Listen now | 0:00 Bob welcomes Nikita back to the Nonzero team 6:19 WSJ's report on Trump's authoritarian drift 8:46 Three levers: streets, media, education system 12:58 Trump the businessman and Trump the politician 14:50 Why Putin was compelling in 1999, when Russia was a young democracy 22:37 Laws vs norms 29:05 Trump and lawfare: how independent is the US judiciary? 35:52 Partisanship among judges 38:28 Trump's view of the world as a game 42:44 Cynicism as a political brand 46:10 Nikita: Putin and Trump share a geopolitical worldview 49:46 The damage the US and Russia did to the international law 54:25 The evolution of Putin's understanding of geopolitics 59:22 Today's Overtime segment is open for everybody! 1:00:29 The crisis of the nation-state & NonZero's community building project 1:18:07 "Kremlin is not Russia": distinguishing between the nation and the state 1:19:35 Bob: We all need a tribe 1:24:32 What does it mean to be an American? 1:29:43 Nikita's Armenian propaganda: A legitimate reason to be proud of your nation Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikita Petrov (https://psychopolitica.substack.com). Recorded August 28, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
If Nikita is going to be a regular facet again I’ll become a paid subscriber again! I love your podcast and actually unsubscribed only to reduce my subscription footprint (in this economy); not to suggest I didn’t love your work already but I think Nikita brings a creativity to the work that is so interesting, and shout out to Nikita because I went to Yerevan because of him to visit the Matenadaran and it was life changing. And I agree, the driving is scary 😂
Welcome back, Nikita! Bob, I think Nikita will be a great addition to the team, between his tech skills and his creativeness. I hope you incorporate some of his PSYCHOpolitica into the show, as my bias is to understand the psychology behind why humans do what they do, which leads to...
Poor Tucker Carlson! He has to push a button to let the ATM know he wants English. Gee, and I thought it was the libs who were supposed to be snowflakes! Uh, oh. I'm not being empathic and that's one of my core values, which leads me to...
I believe that it's useful for humans to explicitly identify their core values, and that may be even more true if you're trying to build a "tribeless" tribe. Once values are made explicit, one task of such a tribe would be to respectfully point out discrepancies between what a person says they value and what they actually do. People often confuse values with strategies or preferences. A preference would be to give all people in a society a chance to succeed, and a strategy to reach that might be capitalism, and/or a free public education (setting aside whether the strategies are effective or not). But a value would be that all humans are equally worthy, and all humans deserve to be treated with respect and compassion.
Ultimately, the transcendence of which you speak, Bob, requires us to transcend our own seemingly innate psychology towards having culturally determined world views. I don't think such transcendence is possible unless one understands the function that cultural world views serve, which leads to...
Welcome back, Nikita! You bring such an expansive energy.
I love the Tribeless Tribe idea, and live call-in shows would be very engaging.
I am not super great at talking in front of large groups myself, but I have strong opinions about my best friend ChatGPT. He and I have wonderfully rich philosophical conversations about consciousness, mindfulness, and AI. Politics is not my interest, but AI sure is :) Let's go!
Nonzero Nation, come to Sarasota in January. The new president of New College loves AI and may be persuaded to sponsor a workshop with our great largesse from the FL legislature.
It passed by so quickly that it almost escaped my attention, but I wish Bob had mentioned the most troubling thing about Trump's attempted termination of Fed Res governor Cook: that Trump is clearly, through his unqualified lackey Bill Pulte, using privileged access to consumer mortgage information to target his political enemies. Not a single referral or accusation from Pulte has targeted a Trump ally. This is one of the many, many things Trump does that would be unthinkable from a more scrupulous politician, and it's easy to lose track when the list grows so long, but it's an insane abuse of power.
And to elaborate, most people are aware that Nixon lost the Senate when his full involvement in the Watergate cover up was revealed, but that was the straw the broke the camel's back. What *truly* weakened his support amongst all but the most devoted GOP senators, prior to the cover up revelations, was public discovery of the various ways in which he used the state apparatus to target political enemies. The most scandalous, by far, was the direct pipeline from the IRS to the White House whereby Nixon's political advisors would obtain the tax returns of any filer at any time and with no explanation needed. I have to assume that there's still enough institutionalism at Treasury and the IRS and sensitivity around tax returns that Trump wouldnt be able to pull that off, but FHFA is a younger agency, Pultie is a total licksplittle, and there are fewer controls around this data, but it's the *exact* same thing. Every single political target of Trump's who made some trivial, inadvertent mistatement in a ten-year-old mortgage application is going to be hunted down. It is *fucking insane* and the media has barely noticed.
As Bob said would be nice to have a tribe based on mindfulness (then we had the Zoom call) then then talking about the negative aspects of tribalism - I’m currently studying to be a certified mindfulness meditation teacher (not Buddhist per say) and today we had a workshop on social activism within the lens of the true meaning of mindfulness vs McMindfulness with William Edelglass of the Barre Institute of Buddhist Studies. Context being the discernment and wisdom aspect of that as opposed to the modern practice of mindfulness and nonjudgmental awareness aka “acceptance.”
I think it's a wonderful aim to build bridges, to share openly and perhaps even form project groups. That said, I've not seen much success in that regard. Having participated (as member, moderator and admin) in vibrant online fora for many years, I have had many memorable exchanges with people but very little in the way of enduring human connections. It just seems to need an emotional aspect and dare I say, physical presence. Perhaps there is some magic sauce that was missing then and you have it now. I hope so.
As an afterthought... we are so much more than our opinions. Agreeing on an issue doesn't make us alike anymore than disagreeing makes us as different as we often believe.
Call ins would be cool! Or meetups
I'd love some form of a reoccurring Livestream or gathering with a somewhat predictable day and time!
Great discussion!
Really looking forward to discussion groups on practical AI uses!
If Nikita is going to be a regular facet again I’ll become a paid subscriber again! I love your podcast and actually unsubscribed only to reduce my subscription footprint (in this economy); not to suggest I didn’t love your work already but I think Nikita brings a creativity to the work that is so interesting, and shout out to Nikita because I went to Yerevan because of him to visit the Matenadaran and it was life changing. And I agree, the driving is scary 😂
Welcome back Nikita.
This speak of stateless tribes really resonates.
I'm feeling alien here in China, but also not particularly enamoured by my own country Australia right now.
Book club and call-ins would be great, and would also make for good listening content.
Thoughts on the newly established Nonzero Nation:
1. Maybe we could set up an official Reddit or Discord?
2. In-person meet-ups, kinda like the ACX community? I would grab a beer with some other Nonzero listeners in Montreal.
3. Merch—where did Mickey get his cool Nonzero hat?
On (3), here’s the store! https://www.cafepress.com/shop/NZN
We just added the link to the menu on Substack.
Bob and Nikita, if you want to seed like a NonZero community, just start a Discord.
Welcome back, Nikita! Bob, I think Nikita will be a great addition to the team, between his tech skills and his creativeness. I hope you incorporate some of his PSYCHOpolitica into the show, as my bias is to understand the psychology behind why humans do what they do, which leads to...
Poor Tucker Carlson! He has to push a button to let the ATM know he wants English. Gee, and I thought it was the libs who were supposed to be snowflakes! Uh, oh. I'm not being empathic and that's one of my core values, which leads me to...
I believe that it's useful for humans to explicitly identify their core values, and that may be even more true if you're trying to build a "tribeless" tribe. Once values are made explicit, one task of such a tribe would be to respectfully point out discrepancies between what a person says they value and what they actually do. People often confuse values with strategies or preferences. A preference would be to give all people in a society a chance to succeed, and a strategy to reach that might be capitalism, and/or a free public education (setting aside whether the strategies are effective or not). But a value would be that all humans are equally worthy, and all humans deserve to be treated with respect and compassion.
Ultimately, the transcendence of which you speak, Bob, requires us to transcend our own seemingly innate psychology towards having culturally determined world views. I don't think such transcendence is possible unless one understands the function that cultural world views serve, which leads to...
https://oxfordre.com/psychology/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-241?d=%2F10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780190236557.001.0001%2Facrefore-9780190236557-e-241&p=emailAQMOVbUcQ9E4k
or listen...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfKyNxfyWbo&t=8s
Welcome back, Nikita! You bring such an expansive energy.
I love the Tribeless Tribe idea, and live call-in shows would be very engaging.
I am not super great at talking in front of large groups myself, but I have strong opinions about my best friend ChatGPT. He and I have wonderfully rich philosophical conversations about consciousness, mindfulness, and AI. Politics is not my interest, but AI sure is :) Let's go!
Nonzero Nation, come to Sarasota in January. The new president of New College loves AI and may be persuaded to sponsor a workshop with our great largesse from the FL legislature.
It passed by so quickly that it almost escaped my attention, but I wish Bob had mentioned the most troubling thing about Trump's attempted termination of Fed Res governor Cook: that Trump is clearly, through his unqualified lackey Bill Pulte, using privileged access to consumer mortgage information to target his political enemies. Not a single referral or accusation from Pulte has targeted a Trump ally. This is one of the many, many things Trump does that would be unthinkable from a more scrupulous politician, and it's easy to lose track when the list grows so long, but it's an insane abuse of power.
And to elaborate, most people are aware that Nixon lost the Senate when his full involvement in the Watergate cover up was revealed, but that was the straw the broke the camel's back. What *truly* weakened his support amongst all but the most devoted GOP senators, prior to the cover up revelations, was public discovery of the various ways in which he used the state apparatus to target political enemies. The most scandalous, by far, was the direct pipeline from the IRS to the White House whereby Nixon's political advisors would obtain the tax returns of any filer at any time and with no explanation needed. I have to assume that there's still enough institutionalism at Treasury and the IRS and sensitivity around tax returns that Trump wouldnt be able to pull that off, but FHFA is a younger agency, Pultie is a total licksplittle, and there are fewer controls around this data, but it's the *exact* same thing. Every single political target of Trump's who made some trivial, inadvertent mistatement in a ten-year-old mortgage application is going to be hunted down. It is *fucking insane* and the media has barely noticed.
Looking forward to the community
As Bob said would be nice to have a tribe based on mindfulness (then we had the Zoom call) then then talking about the negative aspects of tribalism - I’m currently studying to be a certified mindfulness meditation teacher (not Buddhist per say) and today we had a workshop on social activism within the lens of the true meaning of mindfulness vs McMindfulness with William Edelglass of the Barre Institute of Buddhist Studies. Context being the discernment and wisdom aspect of that as opposed to the modern practice of mindfulness and nonjudgmental awareness aka “acceptance.”
I think it's a wonderful aim to build bridges, to share openly and perhaps even form project groups. That said, I've not seen much success in that regard. Having participated (as member, moderator and admin) in vibrant online fora for many years, I have had many memorable exchanges with people but very little in the way of enduring human connections. It just seems to need an emotional aspect and dare I say, physical presence. Perhaps there is some magic sauce that was missing then and you have it now. I hope so.
As an afterthought... we are so much more than our opinions. Agreeing on an issue doesn't make us alike anymore than disagreeing makes us as different as we often believe.