Conversations with Coleman

Latest Episodes:

Racism, UFOs, and Cultural Appropriation with Neil deGrasse Tyson Apr 01, 2023

Show notes

My guest today needs no introduction, but I'll give him one anyway. Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Neil is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Centre for Earth and Space in New York City. He's also hosted and co-hosted numerous science-related TV and radio programs, including Nova Science Now, and Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey. Neil has written several books, including "The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet", "Astrophysics for People In A Hurry", and his new book "Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization".

This is Neil's second time on the podcast, and this time we discuss many issues, including declining public trust in science. We also talk about UFOs or UAPs as they're now called. We discuss the history of scientific racism. We talk about the art of communicating science to the general public. We discuss the issue of cultural appropriation. We also talk about the generational gap between Neil and myself and how that may lead us to interpret our experiences differently as black men in predominantly white intellectual spaces, and we go on to talk about much more.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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The Strange Death of Journalism with Batya Ungar-Sargon Mar 25, 2023

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My guest today is Batya Ungar-Sargon. Batya is a deputy opinion news editor at Newsweek and a columnist at Compact magazine. Before that, she was the opinion editor of The Forward.

In this episode, we talk about tribalism and individualism. We talk about how journalism and media became woke. We talk about the shift from journalism being a working-class profession to a profession for elites and the consequences of that shift. We also talk about gender ideology and at the end, Batya turns the tables on me and asks me several interesting and probing questions about myself and about my audience.

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Mind-Reading Tech is Here with Nita Farahany Mar 17, 2023

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My guest today is Nita Farahany. Nita is a professor of Law and Philosophy at Duke Law School. She is the founding director of the Duke Science and Society. She is the faculty chair of the Duke MA in Bioethics and Science Policy and Principal Investigator at slap lab. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues where she served until 2017. She's an appointed Member of the National Advisory Council for the National Institute for Neurological Disease and Stroke and she is a past president of the International Neuroethics Society. This is only a small slice of her bio.

The topic of this conversation is mind reading, and I don't mean trying to guess what's in somebody's head. I mean actual technology that scans your brain and reliably conveys what you are thinking or feeling. Now, this seemed like science fiction to me, but Nita convinced me in this conversation that this technology is already here, and there are a host of ethical questions relating to privacy and other things.

Nita and I talk about how EEG scans can give us information about our minds. We talk about the relationship between EEG scans and classical questions in the philosophy of mind, such as consciousness, as well as free will. We talk about the uses of mind-reading technology in criminal investigations, which has already happened. We talk about the current uses of mind-reading tech in Chinese factories. And yes, that is already happening too. We talk about tattoos that can pick up your brain activity. And once again, that already exists. We talk about the combination of artificial intelligence and mind-reading tech and what that promises for the future. We talk about whether excellent liars would be able to pass mind-reading technology. We also talk about how mind-reading tech has even been used to tell whether couples are in love. I really hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Alcoholism, Self-Sabotage, and Wokeness with Africa Brooke Mar 10, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Africa Brooke. Africa is a London-based consultant, writer, and life coach. She is the host of the "Beyond the Self" podcast.

In this episode, we talk about her background growing up in Zimbabwe and her experience as an immigrant to the UK. We talk about her journey from alcoholism to sobriety. We talk about her essay, "Why I'm leaving the cult of wokeness?" We also talk about the notion of self-sabotage. Africa is essentially a life coach for high-profile clients and at some point, this conversation basically turns into a life coaching session for me. We talk about my own habits with alcohol, as well as the ways in which I might engage in self-sabotage. Africa seems to be very good at her job, and I hope you find something of value in this conversation.

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Woke Capital with Marc Andreessen Mar 04, 2023

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My guest today is Marc Andreessen. Marc is an entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and software engineer. Marc co-founded Mosaic, which was the first widely used Internet browser, as well as Netscape. He also co-founded Opsware and Ning. He is on the board of Meta, and his most important achievement is that he's the first billionaire to ever appear on this podcast.

Marc and I talk about venture capital as a whole and why VC firms on average fail to outperform the stock market. We talk about the role of hierarchy in companies and the possibility of having a truly flat structure where every employee is of equal rank. We talk about George Orwell's book "Homage to Catalonia". We talk about why corporations go woke and why Marc resists that trend. We talk about the maladaptive qualities that have helped him succeed in the VC world and we talk about his long-term vision for his VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Ron DeSantis' War on Wokeness with Kmele Foster, Chloé Valdary and David Bernstein Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

Today's conversation is a roundtable with several guests instead of my usual one on one. My guests today are Kmele Foster (Co-Founder of Free Think and Host of The Fifth Column Podcast), Chloé Valdary (Founder of Theory of Enchantment and Host of The Heart Speaks Podcast), and David Bernstein (Author of the recent book "Woke Antisemitism").

We discuss Ron DeSantis' and Chris Rufo's war on wokeness. We discuss Kmele's position on race abolition. We talk about the relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, and much more.

If you enjoy these larger conversations, let me know and I will do more of them.

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Trans Rights vs. Women's Rights with Kathleen Stock Feb 17, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Kathleen Stock. Kathleen is a philosopher and a writer, and she was a philosophy professor at the University of Sussex for many years, until she was stampeded out of her job by a mob of angry students. As you'll hear in this episode, Kathleen's main offense was her views on trans issues, which are broadly aligned with people like JK Rowling and Helen Joyce. Due to these critiques of Trans activist ideology, she was more or less run out of her university. Kathleen's story didn't make as many headlines in America as it should have. However, it really is one of the most egregious examples of cancel culture since Brett Weinstein's debacle at Evergreen.

Though Kathleen and I don't agree on everything, as you'll see in the episode, I think the treatment she's received has been shameful. In any event, we discuss all of that in this episode. We talk about the conceptual distinction between sex and gender. We talk about whether one should respect people's preferred pronouns and I think there's some distance between Kathleen and me on those two topics. We also talk about the conflict between trans rights and female rights. We talk about what to do with female-only spaces such as locker rooms, bathrooms, women's sports, and prisons. We talk about what to do with children who self-identify as Trans. We talk about puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical transitions. We also discuss the phenomenon of social contagion, detransitioners, and desisters.

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The History and Ethics of the Israel-Palestine Conflict with Dr. Benny Morris Feb 10, 2023

Show notes

The topic of today's episode is the Israel-Palestine conflict. I've avoided discussing Israel on this podcast for two reasons. First, because I didn't know enough to feel qualified to weigh in on it. Second, because it may literally be the most radioactive topic on planet Earth. A tiny mistake or misplace word can cause a level of backlash that I just don't want to deal with. However, two things have changed over the past few months. I discuss these two factors in detail in the first few minutes of the episode.

I want the first half of this podcast to serve as an introduction to basic historical facts behind the conflict. If you're well versed on this topic, then you may want to skip the beginning. However, on the other hand, there is still quite a bit of interesting material there. The rest of this podcast is about the ethics and the current politics of the conflict. Who is in the right, and who is in the wrong? Is Israel an apartheid state that's oppressing a minority out of pure bigotry? Is it a colonialist, expansionist state motivated by religious belief? Or is it an embattled and legitimate nation-state surrounded by enemies that want only to survive? These are the questions that people struggle with and I brought in Dr. Benny Morris to help me answer them. Dr.Benny Morris has a unique vantage point on this issue. On the one hand, he is an Israeli Jew, and in recent years, he has become a major defender of Israel against global condemnation. On the other hand, he's probably done more than almost anyone you could name, to discover and publicize Israel's historical war crimes. He refused to serve in the Occupy West Bank Operation and was arrested as a result. His academic work on Israel is cited favorably by people like Noam Chomsky, who is all the way on the other side of the issue. Dr. Benny was at one point shunned by the Israeli academic community for being in essence "a traitor" to his people. He's one of the few people who can really claim to have battle scars from both sides of this debate.

Therefore, I thought he'd be a good person to help me weave through the complexities of the topic. I have a lot of admiration for Benny Morris, and I hope you find him as illuminating as I did.

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Race & Inequality Across the Pond with Inaya Folarin Iman Feb 03, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Inaya Folarin Iman. Inaya is the founder of The Equiano Project, a British organization dedicated to promoting free speech, common humanity, and universalism. She recently organized a conference called "Towards the Common Good" hosted at Cambridge, where John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and yours truly, spoke along with a host of British thinkers who are fighting in the same trenches that people like John, Glenn, Thomas and myself are. Inaya is one of the major people fighting this fight in the UK. She also ran for Parliament as part of the Brexit party in 2019 and has written for many outlets in the UK including The Telegraph, Spiked and Unheard.

In this episode, we discuss Inaya's background growing up in a working-class immigrant family. We talk about the influence of Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd moment in the UK. We discuss the similarities and differences between the US and the UK with regard to race relations. We talk about the contents of Boris Johnson's commission on race and how that report was misportrayed in the media. We also talk about the tragic cases of Sasha Johnson (a Brit) and Jazmine Barnes (an American), both of whom call into question which Black lives matter, and which Black lives don't.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Defeating the Race Baiters with Freddie Sayers Feb 02, 2023

Show notes

This is a recording of a live event that I did in London with Freddie Sayers. Freddie is the former editor-in-chief of YouGov, the founder of Politics Home, and the executive editor of UnHerd, which is a great publication you should all be reading.

So Freddie ran this conversation, and we covered lots of ground. We talk about American race politics. We discuss the legacy of Black Lives Matter. We talk about how to tackle divisive, race-centered ideologies. I really enjoyed this conversation, and you'll hear that the crowd did too. For whatever reason, I was quite a bit funnier here than I usually am. So that's always good.

I hope you all enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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