Conversations with a series of people who have nothing in common except that program host Robert Wright is curious about what they’re thinking. www.nonzero.org
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Nonzero Podcasts
Why is America seemingly always at war? Join the Quincy Institute’s Courtney Rawlings and Alex Jordan as they expose the monied interests, outdated ideologies, and entrenched powers that have driven the U.S. to wage nearly 400 wars and interventions. Each episode, they’ll be joined by journalists, advocates, and experts to uncover who profits from America’s endless conflicts, and to imagine how we can build a better, more peaceful U.S. foreign policy. Learn more about the Quincy Institute: q ...
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The Motives of the AI Moguls (Robert Wright & Holly Elmore)
1:02:48
1:02:48
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Has the pace of AI progress slowed? 12:25 How the tech CEOs are learning to stop worrying 14:34 Mark Zuckerberg 23:12 Sam Altman 30:23 OpenAI’s attempt to shed its non-profit status 53:29 Dario Amodei 59:51 Heading into Overtime Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution …
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Trump’s Epstein Problem and His Authoritarian Slide (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)
1:08:25
1:08:25
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1:08:25
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 "Would Putin send a weird sexually suggestive birthday greeting to a famous affluent well-connected pedophile?" 5:55 Decoding Trump's message in the greeting 13:19 Conspiracy theories vs official silence 19:14 Why is Ezra Klein content with "We'll never know"? 24:42 …
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Does having 750 military base sites all around the world make America safer—or does it just make war more convenient? In this episode of Always at War, hosts Courtney Rawlings and Alex Jordan reveal the costs and consequences of America's massive worldwide military footprint and examine how it enables Washington's disastrous quest to maintain globa…
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Epstein, AI, and the Xi-Putin Path to Immortality (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
56:27
56:27
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 The Bob-Paul secret sauce—spilled! 3:49 Mickey Kaus's latest contribution to Epsteinology 13:28 Paul fact-checks Mickey, gets fact-checked 20:16 What’s better: AI or indoor plumbing? 29:06 What Gary Marcus gets right—and (very) wrong—about AI 38:09 Has TV made us sma…
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Drugs and Mayhem in the US Special Forces (Robert Wright & Seth Harp)
48:28
48:28
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 Seth’s new NYT bestseller, The Fort Bragg Cartel 2:47 What is Delta Force? 8:02 The growth of Delta Force's covert ops and unaccountability 14:35 American "death squads" 18:51 Why cops and prosecutors cover up crimes by elite soldiers 26:33 The mysterious murder of B…
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Is Trump Becoming Putin? (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)
1:36:57
1:36:57
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0:28 Bob welcomes Nikita back to the Nonzero team 6:41 WSJ's report on Trump's authoritarian drift 9:10 Three levers: streets, media, education system 13:22 Trump the businessman and Trump the politician 15:14 Why Putin was compelling in 1999, when Russia was a young democracy 23:01 Laws vs norms 29:29 Trump and lawfare: how independent is the US j…
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The MAGA Case Against AI Accelerationism (Robert Wright & Joe Allen)
1:00:05
1:00:05
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Joe’s notable background 3:39 Is most of the MAGA coalition accelerationist? 7:52 Transhumanism, big tech, Klaus Schwab, and the noosphere 20:58 How the pandemic sparked a MAGA tech backlash 34:26 Palantir as bipartisan bête noire 40:41 The conservative case for AI r…
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How Think Tanks Sell War with Ben Freeman & Nick Cleveland-Stout
1:07:06
1:07:06
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In this episode of Always at War, hosts Courtney Rawlings and Alex Jordan are joined by the Quincy Institute's Ben Freeman & Nick Cleveland-Stout to discuss how America's top think tanks profoundly shape our country's approach to the world — and the golden opportunity these institutions represent for arms companies and foreign governments trying to…
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Trump's Failures in Israel and Ukraine | NonZero World feat. Robert Wright
48:38
48:38
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 Connor’s farewell 3:28 What’s next at NonZero 8:20 The looming invasion of Gaza City 11:28 Israel's one-state solution 16:25 Why did Trump give up on Gaza? 21:04 The "blame-it-on-Bibi" farce 31:32 A disappointing week for Ukraine 33:31 How to make security guarantees…
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Feeling the GPT-5 (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
54:55
54:55
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Bob defends the Unabomber (kind of) 3:05 Paul nurses his Mickey-inflicted wounds 15:55 Bob deflates the GPT-5 deflation 25:19 How big a deal are LLM hallucinations? 28:10 AI's coming social and economic disruptions 35:17 How Bob and Paul use AI 39:16 The ideas of Han…
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Can Trump and Putin Make a Deal? | NonZero World feat. George Beebe
36:25
36:25
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 What’s at stake in Alaska 1:25 George: Don’t try to do too much 4:34 EU yes, NATO no 6:10 How to get the Ukrainians on board 10:59 Could Putin dupe Trump into a bad deal? 20:26 Sanctions: painful, but not decisive 25:19 What Russian media is saying about the talks 30…
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The Open Source AI Question (Robert Wright & Nathan Lambert)
53:11
53:11
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53:11
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Nathan’s work at AI2—and his p(doom) 5:00 What does “open source AI” mean? 11:01 How Nathan taught a Llama new tricks 18:05 Pros and cons of open sourcing AI 29:21 Nathan's ATOM Project to boost American open models 37:58 What's behind OpenAI's open source play? 40:2…
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Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump (Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus)
1:51:46
1:51:46
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0:28 Epstein's Israel connections 9:35 Epstein's history of blackmail 22:43 Was it suicide? 27:09 Epstein's creepy relationship with Trump 32:16 Why won’t Trump release the files? 38:59 The Israel connection(s) 51:21 Some Epstein-Wexner weirdness 57:23 What’s the deal with Ghislaine? 1:03:51 Was it suicide? (cont’d) 1:16:11 Influence operation or p…
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In this episode of Always at War, hosts Courtney Rawlings and Alex Jordan discuss how the headlines about Gaza in most mainstream U.S. media outlets have consistently obfuscated the reality of Israel's genocidal campaign, and downplayed America's role in enabling and defending Israeli war crimes. ### Why is America seemingly always at war? Join the…
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Does America’s “China Consensus” Make Sense? A Debate (Robert Wright & Jordan Schneider)
1:08:56
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Jordan’s ChinaTalk podcast 3:01 Making sense of America’s “China consensus” 11:03 Are fears of Chinese global ambitions overblown? 29:51 The logic (or is it illogic?) of the AI arms race 33:14 China and the Ukraine War 41:30 Influence operations: Chinese vs American …
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Must We Discuss Sydney Sweeney? (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
51:42
51:42
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Substack glory and livestream anxiety 02:58 Reading eugenics into a dopey jeans ad 11:37 Does Sydney Sweeney spell the end of “inclusive marketing”? 15:25 Bob vs. Paul on IQ and “general intelligence” 22:10 Paul reviews the new Billy Joel documentary 28:07 The Epstei…
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Anatomy of a Man-Made Famine | NonZero World feat. Alex de Waal
40:54
40:54
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 Why Gaza’s famine is the "most intense" in decades 4:00 From food secure to starvation: How Gaza unraveled 7:26 Blinken's willful blindness to Israel's obstruction of aid 11:33 How the US muzzled its own famine warning system 15:05 The political power of the term "fa…
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Gaza Awareness Week (Robert Wright, Derek Davison, and Daniel Bessner)
41:35
41:35
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Derek and Danny plug their new Crusades series 3:19 This week’s shift in Gaza discourse 12:20 The real danger Gaza poses for Israel 22:05 Does the left’s rhetoric on Israel miss the mark? 32:24 Elite media’s think tank problem 36:27 Is American imperialism really the…
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Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough? (Robert Wright & Michael Walker)
37:14
37:14
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37:14
On this crossover edition of the NonZero podcast, Bob is interviewed by Michael Walker of Novara Media on artificial intelligence. Video on Novara’s YouTube channel: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe…
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Trump's Plan for Global AI Dominance | NonZero World feat. Robert Wright
45:19
45:19
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 Trump’s AI Action plan 4:00 The contradictions inherent to Trump's plan 6:25 How Trump’s anti-globalism undermines his AI goals 10:52 Anthropic’s leaked memo: Ideals vs Persian Gulf cash 13:06 Bob: Dario Amodei is the true AI ideologue 17:17 How AI “safety” became a …
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A Culture of Empire | Always at War x American Prestige
44:46
44:46
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44:46
In this episode of Always at War, hosts Courtney Rawlings and Alex Jordan are joined by American Prestige's Daniel Bessner to discuss how Americans have come to understand — and however begrudgingly, accept — the costs and consequences of our nation’s military empire. ### Why is America seemingly always at war? Join the Quincy Institute’s Courtney …
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Is the New Syria Unravelling? (Robert Wright & Joshua Landis)
56:04
56:04
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56:04
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 Josh’s hopes for post-Assad Syria—revisited 4:12 The challenge(s) facing the Syrian government 8:58 What’s driving Syria’s sectarian violence? 19:44 Josh’s personal window into the al-Sharaa regime’s brutality 22:51 The new regime’s church vs state problem 29:44 How …
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Jeffrey Epstein, MechaHitler, and Other Ills (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
1:12:29
1:12:29
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:28 The full reason for Bob’s absence—revealed 6:41 What’s the real story with Trump and Epstein? 15:02 A peek down the Epstein rabbit hole 31:18 Grok goes full Nazi-pornbot 40:15 The promise and perils of AI companions 47:55 Bob on dealing with cancer in the age of AI 1…
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Why China Won't Invade Taiwan | NonZero World feat. Dan Grazier
40:19
40:19
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 Why a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is so unlikely 4:01 Taiwan’s terrain: A defender’s dream, an invader’s nightmare 10:55 Why Taipei might be the hardest city in the world to conquer 12:45 Dan: China would need nearly 5 million soldiers to have a chance 14:18 The 2027 …
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Golden Oldie: Do We Live in a Simulation (Robert Wright & Preston Greene)
1:11:24
1:11:24
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0:00 A brief message from Bob 1:45 Why many intelligent people think we’re living in a simulation 12:44 The philosophical argument that you’re probably not real 28:24 How cosmic rays might (and might not) reveal that reality is fake 36:18 Preston’s dire warning against trying to determine if we’re in a simulation 50:06 Is the simulation hypothesis …
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Golden Oldie: The Nature of Time (Robert Wright & Lee Smolin)
1:05:32
1:05:32
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1:05:32
0:00 A brief message from Bob 1:55 What Lee means when he says "time is fundamental" 11:40 Understanding the universe as a network 25:59 A (very) tentative theory of consciousness 37:42 Did the laws of physics evolve? 45:23 Is the universe fine-tuned for the emergence of life? 57:21 Applying Lee's theories of time to everyday life Robert Wright (No…
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A Journey Into the New Cold War | NonZero World feat. Neysun Mahboubi
40:39
40:39
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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org 0:30 Why Neysun brings American students and scholars to China 3:05 Visiting China after Covid 5:17 Balancing US and Chinese red lines 11:03 When Neysun's students pushed Chinese officials on human rights 14:09 Do US students fear career risks for going to China? 16:08 Cu…
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