CSPI Podcast

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. The conversation covers the role of the Supreme Court, the nature of American institutions, and the...

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 discussion explores the structure of the North Korean state, its evolving legal system, ideological shifts,...

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 conversation involves a comparison of the two parties, and a debate over what is happening on both sides of the...

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 rise of populism across the continent. Politicians are one standard deviation to the left of the pub...

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 from the FDR administration to the present. Wallach explains the important role Congress played in mak...

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 safety testing that vaccines undergo. The conversation also explores the reactions to COVID-19 vaccines...

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 Richard debate...

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 struggles that she...

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 than dwelling on...

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 politicians out of making...

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 it did with nuclear...

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 Roberts explaini...

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 projected to run out...

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 Niklas said, which wa...

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. Topics include: * W...

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 on philanthropy...

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 with Scott Alexander’s thrive/survive theory of the political spectrum, Robin Hanson’s theory of farme...

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 with science, the prerequisites for progress, and how tech has changed our lives and has the potential t...

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 arguments are: * We should start with a very low prior about something like this happening, given the hi...

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 reforms to make federal government agencies less sclerotic and more capable of addressing social problems...

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 perspective, Miller discusses * Where the Republican Party went wrong * The importance of character in...

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 AI based language technology company. Barry Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffal...

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 Succes s, and The WEIRDest People in the World . He joins the podcast to talk about his work. Topics include: * The implications of Henrich’s theories for the debate over AI alignment * The nature of intel...

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 presses the author on whether there is a selection effect in data showing that people preserve the trait...

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 particular focus on developing methods to uncover true measures of heritability for important traits....