Conversations with Coleman

Latest Episodes:

Is the Royal Family Racist? with Andrew Gold Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Andrew Gold. Andrew Gold is an ex-BBC journalist and documentary filmmaker, who now has an excellent podcast called "On The Edge". Andrew focuses on weird and controversial people, for instance, psychopaths, former cult members, exorcists, and so forth.

In this episode, we discuss Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's decision to leave the UK and the accusation of racism they leveled at the royal family on the way out. We discuss the Israel - Palestine conflict. We talk about the prospect of immortality and whether it would be desirable. We discuss the psychology of gender identity. We talk about pop music, social bubbles, and much more. I really liked this conversation because we dealt with so many seemingly unrelated topics, which is a nice departure from most of my conversations which generally focuses on one topic. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

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Jihad Rehab: A Tale of Cancellation with Meg Smaker Jan 20, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to the first Conversations with Coleman of 2023.

We're starting things off right with a great guest, Meg Smaker. If you've heard of Meg, it's probably because of the controversy surrounding her new documentary, originally called "Jihad Rehab", but later changed to "The Unredacted". Now, before I describe the controversy to you, I want to first say that this is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen in my life, hands down, and it was initially received that way at the Sundance Film Festival. Meg and her camera crew follow former jihadists who have just been released from Guantanamo Bay after 15 years. These former terrorists go through a special rehab program in Saudi Arabia and eventually try to integrate back into Saudi society with varying levels of success.

The documentary touches on America's war on terror, the root causes of Jihadist violence, the challenges of becoming a civilian again once you spend two years fighting and in prison, and our tendency to dehumanize people who've done terrible things. However, Meg's film was condemned by a small group of perpetually offended people on the far left. They condemned the film for being Islamophobic, which it certainly isn't. And they condemn Meg for being a white woman making a film about Arabs (never mind that she lived in the Middle East for many years, speaks Arabic, and so forth). If this documentary had been created by an Arab filmmaker but was identical in every other way, I have no doubt that the same people would be saying it should be nominated for an Oscar. It's really that good. Unfortunately, after her initially warm reception at Sundance, the people at Sundance reversed course and rejected her film from the festival caving into the demands of a small group of activists. Truly a cowardly concession to cancel culture in my view.

If you are able to access this documentary, I highly recommend you watch it. I also hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Actually Color Blindness Isn't Racist | Essay Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

In this special video essay, I share my thoughts on the long-running national debate on color blindness.

Check out the full article on my Substack - https://colemanhughes.substack.com

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Best of Season 3 - Highlight Reel Dec 24, 2022

Show notes

Welcome to the final Conversations with Coleman episode of the year.

I want to thank everyone for all the incredible support this year.

It's been a great year for the podcast, and I have all of you, especially those of you who support the show to thank for that.

In this final episode, my producer has put together some of the best moments from the podcast over this last year.

I hope you all enjoy this year-end highlight reel and of course, wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year!

*Check out my Substack - https://colemanhughes.substack.com

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The Problem of Democracy with Shadi Hamid (S3 Ep.41) Dec 17, 2022

Show notes

My guest today is Shadi Hamid. Shadi is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He was named one of the world's top 50 thinkers in 2019 by Prospect Magazine. Shadi is also the author of three books, Temptations of Power , Islamic Exceptionalism, and The Problem of Democracy, which will be the primary subject of this conversation.

Shadi and I talk about the difference between liberal democracy and democracy, full stop. We discuss Shadi's concept of democratic minimalism, which is the idea that we should promote democracy in the Middle East even when it leads to illiberal outcomes. We discuss the state of public opinion in Arab countries. We talk about the difference between Islamist and secular parties. We talk about the Israel-Palestine conflict and how it might be affected by the prospect of more democracy in the Middle East. We discuss the lessons learned from the Arab Spring. We talk about the new popularity of isolationist foreign policy in America. We also go on to talk about the so-called "Benign Dictatorships" and much more.

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Elites And Experts with David Sacks (S3 Ep.40) Dec 10, 2022

Show notes

My guest today is David Sacks. David is an entrepreneur, tech investor, film producer, and the co-host of the All-In podcast, which I highly recommend. He's General Partner at Craft Ventures, a venture capital firm he co-founded. David was the founding CEO of PayPal, which makes him a part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, which includes folks like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. He was an angel investor in Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Airbnb, and many other successful companies. He also produced the film "Thank You for Smoking", which was nominated for several Golden Globes.

David and I talk about his background as an entrepreneur and investor. We discuss his critique of what he calls the "expert class" as well as the "professional class". We talk about the problems with elite colleges and universities. We discussed the attributes that made the PayPal Mafia so successful. We talk about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter and his controversial leadership style. Finally, we also go on to talk about our mutual hobby - Chess.

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Can We Trust AI? with Rama Chellappa (S3 Ep.39) Dec 03, 2022

Show notes

My guest today is Rama Chellappa. Rama Chellappa is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He's a chief scientist at the Johns Hopkins Institute for assured autonomy. Before that, Rama was an assistant Associate Professor and later became the director of the University of Southern California Signal and Image Processing Institute. Rama is also the author of the book "Can We Trust AI?"

This episode is all about artificial intelligence. Several recent stories about AI have shocked and worried me. We have deep fakes going viral on Tiktok. AI reaching human levels of gameplay at the game "Diplomacy", which is a language-based game of conquest and deception. Then you have the Generative Adversarial Networks or "GANs" creating images from a line of text that rival and often exceed the work done by human graphic designers. Rama and I discuss all of these topics as well as other topics like neural networks, the difference between narrow intelligence and general intelligence, the use of facial recognition software, the possibility of an AI engaging in racial discrimination, the future of work, the so-called alignment problem, and much more.

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Snitches Get Stitches with Alexandra Natapoff (S3 Ep.38) Nov 20, 2022

Show notes

My guest today is Professor Alexandra Natapoff. Alexandra is a law professor at Harvard University. She writes about criminal courts, public defense, plea bargaining, wrongful convictions, and race and inequality in the criminal justice system. Her new book, which is an expanded edition of her older book is called "Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice"

In this episode, Alexandra and I discuss a phenomenon that's rarely encountered outside of shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, which is the use of criminal informants in the American justice system. Not all countries allow cops and prosecutors to reduce an accused criminal sentence in exchange for his cooperation and other investigations. However, Alexandra argues that most local and state agencies in America are allowed to do this with no documentation and no transparency. We talk about the advantages as well as the flaws of this system. We discuss the risk of informants giving false information or even planting evidence to reduce their own sentences. We talk about the triangular relationship between cops, informants, and prosecutors. We talk about the secretive nature of the informant system and how that prevents academics from studying it. I also press Alexandra on whether her proposal for transparency in the informant system would hinder the cops' ability to solve violent crimes and protect unsafe neighborhoods.

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The Death of The American Coalition with Tim Shenk (S3 Ep.37) Nov 11, 2022

Show notes

My guest today is Timothy Shenk. Tim is a historian at George Washington University and a co-editor at Dissent magazine. He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, and Jacobin, among other publications. Tim is also the author of the book "Realigners: Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy".

In this episode, Tim and I discuss the book that President Obama wrote in the 90s, but never published, which Tim was able to get his hands on. We discuss Obama's early influences, his critique of the left and his critique of expertise. We talk about how Obama's views have changed from the 90s to today. We talk about the legacy of Bayard Rustin, civil rights leader and writer who was a hero to both Tim and myself. We talk about how political parties used to build long-term coalitions and win many elections in a row, and why neither party is able to do that today. We discuss popularism and its critics. We also go on to talk about the midterm elections.

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The Art Of Storytelling with Christopher Paolini (S3 Ep.36) Oct 28, 2022

Show notes

Today I have a different kind of guest than I usually do. He's a fantasy and sci-fi author by the name of Christopher Paolini. You may be aware of his best-selling young adult fantasy book Eragon, which he wrote at the age of 15 and was also made into a major-budget film. The rest of the books in that series are Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance. You may also be aware of his more recent sci-fi novel called "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars". I've been a huge fan of Christopher for a very long time, and it was an honor to pick his brain.

In this episode, we talk about Christopher's writing process, the art of storytelling, the difference between young adult fiction and adult fiction, his strange path to becoming an author, the shortening of our collective attention spans, and much more. This was really one of my favorite recent interviews, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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