0:28 Steve’s books, The Hell of Good Intentions and The Israel Lobby 1:15 How Israel helped spawn Hezbollah 13:19 Why US leaders abet Israel’s self-destructive behavior 29:14 Netanyahu’s longstanding opposition to a Palestinian state 42:14 The Israeli policy that doomed Israel-Palestine relations 51:39 Steve’s writings on US foreign policy and the election

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Stephen Walt (Harvard University, Foreign Policy). Recorded August 26, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Bob and Paul’s time-warping podcast experiment 3:34 Does thinking in bets better your thinking? 9:38 Past prediction 1: Will the presidential race tighten up? 17:10 J.D. Vance memes of yester-month 22:41 Past prediction 2: Who will Kamala pick for VP? 28:52 When reality gets weird 39:26 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded July 26, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Emma’s forthcoming book on US grand strategy 4:40 Gaza, Ukraine, and Mearsheimer’s realism 13:38 The DC establishment’s dark view of world affairs 24:43 How the Gaza war hurts American interests—and America itself 30:10 Is the time ripe for realism and restraint? 36:25 National problems that require international cooperation 49:59 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Emma Ashford (Stimson Center, Foreign Policy). Recorded August 14, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

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Robert Wright and Andrew Day discuss items from this week’s Earthling. Read it here:

Recorded August 16, 2024.

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Overtime:

028 Nathan's podcast, The Cognitive Revolution 3:50 The enduring enigmas of AI 7:39 Conceptualizing how LLMs conceptualize 16:22 Do AIs actually understand things? 33:08 Why AI doesn’t need to be superhuman to be revolutionary 43:40 Human vs AI representations of the world 57:09 Thinking through high-dimensional AI brain space 1:05:22 Nathan on AI risk: Doomer? Accelerationist? Both? 1:21:59 The open source question and Cold War II 1:41:34 Do LLMs “naturally” learn human values? 1:45:20 Mamba: a new approach to building large language models

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nathan Labenz (Cognitive Revolution, Waymark AI). Recorded August 06, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

The Cognitive Revolution podcast: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/ Waymark AI: https://waymark.com/

0:28 Peter’s background and (Root)claim to fame 4:14 How Peter caught the Covid origins bug 9:49 The Wuhan wet market: source or amplifier? 14:47 Holes in the lab leak theory 24:57 The patient zero problem 28:25 A statistical deep dive into the wet market 43:13 What the genetic evidence can (and can’t) tell us 1:01:46 Can we “trust the science” on Covid? 1:07:39 Has tribalism made resolving the debate impossible? 1:13:32 Why lab leak matters—even if it didn’t happen

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Peter Miller (https://medium.com/@tgof137, https://www.youtube.com/@tgof137). Recorded August 06, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

2:11 Who was Haniyeh—and why’d Israel kill him? 6:12 Why Netanyahu may want a US-Iran war 14:15 Are pro-Israel groups at peak power? 22:33 Israel’s escalating conflict with Hezbollah 31:15 The logic of Iranian retaliation 41:07 Israel’s lack of a viable endgame in Gaza 46:31 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Joshua Landis (University of Oklahoma, SyriaComment.com). Recorded August 05, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Nick’s influential book Superintelligence and his new book Deep Utopia 3:13 Has Nick flipped on AI doom? 10:57 Life in the “solved world” of an AI utopia 20:44 Can technology address the deepest problems of human nature? 30:07 Meaning, artificial purpose, and the value of golf 46:22 The promise and perils of virtual reality 51:23 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nick Bostrom (Superintelligence, Macrostrategy Research Initiative, Deep Utopia). Recorded July 11, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

1:13 Dmitri’s new book, World on the Brink 9:26 Is America’s behavior more destabilizing than China’s? 17:22 China-Taiwan compared to Russia-Ukraine 28:00 Is the US making a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely? 41:31 Should the US try to maintain global hegemony? 55:06 The “autocracy versus democracy” framing

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Dmitri Alperovitch (Crowdstrike, Silverado, World on the Brink). Recorded July 24, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Robert Wright and Andrew Day discuss items from this week’s Earthling.