Today’s disagreement is on Artificial Intelligence and Existential Risk. In this episode, we ask the most consequential question we’ve asked so far on this show: Do rapidly advancing AI systems pose an existential threat to humanity?

To have this conversation, we’ve brought together two experts: a world class computer scientist and a Silicon Valley AI entrepreneur.

Roman Yampolskiy is an associate professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Louisville. His most recent book is: AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable.

Alan Cowen is the Chief Executive Officer of Hume AI, a startup developing “emotionally intelligent AI.” His company recently raised $50M from top-tier venture capitalists to pursue the first fully empathic AI – an AI that can both understand our emotional states and replicate them. Alan has a PhD in computational psychology from Berkeley and previously worked at Google in the DeepMind AI lab.

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Today we have a disagreement on whether there’s a retirement crisis in the United States. To have this conversation, we’ve brought together two thought leaders on the topic.

Andrew Biggs is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He studies social security reform, pensions and public sector benefits. Before joining AEI, Biggs was the principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Monique Morrissey is a Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Her areas of expertise span social security, pensions, older workers and household savings. A member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, Monique is active in efforts to reform the private retirement system.

• Will millions of us never be able to stop working?
• Is social security actually on the verge of collapse?
• How much should we be panicking?

Before we get started, economists think about retirement as a three-legged stool: social security, employer retirement accounts, and personal savings or other assets. We’ll talk about all three legs, how shaky they are, and whether or not the U.S. government needs to fold up a napkin and jam it under one or two of them. ;)

Since the 1970s, there has been a national shift away from defined-benefit plans or “DB Plans,” such as pensions, in which employers funded and guaranteed a retirement benefit for their workers. We started seeing a lot more defined-contribution (“DC Plans”) such as 401(k)s, where workers primarily fund their own accounts, and employers can match contributions - or choose not to. 

This episode is moderated by Catherine Cushenberry.

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The disagreement over the concept of white privilege is at the center of many of our political and cultural struggles at the moment. 

On the Left, white privilege is a bedrock principle, a foundational assumption that motivates much of the discourse around race in America. On the Right, the concept is primarily an object of derision. It’s dismissed, mocked and held up as the sign of the Left’s moral confusion and obsession with identity politics.

To work through this problem, we’ve brought together a Black conservative philosopher and a white anti-racist activist.

Jason D. Hill is a professor of philosophy and the author of five books, including most recently What Do White Americans Owe Black People: Racial Justice in the Age of Post-Oppression. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and has been a professional writer and author for more than thirty years. 

Garrett Bucks is the founder of The Barnraisers Project, which is committed to organizing majority-white communities for racial and social justice. He is also the author of the popular Substack newsletter The White Pages, and recently released a memoir called The Right Kind of White.

• Does white privilege exist?
• How does it interact with other forms of privilege, like class class and gender?
• Is it a useful concept politically and culturally?

• 3:09 - Defining white privilege
• 6:22 - White working class critique
• 12:44 - Black excellence
• 15:04 - American individualism vs. communitarianism
• 16:41 - Black immigrant experiences
• 19:15 - On Robin DiAngelo
• 22:58 - Left and Right class critiques of racial privilege
• 25:11 - Intersectionality
• 28:19 - White saviors
• 33:02 - White guilt
• 36:34 - Steelmanning

Further Reading

Jason Hill’s letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates

Critique of Robin DiAngelo

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh

What did you think about this episode? Email us at [email protected]. You can also DM us @thedisagreementhq

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Today’s disagreement is on whether or not extraterrestrial life exists. We’ve brought on two guests who are out of this world. ;)

Dr. Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist and professor of Science at Harvard University. As head of The Galileo Project at Harvard, Dr. Loeb directs the search for evidence of extraterrestrials. Avi is also the author of more than eight hundred scientific papers and the books Interstellar and Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth.

Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine. He is the bestselling author of many books, including Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain. Michael is the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University.

Today we ask a wide range of important questions about extraterrestrial life:

• Do we already have evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life?
• What would it take for us to all agree there are technological civilizations beyond earth?
• How does the media complicate our understanding of the subject?
• And why is there so much tension in the scientific community about this work?

• Fermi’s question: where is everybody? [3:45]
• Addressing anomalies [6:45]
• Radio communication versus finding objects [10:00]
• Why media coverage loves “aliens” [12:00]
• Skepticism and anomalies [14:00]
• Disagreements in the scientific community [16:00]
• Real material evidence and the US government [21:00]
• Machine learning for observing anomalous objects [27:00]
• Steelmanning [31:30]

What did you think about this episode? Email us at [email protected]. You can also DM us on Instagram @thedisagreementhq.

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Today’s disagreement is about criminal justice reform, specifically the state of policing and incarceration in the United States. To explore its contours, we’ve brought on two experts in criminal justice.

Rafael A. Mangual works on the Policing & Public Safety Initiative at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He is a contributing editor of City Journal AND is the author of Criminal (In)Justice: What The Push For Decarceration And Depolicing Gets Wrong And Who It Hurts Most.

Chesa Boudin is the founding executive director of Berkeley's Criminal Law and Justice Center. Previously, Chesa served as elected district attorney for the city of San Francisco from 2020 - 2022 as part of a wave of “progressive prosecutors.” In 2022, there was a successful recall campaign that resulted in him leaving the office. Chesa’s biological parents, David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, were members of the weather underground, who went to prison and served a combined 62 years. As you’ll hear him reference, he grew up visiting his parents in prison.

Today we ask a wide range of important questions about criminal justice reform.

• What is the rationale behind incarceration? Is it an effective means of deterring and preventing crime?
• What is the right role for the police to play in communities?
• Should police spend less time and energy responding to smaller, non-violent offenses and be more focused on preventing and responding to violent crime?

This is an incredibly consequential topic that has a massive impact on the lives of millions of Americans. As you are likely aware, the entire life cycle of the criminal justice system impacts marginalized communities and communities of color in highly disproportionate ways. We discuss this explicitly at times but it also hovers over the entire conversation. 

There’s a lot of data in this episode so strap in – take breaks whenever you need it.  

• Four theories of incarceration - [10:00]
• Deterrence and Sentence Length [15:00]
• Incapacitation [18:00]
• Recidivism, Cost and Age [19:30]
• Measuring Arrests versus Convictions [26:00]
• Geographic concentration of violence [29:00]
• Arrest patterns and offenders [31:00]
• Role of policing [39:00]
• Policing versus prosecution

What did you think about this episode? Reply to this message, comment below, or email us at 

[email protected]

. You can also DM us on Instagram @thedisagreementhq or subscribe for more special content on our YouTube channel.

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What you’re about to hear is a powerful and sustained disagreement with the current discourse on youth gender medicine and the more extreme voices who tend to dominate the public conversation. 

Gender-affirming care, as defined by the World Health Organization, includes social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” when it conflicts with their gender assigned at birth.

How long should physicians and clinicians observe a child before they decide to treat them for gender dysphoria?

When (if ever) should a child socially transition, begin hormones, and/or undergo surgery for their gender?

Dr. Erica Anderson is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist and academic, specializing in Gender, Sexuality, and Identity. She served on the medical staff of the Youth Gender Clinic at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and on the board of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

Dr. Jack Drescher is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). In 2022, Dr. Drescher was a member of the APA’s DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders – responsible for revising the definition of what is now referred to as “gender dysphoria.” An openly gay psychiatrist, Dr. Drescher has also served on the World Health Organization’s workgroup revising sexual and gender diagnoses.

• Defining gender [04:16]
• Shift in patients at pediatric gender clinics [11:20]
• The Canadian approach [16:33]
• Treatment options [20:11]
• Determining if a child will benefit from transition [27:04]
• Increase in cases [29:19]
• Risks and benefits of treatment [35:01]
• Level of caution for when to use medicines [42:46]
• Canadian vs Dutch approach [46:58]
• Question of rapid medicalization [49:14]
• Difficulty of the conversation [54:44]
• Comparison with gay marriage [57:24]

Do you have questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq.

Questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thedisagreement.substack.com/

Today's disagreement is about the "math wars."

The "math wars” is a debate happening in K-12 education about the best way to teach math. Broadly speaking, there are two camps that have conflicting pedagogical approaches:

Explicit instruction focuses on procedural fluency, guided practice, and repetition.

Inquiry-based instruction focuses on conceptual understanding, open-ended problems, and productive struggle.

This is an incredibly high-stakes debate — especially if you have children or loved ones that are currently receiving K-12 math instruction. To explore its contours, we’ve brought on two math education experts

The Guests

Kevin Dykema is President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), an international organization with more than 30,000 members. Kevin has been a passionate advocate for inquiry-based instruction and NCTM is one of the method’s leading proponents. Kevin is also a teacher — currently in southwest Michigan — and he has taught 8th grade mathematics for over 25 years.

Holly Korbey is an independent education journalist, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and many more. Holly also writes and produces The Bell Ringer, a Substack newsletter about the science of learning.

Today we ask a wide range of important questions about the Math Wars:

How do children actually learn math, and what’s the best way to teach them?

Which approach has a more compelling body of evidence on its side?

What is the best way to teach students from low-income and marginalized communities?

• Why the math wars are consequential [03:20]
• Inquiry-based instruction overview [05:19]
• Cognitive science [06:52]
• Relationship between conceptual understanding and fluency [11:26]
• Productive struggle [13:15]
• Research overview [20:05]
• What does explicit instruction look like? [23:50]
• Income and race [25:13]
• Arithmetic automaticity [29:19]
• What would change your mind? [32:01]
• Steelmanning [34:24]

This is a special episode of The Disagreement. What you’re about to hear is a live recording from the New Schools Summit, one of the most important education events of the year. 

This our first ever live taping and we had a blast. Huge shout out to the NewSchools team for making it happen.

And we should add that we’re taking our podcast on the road! Would you like The Disagreement to come to your conference, event, off-site, college, synagogue, or mosque? We want to hear from you. Email [email protected].

Questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thedisagreement.substack.com/

Should the United States ban or force the sale of TikTok? What are the implications for free speech? 

In mid-April 2024, the United States Congress passed legislation that gave ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, 270 days to sell TikTok or it would be banned in the United States. In response, TikTok filed a lawsuit declaring the legislation unconstitutional on a number of free speech grounds. And it’s currently making its way through the courts.

What are the compelling arguments for and against a potential ban or forced sale? Is it constitutional?

The Guests

Evan Greer is a Director at Fight For the Future, an advocacy organization focused on technology and free expression. She writes for major publications including The Guardian, Time, and Newsweek. And…we should add that Evan is also a musician who has performed with artists such as Pete Seeger, Talib Kweli, and Dispatch.

Sam Lessin is a partner at Slow Ventures, a venture capital firm based in the Bay Area. He is also the co-host of More or Less, a podcast that analyzes the tech industry. Previously, Sam founded a number of tech companies and was the VP of Product at Facebook.

• Evaluating the legislation [2:47]
• The 1st Amendment [05:36]
• How independent is ByteDance? [11:17]
• Data collection [16:37]
• Is there a slippery slope? [17:28]
• Privacy protection [24:12]
• What will happen to TikTok after the legislation? [36:09]
• China’s interests [40:25]
• Young people and TikTok [46:50]
• Political factors [47:27]
• Steelmanning [50:04]

Questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thedisagreement.substack.com/

Today’s disagreement is on medical aid in dying. In the United States, this term refers to the right for a terminally ill, adult patient to end their own life by taking a medication prescribed by a doctor. Medical aid in dying is currently legal in ten states and Washington, D.C.

We’ve brought together an activist and a doctor to dive into the topic:

Dr. Ira Byock is a physician, author, and advocate for palliative care — the medical practice of treating people with serious, complex, and terminal illnesses. Ira is the founder of the Providence St. Joseph Health Institute for Human Caring and is an emeritus professor of medicine and professor of community health and family medicine at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College.

Kim Callinan is an end-of-life leader and advocate in the field of medical aid in dying. She is President and Chief Executive Officer of Compassion & Choices, an organization that aims to “improve care, expand options and empower everyone to chart their end-of-life journey.”

Today we ask a wide range of important questions on medical aid in dying.

How broken is end-of-life care in America? And how should we fix it?

What are the potential risks and benefits of implementing medical aid in dying?

How should we be thinking about death, dying, and the end-of-life for our loved ones?

And one more very exciting note: today's disagreement is facilitated by Catherine Cushenberry, one of our producers and someone who has been helping to bring the idea for this podcast to life from the very beginning. Catherine is also a healthcare industry veteran and the perfect facilitator for this topic.

And as you'll hear, she's awesome at it.

Current state of end-of-life care [03:25]

Palliative care [07:45]

Question of unintended consequences [12:56]

Defining medical aid in dying [16:47]

Effect of medical aid in dying on end-of-life care [22:36]

Medical aid in dying outside the U.S. [28:02]

Process of medical aid in dying [33:56]

Is there a slippery slope? [37:30]

Reasons why people choose medical aid in dying [43:21]

Financial incentives [47:08]

Steelmanning [51:05]

Questions or comments about this episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on X and Instagram @thedisagreementhq. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://thedisagreement.substack.com/