Robert Wright's Nonzero

Joe Manchin’s infrastructure shell game ... The Monty Hall problem explained ... What does Bernie want from the infrastructure deal? ... If the Taliban collapses, can Biden count it as a win? ... The exaggerated claims about China’s “incursion” into Taiwan’s "airspace" ... Should we gird ourselves for a Trump 2024 run? ... Why isn’t Biden giving more pushback to the left? ... The Pandora Papers are more consequential than they seem ... Bob: Biden should loosen patent protections on Covid vaccines ... Mickey: There’s new evidence for the lab leak hypothesis ... Mickey’s theory of Ozy founder Carlos Watson ... Parrot Room preview: Bob asks Mickey for car advice, the Iron Dome vote, Bob congratulates Mickey on last week’s outstanding joke, Bob tells a less outstanding John Wayne Bobbit joke, Facebook’s worst week ever, Bob’s near-death experience, a dream about Mort Kondracke, a new Parkinson’s treatment, and talking about Robert Kagan to ward off fascism ...

Sam's new book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War ... The murky legal standing of the Forever War ... Obama’s transition from traditional war to “humane” war ... Are presidents incentivized to keep war going forever? ... Sam: The true face of war is domination, control, and security ... How Vietnam changed the US’s approach to war ... What drives the demand for more humane war? ... Americans’ rising skepticism of Forever War ...

Reconstructing Pelosi’s infrastructure dealmaking ... Does Biden actually need both infrastructure bills to pass? ... Time for some game theory (to explain infrastructure negotiations) ... Positive pandemic news: Declining US case rates, Merck’s new drug ... Is Havana Syndrome real? ... Mickey: We should have empathy for whites who fear being replaced by foreigners ... What the Guinean coup shows us about the GWOT ... Was there political motivation behind the botched Kabul drone strike? ... Why were there 12,000 Haitians in Del Rio, Texas? ... Parrot Room preview: The demise of Ozy, Mickey’s stolen joke, a The Best and the Brightest anecdote, Mickey’s bad newsletter advice, why Bob doesn’t like Tommy Vietor, Bob explains why Mickey triggered him last week, a nominee for a Parrot Room guest, the mystery of the cloned horse, and the legal definition of “reckless disregard” ...

Matt and Chris's podcast, Decoding the Gurus ... What makes a guru a guru? ... Are we living in an age of secular gurus? ... Chris: I have an issue with "unevenly applied" skepticism ... Scott Adams's selectively "pro-science" stance ... Eric and Bret Weinstein's grievance-based worldviews ... Is self-aggrandizement a Weinstein family trait? ... The sinister forces supposedly closing in on Eric Weinstein ... Does social media's emphasis on "followers" encourage the creation of gurus? ...

Pelosi preps for infrastructure vote with trouble all around ... The cost of zero sum politics: the wrath of the voters ... Throwing Biden into the ash heap of history ... What do Manchin & Sinema really want? ... Is Mickey feeling schadenfreude over Biden’s Haitian immigrant debacle? ... Bob worries that Biden seems vibrant enough to run for re-election ... Is America heading toward a cold war with China? ... What Bob Woodward’s version of the Mark Milley story missed ... Mickey no longer sure Rocking the Casbah in Saudi was a good idea ... Mickey vs Bob on Ezra Klein’s supply-side progressivism column ... Quick covid update ... Hunter Biden in the Parrot Room ...

Remembering Michael Brooks ... The existential stakes of enlightenment ... Overcoming the affective dimension of cognitive bias ... Bringing broader awareness to the concept of cognitive bias ... Cognitive bias and the roots of war ... The folly of feedback loops ... Quelling our primitive retributive impulses ... Taking a mulligan in your meditation practice ... Focusing on the hindrances ... Can you fail at meditation? ...

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Mickey proposes a parking garage-based theory of everything ... Bob’s plan for passing Biden’s "soft infrastructure" bill ... Mickey does some Monday morning quarterbacking for Larry Elder ... Bob’s near-death experience with British food ... Was Mickey truly “in it to win it” in his Senate race? ... Were Mark Milley's calls to China justified? ... The perverse incentives of the anti-China nuclear sub deal ... Mickey’s exhaustion-induced supermarket hallucination ... Would Biden’s budget really transform American life? ... Parrot Room preview: Facebook’s whitelist, the Dixie Chicks "cancellation," loneliness, a Las Vegas shooting rabbit hole, Bob's push to get Mickey on a dating app, the US Open, Elizabeth Holmes on trial, the mystery of Trump’s attraction to Putin, and that Nicki Minaj tweet (you know the one) ...

Oliver's new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ... Oliver outlines “compatibilism,” the idea that free will and determinism can coexist ... Bob: Everyone should be a free will agnostic ... The occasionally dramatic consequences of arguments against free will ... Would determinism require us to reform our approach to criminal justice? ... A (possible) quantum hack for free will vs. determinism ... Bob thinks compatibilism is b******t ... ... ... but Oliver tries to persuade him there's something to it ... Oliver: No position on free will and determinism is free of contradiction ...

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

Mickey: Biden’s weakness is his strength ... Is Biden’s vaccine mandate constitutional? And will it work? ... A reason to root for the Delta variant? ... JD Vance urges people to resist the vaccine mandate ... Looking back at 9/11-inspired fears ... Did the Iraq War give a critical boost to 9/11 Trutherism? ... We may actually see a vote on the hard infrastructure bill soon ... Mickey complains about Ezra Klein, Bob pushes back ... Parrot Room preview: Why Bob has been talking about the Weinsteins so much, The Chair, Bob tries to talk Mickey into using a dating app (or maybe the Parrot Room itself is a dating app?), the US Open, is rock dead?, Mickey’s Fred Barnes Crossfire story, and a general theory of inflation derived from staying in crappy hotels ...

John's recent bout of fever-induced hallucinations ... Does math actually help you understand QM? ... What experiments in QM have and have not verified ... John: All interpretations of QM are bad ... What do we want from science? ... "An operating system for reality" ...

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