interesting people in Silicon Valley who isn’t actually in Silicon Valley. Ben’s got morphine fog. Katherine’s got parenting sleep deprivation. Perfect conditions to talk about intergenerational family life, American dynamism, and the case for optimism.