Today on Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Kat Rosenfield. She is an American novelist, journalist, and culture critic known for both her fiction and commentary on contemporary political debates. She began her career in publishing and as a reporter for MTV News before branching out into broader cultural criticism, contributing to outlets such as The New York Times, Wired, Vulture, Reason, and UnHerd. As a novelist, she has written You Must Remember This (2023), No One Will Miss Her (2021), Inland (2014) and Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone (2012). Rosenfield also co-authored the New York Times bestselling A Trick of Light (2019) with Stan Lee. She is currently a contributor to The Free Press and a co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. In the four years since Rosenfield was last on Unsupervised Learning the "culture wars" have seen a changing of the front lines; the woke ascendancy is no more, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, and Donald J. Trump is back in the Whitehouse. After the recording of this podcast Rosenfield was the target of a "cancellation" campaign due to her making light of white liberal gushing over the prose stylings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. But this being 2025, Rosenfield seemed more amused than afraid of the concerted attempt to "drag" her online and notify her employers. The first portion of this podcast discusses where we are now in the culture wars, how things have broadly changed, and which institutional pockets of the old woke ascendancy remain. Rosenfield and Razib also discuss the rise of gender polarization in online culture, and in particular, among Gen-Z.
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Eric Kaufmann: a cultural revolution in winter
Today Razib talks to Eric Kaufmann, a Canadian professor of politics at the University of Buckingham, where he directs the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He earned his BA from the University of Western Ontario and his MA and PhD from the London School of Economics. Prior to his current role, he held positions at the University of Southampton and Birkbeck, University of London, which he left in October 2023. He is the author of several books, including Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?, and The Third Awokening. His research interests include nationalism, political and religious demography, and national identity. Kaufmann is a previous guest on the podcast. Razib and Kaufmann begin their conversation by exploring the thesis of one of his earlier works, 2004's Rise and Fall of Anglo-America. They discuss the definition of "WASP," White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and cultural changes in the white American majority because of the massive immigration waves of the 19th and early 20th century. Kaufman argues that a coalition of liberal WASPs and "white ethnics" was instrumental in the eventual overthrow of the cultural hegemony of elite Protestant whites in the second half of the 20th century. Razib and Kaufman then relate the history of the WASPs to his latest book, The Third Awokening, which chronicles the rise of "cultural socialism" centered around race. Kaufman documents the potency of the ideas of the latest variant of wokeness, their traction among the youth, and argues for its historical roots in earlier forms of Anglo liberalism.
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1:29:51
Ryan P. Williams: the Claremont Institute standing athwart history
Today Razib talks to Ryan P. Williams. He is president of The Claremont Institute, a position he has held since 2017. He is also a contributor to The Claremont Review of Books and started The American Mind. Williams earned a B.A. in political science and Economics from Hillsdale College and an M.A. in politics from Claremont Graduate University. He has taught American politics and political philosophy as an adjunct professor at California State University, San Bernardino and Cal Poly Pomona. Razib and Williams first discuss the origins of The Claremont Institute and the influence of Harry Jaffa on the think-tank's founding and current thought. They explore the influence of Jaffa's mentor, political philosopher Leo Strauss, upon his worldview, and the differences that define the "west coast Straussianism" associated with the Institute and "east coast Straussianism." Williams also articulates how the conservative thought of Claremont affiliated scholars and pundits differs from other movements on the right, and in particular, how it is differentiated from both neoconservatism and paleoconservatism. Razib and Williams then go over The American Mind's decision to publish Michael Anton's "flight 93 election" piece, and the connection of many Claremont scholars to the Trump administration and the MAGA movement.
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Chad Orzel: the state of physics and academia in 2025
Chad Orzel is a physicist and science writer who has been blogging for nearly twenty-five years. He's the author of four books, Breakfast with Einstein: The Exotic Physics of Everyday Objects, How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog, Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist and A Brief History of Timekeeping. The last is a mix of cultural and engineering history, archeology and physics, and reflects Orzel's wide interests as reflected in his Substack, Counting Atoms. In this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib surveys the state of physics communication and science, as well as our broader culture's relationship with academia. Orzel and Razib first discuss the massive success of physicist-turned-YouTuber Sabine Hossenfelder. Emerging from academic physics and associated with Lee Smolin and the Perimeter Institute, Hossenfelder has shifted from skepticism of mainstream theories like string theory to arguing that academic science as a whole must be restructured. Orzel also notes that contrarian or heterodox views in popular areas such as astrophysics and particle physics receive much more attention than applied fields like solid-state physics. Razib and Orzel reflect on how science communication has changed over the past two decades, moving from the text-driven blog era before 2010 to the rise of podcasts and video. They also discuss the many technological applications of physics in the 21st century, particularly in battery technology, an area that is transforming daily life but rarely serves as fodder for glossy popular-press treatments. In the second half of the podcast, Orzel considers how science, and academia more broadly, have navigated the adversarial stance of the Trump administration. Razib asks whether institutional science, shaped in the post–World War II era, may be due for a major transformation, or whether it is even approaching the end of its line. Finally, Orzel addresses whether academics can regain broad public trust in the wake of the extreme politicization of the 2010s.
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Jonathan Anomaly and James Lee: is eugenics in our future?
Recently, the new embryo-selection start-up Herasight has been in the news, finally coming out of stealth. Part of the buzz is because of the public involvement of well-known geneticists and academics like Alex Young and Joe Pickrell in Herasight's algorithm development. Additionally, Noor Siddiqi, the CEO of Orchid, a competitor to Herasight (and onetime advertiser on this podcast), was a guest on Ross Douthat's show Interesting Times, triggering another round of conversations around embryo-selection, including in The Wall Street Journal and Breaking Points. To hash out some opposing viewpoints, Unsupervised Learning decided to bring on two guests that stake out very different positions, Dr. James Lee, a psychometrician and behavior geneticist at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Jonathan Anomaly, a philosopher and Herasight's sales lead. Lee has been on the record with his skepticism of reproductive technology, writing an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal four years ago warning against the consequences of polygenic embryo selection. Meanwhile, Anomaly's last book was Creating Future People: The Science and Ethics of Genetic Enhancement, where he advances the idea that such technologies will unlock human potential.
South Africa