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.

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.

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.