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Teaser ... "Would Putin send a weird sexually suggestive birthday greeting to a famous affluent well-connected pedophile?" ... Decoding Trump's message in the greeting ... Conspiracy theories vs official silence ... Why is Ezra Klein content with "We'll never know"? ... Why no president wants to release the Epstein files ... Ghislaine names Clinton and Larry Summers ... Does Epstein kill faith in democracy? ... Trump vs. Putin: Authoritarian playbooks compared ... Will Trumpism outlive Trump? ... David Sacks embraces strongman tactics ... How war changes everything overnight ... Trump's Mexico invasion fantasy ... Heading to Overtime ...

The Bob-Paul secret sauce—spilled! ... Mickey Kaus's latest contribution to Epsteinology ... Paul fact-checks Mickey, gets fact-checked ... What’s better: AI or indoor plumbing? ... What Gary Marcus gets right—and (very) wrong—about AI ... Has TV made us smarter? ... The pros of the Google antitrust ruling ... Putin’s paleo-transhumanism ... Heading to Overtime ...

Teaser ... Seth’s new NYT bestseller, The Fort Bragg Cartel ... What is Delta Force? ... The growth of Delta Force's covert ops and unaccountability ... American "death squads" ... Why cops and prosecutors cover up crimes by elite soldiers ... The mysterious murder of Billy Lavigne ... How invading Afghanistan fueled America's drug crisis ... Heading to Overtime ...

Bob welcomes Nikita back to the Nonzero team ... WSJ's report on Trump's authoritarian drift ... Three levers: streets, media, education system ... Trump the businessman and Trump the politician ... Why Putin was compelling in 1999, when Russia was a young democracy ... Laws vs norms ... Trump and lawfare: how independent is the US judiciary? ... Partisanship among judges ... Trump's view of the world as a game ... Cynicism as a political brand ... Nikita: Putin and Trump share a geopolitical worldview ... The damage the US and Russia did to the international law ... The evolution of Putin's understanding of geopolitics ... Today's Overtime segment is open for everybody! ... The...

Joe’s notable background ... Is most of the MAGA coalition accelerationist? ... Transhumanism, big tech, Klaus Schwab, and the noosphere ... How the pandemic sparked a MAGA tech backlash ... Palantir as bipartisan bête noire ... The conservative case for AI regulation ... Should fear of China trump fear of AI? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Connor’s farewell ... What’s next at NonZero ... The looming invasion of Gaza City ... Israel's one-state solution ... Why did Trump give up on Gaza? ... The "blame-it-on-Bibi" farce ... A disappointing week for Ukraine ... How to make security guarantees work ... Ukraine's ticking time bomb ...

Bob defends the Unabomber (kind of) ... Paul nurses his Mickey-inflicted wounds ... Bob deflates the GPT-5 deflation ... How big a deal are LLM hallucinations? ... AI's coming social and economic disruptions ... How Bob and Paul use AI ... The ideas of Hanno Sauer ... Heading to Overtime ...

What’s at stake in Alaska ... George: Don’t try to do too much ... EU yes, NATO no ... Could Putin dupe Trump into a bad deal? ... Sanctions: painful, but not decisive ... What Russian media is saying about the talks ... Are Europe & Ukraine warming to a deal? ...

Nathan’s work at AI2—and his p(doom) ... What does “open source AI” mean? ... How Nathan taught a Llama new tricks ... Pros and cons of open sourcing AI ... Nathan's ATOM Project to boost American open models ... What's behind OpenAI's open source play? ... Geoffrey Hinton's case against open models ... Is the US-China open model rivalry really zero-sum? ... Heading to Overtime ...

Epstein's Israel connections ... Epstein's history of blackmail ... Was it suicide? ... Epstein's creepy relationship with Trump ... Why won’t Trump release the files? ... The Israel connection(s) ... Some Epstein-Wexner weirdness ... What’s the deal with Ghislaine? ... Was it suicide? (cont’d) ... Mickey plays pundit defender ... Influence operation or personal fetish operation? Or both? ... How Biden made war in Taiwan more likely ... Epstein's strangely light 2008 sentence ... The political cost for Trump ... How dangerous is Trump? ...

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? ... What a real aid response would take now ...

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 ...