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The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday. From the Vox Media Podcast Network.

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

This week, Sean talks with Emily Baker-White, author of Every Screen on the Planet, about why TikTok feels uniquely addictive, how it turned social media into a push-not-pull entertainment feed, and what happens when human editors inside the company can override the algorithm.

A few days after they spoke, TikTok was in the headlines again. So they jumped on a follow-up call to unpack the latest twists in the saga of who will ultimately control the app's US-operations.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Emily Baker-White, reporter and author of Every Screen on the Planet: The War Over TikTok

The Gray Area has been nominated for a Signal Listener’s Choice Award. Vote for The Gray Area here: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2025/shows/genre/thought-leadership

We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show.

Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.

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Why TikTok matters

Bill McKibben has spent four decades warning us about climate change. Much of what he predicted has come true. And yet, his new book Here Comes the Sun is more hopeful than you might expect. That’s because, for the first time, we have a genuine alternative: Solar and wind energy are now the cheapest, fastest-growing sources of power on Earth. The revolution has already begun.

This week, Sean is joined by McKibben to talk about the peril and promise of this moment. They explore how close we are to catastrophe, why each fraction of a degree of warming matters, and how the fossil fuel industry is fighting a desperate last stand. They also discuss the politics of energy in the age of Trump, why Texas and Utah may hold surprising lessons, and how cheap, abundant power could transform not just the climate fight but democracy itself.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Bill McKibben, climate activist and author of Here Comes the Sun

We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show.

⁠⁠This episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team.

Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.

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The sun will save us

Free speech is often treated as a timeless and sacred right. But what if it’s more myth than reality?

This week, Sean is joined by historian Fara Dabhoiwala, author of What Is Free Speech? They trace the history of free expression from 18th-century pamphleteers, to John Stuart Mill, to the digital platforms that dominate our lives today.

They explore why speech is never just “speech,” how context and power shape who gets heard, the dangers of harmful speech, and the challenges of regulating platforms in a global media environment.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Fara Dabhoiwala, historian and author of What Is Free Speech?

We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show.

Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.

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How much free speech is too much?

How much money is too much?

In today’s episode, political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns tells Sean that we need to cap the amount of wealth a person can accumulate. They talk about how extreme inequality affects democracy, the role of money in politics, and why limiting personal wealth benefits everyone, including the super rich.

Host: Sean Illing (⁠⁠@SeanIlling⁠⁠)

Guest: Ingrid Robeyns, ⁠⁠professor⁠⁠ and author of Limitarianism: ⁠⁠The Case Against Extreme Wealth⁠⁠

This episode originally aired in January 2024

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.

You can watch new episodes of ⁠⁠The Gray Area on YouTube⁠⁠.

Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: ⁠⁠vox.com/members

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Imagine there's no billionaires

America has a hard time building stuff. Roads. Trains. Bridges. Housing. Everything takes seemingly forever. Meanwhile, China seems to have no trouble at all: high-speed rails, solar panels, electric cars, bridges, ports, all churned out at breakneck speed.

Why is that?

Sean's guest is Dan Wang, author of the new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. They discuss the policies and mindset that allow China to tackle remarkable feats of engineering, the advantages and drawbacks of America’s "lawyerly society," and what China and America must learn from each other.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Dan Wang, author of Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future

This episode was made in partnership with Vox's Future Perfect team.

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought! Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. We read and listen to everything, and might use your comments and questions in future episodes.

Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members and watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.
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America's lawyers vs. China's engineers

A loose movement of radical intellectuals is driving American politics. They’re called the “New Right,” and they share a basic hostility to American liberal democracy, a real desire to fundamentally overhaul it, and real influence in the White House. But why do they think that? How much influence do they really have? And what would a response to their rising prominence look like?

Today’s guest is Laura Field, a political theorist who’s spent a lot of time in the conservative intellectual world cataloging the wild world of far-right thinking for her book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. 

She speaks with guest host Zack Beauchamp, author of Vox newsletter On The Right, about why ordinary Americans should really, definitely, and absolutely care what a handful of thinkers are putting out on obscure Substacks and YouTube channels.

Host: Zack Beauchamp

Guest: Laura Field

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.

And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.

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So, what exactly is the “New Right?”

Almost every tech platform is designed to grab and hold your attention, to keep you clicking, scrolling, and buying for as long as possible.

Sports gambling has become one of the clearest examples of this. The industry has created frictionless apps on your phone that let you bet on everything from March Madness to a pregame coin toss to who wins a minor league British dart tournament.

While betting has become easier — and arguably fun — the cost of these apps is much higher than the money that is won and lost on them.

Today’s guest is Jonathan D. Cohen, author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling. He and Sean discuss the rise of sports betting, why the industry targets young men in their advertising, the social costs of frictionless sports gambling, and how the industry could be improved.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Jonathan D. Cohen, writer and author of Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.

And you can watch new episodes of ⁠The Gray Area on YouTube⁠.

Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: ⁠vox.com/members⁠
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America is losing big on sports betting

The internet was supposed to set us free. But somewhere along the way, it became a tool for surveillance, extraction, and control. What happened? And is there still time to reclaim the weird, untapped potential of the digital world?

This week, Sean is joined by Douglas Rushkoff. He’s a media theorist, author of Survival of the Richest and Team Human, and host of the Team Human podcast. They trace the arc of the internet from its utopian beginnings to its corporate capture, and explore what it would take to build something different. Along the way, they talk about the loss of weirdness, the logic of capitalism, the dangers of scale, and the difference between systems thinking and systems feeling. They also reflect on whether it’s still possible to use technology to foster a more connected and communal life.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and host of Team Human

We’d love to hear from you. Email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your questions and feedback help us make a better show.

Watch full episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.

Listen ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s time to get weird

What comes after the human?

We’re living through multiple crises — ecological, technological, political. But beneath all of that is something even deeper: a crisis of the self. Who are we, really? How did we come to see ourselves as separate from the world, from each other, from the systems that sustain us? And what if that way of thinking is what got us into this mess?

Today’s guest is Mark C. Taylor, philosopher, cultural critic, and author of After the Human. Mark and Sean discuss the philosophical roots of climate change, the dangers of individualism, the false promise of techno-utopianism, and what it might mean to shift from seeing ourselves as isolated egos to members of a vast, interdependent web. They talk about AI, death, Hegel, Descartes, hope, and why ideas matter.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)

Guest: Mark C. Taylor, philosopher and author of After the Human: A Philosophy for the Future.

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.

And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.

Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if humans went extinct next Friday?

American higher education is under attack. Project 2025 laid out the battle plan pretty clearly: Get rid of the Department of Education, shut off federal funding, take control of the accreditation system, and take down diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. And in the end, change what students are encouraged to study and what professors are allowed to teach.

The questions we’re left with is why? And is it working?

Today’s guest is Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University. He’s a vocal defender of higher education. But he’s also honest about where things have gone wrong and what needs to change. Michael and Sean discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to change universities and colleges, the potential societal effects of that effort, political biases on campus, the dangers of ideological conformity, and the value of a college education (what is even the point of going to college any more?).

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)Guest: Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University and author of numerous books including Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters and The Student: A Short History.

Mentioned in this episode: Host Sean Illing’s interview with reporter James Walsh about AI on campuses.

We would love to hear from you. To tell us what we thought of this episode, email us at tga@voxmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.

Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members

And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can college survive Trump?

At the beginning of the new year, many of us make pledges to change ourselves. We want to work out more. Or read more. Or cook more. Within a few months, some of us will have succeeded but many of us will have failed. When we do, we’ll probably tell ourselves to try again, that failure inevitably leads to success.
But is that true? And is failure really such a bad thing?
In this episode, which originally aired in March of 2023, Sean interviews professor Costica Bradatan about his book In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility. The two explore different kinds of failure and discuss how embracing our limitations can teach us humility and ultimately be good for us.

Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)
Guest: Costica Bradatan, professor and author of In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility
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The importance of failure

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