Political History
269 episodes
#6156: Why Civilization Waited 12,000 Years to Take Off
Ancient engineers built geared computers and self-healing concrete. So why did the industrial takeoff wait until 1760?
#6102: Project Cybersyn: Chile's 1972 Telex Economy
Chile ran a national economy on telex machines and hand-drawn slides fifty years before chatbots. What actually worked?
#6101: When Chatbots Run for Office
From a Wyoming mayoral bot to Albania's AI minister, six real attempts to put machines on the ballot — and what they reveal about empty platforms.
#6091: ישראל בוחרת, חלק ב׳: על מה המפלגות עומדות
רוב המפלגות בישראל לא פרסמו מצע כבר שנים. הנה מה שהן אומרות בפועל שיעשו, והנושאים שבהם הן שותקות.
#6085: Israel Votes, Part 5: Rent and Noise, Side by Side
657,000 noise complaints in 2.5 years, 1 in 7 fined — and only one party platform even mentions noise. What the parties actually wrote on rent and ...
#6084: ישראל בוחרת, חלק א׳: מי באמת רץ
שלושים ושמונה רשימות, שני גושים ואחוז חסימה אחד: המפה המלאה של הבחירות לכנסת ב־27 באוקטובר 2026.
#6078: Reading Polymarket's Israel Election Prices
25 live markets, $47M on one question — what the money says about Israel's next prime minister.
#6075: Israel's Pollsters: Who Calls the Race Before You Vote
Nine days out, a tour of Israel's polling culture — the pollsters who matter, the famous misses, and the numbers to watch on election night.
#6073: Israel Votes, Part 4: The Forecast
Three forecasting methods, seven synthetic voters and one prediction for Israel's 27 October election: Yashar 21, Likud 20, and nobody reaches 61.
#6066: Israel Votes, Part 2: What the Parties Stand For
Most Israeli parties haven't published a platform in years. Here's what they actually say they'll do — and where they stay silent.
Also available in:עברית
#6064: Israel Votes, Part 1: Who Is Actually Running
Thirty-eight lists, a first on-time election since 1988, and a ballot full of parties that didn't exist eighteen months ago. Here's the map.
Also available in:עברית
#5979: Why We Shake Hands: A 2,800-Year History
The handshake wasn't inevitable — it won. From Assyrian treaty reliefs to Quaker radicalism, how one gesture conquered the world.
#5929: Who Believes God Is Personally Involved? The Data on Divine Providence
Three different ideas hide inside "everything happens for a reason" — and the polling on who actually believes God is involved in their life is str...
#5928: Believing Without Belonging: The Religion of One
A growing crowd believes in God but belongs to no tradition. The research has a name for them — and the numbers are messier than you'd think.
#5902: Four Tribes, One Ballot: Israel's Coalition Maze
Thirty-eight parties, a 3.25% threshold, and four groups that don't agree on what the country is even for.
#5901: Haredi: How a Word Became a Tribe
The Hebrew means "trembling in awe." The English translation means "beyond the pale." How did one word become a whole society?
#5824: Herod's Four Walls: Why Only One Became the Kotel
Herod built four retaining walls around the Temple Mount. Three survive today — but only one became Judaism's holiest prayer site. Here's why.
#5821: Free Speech's Outer Edge: Hate Speech Law
Brandenburg v. Ohio rewrote when speech becomes a crime. Which countries go furthest toward zero restrictions — and why none fully do.
#5820: Hebraizing the Jewish Name: Ivrut's Rise and Cost
A booklet, five methods, and 17,000 name changes in a single year — how Israel turned Diaspora surnames into Hebrew ones.
#5809: What If Israel Had Never Fallen? A 2,000-Year Thought Experiment
Hannah's question: what would Israel look like if it had stayed under Jewish rule for 2,000 years — and was antisemitism structural or circumstantial?
#5803: Who Built Jerusalem's Old City Walls?
The stone ring around Jerusalem's Old City is younger than you think — and the legend about its architects is wrong.
#5802: The Mamluks: From Slave Market to Sultan's Throne
How did enslaved soldiers become the rulers of Egypt and the Levant for 267 years? The Mamluk system explained.
#5801: Who Were the Canaanites, Hittites, and Israelites?
The Bible's lists of ancient peoples are theological claims, not census records — and the Hittites are two entirely different peoples wearing one n...
#5800: A Friday in 700 BCE Jerusalem
What did an ordinary Friday actually look like in First Temple Jerusalem? Grinding stones, stew, and intestinal worms.