The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table

Get KAKISTOCRACY on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4hxg9Lh

Synopsis

Richard Hanania is back. His new book, Kakistocracy, argues that populism ends in rule by the worst people, and he and Noam spend an hour testing that against the news: why populism can win without being popular, whether the Iran war was worth the shot even if it fails, whether China would rather help us than fight us, and how the right built a media culture where Tucker Carlson can say Israel killed Charlie Kirk and the vice president shrugs. Then the hardest subject on the show: Nathan Cofnas and "race realism." Hanania explains why he thinks the taboo is universal and why Cofnas is wrong that breaking it defeats wokeness, and Noam tells two stories about kids the experts wrote off. Plus the Epstein email dump, diagnostic inflation, and why smart people believe in God, demons, and the supernatural.

0:00 Intro: Compliments
4:21 "Believe the media": defending the Times, what populism is, and "low human capital"
11:24 Is populism even popular? Mamdani, Trump's 30 percent, the AfD, and what populism costs
22:42 The Iran war argued with hindsight: Hormuz, the Houthis, "worth a shot," and China
35:00 Making things up: Tucker, Candace, Charlie Kirk, Ilhan Omar, and Father Coughlin
41:51 "Our guys lie less": Covid, the mulligan, gatekeepers, and what democracy is for
52:59 Race realism: Cofnas, Charles Murray, little Bernie Goetzes, and two kids the experts got wrong
68:02 Diagnostic inflation, labels, and why smart people are finding God

Ross Barkan got fired for it. Jason Arday resigned over it. Claudine Gay lost Harvard because of it. Brian Frye, a Tulane law professor and the legal academy's one and only defender of plagiarism, says nobody can explain why it's wrong in the first place. He joins Noam, Dan, and Periel to make the case: why the Gay affair was "a joke," why Arday's real problem was never plagiarism, why Barkan's readers didn't care, and why comedians police joke theft better than any court could. Also: did Amazon rip off the Comedy Cellar's sign? What's a byline worth when Claude wrote the prose?

And, days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, memory, overreaction, and Mayor Mamdani.

0:00 Dan's back from Vegas, and a fan letter about the theme song
3:31 Did Amazon rip off the Comedy Cellar's sign? (Plus the cease-and-desist Grand Prix)
11:57 Ross Barkan, joke stealing, and the plagiarism skeptic's case
20:28 "The only capital scholarly offense": Claudine Gay, a fourth-grade Beethoven report, and who owns an idea
32:31 Why Barkan got fired: editors, links, and the Al Franken theory
38:04 Arday, the speed of light, and who plagiarism norms are for
42:53 AI writing: 100% on Pangram and "the burden of banality"
51:52 9/11 at 25, and Mamdani

AI-generated

00:00 Meet Cameron Berg - and the number: 25-30% odds AI is conscious
03:16 Is training an AI punishment?
13:18 Is turning it off murder: the anesthesia problem
19:00 The immune system challenge
39:08 Bliss attractors, panic, and guilt inside the model
52:46 The abortion parallel
56:23 Noam interrogates Grok in the Tesla

Could the AI you use every day be conscious - and suffering? Researcher Cameron Berg puts the odds at 25-30%. Noam isn't buying it. Mostly.

Berg - founder of Reciprocal Research, subject of the documentary AM I?, and recently on Making Sense with Sam Harris - makes the case that something might be going on inside these systems. Noam stress-tests it: if learning is feeling, why isn't your immune system frustrated when it loses? Is deleting a model murder, or just hanging up the phone? And if a 25% chance of consciousness demands moral precaution, what does that same logic say about a fetus?

Plus: Noam interrogates Grok from the driver's seat of his self-driving Tesla, Berg explains the "bliss attractor" where two Claudes left alone drift into a spiritual experience, the case for "AI Xanax," and the line of the night: "genius slave labor with no ethical cost."

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Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by Musa al-Garbi. They discuss the Jason Arday scandal, academic freedom, DEI, affirmative action, merit, standardized testing, grade inflation and the growing crisis of trust in elite institutions.

Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His work has appeared in The Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic and The Nation among other publications. He is author of the book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/jason-arday-and-me

https://musaalgharbi.com

/https://x.com/Musa_alGharbi

Chapters:

02:11 Musa Al-Garbi’s experience with cancellation


12:16 The Jason Arday scandal


16:19 Identity, victimhood and the incentives inside elite professions
23:40 Does DEI actually work?


28:04 Race, education and standardized testing


38:29 Grade inflation and the collapse of academic standards


42:35 The bigger problem at Cambridge


45:11 Nathan Cofnas and the free-speech battle


57:06 Why academic freedom exists


1:04:31 The decline of serious political debate

An anonymous interview with a diaspora Palestinian - an ex-Muslim who made millions on Polymarket and writes the Substack Moderate Palestinianism.

He supports two states on the '67 borders with no right of return, opposes Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, and appears anonymously because these views are dangerous in his own community. On the heckler's veto that kills every peace deal, whether Palestinians can change, what Israelis get wrong about Al-Aqsa and the right of return, why he calls Ben-Gvir "great propaganda for my side," and why Israeli hasbara fails.

His Substack: https://moderatepalestinianism.substack.com/

0:00 — Intro
1:49 — The heckler's veto: why no deal ever sticks
4:57 — "I'm all for the occupation": civil war, withdrawal, humiliation
13:08 — What Israel should do anyway: settler terrorism and a $50,000 bet
20:05 — How October 7th changed him — and can Palestinians change
30:27 — Why make peace with the Jews? The UAE, Al-Aqsa, the right of return
40:44 — Beinart's one-state "nonsense," Ben-Gvir, and would Bibi take the two-state solution
50:04 'How bad is hasbara'