Read the full transcript here. What does it really mean to align an AI system with human values? What would a powerful AI need to do in order to do "what we want"? How does being an assistant differ from being an agent? Could inter-AI debate work as an alignment strategy, or would it just result in arguments designed to manipulate humans via their cognitive and emotional biases? How can we make sure that all human values are learned by AIs, not just the values of humans in WEIRD societies? Are o...
Jan 24, 2024•1 hr 20 min
Read the full transcript here. What does it mean to have conflicts between our schemas and our values? What is schema therapy? How do schema therapy's claims differ from the "common sense" view that we develop tools for interacting with the world in childhood? How do our "inner critic" and "vulnerable child" connect to our schemas? How do these things differ from the IFS (Internal Family Systems) model of psychotherapy? How do these things map onto Buddhism, Stoicism, and other religious or phil...
Jan 17, 2024•1 hr 27 min
Read the full transcript here. What was therapy like in the years leading up to the advent of CBT? Has CBT now been over-sold? How does CBT differ from "the power of positive thinking"? How can therapists who use CBT avoid invalidating clients' feelings? When, if ever, should people listen to their negative thoughts? To what extent can a person's good qualities contribute to their depression? Can empathy be learned? Is it possible to cure depression in a single psychotherapy session? What is TEA...
Jan 10, 2024•2 hr 21 min
Read the full transcript here. What is a "super-shrink"? Which factors in the therapist-client relationship are most predictive of positive client outcomes over time: the therapist's personality, the client's personality, the therapist's methodology, or other factor(s)? How can therapists use and teach evidence-based practices and behaviors while also respecting and working within an individual client's belief system? What should clients look for when shopping for therapists? Why do clients ofte...
Jan 03, 2024•1 hr 19 min
Read the full transcript here. Have conspiracy theories been more prevalent, more persuasive, or more convoluted in the last few decades than at other points in human history? Is the presence of conspiracy theorists a feature of every society? The phrase "conspiracy theory" usually implies a false theory, even though some are eventually proven to be true; so how can we update our language to better differentiate between disconfirmed and not-yet-confirmed conspiracy theories? How can people who'v...
Dec 28, 2023•1 hr 10 min
Read the full transcript here. Why do we leave so much low-hanging fruit unharvested in so many parts of life? In what contexts is it better to do a thing than to do a symbolic representation of the thing, and vice versa? How can we know when to try to fix a problem that hasn't yet been fixed? In a society, what's the ideal balance of explorers and exploiters? What are the four simulacra levels? What is a moral "maze"? In the context of AI, can solutions for the problems of generation vs. evalua...
Dec 20, 2023•1 hr 29 min
Read the full transcript here. How can people be encouraged in ways that are more natural and less manipulative to increase the amounts they give to charities? Why are arguments based on the effectiveness of charitable organizations less compelling to most people than we'd like for them to be? What percentages of a social group should be "doves", "hawks", "eagles", or something else? To what extent should our knowledge about our evolutionary history shape our values? Why are children more likely...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 28 min
Read the full transcript here. How can we find and expand the limitations of our imaginations, especially with respect to possible futures for humanity? What sorts of existential threats have we not yet even imagined? Why is there a failure of imagination among the general populace about AI safety? How can we make better decisions under uncertainty and avoid decision paralysis? What kinds of tribes have been forming lately within AI fields? What are the differences between alignment and control ...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr 12 min
Read the full transcript here. Why did students struggle so much to learn through video meetings during the locked-down days of the pandemic? What are "student-led restorative practices"? What is "self-connection practice"? What tools are students lacking? When is violence the optimal solution to a problem? What are the biggest problems in education right now? What do students need in order to be successful humans? How can schools give students more agency and autonomy? What happens if students ...
Nov 29, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Read the full transcript here. What should the goals of math education be? What does it mean to "think well"? Is math real? Why are feelings of bewilderment or confusion so common in math classes but not as common in other subjects? Schools now generally offer reading and writing instruction separately — even though both are important for language use — because the skill sets they require can differ so widely; so how might math education benefit from drawing a similar distinction? What should ma...
Nov 22, 2023•1 hr 19 min
Read the full transcript here. What can we learn from the parable of the two wolves? What is valuism? Do we choose our own intrinsic values? How quickly do our intrinsic values change over time, if at all? How do values and principles relate to one another? Why is behavior change so hard? What conditions need to be met in order for people to change their behavior? How can people make their behavior changes more persistent and less vulnerable to life's ups and downs? Eric Zimmer is a behavior coa...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Read the full transcript here. How do the experiences of children born into cults differ from members who join as adults? Why do some cults that grow out of western evangelical Christianity — which is notoriously obsessed with purity culture — often flip the script about sex and turn promiscuity into a virtue? How does age affect the ease with which one internalizes cult programming? To what extent do cult members approve of sexual abuses committed the name of religion? What sort of tactics do c...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 18 min
Read the full transcript here. Who's Moloch? And what do we mean when we call something "Molochian"? What does healthy competition look like? How can we avoid or extricate ourselves from Molochian scenarios? Are our instincts about fairness and unfairness usually accurate? Is it possible for today's social media giants to create products that people want to use and that are actually good for people to use? What kinds of problems could conceivably be solved by "trustless" solutions? or "high-trus...
Nov 01, 2023•1 hr 19 min
Read the full transcript here. What are the limits of tech solutionism? Do technological innovations create as many problems as they solve? Or, in other words, do technological innovations improve the world on average over time? Are humans living in the 21st century actually worse off than those that lived in the 11th century? What's the difference between "art" and "content"? If image-generating AIs just produce images that are stylistic averages across all of their training data, then is it ev...
Oct 25, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Read the full transcript here. What interesting social phenomena can be observed at nightclubs? What are "whales" hoping to achieve by spending big at nightclubs? Trying too obviously to increase social status tends to backfire; so how can people buy status without appearing to do so? What do "promoters" gain from these social interactions? How does their work differ from or overlap with sex work? How can they make money without being seen as "gold-diggers"? What ethnicities tend to comprise the...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 23 min
Read the full transcript here. How bad is the air quality in the US and around the world? What's the evidence that certain kinds of particles in the air lead to negative health outcomes? Are there differences in air quality among urban, suburban, and rural areas? And if so, then to what extent are negative health outcomes attributable to air quality rather than to (e.g.) poverty, education, or other confounding factors? What are "PM 2.5" particles? Can some particles be too small to matter? Are ...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 24 min
Read the full transcript here. Will large language models (LLMs) replace journalists any time soon? On what types of writing tasks do LLMs outperform humans? Have the US news media become less truth-seeking in recent decades? Or is truth-seeking behavior merely an aberration from a norm of propagandizing? How should we redistribute economic surplus from AI? Have any AI companies committed to a Windfall Clause ? Instead of bothering to negotiate with us, wouldn't a superintelligent AI be able to ...
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 15 min
Read the full transcript here. Is enlightenment the same as being happy all the time? Or being at peace all the time? Or something else? What is "fundamental wellbeing"? What are the "locations" within fundamental wellbeing? What is "persistent non-symbolic experience"? How effective is the Finders Course? Are control groups necessary when researching enlightenment? Jeffery Martin is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Non-Symbolic Consciousness ( nonsymbolic.org ) and a researc...
Sep 27, 2023•2 hr 7 min
Read the full transcript here. What is Munchausen syndrome? How does Munchausen syndrome differ from malingering? Does Munchausen usually correlate with lying or exaggerating in other contexts (i.e., pathological lying)? What is "Munchausen by Proxy" (AKA "factitious disorder imposed on another", or FDIA)? Why are women the offenders in the overwhelming majority of cases? What are some consistent patterns of behavior exhibited by people with MBP? What is a "reality distortion field"? How do peop...
Sep 20, 2023•1 hr 20 min
Read the full transcript here. Why do even people who accept evolutionary explanations for most biological phenomena often push back against evolutionary explanations for human psychology? To what extent should humans adjust their behavior in light of evopsych findings? How do evopsych researchers avoid formulating "just so" stories to explain specific behaviors? What can we infer about human behavior from the behaviors of chimps, bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans? What is the evopsych view of in...
Sep 13, 2023•1 hr 13 min
Read the full transcript here. What is futarchy ? Why does it seem to be easier to find social innovations rather than technical innovations? How does it differ from democracy? In what ways might a futarchy be gamed? What are some obstacles to implementing futarchy? Do we actually like for our politicians to be hypocritical to some degree? How mistaken are we about our own goals for social, political, and economic institutions? Do we enjoy fighting (politically) more than actually governing well...
Sep 07, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Read the full transcript here. What is metacognitive therapy? How does MCT differ from CBT, DBT, and other mental health therapy paradigms? How do we know we're spending time worrying about the right things? How much time spent worrying is actually useful? How aware are we of our own tendencies to ruminate on certain negative thoughts? Does MCT avoid all content-based problem-solving? What is the state of the evidence for MCT? Dr. Pia Callesen is one of Denmark's most educated and experienced me...
Aug 30, 2023•48 min
Read the full transcript here. Along what axes and at what rates is the AI industry growing? What algorithmic developments have yielded the greatest efficiency boosts? When, if ever, will we hit the upper limits of the amount of computing power, data, money, etc., we can throw at AI development? Why do some people seemingly become fixated on particular tasks that particular AI models can't perform and draw the conclusion that AIs are still pretty dumb and won't be taking our jobs any time soon? ...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 9 min
Read the full transcript here. Can we really deeply change who we are? Can we choose our preferences, intrinsic values, or personality more generally? What are some interventions people might use to make big changes in their lives? Why might it be harder to be a generalist than a specialist? What are some of the most well-known "findings" from the social sciences that have failed to replicate? Do some replications go too far? Should we just let Twitter users take over the peer-review process? Wh...
Aug 16, 2023•1 hr 7 min
Read the full transcript here. Besides the need to attract attention, what are some other drivers behind the news media's tendency to "catastrophize the normal"? To what extent does paltering take place on the politically left and right ends of the new media spectrum? Should journalists try to be as objective and unbiased as possible, or should they strive to make a difference in the world by highlighting particular issues that are important to them? Is the US on the verge of a civil war? Are pr...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 27 min
Read the full transcript here. What's wrong with society? And what can we do to fix it? Centuries ago, a person's grandparents lived in a world that was basically identical to that person's world; but what are the implications of living in a time when the rate of technological change is such that our grandparents' world was almost nothing like ours, and ours will be almost nothing like our grandchildren's? How do Tim's concepts of the "primitive mind" and the "higher mind" map onto System 1 and ...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 26 min
Read the full transcript here. Where does innovation come from? How common is it for "lone wolf" scientists to make large leaps in innovation by themselves? How can we imbue AIs with creativity? Or, conversely, how can we apply advances in AI creativity to our own personal creative processes? How do creative strategies that work well for individuals differ from creative strategies that work well for groups? To what extent are models like DALL-E and ChatGPT "creative"? Can machines love? Or can t...
Jul 26, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Read the full transcript here. How does nondual meditation differ from other forms of meditation? Is nonduality the sort of thing a person can just "get" immediately? What value is provided by the more effortful, less "sudden" forms of meditation? Is there such a thing as full or complete enlightenment? And what would such a state entail? To what extent do nondual meditation teachers agree about what nonduality is? Are glimpses of enlightenment available to everyone? How long does it usually tak...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 17 min
Read the full transcript here. What is the New Enlightenment? What might it mean to improve our epistemics with regard to institutions? How should we fix imbalanced salience in contexts where misinformation is a problem (like news media)? How have the economics of institutions deteriorated? How can we continually reinvigorate systems so that they remain ungameable and resistant to runaway feedback loops? In the context of government in particular, how can we move away from "one dollar, one vote"...
Jul 12, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Read the full transcript here. What does philosophy have to say about virtual reality (VR)? Under what conditions is "normal" reality preferable to VR? To what extent are VR experiences "real"? How likely is it that we're living in a simulation? What implications would the discovery that we're living in a simulation have for our beliefs about reality? How common is Bayesian thinking among philosophers? How should we think about identity over time if selves can be split or duplicated? What might ...
Jul 05, 2023•1 hr 19 min
