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Dan Wang and Santi Ruiz on James C. Scott

    Statecraft | 30 July 2026 | 1h 3m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify

    Santi Ruiz and Dan Wang discuss the legacy of social scientist James C. Scott, focusing on his theories of state power and resistance. Explores how states strive for “legibility” while individuals use “weapons of the weak” – such as foot-dragging and gossip – to evade control. Highlights how geography, like mountains, historically provided refuge from authority. Applying Scott’s work to the modern world, debates the necessity of remaining “illegible” to AI and large language models to protect personal autonomy in an increasingly monitored society.

    See also other episodes about James C. Scott. The Oral History Center at UC Berkeley has released a video documentary, In A Field All His Own: The Life and Career of James C. Scott.

    Dan Wang on Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future

      Intelligence Squared | 19 August 2025 | 0h 35m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
      Interview with Dan Wang about his book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. Outlines a framework for understanding China as an engineering state – which brings a sledgehammer to problems both physical and social, in contrast with America’s lawyerly society, rooted in its constitution, which protects individual rights but blocks almost everything, good and bad, and leads to greater inequality. Discusses the remarkable strengths and appalling weaknesses of the engineering state, and how each country reveals a better path for the other.

      Herman Pontzer – The Surprising Science of Human Diversity and Evolution

        How To Academy | 15 August 2025 | 0h 57m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
        Interview with Herman Pontzer about his book Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Really Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us. Discusses our species’s evolution and our biological diversity; the connections between lifestyle, landscape, local adaptations and health; and how the way we understand our biology and its interplay with our cultural environments is critical to how we understand our world and one another.

        Manvir Singh: The Shamanic Roots of all Religion

          Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning | 2 July 2025 | 1h 03m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
          Interview with Manvir Singh about his book Shamanism: The Timeless Religion. Backgrounds shamanism, arguing that it is timeless and ubiquitous, suggesting it’s not a primitive practice but one that humans regularly recreate due to its compelling nature, representing convergent cultural evolution rather than just diffusion. Posits that shamanic healing likely provides therapeutic benefits through the placebo effect, reshaping personal narratives, and fostering social assurance and festivity. Emphasises the historical rarity of psychedelics in shamanic traditions. Observes a re-emergence of shamanism in the modern world, exemplified by the “spiritual but not religious” movement and charismatic Christianity, as human innate psychologies and intuitions reassert themselves.

          I also recommend his other writing.

          Roope Kaaronen on String and Knots

            Many Minds | 6 February 2025 | 1h 21m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
            Interview with Roope Kaaronen about the deep history of string and knots in human culture. Discusses the spread of string figures across the globe; the Jacob’s ladder string figure; how both knots and string figures are related to topology; how knots and string figures have evolved under different constraints; what our fascination with string designs might tell us about the human mind; and that string-based cultural heritage is headed for extinction.

            The Last of Its Kind – Gísli Pálsson

              New Scientist Podcasts | 4 October 2024 | 0h 18m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
              Interview with Gísli Pálsson about his book The Last of Its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction. Discusses how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton travelled to Iceland in search of great auk specimens, only to find the birds had already vanished; the origins of the term “extinction”; and shares his personal motivations for telling the story of the great auk.

              Joshua Brinkman on American Farming Culture and the History of Technology

                Peoples & Things | 6 January 2025 | 1h 30m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
                Interview with Joshua Brinkman about his book American Farming Culture and the History of Technology. Explores how American farmers – contrary to their image as backwards and even anti-technology – have prided and put forward images of themselves as existing on the technological cutting-edge of modernity. Examines how different farming ideologies have developed over time in the United States and shaped the adoption of and ideas around new agricultural technologies.

                Sex, Anthropology, and Cancellation with Elizabeth Weiss

                  Heterodox Out Loud | 13 June 2024 | 1h 22m | Listen Later | Podcasts | Spotify
                  Interview with Elizabeth Weiss about her book On the War Path: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors. Discusses her anthropological research, the conflicts within anthropology between scientific knowledge and postmodern truths, and the intersection of identity politics with the discipline.