7 Comments

Around 31:10 Andrew said, "... on the left, I think, ... a multi-cultural, like racially diverse coalition is not going to be as pro-Israel as what used to be the case. And then, when you look at the right,... especially a lot of young white men are increasingly Buchananite, America First, and in some cases White identitarian and they're also anti-Israel, in their case they're also increasingly antisemitic rather than Christian Zionists." To which I respond, and the left ain't increasingly antisemitic???

Robert made the observation that politically this war is more of a problem for the Democrats. True. But both of you seemed to ignore the apparently growing problem of leftist antisemitism. Promotion of the one state solution, which axiomatically means Jews becoming a minority in the country currently known as Israel leads to, well, we all know where this will lead.

Expand full comment

I think a two-state solution is better than a one-state solution for the reasons you say. Apparently, at least some of these confederative government arrangements that have been proposed are considered two-state solutions because they maintain a border between Israel and Palestine. I think that sounds like a good idea, but I'm no expert.

As for your other point, I guess I'm not sure whether antisemitism is more prominent on the right or the left. Who do you have in mind or what are you thinking of with regard to the latter?

Yglesias posted a newsletter recently about research showing, IIRC, that Hispanics and African-Americans tend to be more antisemitic when you control for ideology, while conservatives tend to be more antisemitic when you control for race.

Expand full comment

Your post is the second time I've heard about these "confederate government arrangements" and I'm going to do some research on them. Like you I'm no expert, but I agree they seem like a good idea.

On antisemitism, I was shocked by the demonstrations against Israel before they had even crossed the border into Gaza. Also, there were simply blatant pro Hamas statements by Ivy league attending students. Pro Hamas colors you an antisemite. So, my biggest concern is the antisemitism displayed by the elites of the academy. These are our future leaders. I'm hoping many of these young people are just being lemmings to their far-left professors and will wake up. Perhaps the Humanities department of these universities can establish some courses on the history of the Jewish people, assuming Humanities remains a discipline.

I was listening to The Dispatch podcast earlier. Jamie Weinstein interviewed Shadi Hamid. It was a very cordial conversation but obviously with disagreements. Shadi mentioned a recent poll that showed roughly 75% of Palestinians support or are sympathetic to Hamas. But his point was that it wasn't always so, back in the 1990's there was a plurality in favor of a 2-state solution. To which I'll note their leadership walked away from opportunities to do just that. In political science terms it's all just a "hot mess."

Expand full comment

Just became a paid subscriber last week. I love all your stuff Bob. But I joined to get the full podcasts, not to read the newsletter. So I am disappointed that today’s podcast was teasing the newsletter with stuff like you imply Sam Altman has a complex in the newsletter but we have to read newsletter to find out what.

Expand full comment
author

Here's a short excerpt from the piece that captures the essence of my argument:

Which brings us to the paradox-resolving Rosetta Stone, the thing that may explain how Altman could be deeply and sincerely worried about the power of superintelligence yet deeply and sincerely committed to hastening the advent of superintelligence.

In the course of that 2015 blog post, Altman wrote this about government regulation of AI: “In an ideal world, regulation would slow down the bad guys and speed up the good guys—it seems like what happens with the first SMI to be developed will be very important.”

In other words: Altman thinks that the headlong pursuit of SMI (that is, AGI) can work out fine so long as the company that wins the race is run by a “good guy” and not a “bad guy.” And I’m guessing that, like the rest of humankind (including the bad guys), he considers himself a good guy.

Expand full comment

Surprised you haven't mentioned Sam Altman's sister. Perhaps you haven't yet stumbled into that whole mess?

Expand full comment
author

I've seen references to it, but it seems very hard to know what exactly the real story is there (leaving aside the question of whether the real story would be relevant to what I'm writing about).

Expand full comment