On this episode of Unsuperivsed Learning Razib talks to native Californian, Inez Stepman. Stepman has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from UC San Diego, and obtained her J.D. from University of Virginia. She is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum, a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a contributor to The Federalist. Stepman is also a co-host of the High Noon podcast.

Razib and Stepman first talk about her reaction to Marxist author Malcom Harris’ Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism and the World, exemplified by her piece in First Things, Ambitious Nihilism. A native of Palto Alto who went to high school with Harris in the early 21st century, Stepman believes that the left-wing narrative in Palo Alto is misleading. Though Silicon Valley avows fashionable social liberalism and radicalism, Harris argues that it is actually a seedbed for right-wing neo-Neo-Reaganism and capitalism. Stepman disagrees; though it is true that from a Marxist and explicitly socialist perspective Silicon Valley falls short, the overall political tenor was firmly on the left. She recalls even after 9/11 that her Palo Alto milieu took a dim view of American patriotism. For Stepman, Silicon Valley was more a laboratory of fashionable woke shibboleths, about a decade ahead of its time, as well as being the training ground for conformist grinds who were geared toward jumping over the next academic or professional hurdle.

Stepman sees this narrow and short-sighted ethos throughout Silicon Valley, and the broader sense in American culture that technology will allow us to transcend our limits to humanity. She argues that wealthy tech entrepreneurs who aim to defeat death, like Bryan Johnson, are fundamentally inhuman in their goals and orientation. Razib and Stepman discuss extensively advances in biotechnology and fertility in particular that American society seems to take for granted, like noninvasive prenatal testing and gene editing, which are rolling out without much discussion.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning Razib talks to Christina Buttons, who writes at Buttons Lives. A native Californian and erstwhile artist, Buttons switched to journalism two years ago, writing about gender medicine. A contributor to Quillette, The Post-Millennial and The Daily Wire, Buttons is now a freelance journalist living in Nashville, Tennessee.

The first part of the conversation breaks down what “gender medicine” entails in its gory details. In April Razib had a conversation with Colin Wright about the relationship between sex and gender, and the broader philosophical issues entailed by the ideas of gender ideology. But in the discussion with Buttons, Razib asks what it means for a child to transition medically. What are the surgeries that transition a boy to a girl and a girl to a boy? They also discuss different hormone regimes, from those that block normal puberty to those that enhance the secondary sexual characteristics of the target gender to which the individual aims to transition. Buttons discusses why she got interested in the topic, the fraught area of medically transitioning children. She distinguishes her circumspect and focused critiques of gender transition from the catchall broadsides of so-called trans-exclusionary radical feminists and religious conservatives.

Razib asks Buttons about her departure from The Daily Wire due to ideological differences, and what it feels like to be a moderate between militant factions to both her left and right. Though originally on the Left, and even woke, today Buttons identifies as a centrist classical liberal, which naturally means she tends to offend a great variety of factions with her individualistic viewpoints.

Finally, they discuss youth treatment centers, group homes where self-destructive young people are sent to recover and be rehabilitated. Recently these have been in the news, with Paris Hilton claiming that she and others had been subject to abuse at these centers. Buttons herself spent much of her teens in youth treatment centers, and she believes that Hilton’s case is weak, and shutting down these facilities will result in higher rates of self-harm. Buttons plans on moving to this issue as her next project, because she believes people need to know the truth beyond the sensational headlines.

On this episode of Unsupervised Learning, Razib talks to returning guest, Sarah Haider. Haider is the co-host of the podcast A Special Place in Hell and the Substack Hold That Thought. A native of Houston, graduate of the University of Texas in Austin, Haider is the founder and former executive director of Ex Muslims of North America. Today Razib asks her about her move out of the nonprofit world, and into being a full-time public intellectual, speaking and writing on topics of interest to her beyond that of Muslim-born who become secular. And then, more specifically, Razib probes Haider about her thoughts on gender and politics. He asks her how becoming a mother in the last few years and idiosyncratic aspects of her personality may lend themselves to a comfortable home in the heterodox intellectual space.

They extensively consider the different dynamics of male and female podcasters, and the comparative surfeit of men versus women willing to offer their opinions on all and sundry topics. Haider also contends that women, by their very nature, are going to be perceived differently than men, resulting in a different way of arguing and engaging with audiences, guests and co-hosts. They also discuss the reality that both their podcast audiences have a male tilt, and whether that is a direct outcome of their communication styles. Outside of the realm of podcasting Razib and Haider explore the implications of there being two ways of speaking and thinking when it comes to men and women, and how that shapes how you talk, think and value issues.

Haider also discusses how her pregnancy, and becoming a mother, have changed her politics and social views. When Razib brings up Erik Hoel’s idea of “cultural billionaires,” Haider asks how many women are on the list of such individuals? She argues that becoming a mother is such an all-consuming task that it is no surprise that most of the prominent public women who contribute to opinion and academia are childless; Haider points that Betty Friedan was exceptional among second-wave feminists in having children.

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