Bret Devereaux on How to Restrain Government Power

Bret Devereaux on How to Restrain Government Power

Bret Devereaux is a military historian and a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. He writes the blog "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry," which covers US foreign policy, the nature of military tactics in war, and the best sci-fi/fantasy stories. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about what Star Wars teaches us about modern insurgencies, why non-violent protest often works as a potent strategy, and the best-case scenario for the future of American democracy. Show Notes "Collections: Against the State – A Primer on Terrorism, Insurgency and Protest" [https://acoup.blog/2026/02/13/collections-against-the-state-a-primer-on-terrorism-insurgency-and-protest/] by Bret Devereaux, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry Letter from Birmingham Jail [https://bri-wp-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/Letter-From-Birmingham-Jail.pdf] The End of History and the Last Man [https://a.co/d/etYdBp5] by Francis Fukuyama

Matthew Yglesias on the Path Forward for Democrats

Matthew Yglesias is the head of the Substack "Slow Boring" and co-host of the podcasts The Argument and Politix. He's been writing about politics for far longer than many people have been politically aware: he's written for Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and more. He even helped co-found the website Vox back in 2014. Nowadays, his thesis is that Democrats need to moderate on many contentious issues: crime, non-renewable energy, transgender participation in sports, and so on. It's this thesis of his that I find incredibly fascinating, and that's part of the reason I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with him here. In this episode, I got the chance to speak with him about the concept of the median voter, Matt's dynamic with his friend Ezra Klein, and which priorities Democrats ought to focus on to gain popularity. Show Notes "In defense of being wildly out of touch" [https://www.slowboring.com/p/in-defense-of-being-wildly-out-of] by Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring "Should race matter in college admissions?" [https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/should-race-matter-in-college-admissions] from The Argument Podcast "Shmoderation is the future" [https://www.slowboring.com/p/shmoderation-is-the-future] by Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring

Abi Olvera on the Case for AI Optimism

A few weeks ago, the AI company Anthropic announced something genuinely strange. They had built a new model, codenamed Mythos, that was so capable at cybersecurity tasks they decided not to release it to the public. Instead, they're using it, quietly, with a small group of partners, to patch vulnerabilities in the world's most important software before anyone else gets a model this talented. Abi Olvera is the Research Director at the Golden Gate Institute and the writer behind the Substack "Positive Sum." She specializes in understanding the constraints and abilities of emerging technology, particularly AI. As a result, she has a unique amount of insight on AI's capabilities, and knows what Mythos actually suggests about the pace of AI progress and innovation. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about how her working-class background has affected her views on AI, whether AI is currently growing at an exponential rate, and the positive effects that AI might have on the next generation. Show Notes Assessing Claude Mythos Preview’s cybersecurity capabilities [https://red.anthropic.com/2026/mythos-preview/] "The optimism gap that's shaping AI policy" [https://theexistentialhope.substack.com/p/the-optimism-gap-thats-shaping-ai] by Abi Olvera, Existential Hope "Kelsey Piper on Whether AI Will Kill Us All" [https://andrewxu218.substack.com/p/kelsey-piper-on-whether-ai-will-kill-83b] from Frames of Space "To Forecast AI's Impact on Biosecurity, We Asked: Why are Attacks So Rare?" [https://secondthoughts.ai/p/why-arent-bioweapons-common] by Abi Olvera, Second Thoughts "The Most Powerful and Dangerous AI Model Yet" [https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/plain-english-with-derek-thompson/2026/04/21/the-most-powerful-and-dangerous-ai-model-yet] from Plain English with Derek Thompson "Could Artificial Intelligence undermine constructive disagreement?" [https://heterodoxacademy.substack.com/p/could-artificial-intelligence-undermine] by David Rozado, Free the Inquiry

Jordan Schneider on Podcasting and Political Corruption

Jordan Schneider is the host of ChinaTalk, a podcast and newsletter covering China, US foreign policy, and the technology shaping both. He's been podcasting since 2017, and has learned a thing or two about how to shape conversations with guests to make them as interesting as possible. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the nature of podcasting as a forcing function for learning, whether a more powerful UN is preferable or feasible, and what the Roger Bannister effect has to do with the extent of Trump's corruption. Show Notes "Ezra, Derek, and Dan Wang" [https://www.chinatalk.media/p/abundance-and-antagonism] from ChinaTalk "Does America’s “China Consensus” Make Sense? A Debate" [https://www.nonzero.org/p/does-americas-china-consensus-make] from Robert Wright's Nonzero Why Congress [https://www.amazon.com/Why-Congress-Wallach/dp/0197657877] by Philip Wallach My first attempt at an AI-generated song [https://suno.com/s/TieGxmIVBygev4XO]

Kelsey Piper on Whether AI Will Kill Us All

Kelsey Piper is a staff writer at The Argument, a publication dedicated to having productive arguments among people who disagree about important political topics. I tried my best to carry the spirit of The Argument with me when speaking with Kelsey in this episode, and I had a blast the entire time. In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about her take on the AI extinction debate, the risk that AI will make it easier to build destructive bioweapons, and how her views on effective altruism have shaped her understanding of artificial intelligence. Show Notes “To Forecast AI’s Impact on Biosecurity, We Asked: Why are Attacks So Rare?” [https://secondthoughts.ai/p/why-arent-bioweapons-common] by Abi Olvera, Second Thoughts "Forecasting Existential Risks: Evidence from a Long-Run Forecasting Tournament" [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/635693acf15a3e2a14a56a4a/t/64f0a7838ccbf43b6b5ee40c/1693493128111/XPT.pdf#page=270] (See Pg. 63 for bioweapon risk, and Pg. 270 for AI extinction risk) Kelsey Piper's note on AI progress vs. diffusion [https://substack.com/@kelseytuoc/note/c-225936652?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=mxs99] "How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence" [https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/03/how-the-us-public-and-ai-experts-view-artificial-intelligence/] from The Pew Research Center Séb Krier's tweet on AGI development [https://x.com/sebkrier/status/2018351274127962300]