Episodes

  • Walkie Talkies

    Walkie Talkies
    May 12 2026
    In this monthly Hard Knox essay Amanda explores the "third way of being": not alone, not truly together, but that warm middle state where you want someone near without the obligation of actually meeting them. It's the feeling of knowing your mom is down the hall at 2am. It's reading on the couch while someone cooks in the other room. What begins as a parenting anecdote unfolds into a sharp, philosophical meditation on technology, presence, and why the easiest forms of connection may be quietly eroding our capacity for both real closeness and true aloneness. Best enjoyed with someone nearby who you don't have to talk to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    15 mins
  • Old School: Monsters (Claire Dederer)

    Old School: Monsters (Claire Dederer)
    May 5 2026
    We are now routinely faced with a dilemma: News breaks hat an artist beloved has done something horrible. How does that change our experience of their art? There’s no one better to help us explore this thorny territory than Claire Dederer, author of "Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma." Get a copy of Claire's book at: https://www.powells.com/book/monsters-9780525655114 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr
  • The Myth of Confrontation

    The Myth of Confrontation
    Apr 28 2026
    What happens when confronting the person who hurt you doesn’t bring the closure you hoped for? In this episode, Amanda responds to a listener wrestling with whether to confront an abusive family member and what to do when that conversation goes nowhere. Drawing from her own experience facing her former prosecutor, she unpacks the crucial difference between healing and accountability, and why tying your recovery to someone else’s response can set you up for deeper pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    44 mins
  • Why Men Need a Tribe (Elliott Ackerman)

    Why Men Need a Tribe (Elliott Ackerman)
    Apr 21 2026
    Elliot Ackerman is a decorated combat veteran, CIA paramilitary officer, and New York Times bestselling novelist. In this episode, he joins Amanda Knox to talk about what happens when the chapter closes and you have to figure out who you are without the tribe. They get into the Afghanistan withdrawal, institutional betrayal, what it actually means to raise boys well. And from his What a Man Should Know column on The Free Press, learn why men make friends shoulder to shoulder instead of face to face, and what gets lost when nobody talks to boys with intention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 7 mins
  • A Wee Existential Crisis

    A Wee Existential Crisis
    Apr 14 2026
    What do you do when the thing that gave your life shape is finally, imperfectly, done? In this solo episode, Amanda Knox reads an original essay about arriving at the other side of an eighteen-year fight for her own story. She writes about motherhood, the fear of being called a narcissist for mining her own trauma, Bo Burnham, and the stubborn suspicion that measuring yourself against the worst thing that ever happened to you might be exactly the wrong way to keep score. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    15 mins
  • How Paying for Intimacy Changes Everything (Andrea Werhun)

    How Paying for Intimacy Changes Everything (Andrea Werhun)
    Apr 7 2026
    Andrea Werhun is an author, filmmaker, and former sex worker whose memoir and documentary Modern Whore challenge how we think about sex, labor, and stigma. In this wide ranging and often funny conversation, Andrea and Amanda dig into the making of the film, including its stylized recreations, dark humor, and the moment Amanda found herself rethinking whether sex work is truly different from other forms of intimate labor like therapy, caregiving, or au pairing. Along the way, they unpack the role of criminalization in creating harm, the politics of shame, and why putting a price on access to your body can radically change how you understand boundaries, value, and freedom. Modern Whore is out May 1, 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 25 mins
  • Musing: Ignorance Is Not Objectivity

    Musing: Ignorance Is Not Objectivity
    Mar 31 2026
    What's the difference between bias and expertise? When a critic dismissed Amanda Knox's commentary on the Lucy Letby case as the grievance of a biased woman, the real question got buried: can lived experience be a form of expertise? And if so, what's the line between pattern recognition and confirmation bias? Amanda and Chris dig into the cognitive science, the structural failures of the justice system, and the countermeasures that might actually help us get it right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    51 mins
  • Why You Believe Weird Things (Michael Shermer)

    Why You Believe Weird Things (Michael Shermer)
    Mar 24 2026
    What is truth, and why does finding it actually matter? Amanda sits down with Dr. Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine, longtime Scientific American columnist, and author of Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters, for a conversation that starts with epistemology and ends in a full-throated debate about free will. They talk about why our brains evolved more like lawyers than scientists — to win arguments, not find facts. They get into the hard problem of consciousness, what meditation might reveal that neuroscience can't yet measure, and whether the legal system could ever be redesigned around actual truth-seeking. And then Amanda makes the case for hard determinism and nearly talks Shermer into it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 23 mins