Noah Carl is an independent researcher, writer, and free speech advocate. He invited Richard on his new podcast (which you can find at Noah’s Substack) to discuss whether the West is to blame for the conflict in Ukraine. We’re re-releasing that episode, which originally came out on March 1st. Although much has happened since then, the topics discussed in the conversation remain relevant for understanding the current war and how we got here. Noah and Richard talk about moralism and paranoia in American foreign policy, the multicausal nature of war, and whether the US is a consistent defender of democracy and human rights globally. They also discuss whether Ukraine could grow economically without integration into the EU, utilitarianism in international relations, what the West should do if Russia won’t negotiate, and why war is almost always a terrible idea.





Noah Carl’s Substack.
Richard Hanania, “Americans Hate Each Other, but We Aren’t Headed for a Civil War.” 
Richard Hanania, “Lessons from Forecasting the Ukraine War.” 
John Mueller, “The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency.” 
CSPI Podcast with John Mueller, “War as a Product of Human Stupidity” 



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Steve Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He returns to the CSPI Podcast for a wide-ranging discussion of various personal, political, and technical topics, including his attempted cancelation from Michigan State, thoughts on Russia-Ukraine, affirmative action, macroeconomics, and why top physics talents prefer theoretical over practical pursuits (If you haven’t seen Steve’s first appearance on the podcast, click here to watch or listen). 



The conversation begins with Steve explaining what it was like growing up one of the few Asian kids in a predominantly white town and reflecting on the nature of assimilation. He and Richard continue their discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war and European geopolitics before moving on to affirmative action and civil rights law. They talk about the Harvard Asian case, the highly subjective nature of legal decisions, and whether employment markets are rational enough for the college degree to lose value if universities scrap standardized tests.



Next, Steve tells Richard about his attempted cancelation from Michigan State, where he was pressured to step down from his role as Vice President of Research after a leftist student group attacked him on Twitter over his blog posts and podcasts. They talk about the intrusion of activists into academia, and how this has negatively impacted the STEM fields and social sciences. This leads to a discussion of whether economics is a more valuable and rigorous social science than the others, and whether micro and macroeconomics are comparable or reconcilable.



In the last part of the podcast, Steve and Richard talk about what traits and dispositions lead some people to go against the crowd and resist conformity, and why the path to scientific and technological innovation is laden with disbelief and ridicule from peers. Using the examples of Jeff Bezos and Richard Feynman, Steve explains how those with exceptionally high IQs are often able to effortlessly solve problems and optimize systems with little to no background or technical knowledge. They conclude by considering the possibility that policy should be oriented towards recognizing and rewarding the few geniuses and innovators whose work leads to disproportionate social and material gains.



A transcript of the full conversation is available here:  https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/assimilation-football-affirmative?s=r   



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CSPI Podcast, “The Future of Humanity is IVF Babies and Chinese Domination | Steve Hsu & Richard Hanania.”
Richard Hanania, “Lessons from Forecasting the Ukraine War.” 
Adam Tooze, “Putin’s Challenge to Western Hegemony.”
Rob Lee. “Moscow’s Compellence Strategy.”
Anatoly Karlin. “Regathering of the Russian Lands.” 
Steve Hsu, “Joe Cesario on Police Decision Making and Racial Bias in Deadly Force Decisions (Manifold Episode #11).”
Steve Hsu, “ManifoldOne Podcast Episode#3: Richard Hanania on Wokeness, Public Choice Theory, & Geostrategy.”
Steve Hsu, "Manifold Podcast #6: Richard Sander on Affirmative Action, Mismatch Theory, and Academic Freedom.” 
Alan Sokal, “Sokal Hoax.”
Wikipedia, “Grievance Studies Affair (Sokal Squared).”
Eric Kaufmann, “Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship.”
Steve Hsu, “Bezos Quotes.” 

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Jimmy Soni is a biographer and speechwriter. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, “The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley,” which explores the early days, history, and legacy of PayPal. It also outlines the unique qualities, business savvy, and technological vision that led to the founders’ success at PayPal and elsewhere. Jimmy and Richard discuss the value of “founders,” the cultural impact of Elon Musk, and why so much high-level talent was concentrated at the University of Illinois in the ‘90s. They consider the role of productive tribalism and Peter Thiel’s memetic philosophy in shaping tech culture, and reflect on how the tension between vision and practicality is central to American dynamism and innovation.



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Jimmy Soni, “The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.” 







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Stephen Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He is also a serial entrepreneur and has published on genomics, in addition to blogging on a wide range of topics from econometrics and geopolitics to mixed martial arts. Hsu joins the Podcast, where he and Richard begin by talking about the Russia-Ukraine crisis and American military power relative to that of China and Russia. What would a Chinese attempt to conquer Taiwan look like, and what would the US be able to do in response? This is followed by a long discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese system and its differences with the democratic capitalist model, including the former's high level of reliance on standardized tests and institutions designed to evaluate and promote government officials. The conversation closes on the topics of genomics and embryo selection, including the state of the technology, its current uses, and cross-national differences in attitudes and regulations. A full transcript of the conversation is available here.





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Ezra Voegel, “Japan as Number One.”
John Dower, “War Without Mercy."
Dan Wang, ”2021 Letter.”
Dan Bell, “The China Model.”
Richard McGregor, “The Party.”
"DNA Dreams" (documentary film).
Richard Hanania, “The Inevitable Rise of China.”
Richard Hanania, “Fertility as the Final Boss in Chinese Development, and Richard Hanania Prediction Markets.”
Steve Hsu, “Sustainability of China Economic Growth.”
Steve Hsu, “Les Grandes Ecoles Chinoises.”
Francesco C. Billari, Hans-Peter Kohler, Gunnar Andersson and Hans Lundström, “Approaching the Limit: Long-Term Trends in Late and Very Late Fertility.”  p. 163. (On Swedish Fertility, Extreme Births)
Steve’s Podcast, “Manifold.”

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Alec Stapp is co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a new think tank that focuses on accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress. He joins Richard to talk about why he started his think tank and what policymaking looks like in DC behind the scenes. They also discuss the idea of Secret Congress, the backgrounds of DC staffers, meta-science, biosecurity and immigration as policy issues, and the pros and cons of state capacity.

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Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney, “Progress Is a Policy Choice.”




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Freddie deBoer joins the podcast to talk about his book “The Cult of Smart,” which argues that many problems in the education system and American society are due to the failure to grapple with the fixed nature of individual differences in intelligence. He and Richard discuss the effectiveness of charter schools vs. public schools, how the economic value of traits changes over time, if American despair is a spiritual or economic issue, and whether college degrees have peaked in value. They also explore their differences over economic philosophy, which includes a discussion of why Freddie calls himself a Marxist, different kinds of Marxism, and how his philosophical outlook relates to his views on genetics and intelligence. Despite Richard being a capitalist, they find much common ground on policy specifics, including the need for less education and the acceptance of billionaires, markets and inequality. They also debate what Freddie's ideas about individual differences in intelligence imply – and don't imply – about differences between groups.



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Freddie deBoer, “The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice."

Seth Ackerman’s Substack.
Peter Frase, "Four Futures: Life After Capitalism." 
Robert Brenner, "The Economics of Global Turbulence."

Freddie deBoer’s Substack. 




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Jonah Davids is CSPI’s director of communications. He joins Richard to talk about his essay on leaving academia, how social science is mostly storytelling, and what CSPI accomplished in 2021. They also discuss why reaching out to people is underrated, the recent study on racial discrimination in emailing, reasons to stay in or leave academia, the effectiveness of advertising, why CSPI has been successful so far, and wokeness as stupid vs. evil in the aftermath of the IDW.



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Jonah Davids, “The Overwhelming Underwhelmingness of Academia: Three Reasons to Leave.” 
Ray Block Jr., Charles Crabtree, John B. Holbein, J. Quin Monson, “Are Americans less likely to reply to emails from Black people relative to White people?” 
Hugo Mercier, “Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe.” 
CSPI, “CSPI 2021: The Year in Review.”

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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. Gabriel Rossman is a sociologist at UCLA. They join Richard to debate the relationship between woke institutions, civil rights law, and corporate culture. Each has written a recent article on this topic: Richard’s “Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law,” Charles’ “The Geneology of Woke Capital,” and Gabriel’s “Why Woke Organizations All Sound the Same.” They also discuss the history of affirmative action, successes and failures of the conservative legal movement, the connection between the civil rights policies of the Reagan administration and pop culture, status quo bias and negative polarization, and whether Americans still believe in meritocracy.

Click here to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube.



Richard Hanania, “Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law.” 
Charles Fain Lehman, “The Geneology of Woke Capital.” 
Gabriel Rossman, “Why Woke Organizations All Sound the Same.”
John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.”
Frank Dobbin and John R. Sutton, "The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions.” 
Wikipedia, “Grutter v. Bolinger.” 





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Philippe Lemoine is a Research Fellow at CSPI and a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell University. He returns to the podcast to discuss his new paper, “Have we been thinking about the pandemic wrong? The effect of population structure on transmission.” He and Richard discuss the role of networks in COVID transmission, the politics and sociology of the pandemic, the enforcement of mask mandates in LA County and French gyms, why we might want less genomic surveillance of new variants, and why the Omicron variant is no reason to worry. Click for the report on population structure, a thread explaining the results, and his latest piece on the Omicron variant.

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This week’s guest is Leif Rasmussen, a PhD candidate in computer science at Northwestern University, and the author of the new CSPI report, “Increasing Politicization and Homogeneity in Scientific Funding: An Analysis of NSF Grants, 1990-2020.” He discusses the report and critiques of it, along with his experiences in academia, and the growing bias against non-conformists in intellectual life. A tweet thread summarizing the report can be found here.

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