During the two hours I spent talking with Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij in February, the conversation eddied its way around the following topics. The movies of Krzysztof Kieślowski. The neuroscience of trauma. The painter and novelist Leonora Carrington. Noise shows in San Francisco. Hilma af Klint and the origins of abstract expressionism. Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette. Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast. Cassandra and the gift of second sight. Adam Curtis’s HyperNormalisation. The scourge of irony. Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens. The serenity of Le Pain Quotidien.