Bloggingheads.tv

Jordan's ChinaTalk podcast ... Making sense of America's “China consensus” ... Are fears of Chinese global ambitions overblown? ... The logic (or is it illogic?) of the AI arms race ... China and the Ukraine War ... Influence operations: Chinese vs American ... China's endgame re the US—and vice-versa ... Is US China talk an echo chamber? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Substack glory and livestream anxiety ... Reading eugenics into a dopey jeans ad ... Does Sydney Sweeney spell the end of “inclusive marketing”? ... Bob vs. Paul on IQ and “general intelligence” ... Paul reviews the new Billy Joel documentary ... The Epstein prison video snafu: a Bayesian take ... Ghislaine gets a free upgrade ...

Why Gaza's famine is the "most intense" in decades ... From food secure to starvation: How Gaza unraveled ... Blinken's willful blindness to Israel's obstruction of aid ... How the US muzzled its own famine warning system ... The political power of the term "famine" ... What starvation does to the body—and to society ... The perverse logic of starvation as warfare ... How the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation puts aid in Hamas's hands ... Evaluating Israel's accusation against UNRWA ... How many Gazans are dying of starvation? ... Why a blockade might be worse than an invasion ...

Derek and Danny plug their new Crusades series ... This week's shift in Gaza discourse ... The real danger Gaza poses for Israel ... Does the left's rhetoric on Israel miss the mark? ... Elite media's think tank problem ... Is American imperialism really the problem? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Trump's AI Action plan ... The contradictions inherent to Trump's plan ... How Trump's anti-globalism undermines his AI goals ... Anthropic's leaked memo: Ideals vs Persian Gulf cash ... Bob: Dario Amodei is the true AI ideologue ... How AI “safety” became a hawkish movement ... Why true objectivity in LLMs is a fantasy ... A Palantir exec dives into the movie business ... Is AI surgery around the corner? ... Why the Gaza ceasefire talks are collapsing—again ... Biden and Trump's allergy to using US leverage ...

Josh's hopes for post-Assad Syria—revisited ... The challenge(s) facing the Syrian government ... What's driving Syria's sectarian violence? ... Josh's personal window into the al-Sharaa regime's brutality ... The new regime's church vs state problem ... How the Druze became central to Israeli-Syrian hostilities ... Why did Israel escalate with Syria, really? ... Josh's current outlook on Syria's future ... Heading to Overtime ...

The full reason for Bob's absence—revealed ... What's the real story with Trump and Epstein? ... A peek down the Epstein rabbit hole ... Grok goes full Nazi-pornbot ... The promise and perils of AI companions ... Bob on dealing with cancer in the age of AI ... Heading to Overtime ...

Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is so unlikely ... Taiwan's terrain: A defender's dream, an invader's nightmare ... Why Taipei might be the hardest city in the world to conquer ... Dan: China would need nearly 5 million soldiers to have a chance ... The 2027 invasion theory—and why it doesn't hold up ... Is China trying to bankrupt the US military? ... A cheaper, smarter way to defend Taiwan ... Submarines: A deterrent with a message ... Comparing a Taiwan invasion to D-Day ... China's long game ... Why a blockade might be worse than an invasion ...

A brief message from Bob ... Why many intelligent people think we're living in a simulation ... The philosophical argument that you're probably not real ... How cosmic rays might (and might not) reveal that reality is fake ... Preston's dire warning against trying to determine if we're in a simulation ... Is the simulation hypothesis non-falsifiable? ... Is “the simulation” just religion for atheists? ...

A brief message from Bob ... What Lee means when he says "time is fundamental" ... Understanding the universe as a network ... A (very) tentative theory of consciousness ... Did the laws of physics evolve? ... Is the universe fine-tuned for the emergence of life? ... Applying Lee's theories of time to everyday life ...

Why Neysun brings American students and scholars to China ... Visiting China after Covid ... Balancing US and Chinese red lines ... When Neysun's students pushed Chinese officials on human rights ... Do US students fear career risks for going to China? ... Cultivating cognitive empathy ... China's obsession with US politics ... Trump's surprisingly consistent approach to Beijing ... Are Chinese students really spies? ... Is China studies becoming the next Kremlinology? ... How Neysun navigates US fears about exchange with China ...

A brief message from Bob ... Greg's new book, The Gutfeld Monologues ... How going to Berkeley pushed Greg toward conservatism ... Trumpism creates strange ideological bedfellows ... Bob offers a magic solution to the freedom vs. security dilemma ... Was Obama right to avoid the phrase "Islamic radicalism"? ... Trump's savvy use of identity politics ... The secret ingredient to Greg's meditation practice ...

A brief message from Bob ... Why consciousness is so weird ... Is consciousness like your brain's shadow? ... If David was a zombie, would anyone know? ... Bob's wacky theory about consciousness ... Is consciousness what collapses the quantum wave function? ... Can there be a true science of consciousness? ...

Are US-Iran talks dead? ... Do normal Iranians care about the nuclear program? ... Understanding Iran's enrichment red line ... Assessing the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities ... Iran's decision to kick out inspectors ... Could Iran build a bomb in secret? ... Trump's "desultory" approach to talks with Iran ... Alan's experience negotiating with the Iranians ... How Obama managed to get a deal ... Iran's focus on projecting strength ... Does Iran really want a bomb? ... Iran's dim view of international law ...

A brief message from Bob ... John's upcoming book, How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy ... Is the US to blame for Russia's invasion of Ukraine? ... Is Putin less rational than John assumes? ... Why John is a Russia dove and a China hawk ... Does China pose a threat to freedom around the world? ... Why John thinks China's rise threatens American security ... Has globalization made great-power peace possible? ... Should the US defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion? ...

A brief message from Bob ... Why neocons like enemies ... How to use power deftly ... Is a nuclear Iran really all that scary? ... Bob's arms-control dreams dashed again ... China problem solved in under three minute ... Some cheerful thoughts about Hamas ...

Barry's new novel, ‘The System' ... CIA lessons & seeing like a Martian ... Fiction, empathy, and geopolitics ... No cartoon villains ... How power really works in DC ... Feinstein vs. Brennan: the 'sit down' ... Why we excuse ourselves ... Jobs, jets & hidden threats ... The problem with the House ... Valeria's dilemma: bend or break ... How power corrupts ... Humiliation and geopolitics ...

Teaser ... The dueling Sam Altman biographies ... Who is the real Sam Altman? ... OpenAI's origin—did Sam scam Elon? ... Why the OpenAI board coup failed ... Good and bad critiques of OpenAI ... Heading to Overtime ...

Courtney's and Alex's Always at War podcast ... Have restrainers given up on Trump? ... The legacies of Hamilton Jordan ... Courtney: Money drives war ... Palantir cashes in ... Alex: Blame American exceptionalism first ... Trump's biggest Jan 6 transgression ... Is the Republic at stake? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Headlines ... - Washington ... - Silicon Valley ... - China ... - Africa ... - Europe ... Bob joins to discuss the Israel-Iran war ... Has Trump had a change of heart? ... The Pandora's Box of a US attack ... Connor makes the pro-bombing-Iran argument ... Bob: A diplomatic solution would have been 'trivially easy' ... Trump's missed opportunity for a win ... Where Israeli and American interests diverge ... Israel's risky calculus: Escalation over negotiation ... Why won't Trump use his leverage to rein in Israel? ...

Teaser ... The time Alex blocked everyone's view of Jennifer Aniston ... How Alex acquired the Bibi interrogation tapes ... What the Bibi Files suggest about the Gaza war ... Bibi's bribes ... Bibi-Trump parallels ... Barriers to getting the movie distributed (and where to watch it) ... Heading to Overtime (and Bob's and Alex's unfinished film) ...

Headlines ... - Israel-Iran ... - Sanctions ... - NATO ... - Revolving doors ... - US-China trade war ... How China views the Israel-Iran crisis ... Why the Iran attacks undermine US-China talks ... How the US and China reached the brink of all-out trade war ... China's not-so-secret weapon in trade talks ... Why China won't back down ... Trump vs. his advisers ... Structural obstacles to US-China cooperation ... The zero-sum trap: Can both sides grow? ...

The Trump-Musk blowup, reconciliation, and fallout ... Trump vs Elon: a psycho-analysis ... Where do Trump and Elon go from here? ... Remembering Brian Wilson and Sly Stone ... Will AI turn us all into narcissists? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Steven's years at OpenAI ... An insider's view of the AI boom ... The real meaning of “Feel the AGI” ... AI safety's rationalist kernel ... What's really driving the AI arms race(s)? ... Is stifling China's AI development smart? ... Dario Amodei's geopolitical naivete ... Heading to Overtime ...

Headlines ... Jennifer: Why Trump should walk away from Ukraine ... Can Ukraine survive without US support? ... Why a comprehensive peace deal is unlikely ... The perils of US mediation ... Are the peace talks making progress? ... How grinding wars end ... Understanding Russia's battlefield advantage ... Ukraine's shrinking army ... Striking Russian bombers: morale boost vs. nuclear risk ...

A sublime Nonzero-TAC crossover event ... Some bad MSM reporting on US-Iran negotiations ... Would Kamala have been better than Trump on Gaza? ... Is a two-state solution conceivable? ... Buchananite conservatives on China ... China, AI, and Covid-19 ... Heading to Overtime ...

The scope of Trump's assault on Harvard ... What Trump demanded from Harvard ... What makes certain universities vulnerable ... Ideology and “viewpoint diversity” at Harvard ... Trump's attacks on media and cultural institutions ... The costs of lost research ... How woke was Harvard? ... Antisemitism and philosemitism at Harvard ... Steve's new FP piece on the importance of global rules (Heading to Overtime) ...

Headlines ... Trump's sanctions dilemma: Migration crackdown vs. regime change ... The power of 'secondary sanctions' ... How sanctions drove inflation, hunger, and state failure ... From Venezuela to the US: Understanding the migrant wave ... Inside the Trump split: Rubio's hardline vs. Grenell's dealmaking ... Francisco: The US needs to be more realistic about Maduro ... The path to restoring democracy in Venezuela ...

A note about this podcast ... Paul aces Bob's worthwhile Canadian pop-quiz ... Trump's corruption: Illegal or just unprecedentedly gross? ... Elon bows out ... Trump's crusade against elite colleges continues ... Is JD Vance more dangerous than Trump? ... Are AI doomers walking their talk? ... Trump makes Canada a golden offer ... Heading to Overtime ...

Why Max helped organize the 2023 “Pause AI” letter ... AI as a species not a technology ... The rate of AI progress since 2023 ... Loss of control is the biggest risk ... How to get the NatSec community's attention ... How we could lose control ... He we stay in control ... Heading to Overtime ...

Headlines ... Bob joins to talk foreign policy ... The DC shootings and the war in Gaza ... Israel's growing isolation ... Are we headed toward an arms race in space? ... An end to the era of arms control? ... Heading to Overtime—and a programming update ...

How significant are the Middle East data center deals? ... Why did AI safety hawks quit talking about international cooperation? ... Why build data centers in the Middle East? ... Microchips and security risks ... The unexamined assumptions of Sinophobia ... What ever happened to peace, love, and understanding? ... AI Czar David Sacks takes on his critics ... Heading to Overtime ...

Headlines ... Why the PKK's disbanding should be the biggest news of the week ... How did Turkey get the PKK to lay down arms? ... A breakthrough for Turkey-Iraq relations ... How Syrian Kurds are trying to make nice with Damascus ... The end of US sanctions on Syria ... Rebuilding a shattered state ... Turkey and Israel: Syria caught in the middle ...

Is Kanye's new song really pro-Hitler? ... How free should free speech be? ... Substack economics ... Welcome to Sam Altman's orb ... Can higher education survive AI? ... Did Carney tame Trump? ... Good and bad signs from Trump 2.0 ... Heading to Overtime ...

The week's major international stories ... Trump's approach to everything ... The Houthi deal ... Trump's Middle East trip and Gaza ... India-Pakistan conflict ... Media coverage of Trump 2.0 ... Trump's biggest Jan 6 transgression ... Is the Republic at stake? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Headlines ... Is Trump breaking with Israel? ... Making sense of the US-Houthi ceasefire ... Will the US give Saudi Arabia nuclear power? ... Reading the tea leaves on US-Iran talks ... Is Trump putting the US on track for war with China? ... Would Trump really go to war with Iran? ... Are restrainers gaining ground in the Trump administration? ... How Israel could undermine US-Iran talks ...

Holly's newsletter and her work with PauseAI ... The state of AI safety ... Why Holly started PauseAI US ... Is AI acceleration… accelerating? ... What rationalists got wrong about the singularity ... Mechanize Inc. and the danger of AI safety sellouts ... Holly: Here's why AI should alarm you ... Heading to Overtime ...

Which think tanks are anti-Blob? ... What's the real goal of Bibi's new Gaza “operation”? ... Why can't (or won't) the US rein in Israel? ... Who's undermined the ‘rules-based order' more—Biden or Trump? ... In search of anti-Blob Dems for 2028 ... How neoliberalism seeded Trump's tariff chaos ... AI, DC, and the x-risk of China-hawkism ... Matt on what most miss about foreign policy ... Heading to Overtime ...

Headlines ... Bob joins to discuss Trump's first 100 days ... What the Waltz firing means for Trump's foreign policy ... Has Rubio really dropped his hawkish proclivities? ... Trump's jungle rulebook ... Is Trump putting the US on track for war with China? ... Middle East fires: Yemen, Syria, Iran ... Trump's about-face on Gaza ... Gen Z and the Trump Effect ...

The state of play in Russia-Ukraine ... Anatol: Here's how the war could end ... Which side wants peace more? ... Why hasn't Trump used his leverage? ... Anatol's plan for peace ... What Russia-Ukraine reveals about the military-industrial complex ... What Trump's military purges reveal about his presidency ... Heading to Overtime ...

The new NonZero World ... Headlines ... Stories of the week ... Michael Brendan Dougherty on Pope Francis' foreign policy legacy ... Michael: The pope should be a voice for peace ... A European church no more ... Michael: The Vatican went too far in deal with China ... How the Holy See helped Obama reach out to Cuba ... The pope's moral clarity on Gaza ... A restrainer in the Vatican? ...

Trump and Elon's bad week = good news for Bob… ... …but bad news for Canada's prime minister? ... Trump's crackdown on speech expands ... Debating embryo-screening ethics ... Heading to Overtime ...

Pratap's bona fides ... How Pratap ran afoul of Modi (and the price he paid) ... Trump vs Modi: compare and contrast ... India's birth as a multi-ethnic state ... Pratap on how we got Trump (and Modi) ... Heading to Overtime ...

Nikita: Leaving Russia. The psychedelic lineage. Humanity is a trip, not a species ... 16 years ago, Boris took such a good nap after visiting a sacred Ancient Greek site that he still thinks about it ... In The Dark Places of Wisdom: mystical practices at the root of Western civilization ... What makes us feel we belong: identity & community ... Humanity as a planetary force ... What makes us feel we belong: values & norms ... What makes us feel we belong: direct experience ... Psychedelics & meditation in service of planetary identity ... “To be” comes from the word "to grow", "am" & "is" from "to breath" ... Rationalists ... How Socrates got himself killed ... What makes us feel we belong: awareness of inter-dependence ... Gaia, humanity, and AI are 3 generations of planetary forces ... Zizians. There's something to be said about dogma ... “DMT, death, and nanobots are the same thing, somehow” ... Humanity is still being born ... Ideas are alive ... JFK's "my fellow Americans" address, in which he casts the country as a peer to the citizen ... VR brings us back into the body ... The human experience is an image that arises from the play of ideas and matter ... Agency found in choosing one's metaphors ... Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Message ... Homeric rhapsodes ... Conversation as distributed thinking ...

Ron violates retirement dress code ... Trump's “antisemitism crackdown" ... Is the Israel lobby bad for American Jews? ... The disturbing Tufts detention case ... Why don't more progressive Jews call out the Israel lobby? ... How bad journalism makes antisemitism worse ... Heading to Overtime ...

Sam's theory of (some of) Trump's tariffs ... The bad scenario and the less bad scenario ... Scott Bessent's radicalism ... Will Trump display the art of the deal? ... China's trade-war strengths ... An intentional end to American hegemony? ... Sam's defense of chip restrictions ... Heading to Overtime ...