Advertise on podcast: Conversations With Coleman

My guest today is Jonathan Haidt. I just had Jonathan on the show a few weeks ago with Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, but I wanted to get him back for a one-on-one. I'm glad I did because this turned out to be a really great conversation. It actually felt more like a private phone call than an interview, which I thought was really cool. I also thought it was really cool that John brought up the first email that I ever sent to him back when I was just a random Columbia undergraduate trying to understand why some of my professors seemed totally insane.  In the episode, we talk about humor and offensive jokes. We discuss reasons why social media sucks so much as a forum for serious conversations. We also talk about the pros and cons of the internet, the progress America has made on issues like racism, and whether protest movements are still a useful practice. We also go to talk about Elon Musk potentially buying Twitter, and much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Winston Marshall. Winston is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning band "Mumford and Sons", in which he played lead guitar and banjo for 14 years. He left the band after writing a tweet that praised a book by Andy Ngo. As many of you may remember, Andy Ngo is a journalist that got beaten to a pulp by Antifa extremists. Winston wrote a pretty mild tweet approving of Andy Ngo's book on Antifa and as a result, was pressured to leave Mumford and Sons and he eventually did. He now has a podcast called "Marshall Matters" which this conversation will also be aired on, so you can go check that out.  In this episode, we discuss Winston's time with Mumford and Sons. We discuss the influence of Jordan Peterson on his thinking and even on his songwriting. We talk about cancel culture in particular with regards to the music industry in Hollywood. We talk about my position on reparations for slavery. We also talk about the differences between America and the UK and much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Sam Koppelman. Sam is a best-selling author and top speechwriter for many prominent politicians. Sam just co-wrote a book with former Attorney General Eric Holder called "Our Unfinished March: The Violent Past and Imperiled Future of the Vote-A History, a Crisis, a Plan" In this episode, we talked about voter fraud, voter ID laws, voter suppression, and gerrymandering. We discuss the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the so-called "gutting of that act" in 2013. We also talk about the great replacement theory and much more. As you'll hear in the episode, I'm skeptical of the narrative that voter suppression is a huge problem, that voter ID laws are racist, and so forth. While Sam doesn't quite go that far, I think there is some distance between his position on these topics and my own. As we near the midterms, I'm gonna have a few more guests like this that deal with electoral politics. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Roland Fryer. Roland is an economics professor at Harvard University. He is a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Grant and the Bates medal. Roland is probably among the top five most frequent guest requests that I get. So it was really exciting to finally have him on the show. In this episode, we discuss Roland's childhood and the many obstacles he had to overcome in order to become a top-notch economist. We talk about his relationship with his grandmother and his father, our relationships to our own racial identities, the progress that America has made in fighting racism, and whether race consciousness can ever be a good thing. We also talk about why high school is boring for so many people and what can be done about it, stand-up comedy, and the power of humor. We discuss Roland's famous empirical work on the prevalence of racial bias and police shootings and arrests, and the implications of this research for the Black Lives Matter movement. We go on to talk about Roland's meeting with President Obama, what Roland learned by doing ride-alongs with police officers, data-driven ways to improve K through 12 education, the nebulous concept of systemic racism, Roland's alternative Diversity Equity and Inclusion company, and much more. *My apologies for the drop in Roland's audio quality in this episode. Unfortunately, we faced some network issues during the time of recording, thus the drop in quality. Despite the technical inconvenience, I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is a recording of a live event that I did with Jonathan Haidt, Greg Lukianoff, and Rikki Schlott. Jonathan Haidt is a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business. He is also the co-founder of Heterodox Academy, which I once wrote a blog post for back when I was probably 21 years old. Jonathan is the author of many books including "The Happiness Hypothesis", "The Righteous Mind", and "The Coddling of the American Mind" with his co-author Gregory Lukianoff.  Greg Lukianoff is the president of FIRE which is the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and probably the pre-eminent defender of free speech on college campuses. Greg is also the producer of several documentaries about free speech and is also a trained lawyer. Rikki Schlott is a columnist for the New York Post, a fellow at FIRE, a contributor at Reason Magazine, and the host of the Lost Debate Podcast.  We all discuss what has changed since Jonathan and Greg published "The Coddling of the American Mind" back in 2018. We talk about the effect of social media on political polarization and mental health. We also discuss Jonathan's recent viral Atlantic essay called "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid", and many other related topics. Unfortunately, because of the constraints of the live event, this is a shorter podcast than usual. However, I'm getting Jonathan back on the podcast very soon to have a full-length discussion about all this stuff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Yascha Mounk. Yascha is a political scientist and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. He's also the founder of "Persuasion", which is a great online magazine I really recommend you all read. He is also the host of "The Good Fight" podcast. Yascha has a new book out called "The Great Experiment", which is what we'll be discussing in today's episode. We talk about group psychology and tribalism, their origin, and human nature. We discuss the difference between nations that are built around specific ethnic groups on the one hand and nations that are built around abstract ideas on the other, the challenges faced by multi-ethnic democracies, the threats to diverse democracies from the right and from the left, and why diverse democracies can be less stable than diverse autocracies. We talk about colorblindness, white identity politics and wokeness, whether increased contact between racial groups is the antidote to racism, and whether diversity is an inherent good or a contingent good. We go on to talk about the idea that demography is destiny, the fluidity of racial identity and how one's identity can change in response to social incentives, what it would look like to have a colorblind legal regime in America, immigration and cultural assimilation, and much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is actually a recording of a live event I did at TED in Vancouver with Tim Urban. Tim Urban is the author of the blog "Wait But Why?" and also of the upcoming book "The Story of Us". My thanks to the TED team for inviting me to have this conversation. ​​​​​​​Tim and I talked about procrastination, the shortness of life, artificial intelligence, political polarisation, and much more. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to film this event, so this will be an audio-only episode. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Frances Haugen. Frances is a data engineer, scientist, product manager, and whistleblower.  ​​​​​​​In this episode, we discuss the psychological effects of Instagram on teenagers, the subculture of Tumblr, the cross-check system at Facebook, Facebook's policy toward misinformation, and much more. I really enjoyed this episode and I hope you do too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Richard Dawkins. I assume most of you know who he is, but in case you've been living under a rock; Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and emeritus fellow at Oxford University. If I listed all the awards he's received in his lifetime, this description will not end. His books include The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, Unweaving the Rainbow, and many others. His latest book is called "Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution" in which he explores and explains the phenomenon of flight both in the animal world and in manmade technology. We didn't get to discuss this book in this episode, but I really recommend you all check it out.  In this episode, we discuss technological progress, whether race is a social construct or biological reality, the mystery of consciousness, the concept of a meme (which Richard invented), religion and its relationship to a happy life, whether wokeness plays the role of a religion in people's lives, and finally, Richard gives his advice to up and coming scientists. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang is a businessman, attorney and author. He is known for his presidential bid in 2020 and his bid for New York City mayor in 2021. This podcast was recorded at Andrew's studio and jointly released on his podcast which is called "Forward". In this episode, we discuss my upbringing and background in music, how philosophy is taught, why race shouldn't matter, the democrats use of identity politics, office culture, the future of work, automation, and AI. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is David Chalmers. David is a professor of philosophy and neuroscience at NYU and the co-director of NYU Centre for Mind, Brain and Consciousness. David just released a new book called "Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy", which we discuss in this episode. We also discuss whether we're living in a simulation, the progress that's been made in virtual reality, whether virtual worlds count as real, whether people would and should choose to live in a virtual world, and many other classic questions in the philosophy of mind and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Jacob Mchangama. Jacob is a lawyer and writer based in Denmark. He's the founder of Justitia, a think tank focused on human rights and freedom of speech. Jacob is also the producer and narrator of the excellent podcast called Clear and Present Danger. Jacob and I discuss his brilliant new book: Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. We talk about the Danish cartoon controversy and Charlie Hebdo. We also discuss the so-called "Milton's curse"; which is the habit of hypocritically defending free speech for some, but not for others. I think this point is relevant to some of the bans that we've been seeing on Russian state news. We talk about the notion of power relations and its relationship to free speech, the relationship between censorship and human nature, and the importance of having a culture of free speech in addition to having laws that nominally protect it. We also talk about the origins of what Jacob calls "egalitarian free speech" in ancient Athens, the First Amendment and its evolving interpretation over time, and the alleged exceptions to protected speech such as hate speech or shouting fire in a crowded theatre. We go on to discuss whether censorship actually works, big tech companies and their role in censoring speech, similarities between the rise of the printing press and the rise of the Internet, cancel culture, the threat to free speech posed by China and the CCP, and much more. This was one of my favorite conversations that I've had so far this year, and I hope you enjoy it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices