Robinson's Podcast - Robinson Erhardt

Latest Episodes:

259 - Kenneth Roth: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and How to Shame a Dictator Sep 14, 2025

Show notes

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Kenneth Roth is the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at the Princeton School for Public and International Affairs. Until August 2022, he served for nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch. In this episode, Robinson and Ken discuss his work with HRW and what he has been doing since. More particularly, they get into the details of how HRW operated, how shaming tactics can be deployed against figures like Putin, Trump, and Orban, Israel and Palestine, the relationship between genocide and ethnic cleansing, and more. For more, read Ken’s recent book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments (Knopf, 2025).

Righting Wrongs: https://a.co/d/gHkbmmw

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

00:00:53 Why Human Rights?

00:08:23 How Does Human Rights Watch Work?

00:14:04 Can Putin or Orban Be Shamed?

00:21:14 Can Trump Be Shamed into Standing Up to Putin?

00:26:53 Libya, Gaddafi, and Forcing the Release of Political Prisoners

00:29:14 Fighting the Dreaded M23 Rebel Group in Congo

00:31:56 Why Governments Always Violate Human Rights

00:33:57 Is Torture Ever Justified?

00:38:21 Facts and Investigations

00:46:27 Verifying Starvation and Famine in Gaza

00:51:29 Can Netanyahu Be Shamed?

00:58:24 Genocide vs. Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine

01:04:16 The United States’ Biggest Human Rights Violations

01:09:24 Sudan: The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis

258 - Richard Wolff: Donald Trump’s Tariff War Dissected Aug 31, 2025

Show notes

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Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s ninth appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In this episode, Richard and Robinson discuss the tariffs that President Donald Trump would like to place on goods imported from around the world. More particularly, they cover the real problems America is facing that Trump has to solve, the connection to Russia, China, and the BRICS, Elon Musk and electric vehicles, and more. Richard’s latest book is Understanding Capitalism (Democracy at Work, 2024).

Understanding Capitalism (Book): https://www.democracyatwork.info/understanding_capitalism

Richard’s Website: https://www.rdwolff.com

Economic Update: https://www.democracyatwork.info/economicupdate

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:07 Is Trump’s Tariff Plan Nuts?

00:06:31 Is the United States Unsustainable?

00:15:33 Can Tariffs Solve America’s Debt Problems?

00:19:17 Tesla’s Electric Vehicle Tariff War on China

00:25:19 The Declining American Empire

00:32:53 Exposing the Myths About Trump’s Tariffs

00:44:55 The Empty Promises of American Politics

00:53:54 Why DC Doesn’t Have Representation in Congress

01:00:22 The Bizarre Alliance Between Israel and the United States

01:04:48 Why Russia Is Exempt from Trump’s Tariffs

01:13:48 Are Israel and the United States “Winning” Against Gaza?

01:24:25 How Wealth Now Controls the United States

01:27:52 On The Impending Economic Downturn in the United States

01:31:47 How Trump is Turning Allies into Enemies

01:37:12 America’s Terrible Healthcare

01:42:25 Who Really Rules America?

01:57:04 How Should Trump Solve America’s Real Problems?

02:04:39 What America Can Learn from Britain’s Collapse

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where is also a JD candidate in the Law School.

257 - Carl Hart: The Neuroscience of Drugs and Their Role in the Good Life Aug 17, 2025

Show notes

Carl Hart is Mamie Phipps Clark Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, where he researches the behavioral and neuropharmacological effects of psychoactive drugs in humans. In this wide-ranging conversation, Robinson and Carl discuss drugs from many different angles, touching on the neuroscience of addiction, the opioid crisis, drugs’ connections to poverty, the roles they can play in a creative life, and more. Carl’s most recent book is Drug Use for Grown-Ups (2021, Penguin).

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: https://a.co/d/efgXuJK

OUTLINE

00:00:49 Introduction

00:03:14 What Is a Drug?

00:14:58 DARE and Drug Education

00:26:07 Rodrigo Duterte and the Drug War in the Philippines

00:39:25 Studying Drugs in the Lab

00:49:07 Does Addiction Change the Brain?

00:58:12 On the Opioid Crisis

01:10:42 How Should We Solve the Opioid Crisis?

01:14:01 What Is the Connection Between Drugs and Poverty?

01:18:21 How Do Drugs Affect the Brain?

01:28:27 How Can Drugs Improve Your Creativity?

01:36:04 Should Science Inform Drug Policy?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where is also a student in the Law School.

256 - Tim Maudlin: A Masterclass on the Philosophy of Time Aug 03, 2025

Show notes

Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. This is Tim’s eighth appearance on the show. His second to last appeared on episode 246 for a masterclass on Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, explaining it from the ground up and elucidating some common misconceptions. In this episode Tim returns for a discussion of the philosophy of time. More particularly, Tim and Robinson discuss black holes, fundamentality, simultaneity, time’s flow, rate, and limits, connections to physics, time travel, and more. If you’re interested in the foundations of physics, then please check out the JBI, which is devoted to providing a home for research and education in this important area. Any donations are immensely helpful at this early stage in the institute’s life.

Tim’s Website: www.tim-maudlin.site

The John Bell Institute: https://www.johnbellinstitute.org

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:01 “What Is” Questions

00:06:09 Everyday Misconceptions About Simultaneity

00:15:12 The Relativity of Duration

00:20:19 Is Time Fundamental?

00:28:55 Does Time Exist at Quantum Scales?

00:40:19 Is Quantum Mechanics Complete?

00:50:16 What Is Time-Reversal Invariance?

01:01:01 Parity Violations

01:11:46 What Is Metaphysics?

01:22:16 Does Time Have A Rate of Passage?

01:25:02 Does Time Flow?

01:27:04 What Does Time Really Measure?

01:29:15 Is There a Limit to How Accurately Clocks Can Measure Time?

01:33:06 Is Time Continuous or Discrete?

01:36:36 On Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion

01:44:08 Is Time Discrete?

01:51:14 Did Time Have a Beginning?

02:02:41 Stephen Hawking on Time

02:05:39 David Albert’s Past Hypothesis

02:14:13 The Debate Between Presentism and Eternalism

02:23:16 Lee Smolin’s Black Hole Theory

02:24:46 A Shortcoming of the Standard Model

02:26:05 Arrival Time and Time of Flight

02:34:51 Arrival Time Experiments and Bell’s Inequality

02:46:07 The Black Hole Information Paradox

02:56:27 Is Time Travel Back to the Dinosaurs Possible?

02:58:34 A Rant on Aliens

03:03:35 The John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where is also a student in the Law School.

255 - Michael Hudson: Trump, China, AI, and the Untold History of Economics Jul 20, 2025

Show notes

Michael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends. He researches domestic and international finance, the history of economics, and the role of debt in shaping class stratification, among many other topics. This is Michael’s fifth appearance on the show. He was also a guest on episode 180, where he and Robinson discussed neoliberalism, industrial capitalism, and the rentier economy, and on episode 198, where they discussed Marxism, economic parasites, and contemporary debt cancellation. He has also joined with Richard Wolff. In this episode, Michael and Robinson discuss how the Crusades shaped the future of economics, the role of economics in political history, the current budget of the Republicans, problems with social security, the effects of AI on economics, and more. Michael’s most recent book is Temples of Enterprise (ISLET, 2024).

Michael’s Website: https://michael-hudson.com

Temples of Enterprise: https://a.co/d/a3c53dm

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:37 Why Historians Missed How the Crusades Shapes Economics

00:10:39 What Motivated the Crusades?

00:20:09 The Problem of Financing Wars

00:29:23 How The Roman Catholic Church Invented Financial Interest

00:40:08 Importing Jewish Merchants to England

00:45:12 The Intolerance of the Catholic Church

00:48:51 The Origin of Roman Catholic Indulgences

00:58:39 Using Indulgences to Finance the Crusades

01:05:54 Neglecting the Role of Economics in Political History

01:15:43 Finance as the Central Planning Power of Governments

01:18:17 What’s Wrong with the Republicans’ Budget?

01:19:48 The Dark Problem with Social Security

01:26:40 The Conflict Between Finance and Democracy

01:37:19 How the 1 Percent Don’t Contribute to the Economy

01:38:40 How Will AI Impact the Future of Economics?

01:45:55 How Will AI Affect Unemployment Rates?

01:54:18 Will the 1 Percent Need People in an AI Future

01:58:32 How Will AI Affect the Future of Academia?

02:08:59 Papal Financial Control vs The IMF

02:19:37 How the Government Favors the Creditor over the Debtor

02:23:42 The Difference Between the Chinese and American Economies

02:32:37 Global Warming’s Devastating Effects on the Economy

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University.

254 - The Yale US-China Forum: Slavoj Žižek, Richard Wolff, Yannis Varoufakis, Robin Visser, Yascha Mounk, Pei Wang, Daniel Mattingly Jul 06, 2025

Show notes

In this special episode, Robinson and Karl Zheng Wang co-host at the Yale US-China Forum. Return guests from the show include Slavoj Žižek, Richard Wolff, and Yascha Mounk. Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University, and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. Yascha Mounk is a Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University. He is also a Contributing Editor at the Atlantic, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the host of The Good Fight podcast. Yannis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician, and current Secretary-General of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025. Robin Visser is Professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she researches modern Chinese and Sinophone literatures, urban cultural studies, and environmental studies. Pei Wang is Professor in the Chinese History and Culture Program at the University of Hong Kong, where she specializes in comparative philosophy, psychoanalysis, and more. Daniel Mattingly is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University, where he studies the domestic and international politics of authoritarian regimes, with a focus on China.

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:46 The Future of Europe and China

00:10:40 There Is No Such Thing as Trade Wars, They Are All Class Wars

00:15:50 How Wall Street’s Failures Fueled the Rise of Tech

00:20:02 Why Is There a New Cold War Between the US and China?

00:27:18 Why the United States Is Abandoning Democracy and Why China is Yannis Varoufakis’s Only Hope

00:29:26 Richard Wolff to Yannis Varoufakis: Are We Heading Toward Nuclear War with China?

00:35:58 How Class WARFARE Shaped the World Superpowers CLIP

00:41:01 Is China Capitalism’s Final Form?

00:52:03 Is There Any Way that China and the United Stated Could Avert Conflict?

00:59:16 Varoufakis to Wolff: Is a Tariff Hail Mary Trump’s Only Remaining Option?

01:03:39 Daniel Mattingly on China’s Sociopolitical Organization

01:08:39 How Does Xi Jinping Talk About Socialism?

01:13:47 Yascha Mounk on US-China Competition

01:22:36 Philosophy, Socialism, and Capitalism

01:48:40 Pei Wang on the Hero and Father in US-China Competition

01:54:31 Hero and Father Archetypes in Politics

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University.

253 - Peter Zeihan: China’s Fall, America’s Rise, and the End of the World Order Jun 22, 2025

Show notes

Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical analyst, futurist, and best-selling author who researches and strategizes around demography, economics, energy, politics, technology, and security. In this episode, Peter and Robinson focus on revisiting content from his latest book—The End of the World is Just the Beginning—in the context of today’s developments. More particularly, they discuss, Donald Trump, tariffs, ICE Raids, deportations, how demography and geography will affect the future balance of world powers, the impact of AI on global economics, what the end of the world order could look like, Trump’s immigration policies, and more. You can keep up with Peter through his website or YouTube channel, links to which are below.

Peter’s Website: https://zeihan.com

Peter’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ZeihanonGeopolitics

The End of the World is Just the Beginning: https://a.co/d/bZJES4t

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:09 Trump and the End of the American-Led World Order

00:06:49 Does AI Change the Economics of the Future?

00:14:39 The 2,000,000,000$ Failure of the F-35 Fighter Jet

00:25:00 Why the United States Needs Immigrants

00:33:03 Is There Any Strategy Behind Donald Trump?

00:41:43 Why Food Will Become Weaponized in the Near Future

00:50:39 Why China’s Economy is Doomed to Recession

00:53:55 How Do We Prepare For China’s Collapse?

01:00:37 Trump’s Tariffs and the Fall of America

01:01:54 Was Russia Doomed to Fall Even Before Ukraine?

01:05:51 The Biggest Underestimated Global Conflicts

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University.

252 - David Kipping: Alien Civilizations, Megastructures, Spacecraft, and Artificial Intelligence Jun 08, 2025

Show notes

David Kipping is a Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University, where he runs Cool Worlds Lab and researches planets and moons that revolve around stars other than our own, in addition to his own work on the search for—and theorization about—alien life. In this episode, David and Robinson have a wide-ranging conversation about extraterrestrials. They discuss alien civilizations, propulsion, megastructures, Oumuamua, quantum immortality, Dyson spheres, simulation theory, ancient aliens, and much more. David also runs the YouTube channel Cool Worlds Lab, where he has produced many videos on these topics.

Cool Worlds Lab (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/@CoolWorldsLab

David’s Website: http://davidkipping.co.uk

OUTLINE

00:01:05 Astronomy or Aliens?

00:06:12 How Scientists Get Burned by Alien Research

00:16:52 Three Big Obstacles to UFO Science

00:23:59 What is the Kardashev Scale of Alien Civilizations?

00:30:28 Cloaking Devices

00:33:46 How To Detect Alien Civilizations with Heat Signatures

00:37:21 Other Schemes for Detecting Civilizations

00:47:22 Does Alien Life Need Water to Exist?

00:51:46 Why Would Aliens Have Very Different Technology From Us?

00:55:54 When Did the First Life Form in the Universe?

01:07:23 Is the Universe Filled with Ancient Alien Civilizations?

01:16:45 What Is the Great Filter Hypothesis For Alien Life?

01:19:31 Artificial Intelligence, Aliens, and the End of Humanity

01:25:05 How Rare Is the Creation of Life From Nothing?

01:31:53 Communicating with Extraterrestrials

01:37:28 What Are Alien Megastructures?

01:47:07 Can We Engineer the Sun to Live Longer?

01:51:08 Clark Belt Detection

01:54:35 Should We Look for Alien Life on Exomoons?

02:01:33 Could We Find Alien Life on Planets in the Interstellar Medium?

02:04:34 Future Telescopes

02:13:35 What Is a Warp Drive and Why Can’t We Build One?

02:21:47 On Time Travel and the Best Time Machines

02:26:40 What Are the Best Interstellar Propulsion Technologies?

02:34:07 Was Oumuamua an Alien Spacecraft?

02:43:09 Are the TicTac UFOs Alien Spacecraft?

02:56:58 Do We Live in a Simulation?

03:00:17 What Is Quantum Immortality?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University.

251 - Eliezer Yudkowsky: Artificial Intelligence and the End of Humanity May 25, 2025

Show notes

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a decision theorist, computer scientist, and author who co-founded and leads research at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He is best known for his work on the alignment problem—how and whether we can ensure that AI is aligned with human values to avoid catastrophe and harness its power. In this episode, Robinson and Eliezer run the gamut on questions related to AI and the danger it poses to human civilization as we know it. More particularly, they discuss the alignment problem, gradient descent, consciousness, the singularity, cyborgs, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Anthropic, Claude, how long we have until doomsday, whether it can be averted, and the various reasons why and ways in which AI might wipe out human life on earth.

The Machine Intelligence Research Institute: https://intelligence.org/about/

Eliezer’s X Account: https://x.com/ESYudkowsky?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:43 The Default Condition for AI’s Takeover
00:06:36 Could a Future AI Country Be Our Trade Partner?
00:11:18 What Is Artificial Intelligence?
00:21:23 Why AIs Having Goals Could Mean the End of Humanity
00:29:34 What Is the Alignment Problem?
00:34:11 How To Avoid AI Apocalypse
00:40:25 Would Cyborgs Eliminate Humanity?
00:47:55 AI and the Problem of Gradient Descent
00:55:24 How Do We Solve the Alignment Problem?
01:00:50 How Anthropic’s AI Freed Itself from Human Control
01:08:56 The Pseudo-Alignment Problem
01:19:28 Why Are People Wrong About AI Not Taking Over the World?
01:23:23 How Certain Is It that AI Will Wipe Out Humanity?
01:38:35 Is Eliezer Yudkowski Wrong About The AI Apocalypse
01:42:04 Do AI Corporations Control the Fate of Humanity?
01:43:49 How To Convince the President Not to Let AI Kill Us All
01:52:01 How Will ChatGPT’s Descendants Wipe Out Humanity?
02:24:11 Could AI Destroy us with New Science?
02:39:37 Could AI Destroy us with Advanced Biology?
02:47:29 How Will AI Actually Destroy Humanity?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University.

250 - Norman Finkelstein: Trump, Israel, Gaza, and the Criminalization of Dissent May 11, 2025

Show notes

Norman Finkelstein received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department, and is best known for his research on Israel and Palestine. Norman also appeared on episodes 192, 218, 228, and 244, where he addressed the facts and fictions generated by the Israel-Hamas War, October 6th, allegations of genocide and apartheid, Hezbollah, the Holocaust, and more. In this episode, Robinson and Norman discuss Trump, the current state of Gaza, the fate of Palestine, wokeness, Bernies Sanders, Chuck Schumer, antisemitism, free speech, and other topics. Norman’s most recent book is I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom (Sublation Media, 2023).

Norman’s Website: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com

OUTLINE

00:01:11 Norman’s Predictions for the War

00:10:12 Trump and the End of the Ceasefire

00:14:29 Why Didn’t The Democrats Strike a Ceasefire in Israel?

00:25:50 A Jeremy Corbin Witch Hunt?

00:29:52 On Wokeness and DEI

00:54:01 Bernie Sanders and the Working Class

00:57:16 Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, and Anti-Semitism

01:04:17 Is Trump a Slave to Money, Power, and Putin?

01:11:02 Is Chuck Schumer’s Definition of Anti-Semitism Terrible?

01:19:52 Free Speech and Academia