Choosing Better

1 h 4 mins Enoch and Tim examine capital punishment in the United States, not only whether the death penalty can be morally justified, but whether the modern state can carry it out justly and humanely. From lethal injection and nitrogen gas to the return of the firing squad, they explore recent failed and contested executions, the arguments for and against the death penalty, and what these cases reveal about justice, human dignity, repentance, and the limits of state power. C

1 h Longtime behind-the-scenes listener and former student Donovan Gleeson joins Enoch and Tim to ask why political disagreement now feels more personal than religious disagreement. They explore what happens when politics shifts from facts and opinions to belief and identity, why masks and yard signs became tribal signals, and how COVID forced churches to pick sides and sorted congregations along political lines. Credits: Drew Elliot (music)

1 h 5 min Is freedom doing whatever you want, or becoming what you were made to be? Enoch and Tim trace the shift from classical to modern freedom, from Adam Smith to John Stuart Mill's harm principle, and ask what we lost along the way. Why can we only argue about usury, cheating, or assisted suicide in terms of harm and victims, when what many of us really believe is "it's just wrong"? Credits: Drew Elliot (music)

1 h 2 min AEnoch and Tim discuss privacy in an age of data, AI, and mass surveillance. Using Flock cameras as a central example, they explore the benefits and drawbacks of the new technology that has drawn such backlash. They compare Flock tocorporate data systems like Ring, consider how privacy laws might have such a hard time catching up with technology, and challenge the idea that “nothing to hide” means nothing to fear. Correction: In the episode Enoch incorrectly state

1 h 2 min America is coming apart. The most likely place for a college educated adult to meet their spouse is at university. This is not just true for some college and universities; it is true for just about every university. But what happens when intelligent people leave their hometowns for university study, meet “the one”, and then settle down? We begin to sort our very neighborhoods and towns my education and merit. Fewer than half of Americans have a college degree, yet m

1 h 2 min What if America’s political divide is no longer just playing out at the ballot box, but at the wedding altar and in the nursery? Enoch and Tim discuss how ideology is increasingly shaping who people marry, why nearly 80% of spouses now share the same political outlook, and what this reveals about the deep social sorting underway in the United States. The conversation then turns to the growingfertility gap between conservatives and liberals, with Tim sharing insights

1 h 6 min When does prenatal screening determine whether a child will be born at all? In this episode of Choosing Better, Enoch and Tim explore Down syndrome, abortion, eugenics, and the quiet social pressures that shape “choice.” From viral controversy and global termination rates to Tim’s research on Down syndrome birthrates, they ask what we are missing when children with disabilities are screened out and disappear from our communities. The conversation ends with a call to

1 h 2 min Brigadier General Joe Rank, U.S. Army (Ret.), joins Choosing Better to discuss what recent events in the Middle East reveal about deterrence, resilience, and the future of regional security. General Rank and Tim explore how missile, drone, cyber, and information threats are reshaping modern conflict; why integrated air and missile defense and interoperability matter more than ever; and how Gulf states are balancing diplomacy, deterrence, and national resilience. The

1 h 2 min Are we entering a dystopian future of grocery shopping if your personal data is being used to set hyper-specific prices just for you? And what if that price changes based upon the day of the week, time of day, how fast you drove to the grocery store, or in what order you did your shopping? Maryland recently became the first state to ban AI-enabled “surveillance pricing” on grocery stores. That sounds like a good thing, but what if we benefit from targeted prices? Jo

54 min 39 sec Why does a war in Gaza dominate global headlines while equally devastating conflicts like Sudan barely register in public consciousness? Enoch and Tim explore this striking imbalance, noting that the disparity is especially pronounced in Western contexts while many Asian societies follow Israel–Gaza with far less urgency. They suggest this pattern reveals something deeper than geopolitics: the enduring civilizational influence of the Abrahamic traditions on West

1 h 8 min What are you really paying for when you fill up your tank? Enoch and Tim unpack the true cost of a gallon of gasoline, and it is far beyond crude oil, refining, and taxes. Using the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a real-time case study, they trace how a distant geopolitical chokepoint drove U.S. gas prices over 50% in just weeks, despite America’s “energy independence.” Along the way, they explore the hidden prices embedded in every gallon: U.S. Navy prot

32 min 48 sec In this second episode, Enoch and Tim go deeper into the machinery of professional sports economics. How do salary caps really work, and who do they really help? What is a player actually worth to a team? And when a city spends hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new stadium, is it a good deal for taxpayers? The answers turn out to be more surprising than most sports fans may expect. Credits: Drew Elliot (music)

1 h 2 min Economics isn't just for the classroom or the boardroom; it's baked into every corner of professional sports. In this first installment of their Sports and Economics series, Enoch and Tim explore how leagues deliberately design institutions andrules to shape competition, and how economic reasoning shows up in surprising places: from the structure of the NFL draft to the direction of a penalty kick (and why we may want to roll a dice before taking a penalty kick). Cr

41 min 26 sec Should we change how we raise our kids, preparing them for the future, knowing they will enter college and begin their careers with AI? Enoch and Tim reflect on how the rise of AI should shape the way we raise and prepare our children. They discuss the reality that today’s kids will enter college and careers with AI as a constant companion, and they wrestle with how to cultivate habits, character, and critical thinking that lead to genuine flourishing amid rapid

(55 min 11 sec) How we test students reveals what we truly value in education and simultaneously shapes the incentives of everyone in the classroom. Enoch and Tim discuss the economics of educational assessment, arguing that every test design sends signals to teachers and students about what is worth knowing and how it should be taught. They explore testing practices, from Finland's minimal standardized testing culture to the high-stakes approaches found in other countries, e

(53 min 48 sec) In the second part of this series, Enoch and Tim talk about more ways economics can help us make better decisions and live more joyful lives. They discuss the endowment effect, how we tend to overvalue things in our possession, to understand when to let things go. And perhaps most important of all, they discuss opportunity costs and a holistic view of income to help us maximize decisions and think carefully about the use of our time and what we value. We hope

(58 min 16 sec) Jason Long returns to Choosing Better to discuss why some nations are rich and others are poor. We take another journey through time to understand how simple laws and norms shape the very bedrock of societies with some countries being wealthy and prosperous while others are underdeveloped and poor. Enoch and Tim turn the conversation to the strength of property rights in the United States before focusing on a recent case study in early 2026 of the US governmen

(1 hr 5 min) In the first days of a rapidly escalating U.S.–Israel conflict with Iran, strikes rippled across the region and global tensions spiked. In this bonus episode, former CIA senior executive and Iran expert Tim Buch joins the show to break down what actually happened, and just as important, why. We examine how intelligence shaped military decisions, how Iran is likely to respond, and what this conflict means for the broader Middle East. Finally, we look ahead: What c

(56 min 59 sec) Many Christians feel the pull toward missionary work, but how do you know if you should go, when to go, or where? Enoch and Tim apply economic thinking to one of the church's most important decisions, exploring how to discern a calling, how to best support those who go, and also discuss some of the research connecting missions to the development of democratic institutions and access to women's health. Referenced Article: The Surprising Discovery About Those C

(56 min 59 sec) Do you know more than a Saxon born in 500AD? Hard to say, but you likely know different knowledge than your ancient Saxon counterpart. And while most Saxons shared a similar set of knowledge about food production and daily survival, you likely have a very different knowledge than even your neighbor down the street. Join Enoch and Tim as they discuss shared knowledge and overlapping knowledge compared to specific and distinct knowledge in modern society. They