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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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? ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

Is Biden OK? ... Should it be Kamala? ... Who are the Kamala alternatives? ... Who could be Kamala's VP? ... Who will be Trump's VP? ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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? ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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) ...

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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 ...

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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? ...

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Why there was so much wishcasting analysis about Nikki Haley ... Was Trump always going to be the nominee? ... Why the electability argument failed ... Why the ageist argument failed ...

Preorder Glenn’s forthcoming memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative ... Why Glenn wrote a memoir (and why you should order it now) ... A ringing endorsement from John ... What does Martin Luther King Jr. Day mean in 2024? ... Preserving King’s belief in “the content of our character” ... What would King say to Claudine Gay? ... King's radicalism ... John: Being against DEI does not make you a racist ... The Tabia Lee affair at De Anza College ... How Claudine Gay should have reacted to the plagiarism scandal ... Glenn: “The DEI movement is hoist on its own petard” ... How DEI’s dominance has improved John’s home media set-up ... John’s upcoming cabaret show ...

Fear and loathing on the campaign trail 2024 ... Haley’s shortcomings, Trump’s cognitive decline ... Who’s the perfect Democrat to run against Biden? ... How Biden could stop the Gaza war ... Why the Houthis are hard to neutralize ... Could Trump sabotage the border security deal? ... Doctor bots, robo-receipt checkers, and AI optimism ... The real problem with America’s elites ... Is catastrophe the only thing that can save America? ... Bob tries to drag Mickey (back) into the JFK assassination rabbit hole ... Has DeSantis destroyed his brand? ...

Bob saves Paul from some very bad influences ... What makes Hitler more evil than Stalin and Mao? ... New lab leak evidence—what will come of it? ... Correcting the record on effective altruism ... Is “self-plagiarism” really plagiarism? ... The dishonesty researcher accused of academic dishonesty ... Heading to Overtime ...

Did the media rig Iowa for Trump? ... Is Trump's lead insurmountable? ... Should Haley want a two-person race? ...

Reid’s deep roots in the tech world ... The kind of AI pessimism that irks Reid the most ... Can (and should) we slow down AI progress? ... Could AI help resolve international disputes? ... The promise and perils of perspective-taking AIs ... Why Reid co-wrote Impromptu with GPT-4 ... Where are the AI optimists? ... Sam Altman and the OpenAI drama: a (semi-) behind-the-scenes view ... How dangerous is open-source AI, really? ... Is AI acceleration decelerating? ... Engagement with China and “organic transparency” ...

Matt feels good about Haley in NH ... Would a Haley win in NH give her momentum? ... How bad was the DeSantis-Haley debate? ... Can Trump have it both ways on abortion? ... Can Trump have it both ways on abortion? ... Does Biden need a second-term agenda? ...

Mickey’s in Iowa—and on the Nonzero Podcast! ... Do Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley have a chance? ... Why Biden will probably lose ... Wait, are there Democratic primaries? ... Would Trump 2.0 be a more capable authoritarian? ... AI bots that cater to your every need ... Why doesn't Biden get tougher on the border? ... Exciting new Child Tax Credit updates ... Is Twitter going down the tubes? ... Bob fails to escape from JFK assassination rabbit hole ... Subways and other things that have gotten worse ... Mickey’s Iowa caucus prediction ...

How the Gaza war harms US interests ... How the Gaza war harms Israel’s interests ... Could Biden get Israel to wind down the war? ... Biden’s complex political calculus on Israel ... The Israel lobby: what it is and what it does ... How elements of the lobby intimidate critics of Israel ... Heading to Overtime ...

Tim seeks Substack synergy beyond Bob ... Recent contributors to Bob’s AI anxiety ... Why “Mamba” matters ... Is AI moving too fast? ... Are fears of an AI “jobocalypse” overblown? ... AI’s (potential) next transformation ... Heading to Overtime ...

Jeff’s journalistic bona fides ... The origins of the official assassination narrative ... Oswald: Lone gunman? Patsy? Both? ... The CIA’s interest in Oswald before the assassination ... The Pentagon’s scheme to provoke war with Cuba via false flag ... How Bob started down the JFK rabbit hole ... Oswald’s critical time in New Orleans ... Why did Jack Ruby kill Oswald, really? ... Why JFK’s assassination still matters ...

Did Nikki Haley blow it? ... Will Lauren Boebert's move help Republicans? ... Matt and Bill's winners and losers of 2023 ...

Philip’s early work on post-nuclear war recovery ... What’s wrong with the EPA, OSHA, and the EEOC? ... Philip: We’ve degenerated into a culture of distrust ... The problems of national security and public health ... Are public employee unions constitutional? ... Philip: “Public service is repellant to good candidates” ... Philip: Police unions prevent accountability, too ... Would the current Supreme Court be receptive to Philip’s case? ...

Kati’s very unusual Venn diagram ... Your brain on meditation ... The time Bob’s meditation got weird ... What are the “jhanas”? ... What science tells us about the jhana states ... Are psychedelics gateway drugs to meditation? ... Kati: Here’s how we get “not-self” wrong… ... Psychedelics vs meditation—neuroscientifically ... Heading to Overtime ...

How Tom tried to bring down Netanyahu’s government ... The coming Biden-Netanyahu showdown ... What’s driving Israeli public support for such massive retaliation? ... The alarming growth of global disorder ... Is Israel fated to be hated? ... Why Tom is still hopeful about Israel-Palestine ...

FaSoGPCVqZw?si=oWpnqIGmMRRBod1J ... FaSoGPCVqZw?si=oWpnqIGmMRRBod1J ... Can the Constitution survive a second Trump term? ... Is Trump getting worse? ...

A short history of “longtermism” ... The evolution of effective altruism (EA) ... Unpacking the TESCREAL bundle ... Why AGI dominates longtermist thinking ... Are AI doomers and accelerationists more aligned than it seems? ... Why did Émile ditch EA? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Tabia’s early career as a teacher ... Tabia’s “rough ride” as a DEI director ... The antisemitism problem at De Anza ... The inescapable BIPOC binary ... From disagreement to deplatforming ... Why Tabia found support among students but not faculty ... How attempts to silence Tabia backfired ... Tabia’s broad vision of diversity ... Learning from the medical professionals of Galilee ...

Matt's and Bill's best Christmas movies ... Can Chris Sununu save Nikki Haley? ... How bad for DC is the loss of the Capitals & Wizards? ... Can impeachment save Joe Biden? ... Can a Ukraine-border deal actually happen? ...

Max’s book Rules for Rebels—and the rule that Hamas broke ... Is social media a reality distortion machine? ... “From the river to the sea…” compared to “globalize the intifada” ... Does social media exaggerate the level of civil strife—and thereby raise it? ... Is Israel’s assault on Gaza intensifying antisemitism? ... How Israel’s actions impact the Jewish diaspora ... The terrorism threat facing Israel ... US foreign policy and the Israel lobby ...

The biggest surprise of Paul’s intellectual life ... What the three college presidents should have said about free speech ... Ramaswamy’s hot mic moment: mistake or power move? ... Elon’s scorched-earth moment: power move or mental break? ... Paul gets fact-checked—and likes it ... In aligning AI, should we aim higher than human values? ... Bob DESTROYS Paul’s AI article ...

A bold experiment in podcast synergy continues ... The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza ... Is full-on ethnic cleansing more likely than a political solution? ... If Biden loses in 2024, will elites rethink Israel-Palestine? ... The changing perception of Israel ... Heading to Overtime ...

A new documentary about George Floyd’s death raises new questions ... John: “We’ve been lied to” about George Floyd’s death ... The price of a “poetic truth” ... Was the Derek Chauvin jury intimidated into delivering a guilty verdict? ... Glenn: George Floyd was no hero ... The burning of Minneapolis’s 3rd Precinct ... Is there any hope of changing the George Floyd narrative? ... Who will take responsibility for changing things in black America? ...

Is Christie running interference for Haley? ... Can Trump lose Iowa or New Hampshire? ... Why are some conservatives against Section 702? ... Will it help Biden to get impeached? ...

Daron’s book Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity ... What tech optimists get wrong about economic history ... Will AI inevitably sideline workers? ... The surprising weakness of our digital economy ... Which jobs are most vulnerable to automation? ... How to empower workers in the age of AI ... Heading to Overtime ...

Is “black heterodoxy” a euphemism for “black conservatism”? ... Classical liberalism’s role in Free Black Thought ... Erec: I saw things while working as a diversity officer that I can’t unsee ... Why the Democratic Party doesn’t like Erec ... How Free Black Thought is fostering agency in the black community ... Erec: The onus is on us, not affirmative action, to prepare black students for college ... What is rhetoric, anyway? ...

Bob and Tim seek Substack synergy ... What was the OpenAI drama really about? ... Viewing the drama through a (cynical) psychological lens ... Were reports of a safety vs speed schism greatly exaggerated? ... Larry Summers joins OpenAI’s board… time to panic? ... Superintelligence, Sam Altman, and the singularity ... Altman’s not so veiled ignorance ... Overtime preview: superintelligence skepticism, the truth about effective altruism, self-driving car speed bumps, and more ...

Matt sees a path for Nikki Haley, Bill does not ... Can big endorsements help DeSantis in Iowa? ... Matt's Iowa/New Hampshire prediction ... Should Democrats stop freaking out? ...

The state of campus speech after 10/7 ... Daniel: Why are critics of cancel culture silent when it comes to Israel? ... “Explaining” Hamas vs. “excusing” Hamas ... Tyler: American Jewish students worried about their safety have been primed by modern identity politics ... The tension between DEI and antisemitism response teams ... The linguistic ambiguity of “From the river to the sea” ... The irreconcilable conflict between campus social justice and donor funding ... If not liberalism, then what? ... Tyler: Postwar political conservatism is coming apart ...

Biden’s vexing political calculus on Israel-Palestine ... Israel-Palestine compared to Russia-Ukraine ... If Israel eliminates Hamas, what happens next? ... Can anything good come out of the present crisis? ... The meaning of “From the river to the sea…” ... Why the 2000 Camp David Summit failed ... Where is Palestine's Nelson Mandela? ... Assessing US media coverage of the Gaza war ...

Preamble: The OpenAI drama and this conversation ... Preamble: The OpenAI drama and this conversation ... Is safe AI possible without international cooperation? ... Are we selecting AI for truth or engagement? ... Using “psychology” to understand—and control—AI ... The worrisome Darwinian dynamics of AI development ... Life after an AI takeover ... How structural incentives make AI safety harder ...

Tom’s new book, Getting Russia Right ... Does Putin want to take more territory before talking peace? ... Putin’s "messianic" transformation ... America’s failed effort to Americanize Russia ... Does the US focus too much on other nations’ internal affairs? ... The 2004 event that sunk US-Russia relations ... Why Tom supports a diplomatic reset ...

How to watch WKRP's "Turkeys Away" ... How the Mideast crisis is roiling the left and the right ... How serious is the rise of anti-Semitism ... The history of Democratic bedwetting ... How Israel impacted the 1948 election ...

A quick announcement ... What led Yascha to write about identity ... An intellectual history of “identity synthesis” ... What’s so bad about “strategic essentialism”? ... From postmodernism to post-civil rights ... The three key claims of identity synthesis ... What led up to the summer of 2020? ... The hermetically sealed ideology of Kendi and DiAngelo ... Yascha’s defense of universalism ...

Susan’s new book, Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise ... China’s turn to more assertive policies in 2007 ... The well-intentioned reform that produced big authoritarian consequences ... How public opinion influences autocratic leaders ... Xi Jinping’s purge of suspect officials ... Does Beijing feel threatened by America? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Will Israel-Palestine cost Biden the election? ... What Hamas hoped to accomplish on October 7 ... The surprising origins of cancel culture ... Matt defends his ratioed tweet ... The persistent psychological impact of the Holocaust ... Is a one-state solution realistic? ... What Ukrainians and Palestinians have in common ... Anti-Palestine sentiment and Christian Zionism in America ... How the current crisis could lead to war with Iran ... Bob gives Matt podcasting advice ...

Persia at the turn of the twentieth century ... Woodrow Wilson’s contradictions ... Did Howard Baskerville escape the prejudices of his time? ... How Baskerville got involved in Persia’s democratic revolution ... How Tsar Nicholas II aided the counter-revolution ... The erasure of Baskerville in post-1979 Iran ... The theological origin of the Islamic Republic of Iran ... Reza: Ordinary Iranians actually love American culture ... The internal and external pressures on Iran ... The amorality of foreign policy ...

Why can't Republicans sell a 15-week abortion ban? ... What did the GOP presidential debate tell us about GOP foreign policy? ... Where did Joe Manchin go wrong? ...

Is Paul Bloom the next Tony Robbins? ... Things to know about the noosphere ... How Bob and Paul work ... What Michael Lewis’s SBF bio reveals about SBF (and Michael Lewis) ... SBF and Elon Musk: compare and contrast ... Are SBF’s parents to blame? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Ron’s initial reaction to the October 7 atrocities ... How Israel’s far right undermined Israel’s national security ... Support for the Gaza war in Israel ... The trouble with “eradicating” Hamas ... How American Jews are responding to recent events ... Post-October-7 prospects for solving Israel-Palestine ... The rhetorical abuse of the Holocaust ... The origins and meaning of “From the river to the sea…” ... Could the Gaza war cost Biden the election? ... Competing visions of Zionism ... How terrorism impacts the Palestinian cause ...

Why John thinks pro-Hamas sentiment on the American left is racist ... Distinguishing between anti-colonialism and antisemitism ... There are great crimes in America’s past. But we shouldn’t let them define us. ... Glenn: We’re standing on the precipice of something catastrophic ... John’s proposal for the US’s role in Israel’s domestic conflict ... Is it right for people to lose their jobs over opposing Israel? ... Why are pro-Hamas leftists supporting an anti-liberal regime? ... Glenn and John’s responsibilities as teachers ... What’s next on TGS ...

What Iran hopes to gain from the Israel-Hamas war ... Did Hamas expect such a massive retaliation from Israel? ... Why Israel’s campaign in Gaza could backfire ... What Hezbollah is and how it got started ... Does Israel have an exit strategy in Gaza? ... Why the Arab world might unite in the years ahead ... How China could benefit from the current crisis ... Why the US hasn’t pushed harder to resolve Israel-Palestine ... Is a one-state solution the best path forward? ... Can the Israeli government rein in West Bank settlers? ... How Israel-Palestine damages America’s, and Biden’s, credibility ...

Matt and Bill talk Halloween ... Reflections on Richard Moll and Matthew Perry ... How's Speaker Mike Johnson doin'? ... Will Biden's approach to the Israel-Hamas war hurt him in 2024? ... Is Nikki Haley for real? ...

The significance of Jerusalem in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ... Will the current crisis explode into a wider war? ... Israel’s ultra-nationalist minister of national security ... Settler attacks intensify in the West Bank ... The two-state solution is dead—can it be revived? ... Has Israel lost the support of western young people? ... What Hamas hoped to accomplish on October 7 ... How hopelessness drives support for Hamas ... Can one-state aspirations produce a two-state solution? ...

Why John thinks Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was rational ... How small states deal with world powers ... If Russia’s action were rational, were the US’s? ... John: The Ukraine invasion violates international law, but Russia has reason to see it as just ... The risk of escalation ... Zelensky’s expert manipulation of the West ... Is it a coincidence that so many recent presidential scandals involve Ukraine? ... Can tolerant liberals tolerate illiberal societies? ... American Russophobia didn’t cause the war, but it’s not helping ... John: If Putin is overthrown, his replacement will probably be even more brutal ... The foreign policy establishment’s grip on both Democrats and Republicans ...

Why Leonid considers his nationality “journalist” ... How the West alienated Russia ... Are Russia’s pro-Ukraine “liberals” actually far right? ... How Putin is responding to Israel's war on Hamas ... Are western experts more clear-minded about Israel-Hamas than Russia-Ukraine? ... Is Ukraine at risk of losing significant amounts of territory? ... Heading to Overtime ...

How much of an election denier is Mike Johnson? ... Why did the GOP moderates accept Johnson? ... Did Democrats do themselves good by trading McCarthy for Johnson? ... Matt learns to love John Fetterman ... The absence of a Republican primary, and its impact ... Who will drop out before Iowa? ... Will Dean Phillips matter? ...

Why hasn’t the ground invasion happened yet? ... Do conditions in Gaza make terrorism more likely? ... Palestinian violence compared to Israeli violence ... Did Israel really offer the Palestinians a state two decades ago? ... Does Hamas have much support in the West? ... What should be done about Hamas? ... Israel’s blockade of Gaza and strategy of massive retaliation ... Indignities suffered by Palestinians in the West Bank ... Should West Bank Palestinians focus on demanding the vote? ... Eli’s growing interest in the deep state ...

Why did Republican moderates resist Jim Jordan? ... Why Democrats should empower Patrick McHenry ... Why did Trump attack Netanyahu? ...

The Unspeakeasy, the newest arm of the Meghan-industrial complex ... Meghan’s prestigious place in Parrot Room history ... Has wokeness won? ... How common is anti-semitism on the left? ... Israel-Palestine’s destructive non-zero-sum dynamics ... Meghan’s highly therapeutic Unspeakeasy retreats ...

Israel’s military plans for northern Gaza ... How does international law apply to Israel and Hamas? ... The first casualty of war is truth ... Do Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute ethnic cleansing? ... The evolving definition of genocide ... How the US and Israel helped Hamas seize power ... America’s ill-fated push for Arab-Israeli normalization ... The hazards of overreacting to Hamas’s attack ... How western media has covered the conflict so far ...

Paul’s humble new ventures with Substack and Nonzero ... Israel-Palestine, exploitative media, and the pitfalls of empathy ... Paul’s plaudits for Mickey and the Parrot Room ... Elon Musk and Derek Parfit: compare and contrast ... Is there a method to Musk’s mad genius? ... The radical rationalism that forged SBF ... How real is implicit bias? ... How real is SBF? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Introduction by Greg Burnep ... What does affirmative action mean in 2023? ... Randy’s distinction between “disadvantage” and “discrimination” ... Diversity’s double-talk ... Did the Supreme Court say discrimination is allowed at military academies? ... Glenn: Affirmative action distracts us from bigger problems ... Affirmative action is an elite problem ... Affirmative action as an insurance policy ... The stigmatization of affirmative action beneficiaries ... Glenn: Affirmative action has been a net positive, but it’s time to stop ... Q&A: Does historical injustice alone justify affirmative action? ... Q&A: Can and should colleges use loopholes to get around Students for Fair Admissions? ... Q&A: Does the “need” for affirmative action say something race or education? ... Q&A: What is the impact of SFFA beyond the university? ... Q&A: What about class-based affirmative action? ...

Is Biden handling the Middle East crisis well? ... What is up with Nancy Mace? ...

Nonzero/American Prestige cocktail with a hybrid episode twist ... Was Hamas’s attack a predictable response to conditions in Gaza? ... Did Biden’s foreign policy make the attack more likely? ... America’s unstrategic Middle East strategy ... Can anything good come out of the current crisis? ... The Nonzero/American Prestige crossover arc ... How to stay sane as a critic of US foreign policy ... Biden vs Trump: Who’s the lesser evil on foreign policy? ... Strains within the restrainer coalition ... Is there any hope left for international law? ... Bob’s pitch for (sober) AI alarmism ... Heading to Overtime—and a special offer for listeners! ...

What’s wrong with critical race theory, anyway? ... Why “black Columbia” pretends that John doesn’t exist ... CRT’s racial power-grab ... Does the Jewish American example apply to African Americans? ... Disguising failure as victimology ... Why Dan thinks the CRT tide is ebbing ... The schadenfreude of the Ibram X. Kendi scandal ... John: “I’m embarrassed for Boston University” ... Glenn: Kendi is just a cog in the fraudulent antiracist machine ... The shame of the Kendi scandal ...

Important reminder about the Friday podcast ... Sam Bankman-Fried’s plan to stop Trump ... Biden’s new policy: Build the wall! ... Why is life expectancy dropping for some demographics in America? ... Should Democrats have helped Kevin McCarthy remain speaker? ... The Blob starts to think like Bob on Russia-Ukraine ... Should the US impose conditions on aid to Ukraine? ... What war with China over Taiwan would look like ... Parrot Room preview: McCarthyism at the news outlet Semafor. Michael Lewis’s new book on Sam Bankman-Fried. Parrot reminiscing. Evolution and homosexuality. Christopher Rufo defends Nixon. ...

Should Democrats support what's good for institutions or what's good for Democrats? ... Did Pelosi want Democrats to vote "present"? ... Why were Democrats so unified? ... Are all House Republicans equally bad? ... Who's going to be the next Speaker? ...

Has Biden abandoned longstanding US policy on Taiwan? ... The sobering results of recent US-China war games ... Would China ever accept defeat in Taiwan? ... Why the US might bomb Taiwan’s microchip factories ... How war over Taiwan could unfold ... Lyle: DC think tanks are underestimating China's military ... Heading to Overtime ...

The debate was bad ... The debate moderators were bad ... The debate that actually mattered was in Michigan ... Shutdowns are also bad ...

How Sabby got her start on YouTube ... What happened to the Justice Democrats’ “hostile takeover”? ... Is the US sliding into fascism? ... The tension between race and class on the left ... Donald Trump’s rising popularity among black men ... The military-industrial complex and climate change ... Sabby’s argument for worker co-ops ... Finding (somewhat) common ground on immigration ... Demilitarizing the police is one thing, defunding the police is another ... Sabby: “We should not be giving money to Ukraine” ... How Sabby deals with disrespectful guests ...

Mickey, the man from the future, times out on this week’s quiz ... Winners, losers, and bigger losers of the GOP debate ... Semafor’s Iran influence exposé: (semi-)exposed! ... How is Menendez still standing? Mickey has a theory ... Bad socio-economic omens for Biden’s 2024 bid ... Ukraine war update ... Is elite opinion on immigration shifting? ... Next week: The final Parrot Room ...

Sarah’s vexing exile from X/Twitter ... Sarah’s next book project ... Would dumping Biden help or harm the Dems’ 2024 chances? ... Who could bump Trump from the GOP ticket? ... Sarah: The Dems’ key to victory is… ... Will the “war on woke” be relevant in 2024? ... The thing that most worries Sarah about the election ... Heading to Overtime ...

Senator Bob Menendez accused of brazen corruption ... The issue that could sink Trump's campaign ... Unpacking the mystery of America’s open border ... Is Biden worried about a coup by Democratic Party elites? ... Ukraine’s international support shows signs of waning ... Democrats downgrade Senate dress code ... Parrot Room preview: Marty Peretz’s new book; UAW strike; insidious AI sexbots ...

Tyler’s concept of “racial gamification” ... Affirmative action in spirit and practice ... Why can’t we just determine admissions based on academic merit alone? ... The fading popularity of “traditional” affirmative action ... Re-weighting and funding the admissions process ... How can we get white “allies” to act normal around black people? ... Can we have interpersonal colorblindness without political colorblindness? ... Tyler’s scholarly work about the end of humanity ... Glenn prepares for his conversation with Sabrina Salvati ...

Is America suffering moral decay... ... ...or is America evolving? ... Can Trump get away with a leftward pivot on abortion? ...

Azerbaijan attacks Nagorno-Karabakh ... Preview of this week’s Biden-Zelensky meeting in DC ... Does the new technology of war favor defense? ... Is Zelensky thinking clearly about Ukraine’s military chances? ... What Anatol learned from his discussions with wounded Ukrainian soldiers ... If the US pushed for peace, would Putin be ready to make a deal? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Republicans in Disarray ... Will Hunter Biden's indictment drag down Joe Biden? ... Is Mitt Romney doing the right thing by leaving the Senate? ...

Walter Isaacson’s Elon-Ukraine walk-back ... Debating Biden replacement theories ... Bob’s hurricane-induced bandwidth problems ... Biden’s age-induced bandwidth problems ... Ukraine war update ... Mitt Romney bows out ... The smoke-filled room shortage ... 56:00 ...

Biden’s new DEI initiatives ... The disparate uses of disparate impact ... Shep’s new book, The Crucible of Desegregation: The Uncertain Search for Educational Equality ... The problem with claims that education is resegregating ... Are we heading back to the bussing debates of the 1970s? ... Shep’s book, The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education ... Glenn’s “uncle” objects to analogies between trans people and African Americans ... Shep: Banning Critical Race Theory is the wrong strategy ...

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? ...