Shane Smith Has Questions

Latest Episodes:

The Hidden Side of Psychedelic Research ft. Hamilton Morris | Shane Smith Has Questions Sep 25, 2025

Show notes

Psychedelics are reshaping medicine and culture. Ayahuasca ceremonies, ibogaine treatments, and ketamine clinics promise breakthroughs but raise hard questions about safety, tradition, and control. Hamilton Morris joins Shane Smith to unpack the science, myths, and politics behind today’s psychedelic movement. He breaks down the promises of ibogaine clinics, the rise of ketamine in psychiatry, and the battles over MDMA research, showing how curiosity and controversy continue to shape the future of psychedelics. The conversation highlights how political and economic forces influence the direction of psychedelic research.

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Are We Headed for Global Chaos? ft. Ian Bremmer | Shane Smith Has Questions Sep 18, 2025

Show notes

Drone warfare is changing the battlefield fast. Cheap swarms can overwhelm defenses, strike deep, and create new security threats—from war zones to stadiums. Add cyber attacks and grid probes, and the gray zone keeps expanding with no clear rules or deterrents. Global power dynamics are shifting. Trump’s tough talk on Xi, Putin, and Kim clashes with stalled diplomacy and a rising China filling global gaps. With India tensions growing and Europe carrying more of Ukraine, globalization looks more fractured than ever. The tech race is also splitting. The U.S. leads in AI—for now—but China is sprinting ahead in clean energy. Climate risks are real, but so is the chance to build a cheaper, cleaner future—if politics doesn't block the way.

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Addiction, Injuries & the Cost of Comedy ft. Johnny Knoxville | Shane Smith Has Questions Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

Johnny Knoxville sits down with Shane Smith to discuss the physical and emotional costs of his career. He reflects on the chaotic start of Jackass, the pressures of sudden fame, and serious injuries like concussions and an eye fracture that nearly ended his life. The conversation covers his collaborations with Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine, the shift from MTV to feature films, and the political backlash that ultimately forced the show off the air. Knoxville speaks openly about his mental health struggles after repeated head trauma and how he found stability through therapy. Beyond the stunts, Knoxville highlights projects he’s proud of, including The Ringer, his outlaw country radio show, and documentaries like The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. This honest talk reveals a rarely seen side of Knoxville—the man behind the daredevil persona who lived through the consequences.

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What the U.S. Military Knows About UFOs ft. Jeremy Corbell Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Shane sits down with investigative filmmaker and UFO researcher Jeremy Corbell to explore the most controversial and captivating subject of our time: Are we alone in the universe? Corbell—known for his viral military UFO releases and his documentaries like Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers—walks Shane through some of the most compelling cases of unexplained aerial phenomena ever captured. From the infamous “Mosul Orb” to Navy encounters with pyramid-shaped craft, Corbell shares vetted military footage, insider accounts, and the ongoing fight to force government transparency. The two dig into the shift from “UFO” to UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), testimony before Congress about crash retrieval programs and “biologics,” and the broader philosophical stakes if non-human intelligence is confirmed. Along the way, they debate proof, secrecy, and what disclosure could mean for humanity.

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How Psychiatry Lost Its Way ft. Phil Stutz | Shane Smith Has Questions Aug 21, 2025

Show notes

Shane sits down with psychiatrist and bestselling author Phil Stutz to unpack the failures of modern psychiatry and why traditional methods often fall short. They explore how Stutz developed The Tools after realizing most therapy wasn’t helping patients, and why action—not endless analysis—is the real path to change. Stutz shares how experiences with anxiety, depression, and the fight against “Part X” informed his groundbreaking methods. They discuss gratitude as a weapon against despair, the power of human connection in healing, and why facing mortality head-on can spark creativity and meaning. Visit RocketRX now for 30% off your first order - https://www.rebrand.ly/ada758

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Why Playing It Safe Kills Brands ft. Mike Cessario | Shane Smith Has Questions Aug 14, 2025

Show notes

Shane sits down with Liquid Death Founder/CEO Mike Cessario to talk branding, politics, and the power of provocation. They dive into how Liquid Death turned Internet hate into a billion-dollar water brand, why execution matters more than ideas, and how cultural tension fuels marketing breakthroughs. Cessario draws parallels between brand-building and political strategy, analyzing figures like Gavin Newsom, AOC, Trump, and Bernie Sanders through a marketer’s lens. They explore the dangers of brands playing it too safe, the role of advertisers as modern-day censors, and the shifting landscape of media in the age of AI, social virality, and meme culture. Packed with war stories, from Brandy ventures to high-stakes Super Bowl ads, this episode is a masterclass in disruptive marketing, joined with part cultural commentary and banter between two media-savvy provocateurs.

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The Dark Side of Deterrence & Nuclear Science ft. Taylor Wilson | Shane Smith Has Questions Aug 07, 2025

Show notes

Shane and nuclear-physics prodigy Taylor Wilson on the past, present, and future of atomic science, how Cold-War close calls, and today’s aging launch warning systems, make accidental nuclear war scarier than a deliberate attack, why Russia’s hypersonic torpedoes and cheap Ukrainian drones both reveal the same uneasy truth: deterrence math is being rewritten in real time. They dive into Wilson’s quest for radiation-proof bacteria, his optimism about compact fusion reactors and geothermal grids that could outcompete fossil fuels, and the data-driven breakthroughs quantum computing may unlock in medicine and materials. They dismantle moon-landing conspiracies with hard evidence, reveal natural fission reactors buried in Gabon two billion years ago, track the search for dark matter and alien microbes on Europa and Mars, and argue that the 21st-century energy race could end in abundance—if humanity can keep its trigger finger off aging warheads long enough for science to deliver.

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The Quantum Chip That Might Change Everything ft. Julian Kelly | Shane Smith Has Questions Jul 31, 2025

Show notes

Shane Smith sits down with Julian Kelly, Senior Director of Hardware at Google  Quantum AI and architect of the groundbreaking Willow chip, to map out the next frontier of computing. Kelly explains how Google’s 100 plus qubit processors now complete benchmark tasks in minutes that would outlive the universe on today’s fastest supercomputers, why error corrected “logical” qubits are the last hurdle to practical machines, and which real world problems will fall first once quantum power comes online. Along the way they tackle encryption panic, AI synergy, the global quantum race, and the mind bending philosophy behind many worlds.

Conversation Highlights:

Willow & “beyond classical” benchmarks: 10²⁵year speedup over conventional supercomputers

Roadmap milestones → quantum supremacy → scalable error correction →“Milestone 3” logical qubit

Drug discovery, battery chemistry, fertilizer synthesis, fusion research & other early killer apps

Post-quantum cryptography and the myth vs. reality of “QDay” data breach fears
Cooling to 10 milliKelvin, chip design shifts from DWave annealers to gate based processors

How AI can train on quantum generated data—and how quantum can turbocharge AI research

Global landscape: Google’s lead, government labs, and the rise of private startups
Philosophical detours: superposition, entanglement, many worlds interpretations
Five-year horizon for the first commercially useful quantum workload
Kelly’s personal journey—from UCSB lab tinkerer to Google’s quantum hardware chief

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Inside the WILD World of Independent Journalism ft. Andrew Callaghan | Shane Smith Has Questions Jul 24, 2025

Show notes

Shane  Smith sits down with Channel 5 and All Gas No Brakes founder Andrew Callaghan. They discuss Andrew’s hitchhiking origins, his first full-length interview with Hunter Biden and they unpack the rise and fall of All Gas No Brakes, the birth of Channel 5’s “global newsroom,” and why a single bad real-estate deal turned a Louisiana lawyer into the Q-pilled protagonist of Callaghan’s documentary This Place Rules. Smith and Callaghan swap war stories about embedding with warlords, avoiding stomach parasites, and learning to read a room when everyone is armed. They riff on Hunter Thompson, Louis Theroux, depersonalization, and the perils of becoming “industry approved.” The conversation veers from South African politics and resource curses to the revelation that Democratic Party powerbrokers pressured President Biden to bow out of 2024—straight from Hunter Biden, according to Callaghan. Part origin story, part media-critique, part travelogue, the episode is a masterclass in modern gonzo journalism and a candid look at what relentless public scrutiny does to artists and politicians alike.

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Inside LA’s Wildfire Crisis & Political Fallout ft. Karen Bass | Shane Has Questions | Vice News Jul 17, 2025

Show notes

When wildfires, homelessness, and immigration collide, Los Angeles becomes a focal point for America’s biggest debates. In this candid, hourlong sitdown, Shane Smith presses L.A. Mayor  Karen  Bass on everything from her controversial trip to Ghana during the Palisades inferno to the missing billions earmarked for homelessness relief. Bass pulls back the curtain on firedepartment missteps, why she fired the city’s fire chief, and how a thousand unused veteran housing vouchers were finally unlocked. Along the way, volunteer firefighter and Community  Brigade cofounder Keegan Gibbs joins Shane to recount the night Malibu burned and explains why even the bestequipped departments can be powerless against hurricaneforce winds. Bass lays out her plan to rebuild faster—thanks in part to an unexpected assist from the Trump administration’s Army  Corps of  Engineers—and reveals a new public/private partnership with developer Rick  Caruso and NBA vet JJ Redick to restore a devastated rec center.

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