Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg artwork

Social Sciences · Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

by Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking is a podcast about ideas that truly matter. If you enjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks, wish you had more deep, intellectual conversations in your life, or are looking for non-BS self-improvement, then we think you'll love this podcast! Each week we invite a brilliant guest to bring four important ideas to discuss for an in-depth conversation. Topics include psychology, society, behavior change, philosophy, science, artificial intelligence, math, economics, self-help, mental health, and technology. We focus on ideas that can be applied right now to make your life better or to help you better understand yourself and the world, aiming to teach you the best mental tools to enhance your learning, self-improvement efforts, and decision-making. • We take on important, thorny questions like: • What's the best way to help a friend or loved one going through a difficult time? How can we make our worldviews more accurate? How can we hone the accuracy of our thinking? What are the advantages of using our "gut" to make decisions? And when should we expect careful, analytical reflection to be more effective? Why do societies sometimes collapse? And what can we do to reduce the chance that ours collapses? Why is the world today so much worse than it could be? And what can we do to make it better? What are the good and bad parts of tradition? And are there more meaningful and ethical ways of carrying out important rituals, such as honoring the dead? How can we move beyond zero-sum, adversarial negotiations and create more positive-sum interactions?

Chart trend

Position in the Social Sciences chart (US), last 90 days.

#4
all-time peak
5
days in the top 10 since Nov 2024

Latest episodes

Showing 20 · updated from the feed

Can We End Factory Farming Without Giving Up Meat? (with Bruce Friedrich)

#17 trending · Social Sciences

Read the full transcript here. Why is producing meat so inefficient? How does animal agriculture contribute to hunger and malnutrition? How large are the environmental

Sep 4
1 h 07 min

Our relationship to chatbots (with Claire Boine)

Read the full transcript here. What makes an attachment to AI meaningfully different from an attachment to a human, animal, or fictional character? If chatbot relation

Aug 18
1 h 01 min

The good advice you least want (with Cate Hall)

Read the full transcript here. Why do people gravitate toward self-help that reinforces the strategies they already use well? How can we identify the default lens thro

Aug 8
1 h 05 min

Why housing costs so much and what can be done about it (with Alex Armlovich)

Read the full transcript here. How large is the housing crisis, and why does it impose trillions of dollars in economic costs? Why has housing become especially unaffo

Jul 31
1 h 17 min

How To Pursue Goals without Striving (with Stephen Zerfas)

Read the full transcript here. Why can the same meditation technique produce emotional openness in one person and dissociation in another? How can meditators tell whet

Jul 24
1 h 31 min

Bicameral Minds and Leaderless Tribes (with Tor Parsons)

Read the full transcript here. What happens to a community when no one has the formally recognized authority to punish, exclude, or forgive? Are written rules a constr

Jul 7
1 h 19 min

How Small Actions Rewrite Identity (with Eric Zimmer)

Read the full transcript here. What changes when we stop imagining transformation as a single breakthrough and start seeing it as thousands of small, low-resistance ac

Jun 26
1 h 17 min

The Twelve Levers for a better life (with Jeremy Stevenson)

Read the full transcript here. Why is so much self-help useless, and why is some of it genuinely life-changing? What separates a powerful psychological technique from

Jun 19
42 min

The Hidden History of Evidence-Based Everything (with Helen Pearson)

Read the full transcript here. How do we know whether the things we do every day actually work? Why do so many practices in medicine, parenting, education, conservatio

Jun 12
1 h 17 min

Is cash a better form of charitable aid? (with Nick Allardice)

Read the full transcript here. How much good is lost when charity optimizes only for what can be measured? When does a cost-effectiveness model clarify reality, and wh

Jun 5
1 h 15 min

When painful thoughts feel true but aren't (with Christine Padesky)

Read the full transcript here. Why do our minds sometimes need experiments more than insight? What changes when therapy becomes a way of practicing life outside the th

Jun 1
1 h 20 min

Could an international agreement protect us from dangerous AI? (with Malo Bourgon)

Read the full transcript here. What are the world’s leading AI companies actually trying to build when they talk about superintelligence? Is the goal merely better cha

May 22
1 h 27 min

Is patriarchy gone or hiding in plain sight? (with Kate Manne)

Read the full transcript here. If progress is real but uneven, what metrics actually matter—outcomes, perceptions, or lived vulnerability? When we say “things are bett

May 13
1 h 38 min

Is string theory BS or the most promising theory in physics? (with Christian Ferko)

Read the full transcript here. How do we tell the difference between a theory that is incomplete and a theory that is simply wrong? What should count as success in fun

Apr 24
1 h 38 min

What's true and what's myth about trauma? (with George Bonnano)

Read the full transcript here. What should count as trauma, and what gets lost when the word expands to cover ordinary distress? Why do some frightening events leave l

Apr 24
1 h 21 min

Are we in an honesty crisis? (with Christian B. Miller)

Read the full transcript here. Is dishonesty best understood as a permanent feature of human nature or as a condition that worsens when incentives and tools change? Wh

Apr 17
1 h 14 min

What impact will AI have on jobs and the economy? (with Anton Korinek)

Read the full transcript here. Could AI trigger an economic break as large as the Industrial Revolution, or even larger? What changes when labor stops being the main b

Apr 9
1 h 19 min

The seductiveness of secular gurus (with Christopher Kavanagh)

Read the full transcript here. What makes broad, all-encompassing worldviews so attractive in periods of institutional distrust? Why do charismatic figures become espe

Apr 3
2 h 00 min

What beats intuition when it comes to doing good? (with Marcus Davis)

Read the full transcript here. If you enjoy our podcast, we have some exciting news – we’ve just launched a new membership called Clearer Thinking Plus. Members get

Mar 27
1 h 16 min

Can averages explain a human life? (with Steven C. Hayes)

Read the full transcript here. If you enjoy our podcast, we have some exciting news – we’ve just launched a new membership called Clearer Thinking Plus. Members get

Mar 19
1 h 21 min

Chart positions

Where Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 7, 2026).

#195 NEW Science US
#21 ▲ 2 Social Sciences US

What listeners say

A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.

I’m a new listener but so far so good. I appreciate discussions where the purpose is to communicate ideas and generate understanding and that is what I’m seeing here so far. I do feel like a little bit of background or context at the opening would be useful. Just listened to an entire episode without knowing who the guest was (I wasn’t able to read the title as I was driving). Other than that, and the dash of pretentiousness from the host, I found it enjoyable and informative. Thank you for providing a quality podcast!

Who Writes Reviews, Anyway? · Dec 2025

Spencer is a wonderful host - curious, great questions, articulate, deeply knowledgeable across disciplines, and he senses so skillfully into when/if to interrupt the guest to redirect. A very generous conversationalist. And the list of guests! Wow. Just listened to the Nick Bostrom episode (aug 2024) and loved the mix of deep thinking with relatable, lovely metaphors - and the territory they covered was not at all easy to cover well in one episode. And of course there are so many other great guests/episodes. Thank you Spencer - what a gift!

patrickwal · Aug 2024

I am so grateful to Spencer and his team for this podcast. It’s hard for me to believe that something so useful and high quality is given away for free. The guests and topics are uniquely special and have been extremely impactful and enlightening for me. They have led to rich explorations of ideas and fields I had never been exposed to. Thank you Spencer!!

maximente · Aug 2024

I’ve constantly found myself absorbing something new each time I listen to Spencer’s pod - it has become one of my favorites. He is transparent about how he has learned to be a deeper conversationalist and those lessons have even taught me how to branch my own conversations better so that I can learn more in my interactions with others. Thank you, Spencer - please keep producing!

FitlilB · Mar 2024

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About Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg on Reason.fm

Here you find the Apple Podcasts chart positions of Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg, its latest episodes to listen to directly, and reviews from listeners. Rankings are updated daily for the United States.

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