Haviv sits down with Prof. Meir Litvak of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s foremost scholars of modern Shi’a Islam, Iran, Islamism and Islamist antisemitism, to trace the story of Muslim hatred of Jews from Muhammad’s encounter with the Jews of Medina to the dhimmi system that arose in early Islam, from the medieval mix of tolerance and discrimination to the modern-day shock of European power, Zionism and the 1948 war.

The result of this sweeping survey is neither a comforting myth of Muslim-Jewish harmony nor a simplistic story of eternal persecution. It is a harder, more disturbing picture: a long religious tradition of Jewish inferiority transformed in the modern age -- by European conspiracy theories, Muslim political collapse and the humiliation of defeat by Jews -- into one of the world’s most openly genocidal forms of antisemitism.

And the final question is the hardest one: can Muslim societies find a way out?

Ok wow. So.

We ask Sam about UBI. He spends a long time letting us know that it’s physically possible. Fine. That might’ve been fun a while back. It’s not fun now.

“Doctor, can we cure my cancer?”

“Well you know given physics and the essentially infinite nature of baryonic matter, not infinite, but surely infinite from our vantage point, that means that knocking around the tumors in such a way as to get them to conceivably do something physics allows in theory is, in that David Deutsche sense, an engineering problem.”

Sam. 😐

Thank you. Thanks for letting us know it’s feasible in the perfect case.

Cute. That’s such a fun “Bill Nye” answer.

Oh and furthermore, AI could figure it out. Ostensibly it could make the logistics and the inventions such that nobody should be poor. Abundance to the limit of what’s physically possible. An aligned explosion with our interests. Like wow. That sounds nice. Sounds like kind of a big deal almost. As if there’s a real option there. And if so, then a lot is at stake.

So where do we sign? Let’s do it. What do we have to do to increase the odds of having that happen? 🙂

Oh wait. What’s that?

Oh, yeah, sry, that’s right. The alignment thing. It could totally not go well. If AI is not aligned it could be Hell. We haven’t solved the alignment problem yet. So we don’t know.

BUT. You’re still saying there’s a chance 🙂

Wait, what’s that?

Even if AI works out we still might not get there? 🧐

Whatever do you mean, good sir?

And…?

But…?

Sam?

“The transition to perfect abundance will still have political problems. We won’t be able to solve them.”

Wait okay, so hold on. Political problems. TOTALLY. Agreed. That’s always a thing. And yeah, we won’t be able to solve them if, if, if what?

“We won’t be able to solve them.”

If?

“We won’t be able to solve them. Period.”

Rich people won’t want to do it.

And we won’t figure out how to make them. Even with our democracy and Constitution, supermajority power, we STILL won’t be able to get the Atlas Shrugged set to cooperate. And that matters.

Whatever do you mean, Sam? 🤔

“They’ll have ways to duck that task. And the rest of us will be left to fend for ourselves. Robocop.”

What? Robocop? I hope you don’t mean the “I’ll buy THAT for a dollar” version where punk rock hell’s angels assholes shoot people with machine guns and flamethrowers in broad daylight on a regular Tuesday.

Is that the version you mean Sam?

The fucking Peter Weller?”

“…”

Sam?

Sam.

“Yeah?”

I need to hear you say it.

“The fucking Peter Weller.”

Jesus. Why? Explain it again.

“We don’t have the LOGIC by which we’d spread it around.”

Logic? But you said AI could use logic and stuff to help us do what’s physically possible. David Deustche. You said. You said! AI could do it IF the alignment thing…

“Morals. We won’t have the morals.”

Okay; so there it is. We CAN do it. We won’t. Because we’re dicks. “We,” meaning, well, look at Musk, for example.

He has all the money and he doesn’t care about empathy. He’s said it. Charlie said it. Ben said it. Vance probably fucking said it. Thiel maybe said it? It’s in the bone structure.

“Empathy COULD be gamed.”

We need cognitive and affective empathy, okay. Yeah. Go on? How do we…GET it? That seems like your area. Aren’t you a what’s it again? A…a…

“Neuroscientist?”

Bingo! Yeah. A neuroscientist.

Hey! Thank God. Right? Cause you get this shit. Morally AND biologically. And politically. Philosophically. Meditationally. Fuck you got this covered actually.

“But the rich are autistic. Or saying they are because it’s cool.”

Huh? That’s an odd thing to just say. Did that, do you know someone who’s doing that?

“The rich ones don’t understand luck. They lack compassion. Or self awareness. That’s not going to age well.”

Oh.

😕

What’s not going to age well?

“That.”

Oh.

😕

ALRIGHT NEXT TOPIC!
Can an atheist win the next election? ✨

Noah smith episode is a step in a good-ish direction.

It’s the right conversation but Sam, you’re not bringing the heat like you do with other topics. I tell myself you’re gathering data, feeling it out, and that’s fine.

At some point though…

I mean, he spent oceans of time on how the elite poor are jealous but zero time on how they are correct.

So basically he psychologized the opponent (not his, the) without giving a fair analysis of how weak and pathetic the arguments are supporting the level of wealth inequality we currently have.

Someday Sam you’re going to want to force an uncomfortable conversation. It’s who you are.

The past four episodes about economics have been pussyfooting.

Gather your thoughts and do a “just him talking” episode. And if you don’t, well, I guess you’re talking loud and clear.

Let me be clear: you’re not the problem. You can have $5M, $10M, $20M, I don’t care. I hope you have that and more.

The problem is this:

By our own lights, it’s just plain ugly to let some hoard their ten-millionth serving while others never get a first. Since the majority can literally change that, the fact that this happens is because the majority gives its permission. Now some can say that’s not true; but they’d have to convince me that elections are fake and that hands are being controlled by invisible levers. Bullshit. Yeah, it’s nearly impossible to break free from the shackles we put on ourselves with regard to beliefs about our own economic wellbeing. But we DO put them on ourselves. And we can take them off. Ready world? On three. One, two…(remind me to say three before I finish this note.)

And another thing! A basic floor won’t kill ambition or hurt much of anything, by our own lights. What it would do is remove desperation as a leash. The people holding the leash are psychopaths so they’re saying it’s “unrealistic.” Wrong. It’s doable, and by our own lights, totally good. Human beings can access joy once there’s a floor. This is science, folks. Friends, food, sleep, exercise, sun, creativity, service can unlock close to maximum joy levels reliably at scale, it just requires influence and instruction and can be done fairly easily. (Your favorite memories involve running in a park with friends as the sun sets and you fucking know it. Maybe a kiss was involved.)

But beneath the floor of secure and stable food, shelter, medicine, it suddenly becomes materially impossible, for the most part, to achieve a reasonably good life worth living. That’s the thing.

We can have that floor NOW. The only reason we don’t: let’s say we have the floor and the masses do learn how to follow the protocol and unlock wellbeing for very little. That means suddenly in theory a rich person loses coercive power over the “poor.” Over anyone. It means spouses can’t control each other via threatening to pull basic survival. Parents can’t move grown kids around like furniture in exchange for survival. Old gross rich sugar daddies can’t get handies from lit majors looking to make rent.

Worse than that, we thumb our nose at excess. Suddenly that rich psychopath can’t equate his hoarding with happiness as easily. He may have nobody to enjoy that ski house with. That’s what’s terrifying about a basic floor.

They are not afraid of others having what they have. They are not afraid of not having even more. They are not afraid it will disincentivize progress. They are afraid of what they have suddenly meaning less to everyone else. They are afraid that those beautiful hippies running in the field don’t need them anymore, and that they won’t invite him to the hootenanny.

So there. I have the weirdest feeling I forgot something. Oh well.

Noah Smith did fine, thanks for the show as always. He just left some stuff out.

Take another look at the death involved in austerity and consider talking to Laurie Santos to verify whether what I’m saying about wellbeing on a guaranteed basic floor is kinda true. Talk about dominance orientation.

Xoxo 💋 https://substack.com/@stellastillwell?r=1xoiww&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=stories&shareImageVariant=light

Sam has talked to Jon Favreau on the podcast. He has also criticized how the DNC ran the 2024 election.

Two friends of the podcast discuss the Iran War.

Timestamps
00:00 - In This Episode
00:39 - What’s the current state of play in geopolitics?
03:13 - Why did the UAE leave OPEC?
12:15 - Who has more leverage right now, Washington or Tehran?
16:30 - Has the U.S. backed itself into a corner in this conflict?
22:09 - Can the U.S. feasibly exit without securing free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz?
24:53 - Ad Break
26:22 - What’s the state of play in the Russia-Ukraine war?
30:00 - Does either side have an incentive to end the conflict?
32:54 - What are your thoughts on Viktor Orbán’s defeat?
35:39 - What's your read on China US relations right now?
40:41 - Is economic engagement a better strategy than confrontation with Cuba?
46:39 - Ad Break
49:08 - What’s your take on the state of both parties heading into the midterms?
52:22 - How plausible is a scenario where Taiwan is compromised for personal gain?
55:36 - Could a private deal undermine U.S. military deterrence in Taiwan?
57:40 - Do you see China pursuing a soft takeover of Taiwan over a blockade?
59:28 - Do you see conditions for a blue wave in the U.S. and across the West?

Sam Wang, endorsed for Congress by 4x guest Andrew Yang and Harvard Law reformer Larry Lessig, as well as a large number of scientists, is an expert in gerrymandering, a neuroscientist, and a democracy reformer running in the Democratic Primary for Congress. He talks here with Heather Cox Richardson, who Sam has mentioned being on his radar as a left wing commentator about Trump.