The Jim Rutt Show

Experienced hitchhiker A.M. Hickman shares stories with Jim Rutt about hitchhiking adventures, crazy happenings, post-Covid leeriness, finding odd jobs, Mormon country, rescuing a 14-year-old hitchhiker, and more. They discuss the decline in hitchhiking culture, ultra-light gear, homeless travelers, and sleeping in a Honda Civic on a freight train.

Bob Levy, an expert on the Second Amendment, talks with Jim about pivotal Supreme Court cases regarding gun rights. They discuss the historical context of the Second Amendment, the Heller case, legal strategies, the meaning of fundamental rights, recent Supreme Court cases on gun control, and speculations on future Second Amendment jurisprudence, including ghost guns.

Military strategist Samo Burja and Jim discuss the evolving warfare technologies in the Russo-Ukrainian War, the diminishing value of military stockpiles, the importance of drones, factors causing Russian miscalculations, offensive vs defensive dominance, the potential of a U.S. military draft, the changing role of conscription, the impact of demographics on military strength, the progress of autonomous drones, and the importance of artillery in modern warfare.

Yaroslav Trofimov discusses Ukraine's history, identity, and war of independence. Topics include Putin's miscalculations, Ukrainian resistance, Zelensky's role, international support, Mariupol siege, Russian aggression, and the future of the conflict.

Magatte Wade, entrepreneur and author, discusses African economic development in the podcast. Topics include challenges with aid, African prosperity, forming a business in Senegal, free enterprise in pre-colonial Africa, special economic zones, and supporting African entrepreneurs.

Tor Nørretranders, author of 'The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size,' discusses primary vs extended consciousness, Maxwell's demon, free will, Benjamin Libet's experiments, emergence, exformation, Julian Jaynes's theory, and the impact of information deprivation in modern living spaces.

Stuart Kauffman discusses cosmology, quantum gravity, dark matter & energy, Hubble tension, baryonic Tully-Fisher relation, delay hypothesis, past hypothesis problem, dark matter as Ricci soliton, inflation requirements, cold dark matter & cosmic web, Mach's principle, & more.

Alex Fink, founder of Otherweb, discusses combating fake news with AI, declining news media, internet advertising's impact, Otherweb's curation engine, unhooking the internet from ads, the fight against fake news, AI in movie production, watermarking images, social media addiction, public benefit corporations, stewardship capital model, and unconventional fundraising strategies.

Sam Sammane, author of 'The Singularity of Hope: Humanity's Role in an AI-Dominated Future,' discusses topics like human-AI augmentation, AGI obstacles, AI in drug discovery, brain-computer interfaces, and the need for a compassionate approach to society in a future dominated by AI.

Simon DeDeo, expert on civil violence predictions, discusses the likelihood of major civil violence in America. Topics include terms of wager, orders of magnitude, American readiness for violence, statistical distributions of violence, polarization, basins of attraction, mimetic desire, political distance, tribalization around politics, and scenarios inciting conflicts in a post-ideological world.