Can artificial intelligence ever be conscious? Michael Pollan says no, and at the Harvest Series in Kaplankaya, he lays out exactly why, starting with what he calls a faulty metaphor: the idea that the brain is a computer. Jeff and Pollan dig into consciousness science, plant sentience, and the psychedelic research that shaped Pollan's thinking, then turn to AI, chatbots, and what happens when people mistake simulation for feeling. The neuroscience case against AI consciousness, and why feelings may require a body, mortality, and the ability to suffer Plant sentience explained: what it means for a plant to sense, evaluate, and act, without being "conscious" The 22 competing theories of consciousness, and why they all hit the same wall Why the upper brainstem, not the cortex, may be where consciousness actually begins The rise of "AI psychosis" and why 72% of American teens now turn to AI for companionship This episode is for anyone following the AI consciousness debate who wants the case laid out by someone who's spent years studying the real science. This episode was made possible by: CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com Stripes: Visit stripesbeauty.com and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line. Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 20% off your order at vivobarefoot.com/commune. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com/commune.

Dante reserved his ninth circle for traitors, frozen for eternity. Jeff reserves it for competition dads who risk a bathroom break and miss their daughter's 90-second routine. In this episode, Jeff catalogs the special purgatory of the competition dance dad — the 5:30 a.m. wake-ups, the backstage snack runs, the UTI he'd rather get than miss a lyrical solo — until his daughters take the stage and, for four minutes, all of it makes sense. This is the thirteenth episode of Diaries of a Dance Dad, an audio memoir series in Jeff's own words. It spans the full arc of parenthood: the inhale of birth and early chaos, the grind of no sleep and travel with kids, the gut-punches of failure, and the slow exhale of letting go. Order Diaries of a Dance Dad audiobook & hear the tales that bookend my paternal journey from cradle to empty nestdom at ⁠⁠⁠onecommune.com/dancedad.⁠⁠⁠ This episode was made possible by: LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 20% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

A low dose of tirzepatide, taken purely to move the needle on cholesterol, turned out to move a lot more than that. In this episode, Jeff sits down again with Dr. Robin Berzin, founder of Parsley Health, to go through his bloodwork and an unexpected side effect: a blunting of desire that shows up in his coffee, his cocktails, and his ambition. Why losing your appetite for food can also mean losing it for coffee, alcohol, and sex What the dopamine and serotonin circuitry are actually doing on a GLP-1 The line between healthy desire and maladaptive craving, and where these drugs land on it Why some people feel liberated when "food noise" disappears, and others feel flattened What Jeff's ApoB and LDL numbers say about who these drugs actually help This episode is for anyone on a GLP-1 or weighing one, and anyone curious what these drugs are doing beyond the scale. This episode was made possible by: LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 20% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com/commune. CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

On her birthday, in a rented house in Hanalei, Jeff's daughter can't stop vomiting — and nothing he does helps. In this episode, Jeff traces a frightening hospital stay in Kauai back through years of guesswork about her health — probiotics, boundaries, arguments over medication — and finds, in a room stripped of anything else to do, an unexpected closeness with her. This is the twelfth episode of Diaries of a Dance Dad, an audio memoir series in Jeff's own words. It spans the full arc of parenthood: the inhale of birth and early chaos, the grind of no sleep and travel with kids, the gut-punches of failure, and the slow exhale of letting go. Order Diaries of a Dance Dad audiobook & hear the tales that bookend my paternal journey from cradle to empty nestdom at onecommune.com/dancedad. This episode was made possible by: Stripes: Visit ⁠stripesbeauty.com⁠ and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line. Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 20% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

Seventy thousand people build a city in the desert, survive on almost nothing they didn't bring themselves, and take it all down again — with no trash cans and no cleanup crew. This conversation was filmed live on the Aegean coast in Kaplankaya, Turkey, at Harvest Series, an annual thought leadership gathering where Jeff served as this year's MC. Jeff sits down with Marian Goodell, CEO of Burning Man, to unpack how radical self-reliance and communal effort somehow produce cooperation at a scale almost nothing else in modern life does. Why Burning Man works with no rubbish bins, no vendors, and no one enforcing cleanup The origin story: a beach bonfire 40 years ago that became Black Rock City How the 10 principles balance self-reliance against gifting and communal effort Why adversity — rain, dust storms, scarcity — is part of what bonds the community The global expansion into regional burns across 80+ countries Marian's own path to leading Burning Man, and why she wants more young people there This episode is for anyone curious about Burning Man beyond the headlines, and anyone interested in how large groups actually build trust and cooperate at scale.Video courtesy of Harvest Series — with thanks to the Harvest team for having us out there and making this conversation possible. This episode was made possible by: Stripes: Visit stripesbeauty.com and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line. Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 20% off your order at vivobarefoot.com/commune.Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at drinklmnt.com/commune. CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

Jeff has a field-tested method for embarrassing his daughters: impromptu pull-ups on subway scaffolding, a wake-up song called "School Days," and a rotating cast of accents that would make a dialect coach wince.In this episode, Jeff traces the accents — a southern drawl for Matthew McConaughey, a Dutch bur for Wim Hof — back to a mortifying kindergarten memory in Rio de Janeiro, and connects a childhood spent bouncing between countries to the quieter ache of dropping his daughter Lolli off at UNC.Order Diaries of a Dance Dad audiobook & hear the tales that bookend my paternal journey from cradle to empty nestdom at onecommune.com/dancedad. This episode was made possible by: LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 25% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stripes: Visit ⁠stripesbeauty.com⁠ and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line. CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

Eighty-two percent of pregnant women who got a COVID vaccine early in pregnancy miscarried — that's the claim now ricocheting across the internet, revived by newly released Fauci text messages and repeated to millions on Joe Rogan's podcast. In this bonus episode, Jeff walks through where that number actually came from, and why it doesn't mean what people think it means. What Fauci's private 2021 texts really say about vaccine timing and pregnancy risk How a preliminary CDC surveillance snapshot turned into a viral 82% statistic The statistical error (called censoring) that explains the whole thing What the completed research — meta-analyses of hundreds of thousands of pregnancies — actually shows Why the same skepticism people apply to the CDC should apply to a gym owner's arithmetic This episode is for anyone who's seen the 82% claim online, and anyone trying to think clearly about vaccine safety debates without picking a side first. This episode was made possible by: LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 25% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stripes: Visit ⁠stripesbeauty.com⁠ and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line. CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

Marianne Williamson keeps a ticker running on her Substack, counting down the days to the midterms. In this episode, she and Jeff dig into why she thinks these midterms may be the last chance for a truly free and fair election in 2028, walk through the DNC dysfunction and the rise of the DSA, and get candid about her own two runs for president and what they taught her about the party. Why Williamson believes the 2026 midterms are more consequential than any in recent memory The redistricting battle reshaping the House, and why a "normal" Democratic wave may not be enough How the DSA and candidates like Zohran Mamdani are pulling the party back toward its FDR-era roots What her own 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns revealed about the DNC's instincts, including an FBI briefing and a DNC official's apology Her case for why hope and reform are still possible, even in a "brutal" political moment This episode is for anyone trying to make sense of the Democratic Party's internal battles, and anyone wondering what's actually at stake in November. Marianne's new course, Midlife Awakening: Creating a Miraculous Next Chapter, guides students through the real work of this stage of life: atoning for old mistakes, practicing true forgiveness, and reframing midlife as a second puberty rather than a decline. Across eight sessions, it builds toward what she calls "rising as the phoenix," her framework for closing one chapter and consciously starting the next. Start the course for free at commune.to/awakening. Discover more from Marianne at marianne.com. This episode was made possible by:  LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 25% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stripes: Visit ⁠stripesbeauty.com⁠ and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line. CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com

Tonight, Phoebe is sleeping in her childhood bedroom for the last time. Tomorrow she boards a flight to Paris, where she's starting college six thousand miles from the house she grew up in. In this episode, Jeff walks through Phoebe's final night at home: cooking dinner together one more time, scrawling Buddhist maxims onto sticky notes for her nightstand, and quoting T.S. Eliot on beginnings and endings while she packs in the next room. He traces what it actually feels like to practice non-attachment when it stops being a concept from a book and starts being your own daughter leaving for good — and why the same lesson about breath and letting go that he learned the night she was born, eighteen years ago, turns out to be the hardest one to relearn now. This is the tenth episode of Diaries of a Dance Dad, an audio memoir series in Jeff's own words. It spans the full arc of parenthood: the inhale of birth and early chaos, the grind of no sleep and travel with kids, the gut-punches of failure, and the slow exhale of letting go. Order Diaries of a Dance Dad audiobook & hear the tales that bookend my paternal journey from cradle to empty nestdom at onecommune.com/dancedad. This episode was made possible by: CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 25% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stripes: Visit ⁠stripesbeauty.com⁠ and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line.

After 40, testosterone drops, muscle mass shrinks by 3 to 8% per decade, and the scale stops telling the truth about what's actually happening to your body. In this episode, Jeff sits down with Dr. Joey Munoz, a body composition coach and founder of Strong Standard, to break down what's really driving that decline and what to do about it. Why body composition, not weight, is the real marker to track The DEXA scan, waist-to-hip ratio, and at-home tools worth trusting The science of muscle protein synthesis, and why "effective reps" matter more than total reps How to build muscle without gaining weight through body recomposition Protein targets, meal timing, and the supplements actually worth taking Grass-Fed Shark: fasted cardio and the "zone two fat-burning zone" put to the test This episode is for anyone in their 40s, 50s, or 60s trying to hold onto the body they used to have, and anyone who wants a clear framework instead of gym folklore. Follow Dr. Joey Munoz across social media, or check out his podcast, "The Dr. Joey Munoz Show." Learn more about his coaching program at strongstandard.com. This episode was made possible by: CocoaVia: Use code COMMUNE2026 for 25% off at CocoaVia.com LMNT: Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at ⁠drinklmnt.com/commune⁠. Stemregen: Get 20% off your first order at stemregen.co/commune with the code COMMUNEPOD Vivobarefoot: Try Vivobarefoot risk-free with a 100-day return guarantee, and get 25% off your order at ⁠vivobarefoot.com/commune⁠. Stripes: Visit ⁠stripesbeauty.com⁠ and use the code COMMUNE20 for 20% off our entire product line.