Hacking State

Charles Haywood is the Maximum Leader of The Worthy House , publisher of over 600 book reviews, and creator of a framework for the renewal of society called Foundationalism. We talk about how buying machinery from a defunct hair products manufacturer made him tremendously wealthy, The Worthy House and refining his politics by writing hundreds of book reviews, the (im)possibility of political actio...

I speak with Nina Power about her harrowing defamation suit court battle, the narrowing window of free expression in the West, novel problems of anonymity, pseudonymity, and identity presented by the internet, the antagonism of the philosopher and the city, and the need for cultural tools to push back against authoritarian overreaches in free expression. Nina Power on Substack: https://ninapower.s...

Nick Simmons is Cofounder and member of Octu Ventures, a member-driven venture DAO investing in teams building on Urbit. Urbit comprises a decentralized network of personal servers, a unique digital ID system, and a decentralized peer-to-peer networking protocol. Altogether, these constitute load-bearing pillars of a truly digital civilization. We talk about the Urbit stack, Octu's thesis behind a...

Alexander Pacheco is the founder of social media platform, 150. Based on Dunbar’s Limit, 150’s innovative social network leverages insights from network science to create a small-town feel that elides many of the downsides that come with incumbent social media giants. Alexander walks us through using anthropology and human nature to shape the network topology of 150 to more closely reflect the way...

I’m joined by cofounder and organizer of the 2023 Natal Conference in Austin, TX, Kevin Dolan. We talk about the conception of a conference to promote having more babies, the various religious and techno-optimist factions of the Natalist Movement, environmental detriments to fertility, how we’re radically undervaluing motherhood, thought-terminating technical solutions to the fertility crisis, sur...

I am joined by Charles Rosenbauer and Olli Payne of Possibilia Magazine. Possibilia is an ambitious literary magazine showcasing realistic, optimistic science fiction. They’re bringing positive visions of the future in digital and in print—replete with short stories, nonfiction companion pieces, and illustration.   We talk about the constraints of keeping sci-fi optimistic and realistic, working w...

I speak with father of the Passage Prize and Keeper of the Passage Press, Lomez. Passage Prize started as an open call for literary and artistic submissions to find untapped talent from the Twitter anon sphere. It quickly exceeded its initial ambitions, drawing artists both obscure and famous to claim their spot in the coveted limited run print edition book, and a share of the $20,000 prize. From...

On Ayn Rand, Objectivism, the resonance of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, the development and spread of Individualism, high Romanticism, Rand's polarizing characters, the relationship between altruism and selfishness in her works and philosophy, Ayn Rand's large influence on entrepreneurs, and the intellectual subculture of Randian academics. Stephen R. C. Hicks is Professor of Philosophy at...

For part 2 of the Cofnas-Macdonald debate I interview evolutionary psychologist Kevin Macdonald. We go over his response to Nathan Cofnas' objections to the Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy laid out in "The Culture of Critique" series, his explanations for outstanding Jewish influence, conscientiousness, emotional intensity, and affect intensity as notably Jewish personality traits, Ashkenazi ve...

Nathan Cofnas is Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, working in philosophy of biology and ethics. We discuss his paper “Still No Evidence for a Jewish Group Evolutionary Strategy” in the context of his ongoing debate with Kevin MacDonald and "The Culture of Critique” series. We cover explanations for outstanding and disproportionate Jewish success, differences in Jewish intellige...

I speak with sci-fi horrorist Zero HP Lovecraft on his Six Components of Religious Experience, a functionalist approach to religion, the concept of God becoming increasingly abstract and far away (divine distance), how Christianity can benefit from Nietzsche’s bitter medicine, Christianity’s struggle with modern sexual mores, pathological altruism, why goodness is strength, regaining self-possessi...

Luca Cacciatore joins me to discuss Christianity in America, the decline of religiosity, the Second Great Awakening, how technology mediates religiosity, faith and fertility, religion grappling with science, the Evangelical Revolution, and the dearth of compelling Christian narratives for young men.

I am joined by Kino Corner to discuss movie making, film as a medium for capturing the zeitgeist of different eras, shooting on digital, film, and hybrid, the economics of why mid-budget movies have disappeared, crowdfunding movies, The Killer (Fincher, 2023), Asteroid City (Anderson, 2023), drifting from the binge model of TV series', and the Kino Corner's 5 masterpiece film recommendations. Rele...

Michael Millerman joins me to discuss starting a philosophy school, why tech and startups are seeking wisdom, whether Western philosophy is still a living tradition, objections to the usefulness of philosophy, leading students to the eternal questions, the intimate pleasure of communing with old friends, Martin Heidegger's influence on Alexander Dugin, Leo Strauss and Heidegger's disagreement on p...

I sit down with Bitcoin Gandalf for a deep dive on Satoshi's immaculate coinception. Gandalf is a large influencer in the Bitcoin space and works in Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin is one of the most innovative technologies of the last century from a governance and coordination perspective. I believe it has the potential to be a vehicle for civilization-level reconfiguration of value. We cover our respect...

DeepNews is using LLMs to aggregate and summarize the latest news across the internet, seeking to change the way we digest news. Nikolai Yakovenko is an ex-Twitter, Google, and Nvidia machine-learning engineer who initially forayed into Web3 with his venture 'DeepNFTValue,' which uses machine learning to estimate the value of NFTs; before also going on to create DeepNews. We cover using generative...

We envision a nuclear Texas. Grant Dever is a research fellow at FREOPP (Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity) who writes about energy policy, with a focus on nuclear power. He earned his degree in economics and business from the University of Rochester. During the pandemic, Grant cultivated community for IndieThinkers.org—an accelerator for independent thinkers on the internet. He also au...

Brendon Marotta is a filmmaker, author, and podcaster. We talk about his book, "Children's Justice", which applies critical theory to the controversial topic of infant circumcision. We go through his decision to appropriate the tools and tactics of critical theory in service of this issue, apprehensions around taking circumcision up as a social justice or human rights concern, my discomfort with e...

Engineer and essayist Stephen Pimentel joins me for a review of the recently released bestselling book in Political Philosophy, Costin Alamariu’s “Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy”. In this discussion we go deep in tracing the argument, point-by-point, of Costin’s thesis concerning the twin emergence of philosophy and tyranny out of the idea of nature, and its teaching and preservati...

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University, as well as the founder of Genomic Prediction and SuperFocus AI; he also hosts the Manifold podcast, and the Information Processing blog. Steve and I speak about polygenic risk scoring and embryo selection, using AI to predict phenotype from genotype, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, eugenic public policy, addres...

Garrett Dailey is the founder of Aion Enterprises, a business philosophy and design firm. We speak about the meaning of Aion, building a business around philosophy, individuation, the Candy Cane model of reality, and the importance of aesthetics for catalyzing people with a compelling vision of the future. “Any sufficiently complex thought is philosophy.” Aion: https://www.aion.enterprises/ https:...

Disgraced Propagandist (Isaac Simpson) is the founder of WILL, a dissident marketing agency, and The Carousel Substack and podcast. We speak about how WILL does dissident marketing for a cohort of new natural “wholesome” brands, the marketing industry as the canary in the coal mine for workplaces becoming Longhouses, the power of branding, the meaning of The Carousel metaphor, nostalgia, the “hype...

Razib Khan is a population geneticist, has a popular Substack on genetics and history, and is a co-founder of GenRAIT. We speak about his role in the scientific ecosystem, the effect of the computing revolution on ancient genetics and genomics, why he’s most interested in Eurasian steppe populations, how ancient DNA has shed light on theories in archeology and philology, the effects of delayed fer...

Hannah Frankman is the founder of Rebel Educator, an all-inclusive resource hub for parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs. We discuss her experiences in educational reform and alternative paths to education, Montessori education philosophy, her involvement in the education space, and the launch of Rebel Educator. We also cover criticisms of the educational system and popular alternatives, homeschoo...

Bo Winegard on life after cancellation, why we should talk about group differences in intelligence, Aporia - a new magazine courting heterodox social science and philosophy, victimhood rhetoric, the tedious relationship of truth to justice, anonymity vs. identity, are we at peak wokeness?, noble lies, epistemic accelerationism, limits to academic discourse in public, and his proposal for a Republi...