Eric Kaufmann is a research fellow at CSPI and a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution. Eric explains its thesis, which holds that the taboos around race that arose in the 1960s expanded into other areas of life and eventually led to modern wokeness. He and Richard debate the plausibility of this idea, its similarities and differences with those put forth in The Origins of Woke, and what kind of policy responses might be appropriate to stem and ultimately reverse undesirable cultural trends. The conversation ends with some discussion about free speech in academia, and why Eric decided to leave his old university and start teaching at the University of Buckingham.

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Bess Stillman (email) is a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and writes at Everything Is An Emergency. She is also an excellent storyteller who uses her skills to convey the hectic and at times heart wrenching experiences one faces as an ER doctor. Bess is married to Jake Seliger, who in 2022 was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. She has written a three-part series about the struggles that she and Jake have faced getting him into clinical trials. On the podcast, Bess describes the maddening and cruelly irrational processes that dying patients must go through in order to find access to treatments that might help them. The conversation covers the nightmare of dealing with ClinicalTrials.gov, the requirement that an individual travel across state lines to even know if they are eligible for a trial, and how the government continues to exercise paternalism on the behalf of patients who have no other options other than to take a drug that has not yet been proven to work. Bess also discusses policy ideas she would like to see implemented, and finally shares some stories from her time as an ER doctor.

The themes touched on here will be familiar to those who have read about the “invisible graveyard” that the FDA is responsible for. Yet even listeners who know about the utter lack of interest in patient well being normally shown by federal agencies will find themselves shocked by the degree to which bureaucratic procedures with few plausible benefits govern the lives of sick individuals who want nothing but to get some extra time on this earth and help move science forward. For dealing with the clinical trial system in its current state, Bess is currently trying to figure out ways to assist oncologists and patients in being able to navigate the process at HelpMeFindAClinicalTrial.com. And hopefully by telling her story, she can help inspire much needed reforms to the system.

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Bryan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality.

Bryan begins by explaining why he hates politics. Much of the conversation then centers around Caplan’s simplistic theory of the right and left. This is compared and contrasted with Scott Alexander’s thrive/survive theory of the political spectrum, Robin Hanson’s theory of farmers and foragers, and Hanania’s “Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV.”

Near the end, the discussion turns to the political climate at GMU, and whether the intellectual community that has been built can survive the trend towards DEI. Caplan emphasizes that he has noticed a difference since Glenn Youngkin came to power in Virginia, showing that politics actually matters for determining the future of free speech and intellectual freedom.

For previous Bryan appearances on the podcast, see: May 2021, September 2022, and May 2022.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

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This week we’re rereleasing a previous episode with Marc Andreessen, originally released on August 16, 2021. He is co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz.

Earlier in life, he was the co-founder of Opsware, Ning, and Netscape.

Marc joins the podcast to talk about what’s gone wrong with science, the prerequisites for progress, and how tech has changed our lives and has the potential to disrupt stagnant institutions. Topics also include how the internet has influenced dating, what venture capitalists actually do, and whether there is too much – or too little – money in politics.

For a transcript of the conversation, see here.

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Robin Hanson joins the podcast to talk about the AI debate. He explains his reasons for being skeptical about “foom,” or the idea that there will emerge a sudden superintelligence that will be able to improve itself quickly and potentially destroy humanity in the service of its goals. Among his arguments are:

* We should start with a very low prior about something like this happening, given the history of the world. We already have “superintelligences” in the form of firms, for example, and they only improve slowly and incrementally

* There are different levels of abstraction with regards to intelligence and knowledge. A machine that can reason very fast may not have the specific knowledge necessary to know how to do important things.

* We may be erring in thinking of intelligence as a general quality, rather than as more domain-specific.

Hanania presents various arguments made by AI doomers, and Hanson responds to each in kind, eventually giving a less than 1% chance that something like the scenario imagined by Eliezer Yudkowsky and others will come to pass.

He also discusses why he thinks it is a waste of time to worry about the control problem before we know what any supposed superintelligence will even look like. The conversation includes a discussion about why so many smart people seem drawn to AI doomerism, and why you shouldn’t worry all that much about the principal-agent problem in this area.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube. You can also read a transcript of the conversation here.

Links:

* The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate

* Previous Hanson appearance on CSPI podcast, audio and transcript

* Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation

* Eric Drexler, Nanosystems

* Robin Hanson, “Explain the Sacred”

* Robin Hanson, “We See the Sacred from Afar, to See It the Same.”

* Articles by Robin on AI alignment:

* “Prefer Law to Values” (October 10, 2009)

* “The Betterness Explosion” (June 21, 2011)

* “Foom Debate, Again” (February 8, 2013)

* “How Lumpy AI Services?” (February 14, 2019)

* “Agency Failure AI Apocalypse?” (April 10, 2019)

* “Foom Update” (May 6, 2022)

* “Why Not Wait?” (June 30, 2022)

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Nicholas Bagley is a professor of law at the University of Michigan, former Chief Legal Counsel to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a former attorney in the US Department of Justice. He joins the podcast to talk about his article, “The Procedure Fetish,” in which he calls for liberals to embrace reforms to make federal government agencies less sclerotic and more capable of addressing social problems. Richard presents Bagley with questions surrounding issues such as why we should trust government agencies with more power, the role of cost-benefit analysis, the performance of the FDA during Covid-19, and civil service reform, including President Trump’s executive order that would have made it easier to fire more officials. The two discuss whether there can be a synthesis between the right and left on major issues surrounding government regulation.

Listen to the podcast here, or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Nicholas Bagley, “The Procedure Fetish”

* Bagley on The Ezra Klein Show

* Bagley on Twitter

* Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk

* Matt Yglesias on Operation Warp Speed and the blowback to it

* Cass Sunstein on the role of OIRA

* Derek Thompson, “The Abundance Agenda”

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Tim Miller is a former political operative who has worked for Jeb Bush and John Huntsman, and is currently a writer for The Bulwark and an MSNBC analyst. He joins the podcast to talk about his political memoir, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. With a former insider’s perspective, Miller discusses

* Where the Republican Party went wrong

* The importance of character in politics

* Mistakes made by Clinton and George W. Bush that led us to this point

* To what extent right-wing populists have legitimate grievances

* The effect of the changing media environment on our fractious politics

* Why only Chris Christie could have derailed Trump in 2016

* Whether, to stop Trump, other candidates should get out of the way and support DeSantis

The discussion closes on whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the future of the Republican Party.

Listen here or watch the video on YouTube.

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Jobst Landgrebe is a German scientist and entrepreneur. He began his career as a Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, then moved on to become a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Göttingen, working in cell biology and biomathematics. In April 2013, he founded Cognotekt, an AI based language technology company.

Barry Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo, with joint appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics, Neurology, and Computer Science and Engineering. He is also Director of the National Center for Ontological Research and Visiting Professor in the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano, Switzerland.

Landgrebe and Smith join the podcast to talk about their book Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence without Fear. As the title indicates, the authors are skeptical towards claims made by Nick Bostrom, Elon Musk, and others about a coming superintelligence that will be able to dominate humanity. Landgrebe and Smith do not only think that such an outcome is beyond our current levels of technology, but that it is for all practical purposes impossible. Among the topics discussed are

* The limits of mathematical modeling

* The relevance of chaos theory

* Our tendency to overestimate human intelligence and underestimate the power of evolution

* Why the authors don’t believe that the achievements of Deep Mind, DALL-E, and ChatGPT indicate that general intelligence is imminent

* Where Langrebe and Smith think that believers in the Singularity go wrong.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* The Feynman Lectures on Physics

* Landgrebe on Galactica and ChatGPT.

* Rodney Brooks, “Intelligence without Representation.”

* Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence.

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Joe Henrich is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology and Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is the author of Why Humans Cooperate, The Secret of Our Success, and The WEIRDest People in the World. He joins the podcast to talk about his work. Topics include:

* The implications of Henrich’s theories for the debate over AI alignment

* The nature of intelligence

* Whether genetic differences between populations explain societal outcomes

* If the Ancient Greeks and Romans were already WEIRD

* How to understand the group selection debate

* Why Islamic familial practices may have stunted economic development and growth

* The political and ideological reaction to his last book

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube. A transcript of the podcast can be found at the Richard Hanania newsletter.

Links:

* Joe Henrich, “The WEIRDest People in the World.”

* Joe Henrich, “The Secrets of Our Success.”

* Richard Hanania, “How Monogamy and Incest Taboos Made the West.”

* David Epstein, “The Sports Gene.”

* Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, “Don’t Trust Your Gut.”

* Elizabeth Shim, “North Korea finishes fourth at International Mathematical Olympiad.”

* Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study.

* Bryan Caplan, “The Wonder of International Adoption: Adult IQ in Sweden.”

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Garett Jones is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, The Culture Transplant. Richard asks whether IQ is superior to other measures used to predict prosperity, and the relationship between Garett’s new book and Hive Mind. He also presses the author on whether there is a selection effect in data showing that people preserve the traits of their original culture over time.

The conversation then gets into issues of causal inference, namely whether we should focus more on American history or cross-national trends to inform our understanding of US policy. Richard suggests that while immigration might in some contexts lead to larger government, in the US it is arguably the case that diversity has been a hindrance to the expansion of the welfare state.

And how important is trust, actually? It correlates with a lot of good things, but how much is that relationship simply driven by observations from Scandinavia? Garett makes the case for trust having an important causal role. This leads to a discussion of whether trust is simply a proxy for trustworthiness, and whether the latter trait is more important.

Garett also explains why Chinese migration could be a key force in lifting the third world out of poverty. Near the end, he discusses what he thinks America would look like after his preferred immigration policy, and what he’s working on next.

Listen to the podcast here or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Garett Jones on the Institutionalized podcast

* Previous Jones appearance on the CSPI podcast

* Alex Nowrasteh, critiques of The Culture Transplant, Part 1 and Part 2

* Bryan Caplan review

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Alexander Young is a researcher at the UCLA Anderson School of Management Genomics Department and School of Medicine’s Human Genetics Department, working with the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC). He studies the genetics of cognitive ability and educational attainment, with a particular focus on developing methods to uncover true measures of heritability for important traits.

Richard and Alexander talk about why siblings are so useful for this purpose, in the midst of a larger overview of the history of behavioral genetics and modern methods. Twin and adoption studies show much higher levels of heritability than genome wide association studies (GWAS). Why might this be the case? Different theories are discussed, along with ways to solve seeming discrepancies.

The conversation goes on to cover the societal relevance of Alexander’s work, and attempts to isolate research on genes and cognitive ability within the academy.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube:

Links:

* Alexander’s Twitter account.

* Alexander Young, “Solving the Missing Heritability Problem.”

* Alexander Young and co-authors, “Deconstructing the Sources of Genotype-Phenotype Associations in Humans.”

* James Lee, “Don’t Even Go There.”

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Aaron Sibarium is a recent graduate of Yale University (2018) and journalist who writes for the Washington Free Beacon. He joins the podcast to discuss his work covering identity politics issues from a conservative perspective, along with his dream of eventually synthesizing his reporting with his own opinion writing.

Aaron and Richard share many of the same frustrations with right-wing media and conservative journalism. They discuss the problems of the conservative movement, including it being prone to misinformation, a lack of interest in policy specifics, mindless tribalism, and the role of differences in intelligence between conservatives and liberals who go into activism and reporting. Aaron argues that the Republican Party might be suffering from an excess of democracy through its primary system, which warps the incentive structures politicians face.

Listen in podcast form or watch the video on YouTube.

Links:

* Richard Hanania, “Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV.”

* Richard Hanania, “Conservatism as an Oppositional Culture.”

* Richard Hanania, Tweet on liberal institutions rallying around removing a school dress code in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

* Aaron Sibarium, “Food and Drug Administration Guidance Drives Racial Rationing of COVID Drugs.”

* Institutionalized Podcast with Aaron Sibarium and Charles Fain Lehman. (Apple)

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Rob Henderson joins the podcast to talk about his book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. The conversation starts with a discussion about the recent controversy in which Rob was unable to find a book store that would host his launch. Rob also shares insights into his writing style, which focuses on conveying his experiences in a matter-of-fact way rather than dwelling on his internal emotional state. Richard then questions him about the story of his biological parents, and whether he would ever want to reconnect with them, particularly the Korean grandfather who started out as a police detective and then struck it rich as the owner of a fertilizer company. The two go on to discuss other aspects of Rob’s life story, including what the friends he grew up with think of his success, what it was like in the military, including stints in Qatar and Kyrgyzstan, and when he began questioning elite narratives surrounding issues like the importance of family stability and personal responsibility. Finally, Rob talks about what is next for him now that the book promotion tour is winding down.

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Rob Henderson recently received his PhD in psychology at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Zach Goldberg is a former research fellow at CSPI and currently affiliated with the Manhattan Institute. They both join the podcast to talk about Rob’s idea of “luxury beliefs” and Zach’s new paper testing the theory in the context of attitudes towards criminal justice policy. Richard wonders about the extent to which one can say any individual actually suffers the consequences of their political beliefs, since the views of one person rarely change a policy outcome.

Later on in the conversation, Richard asks whether the luxury beliefs idea absolves inner city communities of their own shortcomings and serves as a way to put the blame on mostly white elites. Zach and Rob point to polls showing that blacks are more supportive than white liberals of spending money on police, which leads to a discussion of whether we can interpret such data in a different way and would be better served by putting more stock in factors such as how much communities cooperate with law enforcement, how they vote, and the kinds of politicians they support. The host and two guests also debate the extent to which liberal elites have actually pushed harmful ideas onto the masses, and if influential figures could change attitudes and behavior if they actually tried.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Zach Goldberg, “Is Defunding the Police a ‘Luxury Belief'? Analyzing White Vs. Non-White Democrats’ Attitudes on Policing.”

* Rob Henderson, “‘Luxury beliefs’ are the latest status symbol for rich Americans.”

* Rob Henderson, “Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class—A Status Update.”

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Eric Kaufmann is a distinguished researcher and a fellow at CSPI. He joins the podcast to talk about his latest CSPI report, “Diverse and Divided: A Political Demography of American Elite Students.” The data indicates that we can expect a future in which elites continue to be heavily divided by race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation. Richard and Eric discuss what this means for our politics, how conservatives should address identity issues, and what one should be looking for when choosing a university.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Eric Kaufmann, “Diverse and Divided: A Political Demography of American Elite Students.”

* Eric Kaufmann, “Born This Way? The Rise of LGBT as a Social and Political Identity.”

* Eric Kaufmann, “Head to Red States for Political Diversity on Campus.”

* Eric Kaufmann, “Polarization Is About to Get a Lot Worse: Students Are Even More Divided Than We Are.”

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Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about his involvement in Operation Warp Speed, a uniquely successful federal government project. Richard asks how broadly applicable its lessons are, whether or not we could do something similar for cancer, and why economists and public health officials had such divergent opinions on the need to speed up the process of approving and distributing a vaccine.

Alex also discusses the Baumol effect, which he argues can explain much about rising costs in healthcare and education. Richard pushes back on the theory as a sufficient explanation, and asks whether a simple libertarian story better fits the facts, arguing that government support for these industries also plays a major role.

They then go on to talk about the rise of crypto, why America is severely under-policed, and how recent years have seen the collapse of challenges to liberal democracy.

This podcast was originally released by the Salem Center.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Paul Mango, Warp Speed: Inside the Operation That Beat COVID, the Critics, and the Odds.

* Eric Helland and Alex Tabarrok, “Why Are the Prices So Damn High?”

* “Under policed” tag at Marginal Revolution.

* Richard Hanania, “The Year of Fukuyama.”

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Bryan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about his new book Don’t Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice. The lead essay is written as a letter to his daughter in the hopes that she will reject an ideology that is wrong on the facts and psychologically damaging. Richard asks whether Bryan grants too much to feminists in the first place by treating the relevant issue as whether society treats men better than women.

The book also contains criticism of the political right’s nationalism and immigration restrictionism. Richard asks about some common objections to open immigration, including increased crime and a lowering of national IQ. They close by talking about Bryan’s foray into stand-up comedy, and some of his other hobbies.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

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Tyler Cowen needs no introduction. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, co-authored with Daniel Gross, called Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World. Richard asks him about whether intelligence is overrated or underrated, the idea of “State Capacity Libertarianism” as an improvement over old-fashioned libertarianism, cultural differences between China and India, how optimistic to be about the future of the United States, different kinds of courage, free speech, and whether the world has too much or too little wokeness. The conversation also covers the feminization of intellectual life, with Tyler being optimistic that we will get better over time at navigating gender-integrated institutions.

Richard closes by asking Tyler about how he sees his own role as a public figure. They discuss the Emergent Ventures grant interview for CSPI, and the benefits of asking an interviewee about their own ambition.

A lightly edited transcript of the conversation is available here.

Listen in podcast form or watch the episode on YouTube.

Links:

* Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World.

* CEO Study from Sweden.

* Econ Talk episode where Tyler and Russ Roberts discuss Germany.

* Tyler on State Capacity Libertarianism.

* Tyler Cowen, “Why Wokism will Rule the World.”

* Eric Kaufmann. “Born This Way? The Rise of LGBT as a Social and Political Identity.”

* Tyler Cowen, “My Personal Moonshot.”

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Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She joins the podcast to talk about the ongoing attempt to cancel and possibly fire her for making politically incorrect remarks. Usually there is some pretext that a professor actually engaged in forbidden conduct in these kinds of investigations, but this is as clear an example as one can find of a university trying to punish speech. This leads to a conversation about whether higher education is worth saving, and if it is, the best way to go about doing so.

Amy has also gotten in trouble for her views on immigration and growing racial diversity in the United States. She also talks about that topic here, and much of the discussion centers around the concept of “Western culture” and the extent to which it is threatened. Richard argues that the post-1960s West has seen such a break from its past that this perspective assumes a cultural continuity that no longer exists. This leads to a discussion of whether and how conservatives can appeal to immigrant voters.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

You can also read a transcript here.

Links:

* Amy Wax Defense Fund (tax-deductible)

* Amy Wax Legal Defense Fund (GoFundMe)

* UPenn Law Deans Report Regarding Amy Wax

* Michael Anton, “That’s Not Happening and It’s Good That It Is.”

* Richard Hanania, “Women’s Tears Win in the Marketplace of Ideas.”

* Richard Hanania, “Terms of Surrender” [Review of Jonathan Rauch’s The Constitution of Knowledge].

* Jon Marcus, “Why Americans are Increasingly Dubious About Going to College.”

* The Glenn Show, “Contesting American Identity | Glenn Loury and Amy Wax.”

* Glenn Loury, “Amy Wax Redux.” [interchange with George Lee]

* Education Realist

* Amy Wax on Tucker Carlson Today

* Richard Hanania Survey Results II: Likes and Dislikes

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Stephen and James Grugett are programmers, entrepreneurs, and cofounders of the website Manifold Markets, which hosts user-created prediction markets. They join the podcast to discuss the CSPI/Salem Tournament on Manifold Markets, which launched last week.

The Grugetts and Richard talk about the origins of Manifold, what differentiates it from other prediction markets, and how their version of creating a new

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Manifold Markets

* CSPI/Salem Tournament on Manifold Markets

* Richard Hanania, “Introducing the Salem/CSPI Forecasting Tournament”

* Richard Hanania, “Salem Tournament, 5 Days in”

* The Economist, “How Spooks are Turning to Superforecasting in the Cosmic Bazaar”

* Manifold Markets Statistics

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On this week’s CSPI Podcast, Richard interviews the top three winners of the CSPI Essay Contest: Policy Reform For Progress.

The first interview is with contest winner Andrew Kenneson, a program navigator at a public housing authority in Kodiak, Alaska and former reporter. In “Gathering Steam: Unlocking Geothermal Potential in the United States,” Andrew explains why exempting geothermal exploration on federally owned lands from NEPA requirements could set off a cascade of energy innovation.

The second interview (starting at 29:12) is with Maxwell Tabarrok, an Econ and Math student at the University of Virginia whose essay on science funding reform “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” won second prize. Maxwell proposes a system of research guided funding in which the ~$120 billion spent by the federal government on science each year is distributed equally to the ~250,000 full-time STEM faculty at high research activity universities.

The third interview (starting at 57:03) is with Brent Skorup, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and a visiting faculty fellow at the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center at the Nebraska College of Law. Brent’s 3rd place essay, “Drone Airspace: A New Global Asset Class,” outlines how public auctions for drone airspace would be an improvement on the FAA’s current plan to ration airspace to a few lucky companies.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Winning Essays:

* “Gathering Steam: Unlocking Geothermal Potential in the United States” by Andrew Kenneson

* “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems” by Maxwell Tabarrok

* “Drone Airspace: A New Global Asset Class” by Brent Skorup

Honorable Mentions:

* “The University-Government Complex” by William L. Krayer

* “It’s Time to Review the Institutional Review Boards” by Willy Chertman

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Richard Lowery is an Associate Professor of Finance at The University of Texas at Austin and a senior scholar at the Salem Center for Public Policy. He joins the podcast to talk about his recent article “How UT-Austin Administrators Destroyed an Intellectual Diversity Initiative,” which details what went wrong with plans to build the Liberty Institute.

Lowery and Hanania discuss the politicization of academia and how it has even reached finance, why developing new educational institutions is difficult, how “fake conservatives” on campus provide cover for the Left to control universities, and the failure of Republican donors and politicians to push back against these trends effectively.

They converge on a set of ideas regarding how to fix academia going forward. Working within the university and without outside support is hopeless, as radicals committed to stamping out dissent have already won and are in a position to thwart any attempts at reform. Nonetheless, state university systems are ultimately under the control of politicians. Conservative elected officials need to show a greater interest in taking concrete steps toward restoring free inquiry and the search for objective truth, which will only happen if they are pressured to do so by donors and right-leaning media. Usually, this will mean not trying to reform individual departments, but relying on state funding and private philanthropy to create new institutions within existing universities, if not apart from them, that can be run by those ideologically committed to rolling back the triumph of anti-capitalist dogma and identity politics.

These problems are not insoluble. American conservatives have accomplished political goals before. All it takes is an understanding of the scope of the problem and the political will to do something about it. The conversation includes specific steps that elected officials, academics, donors, and political activists can take to build new institutions.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* Richard Lowery’s Twitter (@RichardLoweryTX).

* Richard Lowery, “How UT-Austin Administrators Destroyed an Intellectual Diversity Initiative.”

* Kate McGee, “UT-Austin Working with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Conservative Donors to Create ‘Limited Government’ Think Tank.”

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Romina Boccia is the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, where she writes about government spending, the debt problem, and entitlement reform. She also has a Substack called the Debt Dispatch that you can subscribe to here.

Romina joins the podcast to discuss available paths to deal with the coming entitlement crisis. One potential way to get politicians out of making tough choices is to create a debt commission that takes responsibility for unpopular reforms. Romina has written about using the model of the BRAC commission, which was relied on to close down military bases at the end of the Cold War.

The conversation also touches on the politics of debt, how policymakers are thinking about these issues, Paul Ryan as an unappreciated hero of our time, and much more. Near the end, Romina reflects on her career as a DC policy-wonk, and why she is motivated to help ensure that America continues to be the land of opportunity. If we don’t get entitlements under control, it could potentially degrade our entire way of life. For more discussion on this topic and the difficult choices our leaders will soon be facing, see the previous CSPI podcast with Brian Riedl.

Listen to the podcast with Romina here or watch the video on YouTube.

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David Bernstein is a Law Professor and Executive Director of the Liberty and Law Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.

David and Richard discuss the history of racial conflict and classification in America, the political construction of ethnic identities like AAPI and Hispanic, how wealthy immigrants hijacked government set-asides, why medical researchers care so little about actual physiological and anthropological distinctions between ethnic groups, and the political feasibility of colorblindness in a world of racial disparities.

Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube.

Links:

* David Bernstein, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America.

* David Bernstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws.

* G. Christina Mora, Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Constructed a New American.

* Thomas Sowell, Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study.

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Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a data scientist, author, and keynote speaker. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and is a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times. He joins the podcast to talk about his two books, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are (2017) and Don’t Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life (2022). He and Richard discuss the behavioral genetics of sports, whether we pay too much attention to hate crimes, physiognomy as a science, the limits of evolutionary psychology in explaining porn preferences, and how to apply insights from big data and social science to improve our dating lives, careers, and overall happiness.

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Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, a CSPI research fellow, and the author of several books, including Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. He returns to the podcast to discuss his new report for CPSI, Born This Way? The Rise of LGBT as a Social and Political Identity. He and Richard talk about the factors underlying recent increases in LGBT identification and same-sex sexual behavior, the connection between being very liberal, LGBT, and having mental health issues, and the influence of modernism on left-wing ideology and right-wing political movements. They conclude the conversation by discussing whether concerns about teaching sexuality and CRT in K-12 schools should take precedence over free speech issues on university campuses and debates over history and national identity.



Eric Kaufmann, “Born This Way? The Rise of LGBT as a Social and Political Identity.”

Tweet thread.




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Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a visiting senior scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of several books, including The Myth of the Rational Voter and The Case Against Education. He returns to the podcast to talk about his two new collections of essays released as books, Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World’s Greatest Market and How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery. The conversation centers around how much Richard and Bryan have in common when it comes to how they think through social and political issues, with a focus on Social Desirability Bias as a major hindrance to engaging in moral reasoning and discovering truth. Topics include:

• How little effort most people put towards developing their most cherished political views


• Why most politicians should be considered bad people


• Why the first world poor can be considered morally blameworthy, particularly compared to those who live in developing countries


• The demagoguery of feel-good policy ideas like raising the minimum wage

Bryan gives a teaser of his next collection of essays that will be released under the title Don’t Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice, discussing why, as the title suggests, he hopes his daughter does not become a feminist and turn against him. The conversation concludes with reflections on how podcasting and Substack have disrupted legacy media, and why that’s good for independent writers and journalists. 





Bryan Caplan, “The Ideologues of GMU.”
Bryan Caplan, “Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World's Greatest Market.”
Bryan Caplan, “How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery.” 

Bryan Caplan’s Substack



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Eron Wolf is the founder of Yahoo! Games, a WhatsApp seed investor, and the founder and CEO of FUTO, an Austin-based organization dedicated to developing technologies to fight the centralization and consolidation of the tech industry. He and Richard talk about the business model of Big Tech and how machine learning and algorithms can shape human behavior. Eron discusses his plans for FUTO, and how he hopes it will remake the internet. FUTO is hosting a Fellowship program in Austin this summer for programmers, which offers $20,000, housing, incubator space, mentorship, and networking events for those selected.





FUTO.org

FUTO Fellows Program 

@FUTO_Tech on Twitter



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Jordan Lasker is a PhD student at Texas Tech University and a bioinformatician. He joins the podcast to discuss his recent report for CSPI, “About Those Baby Brainwaves: Why ‘Policy Relevant’ Social Science is Mostly a Fraud.” The report critically examined a recent study claiming small cash transfers to the parents of newborns improved their babies’ brain activity. The study was lauded in the media and by D.C. policymakers, who argued its results supported redistributive policies, most notably the child tax credit. Jordan demonstrated that the study in question wildly overstated its claims, was methodologically suspect, and that its authors engaged in numerous bad research practices. Social science, he argues, is not a sound basis for policymaking given academia’s warped incentives.



He and Richard talk about why physiological measures like EEGs are taken much more seriously than psychometrics like IQ tests, whether “rich brains” and “poor brains” exist, if the Flynn effect means we’re getting smarter, and the politicization of academia and science more generally. The two agree that the priors of the average researcher or policymaker are way off base: dozens of studies have found cash transfers and even adoption to high SES families have minimal effects on IQ or income. Given that, why would we expect $333/month to move the needle? They conclude by considering whether society is better off with leaders who “trust the science” or those who are openly anti-intellectual, given broken incentive structures and political bias within the policy relevant literature. 



Jordan Lasker, “About Those Baby Brainwaves: Why ‘Policy Relevant’ Social Science is Mostly a Fraud.” 
Troller-Renfree et al. (Baby Brainwaves Study), “The Impact of a Poverty Reduction Intervention on Infant Brain Activity.” 
Richard Feynman, “Cargo Cult Science.” 
Kirkegaard et al., “Nerve Conduction Velocity and Cognitive Ability: A Large Sample Study.” 
“Flynn Effect.” 
Wongupparaj et al., “The Flynn Effect for Verbal and Visuospatial Short-Term and Working Memory: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis.” 
Odenstad et al., “Does Age at Adoption and Geographic Origin Matter? A National Cohort Study of Cognitive Test Performance in Adult Inter-Country Adoptees.”
Tobias Hübinette, “The Adopted Koreans of Sweden and the Korean Adoption Issue.”



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Philippe Lemoine returns to the CSPI Podcast to discuss his prediction for the 2022 French Presidential election. This episode was recorded on April 22nd, two days before Macron’s victory on April 24th, because Philippe was so confident in his forecast that he didn’t think it was necessary to wait until after the election to discuss the results. 



He and Richard talk about the differences between French and American politics, right-wing ideology in France, class and age as predictors of voting for conservative candidates, and why Éric Zemmour’s campaign failed. They also discuss how best to think about the behavior of low information voters, why the far right doesn’t win French presidential elections despite strong anti-immigration sentiment among the public, and how people who criticize the Islamic veil are actually being PC. Philippe explains why Le Pen staying in politics means the Right can never win the French presidency, and the two conclude by discussing what to expect from Macron over the next five years. A transcript of some of the best parts of the conversation is available here.



Philippe Lemoine, “Will Zemmour Bring a Right-Wing Revolution in France?” 
Eric Zemmour, “Le Premier Sexe.” 
Simone de Beauvoir, “The Second Sex.” 
Sam Wang, “Why I Had to Eat a Bug on CNN.” 
Philippe’s tweets predicting the election:
https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1510606408047333388?s=21&t=b178Uzlay32RYFTalQnVUg
https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1511798012045103108

https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1512550945309306885?s=21&t=GsfmAceOj5Sg2xuayZIWog



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Gail Heriot is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She joins the podcast to explain the connections between civil rights law and wokeness, how disparate impact criminalizes everything and leads to arbitrary government power, and the real-world consequences of these laws in corporate and university settings. She and Richard also discuss why Republicans are afraid to push back against civil rights law, the current Critical Race Theory controversy as a sign things are changing, and the importance of politicians being pressured by their base. Finally, Gail gives practical advice on what the most important components of an anti-woke agenda would look like, and how she’d like to see politicians treat these issues going forward.  A full transcript of the conversation is available here. 



Gail Heriot, “The Roots of Wokeness: Title VII Damage Remedies as Potential Drivers of Attitudes Toward Identity Politics and Free Expression.”
Gail Heriot, “Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal.”

Gail Heriot, “The Department of Education's Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline: Wrong For Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law.”

Richard Hanania, “Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law.”
Eugene Volokh, “Harassment Law and Free Speech Doctrine.”

Myart v. Ill. Fair Employment Com.  

Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Grutter v. Bollinger
Gratz v. Bollinger

Bostock v. Clayton County



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Noah Carl is an independent researcher, writer, and free speech advocate. He invited Richard on his new podcast (which you can find at Noah’s Substack) to discuss whether the West is to blame for the conflict in Ukraine. We’re re-releasing that episode, which originally came out on March 1st. Although much has happened since then, the topics discussed in the conversation remain relevant for understanding the current war and how we got here. Noah and Richard talk about moralism and paranoia in American foreign policy, the multicausal nature of war, and whether the US is a consistent defender of democracy and human rights globally. They also discuss whether Ukraine could grow economically without integration into the EU, utilitarianism in international relations, what the West should do if Russia won’t negotiate, and why war is almost always a terrible idea.





Noah Carl’s Substack.
Richard Hanania, “Americans Hate Each Other, but We Aren’t Headed for a Civil War.” 
Richard Hanania, “Lessons from Forecasting the Ukraine War.” 
John Mueller, “The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency.” 
CSPI Podcast with John Mueller, “War as a Product of Human Stupidity” 



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Steve Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He returns to the CSPI Podcast for a wide-ranging discussion of various personal, political, and technical topics, including his attempted cancelation from Michigan State, thoughts on Russia-Ukraine, affirmative action, macroeconomics, and why top physics talents prefer theoretical over practical pursuits (If you haven’t seen Steve’s first appearance on the podcast, https://cspi.substack.com/p/cspi-podcast-with-steve-hsu?utm_source=url&s=w to watch or listen). 



The conversation begins with Steve explaining what it was like growing up one of the few Asian kids in a predominantly white town and reflecting on the nature of assimilation. He and Richard continue their discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war and European geopolitics before moving on to affirmative action and civil rights law. They talk about the Harvard Asian case, the highly subjective nature of legal decisions, and whether employment markets are rational enough for the college degree to lose value if universities scrap standardized tests.



Next, Steve tells Richard about his attempted cancelation from Michigan State, where he was pressured to step down from his role as Vice President of Research after a leftist student group attacked him on Twitter over his blog posts and podcasts. They talk about the intrusion of activists into academia, and how this has negatively impacted the STEM fields and social sciences. This leads to a discussion of whether economics is a more valuable and rigorous social science than the others, and whether micro and macroeconomics are comparable or reconcilable.



In the last part of the podcast, Steve and Richard talk about what traits and dispositions lead some people to go against the crowd and resist conformity, and why the path to scientific and technological innovation is laden with disbelief and ridicule from peers. Using the examples of Jeff Bezos and Richard Feynman, Steve explains how those with exceptionally high IQs are often able to effortlessly solve problems and optimize systems with little to no background or technical knowledge. They conclude by considering the possibility that policy should be oriented towards recognizing and rewarding the few geniuses and innovators whose work leads to disproportionate social and material gains.



A transcript of the full conversation is available here:  https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/assimilation-football-affirmative?s=r   



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CSPI Podcast, “The Future of Humanity is IVF Babies and Chinese Domination | Steve Hsu & Richard Hanania.”
Richard Hanania, “Lessons from Forecasting the Ukraine War.” 
Adam Tooze, “Putin’s Challenge to Western Hegemony.”
Rob Lee. “Moscow’s Compellence Strategy.”
Anatoly Karlin. “Regathering of the Russian Lands.” 
Steve Hsu, “Joe Cesario on Police Decision Making and Racial Bias in Deadly Force Decisions (Manifold Episode #11).”
Steve Hsu, “ManifoldOne Podcast Episode#3: Richard Hanania on Wokeness, Public Choice Theory, & Geostrategy.”
Steve Hsu, "Manifold Podcast #6: Richard Sander on Affirmative Action, Mismatch Theory, and Academic Freedom.” 
Alan Sokal, “Sokal Hoax.”
Wikipedia, “Grievance Studies Affair (Sokal Squared).”
Eric Kaufmann, “Academic Freedom in Crisis: Punishment, Political Discrimination, and Self-Censorship.”
Steve Hsu, “Bezos Quotes.” 

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Brian Chau writes and hosts a podcast at the From the New World Substack, and recently established a new think tank, the Alliance for the Future.

He joins the podcast to discuss why he’s not worried about the alignment problem, where he disagrees with “doomers,” the accomplishments of ChatGPT versus DALL-E, the dangers of regulating AI until progress comes to a halt in the way it did with nuclear power, and more. With his background in computer science, Brian takes issue with many of those who write on this topic, arguing that they think in terms of flawed analogies and know little about the underlying technology. The conversation touches on a previous CSPI discussion with Leopold Aschenbrenner, and the value of continuing to work on alignment.

Brian’s view is that AI doomers are making people needlessly pessimistic. He believes that this technology has the potential to do great things for humanity, particularly when it comes to areas like software development and biotech. But the post-World War II era has seen many examples of government hindering progress, and AFF is dedicated to stopping that from happening with artificial intelligence.

Listen to the conversation here, or watch the video here.

Links

Donate to AFF

AFF manifesto

Brian on diminishing returns to machine learning, and discussing AI with Marc Andreessen

Vaswani et al. on transformers

Limits of current machine learning techniques

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Jimmy Soni is a biographer and speechwriter. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, “The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley,” which explores the early days, history, and legacy of PayPal. It also outlines the unique qualities, business savvy, and technological vision that led to the founders’ success at PayPal and elsewhere. Jimmy and Richard discuss the value of “founders,” the cultural impact of Elon Musk, and why so much high-level talent was concentrated at the University of Illinois in the ‘90s. They consider the role of productive tribalism and Peter Thiel’s memetic philosophy in shaping tech culture, and reflect on how the tension between vision and practicality is central to American dynamism and innovation.



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Jimmy Soni, “The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.” 







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Stephen Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He is also a serial entrepreneur and has published on genomics, in addition to blogging on a wide range of topics from econometrics and geopolitics to mixed martial arts. Hsu joins the Podcast, where he and Richard begin by talking about the Russia-Ukraine crisis and American military power relative to that of China and Russia. What would a Chinese attempt to conquer Taiwan look like, and what would the US be able to do in response? This is followed by a long discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese system and its differences with the democratic capitalist model, including the former's high level of reliance on standardized tests and institutions designed to evaluate and promote government officials. The conversation closes on the topics of genomics and embryo selection, including the state of the technology, its current uses, and cross-national differences in attitudes and regulations. A full transcript of the conversation is available here.





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Ezra Voegel, “Japan as Number One.”
John Dower, “War Without Mercy."
Dan Wang, ”2021 Letter.”
Dan Bell, “The China Model.”
Richard McGregor, “The Party.”
"DNA Dreams" (documentary film).
Richard Hanania, “The Inevitable Rise of China.”
Richard Hanania, “Fertility as the Final Boss in Chinese Development, and Richard Hanania Prediction Markets.”
Steve Hsu, “Sustainability of China Economic Growth.”
Steve Hsu, “Les Grandes Ecoles Chinoises.”
Francesco C. Billari, Hans-Peter Kohler, Gunnar Andersson and Hans Lundström, “Approaching the Limit: Long-Term Trends in Late and Very Late Fertility.”  p. 163. (On Swedish Fertility, Extreme Births)
Steve’s Podcast, “Manifold.”

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Alec Stapp is co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a new think tank that focuses on accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress. He joins Richard to talk about why he started his think tank and what policymaking looks like in DC behind the scenes. They also discuss the idea of Secret Congress, the backgrounds of DC staffers, meta-science, biosecurity and immigration as policy issues, and the pros and cons of state capacity.

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Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney, “Progress Is a Policy Choice.”




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Freddie deBoer joins the podcast to talk about his book “The Cult of Smart,” which argues that many problems in the education system and American society are due to the failure to grapple with the fixed nature of individual differences in intelligence. He and Richard discuss the effectiveness of charter schools vs. public schools, how the economic value of traits changes over time, if American despair is a spiritual or economic issue, and whether college degrees have peaked in value. They also explore their differences over economic philosophy, which includes a discussion of why Freddie calls himself a Marxist, different kinds of Marxism, and how his philosophical outlook relates to his views on genetics and intelligence. Despite Richard being a capitalist, they find much common ground on policy specifics, including the need for less education and the acceptance of billionaires, markets and inequality. They also debate what Freddie's ideas about individual differences in intelligence imply – and don't imply – about differences between groups.



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Freddie deBoer, “The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice."

Seth Ackerman’s Substack.
Peter Frase, "Four Futures: Life After Capitalism." 
Robert Brenner, "The Economics of Global Turbulence."

Freddie deBoer’s Substack. 




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Jonah Davids is CSPI’s director of communications. He joins Richard to talk about his essay on leaving academia, how social science is mostly storytelling, and what CSPI accomplished in 2021. They also discuss why reaching out to people is underrated, the recent study on racial discrimination in emailing, reasons to stay in or leave academia, the effectiveness of advertising, why CSPI has been successful so far, and wokeness as stupid vs. evil in the aftermath of the IDW.



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Jonah Davids, “The Overwhelming Underwhelmingness of Academia: Three Reasons to Leave.” 
Ray Block Jr., Charles Crabtree, John B. Holbein, J. Quin Monson, “Are Americans less likely to reply to emails from Black people relative to White people?” 
Hugo Mercier, “Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe.” 
CSPI, “CSPI 2021: The Year in Review.”

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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal. Gabriel Rossman is a sociologist at UCLA. They join Richard to debate the relationship between woke institutions, civil rights law, and corporate culture. Each has written a recent article on this topic: Richard’s “Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law,” Charles’ “The Geneology of Woke Capital,” and Gabriel’s “Why Woke Organizations All Sound the Same.” They also discuss the history of affirmative action, successes and failures of the conservative legal movement, the connection between the civil rights policies of the Reagan administration and pop culture, status quo bias and negative polarization, and whether Americans still believe in meritocracy.

Click here to watch the video version of the podcast on YouTube.



Richard Hanania, “Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law.” 
Charles Fain Lehman, “The Geneology of Woke Capital.” 
Gabriel Rossman, “Why Woke Organizations All Sound the Same.”
John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony.”
Frank Dobbin and John R. Sutton, "The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions.” 
Wikipedia, “Grutter v. Bolinger.” 





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Philippe Lemoine is a Research Fellow at CSPI and a PhD candidate in philosophy at Cornell University. He returns to the podcast to discuss his new paper, “Have we been thinking about the pandemic wrong? The effect of population structure on transmission.” He and Richard discuss the role of networks in COVID transmission, the politics and sociology of the pandemic, the enforcement of mask mandates in LA County and French gyms, why we might want less genomic surveillance of new variants, and why the Omicron variant is no reason to worry. Click for the report on population structure, a thread explaining the results, and his latest piece on the Omicron variant.

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This week’s guest is Leif Rasmussen, a PhD candidate in computer science at Northwestern University, and the author of the new CSPI report, “Increasing Politicization and Homogeneity in Scientific Funding: An Analysis of NSF Grants, 1990-2020.” He discusses the report and critiques of it, along with his experiences in academia, and the growing bias against non-conformists in intellectual life. A tweet thread summarizing the report can be found here.

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Robert Plomin is a Professor of Behavioural Genetics at King’s College London and author of Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. The conversation includes sections on the history of the field of behavioral genetics, and why we should not undersell what it tells us about why people turn out the way they do. Research involving twins, adoptees, and now looking directly at the genome, use a variety of methods to arrive at the same conclusion and all reveal that differences between individuals are rooted in our DNA, and the role of the home environment is very limited. Richard and Robert touch on parenting, what is happening in China and elsewhere across the world, consumer genomics, the existence of the p factor, and whether behavioral genetics can find more acceptance outside of the academic literature. They also discuss the potential political implications of the field.

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Michael Shellenberger is an activist and author. He joins the podcast to talk about his book San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities. He discusses debates around homelessness in San Francisco, the ideology driving the homelessness advocacy community, how the West coast differs from the rest of the world in its treatment of mental illness and addiction, and whether there is hope of political change.

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Andrew Roberts (website, follow on X) is a historian, Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a member of the House of Lords. He joins the podcast to talk about his Napoleon: A Life.

The conversation begins with a discussion of different counterfactuals regarding ways in which Napoleon might have been able to stay in power, which leads to Roberts explaining his view that the wars of the era could be understood at least in part as resulting from a rejection of free trade. Other topics include:

* Meritocracy as a guiding principle of the French Revolution and a justification for Napoleon’s regime

* Napoleon’s personal magnetism and why men were willing to follow him

* The relationship with Josephine, and whether or not it influenced any of his political decision

* Whether Napoleon was in fact the greatest general of his time

See also Hanania’s audio review of the Ridley Scott film, and Roberts’ reviews in Commentary and The Times. For an edited transcript of this conversation, see here.

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Razib Khan is a geneticist and Substacker. He joins the podcast to talk about what genetics can tell us about the human past and the progress made in his field over the last few decades. The conversation touches on population structures in Europe, India, China, and the Western Hemisphere, along with Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture among different races and how different fields define what it means to be human. Richard and Razib discuss questions including how Indian castes were able to remain genetically distinct for such a long time, the original "great replacement" in Europe, and the connection between state capacity and genetic heterogeneity, as can be seen in India and China. The conversation then shifts towards a discussion about their experiences in academia, recent radicalization on college campuses, and growing up as minorities in the United States.

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Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard University. The author of several books, his latest is Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. He joins the podcast to talk about this work, and the discussion includes topics such as why voters make bad decisions, the appeal of conspiracy theories and the sense in which believing in them is rational, how to get more rational elites, and which statistical methods are better than others for establishing causation. In the second half of the discussion, Hanania and Pinker talk about how the conversation surrounding the influence of genetics on human behavior has changed since the publication of The Blank Slate, freedom of speech in academia, and advice for young scholars.

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Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about futarchy, a system in which people would vote on values, but bet on beliefs. The conversation touches on the nature of rationality, why firms don't actually maximize profits, why betting markets are better than other forms of prediction or expertise, regulatory and psychological barriers to adopting new technologies, and why the rise of "Davos Man" and a global culture might be bad for innovation. Hanson and Hanania close by discussing the prospects for making futarchy a reality, in the near and long term.

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Noor Siddiqui is a former Thiel Fellow who has taught at Stanford and the founder and CEO of Orchid (www.orchidhealth.com), a biotech company. She joins the podcast to talk about the science behind embryo selection, its potential to help improve people's lives, ethical objections, and the importance of reproductive rights.

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Marc Andreessen is a venture capitalist and the founder of Netscape. He joins the podcast to talk about what's the matter with science, the prerequisites for progress, and how tech has changed our lives and has the potential to disrupt stagnant institutions. Topics also include how the internet has changed dating, what venture capitalists actually do, and whether there is too much–or too little–money in politics.

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