Andrea Crisanti is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Padua. He is part of the research team that eradicated coronavirus in Vo, a town in northern Italy.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Andrea: Website
•Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus dashboard
•Data on testing by country
•Marc Lipsitch's 18 March STAT article

Topics discussed

•The Italian crisis. 8:22
•Why has Lombardy become an epicentre of coronavirus? 9:50
•How does the situation in Veneto compare to that in Lombardy? 11:06
•How did Andrea become involved in the Vo experiment? 11:51
•What is the process for identifying infection people in Veneto? 17:20
•What is the R0 for asymptomatic people? 20:25
•What is the strategy employed at Vo? 24:32
•Is there still time for Australia and the US to implement the strategy used at Vo? 25:21
•Does the Vo strategy need to be implemented in full in order to be successful? 28:05
•Why have some Asian countries been better at controlling the virus than Western countries? 28:47
•Is the Vo strategy scalable? 29:43
•How should we think about the prospects of future waves of the virus? 30:34

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peter Singer is the world's most influential living philosopher.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Yaneer Bar-Yam is a physicist and the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Yaneer: Website | Twitter
•Endcoronavirus.org
•Dynamics of Complex Systems, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•Making Things Work, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)', research by Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie
•Powers of Ten YouTube video
•'An Introduction to Complex Systems Science and Its Applications', 2019 paper by Alexander Siegenfeld and Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'The Architecture of Complexity', 1962 paper by Herbert Simon
•'Science and Complexity', 1948 paper by Warren Weaver
•'More is Different', 1972 paper by Phil Anderson
•Scale, by Geoffrey West
•Johns Hopkins University coronavirus interactive map
•'Systemic Risk of Pandemic via Novel Pathogens -- Coronavirus: Note', January 2020 note by Nassim Taleb, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Joe Norman
•The Square And The Tower, by Niall Ferguson
•'Long-range interaction and evolutionary stability in a predator-prey system', 2006 paper by Erik Rauch and Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Transition to Extinction', 2016 article by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic', 2007 paper by Howard Markel et al
•'Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic', 2006 paper by Neil Ferguson et al
•Join the fellowship of the doers: [email protected]

Topics discussed

•Yaneer's background and parents. 11:39
•Powers of Ten. 12:06
•Highlights from Yaneer's time as an MIT student. 15:29
•The role of chance in our lives. 21:28
•What is "complexity"? 25:42
•Complex systems. 30:23
•Emergence. 37:06
•Phase transitions. 44:26
•Self-organization. 49:48
•Universality. 55:12
•Applying complex systems science to the Arab Spring. 1:03:13
•Taking stock of the coronavirus epidemic. 1:12:47
•What is the current best estimate for th...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kevin Rudd was Australia's 26th Prime Minister and is the President of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Kevin: Website | Twitter
•Mike Pence's Hudson Institute Speech (October 4, 2018)
•'The Sources of Soviet Conduct', 1947 article by "X" (George Kennan)
•Henry Kissinger's talk at Bloomberg's New Economy Forum (November 21, 2019)
•'Chinese Communist Party Influence at Australian Universities', lecture by Clive Hamilton
•'High Tide? Populism in Power, 1990 - 2020', report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
•'Going to Extremes: Politics after Financial Crises, 1870 - 2014', paper by Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch
•'The Complacent Country', article by Kevin Rudd

Topics discussed

•Wuhan. 3:56
•What has the coronavirus revealed about the limits of the CCP's competence? 4:30
•Is the CCP underreporting coronavirus figures, as it did for SARS figures in 2003? 6:57
•Are China and the US in a new cold war? 8:44
•Would a new cold war have any hidden upsides? 11:56
•Chinese influence in Australian universities. 13:51
•How should Australia deal with Chinese influence? 17:58
•Cross-cultural communication between China and the West. 23:40
•How does the Left reformulate itself in the face of electoral defeats around the world? 27:51

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Freelancer.com and by Blinkist. You can find the Blinkist deal exclusive to listeners of this podcast at www.blinkist.com/swagman.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow David: Website | Twitter
•The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
•River Out Of Eden, by Richard Dawkins
•The Descent Of Man, by Charles Darwin
•Animal Dispersion In Relation To Social Behavior, by Vero Wynne-Edwards
•Adaptation And Natural Selection, by George C Williams
•'Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences', 1994 paper by David Sloan Wilson & Eliot Sober
•The Meaning Of Human Existence, by E O Wilson
•'Gender and Politics Among Anthropologists in the Units of Selection Debate', 2014 survey by Yaworsky, Horowitz & Kickham
•The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson
•Sociobiology, by E O Wilson
•Governing The Commons, by Elinor Ostrom
•Animal Species And Evolution, by Ernst Mayr
•Simpson's paradox
•'The False Allure of Group Selection', Steven Pinker's Edge.org article
•'Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition', 2005 article by Mike Tomasello et al
•Dave's conversation with Jonathan Birch
•Darwin's Cathedral, by David Sloan...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and the Managing Director of Thiel Capital.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ian Macfarlane was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1996 to 2006. He is the author of The Search For Stability and Ten...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amir Sufi is the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Andrew Leigh MP is a member of the Australian federal parliament. He is currently Labor's Shadow Assistant...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.