Explore every episode of the podcast Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decision-making and play-testing (with Dan Epstein) | 28 Aug 2024 | 01:09:56 | |
Read the full transcript here. What sorts of decisions are we making without even realizing we're making them? Are people aware of their own values? Do they know how those values rank relative to each other? What are all the various parties, interests, and values that have to be addressed and balanced when making decisions in a healthcare context? What does it mean to "play-test" yourself? What are the best strategies for giving feedback? How much energy is required to make various kinds of decisions? How can we practice and get better at decision-making? What is "tabletop exercising"? What are the most effective ways to bring other people into the decision-making process? What are some aspects of games that ought to be put to good use in non-game contexts? Why are educational games usually neither fun nor educational? How can game design features be used in ways that avoid turning metrics into targets? How can we make better decisions about how to divvy up our time? Dr. Dan Epstein is a practicing medical doctor and academic PhD focusing on decision-making and game design. Dan is the director of The Long Game Project, which helps businesses and leaders improve strategy and decision-making with games and tabletop exercises. Dan is also an ambassador for Giving What We Can, a community of people who pledge to donate a portion of their income to effective causes; and he's a member of High Impact Athletes, a community of current and past athletes who do the same. Follow him on Twitter at @drdanepstein, email him at email@longgameproject.org, connect with him on LinkedIn, or learn more about his work at longgameproject.org. Further reading
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| The path to utopia (with Nick Bostrom) | 24 Aug 2024 | 01:03:54 | |
Read the full transcript here. Why do there seem to be more dystopias than utopias in our collective imagination? Why is it easier to find agreement on what we don't want than on what we do want? Do we simply not know what we want? What are "solved worlds", "plastic worlds", and "vulnerable worlds"? Given today's technologies, why aren't we working less than we potentially could? Can humanity reach a utopia without superintelligent AI? What will humans do with their time, and/or how will they find purpose in life, if AIs take over all labor? What are "quiet" values? With respect to AI, how important is it to us that our conversation partners be conscious? Which factors will likely make the biggest differences in terms of moving the world towards utopia or dystopia? What are some of the most promising strategies for improving global coordination? How likely are we to end life on earth? How likely is it that we're living in a simulation? Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher with a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence, along with philosophy. He's been a Professor at Oxford University, where he served as the founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute from 2005 until its closure in April 2024. He is currently the founder and Director of Research of the Macrostrategy Research Initiative. Bostrom is the author of over 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias (2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (2008), Human Enhancement (2009), and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014). His work has pioneered many of the ideas that frame current thinking about humanity's future (such as the concept of an existential risk, the simulation argument, the vulnerable world hypothesis, the unilateralist's curse, etc.), while some of his recent work concerns the moral status of digital minds. His most recent book, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, was published in March of 2024. Learn more about him at his website, nickbostrom.com. Staff
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| Raising our happiness baseline (with Sasha Chapin) | 19 Jun 2024 | 01:21:13 | |
Read the full transcript here. How easy is it to shift our baseline level of happiness? What sorts of things can most effectively shift that baseline? And are they highly specific to each individual or generalizable to most people? What are the differences between conceptual and phenomenal self-love? Why might it be useful to view shame as a kink? How does self-love or self-acceptance differ from indulging or even just tolerating the worst parts of yourself? What's the best way to think about "woo"? How genuine is the stereotypical guru demeanor of serenity, graciousness, and attentiveness? Is it possible for people with aphantasia to learn visualization? What's so interesting about perfume? What can people do to become better writers? Sasha Chapin is a writer currently living in California. Most of his recent writing is on his Substack. His most popular posts there are "What the humans like is responsiveness" and "50 Things I Know". He also wrote a book called All the Wrong Moves: A Memoir About Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything. Learn more about him at his website, sashachapin.com, or follow him on Twitter / X at @sashachapin. Further reading
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| Inventions, stories, and ideas that don't matter (with Pablos Holman) | 05 Oct 2022 | 01:26:36 | |
Read the full transcript here. How does 3D-printed food work? How do hackers and inventors think? What are some ideas that don't matter? Why are humans so driven by stories? What are the current sentiments around nuclear energy? What is an "information DMZ"? Is "cryptocurrency regulation" a contradiction in terms? What are "deep" and "shallow" technologies? How could we handle intellectual property rights more fairly? Pablos is a hacker and inventor that runs Deep Future, a venture capital firm backing mad scientists, rogue inventors, crazy hackers, and maverick entrepreneurs who are implementing science fiction, solving big problems, and helping our species become better ancestors. Pablos is a top public speaker on technology whose TED Talks have over 30 million views. With his Deep Future Podcast, Pablos is sharing his conversations with people who understand the biggest problems in the world and the technologies that could help us solve them. Follow him on Twitter at @pablos, email him at pablos@deepfuture.tech, or find out more about him at deepfuture.tech. Staff
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| Humble-bragging, counter-signalling, and impression management (with Övül Sezer) | 28 Sep 2022 | 01:05:04 | |
Read the full transcript here. What should we do (or not do) to make a good first impression on others? Is "humble-bragging" better or worse than straightforward bragging? Or is completely hiding our successes an even better strategy than humble-bragging or straightforward bragging? When do our attempts to signal something about ourselves actually end up signalling something else that we don't intend? What are some long-term strategies for gaining others' respect? Övül Sezer is a behavioral scientist, stand-up comedian, and Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia University, Columbia Business School. She received her A.B. in Applied Mathematics and her Ph.D in Organizational Behavior from Harvard University. Follow her on Twitter at @ovulsezer or learn more about her at ovulsezer.com. Staff
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| Ambition and expected value at extremes (with Habiba Islam) | 21 Sep 2022 | 01:05:39 | |
Read the full transcript here. Are ambition and altruism compatible? How ambitious should we be if we want to do as much good in the world as possible? How should we handle expected values when the probabilities become very small and/or the values of the outcomes become very large? What's a reasonable probability of success for most entrepreneurs to aim for? Are there non-consequentialist justifications for longtermism? Habiba Islam is an advisor at 80,000 Hours where she talks to people one-on-one, helping them to pursue high impact careers. She previously served as the Senior Administrator for the Future of Humanity Institute and the Global Priorities Institute at Oxford. Before that she qualified as a barrister and worked in management consulting at PwC specialising in operations for public and third sector clients. Follow her on Twitter at @FreshMangoLassi or learn more about her work at 80,000 Hours at 80000hours.org. Staff
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| Career science, open science, and inspired science (with Alexa Tullett) | 14 Sep 2022 | 01:20:52 | |
Read the full transcript here. How much should we actually trust science? Are registered reports more trustworthy than meta-analyses? How does "inspired" science differ from "open" science? Open science practices may make research more defensible, but do they make it more likely to find truth? Do thresholds (like p < 0.05) represent a kind of black-and-white thinking, since they often come to represent a binary like "yes, this effect is significant" or "no, this effect is not significant"? What is "importance laundering"? Is generalizability more important than replicability? Should retribution be part of our justice system? Are we asking too much of the US Supreme Court? What would an ideal college admissions process look like? Alexa Tullett is a social psychologist who works at the University of Alabama. Her lab examines scientific, religious, and political beliefs, and the factors that facilitate or impede belief change. Some of her work takes a meta-scientific approach, using psychological methods to study the beliefs and practices of psychological scientists. Learn more about her at alexatullett.com, or send her an email at atullett@ua.edu. Staff
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| Estimating the long-term impact of our actions today (with Will MacAskill) | 07 Sep 2022 | 01:06:27 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is longtermism? Is the long-term future of humanity (or life more generally) the most important thing, or just one among many important things? How should we estimate the chance that some particular thing will happen given that our brains are so computationally limited? What is "the optimizer's curse"? How top-down should EA be? How should an individual reason about expected values in cases where success would be immensely valuable but the likelihood of that particular individual succeeding is incredibly low? (For example, if I have a one in a million chance of stopping World War III, then should I devote my life to pursuing that plan?) If we want to know, say, whether protests are effective or not, we merely need to gather and analyze existing data; but how can we estimate whether interventions implemented in the present will be successful in the very far future? William MacAskill is an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest associate professor of philosophy in the world. A Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur, he also cofounded the nonprofits Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Y Combinator–backed 80,000 Hours, which together have moved over $200 million to effective charities. He's the author of Doing Good Better, Moral Uncertainty, and What We Owe The Future. Staff
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| The differences between analytic and continental philosophy (with Alexander Prescott-Couch) | 31 Aug 2022 | 01:16:37 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is the genetic fallacy? How do the analytic and continental philosophical traditions differ? What is the role and value of intuition in analytic philosophy? Is continental philosophy too poetic for its own good? Alexander Prescott-Couch is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is currently writing a book on genealogy that is under contract with Oxford University Press. His academic work has appeared in journals such as Noûs and Journal of Political Philosophy, and he contributes to a regular interview column in the ZeitMagazin. Email him at alexander.prescott-couch@philosophy.ox.ac.uk or follow him on Twitter at @prescottcouch. Staff
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| Voting method reform in the US (with Aaron Hamlin) | 24 Aug 2022 | 01:17:39 | |
Read the full transcript here. Does the US have one of the worst implementations of democracy in the world? Why do people sometimes seem to vote against their own interests? Is it rational for them to do so? How robust are various voting systems to strategic voting? What sorts of changes would we notice in the US if we suddenly switched to other voting systems? How hard would it be to migrate from our current voting systems to something more robust and fair, and what would be required to make that happen? Are centrist candidates always boring? Aaron Hamlin is the executive director and co-founder of The Center for Election Science. He's been featured as an electoral systems expert on MSNBC.com, NPR, Free Speech TV, Inside Philanthropy, 80K Hours, and Popular Mechanics; and he has given talks across the country on voting methods. He's written for Deadspin, USA Today Magazine, Independent Voter Network, and others. Additionally, Aaron is a licensed attorney with two additional graduate degrees in the social sciences. You can learn more about The Center for Election Science at [electionscience.org(https://electionscience.org/) and can contact Aaron at aaron@electionscience.org. Staff
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| Critiquing Effective Altruism (with Michael Nielsen and Ajeya Cotra) | 19 Aug 2022 | 01:38:17 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is Effective Altruism? Which parts of the Effective Altruism movement are good and not so good? Who outside of the EA movement are doing lots of good in the world? What are the psychological effects of thinking constantly about the trade-offs of spending resources on ourselves versus on others? To what degree is the EA movement centralized intellectually, financially, etc.? Does the EA movement's tendency to quantify everything, to make everything legible to itself, cause it to miss important features of the world? To what extent do EA people rationalize spending resources on inefficient or selfish projects by reframing them in terms of EA values? Is a feeling of tension about how to allocate our resources actually a good thing? Ajeya Cotra is a Senior Research Analyst at Open Philanthropy, a grantmaking organization that aims to do as much good as possible with its resources (broadly following effective altruist methodology); she mainly does research relevant to Open Phil's work on reducing existential risks from AI. Ajeya discovered effective altruism in high school through the book The Life You Can Save, and quickly became a major fan of GiveWell. As a student at UC Berkeley, she co-founded and co-ran the Effective Altruists of Berkeley student group, and taught a student-led course on EA. Listen to her 80,000 Hours podcast episode or visit her LessWrong author page for more info. Michael Nielsen was on the podcast back in episode 016. You can read more about him there! Staff
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| How to form habits effectively (with Jim Davies) | 10 Aug 2022 | 01:22:43 | |
Read the full transcript here. How can we form good habits more effectively? What roles do reward and punishment play in the habit formation process? And what roles should they play? How should we structure our daily schedules around new habits to maximize the likelihood that they'll stick? If our goal is to do 100 push-ups a day, it's often easier to start with 10 and increase the difficulty over time; but at what level of difficulty should we start, and how quickly should we approach the target difficulty? How does willpower connect (or not) with habit formation? Why should we care about animal consciousness? When it comes to estimating how much good specific interventions will do, are bad estimates better than no estimates at all? Dr. Jim Davies is a professor of cognitive science at Carleton University. He is the author of Imagination: The Science of Your Mind's Greatest Power; Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make us Laugh, Movies Make us Cry, and Religion Makes us Feel One with the Universe; and Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are: The Science of a Better You. He co-hosts (with Dr. Kim Hellemans) the award-winning podcast Minding the Brain. Learn more about him at jimdavies.org or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Staff
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| Are scientific journals just parasites? (with Chris Chambers) | 07 Aug 2022 | 01:19:50 | |
Read the full transcript here. How is outcome bias especially relevant to science publishing? What are some possible solutions for overcoming outcome bias? In what ways are the publishing and peer review processes flawed? Why do many (or maybe most) scientists perform peer reviews for free? What value do publishers add to the scientific process, especially given that the internet democratizes distribution? How do (and should) scientific journals differ from newspapers? What kinds of changes must academic systems implement in order to improve in parallel with the proposed improvements for journals? How likely is it that a random preregistered study will replicate? Why can't we come to a consensus about some fraught topics like ego depletion? Chris Chambers is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cardiff University. His primary research focuses on the psychology and neurobiology of executive functions and higher cognition. He is also interested in the relationship between science and the media, ways the academic community can better contribute to evidence-based public policy, and methods for improving the reliability and transparency of science. You can reach Chris via email at chambersc1@cardiff.ac.uk, follow him on Twitter at @chrisdc77, or learn more at his website. Staff
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| Worldviews, altruism, and embracing variance (with Emmett Shear) | 12 Jun 2024 | 01:20:10 | |
Read the full transcript here. How does Emmett's worldview differ from the standard Silicon Valley worldview? What's the difference between an ideology and a worldview? What's middle management useful for? How might democracy be improved? How important is optimism? Why do people seem to get less done each day than they expect to get done? When is high variance beneficial? Does every startup have a point where it seems like they're going to fail? What's the best and worst startup advice out there? What's the right way to learn from users / customers? When should companies follow trends? How should we think about the different types of AI risks? Emmett Shear is an entrepreneur and investor. He was part of the first class at Y Combinator in 2005. He co-founded Justin.tv in 2006 and its spin-off company Twitch in 2011. In the same year, he also became a part-time partner at Y Combinator, a role in which he continues to advise new startups. He very briefly (for 2.5 days) acted as interim CEO at OpenAI in November 2023. Follow him on Twitter / X at @eshear. Staff
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| Human bias in the definition of intelligence (with Alene Anello) | 27 Jul 2022 | 01:14:01 | |
Read the full transcript here. Are all animals equally intelligent but in different ways? Do some animals perceive the passage of time differently from humans? Are our definitions of intelligence biased towards our own human strengths and therefore not fairly applicable to other animals? Is a baby human's pre-linguistic communication (like crying) analogous to the ways other animals communicate? Is civil litigation the best strategy for defending animal rights? Human lawyers represent their clients, but can other animals be clients? Can other animals be plaintiffs or defendants in human courts? Alene Anello is the founder of Legal Impact for Chickens, a litigation nonprofit that seeks to make animal cruelty a liability. Before founding Legal Impact for Chickens, Alene graduated from Harvard Law School, clerked for a federal judge, and then started litigating for animals. She has worked at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and The Good Food Institute. Her undergraduate degree is also from Harvard. Alene is committed to helping chickens to honor the memories of her two beloved avian family members, Conrad and Zeke. Find out more about her and her work at legalimpactforchickens.org. Staff
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| Guess culture vs. ask culture (with Will Eden and Sam Rosen) | 20 Jul 2022 | 01:18:58 | |
Read the full transcript here. How straightforwardly should we communicate our preferences to others? How many times does a person need to say "yes" relative to the number of times they say "no" so that a relationship can be maintained? Most people probably use a mix of asking and guessing; but under what conditions should each strategy be employed? What are the costs and benefits for the askers, guessers, and the people of whom the explicit or implicit request is being made? Since even the act of asking a question can be revealing, how can we know when to disclose certain pieces of information about our preferences? Does asking or guessing work better in small or large groups? Is it more polite to guess or ask? How does "tell" culture differ from ask and guess cultures? Does asking for consent (instead of guessing about whether or not the person consents) in sexual situations kill the mood? Will Eden was on the podcast back in episode 040. You can read more about him there! Sam Rosen was on the podcast back in episode 002. You can read more about him there! Staff
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| Are we all the heroes of our own stories? (with Cate Hall) | 13 Jul 2022 | 01:31:45 | |
Read the full transcript here. Is our adoption of beliefs primarily motivated by wanting to be the heroes of our own stories? Why do we have such a hard time understanding the stories other people are telling about themselves and the world? How can we reduce political polarization? How plausible are the various theories (conspiracy or otherwise) around the origins of COVID? Why don't the EA, Rationalist, and related communities focus more on transforming political landscapes? Free speech is incredibly important, of course; but does absolute free speech tip the scales in favor of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda? Has the internet fundamentally changed the way we converse with each other, or has it merely scaled up and accelerated those conversations while preserving their original characteristics? Is there ultimately a way to land on a principled answer around free speech and censorship? Does a globally optimum free speech policy even exist, or are we stuck picking from a lineup of equally unsavory options? Cate Hall is a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Alvea, a newly clinical stage EA biotech company. She is also the co-founder and President of Juniper Ventures, a biosecurity and pandemic preparedness foundry. She is a former Supreme Court litigator and former no. 1 female poker player in the world. She tweets at @catehall. Staff
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| Content moderation and its dis-content-moderators (with Ada Palmer) | 06 Jul 2022 | 01:22:23 | |
Read the full transcript here. How does the current information revolution compare to previous information revolutions? What kind of event or set of events counts as an information revolution? Why do new information technologies usually amplify the most extreme voices first? Why are intentions not very useful as a metric for determining whether a particular kind of censorship is good or bad? When, if ever, is censorship appropriate or morally acceptable? Why were officials of the Inquisition much more worried about slight deviations in theology than outright agnosticism or atheism? What are the implications of using AI to censor certain kinds of information? What do people misunderstand about history? Why are there so many more futuristic dystopian stories than utopian stories? What is "plural" agency, and why do we need more stories about it? Ada Palmer is a cultural and intellectual historian focusing on radical thought and the recovery of the classics in the Italian Renaissance. She works on the history of science, religion, heresy, freethought, atheism, censorship, books, printing, and on patronage and the networks of power and money that enabled cultural creation in early modern Europe. She teaches in the History Department at the University of Chicago, and her first book is Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance. Find out more about her at adapalmer.com. Staff
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| Exploring sex science and pseudo-science (with Mary Roach) | 29 Jun 2022 | 01:03:34 | |
Read the full transcript here. What are some surprising discoveries in the science of sex? What should we do when animals break human laws (e.g., when they commit manslaughter, steal, or even jaywalk)? Is a capacity for suffering the primary characteristic — or perhaps even the sole characteristic — that imbues an animal with moral status? How do science writers ensure faithful and accurate accounts of fields in which they may not be experts? Is there any evidence that humans could have psychic abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, etc.? People often err by being too credulous or too skeptical; so what level or shape of skepticism should be brought to bear on claims that are surprising, counterintuitive, or outlandish? Mary Roach is the author of the New York Times bestsellers STIFF, SPOOK, BONK, GULP, GRUNT, and PACKING FOR MARS. Her newest book FUZZ: When Nature Breaks the Law, debuted in September 2021. Mary has written for National Geographic, Wired, and The New York Times Magazine, among others, and her TED talk made the TED 20 Most Watched list. She has been a guest editor for Best American Science and Nature Writing, a finalist for the Royal Society's Winton Prize, and a winner of the American Engineering Societies' journalism award, in a category for which, let's be honest, she was the sole entrant. Find more about her at maryroach.net. Staff
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| The worst mistakes people make with diet and exercise (with Menno Henselmans) | 22 Jun 2022 | 01:18:25 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is willpower, really? What are the differences among willpower, self-control, self-discipline, and other related concepts? What are the best ways to become more self-disciplined? What are the differences between enthusiasm and motivation? What are the most effective motivators? What are fixed, performance, and growth mindsets? It's possible to work too hard and thus degrade our productivity; but is it possible to be too productive? What does it really mean to "work"? Why are there so many competing kinds of diet advice? What are the best ways of dealing with cravings? Are there physical, non-psychological correlates for cravings? What are some of the most common or worst mistakes people make with diet and exercise? Menno Henselmans is a former business consultant turned international public speaker, scientific researcher, and educator. His works have been published in over a dozen languages, and his website was ranked the #1 fitness website by The Huffington Post. He recently published the bestselling book The Science of Self-control: 53 tips to stick to your diet, be more productive and excel in life. Staff
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| Communicating what you really mean (with Misha Glouberman) | 15 Jun 2022 | 01:07:14 | |
Read the full transcript here. Why is most communication advice so fluffy? How can we actually communicate better? Why do we sometimes fail to say what we mean or what needs to be said? What counts as "nonviolent" communication? To what extent is avoidance of conflict and confrontation a result of agreeableness versus cowardice? What aspects of divorce aren't talked about enough? Misha Glouberman helps people communicate and connect better. He teaches a course called How to Talk to People About Things, online and in person, that helps people get better outcomes in their most important conversations at work and at home. He is an expert facilitator and designer of online and in-person events. He hosts the Trampoline Hall Lectures in Toronto, and is the co-author, with Sheila Heti, of The Chairs Are Where The People Go. He does lots of online events, so join his email list to learn more about them. Staff
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| Taking pleasure in being wrong (with Buck Shlegeris) | 08 Jun 2022 | 01:16:10 | |
Read the full transcript here. How hard is it to arrive at true beliefs about the world? How can you find enjoyment in being wrong? When presenting claims that will be scrutinized by others, is it better to hedge and pad the claims in lots of caveats and uncertainty, or to strive for a tone that matches (or perhaps even exaggerates) the intensity with which you hold your beliefs? Why should you maybe focus on drilling small skills when learning a new skill set? What counts as a "simple" question? How can you tell when you actually understand something and when you don't? What is "cargo culting"? Which features of AI are likely in the future to become existential threats? What are the hardest parts of AI research? What skills will we probably really wish we had on the eve of deploying superintelligent AIs? Buck Shlegeris is the CTO of Redwood Research, an independent AI alignment research organization. He currently leads their interpretability research. He previously worked on research and outreach at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. His website is shlegeris.com. Staff
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| A philosophical theory of jerks (with Eric Schwitzgebel) | 01 Jun 2022 | 01:15:16 | |
Read the full transcript here. To what extent does thinking about ethics actually cause a person to behave more ethically? Do ethicists behave more ethically than the average person, or are they just better at justifying their unethical behavior? Why do we sometimes have strong negative reactions to people who seem "too" moral — even if they're genuinely altruistic and not just acting as though they're better than everyone else? Is morality inherently motivating? More specifically, are some kinds of moral beliefs more motivating than others (e.g., beliefs obtained through reasoning vs. beliefs adopted because of social pressures vs. implicit beliefs to which our brains are predisposed for evolutionary reasons, etc.)? In philosophical terms, what is a jerk? How many kinds of jerks are there? Are philosophers mostly trying to find the truth, or are they mostly just playing logic games? Eric Schwitzgebel is a professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside. He has published widely in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, including on the moral behavior of ethics professors, on introspection and consciousness, and on the role of science fiction in philosophical thinking. His most recent book is A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures. He blogs at The Splintered Mind. Staff
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| How meanings get words and social sciences get broken (with Literal Banana) | 25 May 2022 | 01:20:24 | |
Read the full transcript here. How do meanings get words? What is ethnomethodology? Some attempts at defining words are successful; but why do some words seem to become more slippery the more we try to pin down their meanings? What sorts of problems uniquely plague the social sciences? What subtle aspects of the placebo effect are not noticed or easily forgotten by researchers? How can social science researchers clarify and strengthen the meanings of words in their questionnaires? More broadly, what are some of the less-talked-about ways that the social sciences can become more robust and reliable? Literal Banana is literally a banana who became interested in human social science through trying to live among them. After escaping from a high-tech produce delivery start-up, she now lives among humans and attempts to understand them through their own sciences of themselves. Follow Literal Banana on Twitter at @literalbanana. Staff
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| Two things shape the course of your life: luck and your decisions (with Annie Duke) | 05 Jun 2024 | 01:25:38 | |
Read the full transcript here. Should people spend more time becoming better decision-makers? What are the main things that determine how our lives turn out? What's wrong with pro / con lists? When should we deviate from making decisions based on expected value calculations? What kinds of uncertainty might we encounter in the decision-making process? Are explicit decision calculations self-defeating? How similar is intuitive decision-making to decision-making that's based on calculations? How useful are heuristics? How can we know which decisions are significant enough to warrant calculations? What makes a decision hard? What's the omission / commission bias? What lessons can we learn from monkeys and pedestals? Should decision-making strategies be taught in primary and secondary schools? Annie Duke is an author, speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space, as well as Special Partner focused on Decision Science at First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund. Her latest book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, was released in 2022 from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than $4 million in tournament poker, has won a World Series of Poker bracelet, and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or via her website, AnnieDuke.com; or subscribe to her newsletter on Substack. Further reading
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| Dealing with our "groupstruckness" and "boundedness" (with Katja Grace) | 18 May 2022 | 01:06:38 | |
Read the full transcript here. What does it mean to be "groupstruck"? How does groupstruck-ness differ from the bystander effect, normalcy bias, and other related cognitive biases? How do we break people out of being groupstruck? What does it mean to be a "bounded" person? How can we build up better decision-making heuristics? What sorts of decisions do people usually not quantify but should (and vice versa)? How can we make rational relationship decisions without coming across as "calculating" or cold? How does anthropic reasoning affect our hypotheses about the nature of the universe and life within it (i.e., the Fermi paradox, the simulation hypothesis, etc.)? Katja Grace is a blogger at worldspiritsockpuppet.com and researcher at aiimpacts.org. Follow her on Twitter at @KatjaGrace. Staff
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| Math as a perspective on life (with Marcus du Sautoy) | 11 May 2022 | 01:19:58 | |
Read the full transcript here. How can we have System-2-type reflection but with System-1-type speed? How can math be considered to be a "fast" way of solving problems? Is math discovered or invented? How can we use math to think better in everyday life? How can math education be improved? Do mathematicians have a snobbish preference for "pure" maths over applied maths? How can math be used to tell stories? Marcus du Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He is author of seven books including his most recent book, Thinking Better: the Art of the Shortcut. He has also published a play, I is a Strange Loop, which was performed at the Barbican in London in which he was also lead actor. He has presented numerous radio and TV series including a four-part landmark TV series for the BBC called The Story of Maths. He works extensively with a range of arts organisations bringing science alive for the public from The Royal Opera House to the Glastonbury Festival. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year's Honours List and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016. Follow him on Twitter at @MarcusduSautoy or find out more about him at www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk. Staff
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| A former Al-Qaeda recruiter speaks (with Jesse Morton) | 04 May 2022 | 01:54:17 | |
Read the full transcript here. NOTE: When we published this episode a few days ago, we were unaware that Jesse had passed away back in December of 2021. We only just learned of this fact today when a listener reached out to inform us. We're saddened by this news, and we apologize for any possible confusion or hurt we may have caused by linking to his Twitter handle, email address, etc. We have removed those items from his bio but left the link to the Light Upon Light website since it contains many of Jesse's writings and information about his life's work. What leads people to violent extremism? Is extremism a legitimate, rational response to trauma, hardship, and powerlessness? Do some holy books make it easier to justify violence than others, or are all violent movements equally capable of extracting justifications from their holy book? To what extent does recruitment to radical movements involve "brainwashing" or overriding people's beliefs versus hooking into, shaping, and strengthening their beliefs? Are cults and radical movements the same thing? What enables people to deradicalize? How can we most effectively interact with radicalized friends or family members? Jesse Morton was once a jihadist propagandist (then known as Younes Abdullah Muhammad) who ran Revolution Muslim, a New York City-based organization active in the 2000s that connected Muslims in the west to al-Qaeda's ideology, creating English language propaganda and collaborating with the most notorious jihadist preachers of that era. He deradicalized in 2011 and has worked since to become a leading commentator, interventionist, and innovator in the prevention and countering of violent extremism, focusing especially on jihadist, far-right, and far-left extremism. Jesse was included in Foreign Policy Magazine's 2017 "Global Thinkers" listing and holds a master's in Middle East studies from Columbia University along with licensure in substance-abuse and mental health counseling. Find more info at lightuponlight.online. Staff
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| Cognitive biases and animal welfare (with Leah Edgerton) | 27 Apr 2022 | 01:36:40 | |
Read the full transcript here. What are some of the tensions between short-term and long-term thinking about how best to reduce animal suffering? Why spend time and energy working on animal welfare when human welfare hasn't even been secured? Why do so many animal rights activists and organizations have such negative reputations and elicit such strongly negative emotional reactions from the population at large when they're just trying to reduce suffering? How does animal rights activism from an effective altruism perspective intersect with the more traditional forms of animal rights activism and social justice activism? Humans tend to be more capable of empathizing (for example) with a cow than with a fish, and more with a dog than with a cow; so how can animal rights activists motivate people in a way that works with or around human cognitive and emotional biases? What are some tools for dealing with chronic pain? Leah has been involved in the effective altruism community for a decade and in animal advocacy her whole life. She has 7 years of professional experience in farmed animal advocacy, primarily focused on movement growth and interfacing with funders. Most recently, she worked at Animal Charity Evaluators on the Communications team and then as Executive Director. Her previous work experience includes performing in the Zurich Opera, managing a small business, and founding and leading ProVeg International's China Program. She currently works as a freelance philanthropic advisor to high-net-worth individuals entering the farmed animal space. You can email Leah at leah.edgerton@gmail.com or find out more about her on her LinkedIn profile. Further reading
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| Is it bad to coerce yourself to do unpleasant things? (with Matt Goldenberg) | 20 Apr 2022 | 01:00:55 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is non-self-coercion? What's so bad about coercing ourselves to do things we don't want to do? What is "the reconsolidation pyramid"? What are the differences between being heaven-oriented and enlightenment-oriented? What does it mean to scale trust? Matt Goldenberg is the creator of Procrastination Playbook and the Head of Marketing at the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth. He spends his time meditating, helping people heal their emotional wounds, and working to prevent existential risks. Contact him via Twitter at @mattgoldenberg or via email at matt@procrastinationplaybook.net. Staff
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| Our 100th episode! (with Uri Bram and Spencer Greenberg) | 13 Apr 2022 | 00:58:00 | |
Read the full transcript here. Is it possible to be both agreeable and skeptical in conversations? How can you give feedback and challenge people constructively without triggering their automatic self-defense mechanisms? More generally, how can you challenge people intellectually without riling them up emotionally? What skills are needed to be able to have detailed, productive conversations across a wide range of topics? How can you push through plateaus in the process of self-improvement? What are podcasts as a medium good for? Find more about Spencer through his website, spencergreenberg.com. Staff
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| Volunteering to be infected with COVID — for science! (with Josh Morrison) | 06 Apr 2022 | 01:24:52 | |
Read the full transcript here. How can we develop vaccines more quickly? What kinds of study designs are used (or could be used) during vaccine development? In pandemic situations, we need to roll out vaccines quickly; but even if we can develop and test a vaccine quickly and thoroughly, how confident can we be that there won't be long-term risks? Between ethics and pragmatics, which facet should communicators emphasize when trying to convince organizations and institutions to adopt certain vaccine development strategies? Informed consent is, of course, a hugely important requirement for using human volunteers in challenge trials; so if some people are informed, eager, and willing to volunteer their health and safety for such trials in order to aid vaccine development, then why aren't they being used more (if at all)? Since IRBs are often "all brakes and no gas", could they be given powers to accelerate research in addition to their current powers to slow or halt research? How can bioethics reviews be improved? Josh Morrison is a serial social entrepreneur and aspiring effective altruist who has founded 1Day Sooner, Waitlist Zero, and the Rikers Debate Project. His work — in the fields of clinical trials, living organ donation, and criminal justice reform — focuses on empowering particular identity groups (research participants, kidney donors, and incarcerated people) to improve decision-making processes so as to achieve impactful policy. His projects have been covered globally in outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, the Financial Times, the BBC, Der Spiegel, Asahi Shimbun, and the South China Morning Post. His writing has been published in the Washington Post, the American Journal of Bioethics, Clinical Infectious Disease, Vaccine, Risk Analysis, Vox, STAT News, and BMJ Opinion. You can email him at josh@1daysooner.org. Staff
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| What we really mean when we say that something will "probably" happen (with Walt Hickey) | 30 Mar 2022 | 01:09:34 | |
Read the full transcript here. Graphic novels have been around for a long time, so why have graphic novel sales skyrocketed suddenly in the last year or two? Is that growth representative of a possible trend away from reading text-only books? Do animated movies and TV shows allow for greater suspension of disbelief than their live-action counterparts? Does animation make it easier for movies and TV shows to push the boundaries of what's culturally acceptable? What is "soft" power, and why is it so important? How important has America's soft power been relative to its hard power over the past century? How is America's soft power affected by Americans' own views of their country? What's lacking or misguided in the ways most people think and talk about probabilities and statistics? Is it better to report predictions with very specific probabilities (e.g., "It's 67.5% likely to rain today") or with looser, more casual probabilities (e.g., "I think it'll probably rain today")? Walt Hickey is a data journalist who founded and writes Numlock News, a daily morning newsletter about fascinating numbers buried in the news. His primary interests are in pop culture data journalism and how journalists can better integrate stats into stories. He's currently writing a book about how pop culture impacts its consumers and is the senior editor for data at Insider. He previously worked as the chief culture writer at FiveThirtyEight and has written for Marvel.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @WaltHickey and subscribe to his newsletter at NumlockNews.com.
Staff
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| Why is self-compassion so hard? (with Kristin Neff) | 23 Mar 2022 | 01:01:52 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is self-compassion? Why do people struggle so much to show themselves the same kind of compassion that they regularly show to others? How can parents find a successful middle ground between authoritativeness / harshness and permissiveness / love? Should our love for ourselves be unconditional? What's the difference between shame and guilt? What should we make of people who are neither compassionate nor cruel to themselves because they simply don't practice self-reflection? What factors during childhood lead to higher or lower self-compassion in adults? What religious, cultural, socioeconomic, or other factors contribute to differences in self-compassion? How can we still treat ourselves compassionately when we feel legitimate guilt over mistakes that have moral dimensions? Are there differences in self-compassion between men and women? What are the various components of self-compassion? How does compassion differ from related concepts like pity, sympathy, empathy, etc.? Why is it so important to us to have our feelings validated by others? Is it possible to have too much self-compassion? Do extremely antisocial people — like psychopaths or sociopaths, who typically seem not to have compassion for others — have self-compassion? Narcissists seem to "love" themselves, but is that the same as having compassion towards oneself? What are some common misconceptions about self-compassion? Kristin Neff is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion nearly twenty years ago. She has been recognized as one of the most influential researchers in psychology worldwide. She is author of the bestselling book Self-Compassion. Along with her colleague Chris Germer, she developed the Mindful Self-Compassion program, taught internationally, and co-wrote The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. Her newest book is Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive. For more info, go to self-compassion.org. Further reading Staff
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| Why it's so hard to have confidence that charities are doing good (with Elie Hassenfeld) | 16 Mar 2022 | 01:55:51 | |
Read the full transcript here. How does GiveWell's approach to charity differ from other charitable organizations? Why does GiveWell list such a small number of recommended charities? How does GiveWell handle the fact that different moral frameworks measure causes differently? Why has GiveWell increased its preference for health-related causes over time? How does GiveWell weight QALYs and DALYs? How much does GiveWell rely on a priori moral philosophy versus people's actual moral intuitions? Why does GiveWell have such low levels of confidence in some of its most highly-recommended charities or interventions? What should someone do if they want to be more confident that their giving is actually having a positive impact? Why do expected values usually tend to drop as more information is gathered? How does GiveWell think about second-order effects? How much good does the median charity do? Why is it so hard to determine how impactful charities are? Many charities report on the effectiveness of individual projects, but why don't more of them report on their effectiveness overall as an organization? Venture capitalists often diversify their portfolios as much as possible because they know that, even though most startups will fail, one unicorn can repay their investments many times over; so, in a similar way, why doesn't GiveWell fund as many projects as possible rather than focusing on a few high performers? Why doesn't GiveWell recommend more animal charities? Does quantification sometimes go too far? Elie Hassenfeld co-founded GiveWell in 2007 and currently serves as its CEO. He is responsible for setting GiveWell's strategic vision and has grown the organization into a leading funder in global health and poverty alleviation, directing over $500 million annually to high-impact giving opportunities. Since 2007, GiveWell has directed more than $1 billion to outstanding charities. Elie co-led the development of GiveWell's research methodology and guides the research team's agenda. He has also worked closely with donors to help them define their giving strategies and invest toward them. Prior to founding GiveWell, Elie worked in the hedge fund industry. He graduated from Columbia University in 2004 with a B.A. in religion. Staff
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| What we know and don't know about nutrition (with Gil Carvalho) | 29 May 2024 | 01:24:32 | |
Read the full transcript here. How do we know what's true in nutrition? Why aren't nutrition studies seemingly as "definitive" as (e.g.) physics experiments often seem to be? What is the "hierarchy of evidence"? Why is there such a disconnect between the kinds of evidence that actually seem to persuade people and the kinds of evidence that scientists view as valid and meaningful? How can we talk about specific foods in ways that avoid labelling them as always good or always bad? Is the Mediterranean diet good for anyone and everyone? Is it better than all other known dietary patterns? Are there healthy ways to do (e.g.) low-carb, high-carb, low-fat, high-fat, and other similar diet types? What do we know about the effects of ketogenic diets? What do we know about the effects of meat-only diets? Are saturated fats always bad? How should we think about mechanistic evidence given for or against a particular food or diet? How much protein should we consume every day? Should we universally reduce our sugar intake? To what extent is excess body fat bad? Since BMI is much criticized, what are the best measures of health for people with excess body fat? Should we avoid blood sugar spikes throughout the day? What percent of people tend to re-gain lost weight after concluding temporary diets? Is caloric intake really the only factor for weight gain or loss? Is the mistrust of nutritionists justified? Gil Carvalho, MD PhD is a physician, research scientist, science communicator, speaker, and writer. Dr. Carvalho trained as a medical doctor in the University of Lisbon, in his native Portugal, and later obtained a PhD in Biology from the California Institute of Technology. He has published peer-reviewed medical research spanning the fields of genetics, molecular biology, nutrition, behavior, aging, and neuroscience. In parallel with his research career, Dr. Carvalho also has a passion for science communication. He directs and hosts Nutrition Made Simple, which aims to convey fundamental nutrition concepts to a general audience via educational videos. Learn more about him here, and follow him on YouTube, Twitter / X, and Instagram. Staff
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| Shovelgloves and extreme moderation (with Reinhard Engels) | 09 Mar 2022 | 00:54:42 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is "extreme" moderation? What is the "No S" diet? What is a "shovelglove"? Why be a luddite only on the weekend? What are some better alternatives to traditional habit tracking? In the real world, Reinhard Engels is a librarian, software engineer, and father of three. But on the Internet, he's a diet, exercise, and productivity guru. His shtick is something called "Systematic Moderation": simple, common-sense, psychology-based rules for building sustainable good habits — and a touch of humour to help you laugh away the ridiculous excuses you'll come up with trying to get out of them. Find out more about Reinhard at everydaysystems.com, watch his shovelglove demonstration, or email him at reinhard.engels@gmail.com. Staff
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| Mental models that apply across disciplines (with Blas Moros) | 02 Mar 2022 | 00:43:53 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is a mental model? What are "the three buckets"? How can Galilean relativity and alloying apply to non-science parts of life? What is the goal-gradient hypothesis? Why is it useful to know about signalling, especially in a social context? How can the concept of marginal safety apply outside of investing? More generally, why should people learn about mental models? Blas Moros is writer, thinker, and entrepreneur. He's the CEO of Frontier and the founder of Latticework. Find more about him at blas.com, or follow him on Twitter at @blasmoros. Staff
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| Accessing pure consciousness at any moment (with Loch Kelly) | 23 Feb 2022 | 01:35:42 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is "awakening"? What is a "stateless" state? What is nonduality? Why and how do some spiritual practitioners experience a dissolution of their sense of self? Do these altered or enlightened states require thousands of hours of practice to achieve, or are they always inside us, waiting to be noticed and accessed at any time? Can these states be accessed through a variety of paths and methods? Is there a certain kind of person that does better or worse at achieving these states? Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW is an award-winning author, licensed psychotherapist, and recognized leader in the field of meditation and awakening. He is the founder of the nonprofit Effortless Mindfulness Institute and has worked in community mental health, established homeless shelters, and counseled family members of 9/11 victims. Loch graduated from Columbia University and received a fellowship to study in Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal. Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn, and NYU in the study of how awareness training can enhance compassion and wellbeing. Loch is dedicated to reducing suffering and supporting people to live from open-hearted awareness. He is known for his warm sense of humor and his trust that awakening is the next natural stage of development. He teaches the advanced-yet-simple nondual pointers and direct methods of Effortless Mindfulness, informed by psychology and social justice. Loch lives in upstate New York with his wife Paige and their cat Duffy. Please go to lochkelly.org/em to find more information and free practices. Staff
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| Fight, flight, freeze, fawn (with Sasha Raskin) | 16 Feb 2022 | 01:16:34 | |
Read the full transcript here. When does positivity become toxic? When is it appropriate (or not) to give advice? Can depression really be healed without systemic changes? What are some ways that society at large gaslights people? Why do women sometimes not come forward after sexual assault? What is "freeze or faun"? Do men suffer as much under patriarchy as women? Sasha Raskin is the Founder of A Beautiful Mess (ABM), a mental health organization that runs corporate talks and events to combat loneliness, depression, and mental health stigma, while fostering connection, intimacy, and equality. She founded ABM to be the resource she wished she had when she was struggling the most. You can learn more about her story here. For her mental health work, she has delivered talks for platforms ranging from Venture University to The World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Community; she has been named a Young Social Impact Hero by Thrive Global in partnership with Authority Magazine; and she'll be delivering a TEDx talk shortly titled, "The Other Pandemic: We Must End Mental Health Stigma Now". Sasha's contact info:
Sasha also asked us to include this in the show notes: A BEAUTIFUL MESS believes that mental health is a human right and accordingly, no one is turned away from public events for lack of funds. We also offer free resources whenever possible. A lot goes into this work so please consider supporting our mission financially. It is greatly appreciated!
Additionally, we'd LOVE to collaborate with you and your company. You can reach us / schedule a free consultation call here:
Further reading Staff
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| The science of addiction (with Crystal Dilworth) | 10 Feb 2022 | 01:11:57 | |
Read the full transcript here. Why do people get addicted to cigarettes? Should people use nicotine as a stimulant (without smoking it, of course)? What percent of people have a hard time quitting smoking once they start? What genetic factors predispose a person to nicotine addiction? How addictive is alcohol relative to nicotine? Is vaping less addictive and/or less negatively impactful on cardiovascular health than smoking? How can we train scientists to be better leaders? How valuable are graduate students to their advisors, mentors, and departments in various fields? How can researchers tell better stories about the data they've collected? Why are there fewer girls and women in science? Why can educators do to encourage more girls and women to work in scientific fields? Will increasing diversity in science improve science? Dr. Crystal Dilworth is a neuroscientist, dancer/choreographer, and television host on a mission to help others better understand themselves and their world. Saturday Mornings you can find her on CBS as Mission Unstoppable's "Dr. Brain" or weekly on Voice of America as the host of VOA-Tek. Behind the camera, the Caltech-trained neuroscientist coaches both public and private organizations in how to foster meaningful communication and understanding within internal teams and externally to the public, and she loves leveraging her unconventional background in the performing arts to creatively produce large-scale public events championing science and technology. Dr. Dilworth is an AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador for STEM and lives in Jakarta, Indonesia with her husband and two cats. Find her on Instagram at @PolycrystalhD. Further reading
Staff
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| Evidence, reason, and compassion for all sentient beings (with Jamie Woodhouse) | 02 Feb 2022 | 01:17:27 | |
Read the full transcript here. How can we encourage people to increase their critical thinking and reliance on evidence in the current information climate? What types of evidence "count" as valid, useful, or demonstrative? And what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of those types? Could someone reasonably come to believe just about anything, provided that they live through very specific sets of experiences? What does it mean to have a "naturalistic" epistemology? How does a philosophical disorder differ from a moral failure? Historically speaking, where does morality come from? Is moral circle expansion always good or praiseworthy? What sorts of entities deserve moral consideration? Jamie Woodhouse works on the Sentientism worldview ("evidence, reason, and compassion for all sentient beings") — refining the philosophy, raising awareness of the idea, and building communities and movements around it. After a quarter century in the corporate world he is a now an independent consultant, coach, and volunteer. You can follow Jamie on Twitter at @JamieWoodhouse or email him at hello@sentientism.info. Here are a few more links related to Sentientism:
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| Can the economy grow indefinitely? (with Alyssa Vance) | 26 Jan 2022 | 01:16:45 | |
Read the full transcript here. How is the economy like a differential equation? Can the economy grow indefinitely? Are there economic attractor states? Or are economic outcomes chaotic and/or extremely sensitive to certain variables? What should we know about progress in genetic engineering? Can you (and should you) do genetic engineering in your garage? What are some common mistakes people make when thinking about AI? Should we expect AI abilities to converge in some domains and diverge in others? Why do we sometimes collectively forget important ideas? Have we as a species grown wiser over the course of our history? How can we form high-trust communities on the internet? In the context of social media, is ease of access at cross-purposes with membership screening and/or costs, or is it possible to have both? What should we make of ephemeral communities that appear briefly, do something huge, and then disappear (like the WallStreetBets subreddit phenomenon)? What are the various types of misinformation being used in the US, Russia, China, and elsewhere? Alyssa Vance is an engineer of AI systems, a futurist, and an entrepreneur. She is currently serving as an independent consultant for a variety of organizations interested in AI. She was previously the first employee at Apprente, which developed conversational AI for the McDonald's drive-thru and was acquired by McDonald's in 2019. She was a founder of CandleCRM, MetaMed, and GetBitcoin, and served as Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association. She also hosts the Long Term World Improvement mailing list and other groups for discussing future technology. Alyssa has recently joined Twitter at @alyssamvance and can be reached via email at alyssamvance@gmail.com. Staff
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| How many minds do you have? (with Kaj Sotala) | 19 Jan 2022 | 01:27:36 | |
Read the full transcript here. What are the advantages of viewing the mind through the multi-agent model as opposed to (say) the rational / optimizing agent model? What is the "global workspace" theory of consciousness? What's going on during concentration meditation according to the global workspace theory? If our brains are composed of multiple sub-agents, then what does it mean when I say, "I believe such-and-such"? Are beliefs context-dependent (i.e., you believe P in one context and not-P in a different context)? What effects do the various therapeutic modalities and meditation practices have on our beliefs? What are the advantages of transformational therapy over other approaches? Kaj Sotala is interested in finding ways that would allow everyone to reach their fullest potential with regard to agency, inner harmony, and well-being. He believes that the upper limits on these are somewhere very high indeed. Kaj has worked as an emotion coach, software developer, and researcher focusing on the long-term consequences of advanced artificial intelligence. One of his last research projects was the Multiagent Models of Mind article series, combining perspectives from a variety of fields ranging from psychotherapy to AI and neuroscience, for better understanding how the mind works. His website is kajsotala.fi, and he also posts articles on lesswrong.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook or email him at kaj.sotala@gmail.com. Staff
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| Are you a wamb or a nerd? (with Tom Chivers) | 12 Jan 2022 | 00:55:37 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is a "wamb"? What are the differences between wambs and nerds? When is it appropriate (or not) to decouple concepts from their context? What are some common characteristics of miscommunications between journalists and writers / thinkers in the EA and Rationalist communities? What are "crony" beliefs? How can you approach discussions of controversial topics without immediately getting labelled as being on one team or another? What sorts of quirks do members of the EA and Rationalist communities typically exhibit in social contexts? Tom is a freelance science writer and the science editor at UnHerd.com. He has twice been awarded a Royal Statistical Society "statistical excellence in journalism" prize, in 2018 and 2020, and was declared the science writer of the year by the Association of British Science Writers in 2021. His first book, The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy: Superintelligent AI and the Geeks Who are Trying to Solve Humanity's Future (originally titled The AI Does Not Hate You), was declared one of the Times's science books of 2019. He worked for seven years at the Telegraph and three years at BuzzFeed before going freelance in 2018, and was once described by Sir Terry Pratchett as "far too nice to be a journalist". Find out more about Tom on Twitter, UnHerd, and tomchivers.com. Staff
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| Behind the scenes of the online dating world (with Tom Quisel) | 05 Jan 2022 | 01:20:51 | |
Read the full transcript here. How do men and women differ in their approach to online dating? How do online dating services deal with the fact that men send many times more messages to women than women send to men? How can online dating services' recommendation algorithms avoid merely recommending the most attractive people over and over to everyone? To what extent do users of such services agree about what makes a person attractive? How do transactions and interactions on these platforms shape the way users pursue short-term and/or long-term relationships? What surprising effects emerge in aggregate as a result of these transactions? How well do people really know themselves? How well do they know what kind of relationship partners would actually make them happy? How does gay male online dating (especially on Grindr) differ from heterosexual online dating? What makes for effective management and/or leadership? Is anger a useful tool for managers? How should managers weight the importance of various hiring tools (e.g., résumés, interviews, work samples, personality tests, contract periods, etc.)? What are some tools for designing highly effective self-experiments? Is there alien life in the universe? Should we be trying to reach out to aliens? Tom Quisel is the CTO at Grindr, where he practices servant leadership and works to build a culture that values diversity, collaboration, ownership, and quality craft. He's passionate about making a positive impact on the world and is an online dating veteran with 9 years of experience in the industry, including 2.5 years as OkCupid's CTO. He has a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon, with a background in software engineering, distributed systems, data science, and machine learning. Tom lives in Santa Barbara and loves to mountain bike, explore philosophy with friends, and pursue life-long learning. Staff
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| Measuring everything that matters (with Doug Hubbard) | 22 May 2024 | 01:12:41 | |
Read the full transcript here. Can we measure everything that matters to us? When is measuring the correlates of a thing pretty much just as good as measuring the thing itself? Why are some people resistant to measuring certain things? What are some things people should be measuring but aren't? What's the connection between measuring things and assigning probabilities to events? How much do we know about how well human intuition performs against "doing the math"? How inconsistent are we at applying our own principles in decision-making? What kinds of calibration training are effective? What is "value of information"? What is the Rule of 5? What are the top three things we can do to improve our decision-making? Douglas Hubbard is an author, consultant, and recognized expert in decision theory and risk analysis. He has written several books on measurement and measuring risk. His work spans various industries including insurance, finance, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, military, energy, government, tech, and nonprofit organizations. Connect with Doug on LinkedIn, email him at dwhubbard@hubbardresearch.com, or learn more about his work at hubbardresearch.com. Further reading
Staff
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| The clash between social justice and anti-wokeness (with Amber Dawn and Holly Elmore) | 22 Dec 2021 | 02:18:55 | |
Read the full transcript here. Is it okay for anyone to have opinions about marginalized communities even if they're not a part of those communities? Do people in marginalized groups have special knowledge (especially tacit knowledge) about their groups that can't be known or experienced from the outside? To what extent can we know and empathize with others' experiences regardless of differences in race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, etc.? Do oppression and discrimination tend to be caused more by active bigotry or by mere lack of care and awareness? What information (if any) does intersectionality fail to capture about people? Is describing someone intersectionally an end in itself, or is it just a way of correcting (or over-correcting) for the suppression of marginalized voices? Should ideas be discussed absent their context or implications (see: decoupling norms vs. contextualizing norms)? To what extent should we focus on individuals versus groups when attempting to fix inequities? Are individuals or groups responsible for redressing the atrocities of their ancestors? Should people be "cancelled" for their views (including their past views, even if their current views are different)? To what extent is the shifting of moral ground around social justice issues unpredictable and/or disorienting? How can democratic societies balance the need to debate difficult ideas with the risk of giving reprehensible ideas a platform? Should rules about offensiveness be enforced from the top down (e.g., from a government, a school administration, a company's board of directors, or even parents)? Is offense only "in the eye of the beholder"? Amber Dawn is an itinerant UChicago PhD student working on Plato and Lucretius. She is interested in philosophy, emotions, mental health and therapy, effective altruism, ethics, gender, sex, anarchism, and social justice. You can find more about Amber on Facebook, Twitter, or Medium, or you can email her at contemplatonist@gmail.com. Holly Elmore is an effective altruist with a background in evolutionary biology. After organizing EA groups at Harvard throughout her PhD, she left academia and conducts EA-style wild animal welfare research. She witnessed the rise of wokism from within American universities, and has followed developments in social justice culture both as an adversary and an interested amateur sociologist. You can find more about her at her blog. Amber and Holly would like for us to remind you that the views they express in this conversation are their own and do not reflect the views held by their employers. Staff
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| Tyler's three laws and twelve rules (with Tyler Cowen) | 15 Dec 2021 | 00:56:44 | |
Read the full transcript here. Why might it be the case that "all propositions about real interest rates are wrong"? What, if anything, are most economists wrong about? Does political correctness affect what economists are willing to write about? What are the biggest open questions in economics right now? Is there too much math in economics? How has the loss of the assumption that humans are perfectly rational agents shaped economics? Is Tyler's worldview unusual? Should people hold opinions (even loosely) on topics about which they're relatively ignorant? Why is there "something wrong with everything" (according to Cowen's First Law)? How can we learn how to learn from those who offend us? What does it mean to be a mentor? What do we know and not know about success? What is lookism? Why is raising someone else's aspirations a high-return activity? Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. With colleague Alex Tabarrok, Cowen is coauthor of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution and cofounder of the online educational platform Marginal Revolution University. Read more at his website, tylercowen.com. Staff
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| Freezing to (not) death: cryonics and the quest for immortality (with Max Marty) | 08 Dec 2021 | 01:34:22 | |
Read the full transcript here. What is cryonics? And how does it work? What do we know right now about reversing death? And what would we have to learn to make resurrection from a cryogenically frozen state feasible? How much does cryonics cost? What incentives would future people have for reviving a cryo-frozen person? How likely is it that a cryo-frozen person will be brought back in the future? Why do people (even pro-cryonics people) "cryoprastinate" and put off considering cryonics for a later time? What sorts of risks are involved in being frozen and later revived? What philosophical and ethical issues are at stake with cryonics? Would a revived person be able to integrate into a future society? Why is there stigma around cryonics in some cultures? Max Marty is an entrepreneur and futurist who lived and worked in the Bay Area for 10 years. He's now in Austin and has been working to build the Cryonics community, including co-hosting the Cryonics Underground podcast and running the largest Cryonics discord community: The Cryosphere. He looks forward to getting back into startups in the future, this time in biotech. Further reading
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