A war has broken out on X between Tech Right types and populists over the question of Indian immigration. For context, see this article, or basically scroll through my entire X feed. I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day posting about this, as this topic is where many of my interests overlap. I’m particularly fascinated by the idea of right-wing …

Tom Khaled Würdemann (follow on X) is a PhD student at Heidelberg University. He also works as a lecturer at the Police College of the State of Hassia, Germany. He joins the podcast to talk mainly about the history of Syria and recent events in that country. I am particularly fascinated by the question of why a nation that had multiple coups in the…

Michael Tracey joined me tonight to discuss the fall of the Syrian regime. We speculate about the future of Syria, and express surprise regarding how little Assad did to rally his troops and try to inspire them to fight on. See here for the WSJ piece we refer to. Read more

Bryan joined me on a livestream recently to talk about his new book Self-Help is Like a Vaccine. We discuss topics like parenting, how to live a stress free life, when to stick to one’s principles and when to compromise, and more. We end by taking a few questions from the audience. See Bryan on Milei and populism, which is another one of the issues…

Stephen Goldstein (follow on X) is a postdoc in Evolutionary Virology at the University of Utah Medical School, where he specializes in coronaviruses. He joins me to discuss vaccines and whether you should get them. Short answer: yes. I’ve been delving a bit into the claims of anti-vaxxers, and every time you look at one of their arguments it falls…

Tonight I had a livestream with Mike Tracey on the Hunter Biden pardon, Trump expressing an intent to name Kash Patel as FBI Director, the latest in Syria, and what Trump might do in Ukraine. I explain to Michael why Trump appointing both of his daughters’ fathers-in-law to positions might make sense, as in my view nepotism isn’t necessarily a bad …

My friend Tracing Woodgrains joined me on the live stream today. Earlier this month, he and I published articles in Quillette one day apart on a similar theme, which is the need for a sane centrism beyond woke leftism and the Trump cult. We try to distinguish between a kind of libertarian-statist axis and one that focuses on whether institutions ar…

Michael Tracey joins me on a livestream today to discuss Matt Gaetz withdrawing his nomination to be Attorney General. We also talk about where MAGA is going, the increasing meaninglessness of the term “neocon”, escalation in Ukraine, and more. Here’s the video Michael sent me showing the missile attack in Dnipro today. I’ve found that livestreams …

I had an hour in my car today and decided to do a livestream where I talked about the Trump appointments so far. We had a few normal days and then it sort of went off the rails. The RFK and Gabbard appointments are particularly shocking, as is Gaetz in a different way. I thought that the Gribbles would be tossed aside after the election and now tha…

I’ve written about my struggles with animal rights before. On the one hand, every ethical argument in favor of veganism is correct. On the other, I want a diet that is high in lean protein and satisfies my taste, and that means eating a lot of chicken and seafood, which are among the worst options from the perspective of minimizing suffering. Lucki…