I have added Dwarkesh Podcast, which is Dwarkesh Patel doing "Deeply researched interviews:" They run 90-120 minutes, so they are tough to fit in, but I loved the one with David Reich, which included all that is new in ancient genetics. For example, now that we know that we have 2-4% Neanderthal DNA, we leap to the conclusion that we must have had 2-4% Neanderthal ancestry at some point in the past. Yet because what we have kept is concentrated in particular areas (not cognitive, as we would expect, but disease immunity and cardio-metabolic), this suggests that the percentage is pared down from a larger pool and 50,000 y/a 10% or even 20% of our ancestors were likely Neanderthals. That's only the beginning. If there were waves of homo sapiens moving into Europe, each mating with Neanderthals and bringing a supply of more social and cooperative genes, then We may be the Neanderthals, gradually having our DNA eroded, breeding and rebreeding with progressively more sapiens DNA. Also, now that we are just about sure that Yamnaya had some limited plague resistance and thus conquered peoples who had none, decimated by disease proceeding 50-200 miles ahead of the Steppe invaders we have other replacement questions. There seems to be the y-haplogroup R1b wave which we knew about, but now also evidence of a primarily female mtDNA wave of Steppe women outcompeting natives without the boys in tow. Somehow. Put your imagination to work on that one. The fearsome steppe warriors run out of grassland for their horses and lose to the forest dwellers already in place in Europe, who take their women, who somehow replace the EEF females.
Also Daniel Yergin, author of The Prize interviewed about the history of oil being the history of the 20th C. Great overview, including the following concepts worth pursuing in your own minds and research: How Hitler Lost The War (oil. Churchill was a technological visionary who converted the British Navy to oil between the wars despite the pressure to keep using good Welsh coal, and tanks by the end of WWI instead of cavalry charges). Or in the oil companies today, molecules versus electrons.
Oil companies are investing a lot in renewables. Is there a bunch of skill transfer here that actually means that these oil companies will be really good at deploying solar or something? There's a difference among some companies. Some companies say yes. They look at offshore wind and say, “We're in the offshore oil business, we can do offshore wind.” You see that in Europe where Equinor, which is the Norwegian company, or BP, or Shell, or Total, are big in offshore wind. They say, “We have skills in that.” Solar's a little different. Exxon is now going into mining lithium, thinking that they can use skills that they use for that.
But the US major companies say basically, “We do molecules, we don't do electrons.” That's where the difference is. The European companies say, “We can do all of it.” The Americans say, “We have no comparative advantage in electrons.” But there's a lot of interest in hydrogen because that's another molecule and to a degree, hydrogen can substitute for natural gas for instance.
And
There are hundreds of really interesting characters in the book, but the two most important characters, one is named Supply and one is named Demand. That's something that you've got to keep in mind with all the other drama that goes on.
I dropped 1) the now-defunct "You Can Hear Us in the Streets" podcast, which my son ran out of First Methodist Houston; 2) the defunct (Zach) "Lowe Post" basketball podcast, which will be replaced whenever Zach comes back on another show; 3) "Lingthusiasm" which sometimes has good content for an entire episode but more usually has titbits, delivered in an annoying, self-congratulatory, we-are-insider-grlls tone; and 4) Gone Medieval which has shot its bolt in terms of content years ago. I gave the last two a very fair shot because of topic and they increasingly disappointed. A few more are on probation, frankly.
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