David Moser is a scholar of linguistics at Capital Normal University in Beijing and the author of A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language.

0:00 - Introduction

5:28 - The Challenge of Translating Gödel, Escher, Bach

21:14 - Cultural and Economic Changes in China in the 1980s

31:37 - Why Chinese is So Damn Hard

38:56 - The Core of Language is not the Writing System

44:04 - The Political Fiction of a Unified Chinese Language

54:20 - Can We Just Get Rid of the Chinese Characters?

1:02:27 - "Character Amnesia" and the Future of Language Input

1:07:25 - Comparing the Educational Systems of China vs. America

1:16:07 - How David Learned Mandarin

1:28:32 - Reflections

Stephen Hsu is a theoretical physicist, technology entrepreneur, blogger, and podcaster.

We talk about his education as a physicist, how research funding decisions are made in academia, and the replication crisis in science.

Daniel Everett is a linguist and anthropologist whose work has challenged long-standing beliefs about human language and cognition.

In 1977, Dan journeyed deep into the Amazon rainforest as a Christian missionary to live among an indigenous tribe of hunter-gatherers known as the Pirahã.

He is the author of several acclaimed books, including "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" and "How Language Began". 

Outline