NonZero Newsletter

Plus: Space junk tipping point; East-West AI fusion; NZN Discord server! and more!

Listen now | 0:00 Amazing Bob-Paul discount deal! 2:12 The Bari Weiss trivia test 18:54 Lasting peace in Gaza? 21:31 Why did Trump finally get tough on Bibi? 26:54 MAGA free speech debates 30:58 Is the AI bubble about to burst? 33:37 If anyone builds it, will everyone die? 41:24 Heading into Overtime: Ian McEwan, George Harrison, OpenAI, One Battle After AnotherRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded October 9, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | Join NonZero’s newly established Discord server: https://discord.gg/FByzCzWf0:00 Was the Free Press bought “to control US media”? 8:50 Why pay $150M for a Substack? 10:59 Netanyahu on the TikTok deal and “giving direction” to the Jewish people 13:22 Pro-Israel donors giving a $2M ultimatum to Charlie Kirk about his ties to Tucker Carlson 17:30 How much influence does Israel have over US media? 24:32 Why Tucker Carlson’s appeal to Christians is a problem for Bibi 32:50 Trump: “I would make TikTok 100% MAGA related if I could” 41:00 Why Hamas would be crazy to trust Trump on his Gaza deal 50:55 Prigozhin conspiracy theory: Why would the Russian government want people to think he’s alive? 57:07 Cognitive sovereignty 1:00:01 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikita Petrov (https://psychopolitica.substack.com). Recorded October 7, 2025.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 Teaser 0:43 Steve’s book In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us 10:41 Were school closures smart policy? 18:03 The mask mandate question 24:12 Did medical experts get too much say? 30:39 The role of social class and political tribe 37:32 How dissent was suppressed 45:38 Bob takes a jab at Jay Bhattacharya 48:31 Heading to OT: Why Steve wrote the bookRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Stephen Macedo (Princeton University, In Covid’s Wake). Recorded September 16, 2025.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 The deal Hamas offered Bibi before October 7 11:50 How October 7 changed the landscape 22:34 Why Clinton’s Camp David talks failed 37:44 What Arafat was actually offered at Camp David 46:01 The centrality of the right of return 51:35 Beyond two states 55:57 Heading into OT: Abandoning false optimism is not pessimismRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Robert Malley (Yale - Jackson School of Global Affairs, Tomorrow is Yesterday). Recorded September 23, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Plus: TikTok’s pro-Israel future; Trump’s neocon conversion; Eurovision impairment; and more!

Listen now | 0:28 How Eliezer Yudkowsky’s new book envisions AI takeover 8:48 Will we ever really know how AI works? 15:34 The “paperclip maximizer” problem revisited 26:37 Will advanced AIs be insatiable? 32:03 David’s alternative takeover scenario: gradual disempowerment 43:55 Can—and should—we keep humans in the loop? 52:10 Heading to Overtime Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and David Krueger (The University of Montréal). Recorded September 24, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | Recorded September 20, 2025.

Listen now | 0:00 Teaser 1:04 Glenn’s latest book, Self-Censorship 4:31 Why the Manhattan Institute dropped Glenn 14:00 Glenn on Gaza: “I can’t bear it.” 27:27 “Genocide” and other Israel speech code flashpoints 37:01 Has Trump’s anti-antisemitism push chilled campus speech? 43:05 The irony of the antisemitism crackdown 51:23 A few kind and less kind words for Bari Weiss 56:45 Are Israel’s defenders hurting their cause? 1:02:24 Glenn’s next big project Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Glenn Loury (https://glennloury.substack.com/, Brown University, Hoover Institution, Late Admissions). Recorded September 15, 2025.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Plus: Chatbot homewreckers; Slippery Palantir; Gaza’s grim climax; Trump’s fake Caribbean drug war; Conflict entrepreneurs; and more!

Listen now | 0:00 Free speech after Charlie Kirk 20:04 Tyler Robinson’s strange messages 27:56 How influential was Kirk? 35:35 Do violent video games encourage violence? 48:07 Overtime topics: Paul’s debate triumph, Redford’s legacy, etc. 55:08 Heading into OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded September 18, 2025.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 How this conversation came to be 1:34 What surprised Glenn most about the Kirk killing 7:38 Who (or what) is driving our polarization? 16:39 Cognitive empathy for MAGA 24:27 Reacting to Charlie Kirk on affirmative action 43:34 Are we re-running the 1960s? 50:50 Coming up in part 2: Israel-GazaRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Glenn Loury (https://glennloury.substack.com/, Brown University, Late Admissions, Self-Censorship). Recorded September 15, 2024.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 Has the pace of AI progress slowed? 12:01 How the tech CEOs are learning to stop worrying 14:14 Mark Zuckerberg 22:44 Sam Altman 29:59 OpenAI’s attempt to shed its non-profit status 53:05 Dario Amodei 59:27 Heading into Overtime

Plus: South Park genius; AI vs. MAD; UN widely beloved! And more!

Listen now | 0:00 Teaser 0:56 "Would Putin send a weird sexually suggestive birthday greeting to a famous affluent well-connected pedophile?" 6:23 Decoding Trump's message in the greeting 13:47 Conspiracy theories vs official silence 19:42 Why is Ezra Klein content with "We'll never know"? 25:10 Why no president wants to release the Epstein files 27:18 Ghislaine names Clinton and Larry Summers 34:25 Does Epstein kill faith in democracy? 39:35 Trump vs. Putin: Authoritarian playbooks compared 44:14 Will Trumpism outlive Trump? 50:22 David Sacks embraces strongman tactics 57:04 How war changes everything overnight 1:01:27 Trump's Mexico invasion fantasy 1:06:01 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikita Petrov (https://psychopolitica.substack.com). Recorded September 09, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Plus: ICE agents outed; Michael McFaul squirms; Trump’s maritime mayhem; Low-tech immortality; and more!

Listen now | 0:00 The Bob-Paul secret sauce—spilled! 3:25 Mickey Kaus's latest contribution to Epsteinology 13:04 Paul fact-checks Mickey, gets fact-checked 19:51 What’s better: AI or indoor plumbing? 28:42 What Gary Marcus gets right—and (very) wrong—about AI 37:45 Has TV made us smarter? 41:49 The pros of the Google antitrust ruling 48:28 Putin’s paleo-transhumanism 53:05 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded September 04, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 Teaser 0:51 Seth’s new NYT bestseller, The Fort Bragg Cartel 2:58 What is Delta Force? 8:23 The growth of Delta Force's covert ops and unaccountability 14:56 American "death squads" 19:12 Why cops and prosecutors cover up crimes by elite soldiers 26:54 The mysterious murder of Billy Lavigne 34:49 How invading Afghanistan fueled America's drug crisis 46:09 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Seth Harp (Rolling Stone, New America, The Fort Bragg Cartel). Recorded August 26, 2025 Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 Bob welcomes Nikita back to the Nonzero team 6:19 WSJ's report on Trump's authoritarian drift 8:46 Three levers: streets, media, education system 12:58 Trump the businessman and Trump the politician 14:50 Why Putin was compelling in 1999, when Russia was a young democracy 22:37 Laws vs norms 29:05 Trump and lawfare: how independent is the US judiciary? 35:52 Partisanship among judges 38:28 Trump's view of the world as a game 42:44 Cynicism as a political brand 46:10 Nikita: Putin and Trump share a geopolitical worldview 49:46 The damage the US and Russia did to the international law 54:25 The evolution of Putin's understanding of geopolitics 59:22 Today's Overtime segment is open for everybody! 1:00:29 The crisis of the nation-state & NonZero's community building project 1:18:07 "Kremlin is not Russia": distinguishing between the nation and the state 1:19:35 Bob: We all need a tribe 1:24:32 What does it mean to be an American? 1:29:43 Nikita's Armenian propaganda: A legitimate reason to be proud of your nation Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikita Petrov (https://psychopolitica.substack.com). Recorded August 28, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Listen now | 0:00 Joe’s notable background 3:15 Is most of the MAGA coalition accelerationist? 7:28 Transhumanism, big tech, Klaus Schwab, and the noosphere 20:34 How the pandemic sparked a MAGA tech backlash 34:02 Palantir as bipartisan bête noire 40:17 The conservative case for AI regulation 51:37 Should fear of China trump fear of AI? 57:40 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Joe Allen (Singularity Weekly, War Room, Dark Aeon). Recorded August 13, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods