Hacking State

16 - Grant Dever: Nuclear Texas

We envision a nuclear Texas. Grant Dever is a research fellow at FREOPP (Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity) who writes about energy policy, with a focus on nuclear power. He earned his degree in economics and business from the University of Rochester. During the pandemic, Grant cultivated community for IndieThinkers.org—an accelerator for independent thinkers on the internet. He also authored "Lead The Future: Strategies and Systems for Emerging Leaders."
 
The conversation touches on Texas as an independent energy powerhouse and the challenges with its power grid. Dever also speaks about the role of tech giants in advancing Nuclear Energy. By adopting demand response and managing intermittency, power-intensive applications like bitcoin mining, training LLMs & hydrogen production can be transformative in nuclear energy proliferation. 
 
The discussion concludes with a note on the  opportunities in the Texas energy sector, particularly when diverging from federal directives, standing as the lone star state.
 
You can find Grant on: 
 
Website: https://grantdever.com/
 
Substack: https://www.seekingtribe.com/
 
FREOPP: https://freopp.org/the-freopp-scholar-grant-dever-badbe66c8b7e
 
X: https://twitter.com/grantadever
 
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Future-Strategies-Systems-Emerging-ebook/dp/B0828895H4
 
Relevant Links: 
 
https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-7639c7e88642
 
https://blog.freopp.org/were-not-going-to-have-another-chernobyl/
 
 
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes.
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Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

15 - Brendon Marotta: Children’s Justice

Brendon Marotta is a filmmaker, author, and podcaster. We talk about his book, "Children's Justice", which applies critical theory to the controversial topic of infant circumcision.
We go through his decision to appropriate the tools and tactics of critical theory in service of this issue, apprehensions around taking circumcision up as a social justice or human rights concern, my discomfort with everything about this, childhood trauma and its reverberating effects on adults and institutions, rhetorical methods borrowed from Foucault and others to make his argument, barriers for men and parents to discussing circumcision, and why he sees advocacy around this issue as a microcosm for opening a broader discussion around the treatment of children.
 
Brendon Marotta's feature-length documentary, "American Circumcision" garnered numerous nominations and awards at film festivals, including Best Documentary at the Lone Star Film Festival (2017), The Silver Jury Prize at The Social Justice Film Festival (2017), Best Documentary Feature at Outer Docs Film Festival (2018), and is available on Netflix (non-US) and Prime video.
 
 
Children's Justice (2022): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735113425/
American Circumcision: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7628146/
Gods of AI (2022): https://www.amazon.com/Gods-AI-AI-Generated-Art-Book/dp/B0BMTFSNQ5/
 
Brendon Marotta
Site: https://brendonmarotta.com/
X: https://twitter.com/bdmarotta
 
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes.
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml
 

14 - Stephen Pimentel: Reviewing ”Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy”

Engineer and essayist Stephen Pimentel joins me for a review of the recently released bestselling book in Political Philosophy, Costin Alamariu’s “Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy”. In this discussion we go deep in tracing the argument, point-by-point, of Costin’s thesis concerning the twin emergence of philosophy and tyranny out of the idea of nature, and its teaching and preservation in the aristocratic regime.
We attempt to tour the line of argument in sequential fashion, laying out the basic premises, consequences, and conclusions Costin provides, as well as its potential reverberations for our understanding of classical political philosophy; and hint at potential future implications, given advances in technology and age of the current regime, of this timely and unexpectedly popular hit.
We go through the early anthropological account of pre-philosophical societies under the sway of collective nomos, the introduction of natural law from martial-aristocratic pastoralist conquerors, the discussion of Pindar and his insights for the aristocracy's self-understanding, phusis and its connection to physicality, the emergence of nature outside the city by breeding and training as a re-wilding project aimed at cultivating men of andreia and phronesis, Callicles and Socrates in Plato's Gorgias--turning Platonic political philosophy on its head, and Nietzsche's resurrection of aristocratic radicalism in service of the preservation of philosophy for the production of genius.
 
Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Selective-Breeding-Philosophy-Costin-Alamariu/dp/B0CJ3ZDHF6 
 
Stephen Pimentel: https://twitter.com/StephenPiment 
 
 
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes.
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Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml
 

13 - Steve Hsu: Polygenic Embryo Selection, Improving LLMs, & Getting Nearly Cancelled

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University, as well as the founder of Genomic Prediction and SuperFocus AI; he also hosts the Manifold podcast, and the Information Processing blog.
Steve and I speak about polygenic risk scoring and embryo selection, using AI to predict phenotype from genotype, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, eugenic public policy, addressing Christians' and right-wing traditionalists' concerns over reproductive technology, SuperFocus AI's plan to eliminate hallucination in large language models (LLMs) by separating memory from inference, introspection for LLM error correction, and surviving the failed cancellation attempt at MSU.
 
Steve Hsu:
On X: https://twitter.com/hsu_steve
Personal Site: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/
Manifold podcast: https://www.manifold1.com/
Genomic Prediction: https://www.lifeview.com/
SuperFocus AI: https://superfocus.ai/
 
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes. Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

12 - Garrett Dailey: Designing Business Around Philosophy

Garrett Dailey is the founder of Aion Enterprises, a business philosophy and design firm. We speak about the meaning of Aion, building a business around philosophy, individuation, the Candy Cane model of reality, and the importance of aesthetics for catalyzing people with a compelling vision of the future.
“Any sufficiently complex thought is philosophy.”
Aion:
https://www.aion.enterprises/ https://twitter.com/AionEnterprises
Garrett Dailey:
https://garrettdailey.substack.com/ https://twitter.com/Liber_Rex
 
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes.
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

11 - Disgraced Propagandist: The World of Dissident Marketing

Disgraced Propagandist (Isaac Simpson) is the founder of WILL, a dissident marketing agency, and The Carousel Substack and podcast. We speak about how WILL does dissident marketing for a cohort of new natural “wholesome” brands, the marketing industry as the canary in the coal mine for workplaces becoming Longhouses, the power of branding, the meaning of The Carousel metaphor, nostalgia, the “hype dad” archetype, his literary influences, and NEVER APOLOGIZE!
 
WILL, the agency: https://willtheagency.com/
On X: https://x.com/WILLtheagency
 
The Carousel:
https://thecarousel.substack.com/
 
Disgraced Propagandist: 
On X: https://x.com/DisgracedProp
Site: https://isaacsimpson.com/
 
 
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a review on Spotify/iTunes.
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml
 

10 - Razib Khan: Genetic Time Traveling

Razib Khan is a population geneticist, has a popular Substack on genetics and history, and is a co-founder of GenRAIT.
We speak about his role in the scientific ecosystem, the effect of the computing revolution on ancient genetics and genomics, why he’s most interested in Eurasian steppe populations, how ancient DNA has shed light on theories in archeology and philology, the effects of delayed fertility on genetic quality of offspring, prenatal genetic screening and gene editing, selection effects of modern environments, his startup, GenRait, and his antics on Twitter/X.
 
 
Website: https://www.razib.com/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/razibkhan
GenRait: https://www.genrait.com/

9 - Hannah Frankman: On the Education of Rebels

Hannah Frankman is the founder of Rebel Educator, an all-inclusive resource hub for parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs. We discuss her experiences in educational reform and alternative paths to education, Montessori education philosophy, her involvement in the education space, and the launch of Rebel Educator. We also cover criticisms of the educational system and popular alternatives, homeschooling, the potential benefits of accelerated and decelerated learning, the need for more localized, private, and independent schools, and the importance of values in education.
 
Hannah Frankman
Website: http://hannahfrankman.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HannahFrankman
Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@thehannahfrankmanpodcast
 
Rebel Educator: https://rebeleducator.co/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/rebelEducator
 
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml 

8 - Bo Winegard: Aporias of Human Nature

Bo Winegard on life after cancellation, why we should talk about group differences in intelligence, Aporia - a new magazine courting heterodox social science and philosophy, victimhood rhetoric, the tedious relationship of truth to justice, anonymity vs. identity, are we at peak wokeness?, noble lies, epistemic accelerationism, limits to academic discourse in public, and his proposal for a Republic; if you can keep it.
 
Bo Winegard is a Social Psychologist and Executive Editor of Aporia.
Bo Winegard on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/EPoe187
Aporia Magazine:
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/
 
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml

7 - Mark Wilcox: 21e8 and Computational Data Markets

Mark Wilcox on 21e8, his information architecture company, computational data markets, why compute is money, Bitcoin’s role in all this, price discovery via compute, how AI is destroying people’s belief in the computer, deleveraging from the U.S. dollar, decision theory, the curse of dimensionality, and moving back to base primitives.
 
“The problem to solve is how much compute it takes to generate value.” -  Mark Wilcox
 
Mark Wilcox on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mwilcox
21e8 (company):
Twitter - https://twitter.com/21e8ltd
N.Z. - https://21e8.nz/
U.S. - https://21e8.com/
 
Support Hacking State: https://hackingstate.substack.com/subscribe
Listen on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexmurshak
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hacking-state/id1689677076
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1XB9XYULrAY4dp0qIJVvCg
RSS: https://feed.podbean.com/hackingstate/feed.xml