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Smart people talking about politics, policy, culture and other stuff

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United States

Description:

Smart people talking about politics, policy, culture and other stuff

Language:

English


Episodes
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Israel, America, and the Iran War (Robert Wright & Ron Kampeas)

3/24/2026
Teaser ... What (or who) is the Iran war for? ... Joe Kent and the MAGA rift over Israel ... Does antisemitism speech policing foment antisemitism? ... What Ron’s Substack has that others don’t ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Allure and Danger of Agentic AI (Robert Wright & Liron Shapira)

3/19/2026
Teaser ... Overtime preview: a civil(-ish) debate on Israel-Palestine ... How vibe-coding changed Liron’s life ... Portents of the AI jobpocalypse ... What can humans do that AI agents can’t? ... The Darwinian case for AI doom ... OpenClaw vs SkyNet ... Liron: I love AI! We need to stop it. ... Amodei, Altman, and the Pentagon triangle ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Israel’s Plan for Iran (And Beyond) (Robert Wright & Daniel Levy)

3/17/2026
Teaser ... Is Iran inflicting much damage on Israel? ... Iran has a strategy. Does America? Does Israel? ... Where Trump and Bibi differ ... Why Daniel is no longer a Zionist ... Bibi vs the Israeli security establishment ... The Gulf States' dilemma ... Daniel on Bibi’s true endgame ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Iran's War for a New Middle East Order (Robert Wright & Hooman Majd)

3/12/2026
Teaser ... How we got here ... Understanding Iran's strategy and goals ... Turkey, Europe, and the Gulf States ... Will the Iranian regime survive? ... The specious leadership of Reza Pahlavi ... The many missed opportunities for US-Iran entente ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Israel, Iran, and Antisemitism (Robert Wright & Peter Beinart)

3/10/2026
Teaser ... Will the Iran war supercharge antisemitism? ... Varieties of Israeli-Jewish conflation ... The Epstein effect ... Tucker v. Israel vs Fuentes v. Israel ... Does MSM have a pro-Israel bias? ... The ADL’s counterproductive speech policing ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Trump's Gulf War (Robert Wright, Derek Davison, and Daniel Bessner)

3/5/2026
Teaser ... Marco Rubio's Israel faux pas ... What are Trump’s new goalposts? ... The regime after Khamenei ... Can a regime be changed by air strikes alone? ... Will Turkey be drawn in? ... The logic of Iran's response ... The pathetic European (and Canadian) response ... Heading into Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Will the Iran War Spiral Out of Control? (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)

3/3/2026
Teaser ... Spain: the one country that got it right ... When US rhetoric starts sounding like the Kremlin ... Nukes, regime change, military threat—pick one ... Rubio's "ridiculous" explanation for attacking Iran ... Iran's restraint: from Soleimani to Khamenei ... Trump had leverage over Bibi. He didn't use it. ... Is this Israel's war or America's? ... Tommy Vietor goes after the ADL—a political first ... How fear sells papers and starts wars ... The nuclear deal: the last thing America got right ... Nikita: Trump's dopamine addiction to "starting shit" ... How the Iran strike buried the Anthropic story ... Does Israel want a stable Middle East? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Iran War II (Robert Wright & Joshua Landis)

2/24/2026
Teaser ... Why is Trump threatening Iran, really? ... What’s the strategic logic behind striking? ... Trump vs Bibi on Gaza ... How would—and could—Iran respond? ... What a post-regime-collapse Iran could look like ... Josh: Trump has painted himself into a corner ... Is a new “axis of resistance” against Israel emerging? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Is Anthropic Misanthropic? (Robert Wright & Holly Elmore)

2/19/2026
Teaser ... Holly’s call-out campaign ... Holly: Don’t believe the Amanda Askell puff pieces ... Is Amanda a bad person? ... How Dario’s false dichotomies accelerate the AI race ... The only Anthropic through-line is "winning" ... Did Dario subvert Effective Altruism? ... The end of the AI safety fig leaf ... Heading into Overtime: The pros and cons of naming and shaming ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The AI Apocalypse Cometh? (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)

2/17/2026
Teaser ... A paywall bait masterclass ... Is Paul feeling the AI acceleration? ... The Freddie deBoer AI challenge ... What would a true AI revolution look like? ... Bob: We’re failing the AI test ... Has AI really made much of a difference? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Agency, AI, and the MAGA Impulse (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)

2/12/2026
Teaser ... Recap: how MAGA's domestic and foreign policy fit together as one project ... MAGA reframed as a response to a felt lack of agency ... AI is about to make that loss of agency universal ... The first technology we're actually transferring agency to ... What Claude Code is doing to Nikita's creative process ... Will people use their free time well — or sit on a couch and inject heroin? ... Why Spanish festival culture might survive AI better than anyone ... Bots on the street, humans in the parlor: the future of online spaces ... Reading a comment and being depressed by both possibilities ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Is the Singularity Near? (Robert Wright & Timothy B. Lee)

2/10/2026
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 ...

Duration:01:00:00

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Trump's Big Gambles: Iran, China, and AI (Robert Wright, Andrew Day, and Curt Mills)

2/5/2026
Army brats and media empires ... Is war with Iran imminent? ... Trump’s “red line” trap ... Are we underestimating Iran? ... Israel and the “clean break” memo ... Rubio as deep state puppet master ... Trump’s AI report card ... The race for superintelligence ... Is AI an existential threat? ... Will AI trigger mass unemployment? ... Chip restrictions as war starters ... Does Xi think his Taiwan window is closing? ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Meaning of Moltbook (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)

2/3/2026
Teaser ... How Bob’s and Paul’s names wound up in the Epstein Files ... Epstein’s double option play ... Understanding Moltbook ... Bob on the “big question” Moltbook raises ... Paul: What planet are Emily Bender and Alex Hanna on? ... Heading into Overtime: Friends in the Epstein Files, the strangest thing Bob’s ever done for money and more. ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Grand Unified Theory of MAGA (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)

1/30/2026
MAGA as a coherent global phenomenon ... Narrative vs. material forces behind MAGA ... Mark Carney and the hypocrisy of the "rule-based order" ... Burkeans vs. Silicon Valley libertarians ... Make Russia Great Again ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Case Against AI (Robert Wright, Alex Hanna, and Emily Bender)

1/27/2026
Alex and Emily’s book, The AI Con ... Beyond the AI booster-doomer spectrum ... What—and who—is AI actually useful for? ... The AI productivity question(s) ... Emily: AI won’t take your job, it’ll just make it shi**ier ... Stochastic parrots, Chinese rooms, and semantics ... Are LLMs really black boxes? ... Do AIs “understand” things? ... Debating using AIs as experts ... How “neural” are neural nets, really? ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Trump Foreign Policy Roller Coaster (Robert Wright, Derek Davison, and Daniel Bessner)

1/22/2026
A recap of January’s Trump turbulence ... Is Trump a cause or symptom of world disorder? ... Is Trump increasingly unstable? ... Will we invade Cuba? ... American politics after Trump ... The crumbling bedrock of International Law ... Where are the Democrats? ... Heading into Overtime: Renee Good, Syria, Worthwhile Canadian Prime Minister ...

Duration:01:00:00

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AI After Us: The "Succession" Scenario (Robert Wright & Dan Faggella)

1/20/2026
Teaser ... Defining AI succession ... How positive psychology led Dan to AI research ... Is Dan a "successionist"? ... Does it matter whether AI is sentient? ... Two traits of a worthy successor ... The varieties of succession scenarios ... Values and interests ... Will AI have any use for us? ... Succession scenarios to avoid ... Heading into Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Past and Future of Digital Media (Robert Wright & Mike Pesca)

1/15/2026
Are Bob and Mike the godfathers of podcasting? ... Slate and the origins of podcasting ... NotebookLM’s humanless podcasts ... From blogs to Substack ... Looking back at BloggingHeads ... The tribalizing influence of algorithms ... New news models ... What happened to the rules in professional sports? ... The consequences of paying college athletes ... Mike's comprehensive take on sports gambling ... Heading into OT: The perils of opining on Israel ...

Duration:01:00:00

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The Minneapolis Shooting Rorschach Test (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)

1/13/2026
Teaser ... Different readings of the Renee Good videos ... JD Vance vs Stephen Miller: compare and contrast ... Trump vs Hitler: compare and contrast ... ICE agents and stormtroopers: compare and contrast ... Has Elon totally lost it? ... Paul: Politicians are people too! ... Heading to Overtime ...

Duration:01:00:00