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On the Border

The border has always seemed to me like one of those dead-end political issues, similar to abortion, where everyone yells past each other and nothing gets done. It's never been a top-line issue for me but the record numbers of apprehensions coupled with the videos of the huge groups coming into the country have been eye-popping for me. Do you know of any good resources on explaining how we've gotten here? And do you think, also similar to abortion, that there's any chance in the coming years we'll see the issue dislodged allowing for significant changes occurring one way or the other?

Jonathan Blow: Preventing the Collapse of Civilization

Have you ever considered having either Jonathan Blow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk) or Casey Muratori (https://caseymuratori.com/blog_0031) on the show? There are tons of parallels between Jonathan's take on software and Peter Zeihan's take on everything else, enough that I'd encourage you all to a) watch his presentation and b) really consider having him on as a guest.

Political Coalition for American Dynamism

Following up on your recent podcasts with Katherine Boyle and Marc Andreessen, I’ve been considering what a political coalition would look like that focused on, to use Katherine’s thesis, American dynamism. In short, a political philosophy that focuses on building, in service of national greatness - more housing, infrastructure, clean energy, schools, rockets, defense technology, and institutions that ambitiously aim to solve hard problems. In particular, building more supply of the “Big Three” areas that Marc noted as having escaped the deflationary effect of technology: housing, education, and healthcare. There seems to be a lot of interest in these broad ideas in certain wonky circles - for example, Ezra Klein’s “supply-side progressivism”/“liberalism that builds,” Matt Yglesias’ “One Billion Americans,” “Progress Studies” from Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison, the new “Institute for Progress” think tank, and many more focused on creating abundance as an antidote to rising costs. What are your thoughts on the potential to create such a coalition? One interesting parallel is to the cross-party “reform” movement that arose in the late 19th century as an antidote to systemic corruption. Could you see elements of the right and left come together on policy ideas as an antidote to stagnation and sclerosis, like de-regulating zoning or the building of green energy projects? What areas might be most ripe for that kind of coalition?

Breaking Up Disney

Are there any mechanisms in which the government would be able to break up Disney, specifically to make Star Wars an independent company? If I became president, why authority would I have over Disney to disconnect them from Star Wars? I think it’s out of the question that Disney would ever sell Star Wars, even if I had billions and billions of dollars. That being said Disney + is the only streaming service I have and I’ve enjoyed their Star Wars shows, but I want movies in the theaters that don’t suck.