Michael Millerman joins me to discuss starting a philosophy school, why tech and startups are seeking wisdom, whether Western philosophy is still a living tradition, objections to the usefulness of philosophy, leading students to the eternal questions, the intimate pleasure of communing with old friends, Martin Heidegger's influence on Alexander Dugin, Leo Strauss and Heidegger's disagreement on philosophical historicism, our place in the cave beneath Plato's Cave, Millerman's intriguing encounter with Dugin, why Dugin is a dangerous philosopher, his take on "Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy," and the potential for the rewilding of philosophy.   Relevant Links: https://x.com/M_Millerman https://www.michaelmillerman.ca/ https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Heidegger-Philosophical-Constitution-Political/dp/1912975793 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AVVipiukPI      If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

I sit down with Bitcoin Gandalf for a deep dive on Satoshi's immaculate coinception. Gandalf is a large influencer in the Bitcoin space and works in Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin is one of the most innovative technologies of the last century from a governance and coordination perspective. I believe it has the potential to be a vehicle for civilization-level reconfiguration of value. We cover our respective journeys in becoming "orange-pilled" on Bitcoin, the Bitcoin mining industry from the inside, Bitcoin maximalism, its potential to supplant existing fiat currencies, the virtues of self-custody, Bitcoin ETFs, Bitcoiners (community), proof of work vs. proof of stake, where we are in the current hype cycle, and getting into Bitcoin for noobs.   You can find Gandalf on: https://x.com/BTCGandalf   Suggested Reading: Bitcoin White Paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf     If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

DeepNews is using LLMs to aggregate and summarize the latest news across the internet, seeking to change the way we digest news. Nikolai Yakovenko is an ex-Twitter, Google, and Nvidia machine-learning engineer who initially forayed into Web3 with his venture 'DeepNFTValue,' which uses machine learning to estimate the value of NFTs; before also going on to create DeepNews. We cover using generative AI for compression, why this application of LLMs could better deliver news from primary sources across the internet in real time, the narrative neutrality of the AI-platform, concerns about information accuracy, misinformation, fidelity, and robustness, as well as potential areas for improvement.   You can find Nikolai on: https://twitter.com/ivan_bezdomny https://nikocrypto.substack.com/ https://substack.com/@nikocrypto   Relevant Links: https://deepnewz.com/ https://www.deepnftvalue.com/     If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

In this conversation, I speak with Will (@latinxputler) about Anthrochauvinism, an alternative to e/acc & decel ideologies.   We cover his experiences in the early days witnessing the formulation of e/acc (Effective Accelerationism) in groupchats as a response to Effective Altruism. His reservations about transhumanism and encounters with post-human or anti-human AI researchers. We then get into laying out the concept of Anthrochauvinism as a reactionary, human-centric orientation that puts technology in service of us. Finally, we touch on reproductive technology and genomics when considered from an Anthrochauvinist perspective.   Will on X: https://twitter.com/LatinxPutler   Readings mentioned: The Artilect War by Hugo de Garis https://www.amazon.com/Artilect-War-Controversy-Concerning-Intelligent/dp/0882801546 https://agi-conf.org/2008/artilectwar.pdf    The Question Concerning Technology by Martin Heidegger https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil394/The%20Question%20Concerning%20Technology.pdf     If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

We envision a nuclear Texas. Grant Dever is a research fellow at FREOPP (Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity) who writes about energy policy, with a focus on nuclear power. He earned his degree in economics and business from the University of Rochester. During the pandemic, Grant cultivated community for IndieThinkers.org—an accelerator for independent thinkers on the internet. He also authored "Lead The Future: Strategies and Systems for Emerging Leaders."   The conversation touches on Texas as an independent energy powerhouse and the challenges with its power grid. Dever also speaks about the role of tech giants in advancing Nuclear Energy. By adopting demand response and managing intermittency, power-intensive applications like bitcoin mining, training LLMs & hydrogen production can be transformative in nuclear energy proliferation.    The discussion concludes with a note on the  opportunities in the Texas energy sector, particularly when diverging from federal directives, standing as the lone star state.   You can find Grant on:    Website: https://grantdever.com/   Substack: https://www.seekingtribe.com/   FREOPP: https://freopp.org/the-freopp-scholar-grant-dever-badbe66c8b7e   X: https://twitter.com/grantadever   Book: https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Future-Strategies-Systems-Emerging-ebook/dp/B0828895H4   Relevant Links:    https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-7639c7e88642   https://blog.freopp.org/were-not-going-to-have-another-chernobyl/     If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Brendon Marotta is a filmmaker, author, and podcaster. We talk about his book, "Children's Justice", which applies critical theory to the controversial topic of infant circumcision. We go through his decision to appropriate the tools and tactics of critical theory in service of this issue, apprehensions around taking circumcision up as a social justice or human rights concern, my discomfort with everything about this, childhood trauma and its reverberating effects on adults and institutions, rhetorical methods borrowed from Foucault and others to make his argument, barriers for men and parents to discussing circumcision, and why he sees advocacy around this issue as a microcosm for opening a broader discussion around the treatment of children.   Brendon Marotta's feature-length documentary, "American Circumcision" garnered numerous nominations and awards at film festivals, including Best Documentary at the Lone Star Film Festival (2017), The Silver Jury Prize at The Social Justice Film Festival (2017), Best Documentary Feature at Outer Docs Film Festival (2018), and is available on Netflix (non-US) and Prime video.     Children's Justice (2022): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735113425/ American Circumcision: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7628146/ Gods of AI (2022): https://www.amazon.com/Gods-AI-AI-Generated-Art-Book/dp/B0BMTFSNQ5/   Brendon Marotta Site: https://brendonmarotta.com/ X: https://twitter.com/bdmarotta   If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Engineer and essayist Stephen Pimentel joins me for a review of the recently released bestselling book in Political Philosophy, Costin Alamariu’s “Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy”. In this discussion we go deep in tracing the argument, point-by-point, of Costin’s thesis concerning the twin emergence of philosophy and tyranny out of the idea of nature, and its teaching and preservation in the aristocratic regime. We attempt to tour the line of argument in sequential fashion, laying out the basic premises, consequences, and conclusions Costin provides, as well as its potential reverberations for our understanding of classical political philosophy; and hint at potential future implications, given advances in technology and age of the current regime, of this timely and unexpectedly popular hit. We go through the early anthropological account of pre-philosophical societies under the sway of collective nomos, the introduction of natural law from martial-aristocratic pastoralist conquerors, the discussion of Pindar and his insights for the aristocracy's self-understanding, phusis and its connection to physicality, the emergence of nature outside the city by breeding and training as a re-wilding project aimed at cultivating men of andreia and phronesis, Callicles and Socrates in Plato's Gorgias--turning Platonic political philosophy on its head, and Nietzsche's resurrection of aristocratic radicalism in service of the preservation of philosophy for the production of genius.   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Selective-Breeding-Philosophy-Costin-Alamariu/dp/B0CJ3ZDHF6    Stephen Pimentel: https://twitter.com/StephenPiment      If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University, as well as the founder of Genomic Prediction and SuperFocus AI; he also hosts the Manifold podcast, and the Information Processing blog. Steve and I speak about polygenic risk scoring and embryo selection, using AI to predict phenotype from genotype, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, eugenic public policy, addressing Christians' and right-wing traditionalists' concerns over reproductive technology, SuperFocus AI's plan to eliminate hallucination in large language models (LLMs) by separating memory from inference, introspection for LLM error correction, and surviving the failed cancellation attempt at MSU.   Steve Hsu: On X: https://twitter.com/hsu_steve Personal Site: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/ Manifold podcast: https://www.manifold1.com/ Genomic Prediction: https://www.lifeview.com/ SuperFocus AI: https://superfocus.ai/   If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Garrett Dailey is the founder of Aion Enterprises, a business philosophy and design firm. We speak about the meaning of Aion, building a business around philosophy, individuation, the Candy Cane model of reality, and the importance of aesthetics for catalyzing people with a compelling vision of the future. “Any sufficiently complex thought is philosophy.” Aion: https://www.aion.enterprises/ https://twitter.com/AionEnterprises Garrett Dailey: https://garrettdailey.substack.com/ https://twitter.com/Liber_Rex   If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Disgraced Propagandist (Isaac Simpson) is the founder of WILL, a dissident marketing agency, and The Carousel Substack and podcast. We speak about how WILL does dissident marketing for a cohort of new natural “wholesome” brands, the marketing industry as the canary in the coal mine for workplaces becoming Longhouses, the power of branding, the meaning of The Carousel metaphor, nostalgia, the “hype dad” archetype, his literary influences, and NEVER APOLOGIZE!   WILL, the agency: https://willtheagency.com/ On X: https://x.com/WILLtheagency   The Carousel: https://thecarousel.substack.com/   Disgraced Propagandist:  On X: https://x.com/DisgracedProp Site: https://isaacsimpson.com/     If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Razib Khan is a population geneticist, has a popular Substack on genetics and history, and is a co-founder of GenRAIT. We speak about his role in the scientific ecosystem, the effect of the computing revolution on ancient genetics and genomics, why he’s most interested in Eurasian steppe populations, how ancient DNA has shed light on theories in archeology and philology, the effects of delayed fertility on genetic quality of offspring, prenatal genetic screening and gene editing, selection effects of modern environments, his startup, GenRait, and his antics on Twitter/X.     Website: https://www.razib.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/razibkhan GenRait: https://www.genrait.com/

Hannah Frankman is the founder of Rebel Educator, an all-inclusive resource hub for parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs. We discuss her experiences in educational reform and alternative paths to education, Montessori education philosophy, her involvement in the education space, and the launch of Rebel Educator. We also cover criticisms of the educational system and popular alternatives, homeschooling, the potential benefits of accelerated and decelerated learning, the need for more localized, private, and independent schools, and the importance of values in education.   Hannah Frankman Website: http://hannahfrankman.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/HannahFrankman Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@thehannahfrankmanpodcast   Rebel Educator: https://rebeleducator.co/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rebelEducator   Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Bo Winegard on life after cancellation, why we should talk about group differences in intelligence, Aporia - a new magazine courting heterodox social science and philosophy, victimhood rhetoric, the tedious relationship of truth to justice, anonymity vs. identity, are we at peak wokeness?, noble lies, epistemic accelerationism, limits to academic discourse in public, and his proposal for a Republic; if you can keep it.   Bo Winegard is a Social Psychologist and Executive Editor of Aporia. Bo Winegard on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EPoe187 Aporia Magazine: https://www.aporiamagazine.com/   Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Mark Wilcox on 21e8, his information architecture company, computational data markets, why compute is money, Bitcoin’s role in all this, price discovery via compute, how AI is destroying people’s belief in the computer, deleveraging from the U.S. dollar, decision theory, the curse of dimensionality, and moving back to base primitives.   “The problem to solve is how much compute it takes to generate value.” -  Mark Wilcox   Mark Wilcox on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mwilcox 21e8 (company): Twitter - https://twitter.com/21e8ltd N.Z. - https://21e8.nz/ U.S. - https://21e8.com/   Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

I speak with Doomer Optimist cofounder and faculty in the Department of Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University, Jason Snyder, about finding the others, using the internet to encourage localism, Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State, homesteading, the value of embodied work, regenerative agriculture, resource independence, and our disagreement on degrowth.   Doomer Optimism is an eclectic metamodern movement building a template for post-collapse.   “I don’t think the industrial food system as its currently composed is sustainable.” - Jason Snyder   Jason Snyder on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cognazor   About Doomer Optimism: Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoomerOptimism  Website: https://www.doomeroptimism.com/    Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jonah Davids' new Substack, Mental Disorder, explores the science and politics of mental health from a data-driven perspective. Jonah is also Communications Director at the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. We spoke about why being a psychologist has no noticeable effect on the efficaciousness of talk therapy, the lack of evidence in mental health treatment, how CBT became the gold standard and why its not more effective than other therapies, the case for fixing your material conditions to improve mental health, lowering barriers to entry for mental health workers, how mental health professionals are less mentally healthy than the general population, and more... Jonah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonahdavids1 Jonah on Substack: https://mentaldisorder.substack.com/   Related writings:  On CBT: https://mentaldisorder.substack.com/p/is-cbt-superior-jonah-davids On the sadness of psychologists: https://www.mentaldisorder.ca/p/how-sad-are-psychologists  Whether loneliness should be considered a public health problem: https://www.mentaldisorder.ca/p/loneliness-public-health-problem-jonah-davids   Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Cody Moser is a PhD student in the Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences at University of California, Merced. His work focuses primarily on the evolution of human behavior and human institutions. We spoke about his work generating formal network models with agent-based modeling, the life history of organizations, core-periphery dynamics and why "loser" nodes are necessary for network innovation, the tension between explore-exploit tradeoffs in organizations, generative adaptive systems, path dependency and organizational longevity, why we want hyper-hyper polarization on the internet, and more... "Innovators come from the outside." - Cody Moser Cody Moser's blog: https://culturologies.co/ His Twitter: https://twitter.com/LTF_01 UC Merced bio: https://cogsci.ucmerced.edu/content/cody-moser Paper on core-periphery networks in innovation: https://culturologies.co/files/coreperiphery.pdf All Intelligence is Collective Intelligence: https://www.neuralpress.org/_files/ugd/1dd990_f5fc8a4eef6142b48e387daa9c4454e7.pdf   The Ties That Bind Us: https://culturologies.co/files/HungarianConservative.pdf Internet polarization: https://culturologies.substack.com/p/internet-polarization-reform-and?nthPub   Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Jae Yang and John Bugnacki of Tacen join me to discuss financial sovereignty, the regulatory state of crypto in the United States, the Wyoming stabelcoin, and why you have to go to the frontier for better governance and technology. Tacen is working on a crypto exchange that is fast, non-custodial, and cross-chain. Project TXA is a settlement network that allows cross-chain settlement. Jae Yang is the founder and CEO of Tacen and the Chief Architect of Project TXA. John Bugnacki is Deputy General Counsel and Director of Regulatory Policy at Tacen.   Jae Yang: https://twitter.com/jae_tacen  Tacen: https://www.tacen.com/ Tacen Twitter: https://twitter.com/tacen_app  Project TXA: https://www.txa.app/ Project TXA Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProjectTXA      Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Matthew Mehan is Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government for Hillsdale College’s Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government in Washington D.C. We spoke about the relationship of poetry to philosophy, the value of a classical liberal arts education, technology and the Tyranny of Velocity, raising children with social media, politicization of education, the moral training of self-government, and how to create leaders of tomorrow.   Hillsdale profile: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/Profiles/Matthew-Mehan/ Matthew Mehan is also the author of popular children's books: Mr. Mehan's Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals: https://www.amazon.com/Mehans-Mildly-Amusing-Mythical-Mammals/dp/1505112494 The Handsome Little Signet: https://www.amazon.com/Handsome-Little-Cygnet-Matthew-Mehan/dp/1505120608      Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe Listen on: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak  Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg  RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

Robin Hanson and I discuss prediction markets, decision markets, Futarchy, and Demarchy. We cover simple and more elaborate applications of prediction markets, common objections to them and barriers to implementation at the organization level, when a prediction market becomes a decision market, his vision for Futarchy--a proposed system of government whereby elected officials use prediction markets to inform policy decisions based on measurable objectives--and Demarchy, another alternative governance mechanism where policy-makers are chosen at random from among the population. Professor Robin Hanson is Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.   Robin Hanson's Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhanson Personal site: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/home.html University bio: https://economics.gmu.edu/people/rhanson On prediction markets: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/ideafutures.html  On Futarchy: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html    Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe