Conversations with Coleman

My guest today is Rama Chellappa. Rama Chellappa is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He's a chief scientist at the Johns Hopkins Institute for assured autonomy. Before that, Rama was an assistant Associate Professor and later became the director of the University of Southern California Signal and Image Processing Institute. Rama is also the author of the book "Can We Trust AI?"

This episode is all about artificial intelligence. Several recent stories about AI have shocked and worried me. We have deep fakes going viral on Tiktok. AI reaching human levels of gameplay at the game "Diplomacy", which is a language-based game of conquest and deception. Then you have the Generative Adversarial Networks or "GANs" creating images from a line of text that rival and often exceed the work done by human graphic designers. Rama and I discuss all of these topics as well as other topics like neural networks, the difference between narrow intelligence and general intelligence, the use of facial recognition software, the possibility of an AI engaging in racial discrimination, the future of work, the so-called alignment problem, and much more.

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My guest today is Professor Alexandra Natapoff. Alexandra is a law professor at Harvard University. She writes about criminal courts, public defense, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and race and inequality in the criminal justice system. Her new book, which is an expanded edition of her older book is called "Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice"

In this episode, Alexandra and I discuss a phenomenon that's rarely encountered outside of shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, which is the use of criminal informants in the American justice system. Not all countries allow cops and prosecutors to reduce an accused criminal sentence in exchange for his cooperation and other investigations. However, Alexandra argues that most local and state agencies in America are allowed to do this with no documentation and no transparency. We talk about the advantages as well as the flaws of this system. We discuss the risk of informants giving false information or even planting evidence to reduce their own sentences. We talk about the triangular relationship between cops, informants, and prosecutors. We talk about the secretive nature of the informant system and how that prevents academics from studying it. I also press Alexandra on whether her proposal for transparency in the informant system would hinder the cops' ability to solve violent crimes and protect unsafe neighborhoods.

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My guest today is Timothy Shenk. Tim is a historian at George Washington University and a co-editor at Dissent magazine. He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, and Jacobin, among other publications. Tim is also the author of the book "Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy".

​​​​​​​In this episode, Tim and I discuss the book that President Obama wrote in the 90s, but never published, which Tim was able to get his hands on. We discuss Obama's early influences, his critique of the left and his critique of expertise. We talk about how Obama's views have changed from the 90s to today. We talk about the legacy of Bayard Rustin, civil rights leader and writer who was a hero to both Tim and myself. We talk about how political parties used to build long-term coalitions and win many elections in a row, and why neither party is able to do that today. We discuss popularism and its critics. We also go on to talk about the midterm elections.

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Today I have a different kind of guest than I usually do. He's a fantasy and sci-fi author by the name of Christopher Paolini. You may be aware of his best-selling young adult fantasy book Eragon, which he wrote at the age of 15 and was also made into a major-budget film. The rest of the books in that series are Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance. You may also be aware of his more recent sci-fi novel called "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars". I've been a huge fan of Christopher for a very long time, and it was an honor to pick his brain. 

In this episode, we talk about Christopher's writing process, the art of storytelling, the difference between young adult fiction and adult fiction, his strange path to becoming an author, the shortening of our collective attention spans, and much more. This was really one of my favorite recent interviews, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

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My guest today is Josh Mitchell. Josh is a Wall Street Journal reporter who covers debt and finance. His book is called "The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe" and it was named one of the best books of 2021 by both NPR and The New York Post. 

In this episode, Josh and I talk about the history of government involvement in student loans. We discuss the reasons why college tuition has been soaring since the 1980s. We talk about the value of a four-year college degree. We talk about the similarities between the housing crisis of the 2000s and the current student loan crisis. We also go on to talk about President Biden's student loan forgiveness program, and much more.

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My guest today is Samaneri Jayasāra. Samaneri is a Buddhist nun and spiritual teacher. Her YouTube channel where she shares her lectures has over 80,000 subscribers. 

In this episode, Samaneri and I discuss the purpose of meditation, the true nature of emotions, the core teachings of Buddhism, the illusion of boredom, the difference between Buddhism and the Abrahamic religions, the possibility of enlightenment, the cycle of pleasure and pain, and much more.

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My guest today is Ted Gioia. Ted is a musician and an author. He's written 11 books including his latest, which is called "Music: A Subversive History". He's been on the faculty at Stanford, and he's been published in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other newspapers. 

In this episode, Ted and I talk about why human beings enjoy music from an evolutionary perspective. We discuss the evolution of recorded music from the analog age to the present. We talk about Ted's unique approach to music history. We talk about the increasing market share of older music compared to newer music. We talk about the current state of music criticism and music writing. We discuss how the streaming model has affected the music industry and the strange phenomenon of fake artists on Spotify. We also talk about Hollywood's shift towards doing remakes and sequels and brand extensions as opposed to new stories, and much more. 

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My guest today is Maryam Namazie. Maryam is an Iranian-born writer and activist living in the UK. She's the spokesperson of "One Law for All" and "The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain". She has co-authored many books, including "Sharia Law in Britain: A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights", "Enemies Not Allies: The Far-Right"  and "Political and Legal Status of Apostates in Islam".

This episode is all about the current uprising in Iran. Miriam and I talk about the death of Masa Amini in police custody and the protests that her death has caused all over Iran. We talk about the Iranian morality police and the laws and customs governing how Iranian women have to dress and behave. We discuss the strange alliance of conservative Islam and Western intersectional feminism. We discuss the legacy of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which turned around into an Islamic state. We talk about the robust black market for Western and secular content in Iran. We also talk about what we in the West can do to support Iranian women and protesters, and much more. 

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My guest today is Richard Reeves. Richard Reeves is a Senior Fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institute, where His research focuses on social mobility, inequality, and the middle class. Richard's new book is called "Of boys and men" and it's all about the specific problems facing men in American society. 

In this episode, Richard and I talk about whether there's any need to address male-specific problems in the first place. We discuss whether gender differences come from nature or nurture. We talk about the so-called feminization of society. We talk about the advantage that girls have in our education system, the wisdom of age segregation in K-12 schooling, the gender disparity and ADHD diagnoses, how the labor market has become less male-friendly, the suicide gap between men and women, the intersection of race and maleness, the unique struggles of black boys, and much more. 

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My guest today is Freddie DeBoer. Freddie is an independent writer on substack and has been published in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and many other places. His book "The Cult of Smart" was named one of the 10 best books of 2020 by New York Magazine.

In this episode, Freddie and I begin by discussing Karl Marx, the legacy of Marxism, and the so-called "labor theory of value". Freddie sees much more value in Marxism than I do so we disagree somewhat on that. We move on to discuss intelligence and the broken system of American higher education. A lot of that conversation is directly relevant to President Biden's recent student loan forgiveness executive order, although we recorded this right before that news broke. Finally, Freddie and I talked about wokeness and social justice ideology.

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