John Donvan moderates two-sided debates on AI, bioethics, feminism, and film's future.
Open to Debate is a formal debate program built around clear propositions, stated positions, and moderation. Recent episodes test the stakes of AI investment, autonomous weapons, sports betting, moviegoing, journalism, space settlement, and the search for purpose.
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Open to Debate is hosted and moderated by John Donvan, who opens each episode by framing a single debatable proposition against a current-events hook, then introduces two or more debaters arguing opposing positions. The core format is a formal, timed debate: credentials are established for each side, a moderated exchange follows, and many episodes are recorded live in front of an audience at partner venues like the Council on Foreign Relations or Johns Hopkins University's Hopkins Bloomberg Center. Guests are typically subject-matter experts, academics, authors, economists, and policy figures rather than repeat personalities — sample debaters include bioethicist Peter Singer on assisted suicide, economist Simon Johnson and Andrew Yang on AI and the future of work, and Inez Stepman and Wendy Walsh on feminism's legacy. Recurring subject areas include artificial intelligence (its investment bubble, labor-market effects, and use in warfare), bioethics and end-of-life policy, gender politics, media and entertainment economics, and political economy. The show departs from the strict debate format for occasional interview segments, including a 'Think Twice' series built around nonfiction authors and a crossover episode recorded with the podcast Smart Girl Dumb Questions. Episodes are grounded in specific citations — box office figures, survey statistics, legislative detail — rather than purely rhetorical argument. Runtimes are typically under an hour, with some live or interview episodes running longer. The show benefits listeners who want to hear opposing, credentialed viewpoints argued directly against each other rather than a single host's take. Production draws on both studio segments and live event tapings done with institutional co-sponsors.
Made for: Listeners who want credentialed experts arguing opposing sides of contested policy and cultural questions rather than single-perspective commentary.
What sets it apart: Unlike single-host opinion podcasts, it stages formal two-sided debates moderated by John Donvan, often recorded live at institutional venues like the Council on Foreign Relations.
America is more divided than ever—but it doesn’t have to be. Open to Debate offers an antidote to the chaos. We bring multiple perspectives together for real, nonpartisan debates. Debates that are structured, respectful, clever, provocative, and driven by the facts. Open to Debate is on a mission to restore balance to the public square through expert moderation, good-faith arguments, and reasoned analysis. We examine the issues of the day with the world’s most influential thinkers spanning science, technology, politics, culture, and global affairs. It’s time to build a stronger, more united democracy with the civil exchange...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Open to Debate makes complex public arguments legible by pressing competing positions toward their clearest points of disagreement.
Open to Debate turns contested public questions into focused exchanges, with John Donvan pressing opposing positions to define their differences instead of talking past each other.
John Donvan turns hot-button questions into actual exchanges, so your inner pundit has to share the microphone.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clear AI bubble debate about massive infrastructure spending, bottom-up workplace adoption, and whether profits can catch up fast enough.
Will the AI Bubble Burst? treats AI as a business bet, not a magic trick. John Donvan opens with the scale of the wager: companies piling into AI, major firms spending hundreds of billions on research and data centers, and workers and schools already feeling pressure to keep up.
A sober debate on where AI assistance ends and autonomous wartime force begins.
Open to Debate treats wartime AI less like sci-fi hardware and more like a procurement, targeting, and accountability problem that has already arrived.
A thoughtful reset for anyone confusing meaningful work with a fully meaningful life.
Arthur C. Brooks uses a conversation about purpose to push past the usual productivity frame: if work is the only thing treated as serious, even meaningful work can become a trap.
A sharp Mars-settlement debate that turns space ambition into a question of policy, survival, and human limits.
Open to Debate treats Mars settlement less as a hardware problem than as a test of national ambition, public priorities, and what humans owe the future.
A clear media-business debate on whether streaming convenience is permanently weakening the movie theater habit.
Open to Debate treats moviegoing as a technology story because distribution is now the argument: the theater, the living room, or the phone. John Donvan sets up the tension cleanly, putting a century of cinema habit against the convenience of streaming and the strange fatigue…
A sharp markets conversation about crash warnings, billionaire power, and why prediction is easier to sell than to trust.
Naima Raza's conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin treats money anxiety less like a forecast problem than a cultural reflex. The episode moves through crash talk, billionaire power, the shadow of 2008, and the strange appeal of people who warn that the market is about to break.
Esther Perel turns relationship conflict into a clear map of culture, family rules, emotion, and repair.
Open to Debate steps away from public policy and treats relationship conflict as a system people inherit before they ever start arguing. John Donvan sets up the shift cleanly, then lets Esther Perel trace how loyalty, authority, gender, age, birth order, emotional permission,…
A candid behind-the-scenes look at moderation, ground rules, and the awkward work of keeping debate on track.
Inside the Debate uses Open to Debate's Substack launch as an excuse for a useful bit of shop talk. John Donvan, Nayeema Raza, and Nick Gillespie frame the move as a way to keep a closer line open with listeners, then get into the less visible work of moderation: what counts as…
Sharp political debate with policy detail and real disagreement.
Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson debate Canadian politics, from Alberta separatism to Ottawa's bureaucracy.
Robert Evans, Katie Stoll, and Cody Johnston build fake conspiracies and mock right-wing media.
Steve Hayes and Dispatch panelists argue through the week's Iran, DOJ, and Supreme Court news.
Jonah Goldberg's solo political rants and author interviews on conservatism, courts, and current events.
A former Trump donor's solo case for ballot audits, Article 5 conventions, and court reform.
In business, AI feels like the bandwagon phase.
AI warfare feels very real in this debate.
Leisure gets taken seriously here.
Mars turns into a test of human obligation.
This episode revisits a debate on whether legalizing sports betting has become problematic, exploring its growth since the 2018 Supreme Court decision and its cultural impact through advertising and events like March Madness.
Streaming gives viewers plenty.
Jon Donvan opens Open to Debate by saying his social feed has been full of alarm about AI taking jobs, including CEOs announcing layoffs and saying AI will take up the slack.
This episode explores whether the current era, despite the decline of traditional news institutions and low public trust, represents a golden age of news media due to the proliferation of digital platforms like podcasts and blogs.
Markets usually rise.
Open to Debate’s John Donvan frames this Think Twice conversation around Nicolas Niarchos’s book, Elements of Power, which links war, technology, and a “dirtiest supply chain on Earth.” Donvan compares the book’s method to Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World, Mark Pendergrast’s Uncommon Grounds, and his own book on autism, using one concrete subject to trace multiple global threads.
A debate on whether dating an AI can be better than dating a human, exploring loneliness and technological shifts in romance.
A debate on whether U.S.
John Donvan opens Open to Debate by linking the episode to Kathy Hochul’s December remarks on New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act and the governor’s statement that it was “one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made as governor.” He says twelve states plus the District of Columbia already allow physician-assisted dying for patients with a prognosis of less than six months to live, and that the patient must take the medication themselves.
A debate on whether mass data collection is a dangerous intrusion or necessary innovation, exploring privacy concerns versus benefits.
A debate on whether paying for sex should be legal, examining the Nordic model and full decriminalization.
This episode debates whether Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is effective for addiction recovery, featuring experts arguing for and against its methods.
Open to Debate’s “Has Feminism Hurt Women?” opens with Zenya Wicket tying the question to her mother’s life: South Africa, the University of Connecticut at 16, marriage at 18, and childbirth without anyone explaining pregnancy.
A debate show examines whether religion can cure the loneliness epidemic, featuring structured arguments from multiple perspectives.
John Donvan steps outside the debate format and revisits his 2024 conversation with Esther Perel.
A debate on whether the U.S.
Three moderators share the same screen.
A debate podcast re-releases an episode on effective altruism, discussing billionaires who pledge to give away their wealth.
A debate on whether the U.S.
Founder Robert Rosencrantz discusses the importance of civil debate and the mission of Open to Debate.
A debate podcast episode exploring generational perspectives on money and wealth, featuring panelists from three generations.
A debate on Europe's role in the global semiconductor competition, hosted at the Bloomberg Tech Conference.
A debate podcast episode featuring Jimmy Wales discussing trust and his book on building lasting institutions through open-source principles.
A structured debate on the legal and practical implications of ending birthright citizenship in the U.S.
A debate episode exploring whether the future will be abundant, featuring expert moderation and multiple perspectives.
A debate show featuring structured, respectful arguments on the motion 'Don't Eat Anything With a Face' about diet and ethics.
An interview with author Vicki Ward about the Idaho Four murder case and her book on the tragedy.
A conversation with former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer about the court's role in contentious issues.
Host Jon Donvan and content chief Leah Matthau discuss the book 'Original Sin' about Joe Biden's debate performance and its political fallout.
Host John Donvan interviews the founder of Open to Debate about the show's origin and his new book 'The Stoic Capitalist'.
A nonpartisan debate show discussing a new liberal agenda book and its implications for the Democratic Party and American politics.