Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to George Washington University archaeologist Eric Cline. The author of 1177 B.C. - The Year Civilization Collapsed, Cline has a new book out, After 1177 B.C. - The Survival of Civilizations. While 1177 B.C. closed with the end of the first global civilization, that of the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age, After 1177 B.C. tells the story of those who picked up the pieces. But first Cline and Razib talk about the popular appetite for ancient history, and how 1177 B.C. became a surprise bestseller. Cline’s training is in archaeology and they discuss how new technologies like ancient DNA and isotope analysis are now contributing to transforming our understanding of the past. Then they turn to he organization of After 1177 B.C., how Cline decided to build on regional geographically focused histories rather than constructing a tightly integrated single narrative thread. This gets to the reality that the period covered in After 1177 B.C. is one of disintegration and isolation, as the networks binding together ancient Near Eastern kingdoms collapsed, with some states like that of the Hittites disappearing, and others like Egypt re-emerging sharply restructured. Cline and Razib also discuss the lacunae in our understanding of the past, and the possibility that civilization may have gone through more cycles than we yet understand, with perhaps some social and technological complexity in the Pleistocene that we had not previously anticipated. Cline points out that Göbekli Tepe certainly must have had precursors in the Pleistocene, as local people could not have constructed such a site without skill and know-how accumulated over generations. If you have a sibling with autism, your future child’s risk for an autism diagnosis is increased by 2 - 3.5x. Orchid’s whole genome embryo reports can help mitigate your child’s risk by screening for 200+ genetic variants definitively linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Discuss your situation with a genetics expert. Special note: I’ve partnered with Roundtable to create a unique space dedicated to genetics and history enthusiasts. Our exclusive space is going to be organized into small, intimate roundtables of 4-6 people to ensure deep discussions and personal engagement. Every week, I'll provide an agenda for these discussions, and twice a month, I host an AMA for all members. If this opportunity excites you, apply here.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Kristian Kristiansen, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg and affiliate professor at the Lundbech Center for Geogenetics, Copenhagen University. A past guest on this podcast, Kristiansen has recently contributed to an astonishing lineup of landmark papers published in Nature just in the last few months, Population genomics of post-glacial western Eurasia, Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations, 100 ancient genomes show repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark and The selection landscape and genetic legacy of ancient Eurasians. They also discuss his chapter in the 2023 book The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited: Integrating Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics. Razib and Kristiansen discuss the state of the emerging synthesis between archaeology, genetics and historical linguistics. Though himself an archaeologist, Kristiansen admits that in many ways historical linguists were correct, with models of mass migration now overturning those of cultural diffusion. He also gives a high-level summary of soon-to-be-published work on the spread of plague in Europe 5,000 years ago, and its role in the collapse of Neolithic civilization and the rise of steppe Indo-Europeans. Kristiansen gives a summary of recent developments in understanding the archaeology of Bronze Age Northern Europe, and in particular the expansion of the Corded Ware people. Razib and Kristiansen also discuss the role of distinct migration streams of the steppe people and their contribution to various Indo-European populations. Is it time to wonder if the Greeks descended from Corded Ware or Yamnaya?

Today on Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to long-time podcast favorite Samo Burja. Burja is the founder of Bismarck Analysis and Bismarck Brief, a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation and The Foresight Institute. He is also now the chair of the editorial board of Palladium Magazine. Already a four-time guest on Unsupervised Learning (he has previously shared his views on China's future, Russia's present and archaeology's past, his role at Bismarck Analysis and geopolitical uncertainty, reflected on his piece in Palladium on Finding "lost civilizations" and covered his ideas on "social technology," China, and the foreign view of America), the Slovenian-born Burja is one of the most original and incisive public intellectuals writing in America today. His 2021 piece, Why Civilization is Older than We Thought, brings a level of depth and rigor to historical heterodoxy that you rarely find anymore. Burja has also forwarded the “great founder theory” of historical change and formulated the idea of “live players” in social analysis. In this episode, Razib asks Burja for his sense of the world landscape in early 2024, revisiting conversations that delve into logistical details of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the future of Chinese power. Burja continues to be pessimistic about the long-term prospects of European and Ukrainian resistance to a Russian war-machine that is geared toward grinding its way through lengthy battles of attrition. He also asserts that the current bearish attitude toward Chinese power is short-sighted, arguing that Western media in particular understates the technological and economic achievements of the PRC over the last generation. Burja believes that even if the “China bulls” were overly optimistic, the “China bears” go to excess in the opposite direction. Finally, he touches upon his vision for Palladium Magazine, a publication he has long contributed to, and which he now helms.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Steve Hsu, physicist, entrepreneur and public intellectual. Hsu is an Iowan who earned his undergraduate degree from Caltech and his Ph.D. from Berkeley. Later he was a Harvard Junior Fellow, before moving on to professorships at Yale and the University of Oregon, and finally settling down at Michigan State University in 2012. Hsu is founder of Safeweb and Genomic Prediction, and his current focus is on a new AI startup. Between 2012 and 2020, he was vice president for research and graduate studies at Michigan State. Hsu also has a blog, Information Processing, and a podcast, Manifold. Razib asks Hsu about where cognitive and behavioral genomics are in 2024, and where they are going. They discuss the reality that while study of educational attainment (EDU) has proceeded relatively far, the study of intelligence itself has been neglected. Hsu outlines the case for why cognitive phenotypes should be studied, even if the topic remains controversial and fraught. They then address the current fad for artificial intelligence, and how emerging companies in the space are going to transform workplace productivity and culture. Hsu contrasts the rapid pace in the advancement in AI with the torpidity of behavioral genomics. Finally, Razib and Hsu discuss changes in academia in the wake of the “Great Awokening” that led to his ouster in 2020 from his role as vice president of research and graduate studies at Michigan State. Hsu talks about how his work in IQ and genetics became weaponized on social media by left-wing graduate students during the George Floyd protests.

Today Razib talks to Murtaza Hussain about the social, cultural and political context of recent fissures in the US around the conflict in Israel and Gaza. Hussain is a reporter at The Intercept and has his own Substack. They begin their conversation talking about Hussain’s response to the 10/7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. Hussain discusses his bewilderment and disappointment at some commentators who he saw being knee-jerk and tribalistic in their response. He also talks about the generational divides on Israel that have become apparent: while American Boomers and Gen-X tend to support the Jewish state overwhelmingly, while Millennials, and especially Zoomers, are more divided, or perhaps even a pro-Palestinian, perspective. Hussain, a Pakistani Canadian Millennial, though now a naturalized US citizen, does not approach the subject of the Israel/Palestine conflict with a reflexive sympathy for any particular side, but does believe that many Americans are unaware of the broad support that Palestinian nationalism attracts worldwide and especially among the youth. Razib and Hussain then discuss the intellectual history that led up the conflict between Hamas, an Islamist movement, and the state of Israel, and how the Palestinian national struggle is positioned within the global Left. They discuss the various connections between Palestinian nationalism in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the Soviet Bloc and Left-wing national liberation movements like the IRA, and how that might impact sympathies of activists. Hussain contends that in many ways the Palestinian liberation movement is a leftover of 20th-century struggles, with the end of apartheid South Africa and the peace accords in Ireland. He outlines the multi-decade relationship both the Palestinians and Israelis have had with the non-aligned movement and postcolonialism. Though today Israel is coded as a Western nation (they participate in Eurovision), Hussain notes that as Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion attempted to send Israeli delegates to the non-aligned Bandung Conference in 1955, a move that was blocked by Egypt.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib welcomes back paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer. Affiliated with the Natural History Museum in London, Stringer is the author of African Exodus. The Origins of Modern Humanity, Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth and Homo Britannicus - The Incredible Story of Human Life in Britain. A proponent since the 1970’s of the recent African origin of modern humans, he has also for decades been at the center of debates around our species’ relationship to Neanderthals. In the 1980’s, with the rise to prominence of the molecular model of “mtDNA Eve,” Stringer came to the fore as a paleoanthropological voice lending support to the genetic insights that pointed to our African origins. Trained as an anatomist, Stringer asserted that the fossil evidence was in alignment with the mtDNA phylogenies, a contention that has been broadly confirmed over the last five decades. But in 2010, Stringer and other proponents of an “out of Africa” “with replacement” model of recent human origins began to modify their views in response to the mounting evidence of archaic admixture, the introgression of Neanderthal and Denisovan genes into the modern human genome. On this episode, Razib queries Stringer on the state of human evolution from the fossil’s-eye view in 2024. They discuss “Dragon Man,” and whether this is just a fossil of one of the Denisovan populations. Razib also presss Stringer about the diversity of human species in Southeast Asia, and just how many Denisovan populations or “races” might have existed. They also touch on Homo naledi, and the ensuing controversies around naledi-related publications. Razib seeks Stringer’s opinion on different models of African origins for our lineage, from extensive archaic admixture to “African multi-regionalism.” On a more speculative note, they mull over the possibilities for complex societies in the Pleistocene in light of the finds at Göbekli Tepe. With Stinger’s over five decades in the discipline, very few rival his qualifications or capability to provide a bird’s-eye view of where we are in understanding human evolution in 2024.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Zoe Booth and Iona Italia. Booth is community engagement officer and Italia is managing editor at Quillette. An Australian, Booth has degrees in French, Politics and Law from the University of Newcastle. Italia is an erstwhile academic of British nationality and mixed Parsi and Scottish heritage, with a Ph.D. in English literature from Cambridge University. She is the author of Our Tango World, former editor-in-chief of Areo Magazine and the host of the Two for Tea Podcast. Razib discusses both of their trajectories into the heterodox intellectual sphere, Booth, from her starting point as a younger Millennial and Italia as a member of Generation X. While Booth recounts she had typical generational views on social justice and left-inflected politics, Italia admits despite being very left-wing most of her life she was never very well disposed to the identitarian trend that has crystallized into “woke” politics in the 2020s. Booth also addresses the reality that even if the existence of Quillette, a female-led bastion of free thought, with founding editor Claire Lehmann and now managing editor Italia might seem to suggest otherwise, it is not always easy to be a heterodox woman. Booth and Italia discuss how female personality orientation tends more toward making people feel comfortable and included rather than confrontations over truth claims that might hurt feelings. Italia and Razib also address her unique personality quirk of very high disagreeability, which might explain both her rejection of group-think and her earnest quest for the truth as she understands it. Booth and Italia talk about how the recent events around the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, have resulted in changes in their social life due to political polarization. Overall Quillette has taken a pro-Israel position across the editorial staff, which has resulted in some blowback among their readership. Italia also talks about her own change from solidarity to the global left because of their Hamas-friendly stance, and her continued rejection of conservative social movements, including Islam. Booth and Italia also address Quillette’s consistent trend of touching cultural and political third rails, but in the service of classical liberal values. Italia believes any blowback toward her and the magazine comes disproportionately from a small group of malcontents, and that broadly liberal values are much more popular than most people realize.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Nick Cassimatis, erstwhile artificial intelligence researcher and currently an entrepreneur. Cassimatis has undergraduate and doctoral degrees in cognitive and computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a master’s degree in child psychology from Stanford. He studied for his Ph.D. under Marvin Minsky, arguably the most prominent and influential artificial intelligence researcher of the second half of the 20th century. Later, Cassimatis was a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, founder of a successful startup, and a researcher at Yahoo and Samsung. Because of the explosion of large language models as implemented in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, we are now living through an artificial intelligence “hype cycle.” But Cassimatis observes that this is not the first time this has occurred. The 1960’s saw enthusiasm triggered by the ELIZA therapist chatbot. Then, in the 1990s another wave of interest crested because of the mastery of chess by Deep Blue. Finally, there was a boom of excitement around artificial intelligence after Watson’s victory in Jeopardy in the early 2010s. But these hype cycles also have their equivalent troughs; Cassimatis recounts that when he went to study artificial intelligence in the early 2000s, many people discouraged him because the field’s allure had cooled considerably. And yet, under Minsky he developed an interest in how computers could learn, writing papers like A cognitive substrate for achieve human-level intelligence. This background makes Cassimatis a particularly well-informed and trenchant observer and analyst of the current arguments about the possible emergence of artificial general intelligence in the next decade, and what it means for the future of humanity. But first, Cassimatis and Razib step back and address some basics. What is machine learning? How does this relate to deep learning and natural language processing? What are transformers and what is a neural network? These are terms that are thrown around casually in the technology press, but these concepts emerge from over fifty years of research in computer science. With those preliminaries out of the way, Razib probes Cassimatis’s opinions about the past and future of large language model-driven artificial intelligence, and the probability of Ray Kurzweil’s “intelligence explosion” soon. Cassimatis believes it is likely that this hype cycle will eventually fade and suspects that large language models may run up against their limits very soon. He suggests that since ChatGPT’s release in the fall of 2022, the massive transformations predicted in our lives have not come to pass more than a year later. It has not, for example, replaced search on the web, nor has it revolutionized software engineering. And it is the last issue, the impact of artificial intelligence and advances in computing that underpin Cassimatis’ current start-up, Dry.Ai, a platform for developing applications in a no and low-code framework. The enablement of faster and more productive programming frameworks like GitHub Copilot over the last few years has prompted some to wonder if a crash in demand for engineers is in the offing, with a smaller number of far more productive workers. Cassimatis reminds us that in the early days of high-level programming languages, like Perl, Python or Java, the same argument was mooted. And yet, on the contrary, the demand for developers has remained high. Cassimatis expects in the near future to see artificial intelligence hitched up to platforms like Dry.Ai which will make programming easier, reducing the time from conception to final release of an application. Overall, he sees a future that is more technologically advanced, but he does not anticipate that the next generation will bring the revolutionary transformation of all life as we know it. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to...

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks about AI, the singularity and the post-human future, with James D. Miller, a Smith College economist, host of the podcast Future Strategist and the author of Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World. Miller and Razib first met at 2008’s “Singularity Summit” in San Jose, and though Singularity Rising was published in 2012, some of the ideas were already presented in earlier talks, including at that conference. More than 15 years since Miller began formulating his ideas, Razib asks him how the theses and predictions in his book have held up, and how they compared to Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Coming. On this last point, Miller is very bullish on Kurzweil’s prediction that artificial intelligence will surpass that of humans by 2030. He also believes that the “intelligence explosion,” Kurzweil’s “technological singularity” when AI transforms the earth in unimaginable ways through exponential rates of change will in fact come to pass. But while Kurzweil predicts that the singularity will usher in an era of immortality for our species, Miller has a more measured take. He believes AI will drive massive gains in economic productivity, from cultural creativity to new drug development regimes (one of the original rationales behind IBM’s AI program). But while Kurzweil anticipates exaltation of conscious human life into an almost divine state, Miller suspects that AI may eventually lead to our demise. He estimates a 10% probability that Kurzweil is correct that we will become immortal, and a 90% probability that AI will simply shove us aside on this planet as it begins to consume all available resources. Overall, Miller is satisfied with the predictions in the first third of Singularity Rising. Computational technology has become far more powerful than it was in the late aughts, with a supercomputer in everyone’s pocket. Though the advances in AI seem to exhibit discontinuities, in particular with the recent seminal inventions of transformers and large language models coming to the fore, the smoothed curve aligns with Kurzweil’s 2030 target for human-level intelligence. On the other hand, where Miller has been disappointed is the merely modest advances in biological human engineering, with far fewer leaps forward than he had anticipated. Razib and Miller discuss whether this is due to limitations in the science, or issues of governance and ethics. Miller closes making the case for a program of cloning the great 20th-century genius John von Nuemann and the statesman Lee Kuan Yew. While the computational innovation driving AI seems to have advanced on schedule, and the biological revolution has not taken off, the last section of Miller’s book focused on the economic impacts of the impending singularity. He still believes the next 10-20 years will be incredible, as our economy and way of life are both transformed for the good. Until that is, humans become obsolete in the face of the nearly god-like forms of AI that will emerge around 2050. Until then, Miller anticipates the next generation will see rapid changes as people make career shifts every half a decade or so as jobs become redundant or automated. If Singularity Rising proves correct, the next generation will be defined by what the economist Joseph Schumpeter termed “creative destruction.” If Miller is correct, it may be the last human generation. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Rob Henderson, author of the new book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. Henderson is a commentator known for coining the term "luxury beliefs," a tendency among elites to use their beliefs to signal social status, with real-life costs of those beliefs born by non-elites alone. Henderson grew up in California foster homes, before being adopted into a working-class family in Redding, CA. After an academically undistinguished period in high school, he joined the U.S. Air Force straight out of high school, eventually serving a short stint in Germany. While in the military, he was identified as intellectually gifted via standardized tests, and it was during this time that Henderson developed habits that equipped him to become an exemplary airman, and eventually a public intellectual. Along the way, Henderson earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Ph.D. in psychology from Cambridge University. Henderson first came to public prominence with his 2018 New York Times op-ed, Why Being a Foster Child Made Me a Conservative. Later he outlined the concept of luxury beliefs in Quillette, and moved his popular newsletter to Substack. Troubled fleshes out the working-class life experiences that made Henderson who he is today, and how and what sets him apart from other members of the elite-educated “professional-managerial class.” While he was an indifferent student who barely graduated high school, parental expectations prepped Henderson’s classmates for the Ivy League. At the time Henderson was studying at Yale, the median family income of his fellow students was $192,000. In Redding, CA, where he grew up, the median family income was about $65,000. About ten times as many Yale students hailed from the top 1% (19%) than the bottom 20% (2.1%) of family income. Troubled would shock many of Henderson’s Yale classmates, because the economic, social and cultural deprivation and domestic volatility he describes would be so alien and unrelatable. Among the most striking illustrations of how he grew up was Henderson’s perplexity upon being expected to be excited for his first birthday party in his adoptive home. As a former foster child with a winter-break birthday, not only had he never received presents, had a cake or a party. Henderson had literally never been sung “Happy Birthday.” Troubled beings with Henderson’s primary memories of his Korean immigrant mother when he was a toddler. After she was deported, Henderson’s formative years in childhood were spent as a ward of the state, shuffled from foster placement to placement. Razib also touches on something that Henderson has discovered in the last few years with consumer genetics. Not knowing who his father was, and clearly not being fully Asian, he had always trusted he was of mixed white and Korean heritage. But a 23andMe test makes it plain that his father was genetically Mexican. Not entirely shocking as Henderson was conceived in Southern California, the genetic test turned him overnight into a “BIPOC” individual, with nearly 20% indigenous American ancestry. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

In this episode, Razib talks to Wilfred Reilly, political scientist, author and fearless cultural commentator. Reilly holds a Ph.D. in political science from Southern Illinois and a J.D. from the University of Illinois. Raised in a working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, he discusses his ten-year diversion from academia, including his stints as a canvasser for the gay rights group the Human Rights Campaign and a corporate salesperson. A prolific public intellectual, Reilly is the author of Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me, Taboo: 10 Facts [You Can't Talk About] and Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left Is Selling a Fake Race War. Razib asks what it means to be a “black conservative,” and Reilly responds that the term brackets all black intellectuals who dissent from the progressive orthodoxy, ranging from rock-ribbed right-wingers like Thomas Sowell to moderate liberals like John McWhorter. They also discuss the excesses of Civil Rights legislation and Richard Hanania’s thesis in The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics that the legal system is geared toward racial progressivism. Reilly believes that wokeness cannot be rolled back until that institutional and legal framework driving for radicalism is neutered. Segueing into the domain of political science, Razib and Reilly discuss the difference between avowed preferences and revealed preferences around issues like abortion and pornography. Both agree ordinary Americans strongly disagree with ideologues who hold extreme policies. Reilly also points out the strangeness that many of the most violent and visible activists during the BLM protests were white, and he holds these are the people who are buying books by radical activist professors like Ibram Kendi, who meanwhile has little real influence among black academics. They also discuss diversity within the black American community, including Laurence Otis Graham’s exploration of socioeconomic status in Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class. Reilly talks about his more upper-class mother’s attempt to inculcate elitism within him, and its failure to stick. Then Razib moots the question of the differences between “American Descendents of Slaves” (ADoS), Africans and Caribbeans, and the fact that Harvard refuses to survey its black students by sub-demographic. Finally, Reilly expounds at length on his “anti-doomer” views, arguing that economic, social and environmental catastrophism is almost always wrong, as well a providing a hearty defense of the cultural richness and economic dynamism of the Midwest. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

Today Razib talks to geneticist Erich Schwarz, a Research Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University since 2012. Schwarz has a molecular biology degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Caltech. After working with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in graduate school, he switched to the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and has continued studying nematodes ever since. After helping to found the C. elegans genome database WormBase (wormbase.org) in the early 2000s, he began sequencing and characterizing the genomes of several nematode worms other than C. elegans, either because they are biologically informative or because they are worldwide parasites. His current work includes using the genome of Ancylostoma ceylanicum to help devise an anti-hookworm vaccine. Schwarz explains why C. elegans, often called “the worm,” has been so useful in developmental and molecular genetics, and its role in the career of the late Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner. With a simple anatomical structure, every single one of the 1,000 cells of C. elegans has been mapped and detailed. Despite its small size, this organism has spawned a research community of thousands, documented in Andrew Brown’s In the Beginning Was the Worm: Finding the Secrets of Life in a Tiny Hermaphrodite. In the age of hundreds of thousands of human genomes, Schwarz explains the decades-long period in the late 20th century when biological research was dominated by “model organisms,” simple and easy-to-experiment-on animals, plants and bacteria that could eloquently and plainly elucidate universal and essential mechanisms of function and structure. Razib and Schwarz also discuss the future of model organisms in a genomic future, when high-throughput data analysis can supercharge decades-long experimental projects. Ultimately, the future is not likely to see model organisms set aside, but rather to witness them merged into the broader research community in human and medical genomics which has been driving technological changes in sppedspeed and volume of data collection. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

Today, Razib talks to Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball's Biggest Questions and Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. Stephens-Davidowitz, formerly of Google and The New York Times, is a freelance data scientist and author. He has a degree in philosophy from Stanford and a PhD in economics from Harvard. In this episode, he discusses his process of writing Who Makes the NBA?, which he crafted in a month using ChatGPT’s code interpreter feature, and the biggest insights from his book. Razib probes Stephens-Davidowitz on the relationship between height and athletic ability, and why success in the NBA has the largest heritable component of any major league sport. They also discuss the finding that children of NBA players enjoy a non-genetic advantage in basketball, and why those who make it into the league and succeed are from higher socioeconomic strata. Stephens-Davidowitz also discusses why international basketball is popular in the former Yugoslavia and Lithuania, and how the popularity of volleyball in Iran and Brazil affects the pipeline of talent from those nations. The episode concludes with the author’s detailed thoughts about what it was like to write a book assisted by AI, and the feasibility of this sort of content creation over the next decade. Razib and Stephens-Davidowitz discuss the possibility of massive productivity gains from AI over the next few years and the long-term feasibility of writing careers if AI keeps improving at the current rate. Finally, Stephens-Davidowitz lays out his plan to write his next few years’ of books at a far faster clip, relying on AI assistance.. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

Do 20% of the men on dating apps get 80% of the dates? Is the Zoomer generation the sexless generation? What are the best predictors of relationship success? These are some of the questions Razib asks Alex of DatePsychology on this episode of Unsupervised Learning. A psychologist who studied cognitive and behavioral neuroscience in graduate school, Alex explores topics around dating on his YouTube channel and disseminates the latest research via his tweets (you can also subscribe to his newsletter). In a world where the “discourse” is filled with anecdotes and ideology, Alex’s modus operandi is to ask “what does the scientific literature say?” Razib and Alex talk about various online subcultures, from incels to “pickup artists,” what they get right and wrong about dating culture and the impact of technology on long-standing dynamics, like the art of approaching women in public places like bars. Alex also discusses how the proliferation of dating apps has changed the dynamics of the online dating marketplace over the last 20 years. Razib probes him about the variables correlating with dating and compatibility, from looks to values to personality. Does intelligence matter in partner compatibility? They also discuss cross-cultural differences, and how urban dating markets differ from those in more rural locales. The online discourse is filled with individuals opining about dating and culture, but into this space of vapid assertion, Alex presents study after study of peer-reviewed research. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to David Lightbringer, a YouTube content creator who focuses on the world of The Game of Thrones and the mythologies of ancient peoples. Though Lightbringer writes essays, and distributes his thoughts via podcast (and you can also read his views in short-form on numerous topics via his tweets on X), his primary platform is his YouTube channel. Lightbringer’s videos, range across topics as diverse as “Harappans, Aryans, and the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex: Indian Origins” to “The Grey King: Secret PreHistory of the Ironborn.” Two years ago, journalist and entrepreneur Antonio García Martínez declared that we were entering a new “age of orality.” By this, he meant that the primacy of text was declining in our culture, as younger generations preferentially consumed audio content over magazines. Perhaps Martínez could even have stipulated that this was the age of “audiovisuality.” Anyone producing podcast content knows that the “Zoomer” generation, those born after 1995, prefer not to subscribe to a feed proactively. Instead, they spend their days passively “consuming content” by leaving YouTube in the background at length. Nearly 40% of this generation spends four or more hours a day on social media, and 88% use YouTube. Lightbringer is part of this massive, new world of creators who produce history, literary and cultural commentary content for those who prefer hour-long documentaries or impassioned monologues to short clips of funny cat memes. Razib and Lightbringer discuss his analytic method for producing secondary commentary on George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire. Lightbringer points out that Martin has been explicit and open about his myriad literary influences, so filling in the “backstory” to the history and anthropology of his universe often involves detective work into its cultural roots, which go back to figures as diverse as J. R. R. Tolkien and H. P. Lovecraft, as well as ancient motifs and primal archetypes drawn from the mythologies of varied cultures. The same methodologies we can use to analyze “real” mythology, religion and cultural history, can also be employed for fantastical literary worlds. Razib and Lightbringer also shine the light on the vast world of literature and history on YouTube, which is now the primary mode for many people’s autodidact pursuits. Razib argues for the value of text, while Lightbringer asserts that the visual aspect of YouTube documentaries allows for both greater accessibility and more informational richness. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to human geneticist Cesar Fortes-Lima about his new paper, The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa. Fortes-Lima has a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology and his primary research areas include African genetic diversity, African diaspora, transatlantic slave trade, demographic inference, admixture dynamics and mass migrations. Most recently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Human Evolution at Uppsala University, he has recently taken a position in Ambroise Wonkam Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Razib and Fortes-Lima discuss the primary conclusions of his blockbuster paper, which was published in Nature. When did the Bantu people begin their migrations? What were their origins? And what routes did they follow as they expanded to cover a third of the African continent? They also discuss the earlier peoples of East Africa and the relationship of the Bantu to Cushitic pastoralists and Khoisan foragers. Fortes-Lima addresses how the inclusion of 1,763 participants, including 1,526 Bantu speakers from 147 populations across 14 African countries, and whole-genome sequences from 12 Late Iron Age individuals, allowed them to use spatially explicit methods correlating genetic, linguistic and geographical variables. They found support for a serial-founder migration model, and determined population sizes, as well as testing alternative models of migration and admixture. Unlike many historical population genetic analyses, The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa explicitly tests competing hypotheses. Finally, Fortes-Lima also discusses the broader necessity for greater diversity in genetic datasets, and how this study advances that project by adding thousands more geographically disparate samples. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Cody Moser, co-author of a recent paper, Innovation-facilitating networks create inequality. Moser is an evolutionary psychologist and cultural evolutionist at UC Merced, where he is completing his doctorate. A previous guest on the podcast, Moser immediately digs deep into the abstruse and technical model that shows that more is not automatically better when it comes to innovation and discovery. First, he contrasts his results with the Tasmanian cultural evolution model outlined by Joe Henrich nearly 20 years ago. In short, Henrich showed that very small populations tend to lose cultural traits and skills over time. Going through a population bottleneck has a memetic as well as genetic effect. The converse scenario is one where a large population is able to retain and even accumulate more cultural traits and skills. Moser’s main finding is that some fragmentation of these large populations may in fact foster innovation. On the evolutionary psychological scale, massive groups may tend toward conformity, and disrupting information flows may foster independence of thought. A significant immediate implication is that scholarly thought might benefit from separating into competing schools and departments where distinct groups can develop solutions collectively but retain enough independence to resist being drawn into broader irrational herd behavior. Moser’s results have broader implications for how businesses and corporations should operate, and perhaps quantify why nimble startups often outpace and defeat massive organizations despite the latter having almost infinite resources. Groupthink is powerful. Though small populations will be hit by skill loss with the death of keystone individuals, large populations may ossify, “locking in” regnant ideologies. Razib also probes Moser about the rise of agent-based modeling and simulations in social science over the last 20 years, and how they have allowed scholars to circumvent the limitations of relying purely on college students to act as experiment subjects. For the first time ever, parents going through IVF can use whole genome sequencing to screen their embryos for hundreds of conditions. Harness the power of genetics to keep your family safe, with Orchid. Check them out at orchidhealth.com.

Katherine Brodsky hosts the Substack Random Minds and is author of the soon-to-be-published book No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage―Lessons for the Silenced Majority. The daughter of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants to Israel and then Canada, Brodsky has worked as a photographer, in public relations and as a publisher. A recent visiting fellow of the Danube Institute, she is freshly back in North America in the wake of Israel’s Gaza invasion, following the Hamas attacks of 10/7. Razib and Brodsky have a wide-ranging conversation about her travels in Europe, her return to North America, her understanding of Israel and what it’s like to be a Jew in the world today. Despite Hungary being ruled by a right-wing government for the past decade, Brodsky observes that it is the European nation where she perceived the least public anti-Semitism, in large part due to government policy suppressing such sentiments. In contrast, she felt very uncomfortable and even afraid in London when she visited during the mass protests in support of the Gazans. Brodsky has also been shocked by the unanimity of the global Left in support of the Palestinians, and the dismissal by many feminist organizations of the reality of sex crimes committed by Hamas on 10/7. A secular Jew, Brodsky has now begun to wear visible signs of her Jewishness as a rebuke to the anti-Semitism she sees all around her. Razib asks her about her opinions in regard to free speech and the battle between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian factions in the media. Brodsky believes that the topic of her book, No Apologies, is even more relevant after the events of the last few months than it was when she initially wrote the book proposal. They discuss the lack of dialogue, debate and the polarization into strict information tribes. When it comes to information, they touch upon semantic arguments about indigeneity, who is a settler in the context of Israel-Palestine, and how it relates to genetics, history and archaeology.

Today, Razib cross-posts an episode of his other podcast. When not working on this Substack, Razib devotes his time to GenRAIT, a startup accelerating scientific discovery by providing infrastructure and tools to researchers. GenRAIT fosters science and discovery by making biological data accessible, usable, and minable. Razib and his cofounders, Dr. Santanu Das and Taylor Capito, will talk about what they’ve built at the JPM Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, January 8th-11th, and showcase their products at the Plant and Animal Genomes Conference in San Diego, January 12th-17th. After an overview of GenRAIT’s business logic with Capito, Razib digs deeper with Dr. Das, a computer scientist by training, and discusses what machine learning is, drilling down into details like the difference between SVM and random forest models. Dr. Das surveys the multi-decade arc of “Artificial intelligence” (AI), predicts its inevitable utility in biology, and makes the broader case for productizing scientific tools to empower bioinformaticians, ML engineers and data scientists as an integral part of the scientific ecosystem.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Philippe Lemoine, a fellow at CSPI, a philosopher of science trained at Cornell. Lemoine often wades into controversial topics, like whether Chinese COVID data is trustworthy, but recently, he posted on Twitter that “Americans *genuinely* believe they have better food than France. They really believe it.” Not only did this trigger a response by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, but the controversy broke out of social media into the international media. For the first portion of the conversation, Razib and Lemoine reflect on the circus surrounding his tweet, and what he really means. Though Lemoine defends his tweet, he wants to emphasize that while Americans kept pointing to restaurants, he wanted to emphasize how superior French home cooking was over what Americans produce when they eat in (though he will still defend French restaurants as superior, he admits that if you value variation and diversity of cuisine as goods in and of themselves, then “American food” can be counted as superior). Additionally, Lemoine extolls the virtue of French meal-time customs and norms, with their leisurely pace. He asserts, likely plausibly, that Americans with their on-the-go philosophy of life truly don’t enjoy food, they consume it. Razib pushes Lemoine on whether he would genuinely prefer to live in France despite the nation being 33% poorer than the US on a purchasing-power-parity basis, and he sticks to his guns. Then they move to a topic that unambiguously throws France into a worse light than the US: immigration policy. Lemoine discusses the reality that French immigrants and immigrant-descended populations are not doing very well. Not integrating, committing crime and both economically and socially marginalized. He also claims that the French government actually does have a good breakdown of ethnic groups even though it cannot officially collect such data. Lemoine asserts that America’s positive experience with immigration has little to do with America, and mostly to do with the source and character of immigrants: unlike Europe, the US imposes a strong selective sieve on education and skills. In contrast, European nations often simply receive immigrants from their former colonies or through the asylum process. Razib and Lemoine also discuss French fertility, which remains higher than that of the US.