Robert Wright's Nonzero

0:00 Bob: On foreign policy, there is no real Ron DeSantis 10:28 The difference between right-restrainers and left-restrainers 22:33 The dangerous politics of indicting Trump 29:17 Trump’s new plan to take out the deep state 36:12 Is the war turning in Ukraine’s favor? 47:31 Why did DeSantis change the pronunciation of his name? 53:16 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

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded March 24, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65879 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org

0:00 Richard’s banking and business bona fides 2:51 Was the Silicon Valley Bank crash a harbinger of worse to come? 10:06 What actually caused SVB’s collapse? 18:46 Richard: SVB failed risk management 101 31:41 Costs and benefits of the SVB bailout 38:13 The Fed’s oft-forgotten original role 43:32 Did the deregulation SVB lobbied for doom it? 45:09 Overtime preview: Richard’s career highlights; cognitive empathy in commerce; how to hire like a boss; and more!

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Richard Vague (Gabriel Investments, The Next Economic Disaster). Recorded March 21, 2023.

Richard's article about the SVB crash in Democracy Journal: https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/the-svb-failure-why-it-happened-and-what-it-means/

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65853 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Subscribe to The Parrot Room at https://patreon.com/parrotroom

0:00 Mickey’s mind-bending analogy between romance and politics 5:11 Bob triggered by DeSantis’s “territorial dispute” line about Russia-Ukraine 21:29 How to prevent the next bank collapse? 32:03 Was “wokeness” behind SVB’s demise? 36:56 Ukraine war update 47:53 Are Democrats ditching Israel? 51:50 Winners and losers of Iran-Saudi détente 58:15 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

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded March 17, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65843Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

0:25 Ananyo’s book, The Man from the Future, about game theory inventor and polymath John von Neumann 6:38 Early life as a mathematical wunderkind 10:16 Von Neumann’s foundational contributions to quantum physics 24:39 Was entanglement as "spooky" to von Neumann as it was to Einstein? 33:46 Building—and reckoning with—the atomic bomb 47:22 Did von Neumann really want to nuke the USSR? 52:30 Why was early game theory so zero-sum–focused? 1:05:44 Influence on Turing, the open source movement, and modern computing 1:22:27 How brushes with totalitarianism shaped von Neumann’s views 1:28:56 Programming pioneer Klára Dán von Neumann 1:33:26 The duality of von Neumann’s social life 1:39:58 Did von Neumann grok incompleteness before Gödel? 1:42:45 Unfinished work comparing computers and the brain 1:50:23 Von Neumann’s deathbed conversion: Pascal's wager or something more?

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Ananyo Bhattacharya (The Man from the Future). Recorded January 17, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65817 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Subscribe to The Parrot Room at https://patreon.com/parrotroom

4:24 Biden’s soak-the-rich budget: big news or borefest? 16:03 How Biden insulting Xi Jinping endangers Ukraine 23:38 Bob finds another reason Biden shouldn’t run for re-election 27:54 Ukraine war update 35:53 Nordstream’s hobbyist saboteurs 43:05 Tucker Carlson outed as anti-Trump phony 52:00 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

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded March 10, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65808 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org

1:46 Paul’s new book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind 12:13 Does psychology need more evolutionary thinking? 20:33 Freud and Skinner and parts in between 30:47 Mind-body dualism’s enduring intuitive appeal 33:16 ChatGPT and the human mind: compare and contrast 38:22 Are cognitive biases overblown? 47:59 A brief note about the podcast 51:24 Implicit biases, memory, and other topics covered in the book

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded March 07, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65784Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPodsFacebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

Subscribe to The Parrot Room at https://patreon.com/parrotroom

0:00 Mickey celebrates good week for JD Vance, Ron DeSantis 11:37 The Biden admin’s “all sticks, no carrots” approach to foreign policy 15:55 Is China’s plummeting birth rate a problem? 17:16 Will Bibi wag the dog? 31:07 Will AI kill the journalism star? 36:42 Ukraine war update 44:11 Alarmism about a China-Russia axis 47:04 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

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded March 03, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65772 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

00:37 Paul’s new book, Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 11:42 Will AIs replace humans in future wars? 29:24 China as an AI superpower 39:29 Will Beijing spread high-tech authoritarianism globally? 48:51 How useful is the “democracy versus autocracy” framework? 54:01 Why Paul’s worried about a race to the bottom in AI safety 1:00:00 Tom Cruise can’t hold a candle to AI pilots

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Scharre (Center for a New American Security, Army of None, Four Battlegrounds). Recorded February 8, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65750 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

Subscribe to The Parrot Room at https://patreon.com/parrotroom

0:00 Washington Post highlights a cost of US hypocrisy 6:54 Will China push for peace—or fund Russia’s war effort (or both)? 17:49 Can Trump use Biden’s support for Ukraine against him? 28:42 Russia’s offensive, Ukraine’s rope-a-dope 37:59 Bob’s evolving view of America’s role in the Maidan Revolution 44:43 The US vows to back Israel if it attacks Iran 47:32 Parrot Room preview: AI updates; Republicans and Social Security; How Blobbish is Fiona Hill?; Carlos Watson arrested

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded February 23, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65731 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe

01:25 Coleman’s definition of “wokeness”—and why he’s against it 13:07 Poverty or privilege: Which predicts wokeness among black Americans? 22:46 How much progress has America made since Jim Crow? 32:17 Why writers in particular are haunted by their past 41:59 How racists and criminals are made 51:25 Does "hip-hop culture exist"—and is it bad? 1:02:22 Coleman diversifies his controversy portfolio

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Coleman Hughes (Conversations with Coleman). Recorded February 14, 2023.

Comments on BhTV: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/65724 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods Facebook: https://facebook.com/bloggingheads/ Podcasts: https://bloggingheads.tv/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe