On this episode of Unsupervised Learning , Razib talks to Yasha Mounk . The founder of Persuasion , a contributor to The Atlantic and a professor at Johns Hopkins , Mounk now has his own Substack , where he hosts his weekly column and podcast . He is the author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure , The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It and The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time . Razib and Moun...
Jan 11, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 217
Today Razib talks to Russian commentator and transhumanist Anatoly Karlin . Karlin has a BA in political economy from U C Berkeley. For most of the 21st century he had positioned himself as part of the right wing of the transhumanist movement. He returned to Russia after living in California’s Bay Area for several years, and from there he promoted a nationalistic vision in opposition to American military and cultural power. With the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he joined a chorus of Russia...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 216
During the Ice Age our ancestors often painted the horse in caves On this week’s episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib covers the archaeology, genetics and history of the horse. Dogs may be man’s best friend, but for thousands of years horses were humanity’s most valuable domesticate. While pigs, cattle and goat were essential elements of the world’s subsistence economies, the horse in its military roles was a luxury good, with Chinese emperors sending delegations to Central Asia in search of “...
Jan 05, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 215
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to returning guest Wilfred Reilly about his new book, Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me: Debunking the False Narratives Defining America's School Curricula . Reilly holds a Ph.D. in political science from Southern Illinois and a J.D. from the University of Illinois. Raised in a working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, he worked in the private sector before his career in academia, including stints as a political canvasser, real estate ...
Jan 02, 2025•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 214
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib welcomes Leighton Akira Woodhouse back to the podcast. Woodhouse is a freelance journalist and a documentary filmmaker, currently based in Oakland, California. He grew up in Berkeley, and was a doctoral student in Sociology at UC Berkeley. After leaving academia he contributed to outlets like The Intercept and The Nation , before starting his own Substack, Social Studies , as well as working with Michael Shellenberger. He also has a new podcast with...
Dec 30, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 213
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Lyman Stone , a soon to be PhD in sociology from McGill University specializing in population dynamics. Stone runs the Pro-natalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies , and has had appointments at AEI, and has written for The Atlantic and The New York Times . Well known for his social media presence, Stone is a published academic who has explored COVID policies, religion and divorce rates. Stone has previously been on Unsupervis...
Dec 27, 2024•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 212
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to the pseudonymous commentator “Peachy Keenan.” A native of Los Angeles with an Ivy League education, Keenan worked in entertainment before detouring into punditry, writing for the Claremont Institute’s The American Mind , appearing on Fox News and penning Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War . Razib and Keenan discuss her peripatetic and unique journey from a relatively apolitical member of America’s liberal profe...
Dec 19, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 211
On this episode Razib talks to Jesse Singal , a journalist who has covered the social science beat for the last decade. Singal has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from University of Michigan and a master’s in public affairs from Princeton. Currently a freelance journalist who writes his own Substack, Singal-Minded , and contributes to Blocked and Reported with Katie Herzog, Singal is formerly an editor at New York Magazine . His first book The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our S...
Dec 15, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 210
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to economist Sam Hammond . Canadian-born Hammond serves as the Senior Economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. His work primarily focuses on innovation and science policy, with particular attention to the societal and institutional impacts of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence. Before his role at FAI, Hammond was Director of Poverty and Welfare Policy at the Niskanen Center. Hammond also held a research fellows...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 209
The full episode is available on: https://www.razibkhan.com/p/14000-years-of-natural-selection On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks about what we have learned from a blockbuster new preprint, Pervasive findings of directional selection realize the promise of ancient DNA to elucidate human adaptation . Synchronously released was the Ancient Genome Selection browser , which allows you to trace the allele frequency of variants of interest over the last 10,000 years. Razib covers: Th...
Dec 02, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 208
On this week’s episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib discusses the genetic and archaeological history of Europe from the arrival of modern humans (permanently) 45,000 years ago, to the end of the Bronze Age in the decades after 1200 BC. He covers these time periods: Pre-Aurignacian (before 43 kya) Aurignacian (43-26 kya) Gravettian (33-21 kya) Solutrean (22-17 kya) Magdalenian (17-12 kya) Epigravettian (21-10 kya) Mesolithic (12-7 kya) Neolithic (9-5 kya) Bronze Age (5-3 kya) The full episode i...
Nov 27, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 207
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Misha Saul , the host of the Kvetch Substack . Saul is a first-generation Jewish Australian, born in Georgia (former Soviet republic), who grew up in Adelaide and now lives in Sydney. He graduated from the University of Adelaide with degrees in commerce and law. His day job is in finance, but the Kvetch highlights his interests in history and Jewish culture . Razib and Saul discuss extensively the differences and similarities between the US...
Nov 24, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 206
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Cremieux , a Twitter anon who is regularly retweeted by the likes of Paul Graham, Noah Smith and Elon Musk. A data scientist and statistician, Cremieux specializes in visualizations and analyses that cut to the heart of social and cultural dynamics, from economics to behavior genetics. Cremieux and Razib first discuss the polls and demographic results of the 2024 election, in which Donald Trump seems to have made broad-based gains across al...
Nov 07, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 125
On this episode of "Unsupervised Learning," Razib talks to Rachel Haywire , who writes at Cultural Futurist . Haywire is the author of Acidexia and began her career in futurism as an event planner for the Singularity Institute . She got her start as part of the "right-brain" faction around the Bay Area transhumanist and futurist scene circa 2010. Currently, she is working on starting an art gallery in New York City that serves as an event space for avant-garde creators who are not encumbered by ...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 124
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Halie May , the host of the Substack The Sequence , and a genetic counselor at Natera. May has a B.S. in chemical biology from Stevens Institute of Technology and a M.S. in human genetics from Sarah Lawrence. Before working at Natera she was a researcher and instructor at Columbia University and designed testing panels at genetics start-up, Tomorrow’s Health. Razib and May discuss how much the field has changed even in her short career, in ...
Oct 30, 2024•50 min•Season 1Ep. 203
On this episode of Unsuperivsed Learning Razib talks to native Californian, Inez Stepman . Stepman has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from UC San Diego, and obtained her J.D. from University of Virginia. She is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum , a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a contributor to The Federalist . Stepman is also a co-host of the High Noon podcast . Razib and Stepman first talk about her reaction to Marxist author Malcom Harris’ Palo Al...
Oct 19, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 202
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Christina Buttons , who writes at Buttons Lives . A native Californian and erstwhile artist, Buttons switched to journalism two years ago, writing about gender medicine. A contributor to Quillette , The Post-Millennial and The Daily Wire , Buttons is now a freelance journalist living in Nashville, Tennessee. The first part of the conversation breaks down what “gender medicine” entails in its gory details. In April Razib had a conversation w...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 201
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to returning guest, Sarah Haider . Haider is the co-host of the podcast A Special Place in Hell and the Substack Hold That Thought . A native of Houston, graduate of the University of Texas in Austin, Haider is the founder and former executive director of Ex Muslims of North America . Today Razib asks her about her move out of the nonprofit world, and into being a full-time public intellectual, speaking and writing on topics of interest to he...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 200
Today Razib talks to Aria Babu , a British think-thank professional who is part of the growing number of young men and women who are taking an interest in population decline and promoting pro-natalism . Babu has a degree in chemistry from University College London, and has long worked in areas related to the study of economic growth and entrepreneurship. Prior to her interest in pro-natalism Babu held conventional views about population growth and its ties to environmental alarmism. But she quic...
Aug 28, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 198
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Louise Perry . A British journalist known for her commentary on feminism and gender issues, Perry is the author of the book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution . She also contributes to The New Statesman , UnHerd , and The Daily Mail , and has a Substack at Maiden Mother Matriarch . Perry is a graduate of University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, with a degree in anthropology. Perry and Razib first discuss Britain’s ...
Aug 06, 2024•1 hr 35 min•Season 1Ep. 197
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to archeologist and historian Bryan Ward-Perkins about his 2005 book The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization . Ward-Perkins was born and grew up in Rome, a son of architectural historian and archaeologist, John Bryan Ward-Perkins. Educated at Oxford University, Ward-Perkins eventually became a fellow of Trinity College at the same university, from which he has since retired. An archaeologist with a deep interest in economic history, Ward...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 196
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib welcomes back a returning guest , J. P. Mallory, to discuss his reaction to the recent preprint The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans . Mallory is the author of In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth , The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World and The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West . He is also a retired professor from Queen’s Univ...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 195
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to professor Sean Anthony about his book Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam . Anthony is a historian in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at The Ohio State University. He earned his Ph.D. with honors in 2009 at the University of Chicago in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and has a mastery of Arabic, Persian, Syriac, French, and German. Anthony’s interests are broadly religion and...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 194
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Nikolai Yakovenko , a returning guest to the podcast , about his new AI startup, DeepNewz , and the state of the LLM -driven AI landscape circa the summer of 2024, where we are in relation to earlier expectations and where we might be in the next decade. Yakovenko is an AI researcher who has worked at Google, Twitter and Nvidia, and is now a serial entrepreneur. He is also a competitive poker player. He currently lives in Miami, Florida, th...
Jun 26, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 193
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Chad Niederhuth, an erstwhile academic plant geneticist now working in industry. Niederhuth and Razib discuss the reality that in 2024 it is often human genetics that gets the glory, even though experiments on plants go back to the field’s very origins with Gregor Mendel and his peas . Niederhuth’s original training is in molecular genetics, and they discuss the relevance of differences in basic biological machinery between plants and anima...
Jun 23, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 192
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Jonathan Keeperman, an former lecturer in writing at UC Irvine and proprietor of Passage Press . Keeperman also posts on the internet under what was until recently an anonymous pseudonym, Lomez . Unlike many anonymous accounts on X, “Lomez” developed a decade-long identity, to the point where Keeperman wrote articles under that name for publications like First Things , The Federalist and The American Mind . Razib and Keeperman talk about wh...
Jun 16, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 191
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks about religion with Ryan Burge , professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University , and author of The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going and 20 Myths About Religion and Politics in America . Burge also has a Substack, Graphs about Religion , where he posts the latest data on trends in American society. First, Razib asks Burge to outline the wave of secularization that has impacted American society ...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 1Ep. 190
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib discusses the idea of “lost civilizations,” the possibility that there were complex societies during the Pleistocene Ice Age. This topic recently rose to salience after a dialogue between writer Graham Hancock and archaeologist Flint Dibble on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Hancock is a longtime guest on Rogan’s show and he promotes a theory that an advanced “lost civilization” during the Ice Age left remnants of its culture across the world, for example the ...
May 31, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 189
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Akshar Patel of The Emissary about his recent sojourn in India. Patel began The Emissary because he felt there were many gaps in the media representation of India. Razib asks whether The New York Times’ claim that Modi is a strongman is correct, and whether India is an illiberal democracy. Patel notes that despite a Westernized super-elite embedded in global Left politics, India is fundamentally a conservative society where communal identit...
May 23, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 188
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Jeremy Carl , Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, where he focuses on immigration, multiculturalism, and nationalism in America. Previously, Carl was a Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute where he analyzed and wrote about energy policy. He has BA with distinction from Yale University and an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Today Carl talks about his new book, The Unprotected Class: How Anti-W...
May 20, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 187
