Biden’s Big Problems: Ukraine and the Border | Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus



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1:24 Important reminder about the Friday podcast
3:05 Sam Bankman-Fried’s plan to stop Trump
8:20 Biden’s new policy: Build the wall!
17:00 Why is life expectancy dropping for some demographics in America?
19:39 Should Democrats have helped Kevin McCarthy remain speaker?
27:00 The Blob starts to think like Bob on Russia-Ukraine
34:17 Should the US impose conditions on aid to Ukraine?
44:40 What war with China over Taiwan would look like
48:44 Parrot Room preview: McCarthyism at the news outlet Semafor. Michael Lewis’s new book on Sam Bankman-Fried. Parrot reminiscing. Evolution and homosexuality. Christopher Rufo defends Nixon.

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded October 06, 2023.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

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33 thoughts on “Biden’s Big Problems: Ukraine and the Border | Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus”

  1. Prof. Wright, how about an interview with Tim Palmer on the impossibility of predicting the future? (By predicting I mean "you'll meet a person with the following social security number and you'll marry that person on April 11 2025 at 10am – not "you'll mean a dark skinned person and that will be an opportunity for love in your life".)

    BTW, do you have some idea about the ammount of power these AI farms consume? A real large ammount – energy that contributes to Global Warming and computing power that could use to model the world's climate.

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  2. Wouldn't it be cheaper to suspend the sanctions against Venezuela? Perhaps also help Central American countries and Mexico? How about letting some more Rio Grande water reach northern Mexico? That's what FDR did, btw.

    Bernie Sanders has an opinion similar to Mickey's on immigration and wages. Increasing the labor force will bring inflation down – that's not 75D chess … that's well known economic fact, Professor. Also, given the weird electoral process you guys have, 300 people – roughly 100 voters – can change election results.

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  3. Immigration is not the main cause of the problems you are having over there – I actually think it has an almost insignificant effect. More importang causes are Reagan's "Greed is good", the almost zero taxation of ultra rich and capital gains and the really bad safety net for society. C'mon! We have universal healthcare for anyone who's in Brazil and you have almost nothing!!! Don't you feel ashamed?

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  4. Rhodes came very close to endorsing the utterly bullshït argument:"We're spending all this money to protect Ukraine's borders while our own borders are wide open." True but utterly bullshiït. Our border problem has absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. An extremely cheap piece of rhetoric that apparently appeals to many morons. Our border problem has nothing to do with lack of money; it is 100% about Biden's ~wish~ to have an open border. (This week, his resolution to do nothing on our border has obviously softened, a very late, panicked concession to political realities.)

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  5. Seizing of Crimea was not simply only about Sevastopol naval base but about the russian population of Crimea returning to Russia, what about the control of the black sea by Russia which mean the security of the Russian pipelines at the bottom of the black sea and the control of the natural gas under the black sea. Of course none of these would have been necessary for Russia if Ukraine would have remain friendly to Russia but the US 2014 coup made all this necessary for Russia.

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  6. In 2020, after reading Why Buddhism is True and meditating more regularly, I found Bloggingheads on YouTube by searching for Robert Wright. It was a pleasant surprise to find this weekly conversation which I have loyally listened to the past three years. Folding laundry and doing chores on Saturdays will feel empty without you two. Your intelligence, objectivity, wit, and dry humor are something that I am not aware exists anywhere else. This was gold. Unrecognized excellence in a small corner of the cybersphere. I will remember these past few years fondly, in part because of you two. Thank you. From dust to dust…

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  7. So would Bob be OK with a peace deal including NATO membership for Ukraine? Or what's left of it? Because that's what it's going to take and Ukraine should demand it. Through all this I get the feeling that Bob would have been calling for peace with Hitler.

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  8. We agree to keep nato out and stop arming Ukraine, and suddenly Russia has no motive to attack Ukraine. And if they ukr wants to continue to creating conflict with their neighbor, then it’s their war alone to fight.

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  9. I will miss trying to read the titles of Bobs books and to make out the strange painting on Micky’s wall. Seriously guys, thanks for your very interesting thought provoking rapport. You’ll be missed.

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  10. Gods Don’t Make House Calls…Beautiful denouement to an incredible podcast. At 27 I only discovered you two geezers during the pandemic and I became addicted…wonderful odd couple like chemistry that I will surely miss. I was JUST getting rich enough to be able to afford a Parrot room subscription as well, Pity. ✌🏻

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