The Michael Shermer Show

• AI, Trade Wars, Degrowth: What's Next for the Global Economy?

  Amid rising concerns about AI, inequality, trade wars, and globalization, New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize finalist John Cassidy takes a bold approach: he tells the story of capitalism through its most influential critics. From the Luddites and early communists to the Wages for Housework movement and modern degrowth advocates, Cassidy’s global narrative features both iconic thinkers—Smith, Marx, Keynes—and lesser-known voices like Flora Tristan, J.C. Kumarappa, and Samir Amin. John Cassidy has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995. He writes a regular column, The Financial Page. He holds degrees from Oxford, Columbia, and New York Universities. His new book is Capitalism and Its Critics: A History from the Industrial Revolution to AI.

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• Is Modern Life Making Us Miserable? What’s Fueling the Mental Health Crisis & What Can Help?

  What does your diet have to do with your mood? Is mercury in fish really dangerous? Psychiatrist Dr. Drew Ramsey joins Michael Shermer to discuss the science behind nutritional psychiatry and how food, sleep, exercise, and social habits influence brain health. They explore why mental health issues are rising—especially among teens—and what role parenting, social media, and modern lifestyles play. The conversation also covers the effectiveness of SSRIs and other treatments, the role of inflammation in mental health, and the importance of sleep and tracking sleep quality. Drew Ramsey, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist, author, and leading voice in Nutritional Psychiatry and integrative mental health. He is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. For twenty years, he served as an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. He has authored four books, including the international bestseller Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety. His new book is Healing the Modern Brain.

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• Free Speech Under Fire? From Campus Protests to Deportations

  Jacob Mchangama, author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, joins Michael to examine the evolving landscape of free expression amid rising political and cultural tensions. They discuss how far governments, universities, and tech platforms should go in regulating speech, and what’s at stake when they do. In this episode: Should non-citizens have the same speech protections as citizens? Social media, mental health, radicalization, and the “moderation dilemma” The global shift toward stricter regulation of speech How today’s most divisive issues test the limits of free expression Jacob Mchangama is the founder and executive director of the Future of Free Speech, professor at Vanderbilt University, and senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

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• Is It Possible to Change Your Entire Personality?

  Is it really possible to change your entire personality in a year? An award-winning journalist experiments with her own personality to find out—and reveals the science behind lasting change. Research shows that you can alter your personality traits by behaving in ways that align with the kind of person you’d like to be—a process that can make you happier, healthier, and more successful. Olga embarked on an “experiment” to see whether it’s possible to go from dwelling in dread to radiating joy. For one year, she clicked “yes” on a bucket list of new experiences—from meditation to improv to sailing—that forced her to at least act happy. With a skeptic’s eye, Olga brings you on her journey through the science of personality, presenting evidence-backed techniques to help you change your mind for the better. Olga Khazan is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World. She has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. Her new book is Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change.

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  1:19:12
• The Trouble with Economic Data: Flawed Metrics, Flawed Decisions

  The ways that statisticians and governments measure the economy were developed in the 1940s, when the urgent economic problems were entirely different from those of today. Diane Coyle argues that the framework underpinning today’s economic statistics is so outdated that it functions as a distorting lens, or even a set of blinkers. When policymakers rely on such an antiquated conceptual tool, how can they measure, understand, and respond with any precision to what is happening in today’s digital economy? Coyle argues that to understand the current economy, we need different data collected in a different framework of categories and definitions, and she offers some suggestions about what this would entail. Diane Coyle is a Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and author of The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why it Matters and GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History. Her new book is The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters. Read Diane Coyle’s new article for Skeptic.

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