Show Notes
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to Alexander Cortes. Cortes is a trainer, fitness influencer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder, along with his wife, of Ferta, a company that aims to "optimize your reproductive health and conceive naturally." Born and raised in California, Cortes began his career in the fitness industry as a personal trainer in 2010. Over the next few years he expanded his efforts online, writing about fitness and nutrition from a science-informed perspective. Cortes developed a following by offering practical advice on strength training, muscle building, and the psychological aspects of fitness to the interested general public, translating the wisdom-of-the-gym for the person on the street. In the first part of the podcast, Razib and Cortes talk about "broscience," and how it differs from "quantified self" and other movements geared toward self-optimization. They discuss how "bros" arrived on the importance and utility of peptides long before the ozempic revolution, and how the iterative and experimental methods of gym-addicted amateurs predated and anticipated what would later become conventional wisdom. Razib also explores how Cortes' particular style of broscience differs from that of others, with its stronger empirical basis and analytical orientation (and aversion to fads like "raw food"). They discuss the "peptide revolution" and how online fitness and health influencers discovered it earlier, the utility of the macromolecules in health and wellness, and what the online community discovered already that is likely to come down the clinical pipeline. In the second part of the discussion, Cortes introduces his new company, Ferta, and its situates its position in the fertility space. He explains the origin of his firm as he and his wife began to attempt to conceive in their 30s, and how difficult or easy the process was conditional on the optimizations they engaged in. Cortes explains many people struggle because they do things wrong, and don't maximize their chances by being healthy and fertile.
More from Razib Khan's Unsupervised Learning
Today, Ramez Naam returns 5 years after his original appearance on the podcast. In 2003, he wrote More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. Naam is also the author of three science fiction books: Crux, Apex, and Nexus. In addition, has also written The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. He also has an eponymous Substack, Ramez Naam. First, Razib and Naam discuss how technological change is turning once-futuristic possibilities into everyday realities, beginning with the falling costs of solar power, batteries, and electric vehicles. Naam argues that economics increasingly drives adoption, with Texas illustrating how competitive markets and easy permitting can accelerate clean energy even in a fossil-fuel stronghold. Razib probes the implications for transportation, oil demand, and the Gulf states, while Naam emphasizes that the transition will take decades and that heavy industry remains difficult to decarbonize. The conversation then shifts to AI, where Razib presses Naam on existential risk, industry concentration, and recursive self-improvement. Naam expects increasingly powerful systems but doubts an imminent intelligence explosion, pointing to diminishing returns, hardware constraints, and the difficulty of obtaining reliable real-world data. He sees concentrated corporate or government power as a greater threat than runaway superintelligence and favors broad access and competition.
Today Razib talks to Jerry Z. Muller, a historian and professor emeritus of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., specializing in modern European intellectual history, capitalism, conservatism, and German and Jewish history. His work explores how ideas shape economic, political, and cultural life, bridging history, philosophy, and public policy. His books include Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought From David Hume to the Present, The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought, Capitalism and the Jews, The Tyranny of Metrics, and Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes. Writing for both scholarly and general audiences, Muller examines subjects ranging from the moral arguments surrounding capitalism to the consequences of relying excessively on numerical measures to evaluate institutions and individuals. He has an eponymous Substack. The conversation revolves to a great extent on a recent post by Muller, Rethinking Faculty Control Scholarly Norms, the Vanderbilt Report, and the Limits of Academic Self-Government. Razib and Muller discuss the challenges facing universities, the resilience of American capitalism, and the effects of AI on intellectual life. Muller argues that scholarship depends on "organized skepticism," including peer review, replication, and engagement with different viewpoints, but that activism and ideological conformity weaken these practices in parts of academia and undermine public trust. They also tackle whether stronger university leadership can help address these problems while managing declining literacy and numeracy, shifting demographics, uncertain international enrollment, rising costs, and pressure to demonstrate results. Muller suggests that vocational training may increasingly separate from liberal arts education and research, raising questions about how universities can adapt while maintaining academic standards and intellectual diversity. He remains broadly optimistic about American capitalism, pointing to technological innovation, competition among states, immigration, and social supports. Both view AI as a powerful tool for skilled thinkers but a potential source of intellectual passivity for others, raising the question of how people can preserve their agency and sense of purpose as AI becomes part of everyday intellectual work.
Today Razib talks to Theo Jaffee, co-host of Monitoring the Situation, a show backed by Andreessen Horowitz that covers the rise of the "intelligence explosion" and AI. Jaffee is writer and podcaster who grew up in Boca Raton, Florida. He studied computer science and economics at the University of Florida. His writing on Theo's Substack explores artificial intelligence, technology, business, history, and philosophy. He has also contributed to Quillette and received an Emergent Ventures fellowship in 2024. The podcast covers AI's accelerating capabilities, broader societal impact, and safety risks. Jaffee talks about estimates of a 10% probability of human technological civilization collapsing within ten years, distinguishing between the disempowerment of humanity and the potential continuation of civilization under AI control. But, he notes, coordination, political intervention, and the logistical difficulty of automating physical infrastructure can mitigate that catastrophic risk. Progress remains broadly on track with AI 2027 expectations, despite there being no predicted labor disruptions and Chinese consolidation failing to materialize as forecast. Jaffee notes events like the Hugging Face incident and an apparent Millennium Prize problem solution heighten concerns surrounding alignment and control. Razib and Jaffee also discuss how critical uncertainties persist over how rapidly recursive self-improvement might yield superintelligence, whether mounting political backlash will establish viable safeguards or trigger heavy-handed stagnation, and how society must ultimately evaluate AI consciousness and moral status.
Today Razib talks to Scott Greer, an American conservative writer, author, and podcaster who focuses on nationalism, immigration, online political culture, and the transformation of the Republican Party. Formerly an editor and columnist at The Daily Caller, he now hosts the Highly Respected podcast and newsletter and contributes to The American Conservative. He is the author of No Campus for White Men (2017) and Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump's America (2026), a history of how paleoconservatism, libertarianism, the alt-right, and other internet subcultures helped shape Trump-era politics. The first half of the conversation focuses on Whitepill, as Greer outlines a narrative history of the rise of the New Right and its relationship to MAGA and Donald Trump over the last decade. The conversation goes back even further, to the origins of the dissident Right in the Ron Paul movement of the late aughts. Then they move to discussing a piece recently posted on Highly Respected, Sunbeltism Takes Over America–And The South. A native of Tennessee, Greer talks about the implicit conservatism of the ascendant Sunbelt culture, but its broader cultural and social influence, and its difference from earlier Southern subcultures fixated on the "Lost Cause" and rooted in an agrarian society.
On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Brian Chau. A graduate of the University of Waterloo and former software engineer with a background in pure mathematics, today Chau is CEO of Effort.News. He was previously with The Alliance for the Future. Most of this conversation is around why it took so long to put together something like Effort.News, and what they've discovered (e.g., "The 19th-century Family Fortunes Funding Degrowth"). Chau also discusses their recruitment and capital needs as a seed-stage startup.