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 Pro...
May 11, 2022•1 hr 20 min
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 ma...
May 04, 2022•1 hr 54 min
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 ...
Apr 27, 2022•1 hr 37 min
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 emotion...
Apr 20, 2022•1 hr 1 min
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 ...
Apr 13, 2022•58 min
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 vacc...
Apr 06, 2022•1 hr 25 min
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 ...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 10 min
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 sel...
Mar 23, 2022•1 hr 2 min
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...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 56 min
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 go...
Mar 09, 2022•55 min
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 Latt...
Mar 02, 2022•44 min
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 achiev...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 36 min
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 l...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 17 min
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 gra...
Feb 10, 2022•1 hr 12 min
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...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 17 min
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 othe...
Jan 26, 2022•1 hr 17 min
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 ...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 28 min
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 ...
Jan 12, 2022•56 min
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...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 21 min
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 ten...
Dec 22, 2021•2 hr 19 min
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 (ev...
Dec 15, 2021•57 min
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 la...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 34 min
Read the full transcript here. What is the vertical conception of cognitive development? Do developmental stages always occur in a predictable order? To what extent are adult humans able to continue their cognitive development? Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? What is the "pre/trans" fallacy? What is the importance of coaching as a meta-skill? What sorts of questions precipitate insights and/or clarifications of values? Eben Pagan is a well-known entrepreneur, teacher, and techno...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 24 min
Read the full transcript here. What kinds of catastrophic risks could drastically impact global food supply or large-scale electricity supply? What kinds of strategies could help mitigate or recover from such outcomes? How can we plan for and incentivize cooperation in catastrophic scenarios? How can catastrophic and existential risks be communicated more effectively to the average person? What factors cause people to cooperate or not in disaster scenarios? Where should we be spending resources ...
Nov 24, 2021•56 min
Read the full transcript here. To increase our chances of success (in whatever domain and using definition of success), should we focus on boosting our strengths or shoring up our weaknesses? Are we harsher in our critiques of ourselves than in our critiques of others? What should an ideal inner monologue be like? What are some useful taxonomies of pain? Are there times when irrational, magical, emotionally-driven, and/or delusional types of thinking are useful? Anna Paley is insatiably curious ...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 13 min
Read the full transcript here. When (if ever) can suffering be good? Is there an optimal ratio of pleasure to pain? What is motivational pluralism? Can large, positive incentives be coercive? (For example, is it coercive to offer to pay someone enormous amounts of money to do something relatively benign or even painful or immoral?) How can moving from making judgments about a person's actions to making judgments about their character solve certain moral puzzles? Why do we sometimes make seemingl...
Nov 11, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Read the full transcript here. What is progress? How do we (and should we) measure progress? What are the most important questions to ask in progress studies? What are the factors that lead to progress? Why has large-scale progress taken so long (i.e., why did we not see much progress until the Industrial Revolution)? Why did industrial revolution, scientific revolution, and democratic revolution all seem to start within a relatively short period of time of each other? How can we prevent progres...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 26 min
Read the full transcript here. What are "forward-chaining" and "backward-chaining", and how do they connect with theory of change? What sorts of mental habits and heuristics prevent you from brainstorming ideas effectively? How can you harness feedback effectively to sharpen your ideas? From whom should you solicit feedback? How can you view your own products with fresh eyes? What are some common struggles people encounter when starting or changing careers, and how can they be overcome? Why are ...
Oct 28, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Read the full transcript here. Researchers in the Effective Altruism movement often view their work through a utilitarian lens, so why haven't they traditionally paid much attention to the psychological research into subjective wellbeing (i.e., people's self-reported levels of happiness, life satisfaction, feelings of purpose and meaning in life, etc.)? Are such subjective measures reliable and accurate? Or rather, which such measures are the most reliable and accurate? What are the pros and con...
Oct 24, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Read the full transcript here. Should pleasure and pain be measured on logarithmic scales? How might such a scale affect utilitarian calculations? How do harmonic energy waves in the brain correspond to states of (or intensities of) consciousness? What sorts of conclusions can we draw about brain states given the resolutions and sampling rates of tools like fMRI, EEG, and MEG? What is the symmetry theory of homeostatic regulation, and how does it connect to pleasure and pain? Are uncomfortable o...
Oct 13, 2021•1 hr 18 min
