Bloggingheads.tv: Recent Episodes
Bloggingheads.tv
Jennifer’s foreign policy bona fides ... Could Ukraine and Iran merge into one big war? ... Is Ukraine really "turning the tide"? ... America’s (and Ukraine’s) missile defense issue ... Putin’s ceasefire conditions ... What—and who—are America's missiles for, really? ... How not to open the Hormuz Strait ... How will the Iran war truly end? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Sam’s ideological leanings ... Sam's AI Manhattan Project–revisited ... What does the “Pacing” letter say about the state of AI? ... Mythos, Astra, and AI’s accelerating acceleration ... The OpenAI “rogue” model escape ... Recursive self-improvement: Red line or red herring? ... How frontier AI is getting (and will get) freakier ... How is open-source AI like DEI? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... The “Pacing the Frontier” letter signed by AI elites ... Why so many China-hawk AI-safety-hawks? ... Was the “Pacing” letter too small an ask? ... The striking AI vibe shift ... Are AI builders “just following orders”? ... Recursive self-improvement: The wrong red line? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Why did Ukraine hit an Iranian ship 500 miles from Ukraine? ... Ukraine's war on Russia's Amazon ... Why Zelensky fired his defense minister and commander-in-chief ... Bob: Ukraine may lose like people go bankrupt—gradually, then suddenly ... Nikita: Why both sides are ready to keep fighting ... Kazakh President to Putin: Nobody understands this war ... Bob: Everybody thinks they're fighting a defensive war ... Heading to Overtime: The globalist elite vs. the globalist precariat, and an AI path to WW3 ...
Teaser ... Connor’s place in the AI world ... Mythos: “digital nuke”? ... The milieu that birthed Dario and other AI titans ... Yudkowsky, Marx, and other AI harbingers ... Effective altruism’s effects on big tech ... The "cult" in Silicon Valley culture ... Is the AI race a market failure? ... What’s really driving the AI titans? ... Connor: ASI is a worse bet than Russian roulette ...
Teaser ... Zaid’s Substack and spicy-take history ... Zaid: Iran has outplayed Trump and Bibi ... 10/7 as turning point ... Did—and does—Israel want regime collapse in Iran? ... Israel’s security dilemma(s) ... How Trump blundered back into war ... Will the war end well for anyone? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Sneak peek: Danny finds flaw in Bob’s AI book ... Is the Iran war fully back on? ... What the war means for the future of US power ... The problem with blaming Bibi ... The push to intertwine the US and Israeli militaries ... What’s Israel’s endgame for the Palestinians? ... The Gulf States’ new reality ... Iran’s plans for the Strait of Hormuz ... Bob’s pitch to Derek—and his other pitch to listeners ...
Teaser ... Leonid’s journalistic work, past and present ... Are Russia and NATO headed for war? ... Decoding Putin’s recent signals ... Do European leaders really want the Ukraine war to end? ... Putin’s political psychology ... Why the war matters more to Russia than to the West ... Russia’s non-ethno nationalism ... Heading to Overtime ...
Preview: Skynet comes for Bob ... Trump‘s endearing AI obsession ... Are books dying? Is AI responsible? ... Skynet (aka Amazon) vs Bob’s book ... The problem with blurbs ... Why Gad Saad’s mad ... Heading to Overtime ...
Grandpa Bob and author Bob ... Why Bob stopped being an AI doom skeptic ... Can AI solve China’s demographic crisis? ... The irony of China’s open-source AI strategy ... Recursive self-improvement and the singularity ... The Burkean conservative case against AI ... Are we becoming AI meat puppets? ... Google Maps, AI, and the death of interhuman reliance ... Was Pete Hegseth’s military strategy written by a chatbot? ... Trump and Iran: Peace? Wider war? Other? ... The Rubio-Vance rivalry ... Is Rubio sabotaging Iran peace talks? ...
Bob’s pub-day pitch for his new book on AI, The God Test ... Is AI killing the nonfiction star? ... Geoffrey Hinton’s path from AI evangelist to doomer ... The future of books ... Trump vs Anthropic ... Are Ukrainian drone strikes rattling Putin? ... The multiple Putins theory ... Heading to Overtime ...
Was "losing" this war good for America? ... Israel’s post-war situation ... A more stable Middle East? Or less? ... The impact on Iran’s strength ... Has the war empowered Russia and China? ... How modern warfare devalues American military power ... Josh: The Gulf-state power struggle is just beginning ... Are the Palestinians back in the spotlight? ... Where do Israel-US relations go from here? ... Heading to Overtime ...
A brief message from Bob ... Ryan’s tech policy bona fides ... Is true "recursive self-improvement" near? ... AI agents as strategic empathy machines ... Is a global AI pause possible? ... Mutually assured destruction vs mutually assured AI malfunction ... The case against global AI governance ... Mythos as seen from China ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... The Midas Project and the OpenAI files ... What’s "Build American AI" up to? ... Nathan Leamer, astroturfer and sock puppeteer ... Greg Brockman, AI lobby bankroller ... Astroturfing the China panic ... Is OpenAI an innocent bystander? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Whose baby is cuter? ... Bob's new book on AI, The God Test ... Varieties of AI awe ... Geoffrey Hinton’s vision ... How LLMs do more than predict and parrot ... How powerful will AI get? ... Can AI’s impact be predicted? ... Taking doomerism seriously ... The AI governance dilemma ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... How Tianyu became a “China explainer” ... American vs Chinese exceptionalism ... What you can and can’t say in China ... Is the government more accountable in the US or China? ... How China sees America ... The one-child policy and its consequences ... Tianyu: The biggest misconception about China is… ... Heading to Overtime ...
Is NonZero or American Prestige the better podcast? AI weighs in ... The state of the US-Iran war. Or is it peace? ... Has Trump already lost the midterms? Does he care? ... The Russia-Ukraine war (and Eric Schmidt) ... What the latest Iran war strikes signal ... Overtime preview: Nuland’s “monsters,” zombie blobsters, Barak Ravid, Bari Weiss, “killzones,” and the Pope vs AI ...
A Greek pilgrimage, a mystery guest, and a Discord revival ... The first Papal encyclical devoted to AI ... Pope Leo: just war theory is outdated, and AI lets humans dodge accountability ... Anthropic tells the Pope about "mysterious, even unsettling" things inside AI ... Inside the "Kill Zone": How drones changed the Russia-Ukraine front ... Who gets replaced first: the soldier or the commander? ... Russia's hypersonic missiles and nuclear signaling ... Do drones favor the underdog? Plus a warning on Taiwan ... The Iran ceasefire wobbles as Israel pushes back ... Heading to Overtime: Greek mystery cults, Teilhard de Chardin, and Blade Runner ... Enter the Mystery Guest: Jeremy Eliosoff, Pause AI Canada ...
Teaser ... Bruce’s new book on ritual, A Time to Gather ... The "Lifequake" that led Bruce to study ritual ... What is a ritual? ... The origins of the shadow ritual renaissance ... Forest bathing and the essence of ritual ... Ritual as the original human algorithm ... Rituals across Christianity ... What rituals do ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Hamidreza's background ... A brief history of US-Iran relations ... Understanding Iranian antipathy toward Israel ... Islam vs Islamism ... The Iran-Iraq security dilemma ... The Iran-Israel security dilemma ... Palestinian objectives and patrons ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Zhengyu’s tech background and new book, Rethinking China ... What kind of threat is China, really? ... How trading with China transformed America ... The stakes of the chip war ... Will tech war lead to real war? ... The US-China escalation spiral and Taiwan ... “Researching while Chinese”: the new Red Scare? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Is AI a normal technology? ... Mythos and the METR curve ... The current state of coding agents ... The total turbulence problem ... Does Mythos favor offense or defense? ... Mythos and hype ... Regulating dangerous AI ... The centralization problem ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Annelle’s Middle East bona fides ... The state of play in Iran ... A deepening fissure between Gulf Arab states ... Explaining the Trump-Biden continuity on Middle East policy ... Will the Middle East realign away from America? ... Turkey and the moral hazard of US aid to Israel ... Can Iran mend ties with the Gulf states? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Bob's big personal news ... The US counter-blockade backfires ... Iran retains escalation dominance ... Why the Iranian regime is built to absorb assassinations ... "Donald, it's too late for that." Bob says Trump has to take the L ... Putin's Victory Day ceasefire (with a threat) ... Russia's vibe shift: drone attacks, airport shutdowns, Internet blackouts ... Instagram influencer rants at the Tsar ... Siloviki vs. civilian elites ... Heading to Overtime: The Matrix, AI, DMT, interdimensional crocodiles ...
How powerful is Anthropic’s Mythos? ... How Mythos looks to China ... Does Mythos mark a new phase in the US-China arms race? ... Can Anthropic contain Mythos? ... Could superhacker AIs bring cooperation? ... How scary is China, really? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Rebecca’s past work on mind and matter(ing) ... Rebecca’s new book, The Mattering Instinct ... Varieties of mattering experience ... Mattering type 1: Heroic Strivers ... Mattering type 2: Socializers ... Mattering type 3: Transcenders ... Mattering type 4: Competitors ... “The” meaning of life problem ... Does what drives us divide us? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Paul’s new baby is reportedly cute ... The Tucker-Trump fracture ... Parenting later in life ... Paul's TED talk on AI and loneliness ... When does embryo screening become eugenics? ... Is intelligence a positional good? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Rob’s role in the Obama nuclear deal ... A deal that could work for both Trump and Iran ... Iran’s security “guarantee” problem ... Bob: If I were Iran, I would say… ... What Obama’s negotiators had that Trump’s don’t ... How unified is the Iranian side? ... Is Iran’s Hormuz leverage running dry? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Trump’s Middle East chaos continues ... Is Iran more about America’s hegemony or Israel’s? ... Who will win the Hormuz blockade duel? ... Ukraine, China, and the drone wars ... America’s “emergency” emergency ... Is an Iran peace deal possible? ... Overtime preview: The Anthropic Mythos scare ...
Teaser ... Trump's Iran blockade breaks the ceasefire ... A Chinese tanker calls Trump's bluff ... Bob's case for an Iranian "tollgate" ... Anthropic's Mythos model is too dangerous to release ... Nikita's big idea: AI as world peace mediator ... Heading to Overtime ...
A brief message from Bob ... Shakeel’s newsletter, Transformer, and its mission ... The case(s) against Sam Altman ... OpenAI President Greg Brockman's political spending ... The founding doctrines of the leading AI labs ... The singleton and the singularity ... How market forces overwhelm good intentions ... Is the singularity near? ... Sam vs. Dario vs. Demis ... Heading to Overtime ...
Bob and Eli’s history of (civil) disagreement on Iran ... Is Trump's war on Iran legal? Does it matter? ... Who’s the real rogue state? ... Israel’s nukes and Iran’s nuclear program ... Is Israel more moral than Iran? ... How Hamas became Hamas ... “Proxy,” “theocracy,” and other fighting words ... Heading to Overtime ...
Would America benefit from Iran “winning”? ... Trump’s last exit ramp? ... What’s China’s angle on the war? ... Trump: psychoanalyzed ... Israel: psychoanalyzed ... Iran’s plans for the Strait of Hormuz ... Is this Trump’s biggest blunder? ... The intra-MAGA war over Iran (and Israel) ... Where are the Democrats? ... Antisemitism, alleged and real ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Defining (and preventing) superintelligence ... Where the nuclear analogy holds (and where it breaks) ... Imagining an AI inspections regime ... The superintelligence precursors to watch for ... Nikita: "I find him weirdly persuasive on a hypnotist kind of level" ... Our dangerous lack of government oversight ... ControlAI's "bottom-up" approach to AI policy ... The mounting geopolitical challenges to AI governance ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Holy Week in Andalusia, and the Christian cross as branding ... Why Bob is skeptical of Trump's diplomacy ... Trump's hand got weaker and he doesn't even know it ... Killing Iran's navy chief won't reopen the Strait of Hormuz ... Nikita: "I find him weirdly persuasive on a hypnotist kind of level" ... The Iran war's secret winner: Vladimir Putin ... Bob checked back into AI podcasts and came out scared ... "Every time I see tribalism on parade, I think: we're toast on AI" ... Russia's Internet shutdowns ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... What (or who) is the Iran war for? ... Joe Kent and the MAGA rift over Israel ... Does antisemitism speech policing foment antisemitism? ... What Ron’s Substack has that others don’t ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Overtime preview: a civil(-ish) debate on Israel-Palestine ... How vibe-coding changed Liron’s life ... Portents of the AI jobpocalypse ... What can humans do that AI agents can’t? ... The Darwinian case for AI doom ... OpenClaw vs SkyNet ... Liron: I love AI! We need to stop it. ... Amodei, Altman, and the Pentagon triangle ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Is Iran inflicting much damage on Israel? ... Iran has a strategy. Does America? Does Israel? ... Where Trump and Bibi differ ... Why Daniel is no longer a Zionist ... Bibi vs the Israeli security establishment ... The Gulf States' dilemma ... Daniel on Bibi’s true endgame ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... How we got here ... Understanding Iran's strategy and goals ... Turkey, Europe, and the Gulf States ... Will the Iranian regime survive? ... The specious leadership of Reza Pahlavi ... The many missed opportunities for US-Iran entente ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Will the Iran war supercharge antisemitism? ... Varieties of Israeli-Jewish conflation ... The Epstein effect ... Tucker v. Israel vs Fuentes v. Israel ... Does MSM have a pro-Israel bias? ... The ADL’s counterproductive speech policing ... Heading to Overtime ...
Teaser ... Marco Rubio's Israel faux pas ... What are Trump’s new goalposts? ... The regime after Khamenei ... Can a regime be changed by air strikes alone? ... Will Turkey be drawn in? ... The logic of Iran's response ... The pathetic European (and Canadian) response ... Heading into Overtime ...
Sam’s place on the AI accelerationist-pauser spectrum ... Predicting AI’s near-term impact ... Is regulating AI a fool’s errand? ... Does strong AI governance court authoritarianism? ... Can Trump and Elon be trusted on AI? ... How Sam thinks AI should be regulated ... Heading to Overtime ...
Harris's interviews? ... Focus on "fascism"? ... Positions from 2019? ... Sexism? ... Too much of a politician? ... Biden? ... Inflation? ...
Election 2024: The view from Canada ... Paul praises Bob’s pre-election sermonette ... Why did Trump win? And who’s to blame? ... Did DEI doom Kamala? ... A Kamala campaign post-mortem ... What policies will President Trump 2.0 prioritize? ... The art of the Trump ... Heading to Overtime ...
The Selzer poll and the weighting debate ... Will Bill and Matt change their predictions? ...
Who would get more accomplished: Harris or Trump? ... Does Trump know more about wielding power than during his first term? ... Trump's past failed record on mass deportations ... How will "garbage" impact the race? ... Predictions! ... Who will Matt vote for? ...
Is Mickey all-in on Trump? ... The “garbage” wars and their aftermath ... Kamala’s path(s) to victory ... Mickey explains the logic of voting for Trump ... Why Trump sucks, why Kamala sucks ... Bob doles out (p)recriminations ... Will Israel-Iran escalate? ... How Kamala could win Mickey’s vote ... Why did Kamala go negative? ... Mickey plays pundit defender ... Which swing state looks worst for Kamala? ... How Biden made war in Taiwan more likely ... Four Dem sex “scandals” ... Bob trashes Trump’s tariffs ... Bob looks for a silver-lining to a second Trump term ... Elon Musk, the oligarch’s oligarch ...
Peter’s new book, Other Rivers: A Chinese Education ... Have Chinese people become less hostile to America? ... What Americans get wrong about China ... Why Peter thinks Covid didn’t come from a lab ... China’s transformative recent decades ... Respect for authority in Chinese culture ... Change in China between Peter’s two teaching stints there ... Why the Chinese political system may change dramatically ...
How did Harris do at the CNN Town Hall? ... Is sexism hurting Harris? ... Should Harris go after Trump as a fascist? ... Is Harris' campaign better run than past Democratic campaigns? ... What is up with Tucker Carlson's creepy spanking speech? ... Trump's ahistorical argument for ending the income tax ...
Bob: The oligarchy has arrived ... What do the odd 2024 betting markets mean for the race? ... Trump on Palmer’s manhood: a closer look ... The Elon empathy enigma ... Coates’s controversial cognitive-empathizing ... Heading to Overtime ...
Should we brace for a Trump victory? ... Or does Harris have the edge? ... Trump is now the candidate who sees voters as deplorable ... Why aren't conservative smear attempts working? ...
What is the chip war intended to accomplish? ... How China sees the chip war ... Is Huawei a threat to US national security? ... Paul: The chip restrictions on China are unprecedented ... How Biden boosted China’s chip industry ... Clear costs and unclear benefits of the chip war ...
Did Kamala's media blitz help or hurt? ... Has Kamala lost momentum, or are pollsters using a flawed methodology? ... Why are conservatives sticking with Trump? ... Trump's bizarre answer to Ben Shapiro's ground game question ... Have YouTube and podcasters supplanted the mainstream media? ...
The time Ron helped un-cancel Jimmy Carter ... How has 10/7 affected American Jews? ... Israel’s place in US politics post-10/7 ... What a second Trump term could mean for Israel-Palestine ... Could the current trauma in the Middle East eventually revive the two-state solution? ... Making sense of Israel’s military strategy ... Criticism of Israel, left vs right ... Heading to Overtime ...
Elon takes the stage with Trump ... The logic behind Elon’s Trump gamble ... Who won the Vance-Walz vibe war? ... A few kind words about Elon from Paul ... Bob and Paul debate the CBS Coates controversy ... Paul gets philosophical about Mission: Impossible ... Heading to Overtime ...
Arvind’s book and newsletter: AI Snake Oil ... A taxonomy of AI observers ... The impact of generative AI ... Why predictive AI sometimes fails ... Uses and misuses of AI in law and healthcare ... Can social media be saved? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Are Democrats smart to spend in Texas and Florida? ... Is Trump smart to tell women he will protect them? ... Does Trump have a ground game? ...
Bob crestfallen over Mickey’s hat switcheroo ... Mickey blames DEI for Kamala tic he finds annoying ... Who’s less impressive, Kamala or Trump? ... Why Bob prefers Kamala’s foreign policy team to Biden’s ... The Vance dossier, revealed at last ... More arguments about Kamala ... Preliminary election analysis ... Trump, Vance, and Springfield’s cats and dogs ... Mickey’s Eric Adams conspiracy theory ... Biden diplomacy? What Biden diplomacy? ... Is cancel culture impotent? ... Election predictions ... Deeper election analysis ...
Deep insights about coffee and sleep from Paul ... Mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy ... Oligarchy + paranoid billionaires = disaster ... Ackman and Thiel join Elon in billionaire la la land ... Is Trump anti-Semitic or just really pro-Israel? ... If you don’t feel alienated you should seek counseling ... Heading to Overtime ...
Would Kamala Harris have been worse off if Biden resigned? ... Why is Matt losing conservative friends? ... Should politicians fact check constituent stories? ...
Would a different US president have made a difference for Gaza? ... Saudi-Israel normalization takes a step back ... Is all hope lost for a two-state solution? ... Making sense of Israel’s pager attacks in Lebanon ... Heading to Overtime—and an AP PSA ...
Why didn’t OpenAI call its new o1 AI GPT? ... Tim’s first impressions of o1 ... What’s the secret to o1’s better reasoning? ... Inspecting AI introspection ... Does o1’s capability for deception bring us closer to doom? ... AI doomers’ Hollywood problem ... Elon’s self-driving speed bumps ... Heading to Overtime ...
What Kamala got right ... What Trump got wrong ... Why undecided voters are the worst ... Why probabilistic forecasts are stupid ... Do the Swift and Cheney endorsements matter? ...
Tragedy strikes the Wright household ... Breaking down the big Trump-Kamala debate ... Are debates actually valuable? ... Kamala’s worst debate moment (according to Bob) ... Elon vs Taylor Swift, Brazil, and himself ... Bob and Paul argue about free speech ... Heading to Overtime ...
Is Ukraine’s Kursk invasion failing? ... Why Russia may outlast the West in Ukraine ... Zelensky’s cabinet shakeup ... Prospects for a peace deal ... Russian elites’ views on the war ... How the Global South can help end the conflict ... Heading to Overtime ...
Is Biden-Harris foreign policy neoconservative or Reagan conservative? ... How much are Trump and Biden alike on foreign policy? ... Matt warns up to Walz ... How should Harris approach next week's debate? ...
What's wrong with Walz joining Harris for her first interview? ... Should Harris have gone local for her first interview? ... Why is Trump embracing RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard? ...
Steve’s books, The Hell of Good Intentions and The Israel Lobby ... How Israel helped spawn Hezbollah ... Why US leaders abet Israel’s self-destructive behavior ... Netanyahu’s longstanding opposition to a Palestinian state ... The Israeli policy that doomed Israel-Palestine relations ... Steve’s writings on US foreign policy and the election ...
Bob and Paul’s time-warping podcast experiment ... Does thinking in bets better your thinking? ... Past prediction 1: Will the presidential race tighten up? ... J.D. Vance memes of yester-month ... Past prediction 2: Who will Kamala pick for VP? ... When reality gets weird ... Heading to Overtime ...
Emma’s forthcoming book on US grand strategy ... Gaza, Ukraine, and Mearsheimer’s realism ... The DC establishment’s dark view of world affairs ... How the Gaza war hurts American interests—and America itself ... Is the time ripe for realism and restraint? ... National problems that require international cooperation ... Heading to Overtime ...
Are too many former Democratic presidents speaking at the convention? ... Does Kamala Harris need to win the national popular vote by a lot to win the Electoral College? ... Does Tim Walz need a better response to attacks on his military service? ... Does Donald Trump need a campaign shake up? ...
Nathan's podcast, The Cognitive Revolution ... The enduring enigmas of AI ... Conceptualizing how LLMs conceptualize ... Do AIs actually understand things? ... Why AI doesn’t need to be superhuman to be revolutionary ... Human vs AI representations of the world ... Thinking through high-dimensional AI brain space ... Nathan on AI risk: Doomer? Accelerationist? Both? ... The open source question and Cold War II ... Do LLMs “naturally” learn human values? ... Mamba: a new approach to building large language models ...
Peter’s background and (Root)claim to fame ... How Peter caught the Covid origins bug ... The Wuhan wet market: source or amplifier? ... Holes in the lab leak theory ... The patient zero problem ... A statistical deep dive into the wet market ... What the genetic evidence can (and can’t) tell us ... Can we “trust the science” on Covid? ... Has tribalism made resolving the debate impossible? ... Why lab leak matters—even if it didn’t happen ...
Matt argues Harris should have picked Shapiro ... Bill argues Walz has swing appeal ... Is the "couch" joke below the belt? ... How is Trump going after Walz? ... Will there be debates? ...
Who was Haniyeh—and why’d Israel kill him? ... Why Netanyahu may want a US-Iran war ... Are pro-Israel groups at peak power? ... Israel’s escalating conflict with Hezbollah ... The logic of Iranian retaliation ... Israel’s lack of a viable endgame in Gaza ... Heading to Overtime ...
How did Kamala Harris consolidate the Democratic Party so quickly? ... Is Harris authentic or a phony? ... Who will (and should) be Harris' VP? ... What is Trump thinking by attacking Harris' racial identity? ... What did Trump mean by saying "you won't have to vote anymore"? ...
Nick’s influential book Superintelligence and his new book Deep Utopia ... Has Nick flipped on AI doom? ... Life in the “solved world” of an AI utopia ... Can technology address the deepest problems of human nature? ... Meaning, artificial purpose, and the value of golf ... The promise and perils of virtual reality ... Heading to Overtime ...
Dmitri’s new book, World on the Brink ... Is America’s behavior more destabilizing than China’s? ... China-Taiwan compared to Russia-Ukraine ... Is the US making a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely? ... Should the US try to maintain global hegemony? ... The “autocracy versus democracy” framing ...
The Nonzero-American Prestige all-star team ... Why didn’t the Trump shooting matter more? ... What anti-Trump historians get wrong ... Why Kamala shouldn't demonize Trump ... Heading to Overtime—and a discount deal ...
Who’s most to blame for the Biden mess? ... Why Trump might duck a debate with Kamala ... Is Biden locked in the basement? ... Kamala’s biggest liabilities ... Loyalty, the Mob, and Biden’s psychology ... Conspiracy theories of the Trump shooting ... The kind of VP Kamala should pick ...
Mickey makes his (iconic) return to Nonzero! ... Did Trump blow his RNC acceptance speech? ... The escalating Democratic civil war over Biden ... Trump vs Biden (vs Josh Shapiro) on national unity ... Drafting the ideal Dem electoral strategy ... J.D. Vance: paradox or phony? ... Is Trump the lesser evil on foreign policy? ... Has Mickey felt the “vibe shift”? ... The Parrot Room’s reputation precedes it ...
How can anyone presume "divine intervention" saved Trump? ... What is the import of the JD Vance pick? ... In how much trouble are Democrats? ... What can Woodrow Wilson teach us about Joe Biden? ...
The psychology of the shooter ... The psychology of Trump ... Trump as national healer ... When is anti-Trump rhetoric too extreme? ... The alpha male problem ...
Biden plays chicken against Democratic elites ... Could the delegates deny Biden the nomination? ... Odd moments in the George Stephanopoulos interview ... Biden faces down a populist-elite revolt ... How a small group of insiders could force Biden out ... Heading to Overtime ...
Dementia vs senility ... Biden’s brain: a post-debate diagnosis ... Who’s to blame for the Biden problem? ... Biden’s most baffling debate moment ... Will Biden step down? Bob and Paul place their bets ... Has Nick Bostrom flipped on AI doomerism? ... The earthly side of a meditation retreat ... Heading to Overtime ...
Why Jeffrey helped turn Meta’s Llama into Bad Llama ... Bioweapons, hacking, and other AI dangers ... How America unwittingly boosts China’s AI sector ... The dark side of AI “alignment” ... Is superintelligence the super-weapon of the future? ... The perils of AI acceleration ...
What do Biden and Trump need to accomplish at the debate? ... Will Trump's VP pick get a trial run in the spin room? ... Why is Rep. Bowman in trouble in NY-16? ...
Edward’s new book, At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China ... What Americans get wrong about China ... Humiliation and China’s national psychology ... Why Edward’s father joined the People’s Liberation Army ... How Edward’s father fell out of favor with the PLA ... How draconian is Xi Jinping’s crackdown on Uyghurs? ... Famine, purges, and alienation in Mao’s China ... Heading to Overtime ...
Matt's big announcement ... What's the import of "cheapfakes"? ... Has Trump set debate expectations too low? ... Does it matter that Trump insulted Milwaukee? ... Will attacking Trump as a criminal work? ... Why is Trump outsourcing GOTV to Charlie Kirk? ...
Bob re-enters reality ... Elon’s X-rated horse-trading ... What do LLMs really say about the “blank slate” view of the mind? ... Bob challenges Paul to meditate—will Paul retreat? ... Have Bob’s views changed since writing Nonzero? ... Paul’s and Bob’s (semi-compatible) views on free ... Heading to Overtime ...
Glenn’s very unvarnished memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative ... Glenn’s unusual urban upbringing ... Is Glenn’s sermon for black men hypocritical? ... Glenn’s double life at Harvard ... How it all came crashing down ... Is Glenn’s book too honest? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Kevin’s place in cyberspace history ... Are we grappling with the pace of tech progress rationally? ... Why Kevin identifies as a techno-optimist ... Is it too early to regulate AI? ... The noosphere, the technium, and species of mind ... Do AI doomers think too highly of thinking? ... Evolution and the question of cosmic purpose ... Should we see AIs as “artificial aliens”? ...
AI's human-like, but inhuman, language skills ... Bob argues that LLMs don’t vindicate the ‘blank slate’ view of the mind ... Do humans and AIs acquire language in totally different ways? ... Will AIs ever quit hallucinating? ... The importance (or not) of “embodied cognition” ... What is it like to be an AI? ... Why Steve is skeptical of AI doom scenarios ...
Kelley’s new podcast, Trip the Beltway Fantastic ... Pat Buchanan and conservative opposition to the Iraq war ... Would Trump 2.0 promote foreign policy restraint? ... Possible Trump appointees pushing for conflict with China ... The time Tucker Carlson helped prevent war with Iran ... Would Trump greenlight ethnic cleansing in Gaza? ... Would Trump end the Russia-Ukraine war? ... Heading to Overtime ...
The Nonzero-American Prestige apocalypse aversion project ... Are Bob, Derek, and Danny surprised the Gaza war is still going on? ... Biden’s simple political calculus on Gaza ... Would Trump greenlight the ethnic cleansing of Gaza? ... Israel’s plan (or lack thereof) for post-war Gaza ... Heading to Overtime ...
Nikki Haley's not-surprising support of Trump ... Why can't Biden get credit for the economy? ... Sam Alito flies his freak flags ...
Bob’s sage status rises ... GPT-4o: harbinger of the Metaverse? ... Does sentience matter for AI companionship? ... The promise and perils of social AI ... How LLMs flip the script on computing ... Heading to Overtime—and a special announcement! ...
How the Overton window is shifting after October 7 ... Israel’s 9/11, Israel’s overreaction, and liberal Zionism ... The power of the Israel lobby ...
Is the Biden campaign panicking? ... Are the polls wrong? ... Is it wrong to debate Trump? ... Why did Biden take Trump's idea for 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs? ... What happened in this week's primaries? ...
Why this pod’s a little odd ... Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike quit OpenAI—part of a larger pattern? ... Bob: AI doomers need Hollywood ... Does an AI arms race spell doom for alignment? ... Why the “Pause AI” movement matters ... AI doomerism and Don’t Look Up: compare and contrast ... How Liron (fore)sees AI doom ... Are Sam Altman’s concerns about AI safety sincere? ... Paperclip maximizing, evolution, and the AI will to power question ... Are there real-world examples of AI going rogue? ... Should we really align AI to human values? ... Heading to Overtime ...
How Jews fit—or don’t—into universities’ DEI regimes ... What do controversial pro-Palestine chants really mean? ... When does criticism of Israel become antisemitic? ... The Israel lobby’s influence on Congress and academia ... Do pro-Israel donors unwittingly inflame antisemitism? ... Evidence of increasing antisemitism ... Was Ilhan Omar’s “all about the Benjamins” tweet antisemitic? ... Bob criticizes Bari Weiss, Bill Ackman, and an Eli tweet ... Balancing concerns about free speech and antisemitism ... Are Israelis too fatalistic about antisemitism for their own good? ...
Why is Kristi Noem doubling down? ... Why are evangelicals sticking with Trump despite his adultery? ... Why is Trump going to the Libertarian Party convention? ... Are Dems poised to take back the House? ...
Is it ever okay to fire professors for speech? ... Bari Weiss spreads misinformation without consequence ... Are some of Israel’s American supporters unwittingly inflaming antisemitism? ... Ayaan Hirsi Ali converts to Christianity without abandoning New Atheist creed ... Do Sam Harris et. al. get religion totally wrong? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Did Trump say too much to Time magazine? ... Will the Gaza protests impact the November election? ... What's Biden's clearest Electoral College path? ... Who will Trump pick for VP? ...
Coleman’s Joe Rogan appearance and new book, The End of Race Politics ... Campus protests and free speech ... Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? ... Is "exterminating Hamas" a viable solution? ... Bob: Israel never offered Palestinians a state ... “Right of return” and Palestinian national identity ... How firmly entrenched is hatred of Israel among Palestinians? ... Could better US policy have steered Israel-Palestine toward peace? ... Are Palestinian “sacred beliefs” the problem? ... Possible Palestinian futures ... Israel’s strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria ...
Why is Kevin McCarthy more hated than Mike Johnson? ... Why doesn't Biden get more credit for securing Ukraine aid and reducing Israel-Iran tensions? ... Why the divestment encampments are not effective ... Is the Trump trial hurting Trump's re-election chances? ...
Paul asserts his right to non-assertion ... Campus protests and free speech controversies ... Have pro-Palestine protestors crossed a line? Have their opposition? ... Will the protests force a reckoning on campus “wokeness”? ... Remembering philosopher Daniel Dennett ... Bob vs Dennett on consciousness ... Does the mind-body problem suggest a cosmic solution? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Anatoly’s strange CV ... How the 20th century set the stage for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine ... Why did Putin turn against the West? ... Anatoly: I underestimated Russia’s incompetence ... Has the Ukraine war really shifted in Russia’s favor? ... Russia’s “elite human capital” problem ... Is the “bio-singularity” near? ... Unipolar vs multipolar AI takeover scenarios ... Heading to Overtime ...
Did Trump blow it on abortion? ... Does the hush money trial jury have a secret Trump partisan? ... Is Mike Johnson Choosing Reagan over Trump? ... Should Sotomayor retire? ...
Why Iran’s attack on Israel was an “own goal” ... Did Iran minimize casualties on purpose? ... The rising odds of Israel attacking Iran directly ... America’s contradictory relationship with Israel ... How conflict with Iran helps Israel ... What China wants in the Middle East ... America’s destabilizing role in the region ... Heading to Overtime ...
Why Paul’s eclipse experience eclipsed Bob’s ... Remembering pioneering psychologist Daniel Kahneman ... Bob fails gender affirmation test ... Has the “replication crisis” tainted Kahneman’s legacy? ... Eastern vs. Western “enlightenment” ... How AI doomerism came to the rationalist community ... 3 Body Problem review goes into Overtime ...
Are Republican Trump critics returning to the GOP fold? ... Has Trump threaded the needle on abortion? ... Can Biden shift the nation's attention to abortion? ...
A brief message from Bob ... Derek and Danny stumble into Bob’s Zoom room ... Israel’s doubly out-of-control week ... How Biden's Gaza failures will shape the Democratic Party ... Biden’s political incentives on Israel-Palestine ... Heading to Overtime ...
Robin’s history of thinking about the future ... Seeing AI as offspring, not adversary ... Robin’s famous answer to a great cosmic mystery ... Would evidence of aliens be good news or bad? ... Is rationalist culture cultist? ... LLMs: revolution or hype cycle? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Ilia’s background ... Things to know about the noosphere ... Teilhard’s transgressive theological and scientific thought ... Does AI suggest a “transcendent nature to nature”? ... The Teilhardian solution to the mind-body problem ... How Darwinian was Teilhard, really? ... Teilhard on love ... “Techno-sapiens,” redemption, and the Omega Point ... Heading to Overtime ...
Matt's X spat with Ric Grenell ... The importance of narrative framing ... Should NBC have hired/fired Ronna McDaniel? ... How awful is RFK Jr.'s VP pick? ...
Kati’s unusual niche ... How Covid changed meditation ... Kati: The optimal amount of meditation is… ... Is focusing on the breath overblown? ... AI as a spiritual challenge ... Meditation and cognitive empathy ... Using technology mindfully ... Heading to Overtime ...
Are Nikolay and Kirill satisfied with the "special military operation"? ... Why have Russians become more supportive of the war effort? ... Kirill defends the RWA tweet that unsettled Bob ... US policies that made the war more likely ... How much of Ukraine does Putin want? ... Heading to Overtime ...
What did Trump mean by "bloodbath"? ... Trump doesn't want you to remember 2020 ... Does Bernie Moreno have the edge over Sherrod Brown? ...
Paul’s Substack: small potatoes or some pumpkins? ... Elon sours on Lemon—is ketamine to blame? ... The enduring enigma that is Elon Musk ... Is Altman overdramatizing the AI #Resistance? ... Paul cavalierly ignores Bob’s sage guidance ... Oscars: The good, the bad, and the hammy ... Heading to Overtime (plus: big Small Potatoes news!) ...
Nathan’s role as “AI scout” ... What "open source" in AI really means ... Why the secrecy around AI training data? ... What’s actually “open” about OpenAI? ... The case for and against open source AI ... Is an open source crackdown coming? ... What Waymark, Nathan’s company, does with AI ...
Should TikTok be banned? ... Why did Ken Buck quit? ... Will the Hur report hurt Biden? ... Is Biden's new ad any good? ...
Should Biden pursue regime change in Israel? ... How the White House mishandled Netanyahu's far-right government ... Daniel: “Israel has lost this war” ... What a ceasefire deal would look like ... Biden’s immense, unused leverage over Netanyahu ... Heading to Overtime ...
Did Super Tuesday tell us anything? ... What should Biden do in the SOTU? ... Is Trump losing it? ... Did Sinema's retirement mean bipartisanship is dead? ...
The other Tim B. Lee ... Unpacking the Elon v. OpenAI case ... How did Google’s Gemini go wrong? ... The unsung ingenious side of Gemini ... Is AI a bubble? ... Are some LLM issues insoluble? ... How Sora changes the AI picture ... Heading to Overtime ...
Can Trump win back Haley voters? ... Does it matter how many Democrats vote "Uncommitted" in Michigan? ... Is there any logic to Trump's messaging to African-American voters? ... Do people vote for president like it's a TV show? ...
Big trouble with Small Potatoes ... What makes a good podcast? ... Google’s AI goes wild(ly woke) ... Is Biden a “super-ager” or just super old? ... On the psychology of self-immolation ... Are we thinking right about mental illness? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Gary’s background and place in the AI world ... Are Gary’s views on AI paradoxical? ... Bob: Searle’s Chinese Room argument is dead ... Have LLMs demonstrated "theory of mind"? ... Arguing the semantics of an LLM's “semantic space” ... Do LLM representations map onto the real world? ... Can (and should) we slow down AI development? ... Gary: I’ve never seen a field as myopic as AI today ... The (symbolic?) future of AI ...
Nikita’s memories of Navalny’s emergence as a political force ... The time Nikita was detained for protesting election fraud ... Navalny’s success as a political organizer ... What did Navalny represent? ... Navalny’s courageous post-poisoning return to Russia ... Heading to Overtime (plus: Nikita’s photo with Navalny) ...
What MSM missed about Carlsons' Putin interview ... Putin’s litany of grievances against the West ... Russia gets the upper hand in Ukraine ... Why Zelensky hasn’t paved the way for peace talks ... Putin’s mafia-inspired approach to negotiations ... Do most Russians support the war? ... Why Zelensky fired his popular top general ... Heading to Overtime ...
Does the NY-03 special election have national import? ... Will the special counsel report sink Joe Biden? ... Was Jon Stewart's monologue on the mark? ...
Nora’s low score on the AI doomer test ... The messy math of AI alignment ... Teaching and (unteaching) concepts to LLMS ... Do we really want human-like AI? ... How the AI “mind” works ... How to change an AI’s mind ... Are LLMs reverse-engineering the human mind? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Bob’s bad newsletter news for Paul ... Fast Car's moving Grammy moment ... Music, female orgasms, and other evolutionary enigmas ... The Moral Animal turns 30—how has it aged? ... How AI (barely) helps Paul work ... Is America real? ... Bob tries to drag Paul down the JFK rabbit hole ... Lab leak and the trouble with “conspiracy theories” ... Heading to Overtime ...
The import of Chapman-Combs ... "An embarrassing day for Republicans" ... How immigration wrecked the GOP ... What's Nikki Haley doing? ... The 3rd party X factor ...
Effective altruism (EA) and Rob’s 80,000 Hours podcast ... BF’s fall = EA’s public relations problem ... What went wrong for (and with) SBF? ... Virtue as a utilitarian shortcut ... What drove EA’s longtermist (r)evolution? ... EA, AI, and the miscalculation of existential risk ... Did EA play a role in the OpenAI board drama? ... Heading to Overtime ...
Another high-synergy collaborative episode ... Do mainstream Israelis support ethnic cleansing? ... Biden’s electoral (mis?)calculations on Israel-Palestine ... What does a left-wing foreign policy vision look like today? ...
Why do conservatives think the NFL is working with the Deep State? ... Can the border-Ukraine deal pass Congress? ... Who will Trump pick as VP? ...
How Israelis think about civilian casualties in Gaza ... Is the war spawning a new generation of terrorists? ... Explaining versus justifying bad behavior ... Can Hamas and other extremist groups be moderated? ... Is the world biased against Israel? ... Cognitive biases that inflame tribal tensions ... The “river to the sea” Rorschach test ... On the precipice of World War III? ...
Almut’s work as a feminist activist in the former Soviet Union ... How economic anxiety helped tear Ukraine apart ... The very complex coalition behind the Maidan Revolution ... Could wiser European Union policy have averted the Russia-Ukraine conflict? ... Queer feminists and the ultra-right in Ukraine ... The nature of Ukrainian nationalism ... Heading into Overtime ...
Nikki Haley beats Biden in new poll ... How big is Ukraine’s military "breakthrough"? ... Signs that Russia is ready for peace talks ... Why are Americans feeling down on the economy? ... DeSantis takes care of business in hurricane-wrecked Florida ... Are the punishments for January 6 rioters too severe? ... How much time is there for a formidable Democrat to challenge Biden for the nomination? ... Bob and Mickey make big announcement ...
Can a white man tell Harriet Tubman’s story? ... What the fall semester has in store for Glenn and John ... How John makes the sausage at the New York Times ... John: We now memorize rap lyrics instead of poetry ... Is wokeness on the wane? ... What John just doesn’t get about Carol Swain ... A Democrat by any other name ... John makes a wild prediction about Trump ...
What's there to write about these days? ... Do Democrats want to dump Biden? ... How did ageist attacks fare in the past? ... Remembering Reagan's '84 debates ... Can Pence reframe the race around Conservatism vs. Populism? ... Is Nikki Haley having a moment? ...
Tim’s article explaining large language models ... Do LLMs reverse engineer the human mind? ... GPT’s mesmerizing emergent properties ... The ‘T’ in Chat-GPT ... How AI models evolve during training ... Human intelligence compared to artificial intelligence ... Heading to Overtime ...
Why Carol joined Black Voices for Trump ... Why should black people support Trump? ... Carol: Democrats stole the 2020 election ... Does Trump face a credible assassination threat? ... The redefinition of white supremacy ... Deracializing the crime debate ... Carol’s new book, The Adversity of Diversity: How Real Training Can Promote Healing in a Post-Affirmative Action World ... Glenn: Affirmative action is one thing, DEI is another ... Clarence Thomas v. Ketanji Brown Jackson ... What affirmative action did right ...
Did Nikki Haley's debate performance change the race? ... Should Mitch McConnell step down as Minority Leader or resign his seat? ... Should we have age limits or term limits? ... Is AOC becoming an insider? ...
Nikita’s life as an expatriate ... Theories among Russians about Prigozhin’s death ... Putin’s handling of the Wagner mutiny, reassessed ... Did Prigozhin lose his mind? ... How worried should Putin be about Prigozhin’s supporters? ... Russians’ evolving views of the invasion ... Is Putin feeling heat from the nationalist right? ...
Mickey gets a C on the news quiz ... Prigozhin postmortem: Is Putin’s regime more secure now? ... The Ukraine war as “politics by other means” ... The good, the bad, and the ugly of the GOP debate ... Will the indictments help Trump in the general election? ... Parrot room preview: Why Bob finds Vivek scary and “Rich Men North of Richmond” icky; Extraordinary Attorney Woo; Hurricane Hilary hype; retail “shrink” hits the big time; Bidenomics and E.J. Dionne; Do presidential candidates need to be optimistic? ...
A sixteen-year-long conversation ... Race and socioeconomics on the cusp of the Obama Era ... The myth of black poverty and deindustrialization ... Glenn pulls rank ... Why Glenn changed his mind about the Manhattan Institute ... Is the think tank world any more “objective” than academia? ...
Most of the GOP field is conflicted over Trump ... Is the Republican Party an America First party or a Reaganite party? ... Why DeSantis became an afterthought ... Is Vivek angling for VP? ...
Has David’s grim outlook on the climate changed? ... How “global warming” became “climate change” ... What wilder wildfires signal about the environment ... Which climate measures are the surest bet? ... Climate science’s time-scale problem ... The pros and cons of carbon capture ... Heading to Overtime ...
Haim’s history with The Glenn Show ... How Haim ended up fighting in Ukraine ... The legionnaire’s lingua franca ... Haim’s riposte to Cornel West on Ukraine ... A pen in one hand and a gun in the other ... Haim: Ukraine’s sovereignty and national identity must be respected ... Is the two-state solution dead? ...
Yet another Trump indictment—How strong is the case? ... Is America becoming a banana republic? ... DeSantis debate strategy goes public ... Bob floats secret elite plot to get Biden off the Democratic ticket ... Why Ukraine’s stalled offensive is politically hazardous for Biden ... Parrot Room preview: US-China war games; Sam Bankman-Fried back in jail; Hunter Biden scandal updates; populist anthem sweeps America; colorful LA character passes away; San Diego’s successful homeless policy; Twitter versus Threads; and signs of AI enlightenment. ...
Will Trump debate? ... Will Republicans ever get indictment fatigue? ... Why Dean Phillips's case for primarying Biden doesn't add up ...
Sohrab’s idiosyncratic ideological journey ... What makes Sohrab a conservative? ... Sohrab’s new book Tyranny, Inc.—a critique of neoliberal capitalism’s effects on American life ... What happened to the labor movement in America? ... Private equity’s role in Sears’s demise ... “Ghost papers”: Wall Street's effect on local news ... Overtime preview: Sohrab’s foreign policy; supporting Donald Trump; re-industrializing without Cold War II; and what is to be done? ...
New challenges for Ukraine ... What do lead pipes have to do with climate migrants? Ask Biden ... Are the Bidens corruption “disruptors”? ... Mickey’s craziest theory of the week ... Another wrinkle in the Hunter Biden scandal ... What mainstream media won’t tell you about Iran ... Mickey’s searing critique of Obama ... Parrot room preview: Mickey on the Trump cases; RIP Robbie Robertson; Tim Scott’s campaign expense weirdness; Biden's strange Saudi-Israel plan; Code Pink; assessing the UFO whistleblower; San Francisco's autonomous cabs; Michael Lind vs Richard Hanania; losing Sugar Man; Oppenheimer (the documentary); Sohrab Ahmari; a cornucopia of comments ...
The protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness ... Is comparing wokeness to religion a slander on religion? ... Ian: Wokeness is a distraction from real political problems ... How Ian experienced his own cancelation ... America’s exportation of wokeness ... Has wokeness aided and abetted Trump and Brexit? ... John: Enslaved people did find ways to improve their own lives ...
How US-China rivalry is shaking up the region ... Why Washington wants to control the Middle East oil spigot ... The odds of an imminent confrontation with Iran ... Is America breaking international law in Syria? ... What would a Middle East without US intervention look like? ... Why Israel lacks a written constitution ... Heading to Overtime ...
A PBS lament ... Does Trump prosecutor Jack Smith have the goods? ... Hunter Biden’s corruption defense: It was all an illusion ... President Biden’s Ukraine quagmire ... What Trump gets right about Russia-Ukraine ... Is West Africa heading toward a major war? ... Parrot Room preview: The tragedy of PBS NewsHour; Mickey’s border worries; Bob’s reflection on jury duty; the economics of electric vehicles; the UFO files; Italy pivots away from guaranteed income; over-the-counter Alzheimer’s test; US-China decoupling; room-temperature superconductors; and the limits of AI ...
How Jay’s position on affirmative action changed ... Jay: I can’t see the virtue in affirmative action as it’s practiced ... Why did so many Asian students defend policies that discriminated against Asians? ... The hidden cultural argument in the California Mathematics Framework ... Is the “people of color coalition” coming apart? ... Why so little outrage over the SCOTUS affirmative action decision? ... When students internalize artificial trauma narratives ... America can’t economically decouple itself from China. Will anti-China rhetoric wane? ... What will and won’t change in the wake of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ... Isn’t there some value to diversity in education? ...
Bob and Dan reminisce about blogging and Bloggingheads ... Was the first year of Russia’s invasion a success for US foreign policy? ... When will Putin be ready to cut a deal? ... The odds of a wider war—or a nuclear one ... What good can come from continuing the war? ... Has the US mismanaged its relationship with Putin’s Russia? ... Putin’s fear of western-backed color revolutions ...
Bob extols the virtues of jury duty ... Ukraine’s counter offensive surge ... What does Hunter’s failed plea deal mean for Joe? ... In search of a DeSantis strategy ... The Niger coup and Cold War II ... Parrot room preview: Israel’s issues; musings on late musicians; Is Ramaswamy surging?; New lab leak controversy; Mickey’s border question for Biden; Is DEI d-e-a-d?; A crazy (ex-)Twitter theory; AI self-regulation ...
Peter’s role in the Supreme Court affirmative action case ... Are legacy admissions affirmative action by another name? ... Why Peter got interested in affirmative action ... Glenn was for affirmative action before he was against it ... Peter: Universities are not honest about admissions ... The brilliance of Roland Fryer ... Campus diversity after affirmative action ...
Matt returns to the DMZ from the "Filthy Rich Politicians" book tour ... Is the DeSantis campaign over? ... X or Threads? ... Does Barbie mean "woke" sells? ... Is No Labels going to elect Trump? ...
Where AI fits in Connor’s tech threat taxonomy ... What does the “general” in artificial general intelligence actually mean? ... What should worry us about AI right now? ... Connor: Don’t put your trust in AI companies ... The promise and perils of open-sourcing AI ... Why "interpretability" matters ... What would an aligned AI actually look like? ... Bridging the technology wisdom gap ...
How Matt first encountered Christopher Hitchens ... Matt’s new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment ... Why Matt thinks Cornel West’s Vietnam-Afghanistan analogy is flawed ... What’s worth preserving in the left-liberal tradition? ... Matt: Identity politics is a “toxin” ... Was affirmative action ever necessary? ... Matt: I wish the left would rediscover Hitchens’s universalism ... Hitchens’s “fearless liberalism” ...
Senator Chris Murphy declares war on loneliness ... Why is the Ukraine offensive going badly? ... Why Biden should push for peace talks now ... Threads unravels ... Was RFK’s Covid conjecture anti-Semitic? ... Mickey reviews the MSM version of DeSantis ... American diplomacy update: murky scandals and trash talk ... Parrot Room preview: Biden corruption scandal; electric car paranoia; what Trump will do if he wins; Mickey on Xi Jinping; Trump’s trials; Tony Bennett passes away; Meta’s dubious AI policy; Is the internet annoying, or is Bob just old? ...
What is this new Overton Windows series about? ... Tamler’s connections to Israel and Bob’s experiences there ... What does Zionism mean in practice? ... The shifting Overton window around Israel/Palestine ... The heavy-handed response to the BDS movement ... What the Israel/Palestine discourse says about Overton windows ... So where should the boundaries be set? ...
John: Let’s be honest about what “taking race into account” means in affirmative action ... Glenn: How can anyone argue that race-based affirmative action doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment? ... Why are we so focused on elite institutions? ... John: The University of California works just fine without “racial preferences” ... “You’re pulling the ladder up behind you” is an invalid critique ... John: The fact that racism exists does not justify changing standards ... Why Roland Fryer thinks we should put our money where our mouth is on race and education ... Will the post-Students for Fair Admissions future turn into a Hardship Olympics? ...
Mickey bats .500 on this week’s news quiz ... Gen. “Spartacus” and other Russians with attitude ... What (or who) is impeding peace in Ukraine? ... What Biden has that other possible Dem candidates don’t ... What Trump’s messaging has that DeSantis’s doesn’t ... Untangling Threads’s early days ... Parrot Room preview: AI update; the mysterious Gal Luft; the irony of Klaatu’s speech; Mickey’s diversity epiphany; Canadian euthanasia initiative; Silo spoilers; AMC Pacer maker passes; Bob’s China vindication; Alan Arkin speech debate round three ...
Why Bob invited Russians with Attitude onto the Nonzero Podcast ... Why do Kirill and Nikolay support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? ... Shortcomings of US mainstream media in covering Russia ... The roots of the Donbass rebellion ... Parallels between the Maidan Revolution and the Donbass rebellion ... What was Putin’s main reason for invading? ... Is Russia systematically committing war crimes? ... Final thoughts from Nikolay and Kirill before heading into Overtime ...
Should Trump’s GOP rivals attack him, praise him, or both? ... Prigozhin mutiny aftermath gets messy ... Signs of a coming ceasefire in Ukraine ... How many Russia hawks really care about Ukrainians? ... MSM deep-sixes affirmative action ruling ... Is Zuckerberg’s Twitter clone ageist? ... Parrot Room preview: New anti-censorship ruling; private companies and the First Amendment; The Day the Earth Stood Still; riots in France; Macron’s good policy idea; artificial intelligence and war; complaints about Timothy Snyder and the New York Times; Elon-Zuckerberg cage match. ...
The problem with scientific consensus ... Why Jay and his colleagues were branded “fringe epidemiologists” ... Jay: We need to engage with everyone—even those with mistaken beliefs ... Persuading science skeptics ... How do we stop COVID overreach from happening again? ... Jay: Gain-of-function research is impossible to do safely ... Are some ideas too dangerous to test? ... Jay: Fauci’s blunder was so catastrophic that only history can judge him ...
Why Cornel is running for president ... How Cornel links American militarism abroad and inequality at home ... Cornel’s pitch to skeptical right-of-center voters ... Is there tension between Cornel’s commitment to stopping climate change and his commitment to helping the working class? ... The moral potential and pitfalls of capitalism ... Might Cornel inadvertently hand the election to the Republicans? ... Cornel: Tim Scott and Clarence Thomas are wrong, but they’re sincere ... Why Cornel thinks the US is partially culpable for the Ukraine War ... Should Palestinians recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel? ... Cornel’s ideas about the US border ...
Why Michael McFaul is wrong about Vladimir Putin ... Is Putin ready for a ceasefire? ... Has SCOTUS succeeded in killing affirmative action? ... Americans do have to pay student loans, don’t have to make LGBT websites ... Is RFK Jr. entering Trump’s orbit? ... Parrot Room preview: GOP election strategy; Bidenomics and national conservatism; band name of the year; Yglesias says liberals have higher IQs; final episode of Silo; Bob reviews Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Titanic submarine tragedy; and reasons to worry about a false flag attack in Ukraine. ...
Is Obama Boomer or Gen X? ... What are the odds the next president is Biden or Trump? ... Why are DeSantis or Haley misrepresenting Gen X childhoods? ... Will we see a Trump-Kennedy ticket? ... What's the impact of the SCOTUS ban on higher ed affirmative action? ...
Sean’s new book, We May Dominate the World: Ambition, Anxiety, and the Rise of the American Colossus ... China’s and Russia’s behavior today compared to America’s a century ago ... If geopolitical realities don’t change, are great powers doomed to blow up the world? ... Why did the US decide to dominate the western hemisphere? ... American interventions from the Civil War to World War I ... Why forceful US interventions in Latin America have become less common ... Were the fears motivating the annexation of Hawaii based in reality? ... Did the Spanish-American War have broad public support? ...
Should Hunter Biden and Trump get the Tim Geithner treatment? ... Bob’s latest evidence that Biden shouldn’t run again ... Have we reached peak RFK Jr.? ... Does the counteroffensive hurt Ukraine’s cause? ... Leaky new dam collapse theory ... The rapidly metastasizing GOP primary field ... Israel-Palestine gets Black Mirror-y ... Alito’s ill-considered trip ... Parrot room preview: The right’s schism over capitalism; Prigozhin's insurrection; the Titanic sub tragedy; Why Mickey is growing to hate EVs; Janan Ganesh’s elite take on populism; Bob’s (possibly) new UFO thoughts; Cutting the tax cuts from supply-side economics?; Silo; Biden’s billion-dollar battery bonuses; Biden’s reverse-Epstein problem ...
Why Jonathan’s course “Culture in America” got canceled ... The fragility of liberal arts education ... Managing “CRT zealots” in the classroom ... Is there a future for free inquiry? ... John: Black middle-class students don’t need affirmative action ... Is diversity the problem, or is it elitism? ... The virtues (and virtue signaling) of Randall Kennedy ...
Why would Trump debate? ... How have Republican longshots exploited debates in the past? ... Does the Hunter Biden plea bargain change the race? ...
The (fuzzy) distinction between cognitive and emotional empathy ... Simon’s work on autism and empathy ... Should we really view autism as a spectrum? ... Are powerful people bad at cognitive empathy? ... Hitler, tribalism, and the societal dynamics of empathy ... Can cognitive empathy save the world? ... The “double-empathy” problem ... How autistic kids play differently ...
Mickey gets a B+ on this week’s news quiz ... Is RFK Jr. the Dem’s key to booting Biden? ... Chris Christie’s chances vs. Trump ... Has Tucker gone off the deep end? ... No, Russia didn’t blow up Ukraine’s dam ... Is the Ukrainian counteroffensive failing? ... Parrot room preview: Remembering Daniel Ellsberg; Elizabeth Gilbert’s self-cancellation; the fake deepfake of John Lennon; Mickey’s AI question; a bit of Epstein news; LIV golf update; Mickey contra popular vote compact; the Blob’s pro-immigration argument; Who’s going to pardon Trump? And why?; Did Harvard or the CIA drive the Unabomber crazy?; RIP Ed Fredkin; Silo; Harvard and the Inuit ...
After the indictment, Trump is still ahead—by a lot ... What does it take for a longshot candidate to break out? ... What incentive does Trump have to debate? ... Inflation, crime, immigration metrics are actually improving ...
Frank’s book The End of History and the Last Man ... Bob’s book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny ... Do people have to be rational in order to cooperate? ... Are AI and other technologies advancing too rapidly for society to adapt? ... Frank’s take on Hegel ... Why Frank’s a Russia hawk and Bob's a Russia dove ... Will authoritarian regimes do a better job of dealing with advanced information technologies? ...
How should climate activists respond to the Canadian wildfires? ... Is there any hope for Chris Christie? ... Will there be any Republican primary debates? ... Where is the GOP electorate on abortion? ... What is the Republican "wine track"? ...
The GOP primary gets crowded ... Will Trump’s indictment help him get the nomination? ... Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive begins ... Dissecting Timothy Snyder’s Ukraine analysis ... Looks like Ukraine blew up Nord Stream ... Tucker’s new Twitter show ... Parrot Room preview: Bob draws lesson from PGA’s merger with Saudi’s LIV; affirmative action set to fall; Apple’s new goggles; Taylor Swift; food stamps and the homeless; why Gen-Zers are more likely to be non-binary; Cracker Barrel goes woke; Chinese spy situation in Cuba; Bob on the sci-fi show Silo. ...
Inside the mind of a crack columnist ... The blowback from Norman Finkelstein’s TGS appearance ... Is it enough to be a “happy warrior” for your cause? ... How did MLK become MLK? ... What’s in a name when that name is “Woodrow Wilson”? ... Glenn: “Clarence Thomas’s name should be on public school buildings” ...
The dam breaks in Ukraine ... Is western media giving a clear picture of the war? ... Why do some Ukrainian soldiers wear Nazi symbols? ... How Russia-Ukraine could become a wider war ... Could the US have prevented the war? ... Seeing American foreign policy from Putin's point of view ...
China’s role in Saudi-Iran rapprochement ... The legacy of Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal ... Does Israel have a Palestine plan? ... Tensions resurface in Kosovo ... NATO expansion and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ... Has the US mismanaged its relationship with Russia? ... Prospects for peace in Ukraine—or for massive military escalation ... A message from Bob about this week's Parrot Room ...
Charles’s argument for emphasizing education over systemic racism ... Donique: Teaching African American history doesn’t require critical race theory ... Charles: We are the 97%! ... How Donique balances oppression and triumph in black history ... What does Florida’s Stop WOKE Act actually say? ... What’s wrong with integrating LGBT history and black history? ... Sexuality’s ever-shifting Overton window ... Why Donique, a public school teacher, advocates for homeschooling ... Expanding the canon of historic black figures ...
Will Kevin McCarthy get his due? ... What did Joe Biden get out of the deal? ... Is DeSantis a "wine track" candidate? ... Can Christie make it to the debate stage? ...
Sam’s Bloggingheads bona fides ... Is AI “interpretability” worth the trouble? ... Natural selection and artificial intelligence ... Are large language models absorbing human nature? ... What Sam thinks singularitarian AI doomers get wrong ... Is it time for an AI-safety Manhattan Project? ... Sam: Let a thousand GPT-4 (but not GPT-5) plug-ins bloom. ... Where are our AI safety blindspots? ...
Bob quizzes Mickey on worrisome Ukraine war developments ... What could push Putin to go nuclear? ... How disastrous was the DeSantis launch really? ... DeSantis’s possible anti-Trump trump card ... Who’s losing the debt-ceiling fight? ... Parrot room preview: Soul and dual Dune reviews; the latest on Epstein-Gates; Bob’s 12 Monkeys howler; AI; simply the best of Tina Turner; Mickey delineates new immigration bills ...
John: “I love linguistics, but it no longer loves me” ... How Glenn and John are getting written out of their fields ... Jordan Neely didn’t deserve to die … ... … but the New York subway is getting scary ... Glenn: Reparations would be “impractical, unfair, and divisive in the extreme” ... A possible left-wing objection to reparations ... Glenn goes ham on reparations ...
Maybe DeSantis should have skipped 2024 ... Is DeSantis all that competent? ... Should DeSantis be embracing Musk? ... Was Tim Scott's announcement any better? ...
The watershed moment that led Ben to write his new book, "Cry, Baby" ... Does meditation make you less emotional? ... How different socio-cultural groups feel about crying ... Why do we cry anyway? ... Transformative and performative weeping ... Putting Joel Osteen’s tears under a microscope ... How does the nature of crying change over a lifetime? ... Overtime preview: Bob’s most embarrassing adult crying experience, psychedelics and crying, and more! ... Ben delivers a benediction on crying ...
Mickey’s risky quiz for Bob ... Biden, Feinstein, Fetterman: Compare and contrast ... Does DeSantis have a path to the presidency? ... Bob’s biggest takeaway from the AI hearings ... How the chip war with China makes real war more likely ... What senators should have asked OpenAI’s CEO ... Ukraine war update ... Parrot room preview: (Not much) debt deal talk; Robert Putnam essay assessed; the Thiel-Epstein and Botstein-Epstein and Chomsky-Epstein connections; an important note on inequality; examining 12 Monkeys; Tucker; new “woke-watch” items; more AI ...
Has Norman been shut out of mainstream political debates? ... Norman’s conflict with Alan Dershowitz ... Is Israel an apartheid state? ... Identifying with Paul Robeson ... Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! ... Norman: Wokeness is a “triple scam” ... What’s become of Angela Davis? ... Cornel West's chosen path ... Obama’s self-proclaimed “neat trick” ... The political intelligence of Carter, Clinton, and Obama ... South Carolina 2020: a case study in identity politics ... Would Bernie have won in 2016? ...
How the Biden administration is fixing the immigration system ... Will Biden take the 14th? ... What's up with that Glenn Youngkin ad? ... Has Ron DeSantis gotten his groove back? ...
Tim’s tech background and his new newsletter, Understanding AI ... Natural selection and artificial intelligence ... Why Tim is a singularity skeptic ... How exactly would AI take over? And will it even want to? ... The bad AI vs good AI arms race ... What exactly are "AI agents"? ... Why Tim is an AI job-pocalypse skeptic ... Has AI created the biggest tech hype wave ever? ... How Tim thinks AI will actually transform human life ...
The food fight within Russia’s military establishment ... Could Ukraine’s looming offensive succeed? ... The foreign policy Blob’s biggest blind spot ... Was Trump’s town hall performance a tactical blunder? ... Is DeSantis’s attack on Disney anti-democratic? ... Tucker moves to Twitter ...
"Seltzer Talk" with Bill n Matt ... Why are Republicans still afraid of Trump? ... Don't overhype the ABC/Washington Post poll ... Why did Biden change tack on the debt limit? ... Should we take the Hunter Biden investigation seriously? ...
America’s missed opportunity to create a peaceful post-Cold-War world ... The moment US foreign policy went off track ... Why didn’t the West invest in Russia’s post-Cold War recovery? ... The foreign policy Blob’s continuity across presidential administrations ... Has the American journalism gotten worse in recent decades? ...
Mickey deflates a DeSantis challenger ... Mickey’s ego-inflating podcast week ... Who was behind the Kremlin drone attack? ... Neocon propaganda outlet busted; Bob vindicated ... Who has the bigger beef with Neera Tanden? ... How bad was the leaked Tucker text about how “white men fight”? ... Parrot room preview: Gordon Lightfoot trivia lightning-round; adjudicating the Ed Sheeran case; new Epstein name-drops; Bob’s latest AI piece; DeSantis vs. Disney; the latest Twitter rival’s arrival; Elon’s subtle Tesla pricing strategy ...
Matt reviews Dave Barry's new novel ... Bill argues against giving RFK Jr. serious media coverage ... Did Timothy McVeigh shape the modern Republican Party? ... Is Clarence Thomas eroding trust in the Supreme Court? ... Should you panic about the debt limit? ...
Israel’s many issues ... How ugly could Israel’s judicial reform crisis get? ... Are Palestinian citizens of Israel really under “apartheid”? ... The demographic and ideological sources of Israel’s instability ... If the two-state solution is dead, now what? ... How might an increasingly multipolar world affect Israel? ... Why climate change makes Israel-Palestine even more dire ...
Is MSM giving cheat sheets to Biden? ... Trump says he might skip GOP debates ... Will Tucker make a run for the White House? ... Disney escalates its feud with DeSantis ... Bob: Ukraine’s looming offensive is a bad idea ...
Mark Goldblatt’s recent book, I Feel, Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism ... Wokeism’s roots in postmodern thought ... The “mysticism” of woke thinking ... Learning from Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations ... John breaks his silence on transgender issues ... The political consequences of subjectivism ... Why Mark thinks transgender people are mentally disordered ... What does the T have to do with the LGB? ... Mark: Transgender people deserve respect ... Distinguishing between strategy and reality ...
Will Tucker Carlson's firing change Fox News, or the Republican Party? ... Does Kevin McCarthy deserve a victory lap in the media? ... Why some pro-lifers are mad at Matt ...
John’s upcoming book, How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy ... Is the US to blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? ... Is Putin less rational than John assumes? ... Why John is a Russia dove and a China hawk ... Does China pose a threat to freedom around the world? ... Why John thinks China’s rise threatens American security ... Has globalization made great-power peace possible? ... Should the US defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion? ...
Is DeSantis done for? ... Ro Khanna for president! ... Why Cold War II makes AI scarier ... Is Twitter done for? ... How imminent is a recession, really? ... Ukraine war update ... The Blinken wrinkle in the Hunter Biden laptop story ... Parrot room preview: Mickey’s AI revelation; Can the GOP win over the college crowd?; Is Fetterman out of the woods?; Is a border crisis incoming?; The slow-burn of Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice; more on DeSantis ...
The gigification of academia ... Is education just another commodity? ... What do historians do? ... Daniel: The university system is an unregulated cartel ... The liberalism (not the leftism) of the university ... Using (and getting used by) new technology ... An alternate history of global economic development ... The end of the American century ... Daniel’s critique of US support for Ukraine ...
Matt and Bill await the loss of their Twitter blue checks ... How much trouble is Ron DeSantis in? ... Matt grapples with the gun issue ... Bill urges Biden to start debt limit talks ...
How Roko and Alex wound up debating on the Nonzero Podcast ... Could near-term AI disruption be worse than Covid? ... Is AI an existential threat? ... How the sci-fi apocalypse scenario might unfold ... How is a renegade AI like a man wearing a condom? ... Why would an AI want to kill us? ... How the Cold War makes AI more dangerous ... Roko and Alex make final statements before Overtime ...
The promise (and perils) of Notes, Substack’s new social media platform ... One big way Notes could be a better Twitter ... Nikita’s grand vision for Notes—and Substack ... User control vs. the allure of algorithms ... Is a better culture of discourse possible through Notes? ... How Notes benefits from elite buy-in ... Bob’s advice for Substack: Don't be like Microsoft! ... Towards a civil society ...
The Biden age issue ... Are Republicans setting the stage for Biden’s re-election? ... Bob: Right-wing “non-interventionists” are rabid China hawks ... The Pentagon’s no good, very leaky week ... Is Clarence Thomas corrupt? ... The New York Times hunts down a leaker ... Elon vs. Matt Taibbi and Substack ... Parrot Room preview: The new legal theory for prosecuting Trump; Biden’s border policy; Mickey vs. Ross Douthat on AI alarmism; government programs Mickey likes; the movie Megan comes to life; the potential of Substack Notes. ...
How should you commemorate the 100th anniversary of Calvin Coolidge's swearing in? ... Is Tim Scott really running for VP? ... Why Ron DeSantis should not run in 2024 ... Should you leave Twitter for Substack? ...
How freaked out is Michal by current AIs? ... Why "theory of mind" (aka cognitive empathy)—even in humans—is mind-blowing ... Michal’s theory-of-mind experiments with AI ... Bob’s theory-of-mind experiments with AI ... Do large language models construct representations of concepts? ... Does AI have subjective experience? ... What human neural networks do that AI doesn't ...
What’s wrong with cancelation? ... A defense of Charles Murray ... Cancelation and the closet ... Jonathan’s book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth ... Jonathan: “The marketplace of ideas” is a necessary but insufficient metaphor ... Is Trump an agent of disinformation? ... What the woke and MAGA crowds have in common ... Why Jonathan is hopeful about the constitution of knowledge ...
The SBF and Trump indictments: compare and contrast ... Is DeSantis tanking? ... How the Tennessee House controversy could boost Biden ... Unpacking progressive wins in Wisconsin and Chicago ... Is Twitter becoming a banana republic? ... Ukraine war (and NATO) update ... Parrot room preview: Russian pro-war blogger’s strange assassination; Jill Biden’s basketball misstep; Clarence Thomas’s controversial trips; Amazon against anti-woke reviews; M3GAN, the alignment problem, and more AI talk; GM’s EV blunder; Matt Taibbi vs. Mehdi Hasan; Dershowitz on Epstein ...
Why won't Republicans go after Trump ... How strong is the Manhattan DA's case against Trump? ... Why progressives had good election days in Wisconsin & Chicago ... Will Tennessee pass a red flag law? ...
Paul’s book, The World Crisis and International Law ... Should we demand that other countries be as liberal as we are? ... What went wrong in Russia after the Soviet Union fell? ... How post-Cold war consensus gave way to global fragmentation ... Can international law prevent techno-authoritarianism? ... Paul’s skepticism about international law ... How the knowledge economy could lead to a Chinese Trump ...
A common conundrum: How to pay off your porn-star mistres ... Ways to make Ron DeSantis seem human ... Bob: The newest AI has cognitive empathy ... How Cold War II makes AI more dangerous ... Why are traditional American values in decline? ... What foreign policy elites say about Russia-Ukraine behind closed doors ... Parrot Room preview: Something smart Zelensky said; US think tank advocates murder; how the Nashville shooting was reported; Musk makes another Twitter policy change; why Elizabeth Holmes was ahead of her time ...
The disruption of Judge Kyle Duncan’s speech at Stanford Law School ... Why did people have a problem with Duncan? ... Will the current Supreme Court overturn Obergefell v. Hodges ... The necessity of free inquiry and reasoned discourse ... What it’s like being a FedSoc conservative at Stanford Law ... The fallout from the Duncan protests ... The vulgarity of the insults hurled at Duncan ... The role of conservatives at Stanford ...
Matt Lewis discusses his upcoming book "Filthy Rich Politicians" ... Joe Biden's innovative immigration plan: Welcome Corps ... Can Chris Christie take down Trump? ...
Bob and David reminisce about Bloggingheads ... David’s book, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy ... Are Russiagaters moving the goalposts? ... What the Trump team knew about Russian meddling ... The missing “collusion” piece of the Russiagate puzzle ... Why David thinks Russiagate's biggest critics are perpetuating a hoax ... If Russiagaters are right, why didn’t Trump do Russia many favors? ...
John’s recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher ... The rigors of the lecture circuit ... The difference between equity and equality ... How do we know that African Americans are just as smart as everyone else? ... The new black bourgeoisie ... Standards in the arts are relative. But how relative? ... John sets the record straight on his dancing skills ...
Bob: On foreign policy, there is no real Ron DeSantis ... The difference between right-restrainers and left-restrainers ... The dangerous politics of indicting Trump ... Trump’s new plan to take out the deep state ... Is the war turning in Ukraine’s favor? ... Why did DeSantis change the pronunciation of his name? ... Parrot Room preview: Everything Everywhere All At Once speaks to Bob; SVB fallout not over; banning the word “woke”; Camaro goes out of production—or does it?; likelihood of Covid lab-leak ...
Has DeSantis figured out how to take on Trump? ... Are people really moving to Florida because it's anti-woke? ... Will an indictment hurt or help Trump? ... Did the 1980 "October Surprise" change the course of history? ...
Richard’s banking and business bona fides ... Was the Silicon Valley Bank crash a harbinger of worse to come? ... What actually caused SVB’s collapse? ... Richard: SVB failed risk management 101 ... Costs and benefits of the SVB bailout ... The Fed’s oft-forgotten original role ... Did the deregulation SVB lobbied for doom it? ... Overtime preview: Richard’s career highlights; cognitive empathy in commerce; how to hire like a boss; and more! ...
Mickey’s mind-bending analogy between romance and politics ... Bob triggered by DeSantis’s “territorial dispute” line about Russia-Ukraine ... How to prevent the next bank collapse? ... Was “wokeness” behind SVB’s demise? ... Ukraine war update ... Are Democrats ditching Israel? ... Winners and losers of Iran-Saudi détente ... Parrot room preview: Mickey’s quibble with Bob’s AI piece; SBF news; Silicon Valley’s campaign to ban TikTok; the sad state of the Metaverse; RIP Jim Gordon; Summer of Soul; Is DeSantis too wine-track? Too beer-track? Who cares?; New segment: Brushes with Greatness ...
Why are Republicans making the Silicon Valley Bank crisis about wokeness? ... Why did DeSantis adopt Tucker Carlson's line on Ukraine? ... Will we miss Mitch McConnell when he's gone? ...
What led Jim to the forefront of physics ... Jim explains supersymmetry ... Is there racism in the sciences? ... The role of culture and imagination in the sciences ... The scientific “big bang” in Europe ... How Jim accounts for racial disparities in test scores ... Jim: “Genius” is a verb ... Why Jim worries about DEI and cancelation ...
Ananyo’s book, The Man from the Future, about game theory inventor and polymath John von Neumann ... Early life as a mathematical wunderkind ... Von Neumann’s foundational contributions to quantum physics ... Was entanglement as "spooky" to von Neumann as it was to Einstein? ... Building—and reckoning with—the atomic bomb ... Did von Neumann really want to nuke the USSR? ... Why was early game theory so zero-sum–focused? ... Influence on Turing, the open source movement, and modern computing ... How brushes with totalitarianism shaped von Neumann’s views ... Programming pioneer Klára Dán von Neumann ... The duality of von Neumann’s social life ... Did von Neumann grok incompleteness before Gödel? ... Unfinished work comparing computers and the brain ... Von Neumann’s deathbed conversion: Pascal's wager or something more? ...
Biden’s soak-the-rich budget: big news or borefest? ... How Biden insulting Xi Jinping endangers Ukraine ... Bob finds another reason Biden shouldn’t run for re-election ... Ukraine war update ... Nordstream’s hobbyist saboteurs ... Tucker Carlson outed as anti-Trump phony ... Parrot Room preview: Gavin Newsom takes on Walgreens; Twitter community notes annoy Mickey; Semafor's China racket; Bob’s Washington Post lab leak piece; Peter Thiel’s techno-optimism. ...
John’s awkward run-in at the farmer’s market ... Will people be reading Ibram X. Kendi in 2043? ... Regret, doubt, and going against the tide ... How Glenn and John negotiate their public profiles ... Did Scott Adams deserve to get canceled? ... What’s going on beneath the Scott Adams controversy? ...
What was Scott Adams' ridiculous excuse? ... What happened to Tucker Carlson? ... Is Fox News at risk of losing its pro-Trump audience? ... Has Trump retaken control of the GOP primary? ... Did Biden do the right thing on the DC crime bill? ...
Paul’s new book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind ... Does psychology need more evolutionary thinking? ... Freud and Skinner and parts in between ... Mind-body dualism’s enduring intuitive appeal ... ChatGPT and the human mind: compare and contrast ... Are cognitive biases overblown? ... A brief note about the podcast ... Implicit biases, memory, and other topics covered in the book ...
Mickey celebrates good week for JD Vance, Ron DeSantis ... The Biden admin’s “all sticks, no carrots” approach to foreign policy ... Is China’s plummeting birth rate a problem? ... Will Bibi wag the dog? ... Will AI kill the journalism star? ... Ukraine war update ... Alarmism about a China-Russia axis ... Parrot room preview: more Ukraine; Dilbert creator gets canceled; why the kids aren’t alright; Will student loan cancellation pass Supreme Court muster?; Buy books before it’s too late?; Mickey’s flick pick; wrapping up The Long Goodbye; Lab-leak theory gets a boost; more AI; The real story being Elon’s algorithmic boost ...
Oded's new book, The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality ... How inequality and growth emerged over the course of human history ... Breaking free of a 300,000-year-old stagnation cycle ... Humanity's phase shift into modernity ... Inequality and the formation of institutions ... The deep links between geography and institutions ... Africa, Asia, and the trials of diversity ...
Has the East Palestine train derailment derailed Biden ... and Buttigieg? ... Is Trump winning and DeSantis losing? ... Has CPAC lost its cachet? ... Is there room for a Republican candidate who isn't Trump and DeSantis? ...
Paul’s new book, Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence ... Will AIs replace humans in future wars? ... China as an AI superpower ... Will Beijing spread high-tech authoritarianism globally? ... How useful is the “democracy versus autocracy” framework? ... Why Paul’s worried about a race to the bottom in AI safety ... Tom Cruise can’t hold a candle to AI pilots ...
Woke religion or woke cult? ... Does suffering confer authority on the sufferer? ... A world without “anti-Black domination” ... Is there an alternative to the criminal justice system? ... Domination and the purpose of the university ... How Vincent’s Telluride Association seminar blew up ... The narrowness of the social justice framework ... Glenn and John’s encounters with fans ... Should Black Studies exist? ...
Washington Post highlights a cost of US hypocrisy ... Will China push for peace—or fund Russia’s war effort (or both)? ... Can Trump use Biden’s support for Ukraine against him? ... Russia’s offensive, Ukraine’s rope-a-dope ... Bob’s evolving view of America’s role in the Maidan Revolution ... The US vows to back Israel if it attacks Iran ... Parrot Room preview: AI updates; Republicans and Social Security; How Blobbish is Fiona Hill?; Carlos Watson arrested ...
Coleman’s definition of “wokeness”—and why he’s against it ... Poverty or privilege: Which predicts wokeness among black Americans? ... How much progress has America made since Jim Crow? ... Why writers in particular are haunted by their past ... How racists and criminals are made ... Does "hip-hop culture exist"—and is it bad? ... Coleman diversifies his controversy portfolio ...
How was the Nikki Haley rollout? ... What was Don Lemon thinking? ... Will Fox News lose Trump supporters? ... Did Fetterman hamper his stroke recovery by staying in the race? ...
How should Republicans counter Biden’s blue-collar messaging? ... The disturbing thing balloon-gate reveals about the Dems ... The Fetterman health crisis ... Twitter’s Elon algorithm ... Are women more conciliatory than men? ... Is Biden pushing Zelensky toward the negotiating table? ... An underappreciated risk of arming Ukraine ... Parrot room preview: Bob drops some hip-hop knowledge; an AI-war reversal and the dangers of “stochastic parrots”; trans activists taking names; Mickey’s quantum-physics-related pitch for Bob’s next book; new Epstein docs ...
Why Delano is a conservative ... Delano’s critique of Raphael Warnock and the “Afristocracy” ... Delano: “The designer is the definer” ... Abortion and Black lives ... Are abortion rights necessary to protect women’s rights? ... Delano: Government is no substitute for fatherhood ... Can we reweave the social fabric? ...
Norman’s new book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom ... How Norman exposed a bestselling book as a hoax ... The price Norman paid for taking on Alan Dershowitz ... What effects has “wokeness” had on academia? ... Pronouns and the perils of linguistic prescriptivism ... Who's pushing identity politics on the left? And why? ... A few unkind words about Bari Weiss ... Norman: Ibram X. Kendi is a fashion statement not a scholar ...
Why Biden’s big speech has Bob worried ... Did the US blow up the Nord Stream pipeline? ... Trump accuses DeSantis of grooming ... With friends like Joe Rogan, Ilhan Omar doesn’t need enemies ... The latest from the Twitter Files: new dirt on the Blob ... Biden takes on Xi, seems a little unhinged ... Why more people are concerned about Ukraine’s chances ... Parrot Room preview: Did the West block Russia-Ukraine negotiations?; social vs. income equality; reviewing The Long Goodbye; America’s AI arms race; quantum physics; grading Burt Bacharach songs. ...
The “utter horror show” and incompetent policing of the Tyre Nichols killing ... The relatively peaceful reaction to the killing ... What set off the cops? ... Why Peter thinks police units like SCORPION should not be disbanded ... Should we get rid of qualified immunity? ... Policing and white supremacy ... Peter: We on the left have ceded law and order to the Trumpian right ... Tyre Nichols’s funeral ... John: I disagree with Sharpton, Crump, and Dyson, but they’re sincere ...
Did Joe Biden nail the SOTU? ... Is Kevin McCarthy playing his debt limit hand well? ... Are Trump's attacks on DeSantis working? ...
Gabor’s new book The Myth of Normal, about trauma and mental and physical illness in modern Western society ... Are we all victims of a “toxic” culture? ... Gabor’s early years in Nazi- and then Soviet-occupied Hungary ... What Gabor thinks standard theories of addiction get wrong ... Can trauma ever be a good thing? ... Was Bob’s childhood traumatic? And if so, how? ... Trauma, attachment, and authenticity ... Is modern society hostile to community? ... The difference between healthy and unhealthy anger ... A primer on “compassionate inquiry” ... The time Gabor was leading an ayahuasca retreat and got deposed by shamans ... Gabor on why cognitive empathy is difficult but essential ... What Gabor sees as the essence of the book ...
Is the 2024 race shaping up to be a political Groundhog Day? ... Ilhan Omar and the Israel criticism tightrope ... Does the left or right look worse on recent Russiagate disclosures? ... A question about the DNC email hack ... Ukraine war update: Is time on Russia’s side? ... Is the Biden admin angling for a peace deal with Putin? ... Parrot Room preview: Evil—the show and the concept; the Tyre Nichols killing; Gaetz’s bad idea; AI inquiries; Mickey’s thrilling new Twitter power; untangling quantum entanglement; what happened to hope in politics? ...
Ernie’s work as an organizer ... Tension, polarization, and reconciliation ... The drama of organizing ... The definition of power ... Ernesto’s work getting running water and sewers to border communities ... Market activity vs. market ideology ... What’s wrong with meritocracy? ... Does identitarianism stand in the way of reconciliation? ...
Is Nikki Haley running for VP? ... Will the Paul Pelosi conspiracy theorists apologize? ... The GOP divide over Ukraine ... Why Kevin McCarthy is lowering the temperature in the debt limit showdown ...
Nikita’s life as a Russian expat in Armenia ... How the Ukraine war is talked about in Russia ... Could Putin fall from power? ... Who left and who stayed in Russia post-mobilization? ... Russia’s role in the Armenia-Azerbaijan crisis ... How the Ukraine war could turn into World War III ... Are “false flag” claims about the Maidan Massacre beyond the pale? ... The trouble with the way we talk about war ... The role of extremists in mass protests ...
Can AI transcend conventional wisdom? ... Is Trump back as 2024 GOP frontrunner? ... The trouble with “the poor” ... J.D. Vance has Ukraine on the brain ... Ukraine update: How to make sending tanks make sense ... Parrot room preview: Bob’s quasi-lucid dream; Evil corrections; The deep roots of Russian nationalist support for the war; Leon Wieseltier quote critique; DeSantis and black history; should judicial noms know their civics?; Kyrsten Sinema conspiracies; economic vs. social inequality; “exciting” child tax credit news; Israel’s multiple powder kegs ...
Glenn and John go to Cambridge ... The Hamline University Prophet Muhammad controversy ... John: “Physics is physics” ... The Harlem Renaissance and Black Studies ... Is “getting past race” more trouble than it’s worth? ... Is Joe Biden patronizing black people? ... How a black musical changed the sound of Broadway ...
Is White Lotus conservative? ... What is the legacy of Pat Buchanan? ... Will Republicans heed Trump's warning on Social Security & Medicare? ... Will anyone blink in the debt limit showdown? ... Is Nikki Haley ready to be the first to contest Trump? ...
Ivan’s Ukrainian upbringing and academic background ... Where did pro-Russian sentiment in eastern Ukraine come from? ... Why Ivan worried Ukraine’s 2014 revolution would lead to civil war ... Did Europe impede resolution of Russia-Ukraine tensions? ... What western media gets wrong about the Maidan revolution ... Was the Maidan massacre a false flag operation? ... The state of Ukrainian democracy after the Maidan revolution ... The political forces that impeded Zelensky’s peace plan ...
The alphas of the world gather in Davos ... Mickey buys a blue check, dresses up to celebrate ... Does Russia have Ukraine on the defensive? ... How serious is the threat of US government debt default? ... Biden’s chances in 2024 ... Parrot Room preview: David Crosby passes away; Alec Baldwin charged with manslaughter; the issue that could destroy woke-ism; college after affirmative action; a false flag in Ukraine?; More Elon news; loyalty oath at Sundance; Bob reviews Top Gun: Maverick ...
Steven’s best-selling book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters ... Steven: Concerns about catastrophic climate change “beggar belief” ... The complexities of climate change models ... Should we worry about rising sea levels? ... Hurricanes, tornados, and other extreme weather events ... Is a zero-emissions goal worth the cost? ... How to fix climate science ... Are the Paris Accords viable? ... The coming climate backlash ...
Is the Biden doc scandal a political turning point? ... Are Democrats losing their reputation for competency? ... Why are Republicans hesitating to run for president? ...
Challenges in applying cognitive empathy in daily life ... Two types of self-awareness—and their links to cognitive empathy ... Josh’s recent (mis)adventures in cognitive empathy ... Can self-awareness make conflicts manageable? ... The relationship between concentration and insight meditation ... Literature and the cultivation of cognitive empathy ... Understanding one’s self vs. understanding others ... The ice cube theory of human nature ... Cognitive empathy’s role in building “mindfulness 3.0” ...
Anti-gas-stove tyranny – or slow news week? ... Biden’s classified docs scandal is a “granfalloon in search of a MacGuffin led by a wrang-wrang” ... Did Bob Gates and Condoleezza Rice miss a chance to prevent the Ukraine war? ... Is the war turning in Russia’s favor? ... The prospects for peace negotiations ... Parrot Room preview: Biden’s pivot to help the working class; Does AI have a liberal bias?; Has woke peaked?; Matthew Yglesias' style section profile; Jeff Beck, Lisa Marie Presley, and Blake Hounshell pass away; White Lotus; Mickey’s new conspiracy theory about Kevin McCarthy ...
A brief intro from Glenn ... The lionization of the lightweights ... The unified field theory of non-whiteness ... An honest conversation about crime ... Glenn’s birthday menu ... It’s time to choose a side ... Clarence Thomas, black icon ... Policing Joe Rogan ... By any means necessary? ...
Why did the "Never Kevins" cave? ... Can the House raise the debt limit? ... Will immigration tear Democrats apart? ... Is Trump fading? ...
Why are so many people (including Fred) down on John Mearsheimer? ... Bob: Explaining bad behavior is not the same as justifying it ... How the US eroded international law - and why it matters ... Did US policy make Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more likely? ... NATO’s role in Ukraine before the invasion ... How would the US respond to a China-Mexico military alliance? ... Henry Kissinger’s peace proposal ... Impediments to productive debate on US foreign policy ...
Mickey’s guide to the House Speaker drama ... What vexes Bob about the House Speaker vote ... Why Damar Hamlin’s injury wouldn’t have happened in the old days ... Biden’s new good cop, bad cop immigration plan ... Why keep sanctioning Venezuela (or Cuba, or Syria, or Iran, etc.)? ... Elon and the trouble with “great man” theories of tech progress ... Is Twitter’s new views feature a boon or bullshit? ... Ukraine war update ... Parrot room preview: The Matt Schlapp sex scandal; Jason DeParle on welfare; Mickey’s case against “unity”; More calls for a Semafor clawback; an SBF-AIPAC connection; a second Epstein-Harvard connection; The White Lotus ...
Some of Michael’s key works ... Meritocratic ideals and meritocratic fantasies ... The animus against elites ... Shouldn’t innovators reap their rewards? ... Does more profit create more value? ... Renewing the dignity of work ... The uses of punishment ... Our responsibility to national and global communities ... Michael: Diversity has “monopolized” discussion of affirmative action ... China’s reception of Michael’s critique of meritocracy ...
The principles of jazz ... “Deracialization Now” ... Becoming Omni-American ... What’s wrong with racial identification? ... Black victimization and cultural memory ... The transformations of James Baldwin ... Convincing white people to deracialize ... Takeaways from 2022 ... 2023’s big Supreme Court decisions ...
Bob hoodwinks the fashion police ... Predictions for the new year ... The pros and cons of “nepotocracy” ... Predictions for the new year (cont’d) ... Impromptu Ukraine war update ... The top 3(ish) stories of 2022 ... Is Twitter salvageable? ... The true threat of Twitter (according to Mickey) ... Mickey’s underreported and overreported stories of the year ... What did the Jan. 6 committee miss? ... Bob’s perverse theory on why the GOP would be wise to drop the Hunter Biden thing ... Parrot room preview: The root cause of homelessness; legalize cocaine? Why stop there?; The SBF clawback; signs that the tide is turning on wokeness; Bob’s grand quasi-unified MKUltra-lab leak theory; three bonus predictions from Mickey; Bob checks into The White Lotus ...
Why Glenn does The Glenn Show ... Glenn: “If I was going to vote for Trump, I wouldn’t tell you” ... “The cat is out of the bag” on election denial ... Modeling epistemic modesty ... Why is race such an important issue for Glenn? ... The Old Glenn and the New Glenn ... Confronting the past ... Putting “the funk” on the story of your life ...
Is the far right criticism of Zelensky anti-Semitic? ... Why is Cenk Uygur upset with Bill? ... Why did no one catch the lies from George Santos before the election? ...
The legacy of free trade in America ... Adam’s new book Opening Up by Cracking Down, about the repression of union activism in developing countries ... Car bombing and other ways Argentina subdued labor in the 80's ... Why did the US open up trade so early? ... The quasi-dystopian law India used to break strikes in the 90’s ... Underacknowledged long-term effects of free trade ... Is a pro-labor approach to free trade possible? ... Making globalism great again ...
Has the tide turned against Elon—and against Twitter? ... Elon accuses Fauci of funding research that killed millions ... Bob sees signs that the “Twitter files” journalism is biased ... Why now might be a good time for Ukraine diplomacy ... Parrot Room preview: SBF news; breaking down the nuclear fusion breakthrough; the AI alignment problem; China’s coming COVID explosion; TikTok backlash gains traction; Elon’s growing Tesla problems ...
Why are we paying so much attention to Kanye West’s antisemitism? ... The two words you never say together ... Could widespread antisemitism take hold in the US? ... The mythological black past and the realities of the present ... How necessary is rootedness to the modern human experience? ... How we make race, how race makes us ...
DeSantis rises in the polls as he embraces vaccine skeptics ... Will the House Speaker fight make the GOP more beholden to the fringe right? ... Is abortion still a litmus test for Republican voters (and for Matt?) ...
What Anders didn’t like about Bob’s Washington Post op-ed on Russia-Ukraine ... Was Putin always bent on invading Russia’s neighbors? ... Bob and Anders debate NATO expansion ... Should the West encourage regime change in Russia? ... Are the US and NATO “fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian”? ... The causes and consequences of Ukraine’s 2014 revolution ... Is Putin committing genocide? ... Possible endgames of the Ukraine war—and of Putin’s Russia ... Could better US policy have averted the Ukraine war? ...
A brief message from Bob ... Why Mickey thinks the first installment of the Twitter Files was a something-burger ... What Bob thinks Taibbi (and Musk) flubbed ... Do the files show a pro-Dem bias in pre-Musk Twitter? ... Ukraine war update ... Parrot Room preview: an (unwitting) win for Bob; a damning J.D. Vance quote for Mickey; the latest SBF allegation; the worst. Substack. Issue. Ever.; Bob submits a beef with Mickey for commenter consideration; commenter takes on Musk’s gun tweet; potential Parrot Room theme song(s); the Fed on why men are leaving the labor force; Janan Ganesh on why you should leave Twitter ...
Is capitalism a “winner take all” system? ... Why does the word “socialism” make so many Americans afraid? ... Has neoliberalism been beneficial for the US? ... Capitalism’s role in rising living standards around the world ... Are higher interest rates the only solution to inflation? ... Can the market eradicate employment discrimination? ... Why is the rent too damn high? ... Can there be a kinder, gentler form of capitalism? ... Closing statements ...
Did Democrats really need to reshuffle their presidential primary schedule? ... Will Republicans turn away from Trump after the Walker defeat? ... How the House Speaker fight will define the GOP ... Why the voter suppression dog didn't bark ...
Mónica’s book I Never Thought of It That Way, about how to have “bridge-building” conversations ... Why Mónica’s immigrant parents support(ed) Trump ... Barriers to getting bridge-building buy-in ... Understanding vs. the need to be understood ... Bridge-building 101 ... Is understanding a slippery slope to excusing? ... The underrated bridge-building power of curiosity ... Does the media fuel or just reflect our divisions? ... The limits of bridge-building ...
Would a Biden re-election bid spell doom for Dems? ... Opening the Ron DeSantis black box ... Bob’s Washington Post piece on Russia-Ukraine diplomacy ... Is it too early to write off Herschel Walker? ... Sam Bankman-Fried’s bipartisan approach to corrupting politics ... Elon’s and Apple’s China challenges ... Parrot Room preview: Mickey’s spat with Damon Linker; what we know about Peter Thiel; Ye and Fuentes; the center-less GOP; Elon’s Twitter regime; Errol Morris’s miniseries Wormwood. ...
How the pandemic affected diversity in the theater ... James gets drawn into an “antiracist” meltdown during rehearsal ... Juilliard students revolt ... A plea for mutual understanding in the theater ... A preview of things to come on The Glenn Show ... Glenn’s problem with “racial inequity” ... Getting through to “Donna” ... To speak your mind or to speak strategically? ...
Matt compares Nick Fuentes to Islamist terrorists ... Why is DeSantis silent on the Trump-Fuentes dinner? ... Is there room for a Republican presidential candidate who is not Trump nor DeSantis? ... Can Kevin McCarthy become Speaker of the House? ... Should we ban crypto? ...
Eric’s new book We Are Not One, about changing American Jewish attitudes toward Israel over the years ... Jewish-American identity before its “Zionization” ... Why fewer young American Jews are feeling the pro-Israel vibe ... Israel in American politics ... The “Israel as apartheid state” debate ... How the 1960’s defined Jewish visions of Israel ... Is a “two-state solution” now the conservative position? ... Zionism vs. social justice activism ... Why Israel is fine with the Palestinian status quo ... Does Israel really need US support? ... Could international pressure help solve the Israel-Palestine conflict? ...
The (totally selfless) reasons Mickey wants an SBF clawback ... Did Semafor fumble its big SBF-Elon scoop? ... Mickey’s clawback campaign (cont’d) ... Origins of Mickey’s (alleged) Ben Smith vendetta revealed! ... Is Musk destroying his town square? ...
What does “black identity” mean? ... Why Bob left the Civil Rights Movement ... Shelby: Our problem today is freedom, not racism ... Glenn: We can’t afford to give up on black collective goals ... Why Shelby wouldn’t sign a letter of support for Clarence Thomas ... Would freeing ourselves from race mean sacrificing collective action? ... The tactical efficacy of racial identification ... The struggle for human freedom ... Can we take pride in group achievements past? ... Kmele: We have a too-narrow sense of diversity ... Glenn: “The future is assimilation” ... Concluding statements ...
Why Katie Hobbs won ... Can Herschel Walker win? ... Where does Kari Lake go from here? ... Does Mike Pence have a shot? ... Is DeSantis better for democracy than Trump? ... Are Dems in array? ...
Paul’s upcoming book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind ... Bob’s upcoming book, tk ... Are psychopaths high in (cognitive) empathy? ... How good are we at perspective taking—and how can we get better? ... Elon Musk’s apparent cognitive empathy deficit ... Is cognitive empathy a biological adaptation? ... Is it even possible to understand the minds of others? ... Paul’s budding interest in perversity ...
Why Mickey’s not unhappy about the midterm results ... Can Trump go the distance against DeSantis? ... The Pelosi era ends ... Zelensky invites NATO to join the war ... Is a peace deal on the horizon in Ukraine? ... Elon update ... SBF's fall takes wind out of the sails of effective altruism movement ...
Glenn’s culinary dilemma ... Why the Republican Party depresses John ... What’s the difference between Herschel Walker and John Fetterman? ... Glenn’s argument for voting Republican ... Woke theater’s “melodramatic agitprop” ... Kanye, Kyrie, and the Jews ... What’s “systemic,” “structural,” or “institutional” about racism? ...
Mickey mourns the fate of his midterm hopes and dreams ... What the midterm results mean for 2024 ... Who wins in a Trump v. DeSantis civil war? ... Bob’s plan to boot Biden from the 2024 ticket ... Will Musk chicken out on his blue check shake-up? ... The Twitter business model Musk may be banking on ... Parrot room preview: Ukraine update; more Twitter business model talk; Metaverse vibe check; Errol Morris’s Leary love story; questioning “blame Trump” midterm post-mortems; is America getting nicer?; Mickey’s ongoing lessons on how to talk to a liberal; critiquing Chamath Palihapitiya’s critiques of journalism ...
The appeals of immigration restrictionism ... The 2013 Ray Kelly incident at Brown University ... Rob’s forthcoming documentary about James Blake and Kyle Rittenhouse ... The response to Rob’s Roland Fryer doc ... The response to Rob’s Roland Fryer doc ... Is there a “next Glenn Loury”? ... Glenn’s course on race and policing be required? ... Rob’s position on Trump ... DeSantis vs. Trump ... Rob’s love of ‘90s rap ...
Who got it right? ... What happened to the "red wave"? ... What issues drove the election results? ... Is Trump dragging down the GOP, and would DeSantis help? ... What does the election mean for Biden '24? ...
Signs of the so-called “meaning crisis” ... How John addresses the meaning crisis in his own life ... Bob gets empathy-circled—live! ... How much of the meaning crisis is a crisis of community? ... Wisdom as the antidote to self-deception ... Is technological change outpacing our ability to adapt? ... How and where might new sources of meaning emerge? ... The conundrum of collective intelligence (or how should we talk about demons?) ... Can video games give us meaning? ... John: “Enlightenment” that fails to confront cognitive bias is meaningless ...
Why immigration squishes have Mickey worried about the midterms ... Elon Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop strategy to owning Twitter ... The conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi ... If Putin didn’t have nukes, would Biden’s Ukraine policy still be dangerous? ... Who is calling the shots in the Biden White House? ... Why Cold War psychology might have less sway over Musk-owned Twitter ... Bob has another baseball quiz for Mickey ... Could Biden’s tech embargo against China backfire horribly? ... Parrot Room preview: The odds of a centrist party succeeding in America; Elon’s secret master plan; Bob’s debate with Bret Weinstein; the impact of automation on workers; Bob and Mickey assess the metaverse (via Ready Player One) ...
Walking through the valley of the shadow of death ... Earning credibility through self-discrediting disclosure ... The lionization of the lightweights ... The golden age of black heterodoxy ... The mainstreaming of Glenn and John ... Glenn’s debate with Shelby Steele, Robert Woodson, and Kmele Foster ... Are we ready to “get past race”? ... The strange case of Jessica Krug ... Darrell Brooks’s courtroom performance ...
Senate predictions ... House predictions... and how do we know if it's a "wave"? ... Matt and Bill diverge on AZ-GOV ... Why did the Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory take off? ... Should Matt and Bill stay on Twitter? ...
Sam’s Foreign Affairs piece on the importance of Ukraine diplomacy ... What’s Biden’s endgame in Ukraine? ... Sam: Russia has already suffered a strategic defeat ... Did the West play a role in Ukraine’s 2014 revolution? ... Putin says the West is Russia’s real enemy. Does he believe it? ... America’s lack of diplomatic urgency before Putin invaded ... How much pro-Russia sentiment is there in Ukraine? ...
Mickey takes a bite out of midterm “overism” ... How revolutionary will Musk’s Twitter reign be? ... Who quashed the Progressive Caucus’s Ukraine letter? ... What’s holding up diplomacy in Ukraine? ... Is Blob opinion on the war starting to split? ... The cost of US hypocrisy ... The media’s weird coverage of the "dirty bomb" story ... Parrot room preview: implausible dirty bomb scenarios; UK PM’s dramatic early moves; a few words about the late Lucianne Goldberg; an (iffy) argument against lefty state legislature alarmism; Mickey’s labor-relations observations; Xi Jinping and the Hu Jintao removal; illustrating the dangers of war-time overreaction by way of Russian relocation coverage; Joe’s McCarthyism; Russians adopting Ukrainian children; what’s in it for Putin-humiliation-pushers? ...
How Rafael came to the Manhattan Institute ... Rafael’s new book, Criminal (In)Justice: What the Push for Decarceration and Depolicing Gets Wrong and Who It Hurts Most ... Is prison the right response to violent crime? ... Why Rafael believes in three-strikes-type sentencing guidelines ... Incarceration may lower crime, but is it just? ... Rafael: Defunding the police is an indefensible idea ... Should we worry about racial disparities in the non-deadly use of force by police? ... Why Rafael’s father didn’t want him to become a cop ...
What was the Fetterman campaign thinking? ... Did Oz blow it on abortion? ... Is the Red Wave coming? ... Is Kari Lake running for president? ... Why did Rep. Jayapal release that Ukraine letter? ...
How worried should we be about the “Kessler Syndrome”? ... The nightmare scenario for anti-satellite weapons anarchy ... How an attack in space could trigger WWIII ... International law is way behind the curve in outer space ... Why isn’t the grave threat of space anarchy getting attention? ... How the new Cold War makes conflict in space more likely ...
Elon Musk’s esoteric insult of former Russian president Medvedev ... Russia’s “General Armageddon” gears up for retreat ... Is the GOP becoming the anti-war party? ... Mickey’s many midterms nightmares ... With Britain's Tories in shambles, will Boris rise again? ... Bob: US policy helped create the latest "axis of evil" ... Parrot Room preview: Did Bob mischaracterize Mearsheimer?; Kanye West and Elon Musk take over social media; Jon Meacham’s fears for US democracy; what lies beneath LA’s racism row ...
Is racist heckling at sporting events a real problem? ... John: “If you can’t be made fun of, you’re not part of the group” ... The LA City Council racism scandal ... Why is there no Latino Michael Brown? ... Exalting (and exaggerating) the victim role ... Glenn’s daughter’s upcoming appearance on The Glenn Show ... Elite discrimination against Asians ...
Is Katie Hobbs smart to avoid debating Kari Lake? ... Are Democrats taking extreme positions on abortion? ... Why Oklahoma and Oregon may surprise us on Election Day ... How Trump decimated a generation of promising conservative leaders ... What's going on in Iowa? ... Why is Tulsi Gabbard campaigning with Kari Lake? ...
What Seth learned from being in Ukraine that you won’t learn from western media ... Was the ouster of Ukraine’s president in 2014 a revolution or a coup? ... Could the White House have averted the invasion – and could it end the war now? ... The degree of on-the-ground American involvement in Ukraine and Syria ... Why Seth warns of frozen conflict when others predict Ukrainian victory ... The extent of pro-Russian sentiment in eastern Ukraine ... Seth: War always means atrocity, so we should avoid wars ... Is wartime reporting less objective now than usual? ...
What does America not understand about China – and vice versa? ... Signs of Chinese discontent with Xi Jinping ... How the focus on “beating China” distracts the US from other priorities ... Is the US making conflict over Taiwan more likely? ... Jessica: The threat to American democracy comes from within, not from China ... The roots of China’s growing assertiveness on the world stage ... What US and Chinese foreign policy (unfortunately) have in common ...
Why Mickey thinks Evan McMullin could become king of America ... Herschel Walker’s “three bulls” parable ... Is Fetterman ready for the debate stage? ... Biden’s Saudi ask vs. Trump’s Ukraine ask ... The double-edged sword of Ukrainian military success ... Bob amends last week’s "client state" comments ... Bob: The next few weeks will be critical for Ukraine ... Elon and international affairs (cont’d) ... Inflation, China chip wars, and other harbingers of global instability ... Putin’s psyche and realist views of Russia ... Parrot room preview: Ukraine’s ironic nuclear war incentives; cancellable L.A. city council commentary?; Who’s the bigger liar: Gore or Biden?; Unflattering Nikki Finke obituaries; PayPal’s crazy new misinformation policy; more Musk talk; what’s new in the Metaverse?; Serial subject’s charges dropped; a damning Maggie Haberman clip?; FiveThirtyEight bias and a point about probability ...
Matt’s profile of the artist Rahmaan Statik ... Chicago’s “Great Unraveling” ... Is Chicago slouching toward dystopia? ... How will the near-end of cash bail affect crime in Chicago? ... The responsibilities of teachers, parents, and the police ... A snapshot of crime in Chicago ... Matt runs the numbers on Illinois’s out-of-wedlock births ... Lori Lightfoot’s prospects for reelection ...
Did Fetterman pass the health test? ... Can Walker survive the abortion scandal? ... Does Hobbs need to debate? ... Who won the Ryan-Vance debate? ...
A few words about cognitive empathy ... Update: Nikita re-exits Russia ... Gauging Russian opinion on the Ukraine war post-mobilization ... How informed are the Russian people about the war? ... Does the West overestimate the absoluteness of Putin’s power? ... Watching "Putin’s chef" recruit prisoners for military service ... The difficulties in grasping “the” Russian perspective ... Trying to comprehend Putin’s psychology ... Was the Ukraine invasion inevitable? ... Is everything just one big cynical power game? ... The Biden State Department’s momentously zero-sum view of US-Russia relations ... The economic factors that helped shape modern Russia ... Is AI capable of cognitive empathy? ...
What’s Biden’s plan to avert nuclear Armageddon? ... The reaction to Elon Musk’s Ukraine peace proposal ... The future of free speech on Twitter ... Are we seeing cracks in Putin’s regime? ... Mickey’s midterms update ... A reason for hope about Iran’s future ... Parrot room preview: Jeffrey Toobin; Was Fukuyama right after all?; electric vehicles as a secret Chinese plot; David Sacks on woke-neocon synergy; being a character voter versus an issue voter; Michael McFaul doesn’t deserve your attention ...
Is Florence Price’s music worthy of its current popularity? ... The decline of blind auditions ... Do diverse orchestras attract diverse audiences and musicians? ... Why Don is protecting his real identity ... Glenn delivers a soliloquy on humanity ... John: Eliminating blind auditions is “bat shit crazy” ... Should John’s daughters benefit from affirmative action? ...
Why Matt can't stand with Herschel Walker ... Does the Walker revelation matter politically? ... Will we see more split ticket voting this year? ... Why Mandela Barnes is the Senate Democratic candidate in the most trouble ...
Hal and Michael’s book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China ... Would more weapons to Taiwan provoke Beijing to strike now? ... Michael: China feels threatened, which makes China threatening ... Hal: The US has a China problem, not just a Xi Jinping problem ... Is autocracy per se a threat to the rules-based order? ... Is the “democracy vs. autocracy” framework a self-fulfilling prophecy? ... Bob: If a threatened China is a dangerous China, is amping up the threat really a great idea? ...
Mickey on the latest midterm polling prophecies ... Will the new CNN put the Dems’ cash cow out to pasture? ... Could Putin’s annexation have nuclear fallout? ... Who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines? ... Bob: We’re not grappling with how bad things could get in Ukraine ... Mickey finds a new front in Biden’s “battle against autocracy” ... Is fascism really on the march in Italy? ... Parrot room preview: Mickey tenders his “Contract with America”; guessing Bob’s seventh heaven persona non grata candidate; can AI have sex?; The Rumble (not Bumble) success story; “Serial” podcast subject released; the people Mickey doesn’t want to meet in heaven ...
Lara’s critique of Title IX adjudications ... Why Lara defended a college student accused of rape ... Lara’s cross-examination of the accuser ... The trouble with “Believe Women” ... What the Trump Administration got right about Title IX ... Why Lara supports Amy Wax’s freedom of speech ... Does Glenn still feel marginalized? ... Finding common ground amidst political tribalism ... Lara’s work on racial disparities in sexual assault cases ...
How bad was the "Where's Jackie?" moment? ... Have Republicans found their midterm footing? ... Why Mandela Barnes is slipping ... Why Manchin whfifed on permitting reform ...
Who sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines—and what happens next? ... The uncertain consequences of Russia's referendums in Ukraine ... How Russia’s military failures could lead to Putin’s downfall ... How much pro-Russian sentiment is there in eastern and southeastern Ukraine? ... The odds Putin goes nuclear and the likely western response ... What’s Biden’s endgame in Ukraine? ... Is it too late for a peace deal? ... The chances that China comes to Putin’s rescue ...
Putin’s big speech: nothingburger, nuclear nightmare, or something in between? ... Why an escalating Ukraine war is so easy to envision ... All the ways DeSantis is Trump 2.0 ... Biden cools it on the anti-MAGA rhetoric ... Italy’s MAGA-like party heats up ... Crunching the midterm election numbers ... What’s wrong with Biden committing to defend Taiwan against China? ... Parrot Room preview: GOP’s new Contract for America; What is national conservatism?; reviewing Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless; Trump’s spoon-bending powers; does AI have cognitive empathy? ...
Matt attends his high school reunion ... Herschel Walker lowers expectations about a debate with Sen. Raphael Warnock. Meanwhile, Dr. Oz is lowering expectations about John Fetterman's abilities ... Matt raises concerns about the polls. Then, based on Bill's math, Matt predicts Republicans will narrowly take the Senate ... Bill thinks Mandela Barnes' "Defund the Police" rhetoric might have blown his chances of defeating Ron Johnson in Wisconsin ... Matt wonders if Trump reordered politics to the point where states like Nevada—states that seemed to be trending blue—are now competitive ... Matt worries that "Team Normal" in the GOP is normalizing election denying ... Matt laments Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's decision to campaign for Kari Lake. Bill argues this is what Youngkin has to do to be relevant and have a shot at the presidency. Meanwhile, Bill says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's decision to campaign outside Florida is the weirder story ...
How Rodney King led to Ian’s podcast, Invisible Men ... Blaming the system and blaming the victim ... Ian: I run schools to show my students they can do hard things ... What’s so special about marriage? ... Glenn: Right living is its own reward ... The problem of success and “blackness” ... Ian’s experience running Vertex ... How Ian funds his schools ... The bureaucratic opposition to charter schools ... What comes after the Old Parkland Conference? ...
Sebastian’s book, In the Dragon’s Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century ... The causes and consequences of the Cambodian genocide ... How American preaching pushes Asian governments towards China ... China, the anti-colonial imperial power ... Is Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative a bid for world domination? ... Beijing isn’t trying to export its political system, says Sebastian ... The state of liberal democracy in Southeast Asia ... Why the Chinese have been called “the Jews of the East” ... How the US can woo Southeast Asian nations ...
Mickey tries to take the bromance to the next level ... An impromptu primer on longtermism ... Is Lindsey Graham's abortion proposal poison for Republicans? ... Mickey’s read on the Pennsylvania and Georgia midterm races ... Is MAGA-ism going global? ... How is Biden’s pro-democracy messaging holding up? ... Ukraine war update ... Assessing DeSantis’s Martha’s Vineyard migrant scheme ... Mickey v. lefty takeaways on welfare reform ... Parrot room preview: first impressions of Godard’s Breathless; Federer’s retirement; the woke campaign against food hierarchy; a pundit-y point on the Epstein case; Charlie Munger’s envy-driven-economy theory; longtermism; free speech and the Queen; ex-Google-CEO’s anti-China sentiment; Is polio making a comeback?; Comprehending the crypto “merge” ...
What was Lindsey Graham thinking with his 15-week abortion ban bill? ... Is the GOP going to follow Trump with "younger, smarter" authoritarians? ... How do you know when an incumbent governor is in trouble? ... What does DeSantis get out of sending undocumented immigrants to Martha's Vineyard? ... Can Katie Hobbs get away with not debating Kari Lake? ...
Introducing Glenn Loury ... What is “social capital”? ... Racial inequality and self-segregation ... Glenn: “The jig is up” on affirmative action ... Balancing preferences and colorblindness ... Rethinking the welfare state ... Why Glenn’s forthcoming memoir is titled "The Enemy Within" ...
The US role in Ukraine’s recent offensive – and how Moscow might respond ... Could Putin fall from power if Ukraine’s success continues? ... Will more arms to Taiwan deter or provoke China? ... Bob: On foreign policy, the US has egregiously violated its professed values ... Bret: The US should go to war against China if it invades Taiwan ... Should the US use force to defend democracy around the world? ... Can international law constrain brutal leaders like Putin? ... How Trump is kind of like a foot massage ... Explaining versus justifying bad behavior in international politics ...
Is GOP infighting complicating their quest for the Senate? ... How did Democrats snatch Alaska? ... What is Gorbachev’s (and Reagan’s) legacy? ...
A scheduling announcement from Glenn ... Steve's latest book, Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself ... From modernity to progressive postmodernism ... Are we in the midst of cultural evolution or culture war? ... The work of the Institute for Cultural Evolution ... "Modernist consciousness" in East Asia ... Steve: "Force is necessary but not sufficient" to combat violent Islamic fundamentalism ... The positive side of progressive postmodernism ... Can cultural evolution overcome political polarization in the US? ... A cultural evolutionary perspective on the development narrative ...
Are Dems’ electoral chances as good as the media says? ... Biden demonizes MAGA Republicans, feeds the MAGA narrative ... Bob: To prepare for DeSantis, the Dems should dump Biden ... Two ways Trump isn’t helping Republican candidates ... Ukraine war update ... Mickey: The new Covid booster will be a bust ... Did the FBI give Facebook advance warning about the Hunter Biden laptop story? ... Parrot Room preview: Gorbachev appraised; new Epstein intrigue; reviewing The Best Man; why is culture so boring?; why Mickey’s tweet annoyed Bob; new Putin biography; Were Monkees persecuted? ...
Mickey doubles down on performance enhancing drugs ... Is the NY19 result a red flag for a midterm “red wave”? ... Has the Mar-a-Lago bombshell already fizzled? ... Bob gets tribal about Mickey’s anti-tribalism tweet ... Ukraine war update ... The electric vehicle takeover in California ... Brian Stelter’s ouster and CNN’s future direction ... Parrot Room preview: Dugin’s daughter whodunnit, is it actually time to start worrying about AI?, Biden admin cynicism on Ukraine, another tally in the Epstein case body count, China’s quantum computing prowess, could economic troubles spur Chinese aggression?, Twitter-Facebook censorship, more Beatles doc talk ...
Amy’s recent conflict with the Penn Law School administration ... Amy responds to her dean’s charges of racism, sexism, and xenophobia ... Should we take students’ feelings into account when discussing race and admissions? ... Glenn: If Amy is fired, it will be an outrage beyond belief ... Why Amy invited Jared Taylor to speak with her students ... Amy’s defense of race realism’s legitimacy ... Glenn and Amy’s first encounter ... Amy: Sometimes reality is upsetting and offensive ... How to help Amy ...
Why are Dems overperforming in special elections? ... Why is Dr. Oz so bad? ... Might Dems actually keep the House? ... Does Crist have a prayer? ...
What is the restrainer coalition and how cohesive is it really? ... Justin: Realism opposes forever wars -- but holds that war is forever ... The challenge Russia-Ukraine poses to the restrainer community ... How the US should respond to the China-Taiwan crisis ... Does the rise of China threaten American security? ... Bob: Taking adversaries’ perspectives doesn’t equal justifying their behavior ... Can the US deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan forever? ... Should the US make Taiwan a pricklier porcupine or China a more satisfied panda? ... Quincy represents restraint, but CATO was restraint-minded before it was cool ...
Mickey and Dr. Oz enjoy crudités—Bob and Fetterman, not so much ... The state of the Oz versus Fetterman race ... Will Liz Cheney run for president – and for which party? ... Was the FBI raid on Trump really worth it? ... Mickey sees Jay Leno at supermarket, plays it cool ... Inflation slowing and Democrats’ fortunes rising? ... The sense in which the Salman Rushdie stabbing isn’t about religion ... Ukraine war update ... Parrot Room preview: Mickey’s friend’s empathy epiphany, ridiculous piece on Peter Thiel, America’s government-media complex, Huffington Post versus Buzzfeed, Bob on the Beatles documentary, Dexter Filkins on Ron DeSantis, Bob’s beef with new Washington Post piece, Muhammad and the Satanic verses, Mickey’s dark horse presidential candidate, anti-Soros news, Larry Summers talks to Bari Weiss ...
A report on the Loury family reunion ... Identity politics onstage and backstage ... Insecurity-driven campus grievance ... Glenn: When will non-right-wing leaders say “Enough!” to racial grievance? ... John: People with ugly opinions can also produce great art … ... … but are there significant figures whose views disqualify them from public honor? ... Considering fundamentalist Islam and human nature after the Salman Rushdie assault ...
Does the “restrainer community” actually exist? ... Has the Ukraine war fractured the restrainer community? ... How should a restrainer respond to Putin’s invasion? ... How war-time psychology impairs objective analysis ... Unpacking the differences between left-wing and right-wing restrainers ... Is realism essential to the pro-restraint worldview—or just its conservative variant? ... Some dubious characters Biden takes advice from ...
Forecasting Trump raid fallout ... Could the Dems bring back “Build Back Better”? ... Bob and Mickey compare blue-collar bona fides ... Scoring Biden's recent PR wins and losses ... What's scarier: social media, the FBI, or your Roomba? ... Ukraine war update ... Bob: How ‘defending’ Taiwan could get it invaded ... Parrot Room Preview: The Blobsters advising the White House, yet more Jonah Goldberg trash-talk, Mickey’s car-buying blues, Bob’s rave CRV road-trip review, where in the world is Ghislaine Maxwell?, Mickey’s meritocracy conundrum, AI takeover, Saudi golf tour talk, Bob shorts "longtermism" ...
Glenn’s impact on Reihan ... How Reihan became president of the Manhattan Institute ... What is the Manhattan Institute’s relationship to Eric Adams’s administration? ... The value of dissenters ... Reihan: We’ve underinvested in our criminal justice system ... What constitutes a quality high school education? ... Michael Bloomberg’s education initiatives ... Reihan’s concerns about racial reification ... The uses and abuses of racial identity ...
What's happening to the AZ GOP? ... Do Democrats have the edge in the race for the Senate? ... Could DeSantis be in trouble in November? ... Should Republicans be skeptical of the FBI? ... What can we learn from the Kansas abortion referendum? ... Can the IRA save the Democrats? ...
Remembering the halcyon days of early Bloggingheads ... Jonah: Our institutions have become platforms for parasites ... Censorship and polarization in the social media age ... What Mickey cribbed from Jonah to jumpstart his blogging career ... How Twitter killed the blogging star ... Is Substack blogging reborn? ... What’s the matter with the modern left? Jonah diagnoses ... A Trump-Biden rematch and other depressing symptoms of polarization ... Is devotion to an institution a sucker bet? ...
Rip Van Kaus awakens to a frightening new reality ... Bob and Mickey scan the dial for better Christian music ... Did the Taliban sell out Ayman al-Zawahiri? ... Bob: Weapons sent to Ukraine will end up in US extremists’ hands ... Why did Nancy Pelosi go to Taiwan? ... If Trump had been reelected, would Putin have invaded Ukraine? ... Ukraine War update ... Are pro-choice Kansas voters also pro-Democrat? ... Mickey: My fears about Democratic midterm gains look more and more realistic ... Joe Manchin zags his way into supporting BBB ... Biden manages to avoid stagflation (for now) ... Parrot Room preview: Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, Brittney Griner, Monkeypox, Jonah Goldberg, the (possible) fascism of JD Vance and Blake Masters, Mickey’s beef with Chris Murphy, Mikey’s defense of mansplaining, the end of social media, a small wrinkle in the midterms, Obnoxious Use of the Word “Agency” of the Week, the third party question, John Fetterman, and the LIV Tour antitrust suit ...
A special announcement from Glenn ... Richard’s journey from quiet Marxist to public intellectual ... Why Youngstown, Ohio was left behind ... Richard: Capitalist ownership is inherently anti-democratic ... Richard’s critique of Hayekian libertarianism ... Pecuniary externalities vs. objective externalities ... Socialism’s historical track record ... Employees as stakeholders ... The rise of the right in the wake of the New Deal and WWII ... The Glenn Show’s new partnership with the Manhattan Institute ...
Tom: Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan imperils the defense of Ukraine ... Unpacking the Russia-Ukraine/China-Taiwan analogy ... Tom’s critique of Bob’s argument on Russia-Ukraine ... The dangers of humiliating and alienating China ... Does Biden have a plan for winding down the war in Ukraine – and does Putin? ... China could push Russia to end the war – so why is Pelosi poking the panda? ... Why cooperation with China is in America’s national interest ... Tom’s scoop on Zelensky’s worsening reputation in the White House ... Why Tom thinks a diplomatic resolution should come sooner rather than later ...
Glenn and Steph’s jam session ... Steph’s adventures in the multiverse ... The parallels between black art and physics ... The centrality of self-reference in Steph’s work ... Is there a racial dimension to how excellence reveals itself in students? ... How Steph learned to level up ... Steph’s new book, Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider’s Guide to the Future of Physics ... Steph’s admiration for prior generations of Jewish physicists ... How Glenn and Steph navigate stigma ... What is the Higgs boson? ...
Why did Manchin finally do the reconciliation deal? ... Will reconciliation help Democrats in November? ... Why Biden shouldn't run again ... August 2nd primary preview ...
Rajan walks through three ways the war could end ... Assessing Ukraine’s and Russia’s military aims ... The causes and consequences of Ukraine’s optimism ... What might weaken Ukrainian and western resolve? ... How America’s toxic political discourse prolongs the war ... Does Biden have a plan? ... Do we understand Putin’s motivation ... Will Putin accept anything short of taking the entire Donbas? ...
Mickey lives in darkness ... Dems rise in the polls as Trump falls ... The case that Trump was trying to obstruct Congress on January 6 gets stronger ... Steve Bannon’s role as January 6 ringleader ... How susceptible is the left to election fraud fantasies? ... Are we ready for the current Covid wave? ... Why do we need Saudi Arabia’s oil? ... Will higher wages for unskilled labor stick around? ... NYT columnists admit their errors ... The SPLC attacks Andrew Yang ... A new study challenges the link between low serotonin and depression ... Will Joe Manchin sink the global minimum corporate tax? ... Ukraine update ... Parrot Room preview: Bob and Mickey react to Jonah Goldberg’s trash talk, Bill Gates throws his money around, Washington corruption, Oz vs. Fetterman, What another Trump presidency would be like, the holograms are coming for us, Mickey’s childlike reactions to Biden and Fetterman, an interesting Supreme Court case, Ethan Hawke’s Ukraine peace plan, the Bonesaw Golf Circuit, and Bob’s epic Decoding the Gurus episode ...
John: Republicans’ elevation of Herschel Walker is an insult ... If Walker is so inept, why does he have so much support? ... Where’s the outrage over racist attacks on Clarence Thomas? ... Thomas’s historical significance ... The Clarence Thomas (and Al Sharpton) we don’t see ... Are Amy Wax’s views beyond the pale? ... John: “Amy should know better” ... Amy Wax’s return to The Glenn Show ...
Why did Maryland Republicans turn Trumpy? ... Are Democrats wrong to help Trumpy candidates win Republican primaries? ... Should Democrats use gerrymandering to box out decent Republicans? ... Is David Frum right that abortion will matter in November? ... Is Joe Manchin helping or hurting Democrats? ...
Ross to Bob: In a parallel universe, you are a media god. ... The non-zero-sum nature of disagreement in the blog days ... Ross’s time as an Atlantic blogging big-shot ... Will Twitter-style discourse last forever? ... Technology, politics, and polarization ... Ross’s niche in the conservative ecosystem ... Globalization vs. the (new) “new nationalism” ... Can the world afford a Cold War II? ...
Mickey admits he was wrong about the 10-year-old abortion story ... The Atlantic’s conveniently timed story about MBS’s widow ... Is Biden doing MBS a favor by investigating the PGA? ... Mickey: Democrats are still overperforming in midterm polls ... January 6 hearings update ... Working with, or around, Joe Manchin ... Has Elon Musk actually thought through free speech on Twitter? ... Ukraine war update ... Mickey: The Peter Thiel candidates will decide the fate of the Senate ... Parrot Room preview: Bob’s Atlantic conspiracy theory revealed, the British Open and LIV, Starbucks store closings, Biden and military force in Iran, NAIRU news, the Hunter Biden cloud leak, the value of the Iraq war, sucking up to Saudi Arabia, Bob complains about a terrible WaPo headline, the annoyances of “agency,” Jill Biden’s breakfast taco faux pas, and fertilizer in Sri Lanka ...
The cryptocurrency bezzle ... Rajiv’s critique of the contact hypothesis ... Will popular proposed gun control measures meaningfully reduce homicides? ... Can we talk about culture without becoming essentialists? ... Rajiv: I find self-censorship and anti-CRT mobs equally disturbing ... Debating the 1619 Project ... Rajiv’s idea to reduce illegal firearm sales: gun insurance ... Why do we see such racial disparities in gun violence? Rajiv has some theories ... What did we learn from the second Justice Department investigation in Ferguson? ...
Is DeSantis eroding Trump's standing in the GOP? ... Why are progressives accusing Biden of not fighting hard enough? ... How the conservative revolt over Harriet Miers doomed Roe ...
Why David thinks better US policy could have prevented the Russia-Ukraine war ... Bob: Explaining Putin’s criminal invasion is not the same as justifying it ... How understanding other minds sheds light on international politics ... The importance of speaking out ... What Silicon Valley doesn’t get about international politics ... In what sense does Silicon Valley care about the future? ... When cancel culture meets foreign policy ... David on his political ideology ... Possible endgames in Ukraine ... Could the war tank Biden’s presidency? ... A few words on cryptocurrency ...
Mickey: Inflation could abate by the midterms, saving the Dems ... Bob: Congress’s inability to act meaningfully on guns is outrageous ... How the 14th Amendment could support federal pro-abortion legislation ... Does Boris Johnson’s fall reflect disenchantment with Brexit? ... Build Back Better is back ... Liz Cheney, Democratic presidential candidate? ... Bob’s somewhat intrusive gun control workaround ... Harvard’s pandemic stimulus check study ... Parrot Room preview: A Ukraine update, Blake Masters, good career news for two TNR alums, Mickey attacks Mark Leibovich, January 6, corporatism, naming names in the Epstein case, Bari Weiss gossip, Minions and TikTok, Bob saw Memorial and you didn’t, and the abortion-seeking ten-year-old story ...
Why do race and gender trump socioeconomics in affirmative action considerations? ... Are Glenn and John making a difference in the race debate? ... The argument for charter schools ... Glenn: Nobody really believes that racism is the cause of racial disparities in crime ... The difficulty of having an honest conversation about race and crime ... Seizing the possibilities of our freedom ... John: The race debate is about the cops ... The Jon Laster Challenge ... Sherrod talks to the crowd ... Why do cops become cops? ... Jon: Money is the biggest problem in black communities ... Can poverty account for violence in black communities? ... Q&A: Do we need more black police? ... Q&A: Have Glenn and John gotten credit for highlighting The Trayvon Hoax? ... Q&A: John clarifies his position on the Georgia voting law ...
Movie night at the Scher and Lewis households ... Democrats fighting Democrats instead of Republicans ... Which Republicans are banning abortions in the states, and are they on the ballot in November? ... Does Biden look impotent? ... The Senate looks better for Democrats than the House ...
Thinking back fondly on the time Dick Cheney shot a guy ... David: Online journalism leveled the media playing field ... Is Russiagate an example of Democratic demagoguery? ... Mickey’s little-known past as a squire to DC’s elite ... The rewards of outrageousness ... What does it take to get drummed out of public life in 2022? ... David: It’s sad that so many Americans accept Trump’s prolific lying ... Does backlash against perceived media bias explain Trump’s support? ... The undiminished shock value of January 6 ... Is there any Democratic alternative to Biden and Harris in 2024? ...
Cassidy Hutchinson’s credible-seeming January 6 testimony ... Are the January 6 hearings hurting Trump’s 2024 chances? ... Mickey: I’m surprised the press is giving Hutchinson such a hard time ... Bob: The hearings are going to be a very important historical document ... Are the Republicans putting all of their non-Trump eggs in the DeSantis basket? ... Will the Democrats retain the Senate? ... Is the Supreme Court’s EPA ruling a judicial power grab? ... Is this Supreme Court philosophically conservative or politically conservative? ... Ukraine update ... Parrot Room preview: Ghislaine Maxwell, Woke Boris Johnson, wokeism in general, Ukraine, the Cafe Milano leak, Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels quiz, media bias, and Mickey’s four points about Bob’s conversation with Matt Yglesias ...
Nikita asks: Who are “my people”? ... How much responsibility do we bear for the actions of our governments? ... The problem of racial affiliation ... The use and abuse of group identity ... Is Glenn “authentically black”? ... The incomplete project of emancipation ... Why was Russia’s period of true democracy so brief? ... Democracy and “the Russian soul” ... Can we compare antiwar Americans and antiwar Russians? ... Glenn: Why would the US risk nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine? ... The US’s involvement in drafting Russia’s constitution ...
Is Cassidy Hutchinson credible? ... Is Hutchinson's testimony good for DeSantis? ... Will voters care about abortion in November? ... Will Republican candidates have to support total abortion bans? ... Will Democrats overreach? ...
Bob and Matt reflect on the early days of Bloggingheads ... The decline of print and the rise of blogging ... How Matt made blogging work for him ... The shifting incentives of digital publishing ... Matt: Filter bubbles are more real than the research seems to suggest ... Bob: To succeed in modern journalism, it helps to like being hated ... The positive side of social media ... Slippage between news and opinion at the NYT ... The worrisome incentives of Twitter for academics ...
An important announcement for Bloggingheads fans ... Was Roe v. Wade doomed from its inception? ... Will the Supreme Court’s gun ruling get people killed? ... Bob: Democrats should weaponize the gun ruling ... Mickey: The January 6 hearings have been effective if unbalanced ... The pragmatic case for not indicting Trump ... Bob’s Biden replacement proposal of the week: Van Jones ... Two Trump-related hurdles for Ron DeSantis ... Ukraine update: the momentum shift is official ... A bittersweet farewell to Bloggingheads ... Mickey clarifies: He does not think sex should be illegal ... Parrot Room preview: Media bias on Ukraine, Juneteenth, Mark Shields, Bob’s killer argument against Nick Bostrom's simulation argument, Undone, we’re all the Beatles now, a crucial test for Brexit, Mickey’s prediction about the lab leak hypothesis, Lightyear bombs, Ben Smith’s Semafor, immigration news, a “Bonesaw Golf Circuit” update, and should the government regulate AI? ...
John reports on his rustic Catskills bungalow ... Parents protest Princeton public schools “dumbing down” their math curriculum ... How much educational transparency is owed to parents? ... How many DEI initiatives and administrators do we actually need? ... John: I don’t think we can fix what’s broken in DEI ... Glenn’s theory of social capital may explain (but does not excuse) some disparities ... Cultures of achievement vs. disincentive effects of affirmative action ... What do we know about what kids know about the world? ... Glenn offers some reason for hope from John Tomasi ...
Why Matt thinks progressives should support giving military aid to Ukraine ... Bob defends much of the left-wing critique of America’s Russia-Ukraine policies ... How the "Putin's talking points" smear shuts down criticism of US foreign policy ... Is the “democracy vs autocracy” framework leading the world to Cold War II? ... Assessing possible endgames in Ukraine – and what comes after ... Did Biden make a serious diplomatic effort to prevent Putin’s invasion? ... Making free trade agreements a tool for advancing left-of-center policy ...
Mickey implores Bob: “Leave Biden alone!” Bob proves incapable. ... Democrats’ surprisingly good Senate race poll numbers ... Mickey: Immigration numbers are climbing, but the media isn’t covering it ... The downsides of framing US foreign policy as a “struggle against autocracy” ... How courageous was Pence on January 6? ... Did Trump both plan and fan the violence on January 6? ... Mickey: Trump and DeSantis are neck and neck as 2024 prospects ... Will Biden lift Trump-era tariffs on China? ... Bob: Ukraine may soon run out of ammo for its Soviet-era artillery ... Parrot Room preview: Exciting child tax credit news, Jeffrey Epstein news, a new angle on the Dave Weigel affair, Stanford eliminates fun, a deep dive into Bob’s views on consciousness, the dating habits of Richard Spencer, the US Open, Bob pummels an NYT headline, the Proud Boys, and Kurt Gödel ...
Glenn asks: Is Jon’s heterodoxy insufficiently pugilistic? ... Jon’s theory of social media-driven “structural stupidity” ... Do the Republican Party’s structural flaws negate its policies? ... The rise of social media and the disappearance of free play for kids ... Race, trans issues, and the future of the country ... Why are economists uniquely heterodox thinkers in the academy? ... What fills the “God-shaped hole” in the hearts of putatively secular Americans? ...
Tuesday's primaries in South Carolina and Nevada ... Do voters care more about inflation than saving liberal democracy? ... And will flawed Republican candidates help Democrats survive what otherwise looks to be a very bad midterm election? ... Should America raise the age to own a firearm? ... Might innocent kids get penalized by liberal red flag laws? ... And what's the "boyfriend loophole" anyway? ...
Nikita’s exciting—but daunting—new creative venture ... What responsibility do the Russian people bear for their government’s actions? ... Seeing clearly the many perspectives in the “Russian perspective” ... When does blaming propaganda go from explanation to excuse? ... Was this war with Russia the least bad option for Ukraine? ... Is fighting the power a fool’s errand? ... Assigning credit (and blame) for post-Soviet Russia ... Did US interests want Russia to invade Ukraine? ...
What did we learn from the primetime January 6 hearing? ... Bob: “Our foreign policy is virtue signaling, and it’s very, very costly” ... The alarming threats against Supreme Court justices ... WaPo’s dismissal of Felicia Sonmez ... Does Chesa Boudin’s recall mark the end of criminal justice reform? ... The Iran Deal teeters on the edge of collapse ... Bob tears Biden and Blinken’s sanctioning policy a new one ... Mickey: Biden should prepare for midterm losses by pivoting now ... Why haven’t Ukraine’s new weapons slowed Russia down? ... Parrot Room preview: Felicia Sonmez, Saudi Arabia’s LIV golf tour, why Microsoft may own the metaverse, The Glitch in the Matrix, an under-reported Jeffrey Epstein-Elon Musk connection, a lab leak hypothesis update, Mickey’s un-PC thoughts about Ken Bode, and Mickey wrestles with his own ideological affiliations ...
Race and economics in the UK ... How long will the concerns of native-born Black Americans drive the race conversation? ... The shaky “people of color” coalition ... Trying to account for racial disparities in the commission of violent crime ... Reclaiming moral agency from white people ... The Old Parkland conference ... John’s forthcoming lectures on the alphabet ... Glenn’s critique of John’s school shooting column ...
Is Biden sleepwalking through the presidency? ... What message did San Francisco send on crime? ... Do voters care more about inflation or threats to democracy? ... Did Biden blow it with Joe Manchin? ... Are Republicans nominating unelectable candidates? ...
Josh: World War I shattered empires, ethnic cleansing created nation-states ... How the US and Russia wound up cooperating to fight ISIS and Sunni militias ... Why Turkey is holding up NATO membership for Sweden and Finland ... By helping to keep Syria divided, is the US giving ISIS free rein? ... What Turkey wants in exchange for letting Sweden and Finland into NATO ... In retrospect, should the US not have intervened in Syria? ... Why Russia-Ukraine might become another devastating frozen conflict ... Josh: Putin misapplied the lessons of Syria to Ukraine ... How US sanctions impede conflict resolution in the Middle East ...
Mickey’s ingenious—and not at all far-fetched—solution to the Kamala problem ... Failures to unravel the Gordian knot of gun control ... Has Biden’s approval hit rock-bottom? Mickey hopes not ... The most plausible path to a ceasefire in Ukraine ... The Hillary Clinton-Cold War II connection ... Hillary lawyer Michael Sussmann acquitted ... Trump aide Peter Navarro indicted ... Inflation and Omicron: good news, bad news for Biden? ... Parrot Room preview: Depp-Heard verdict, the Ben Wittes defense of Michael Sussmann, what’s up with Tucker Carlson’s son?, Sheryl Sandberg’s political ambitions, prospective chief of staff replacement’s Harvey Weinstein problem, Ann Coulter starts a Substack, Freddie deBoer gets Ben Smith’d, making heads or tails of rising non-binary rates, Ukraine War spin, Dead End, Undone, Severance ...