New York's MAID law, effective August 2025, requires a terminal prognosis of 6 months or less, a mandatory mental health evaluation, an in-person physician visit, a 5-day waiting period, and a video or audio recording of the patient's request. Hochul insisted on these guardrails as the price of her signature.
Where this was said
At 11:58 · chapter starts 9:40
This chapter provides the historical scaffolding for the rest of the episode. Dubner notes that 12 US states plus D.C. now permit some form of assisted dying, with Oregon the pioneer in 1997 [1] — Stephen Dubner "Assisted dying has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, and now 12 US states plus D.C. have followed. The American movement was slow and c…" 09:31 . The modern movement traces back to Switzerland, where it has been legal since 1942, and which is where Kahneman traveled to die. Roth then recounts the American origins: the Hemlock Society, which published a frank how-to guide called 'Let Me Die Before I Wake,' and the problem it exposed — people who stockpiled pills but couldn't swallow them when gravely ill. Enter Jack Kevorkian, 'Dr. Death,' who built machines allowing patients to self-administer lethal drugs, filmed their consent, and deliberately informed police to challenge the law. He was tried for murder multiple times before being convicted on the one case where he administered the drug himself rather than letting the patient do it. Roth notes the movement stalled after Kevorkian: the caution around distinguishing 'help in stopping living' from 'aid in dying' has made progress slow.
There are now 12 US states plus the District of Columbia where some form of assisted dying is legal, with Oregon being the first in 1997.
Assisted dying has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, making it the longest-running legal framework for the practice in the modern world.
Jack Kevorkian built a machine to allow patients to self-administer lethal drugs, filmed their decisions, informed police, and was tried for murder multiple times before being convicted and imprisoned. His public advocacy — controversial and confrontational — planted the seed for a movement that took decades to gain legal footing.
Fei-Fei Li went back to Stanford from Google in 2018 specifically to build a multi-stakeholder governance framework for AI. Her argument: market forces are not societal norms. Just as biology uses IRBs and cars have safety laws, AI needs layered oversight from educators, governments, and the public — not just a few industry titans.
Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
Mass surveillance is here to stay. The real battle isn't stopping cameras — it's ensuring judges and laws keep that data out of family court and civil disputes, admitting it only for violent crimes and national security. The surveillance economy currently yields more upside than downside, but only if we build the legal guardrails now.
When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
Two percent adjustments to income tax and stamp duty tweaks are deck-chair rearrangements. The UK's competitiveness hinges on four structural levers: currency valuation, energy costs, regulatory burden, and tax rates. Devalue the pound, build 56 nuclear plants, slash red tape, introduce a flat tax — and the country transforms.
Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
The CIA planted mines in Nicaraguan commercial harbors, wrote the Contras' press releases taking credit, and promptly blew up ships from four allied nations. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, Congress erupted, and the Boland Amendments multiplied.
Oliver North was a decorated Marine and devout Catholic with zero covert operations experience. He ran the entire shadow war against Congress — planes, airstrips, arms shipments, shell companies — learning on the job. And by every operational measure, he crushed it.
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