PODCAST · science
CSPI Podcast
by CSPI
Discussions with CSPI scholars and leading thinkers in science, technology, and politics. www.cspicenter.com
Episodes
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Margaritaville Retirement Communities and Utopian Socialism | Samuel Moyn on Gerontocracy
Samuel Moyn is a professor at Yale Law School. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It. Richard Hanania questions him on the book’s embrace of socialism, and the two debate the empirical evidence...
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"A Process Girl Living in an Outcomes World"
Sarah Isgur (X) is a former spokesperson at the Department of Justice and one of the hosts of the Advisory Opinions podcast. She joins this podcast to discuss her new book Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today’s Supreme Court, which is out today....
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What Does Kim Jong Un Want? | Richard Hanania & Peter Ward
In this episode, Richard Hanania speaks with Peter Ward, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute. Ward studies North Korean foreign policy, political economy, human rights, and Korean security issues. He also writes for NK Pro (NK News) and has published in various academic journals. This...
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Abundance, Liberals, and the Future of Conservatism
Jesse Arm (X, Substack) is the Vice President of External Affairs at the Manhattan Institute. He joins the podcast to talk about his recent article, “Ezra Klein’s Blindspot.” Along with Richard Hanania, he discusses whether there really is a pro-abundance future for the Democrats. The…
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Populism as a Backlash to Immigration
Laurenz Guenther (X, website) is a Research Fellow at the Toulouse School of Economics. He joins the podcast to discuss his working paper, “Political Representation Gaps and Populism.” Relying on survey data of politicians and regular citizens across the EU, he finds a simple explanation for the...
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Do We Need a More Assertive Congress?
Philip Wallach (follow on X) is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of the book Why Congress, which he joins Richard Hanania to discuss. In this conversation, Hanania and Wallach review the historical role of Congress in American politics, focusing on key events…
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Answering the Anti-Vaxxers | Stephen Goldstein & Richard Hanania
Stephen Goldstein (follow on X) is a postdoc in Evolutionary Virology at the University of Utah School of Medicine, where he specializes in coronaviruses. In this interview, he addresses common misconceptions about vaccines, particularly the debunked link to autism, and emphasizes the rigorous...
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How the Race Taboo Swallowed Our Political Culture | Eric Kaufmann & Richard Hanania
Eric Kaufmann is a research fellow at CSPI and a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution. Eric explains its thesis, which holds that the taboos around race that arose in…
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Sorting Through 498,000 Clinical Trials
Bess Stillman (email) is a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and writes at Everything Is An Emergency. She is also an excellent storyteller who uses her skills to convey the hectic and at times heart wrenching experiences one faces as an ER doctor. Bess is married to Jake Seliger, who in 2022 was…
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Nature, Nurture, and Overcoming Hardship | Rob Henderson and Richard Hanania on "Troubled"
Rob Henderson joins the podcast to talk about his book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. The conversation starts with a discussion about the recent controversy in which Rob was unable to find a book store that would host his launch. Rob also shares insights into his...
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Debt Commission to the Rescue? | Romina Boccia & Richard Hanania
Romina Boccia is the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, where she writes about government spending, the debt problem, and entitlement reform. She also has a Substack called the Debt Dispatch that you can subscribe to here. Romina joins the podcast to discuss…
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The Threat of AI Regulation with Brian Chau
Brian Chau writes and hosts a podcast at the From the New World Substack, and recently established a new think tank, the Alliance for the Future. He joins the podcast to discuss why he’s not worried about the alignment problem, where he disagrees with “doomers,” the accomplishments of ChatGPT...
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Ideology, Trade, and War | Andrew Roberts & Richard Hanania on Napoleon
Andrew Roberts (website, follow on X) is a historian, Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a member of the House of Lords. He joins the podcast to talk about his Napoleon: A Life. The conversation begins with a discussion of different counterfactuals...
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Heading Towards the Fiscal Cliff | Brian Riedl & Richard Hanania
Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy. His previous jobs include chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), and positions on the Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. He joins the podcast to talk about the…
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No Need to Argue. Just Build | Niklas Anzinger & Richard Hanania
Niklas Anzinger is the founder and General Partner of Infinita, the first Próspera-based VC fund, which invests in founders overcoming regulatory capture in crypto, biotech and hardware through network states and startup cities. He’s also one of the 100 or so residents of Próspera. This was quite...
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Propaganda and Power | Chris Rufo & Richard Hanania
Chris Rufo joins the podcast to talk about his new book, America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. Rufo begins by talking about his background and his theory of political change. The conversation then shifts to his new book, the strengths of Ron DeSantis as an...
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AI Alignment as a Solvable Problem | Leopold Aschenbrenner & Richard Hanania
In the popular imagination, the AI alignment debate is between those who say everything is hopeless, and others who tell us there is nothing to worry about. Leopold Aschenbrenner graduated valedictorian from Columbia in 2021 when he was 19 years old. He is currently a research affiliate at the...
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Understanding Right and Left | Bryan Caplan & Richard Hanania
Bryan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality. Bryan begins by explaining why he hates politics. Much of the conversation then centers around Caplan’s simplistic theory of the right and left. This is compared and contrasted...
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Marc Andreessen On Venture Capital, Science, Tech, Progress, and More (Rerelease)
This week we’re rereleasing a previous episode with Marc Andreessen, originally released on August 16, 2021. He is co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz. Earlier in life, he was the co-founder of Opsware, Ning, and Netscape. Marc joins the podcast to talk about what’s gone wrong...
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Waiting for the Betterness Explosion | Robin Hanson & Richard Hanania
Robin Hanson joins the podcast to talk about the AI debate. He explains his reasons for being skeptical about “foom,” or the idea that there will emerge a sudden superintelligence that will be able to improve itself quickly and potentially destroy humanity in the service of its goals. Among his...
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Administrative Procedure and the Common Good | Nicholas Bagley & Richard Hanania
Nicholas Bagley is a professor of law at the University of Michigan, former Chief Legal Counsel to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a former attorney in the US Department of Justice. He joins the podcast to talk about his article, “The Procedure Fetish,” in which he calls for liberals to embrace...
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Right-Wing Populism and Moral Corrosion | Tim Miller & Richard Hanania
Tim Miller is a former political operative who has worked for Jeb Bush and John Huntsman, and is currently a writer for The Bulwark and an MSNBC analyst. He joins the podcast to talk about his political memoir, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. With a former insider’s...
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Why the Singularity Might Never Come | Jobst Landgrebe, Barry Smith, and Richard Hanania
Jobst Landgrebe is a German scientist and entrepreneur. He began his career as a Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, then moved on to become a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Göttingen, working in cell biology and biomathematics. In April 2013, he founded Cognotekt, an…
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Why is the West Special? | Joe Henrich & Richard Hanania
Joe Henrich is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology and Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is the author of Why Humans Cooperate, The Secret of Our Success, and The WEIRDest People in the World. He joins the podcast to talk about his work. Topics...
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Understanding the Flows of History | Garett Jones & Richard Hanania
Garett Jones is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, The Culture Transplant. Richard asks whether IQ is superior to other measures used to predict prosperity, and the relationship between Garett’s new book and Hive Mind. He also...
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Getting at True Heritability | Alexander Young & Richard Hanania
Alexander Young is a researcher at the UCLA Anderson School of Management Genomics Department and School of Medicine’s Human Genetics Department, working with the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC). He studies the genetics of cognitive ability and educational attainment, with a...
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The Right-Wing Echo Chamber | Aaron Sibarium & Richard Hanania
Aaron Sibarium is a recent graduate of Yale University (2018) and journalist who writes for the Washington Free Beacon. He joins the podcast to discuss his work covering identity politics issues from a conservative perspective, along with his dream of eventually synthesizing his reporting with…
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Blame Elites...or the Masses? | Rob Henderson, Zach Goldberg, & Richard Hanania
Rob Henderson recently received his PhD in psychology at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Zach Goldberg is a former research fellow at CSPI and currently affiliated with the Manhattan Institute. They both join the podcast to talk about Rob’s idea of “luxury beliefs” and Zach’s new paper…
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Identity and Elite Polarization | Eric Kaufmann & Richard Hanania
Eric Kaufmann is a distinguished researcher and a fellow at CSPI. He joins the podcast to talk about his latest CSPI report, “Diverse and Divided: A Political Demography of American Elite Students.” The data indicates that we can expect a future in which elites continue to be heavily divided by...
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Operation Warp Speed and the Triumph of Governance | Alex Tabarrok & Richard Hanania
Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about his involvement in Operation Warp Speed, a uniquely successful federal government project. Richard asks how broadly applicable its lessons are, whether or not we could do something similar for...
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Thinking about "Social Justice" Like an Economist | Bryan Caplan & Richard Hanania
Bryan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about his new book Don’t Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice. The lead essay is written as a letter to his daughter in the hopes that she will reject an ideology that is wrong on the facts and psychologically damaging. Richard asks whether Bryan grants...
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"How Ambitious Are You?" | Tyler Cowen & Richard Hanania
Tyler Cowen needs no introduction. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, co-authored with Daniel Gross, called Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World. Richard asks him about whether intelligence is overrated or underrated, the idea of “State…
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Diversity, Debate, Decline | Amy Wax & Richard Hanania
Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She joins the podcast to talk about the ongoing attempt to cancel and possibly fire her for making politically incorrect remarks. Usually there is some pretext that a professor actually engaged in...
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Mana from Heaven | Stephen Grugett, James Grugett, & Richard Hanania
Stephen and James Grugett are programmers, entrepreneurs, and cofounders of the website Manifold Markets, which hosts user-created prediction markets. They join the podcast to discuss the CSPI/Salem Tournament on Manifold Markets, which launched last week. The Grugetts and Richard talk about the...
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Policy Reform for Progress | Andrew Kenneson, Maxwell Tabarrok, Brent Skorup & Richard Hanania
On this week’s CSPI Podcast, Richard interviews the top three winners of the CSPI Essay Contest: Policy Reform For Progress. The first interview is with contest winner Andrew Kenneson, a program navigator at a public housing authority in Kodiak, Alaska and former reporter. In “Gathering Steam:...
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Lessons from the Frontlines of the University Wars | Richard Lowery & Richard Hanania
Richard Lowery is an Associate Professor of Finance at The University of Texas at Austin and a senior scholar at the Salem Center for Public Policy. He joins the podcast to talk about his recent article “How UT-Austin Administrators Destroyed an Intellectual Diversity Initiative,” which details...
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The American Race Regime | David Bernstein & Richard Hanania
David Bernstein is a Law Professor and Executive Director of the Liberty and Law Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America. David and Richard discuss the...
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Does Big Data Know Best? | Seth Stephens-Davidowitz & Richard Hanania
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a data scientist, author, and keynote speaker. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and is a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times. He joins the podcast to talk about his two books, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us...
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How LGBT Are the Kids? | Eric Kaufmann & Richard Hanania
Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, a CSPI research fellow, and the author of several books, including Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities. He returns to the podcast to discuss his new report for CPSI, Born This Way?…
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Social Desirability as the Enemy of Truth | Bryan Caplan & Richard Hanania
Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a visiting senior scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of several books, including The Myth of the Rational Voter and The Case Against Education. He returns to the podcast to talk about his two new...
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The Future of Tech (Bonus Episode) | Eron Wolf & Richard Hanania
Eron Wolf is the founder of Yahoo! Games, a WhatsApp seed investor, and the founder and CEO of FUTO, an Austin-based organization dedicated to developing technologies to fight the centralization and consolidation of the tech industry. He and Richard talk about the business model of Big Tech and…
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Baby Brainwaves and Broken Science | Jordan Lasker & Richard Hanania
Jordan Lasker is a PhD student at Texas Tech University and a bioinformatician. He joins the podcast to discuss his recent report for CSPI, “About Those Baby Brainwaves: Why ‘Policy Relevant’ Social Science is Mostly a Fraud.” The report critically examined a recent study claiming small cash...
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The Le Pen Curse | Philippe Lemoine & Richard Hanania
Philippe Lemoine returns to the CSPI Podcast to discuss his prediction for the 2022 French Presidential election. This episode was recorded on April 22nd, two days before Macron’s victory on April 24th, because Philippe was so confident in his forecast that he didn’t think it was necessary to…
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Towards an Anti-Woke Political Program | Gail Heriot & Richard Hanania
Gail Heriot is a Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law and a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She joins the podcast to explain the connections between civil rights law and wokeness, how disparate impact criminalizes everything and leads to arbitrary...
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Is the West to Blame for Ukraine? | Noah Carl & Richard Hanania
Noah Carl is an independent researcher, writer, and free speech advocate. He invited Richard on his new podcast (which you can find at Noah’s Substack) to discuss whether the West is to blame for the conflict in Ukraine. We’re re-releasing that episode, which originally came out on March 1st....
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"The Pressure to Conform is Enormous": Steve Hsu on Affirmative Action, Assimilation, and IQ Outliers | Steve Hsu & Richard Hanania
Steve Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He returns to the CSPI Podcast for a wide-ranging discussion of various personal, political, and technical topics, including his attempted cancelation...
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Vision, Beauty, and Creative Destruction in Silicon Valley | Jimmy Soni & Richard Hanania
Jimmy Soni is a biographer and speechwriter. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, “The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley,” which explores the early days, history, and legacy of PayPal. It also outlines the unique qualities, business savvy…
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The Future of Humanity Is IVF Babies and Chinese Domination | Steve Hsu & Richard Hanania
Stephen Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. He is also a serial entrepreneur and has published on genomics, in addition to blogging on a wide range of topics from econometrics and geopolitics…
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Practical Progress in DC | Alec Stapp & Richard Hanania
Alec Stapp is co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a new think tank that focuses on accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress. He joins Richard to talk about why he started his think tank and what policymaking looks like in DC behind the scenes. They also discuss the idea…
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Darwin and Marx: Friends or Foes? | Freddie deBoer & Richard Hanania
Freddie deBoer joins the podcast to talk about his book “The Cult of Smart,” which argues that many problems in the education system and American society are due to the failure to grapple with the fixed nature of individual differences in intelligence. He and Richard discuss the effectiveness of...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does CSPI Podcast have?
CSPI Podcast currently has 76 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is CSPI Podcast about?
Discussions with CSPI scholars and leading thinkers in science, technology, and politics. www.cspicenter.com
How often does CSPI Podcast release new episodes?
CSPI Podcast has 76 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to CSPI Podcast?
You can listen to CSPI Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts CSPI Podcast?
CSPI Podcast is created and hosted by CSPI.
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