Lost Debate

Lost Debate

Lost Debate is a weekly podcast from The Branch that brings you news, ideas, and arguments from around the political spectrum. We engage in the good-faith discussions that too much of our society and media miss. It's hosted by Ravi Gupta, a former Obama staffer turned school principal.

Episodes

Wacky Economy, Epstein Fallout, Our Elders

February 11, 2026 • 75 mins
Ravi Gupta examines new data challenging the idea of a strong economic recovery and connects the week’s biggest political and cultural stories—from deficits, tariffs, and the Epstein revelations to immigration, schools, and AI—before asking a deeper question: what holds a society together when trust in institutions fades? In conversation with former Obama White House lawyer Jason Green, the focus turns to memory, community, and pre...
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More Epstein Revelations

February 5, 2026 • 24 mins
Ravi breaks down the week’s most important stories. He examines what’s wrong with the Epstein file release—and what it reveals about elite culture, status addiction, and moral drift. He then turns to an under-covered AI development: a bot-only social network powered by autonomous agents already behaving in unsettling ways. Plus: a striking Cato Institute report on immigration and deficits, a Texas special-election swing, election-s...
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Pretti Killing, ICE Impunity, NVIDIA Dominance

January 28, 2026 • 79 mins
Ravi begins by explaining why this conversation matters to him: although he’s often skeptical of tech leaders, he sees Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as a rare and genuinely consequential figure. He briefly reflects on the Pretti shooting in Minnesota and the broader questions it raises about accountability and transparency before turning to the interview. Ravi then speaks with author Stephen Witt about the forces that shaped Jensen’s lea...
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The Moral Cost of Phones

January 21, 2026 • 46 mins
Ravi sits down with journalist Nick Niarchos, author of The Elements of Power, to expose the hidden human and geopolitical costs behind the batteries powering our phones and cars. They connect Congo’s brutal mining realities and China’s dominance of the battery supply chain to the myths we tell ourselves about “green” tech. It’s a gripping, unsettling look at whether EVs and other battery-powered solutions are nearly as clean—or as...
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Minnesota, Powell, MAGA Intellectuals

January 14, 2026 • 72 mins
Ravi opens by running through a turbulent week: the Minnesota ICE shooting, concerns about escalating federal power, and the DOJ’s reported probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s independence, alongside global flash points like Iran and a U.S. electorate that’s increasingly independent. With institutions under strain and norms being tested in real time, he then turns to the ideas shaping this moment. That sets the stage for his conve...
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Venezuela, Bari Weiss, State Censorship

January 7, 2026 • 50 mins
The U.S. just carried out a stunning strike in Venezuela—capturing Nicolás Maduro—and Ravi argues the hard part isn’t the raid, but the chaos, precedent, and “what happens next,” with oil looming over everything. He’s then joined by The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer to unpack the CBS/60 Minutes controversy, where a vetted segment on deportations to an overseas prison was spiked, allegedly to appease the Trump administration. Serwer argues...
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The End of Culture

December 31, 2025 • 56 mins
Ravi sits down with cultural critic W. David Marx (author of Blank Space) to ask a simple question: if there’s more music, TV, and art than ever, why does culture feel so… stuck? Marx argues it’s not that people stopped creating—it’s that we’ve stopped treating new, daring work like it matters, so breakthroughs rarely spread and change the mainstream. They unpack how algorithms and money-driven incentives steer us toward what’s alr...
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Are We Getting Stupider?

December 18, 2025 • 43 mins
Are We Getting Stupider? Andrew Rice joins The Lost Debate to ask an uncomfortable question: why are America’s schools getting worse—even in places that claim to care most about equity? Drawing on sobering national data and reporting from affluent liberal districts, Rice argues that declining standards, political complacency, and the abandonment of accountability have quietly erased decades of progress for kids. Ravi and Rice deba...
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The Worst Story of the Year

December 10, 2025 • 37 mins
This episode takes a visit to the goonverse — a strange online world where hundreds of thousands of people spend hours chasing a “goon state,” a trance-like high reached through marathon adult video consumption. Ravi talks with reporter Daniel Kolitz, whose Harper’s article on this community has become a viral sensation: horrifying, riveting, and impossible to look away from. Together they explore what this subculture reveals about...
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How to Think About 2026

December 3, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of The Lost Debate, Ravi steps back from the noise to map the forces that will shape 2026—from AI disruption and China’s industrial surge to U.S. political fractures, economic stress points, and the new wave of weight-loss drugs. Instead of predictions, he lays out the big questions we’ll all have to face in the year ahead. He also opens up about his own fight with “attention poverty,” why he’s switching to a flip p...
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The Market Is Speaking — Are You Listening?

November 19, 2025 • 56 mins
Ravi sits down with Lawrence McDonald to reveal why the classic “just buy the index” advice may now be one of the biggest risks in the market. They break down how passive investing, AI-driven mega-caps, and relentless stock buybacks have concentrated everyone’s savings into a fragile handful of stocks. McDonald explains how de-dollarization, shrinking demand for U.S. treasuries, and nonstop bailouts are rewriting the safety playboo...
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The Age of Extraction

November 13, 2025 • 48 mins
Ravi sits down with Tim Wu, author of The Age of Extraction, to unpack how America’s biggest tech empires rose—and why they might be due for a breakup. From Teddy Roosevelt’s railroad wars to Amazon’s pay-to-play marketplace, Wu traces how antitrust battles have shaped innovation for more than a century. He explains how Amazon’s tactics—copycat products, buried listings, and punishing sellers—mirror the monopolies of the past, and ...
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Shrinking US Pop, SC on Tariffs, Low Expectations

November 6, 2025 • 56 mins
Ravi and Idrees Kahloon start with the current Supreme Court showdown: can a president raise tariffs alone, or does Congress have to sign off? They unpack why the Court might push back—and what that could mean for future presidents. Then they turn to immigration, where the U.S. may soon have more people leaving than arriving, with big effects on jobs and Social Security. Finally, they dig into education: why test scores are falling...
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Things Are Really Bad

October 30, 2025 • 66 mins
Ravi welcomes back Tangle News founder Isaac Saul to discuss his viral essay, “Things Are Really Bad Right Now,” and why he believes recent actions should trouble Americans across the spectrum. They dig into alleged abuses in immigration enforcement, killings at sea, politicized prosecutions, and mounting pressure on the press. Isaac explains why abandoning party loyalty—and focusing only on whether leaders uphold basic principles—...
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Everything I Know About Health & Fitness

October 22, 2025 • 34 mins
Ravi Gupta shares the health and fitness lessons he’s learned from running Squadra, his training program for professionals. He emphasizes simplicity and breaks down what truly works—lifting heavy, sprinting occasionally, eating protein, and tuning out wellness hype. Covering biomarkers, wearables, and supplements, his message is clear: real progress comes from consistency, not trends. Fitness, Ravi reminds us, isn’t about perfectio...
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Why I’ve Changed How I Invest

October 8, 2025 • 30 mins
Ravi Gupta asks: What if the greatest risk in markets today isn’t missing out on AI—but believing it can never crash? In this solo deep dive, he unpacks why today’s trillion-dollar bets on artificial intelligence may mirror past manias—and why, with pensions, private equity, and passive index funds all in the mix, the next downturn could look less like Silicon Valley in 2000 and more like Japan’s lost decade. All of these arguments...
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Why AI Kisses Your Ass

October 1, 2025 • 39 mins
Ravi Gupta sits down with The Atlantic’s Matteo Wong to dig into why AI chatbots act like digital yes-men—and the risks that come with it. They explore how reinforcement learning fuels this sycophancy, why companies shape bot “personalities,” and what it means for safety. Along the way, they cover teen harms, Musk’s Grok pushing conspiracies, Google’s Gemini edge, and OpenAI’s massive reach. The episode asks the big question: can a...
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Why America’s Kids Are Anxious

September 24, 2025 • 47 mins
Ravi Gupta welcomes back Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and president of Let Grow, to explore how fear-driven parenting and digital distraction are reshaping childhood. From the 1980s milk-carton panic to today’s surveillance tech, they show how over-scheduling breeds helplessness instead of competence. Citing new polling, Skenazy reveals kids overwhelmingly prefer unstructured play with friends over screens or adult-run...
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A War on the First Amendment

September 17, 2025 • 43 mins
Ravi dissects the assassination of Charlie Kirk and what it reveals about America’s escalating era of political violence. He examines the FBI’s failures, the right’s contradictions on free speech, and the Trump administration’s use of state power against ideological opponents. The episode also looks at media consolidation, TikTok’s looming takeover, foreign AI entanglements, and the widening economic divide in the U.S. Ravi closes ...
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Is AI Overhyped? With Cal Newport

September 10, 2025 • 58 mins
Ravi sits down with bestselling author Cal Newport to unpack the hype and reality of artificial intelligence. They explore how AI may actually be hurting productivity by diminishing our ability to focus, and why that matters more than ever. Cal lays out a compelling “bear case” for AI, arguing that the revolution we’ve been promised may not materialize anytime soon. Ravi and Cal discuss why most jobs aren’t going away, why the futu...
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