We speak with Serge Faguet about biohacking. The lowest hanging fruit is, of course, sleep and exercise. Going beyond that, Serge mentioned: 23 And Me for DNA sequencing Promethease for further DNA analysis Life Extension Foundation for supplements Oura Ring … Continue reading →
We speak with Anthony Aguirre of Metaculus. Try out Metaculus, it’s neat and helps one train their calibration. Future of Life Institute Rat Chat: Maps vs Buttons; Nerds vs Normies Big thanks to David for our intro music! I’ll add … Continue reading →
We discuss schooling and education with Audrey. Robin Hanson argues that schooling is to domesticate humans. The Zvi is much more emotionally compelling in his Case Against Education and it’s follow-up (with more coming) Scott Alexander examines why DC’s graduation … Continue reading →
This one got off to an odd start since we were on a time crunch and Joshua as delayed in arriving. As a result, this one is way more disorganized than usual. We hope it’s fun nonetheless. Big thanks to … Continue reading →
Join Steven and David Youssef as they talk about the rationality community, how to win, and explore some possible reasons that Rationalists aren’t all total rock stars! Links: Tim Ferris’s The Four Hour Work Week The works of Naseem Taleb, … Continue reading →
This episode got off to an interesting start. We usually test the mics with small talk and whatnot, but wound up just getting into interesting things and never quite got around to breaking to do an intro. I guess today we … Continue reading →
In this episode, we discuss 3 or 4 popular things currently (or recently) circulating Rationalist circles online. Yudkowsky on no fire alarms for AI. Zvi on the concept of Slack. Ben Hoffman “Sabbath Hard and Go Home“. A Lesswrong Crypto … Continue reading →
Robin Hanson returns to talk about his new book: The Elephant In The Brain Robin’s classic “X is not about Y” post. 2008! Man, time flies. Eneasz mentioned The North Pond Hermit. Relevant quote: “Solitude did increase my perception. But here’s … Continue reading →
Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast and Skeptoid Media Inc. returns to talk with us about his newest documentary, The Principles of Curiosity! (Website Link, Video Link) It presents a general introduction to the foundations of scientific skepticism and critical … Continue reading →
A discussions as to whether marriage is outdated and net-harmful. In large part based on Eneasz’s blog post. Naveen recommends this discussion between 3Blue1Brown and Ben Eater on Net Neutrality See also Naveen’s current project – Standard Meta Next episode: The … Continue reading →
Robert McIntyre talks about the future of aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation I’m sure you’re all stoked about the sound on this one. All we can say is that we took steps to correct it (like we all recorded our audio independently, including … Continue reading →
Happy Holidays! Nothing this new this week, but here’s some Star Wars 🙂 The Methods of Rationality main page
In this episode we have our sound engineer Kyle Moore on the show. I thought it would be fun to talk with someone who sort of has to listen to the show and get their take on it. The conversation … Continue reading →
Make me one with everything. We went a little off-format for this one. Peter Singer – All Animals Are Equal (pdf) Scott Alexander tries to do a study, but it’s unethical… Eliezer Yudkowsky on Joy In The Merely Real Richard … Continue reading →
We speak with Robert McIntyre, winner of the Small Animal Brain Preservation Prize, about recent advances in brain preservation. A pretty good introduction to connectomics is this TED Talk by Sebastian Seung Robert recommends some papers on recent advances in scanning and simulation of brain … Continue reading →
If this episode sounds a little sub-par, it’s because Steven edited it since Kyle was on vacation. Let his reputation remain intact! Check out Naveen Mishra on twitter! @urstrulymishra Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark Stanford’s Legal Design Lab Legalese: … Continue reading →
The Only Way to Win is Not to Play Major source used by Eneasz – Our Mind Can Be Hijacked Meditations on Moloch A recent Molochian short story Eneasz likes – Three Bodies at Mitanni The Two Income Trap Age … Continue reading →
A quick primer, and what do they have to do with EA? Bitcoin mining takes off in Venezuela due to hyperinflation of the local currency and nearly-free electricity. China is starting to shut down legal BitCoin use. What makes Ethereum … Continue reading →
Eneasz talks about his first Burning Man experience Sorry this is late. Please accept a 167 minute episode as apology? And 9/26 is Petrov Day! The 10 Principles of Burning Man, at the official Burning Man Organization site Eneasz’s series … Continue reading →
We speak with aspiring rationalists with children. Our previous episode pondering children – Kids, These Days Louis C.K. has a bunch of stuff on parenting I Wonder by Annaka Harris, a book on emotional intelligence for children Article on treating kids … Continue reading →
Julia Galef’s ‘Update Project‘. Check out some of the other links on her website too. Steven: “There’s a ton of content and techniques in this area that I wanted to cover and didn’t get a chance to. I’m including a … Continue reading →
More ritual than spirituality, honestly. We were aiming for both, but caught up in ritual. Perhaps we’ll revisit the spirituality aspect in a future episode! Melting Asphalt on Religion, Politics, and Self-Suppression Welcome to Night Vale, and my All Hail … Continue reading →
You can’t control (well) what you can’t count Samzdat’s posts that served as the basis of much of this episode: Man as a Rationalist Animal, and The Meridian of Her Greatness. Also: The Use and Abuse of Witchdoctors for Life … Continue reading →
Under the Aegis of Transhuman Spiderman + Other Considerations (and Listener Feedback Catch-up) Fiction The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, by Roger Williams The Golden Age, by John C Wright Utopia, LOL?, by Jamie Wahls (+audio version) Red Legacy and Other … Continue reading →
Going beyond our meat-suits Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism text. Also available in audio here, starting at 6:52 Eneasz with PZ Meyers, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and David Brin: The Immortality Debate The Fun Theory Sequence (also – here’s a quick summary, but the summaries really … Continue reading →
AlphaGo is back. Patrick talks about its latest accomplishments, its future, and other topics in game advances. Our first AlphaGo episode (a very early one, sorry about the audio quality) News of the most recent AlphaGo adventures Steph Curry’s training … Continue reading →
All the cool kids are doing podcasts about drugs, so… The DARE program’s lack of efficacy (see also: Wikipedia page on DARE studies) How to get addicted to heroin without really trying. Eneasz thought he read this in The New … Continue reading →
** Fixed the audio. Please re-download for the correct episode. ** Drugs that boost mental performance for dummies. Did caffiene help kickstart the Enlightenment era? FOR SCIENCE! /r/nootropics for your nootropic discussion needs Other places to discuss include Nootropics Depot and … Continue reading →
Slate Star Codex article – You Kant Dismiss Universalizability Wikipedia page on the Revelation Principle Eliezer’s post on LessWrong – Ends Don’t Justify Means (Among Humans) Another LessWrong post – Protected From Myself Louis CK bit on Lying (1:46 seconds long) … Continue reading →
We talk with Tsvi from MIRI Game-playing algorithm that pauses Tetris “On The Origin of Circuits“, discussing a chip hardware evolution experiment MIRI’s technical research agenda overview Alignment for advanced machine learning systems paper from MIRI Musk’s OpenAI Paul Christiano’s … Continue reading →
