Support our sponsor, FarmKind, to fix factory farming: https://www.farmkind.giving

The code “ROBINSON” will increase your donation by 50% with a bump from large donors.

Richard Wolff is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at The New School, where he works on economics in the Marxist tradition. This is Richard’s ninth appearance on Robinson’s Podcast. In this episode, Richard and Robinson discuss the tariffs that President Donald Trump would like to place on goods imported from around the world. More particularly, they cover the real problems America is facing that Trump has to solve, the connection to Russia, China, and the BRICS, Elon Musk and electric vehicles, and more. Richard’s latest book is Understanding Capitalism (Democracy at Work, 2024).

Understanding Capitalism (Book): https://www.democracyatwork.info/understanding_capitalism

Richard’s Website: https://www.rdwolff.com

Economic Update: https://www.democracyatwork.info/economicupdate

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:07 Is Trump’s Tariff Plan Nuts?

00:06:31 Is the United States Unsustainable?

00:15:33 Can Tariffs Solve America’s Debt Problems?

00:19:17 Tesla’s Electric Vehicle Tariff War on China

00:25:19 The Declining American Empire

00:32:53 Exposing the Myths About Trump’s Tariffs

00:44:55 The Empty Promises of American Politics

00:53:54 Why DC Doesn’t Have Representation in Congress

01:00:22 The Bizarre Alliance Between Israel and the United States

01:04:48 Why Russia Is Exempt from Trump’s Tariffs

01:13:48 Are Israel and the United States “Winning” Against Gaza?

01:24:25 How Wealth Now Controls the United States

01:27:52 On The Impending Economic Downturn in the United States

01:31:47 How Trump is Turning Allies into Enemies

01:37:12 America’s Terrible Healthcare

01:42:25 Who Really Rules America?

01:57:04 How Should Trump Solve America’s Real Problems?

02:04:39 What America Can Learn from Britain’s Collapse

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where is also a JD candidate in the Law School.

Carl Hart is Mamie Phipps Clark Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, where he researches the behavioral and neuropharmacological effects of psychoactive drugs in humans. In this wide-ranging conversation, Robinson and Carl discuss drugs from many different angles, touching on the neuroscience of addiction, the opioid crisis, drugs’ connections to poverty, the roles they can play in a creative life, and more. Carl’s most recent book is Drug Use for Grown-Ups (2021, Penguin).

Drug Use for Grown-Ups: https://a.co/d/efgXuJK

OUTLINE

00:00:49 Introduction

00:03:14 What Is a Drug?

00:14:58 DARE and Drug Education

00:26:07 Rodrigo Duterte and the Drug War in the Philippines

00:39:25 Studying Drugs in the Lab

00:49:07 Does Addiction Change the Brain?

00:58:12 On the Opioid Crisis

01:10:42 How Should We Solve the Opioid Crisis?

01:14:01 What Is the Connection Between Drugs and Poverty?

01:18:21 How Do Drugs Affect the Brain?

01:28:27 How Can Drugs Improve Your Creativity?

01:36:04 Should Science Inform Drug Policy?

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where is also a student in the Law School.

Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at NYU and Founder and Director of the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics. This is Tim’s eighth appearance on the show. His second to last appeared on episode 246 for a masterclass on Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, explaining it from the ground up and elucidating some common misconceptions. In this episode Tim returns for a discussion of the philosophy of time. More particularly, Tim and Robinson discuss black holes, fundamentality, simultaneity, time’s flow, rate, and limits, connections to physics, time travel, and more. If you’re interested in the foundations of physics, then please check out the JBI, which is devoted to providing a home for research and education in this important area. Any donations are immensely helpful at this early stage in the institute’s life.

Tim’s Website: www.tim-maudlin.site

The John Bell Institute: https://www.johnbellinstitute.org

OUTLINE

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:01 “What Is” Questions

00:06:09 Everyday Misconceptions About Simultaneity

00:15:12 The Relativity of Duration

00:20:19 Is Time Fundamental?

00:28:55 Does Time Exist at Quantum Scales?

00:40:19 Is Quantum Mechanics Complete?

00:50:16 What Is Time-Reversal Invariance?

01:01:01 Parity Violations

01:11:46 What Is Metaphysics?

01:22:16 Does Time Have A Rate of Passage?

01:25:02 Does Time Flow?

01:27:04 What Does Time Really Measure?

01:29:15 Is There a Limit to How Accurately Clocks Can Measure Time?

01:33:06 Is Time Continuous or Discrete?

01:36:36 On Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion

01:44:08 Is Time Discrete?

01:51:14 Did Time Have a Beginning?

02:02:41 Stephen Hawking on Time

02:05:39 David Albert’s Past Hypothesis

02:14:13 The Debate Between Presentism and Eternalism

02:23:16 Lee Smolin’s Black Hole Theory

02:24:46 A Shortcoming of the Standard Model

02:26:05 Arrival Time and Time of Flight

02:34:51 Arrival Time Experiments and Bell’s Inequality

02:46:07 The Black Hole Information Paradox

02:56:27 Is Time Travel Back to the Dinosaurs Possible?

02:58:34 A Rant on Aliens

03:03:35 The John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, where is also a student in the Law School.