Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning

Russ Greene, public interest advocate and founder of the Prime Mover Institute, outlines his concept of Total Boomer Luxury Communism and why policy favors older Americans. Short takes cover aging demographics, looming Social Security insolvency, pension and property tax distortions, and why political structures make reform hard. The conversation traces international comparisons and the politics behind transfer-heavy budgets.

A deep look at a Nature paper that mapped directional selection across Western Eurasia over 10,000 years. Discussion covers why the paper provoked strong media reaction and controversy. The methods are explained, including models that control population structure and massive variant testing. Results highlight many selection signals, with emphasis on immune, blood, and metabolic shifts and notable allele trajectories over time.

Matthew Schmitz, journalist and editor who cofounded Compact and edits religion coverage, discusses how Christianity has become a marker of identity rather than private faith. He contrasts performative, nationalist Christianity with older evangelicalism. They cover New Atheism’s arc, visual vs textual religious cultures, religious pluralism and Hanuman statues in Texas, and immigration’s effects on assimilation.

Megan McArdle, Washington Post columnist and former Economist/The Atlantic writer, tackles populism’s self-inflicted harms. She explores looming fiscal strain and who will shoulder rising taxes. They dig into state-level fiscal stress, wealthy flight, immigration’s role in innovation, and practical uses and social effects of AI.

A deep monologue exploring the tangled meanings of race across genetics, history and sociology. It traces ancient observations, African origins, early population splits and out-of-Africa dispersals. It contrasts typological thinking with population genetics and explains how modern DNA markers and ancestry tests can classify geographic and population structure.

A wide-ranging monologue about human evolution, questioning simplistic Out-of-Africa claims and sketching a complex reticulate history. Talks cover Homo taxonomy and Ice Age climate effects on dispersal. Explores genomics, ancient DNA methods, recurrent hybridization, and models proposing mixed ancestral populations. Looks at Neanderthal ancestry puzzles like uniparental replacement and timing of expansions.

Chris Bradley, entrepreneur and CEO of Matter Bio working to preserve genome integrity. He discusses what genome damage is and why it drives aging and cancer. He outlines novel assays to monitor DNA damage, a bacteria-based cancer therapy heading to trials, and mining long-lived animals’ genes to boost repair. He also covers regulatory hurdles, trial strategy, and the company’s ten-year vision for scalable cancer treatments.

Chris Masterjohn, nutritional scientist and mitochondrial biology expert who founded Mitome, explains why cellular energy matters. He recounts clashes over COVID messaging and social media, outlines a mitochondria-first approach to health, and describes personalized mitochondrial testing, altitude and light therapies, and why diet and lifestyle often deserve priority over quick pharmaceutical fixes.

Mike White, a genetics researcher at Washington University who studies regulatory DNA with functional genomics and deep learning. They discuss politicization of academia and how medical schools differ. The conversation then moves to the vast noncoding genome, challenges in interpreting regulatory sequences, advances since the human genome draft, and emerging technologies reshaping genomics.

Aaron Renn, writer and urban analyst who studies American cities and religious life. He talks about the role of management consulting and how AI may reshape implementation work. He explores Midwest urbanism, Carmel’s civic design, and why the Heartland’s history shapes its future. He also discusses evangelical cultural shifts, institutional decline, and efforts to engage younger men in faith communities.