#2574 - Francis Foster & Konstantin Kisin

What the fuck is happening in Brazil? I don’t know enough to tell you the charges or separate rumor from fact, but taking a political opponent’s passport right after an election is wild. That’s the bigger problem now: every feed is full of breaking-news garbage, AI arrest photos, and stories that evaporate the second somebody checks them.

I’m very hesitant to trust something just because it’s on X or Facebook. People don’t spend hours working out political positions; they see what appears popular and absorb it. Bots and foreign actors can manufacture that sense of consensus, which is why knowing where coordinated accounts are operating from could matter.

You’ll see the same influencers again and again with a completely ridiculous take, yet the retweets look enormous. Monetization has made negative engagement a very easy product: annoy people, get the replies, get the money.

We’re joking about engagement, but our aim with Trigonometry has always been to talk to everybody: left-wing guests, libertarians, conservatives, whoever. The useful thing is a real conversation built on facts both people can at least recognize.

I’m interested in honest people, even if we disagree. I don’t want party loyalists who distort everything, talk over people, or show up to perform some gotcha spectacle. I’d rather sit with somebody like Bernie Sanders, whose politics I often reject but whose intentions I don’t see as evil, and ask whether old slogans still mean anything.

Climate is unbelievably complicated. I’m not saying warming is nothing to worry about, but acting like one clean slogan settles the whole history of temperature, solar activity, wind, carbon, and everything else is not science. Europe’s heat deaths are serious, but cold deaths and unaffordable energy are serious too; Britain needs air conditioning more than it has admitted.

To ordinary people, science sounds like dropping a phone and predicting what gravity does. Climate modeling is different: it rests on estimates and assumptions. Britain produces a tiny share of global emissions, yet expensive energy has made industry harder and left vulnerable people struggling to warm their homes.

My suspicion is that green policy often becomes a profit machine. Maybe the person with the science bumper sticker is genuinely trying to help, but corporations pushing a mandate are in boardrooms calculating returns. They’ll favor whatever energy source benefits them, then dress it up as moral concern.

People seem built for religion, or at least for something that provides belonging, forgiveness, rules, and cohesion. Without it, a political cause can become the substitute: climate, identity, whatever it is. Then disagreement stops being disagreement and turns into heresy.

I used to be snobby about religion; now I see parts of it as social technology. Gratitude, for example, changes how you experience life. You can care intensely about politics without marching around screaming at people, because that’s neither humane nor effective.

The internet defines each political side by its most insane people, and it warps your picture of everyone else. Long-form conversation is an antidote: somebody may catch a vicious clip about you, then hear you talk for two hours and realize, wait, this person seems reasonable. There’s clearly a hunger for that.

When I taught in East London, kids who came into class tense and ready for a fight changed after a week in the countryside. City life is like social media: constant stimulation, constant dopamine, always chasing the next hit. Quiet can become unbearable if you’ve never learned how to sit with it.

I love woods, birds, space, and a dark sky; cities feel like everybody stacked on top of each other’s energy. Nature puts the bullshit in perspective. If people are taking shots at you online, sit beside two three-hundred-year-old trees and ask yourself: who gives a fuck?

Lies still piss me off. Criticize my errors, my views, even my bad phrasing—I can take that. But don’t invent a version of me and sell it to strangers. That’s part of why we treat the show like a family restaurant: people ingest what we put out, so we can’t poison it merely for ten times the views.

History helps because people have always been messy, frightened, and capable of insanity. Ancient empires show the same power games, violence, religion, trade, and myth in different costumes. There was never some golden era where everybody had it figured out; we’re just more connected, more propagandized, and more anxious about it.

AI feels like a genuinely different-scale disruption. If a handful of companies create staggering wealth while jobs disappear, a check alone may not solve the problem. People need to feel they have a stake and a route upward; otherwise they’ll feel locked outside society, angry, and betrayed.

I had a pupil who struggled badly in class. I gave him the job of sharpening every pencil properly for the art lesson, thinking it was a consequence; he came back proud and asked if he could do it again. He didn’t need boredom—he needed to contribute and be good at something.

That’s the question with a universal high income. If automation removes the grind of survival, we’d have to teach people purpose, internal motivation, and the satisfaction of getting better at hard things. Maybe it opens a huge wave of art and invention, but sitting comfortable forever can hollow people out too.

The process matters. You can’t parachute someone into an important interview, a business, or any difficult craft and expect mastery; you need the miles, the mistakes, and the humility. Comfort is seductive, but most worthwhile things live just past it.

What gives me hope is that old stories still land. Teach kids the Odyssey and they recognize struggle, family, failure, and overcoming, whatever their background. Most people want a fairer, better world; we’ve got different routes, but if we treat each other only as enemies, we’re fucked.

There it is—we solved everything. Francis for president. Seriously though, it’s always fun talking to you guys. I love what you do, and you’re cool as fuck.