

Bloggingheads.tv
Bloggingheads.tv
Smart people talking about politics, policy, culture and other stuff
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 31, 2025 • 60min
Trump-Xi Truce, Gaza Ceasefire & Other Sketchy Deals (Robert Wright, Derek Davison, and Daniel Bessner)
Bob tries to lower American Prestige’s self-esteem ... The Trump-Xi trade talks ... Making sense of Trump’s nuclear saber-rattling ... Signs of a US-China vibe shift ... Is AI accelerating science? ... Bill Gates’s climate change of heart ... This week’s Gaza ceasefire death toll ... Overtime preview: Bob vs Danny on international law ...

Oct 28, 2025 • 60min
The Trump Doctrine (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)
Teaser ... Trump on drug cartels: "We're gonna kill them. They're gonna be like, dead." ... Venezuela: Regime change disguised as drug war ... Marco Rubio holds all the foreign policy power ... Trump Doctrine candidate #1: "Jump at the chance to use force" ... Trump Doctrine candidate #2: Monroe 2.0 ... Roy Cohn's philosophy: "It is a nation of men, not laws" ... Bob: There's value in hypocrisy ... Trump is paving the way for a more competent tyrant ... Could Trump actually be good for the world? ... Trump the comedian ... Heading to Overtime: Bob's mysterious invitation-only conference ...

Oct 23, 2025 • 60min
Mindfulness and the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Robert Wright & Vincent Fakhoury Horn)
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Oct 20, 2025 • 60min
The US-China Microchip-Minerals Showdown (Robert Wright & Paul Triolo)
What triggered Trump’s 100-percent tariff threat? ... How China is mirroring the US playbook ... The real escalation: America's "50% rule" ... Why has US media coverage been so bad? ... Why has US media coverage been so bad? ... US China policy as cognitive empathy failure ... Heading to Overtime ...

Oct 16, 2025 • 60min
Rationalism and AI Doomerism (Robert Wright & Liron Shapira)
Teaser ... Why Liron became a Yudkowskian ... Eliezer Yudkowsky’s vision of AI apocalypse ... Does intelligence want power? ... Decoding Yudkowsky’s key Darwinian metaphor ... Is doomerism crowding out other AI worries? ... Liron: The silent majority is very AI anxious ... Heading to Overtime ...

Oct 10, 2025 • 60min
Whose Toady is Bari Weiss? (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
Amazing Bob-Paul discount deal! ... The Bari Weiss trivia test ... Lasting peace in Gaza? ... Why did Trump finally get tough on Bibi? ... MAGA free speech debates ... Is the AI bubble about to burst? ... If anyone builds it, will everyone die? ... Heading into Overtime: Ian McEwan, George Harrison, OpenAI, One Battle After Another ...

Oct 8, 2025 • 60min
Bari Weiss, CBS, and Israel (Robert Wright & Nikita Petrov)
Was Free Press bought “to control US media”? ... Why pay $150M for a Substack? ... Netanyahu on the TikTok deal and "giving direction" to the Jewish people ... Pro-Israel donors giving a $2M ultimatum to Charlie Kirk about his ties to Tucker Carlson ... How much influence does Israel have over US media? ... Why Tucker Carlson's appeal to Christians is a problem for Bibi ... Trump: "I would make TikTok 100% MAGA related if I could" ... Why Hamas would be crazy to trust Trump on his Gaza deal ... Prigozhin conspiracy theory: Why would the Russian government want people to think he's alive? ... Cognitive sovereignty ... Heading to Overtime ...

Oct 2, 2025 • 60min
How We Mishandled the Covid Pandemic (Robert Wright & Stephen Macedo)
Teaser ... Steve’s book In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us ... Were school closures smart policy? ... The mask mandate question ... Did medical experts get too much say? ... The role of social class and political tribe ... How dissent was suppressed ... Bob takes a jab at Jay Bhattacharya ... Heading to OT: Why Steve wrote the book ...

Sep 30, 2025 • 60min
Why the Israel-Palestine Conflict Persists (Robert Wright & Robert Malley)
The deal Hamas offered Bibi before October 7 ... How October 7 changed the landscape ... Why Clinton’s Camp David talks failed ... What Arafat was actually offered at Camp David ... The centrality of the right of return ... Beyond two states ... Heading into OT: Abandoning false optimism is not pessimism ...

Sep 26, 2025 • 60min
Two Visions of AI Apocalypse (Robert Wright & David Krueger)
David Krueger, an AI researcher from the University of Montreal, explores the hidden dangers of advanced AI. He discusses Eliezer Yudkowsky's doomsday scenarios and his own concept of 'gradual disempowerment,' where humans slowly lose control to AI due to competitive pressures. Krueger emphasizes the opaque nature of deep learning, the risks of goal misgeneralization, and the potential for AIs to gain economic power. He warns of the urgent need for an AI-resistance movement to preserve human influence in decision-making.


