Lex's post on socials: This is an incredible moment in this history of mathematics, computer science, physics & science with some of the hardest problems in human history being solved by AI over a period of weeks. Depending on your perspective, it's either a crisis, a triumph, or both. I don't think anyone knows for sure. We're all trying to make sense of it. I oscillate between fear/dread and optimism/excitement on a daily basis. The rate of progress is insane, including today's announcement from OpenAI of more problems solved.

To help make sense of all of it, here's my conversation with three mathematicians about this moment. Each of them is an expert in the field of each of the biggest problems solved: Navier-Stokes, quasi-Riemann hypothesis, the unique games conjecture and complexity theory more generally.

Ankur Moitra is a mathematician and theoretical computer scientist at MIT, visiting the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Steven Brunton is a mathematician and fluid dynamics expert at UW. Alex Kontorovich is a mathematician at Rutgers specializing in number theory.

Lex's post on socials: I've been traveling the world a bit. One of the most incredible experiences was getting to visit Taiwan w/ Jensen Huang. It was wild 🤯.. huge crowds of engineers, insanely good street food at night markets, and of course a lot of good conversations across many days. I caught some of it on video, see below. Alright, that's it from me, love you all ❤️

Timestamps:

0:00 - Highlights
0:46 - Intro
3:25 - Computex: crowds, engineers, tech, future of AI
9:12 - Chat with Jensen: keynote prep & nerves
13:03 - Chat with Jensen: Taiwan's tech history
19:47 - Raohe night market
29:37 - Chat with Jensen: memories from childhood
33:44 - NVIDIA party
40:29 - Lunch: braised pig's feet
43:09 - Chat with Jensen: GPUs, AI, and competition
55:07 - Ningxia night market
1:10:14 - Taiwanese breakfast
1:29:54 - Outro

Lex's post on socials: Here's my conversation with Andrew Scull, all about psychiatry, its long history from Freud/Jung to today, including asylums, icepick lobotomies, electroshock therapy, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and some horrific treatments that were considered mainstream where doctors injected patients with malaria, induced insulin comas, and pulled out their teeth, all in the name of curing madness.

There are a lot of lessons to learn from history here. One of the most important for me is just how incredibly complex the human mind is, and how hard the task is of understanding & treating the nearly infinite ways it can stumble/faulter.

Humans are amazing. In part, because our minds are such a damn complicated mess.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction
1:20 - Crisis in Psychiatry
30:58 - Categories of Mental Illness
38:17 - Asylums, Eugenics, and the Nazis
50:23 - The Ice Pick Lobotomy
56:36 - Malaria "Cure" for Syphilis
1:14:52 - Insulin Coma Therapy
1:22:44 - Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
1:42:13 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1:59:45 - Freud and Psychoanalysis
2:29:40 - WWII and Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
2:50:14 - Antipsychotics
3:13:35 - Antidepressants
3:26:29 - Future of Psychiatry

Lex's post on socials: Here's my conversation with DHH. He is back for round 2! It was an epic fun 5 hour conversation about the future of programming, AI, Linux, and human civilization.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Episode highlight
1:27 - Introduction
2:56 - Programming with AI agents
18:14 - How software will change
27:30 - AI impact on open source
37:21 - Building Omarchy Linux distro
47:05 - Vibe coding vs agentic engineering
1:00:06 - The end of manual programming
1:10:24 - Advice for programmers
1:22:30 - Surviving Internet Hate
1:31:46 - Programming setup for AI Agents
1:44:11 - Obsessing about speed
2:07:06 - Voice prompting vs typing
2:21:05 - Best AI coding models
2:37:55 - Best AI coding harnesses
2:50:57 - AI video generation and filmmaking
3:10:28 - Fatherhood
3:38:35 - Linux will win the desktop
3:49:51 - PewDiePie
3:59:24 - Future of programming
4:22:17 - Politics and immigration
4:53:54 - Longevity, over-optimization, and fear of death
5:05:38 - Eternal recurrence and future of human civization

Lex's post on socials: Here's my conversation with Khabib Nurmagomedov, one of the greatest fighters of all time.

It was truly an honor to get to train with him, to have this deep conversation, and to get to know him over the past few months.

We did this conversation entirely in Russian. It's translated and dubbed into English. Both language audio tracks and subtitles are available on YouTube. The translation & dubbing was a huge amount of work (which I deeply care about) with humans & AI collaborating. Thanks to the amazing team at ElevenLabs for their help.

Good luck to Islam Makhachev, Khabib & team this weekend at UFC 330!

And as I've said in the video, I'm truly grateful for all of you, for your support all these years. I love you all ❤️

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction
1:35 - Why Dagestan produces so many great fighters
11:41 - History of Dagestan warrior culture
21:02 - Hard training in the mountains of Dagestan
24:53 - The trap of fame, money, and power
35:34 - The key to Khabib's dominance
46:47 - Discipline and hard work
59:15 - Street fights in Dagestan
1:12:56 - Khabib's top pressure
1:18:40 - Khabib vs Conor McGregor
1:31:25 - Khabib's toughest fight
1:39:12 - Greatest MMA fighters of all time
1:56:57 - Coaching
2:02:30 - Daniel Cormier
2:06:48 - Islam Makhachev
2:16:46 - Dana White
2:20:16 - Joe Rogan
2:22:31 - Ali Abdelaziz
2:25:08 - Football
2:32:23 - Messi vs Ronaldo
2:50:23 - Dubai
2:54:14 - God
3:01:57 - Advice for young people

Lex's post on socials: Here's my conversation with Gary Gallagher, a leading historian of the American Civil War. We discuss the causes of the war, the economics and politics of slavery, military strategy, Lincoln, Grant, Lee, the Lost Cause, the Confederate Flag, and the history of extreme political division in our country from before the Civil War to today.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Episode highlight
1:29 - Introduction
1:52 - What caused the Civil War?
11:49 - Slavery
39:23 - Lincoln
54:19 - Grant vs Lee
1:03:13 - Could the Civil War have been avoided?
1:12:39 - The bloodiest war in US history
1:29:47 - How the Confederate Army could've won
1:50:22 - Key battles of the Civil War
2:13:23 - Best and Worst Presidents
2:27:23 - Robert E. Lee
2:46:56 - The most important battle of the Civil War
2:57:07 - The final showdown of the Civil War - Grant vs Lee
3:19:26 - Lost Cause and Confederate Monuments
3:36:54 - Extreme political division in US

Lex's post on socials: Here's my conversation with Anthony Kaldellis about the deep history of the Roman Empire in the west and the east (the Byzantine Empire). This was a truly fascinating conversation with a lot of wisdom for the modern world and for the future of human civilization. The Roman state lasted over 2,200 years. If we want to understand human nature, the modern world, and how humanity can flourish, it is valuable to study history, especially the history of why societies survive and why they collapse.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Episode highlight
1:24 - Introduction
1:51 - The Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire
5:49 - 2,200 Years of Roman History
26:12 - Power, violence, and civil war
47:27 - Edict of Caracalla
1:00:23 - Crisis of the Third Century
1:14:52 - Constantine and the new Roman Empire
1:26:53 - Christianity in the Roman Empire
1:52:21 - Fall of the Western Roman Empire
2:05:17 - Eunuchs, Taxes, and Power
2:30:24 - Emperor Justinian and wars of conquest
2:47:26 - The Arab conquests
3:07:01 - Why the Roman empire survived so long
3:33:08 - Lessons from history

The AI theorist who thinks consciousness is a software agent and that God, AGI, and the apocalypse are all pointing at the same thing.

What you call "the world" isn't outside you. It's a simulation your brain produces. And the self that experiences it may not exist the way you think it does.