0:28 Are Bob and Mike the godfathers of podcasting? 6:10 Slate and the origins of podcasting 9:36 NotebookLM’s humanless podcasts 14:07 From blogs to Substack 18:12 Looking back at BloggingHeads 23:38 The tribalizing influence of algorithms 31:13 New news models 40:01 What happened to the rules in professional sports? 48:49 The consequences of paying college athletes 1:00:08 Mike’s comprehensive take on sports gambling 1:06:45 Heading into OT: The perils of opining on Israel

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mike Pesca (The Gist). Recorded December 23, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Different readings of the Renee Good videos 14:27 JD Vance vs Stephen Miller: compare and contrast 18:18 Trump vs Hitler: compare and contrast 23:18 ICE agents and stormtroopers: compare and contrast 34:57 Has Elon totally lost it? 42:45 Paul: Politicians are people too! 47:03 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded January 12, 2026. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Cameron’s work at AE studio 5:37 Why consciousness is such a hard problem 10:15 Why AI consciousness matters 16:42 Does consciousness need carbon? 23:20 The ethics of AI subjectivity 30:09 Can we trust LLM self-reports? 42:57 Cameron’s innovative AI consciousness experiments 48:24 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Cameron Berg (AE Studio, Truity). Recorded December 17, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Joel’s legendary Bloggingheads line 6:55 NASA’s new chief: More than a Musk toady? 12:53 Why we’re still not living in Star Trek 21:05 The space alien question 31:27 Can we make the moon program great again? 46:16 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Joel Achenbach (The Grand Idea, Captured by Aliens, A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea). Recorded December 22, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 David Lynch, Jane Goodall and other notable 2025 losses 8:59 When Bob called James Watson a “mad scientist” 14:02 Predicting 2050: Star Trek abundance vs. “Total Chaos Planet”? 21:46 The age of algorithmically guided attention 26:18 Global poverty reduction (and its flip side) 30:54 Will anyone care if your newsletter is AI-written? 34:48 Trump’s USAID cuts killed a lot of people 37:48 Elon Musk, Alex Karp, and the age of the “manifestly crazy” 41:08 Can the Supreme Court stop Trump? 44:18 JD Vance’s identity crisis: Tech bro or populist? 49:15 The “Black Swan”: When AI starts killing people 53:10 AI scientific breakthroughs to come 1:00:22 Bob and Paul’s 2025 Entertainment Awards 1:04:52 Which jobs are truly AI-proof? 1:18:39 Bob’s Epstein document deep-dive 1:27:39 Bill Ackman’s conspiracy-theory-brained year 1:31:08 Are US arms sales pushing China to invade Taiwan? 1:37:13 Barry Weiss’s journalistic scruples Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded December 29, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

2:30 What era are we living in? 3:27 David Bowie: “The Internet is an alien life form.” 4:45 Bob: “It’s like aliens are approaching, and we don’t know their intentions” 5:57 Nikita: “COVID was weird, and nothing has been normal since” 8:32 The lab leak theory 13:28 How COVID killed consensus reality 17:06 Bob’s case for international biotech monitoring 18:55 Vaccine geopolitics 23:38 Biothreat from existing AI models 25:02 Bob’s candidate: We let machines guide our attention 31:21 Technological progress is like a cocaine high 32:35 How common is the idea that AI will be a big deal? 34:16 AI music is proliferating 39:28 When music is high stakes. Russian street musicians get arrested 41:00 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikita Petrov (https://psychopolitica.substack.com). Recorded December 22, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 What’s the long game in Venezuela? 19:53 MAGA’s Monroe Doctrine 17:27 Trump as deep state puppet 22:33 Will Trump oust Maduro? 26:08 Connor: Trump’s foreign policy is a “profoundly mixed bag” 38:55 Has Israel lost the American electorate? 45:19 Andrew: Trump’s Ukraine peace plan isn’t pro-Russia 50:54 Silicon Valley’s inept arms makers 58:32 The administration’s view(s) on China and Taiwan 1:11:51 Europe learns to speak Trump

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True), Andrew Day (The American Conservative), and Connor Echols (Responsible Statecraft). Recorded December 18, 2025.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:28 Elon’s reckless response to the Brown shooting 11:43 Susie Wiles gone wild 14:55 The weirdest thing about Trump’s weird Rob Reiner post 25:33 The Piers Morgan/Nick Fuentes encounter 38:22 Judging Oliver Sacks 43:50 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded December 16, 2025.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods