CSPI Podcast

Jul 15 2024 69 ep. 79 mins 1.2k

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Discussions with CSPI scholars and leading thinkers in science, technology, and politics.

www.cspicenter.com

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How the Race Taboo Swallowed Our Political Culture | Eric Kaufmann & Richard Hanania

Jul 15 2024 77 mins

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 the 1960s expanded into other areas of life and eventually led to modern wokeness. He and

Sorting Through 498,000 Clinical Trials

Jun 17 2024 68 mins

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 diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. She has written a three-part series about the struggle

Nature, Nurture, and Overcoming Hardship | Rob Henderson and Richard Hanania on "Troubled"

May 06 2024 62 mins

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 writing style, which focuses on conveying his experiences in a matter-of-fact way rather t

Debt Commission to the Rescue? | Romina Boccia & Richard Hanania

Apr 01 2024 56 mins

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 available paths to deal with the coming entitlement crisis. One potential way to get politician

The Threat of AI Regulation with Brian Chau

Mar 18 2024 72 mins

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 versus DALL-E, the dangers of regulating AI until progress comes to a halt in the way

Ideology, Trade, and War | Andrew Roberts & Richard Hanania on Napoleon

Jan 22 2024 47 mins

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 regarding ways in which Napoleon might have been able to stay in power, which leads to Robe

Heading Towards the Fiscal Cliff | Brian Riedl & Richard Hanania

Nov 20 2023 54 mins

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 financial future of the United States, with a special focus on entitlements. Medicare is proje

No Need to Argue. Just Build | Niklas Anzinger & Richard Hanania

Oct 30 2023 57 mins

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 an optimistic conversation. The title of the podcast comes from the last thing Nikl

Propaganda and Power | Chris Rufo & Richard Hanania

Jul 24 2023 80 mins

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 administrator, and finally what he’s doing on the board of the New College of Florida. Top

AI Alignment as a Solvable Problem | Leopold Aschenbrenner & Richard Hanania

May 15 2023 62 mins

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 Global Priorities Institute at Oxford, and previously helped run Future Fund, which works