BhTV: The Wright Show (audio)

A brief message from Bob ... Why Mickey thinks the first installment of the Twitter Files was a something-burger ... What Bob thinks Taibbi (and Musk) flubbed ... Do the files show a pro-Dem bias in pre-Musk Twitter? ... Ukraine war update ... Parrot Room preview: an (unwitting) win for Bob; a damning J.D. Vance quote for Mickey; the latest SBF allegation; the worst. Substack. Issue. Ever.; Bob submits a beef with Mickey for commenter consideration; commenter takes on Musk’s gun tweet; potential Parrot Room theme song(s); the Fed on why men are leaving the labor force; Janan Ganesh on why you should leave Twitter ...

Mónica’s book I Never Thought of It That Way, about how to have “bridge-building” conversations ... Why Mónica’s immigrant parents support(ed) Trump ... Barriers to getting bridge-building buy-in ... Understanding vs. the need to be understood ... Bridge-building 101 ... Is understanding a slippery slope to excusing? ... The underrated bridge-building power of curiosity ... Does the media fuel or just reflect our divisions? ... The limits of bridge-building ...

Would a Biden re-election bid spell doom for Dems? ... Opening the Ron DeSantis black box ... Bob’s Washington Post piece on Russia-Ukraine diplomacy ... Is it too early to write off Herschel Walker? ... Sam Bankman-Fried’s bipartisan approach to corrupting politics ... Elon’s and Apple’s China challenges ... Parrot Room preview: Mickey’s spat with Damon Linker; what we know about Peter Thiel; Ye and Fuentes; the center-less GOP; Elon’s Twitter regime; Errol Morris’s miniseries Wormwood. ...

Eric’s new book We Are Not One, about changing American Jewish attitudes toward Israel over the years ... Jewish-American identity before its “Zionization” ... Why fewer young American Jews are feeling the pro-Israel vibe ... Israel in American politics ... The “Israel as apartheid state” debate ... How the 1960’s defined Jewish visions of Israel ... Is a “two-state solution” now the conservative position? ... Zionism vs. social justice activism ... Why Israel is fine with the Palestinian status quo ... Does Israel really need US support? ... Could international pressure help solve the Israel-Palestine conflict? ...

The (totally selfless) reasons Mickey wants an SBF clawback ... Did Semafor fumble its big SBF-Elon scoop? ... Mickey’s clawback campaign (cont’d) ... Origins of Mickey’s (alleged) Ben Smith vendetta revealed! ... Is Musk destroying his town square? ...

Paul’s upcoming book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind ... Bob’s upcoming book, tk ... Are psychopaths high in (cognitive) empathy? ... How good are we at perspective taking—and how can we get better? ... Elon Musk’s apparent cognitive empathy deficit ... Is cognitive empathy a biological adaptation? ... Is it even possible to understand the minds of others? ... Paul’s budding interest in perversity ...

Why Mickey’s not unhappy about the midterm results ... Can Trump go the distance against DeSantis? ... The Pelosi era ends ... Zelensky invites NATO to join the war ... Is a peace deal on the horizon in Ukraine? ... Elon update ... SBF's fall takes wind out of the sails of effective altruism movement ...

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Mickey mourns the fate of his midterm hopes and dreams ... What the midterm results mean for 2024 ... Who wins in a Trump v. DeSantis civil war? ... Bob’s plan to boot Biden from the 2024 ticket ... Will Musk chicken out on his blue check shake-up? ... The Twitter business model Musk may be banking on ... Parrot room preview: Ukraine update; more Twitter business model talk; Metaverse vibe check; Errol Morris’s Leary love story; questioning “blame Trump” midterm post-mortems; is America getting nicer?; Mickey’s ongoing lessons on how to talk to a liberal; critiquing Chamath Palihapitiya’s critiques of journalism ...

Signs of the so-called “meaning crisis” ... How John addresses the meaning crisis in his own life ... Bob gets empathy-circled—live! ... How much of the meaning crisis is a crisis of community? ... Wisdom as the antidote to self-deception ... Is technological change outpacing our ability to adapt? ... How and where might new sources of meaning emerge? ... The conundrum of collective intelligence (or how should we talk about demons?) ... Can video games give us meaning? ... John: “Enlightenment” that fails to confront cognitive bias is meaningless ...

Why immigration squishes have Mickey worried about the midterms ... Elon Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop strategy to owning Twitter ... The conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi ... If Putin didn’t have nukes, would Biden’s Ukraine policy still be dangerous? ... Who is calling the shots in the Biden White House? ... Why Cold War psychology might have less sway over Musk-owned Twitter ... Bob has another baseball quiz for Mickey ... Could Biden’s tech embargo against China backfire horribly? ... Parrot Room preview: The odds of a centrist party succeeding in America; Elon’s secret master plan; Bob’s debate with Bret Weinstein; the impact of automation on workers; Bob and Mickey assess the metaverse (via Ready Player One) ...

Sam’s Foreign Affairs piece on the importance of Ukraine diplomacy ... What’s Biden’s endgame in Ukraine? ... Sam: Russia has already suffered a strategic defeat ... Did the West play a role in Ukraine’s 2014 revolution? ... Putin says the West is Russia’s real enemy. Does he believe it? ... America’s lack of diplomatic urgency before Putin invaded ... How much pro-Russia sentiment is there in Ukraine? ...

Mickey takes a bite out of midterm “overism” ... How revolutionary will Musk’s Twitter reign be? ... Who quashed the Progressive Caucus’s Ukraine letter? ... What’s holding up diplomacy in Ukraine? ... Is Blob opinion on the war starting to split? ... The cost of US hypocrisy ... The media’s weird coverage of the "dirty bomb" story ... Parrot room preview: implausible dirty bomb scenarios; UK PM’s dramatic early moves; a few words about the late Lucianne Goldberg; an (iffy) argument against lefty state legislature alarmism; Mickey’s labor-relations observations; Xi Jinping and the Hu Jintao removal; illustrating the dangers of war-time overreaction by way of Russian relocation coverage; Joe’s McCarthyism; Russians adopting Ukrainian children; what’s in it for Putin-humiliation-pushers? ...

How worried should we be about the “Kessler Syndrome”? ... The nightmare scenario for anti-satellite weapons anarchy ... How an attack in space could trigger WWIII ... International law is way behind the curve in outer space ... Why isn’t the grave threat of space anarchy getting attention? ... How the new Cold War makes conflict in space more likely ...

Elon Musk’s esoteric insult of former Russian president Medvedev ... Russia’s “General Armageddon” gears up for retreat ... Is the GOP becoming the anti-war party? ... Mickey’s many midterms nightmares ... With Britain's Tories in shambles, will Boris rise again? ... Bob: US policy helped create the latest "axis of evil" ... Parrot Room preview: Did Bob mischaracterize Mearsheimer?; Kanye West and Elon Musk take over social media; Jon Meacham’s fears for US democracy; what lies beneath LA’s racism row ...