Moment of Zen Ep 9 w/ Noah Smith
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Moment of Zen Ep 9 w/ Noah Smith
PLUS: MoZ bingo, highlighting YouTube comments, homework for episode 10 and show notes.
Hello,
We were thrilled to see a fan create Moment of Zen Bingo! Our favorite: “Antonio Calls BS”.
And we can all but guarantee Antonio will call BS in the next episode…
BTW, we look through every YouTube comment - yes, both the positive and negative ones - we thank you and appreciate the constant feedback! In doing so, we wish to continue highlighting the good, the be better and the funny.
The Good
The Be Better
The Funny
The next episode of Moment of Zen will drop on Saturday, February 25th. Our guest will be Amjad Masad, founder of Replit.
If you want to open a few browser tabs in advance of our next episode to prepare:
“We’re All Gonna Die” with Eliezer Yudkowsky (Bankless Podcast)
Replika AI had a busy week amidst the backlash in response to the bans on certain erotica content:
Our sister podcast The Cognitive Revolution interviewed the founder of Replika, Eugenia Kuyda
Packy McCormick dropped “Love in the Time of Replika” on Not Boring
A Reddit user’s breakdown of our interview with Eugenia
Tyler Cowen explains “How and Why is Conquest’s Second Law true?”
Moment of Zen is supported by: Secureframe
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Show Notes (timestamps link to Youtube)
0:00 Intro
1:50 Sponsor
2:15 What determines a country’s success
6:00 Chinese collapse?
8:35 Why does Ukraine matter?
13:30 Can America be isolationist?
20:20 Are we in a Cold War with China?
25:45 Unpacking the new right
35:44 The future of wokeness
41:40 How Noah finds meaning in life (petting rabbits)
44:20 Noah defends his liberalism
53:00 American cope
57:00 Why American infrastructure sucks
1:01:00 Fake liberals
1:06:30 Why California is a one-party state
1:15:00 Tech’s political shift
1:20:00 Noah’s advice to tech people
Full episode below. Moment of Zen is still evolving and we want to know what is most valuable to you. What do you want us to talk about or share in this newsletter? Leave us a note in the comments.