COVID as the start of a weird five-year era

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