Context with Brad Harris

"Trust the science" is a phrase Robert Boyle would have found horrifying. The Royal Society he co-founded in 1660 inscribed exactly the opposite principle on its coat of arms: Nullius in verba — take nobody's word for it. Modern science was built as an anti-authority institution, forged in the wreckage of two decades of religious civil war that had killed roughly two hundred thousand Englishmen over questions of belief no available method could settle. The founding insight of the Scientific Revolution was that the moment a body of knowledge becomes a body of authority, it stops functioning as science and starts functioning as a priesthood. That founding discipline made the modern world possible. And we are losing it. In this episode, Brad Harris argues that the credentialing bodies, the prestigious journals, the medical associations, and the public-health apparatus the public now calls "the science" have, over the last decade, stopped functioning as the institution the Royal Society built and started functioning as the institution it was founded to replace. He walks through four cases that make the inversion impossible to ignore — the lab leak, pediatric gender medicine, the replication crisis, and climate communication — and names the mechanism: an ideological autoimmune disease that has done more damage to public trust in science in five years than industry-funded "merchants of doubt" managed in fifty. Context with Brad Harris traces the intellectual lineage of the modern world. Support the show and get ad-free episodes plus bonus content at patreon.com/bradcoleharris. Brad's earlier series How It Began: A History of the Modern World is available at howitbegan.com and on Gumroad.

Modern life runs on hidden engine rooms—vast, intricate systems most of us never see. The Haber-Bosch process, which turns air into fertilizer, is one of them. It feeds billions, yet almost no one outside of science or industry could explain how it works or why it matters. In this episode, we explore Haber-Bosch not just as a technological marvel, but as a parable for our dependence on complex systems most of us barely understand. From the fight over bird droppings in the 19th century to the industrial alchemy of fixing nitrogen, we trace how human ingenuity transformed the limits of nature, and how that transformation fostered both abundance and fragility. This is a story about the machinery that sustains us, and the risks we run when we forget it's there. To keep the show ad-free and access over a dozen bonus episodes, join me on Patreon or subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Why did we stop believing in utopia? By the late 19th century, many Americans had come to believe that the future would be defined by peace, prosperity, and moral progress. But over the next century, optimism gave way to fear—war, nuclear weapons, and runaway technology began to reshape our vision of what was possible. In this episode of Context, we explore how our ideas about the future have evolved—from Edward Bellamy's best-seller Looking Backward (1888), to H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come (1933), to The Terminator series (1984), and finally to Brian Christian's The Alignment Problem (2020). Along the way, we trace the rise of techno-utopianism, the shock of dystopian realism, and the ethical dilemmas now posed by artificial intelligence. The history of the future has never mattered more. To support the show and access bonus episodes, join me on Patreon or subscribe through Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

A century ago, Oswald Spengler warned that Western civilization was entering its final phase—not from war or catastrophe, but from cultural exhaustion. In The Decline of the West, he argued that every great society passes through organic stages of growth and decay—and the West, he claimed, had already entered winter. In this episode of Context, we revisit Spengler's audacious and unsettling vision. We explore the patterns he identified—technocracy, Caesarism, the erosion of civic virtue—and ask whether Spengler's predictions still hold up. Are we watching a great civilization fade… or transform? Topics include: • Spengler's life, method, and seasonal model of civilization • Parallels between ancient Rome and the modern West • Technological achievement vs. cultural vitality • Why memory and myth matter for renewal • The possibility of rebirth—and what spring might require If you value this show, please take a moment to give it a five-star rating. To unlock *supporter-only episodes, join me on Patreon, or subscribe in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

This is a short preview of a supporter-only bonus episode. In this episode, I explore the psychological and philosophical reasons we keep projecting something human into our machines. From ancient automata to Boston Dynamics, from Descartes to modern AI, we've been building mechanical reflections of ourselves for centuries. But why? What does it say about us that we want our machines to seem alive—even when we know they aren't? 🎧 To hear the full episode, head to: https://patreon.com/bradcoleharris

The SEC was created to protect investors—but is it now protecting incumbents instead? In this episode of Context, we explore the rise of unelected bureaucracies and their hostility to innovation, using crypto regulation as a lens into a larger democratic dysfunction. From the roots of the administrative state to today's battle between blockchain pioneers and entrenched financial regulators, we explore how bureaucratic overreach can derail progress—and what it would take for America to rediscover its courage to build. Topics include: • SEC vs. Ripple Labs and Coinbase • Regulatory capture and the death of oversight • Blockchain, XRP, and the Internet of Value • American innovation and bureaucratic stagnation Support the show: patreon.com/bradcoleharris

If you like this stuff and you'd like to hear more, please support my work on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bradcoleharris

"Notes on Nationalism" was an essay written by George Orwell in 1945, just as World War II was ending. It caused quite a stir at the time, but most people these days have never heard of it. Nonetheless, "Notes on Nationalism" remains one of the most powerful examples of Orwell's timeless insight into human nature; in this case, focused on our instinct to gang up on each other, our instinct for tribalism. Orwell never used the term "tribalism" himself -- he wrote this essay a generation before that term became widespread. However, I suspect his essay was a primary factor in raising awareness of the social pathology of tribalism, and his diagnosis of the problem precisely captures the liabilities of tribalism plaguing us today. To help support Context and access bonus episodes, join me on Patreon. Learn more at bradharris.com