Conversations with Coleman

My guest today is Peter Singer. Peter Singer is a renowned Australian moral philosopher best known for his work in applied ethics, particularly regarding animal rights and global poverty. He's considered a leader in the development of the modern animal rights movement, which was hugely influenced by his 1975 book, "Animal Liberation". He's just released a new version of the book called "Animal Liberation Now", which we discussed today.

We talk about what has changed since he wrote the original book in the 70s. We talk about lab-grown meat, which seemed to be right around the corner, but still hasn't arrived on the shelves. We discuss the ethical status of capitalism. We talk about the ethical arguments for and against veganism. We discuss the ethics of abortion. We talk about the effective altruism movement and Sam Bankman-Fried. We also talk about the ethics of lying to children and much more.

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My guest today is Thomas Chatterton Williams. Thomas is a great writer whose books include "Losing My Cool" and "Self-Portrait in Black and White", both of which I highly recommend.

Thomas and I talk about a host of subjects here, but we pay special attention to the legacy of the Black Lives Matter movement, and 2020 in particular.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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My guest today is Keyu Jin. Keyu Jin is a Chinese economist currently teaching at the London School of Economics, and she just published a book called "The New China Playbook". Keyu gave a TED Talk about a month ago, the same week that I did, and that's how I became aware of her.

​​​​​​​So Keyu has an unorthodox stance on China, at least to a Western audience. It's now a bipartisan consensus that China is our main geopolitical rival and that we ought to treat China as if not an outright enemy than at least a major adversary. From trade wars to theft of our intellectual property to spy balloons, most American politicians would endorse a tough on China stance, at least in principle. Keyu Jin believes that this is the wrong approach. She thinks that America and the West have misunderstood and unfairly villainized China.

As you'll hear in our conversation, I don't share her view, but I'm always interested to hear the arguments of the lone voice willing to buck a consensus. So we talk about China's economy, its strengths and its weaknesses. We discuss China's political system and why it differs from countries like South Korea and Japan. We talk about China's declining birth rate. We talk about the problem of brain drain from China. We talk about China's current human rights record, including its detention of around a million Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang. We talk about China's aspirations to annex Taiwan and much more.

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My guest today is Razib Khan. Razib is a population geneticist, writer, and entrepreneur. He is a prominent voice in the realm of genetic genealogy, where he illuminates the interplay of genes, history, and culture. His writing has been featured in the New York Times, India Today, the National Review, and his scholarly work is cited in many scientific journals. Razib also has a very interesting Substack called "Unsupervised Learning".

In this episode, we talk about commercial genetic testing companies like 23andMe. We talk about the genetic histories of regions like Russia, China, Ashkenazis and Madagasy. We also talk about the Indo-Aryan connection. We talk about whether race is a social construct. We discuss the concept of epigenetics and so-called inherited trauma. We talk about what Cleopatra really looked like and more. I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.

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This episode is actually my appearance on the Goodfellows podcast, which is run by the Hoover Institution. They asked me about the reparations proposal that was recently put forward in California. They also asked me about the legacy of Black Lives Matter. We talk about the 1619 Project. We talk about color blindness and a post-racial society. Finally, they went on to ask me what advice I would give to young black kids today.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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My guest today is Jerry Coyne. Jerry is an evolutionary biologist and geneticist. He received his PhD from Harvard in 1978, after which he served as a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution for over two decades. His seminal work is on the speciation of fruit flies. Jerry is also the author of two books, including "Why Evolution Is True", which is also the name of his blog, and "Faith Versus Fact".

In this episode, we talk about the tension between evolution and the biblical origin story. Jerry goes over the basics of the theory of evolution by natural selection. We talk about sexual selection. We talk about the teaching of intelligent design in schools and how that compares to the battle over CRT in schools today. We dicuss the attack on evolutionary psychology from the political left. We discuss epi genetics and the concept of intergenerational trauma. We talk about how humanity has evolved genetically in recent history and the consequences of birth rate differences between different groups of people. We talk about gender dysphoria and gender ideology. Finally, we go on to talk about the unanswered questions that remain in the field of evolutionary biology.

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My guest today is Dr. Jonathan Metzl. Jonathan is a psychiatrist and author and a professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University. He's written several books including "The Protest Psychosis", "Prozac on the Couch",  "Against Health" and the topic of today's conversation, "Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland", which received the Robert F. Kennedy award for nonfiction. 

In "Dying of Whiteness", Jonathan argues that GOP policies like cutting education funds, cutting taxes, opposing Obamacare, and opposing gun control are hurting the life expectancy of America's white population. In other words, hurting the very people who support these policies most. He also argues that support for these policies policies stems from racial resentment, a feeling of resentment towards minorities among white people. As you'll hear in the discussion, I don't agree that whiteness and racial resentment are the best explanations for why the median Republican supports these policies. And I also think that concepts like "whiteness", and "blackness" are toxic. I think people understandably hear these words as attacks on their racial identities, which they can't control. And so I think we should just rid the discourse of these words. Jonathan obviously disagrees and we talk about that in the episode.

That said, there are some smaller claims I agreed with Jonathan like the fact that the easy availability of guns in this country has made suicide easier for people, especially for the very population that opposes gun control laws. Some of his other claims about the effect of cutting school budgets on life expectancy, I found to be poorly supported. And you'll hear me press him on that towards the middle of the episode. In general, I found that there was some distance between the tone of his book and the positions he was willing to defend in the room. And I don't know exactly how to handle situations like that, as an interviewer. Do I just talk to the person I'm meeting in the room? Or do I hold people accountable to the precise claims that they made in the book? I don't really know. Anyway, I'm grateful to Jonathan for coming on the podcast and I hope you all enjoy the conversation as much as I did. 

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My guest today is Paul Bloom. Paul Bloom is a renowned psychologist, professor and author currently teaching at Yale University and University of Toronto. He's published many books including "Descartes' Baby", "How Pleasure Works", "Just Babies", "Against Empathy", "The Sweet Spot", and the topic of today's conversation, "Psych: The Story of the Human Mind".

In this episode, we'll be discussing a broad summary of the field and findings of psychology, touching on its various branches and exploring the complexities of human behavior. We talk about whether psychology is a real science. We talk about the reality of the unconscious mind. We talk about the legacy of Freud, the advantages of self-delusion, the hard problem of consciousness, artificial intelligence and its implication for rival theories of human language and for the future of art. We talk about the potential dangers of AI misalignment, the definition of intelligence, nature versus nurture and much more. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

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My guest today is David Deutsch. David is a renowned physicist and philosopher, best known for his work on quantum computation and his contributions to the field of quantum mechanics. He's a fellow of the Royal Society and a visiting professor of physics at the University of Oxford. David has written two books called "The Fabric of Reality" and "The Beginning of Infinity"

In this episode, we talk about the purpose of science. We discuss the concept of an explanation and its crucial role in the scientific process. We examine the famous double-slit experiment. We discuss rival interpretations of quantum mechanics and what they imply about the nature of reality. We also talk about progress in physics and advances in artificial intelligence.

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My guest today is Vincent Lloyd. Vincent is a professor at Villanova University where he directed the Black Studies Program, leads workshops on anti-racism and transformative justice, and has published books on anti-black racism, including "Black Dignity: The Struggle against Domination". Now, Vincent is one of those rare guests with whom I have profound disagreements on the topic of race, but who's actually willing to have the conversation, which I'm very grateful for.

Vincent came to my attention because of a stunning essay he wrote about his experience teaching a summer course on racism at the Telluride Association. He'll tell the full story in the podcast, but essentially his class was destroyed from within by a single hyper-woke person. It's a crazy story and I think it shocked him, and forced him to reckon with the anti-dialogue pro intimidation component of the campus far left. In any event, Vincent and I begin by talking about this strange experience of having his class imploded, and then we move on to debate our substantive disagreements about racism, police violence, race versus class, whether prisons are necessary, and much more.

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