Sean Illing

Interviews Writer at Vox

Host at Vox Conversations

Dad, Veteran, Author, “The Paradox of Democracy,” Host of The Gray Area. 👉 https://t.co/LaKarPNfqG

Articles

A new book explains how biology influences your ideology.

3 weeks ago | vox.com | Sean Illing

You often hear about “ideology” these days. Even if that word isn’t mentioned, it’s very much what’s being discussed. When President Donald Trump denounces the left, he’s talking about gender ideology or critical race theory or DEI. When the left denounces Trump, they talk about fascism. Wherever you look, ideology is being used to explain or dismiss or justify policies. Buried in much of this discourse is an unstated assumption that the real ideologues are on the other side.
Did our politics fail us during the coronavirus pandemic?

1 month ago | vox.com | Sean Illing

There are lots of stories to tell about the Covid pandemic, but most of them, if you drill down, are about politics. It’s about who made the decisions, who set the priorities, who mattered, who suffered the most, and why? Frances Lee is a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University and the co-author of a new book called In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us. It’s a careful book that treats our response to Covid as a kind of stress test for our political system.
Will AI become God? That’s the wrong question.

2 months ago | vox.com | Sean Illing

It’s hard to know what to think about AI. It’s easy to imagine a future in which chatbots and research assistants make almost everything we do faster and smarter. It’s equally easy to imagine a world in which those same tools take our jobs and upend society. Which is why, depending on who you ask, AI is either going to save the world or destroy it. What are we to make of that uncertainty? Jaron Lanier is a digital philosopher and the author of several bestselling books on technology.
Is ignorance truly bliss?

Feb 22, 2025 | vox.com | Sean Illing

Who hasn’t heard the phrase “ignorance is bliss” a thousand times? Like all cliches, it sticks because it’s rooted in truth, but it’s worth asking why ignorance can be so satisfying. If you read the history of philosophy, you don’t find all that much interest in the delights of ignorance. Instead, you hear a lot about the pursuit of truth, which is assumed to be a universal human impulse. That’s not entirely wrong, of course.
Chris Hayes on his new book about the war for your attention

Feb 1, 2025 | vox.com | Sean Illing

A friend of mine once told me that “You are where your attention is.” That line always stuck with me. It was a reminder that the most important choice we all make is also the most common one. It’s the decision about what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to. One of the primary features of this age of the internet and smartphones and algorithmic feeds is that our attention is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, because we’re endlessly pushed around by a parade of distractions.
A new book explains what we lose by relying on our phones

Jan 20, 2025 | vox.com | Sean Illing

How many times a day do you interact with devices? If you’re anything like me, it’s impossible to count. You’re reading this article on a phone or a tablet or a laptop. Maybe you used the alarm on your Apple Watch to wake up. Maybe you listened to a podcast while you brushed your teeth. Maybe you used an app to check the bus schedule or find a parking spot. Maybe you scrolled Instagram in the back of the Uber ride to work.
The Screens Between Us

Jan 13, 2025 | aei.org | Christine Rosen |Sean Illing

What is the first thing that you touch in the morning? What about the last thing you touch before you go to sleep? For many of us, it’s our phone. Digital devices are with us constantly, often putting a digital layer between us and the world. The benefits of this are enormous: convenience, efficiency, and constant stimulation. But is there a personal cost to living in a mediated reality?
Young men are falling behind. What should we do about it?

Dec 15, 2024 | vox.com | Sean Illing

What’s going on with men? There’s a growing body of evidence that men are falling behind. You can see it in education, in the labor market, and in the data on drug overdoses and deaths by suicide. The fact is, we have an alarming number of lonely, alienated, and disaffected young men in this country. And whatever the reasons for that, this is something we have to deal with as a society.
Stop overthinking: A philosopher’s case for getting out of your head

Dec 8, 2024 | vox.com | Sean Illing

Almost all of us know what a peak experience feels like. For some people, it’s climbing mountains or surfing; for others, it’s an intense meditation practice, or maybe it’s as simple as that sensation you get on the floor at a great concert. Call it a flow state or transcendence or whatever you want, but it’s a kind of ecstasy most of us have experienced at some point in our lives. And it’s something people have written about and explored for centuries.
What Trump’s second term means for American democracy

Nov 18, 2024 | vox.com | Sean Illing |Zack Beauchamp

It’s been two weeks since the presidential election and there has been no shortage of autopsies. If anything surprised me about the outcome, it’s not that Donald Trump won, but how he did it. The president-elect won all seven swing states and the popular vote, and seemed to gain ground with basically every demographic except college-educated women. That is a political reckoning for the Democratic Party.