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The Bayesian Conspiracy

The Bayesian Conspiracywww.thebayesianconspiracy.com
A conversational podcast for aspiring rationalists.
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Episodes

32 – Who’s Afraid of AI?

The Logical Fallacy of Generalizing from fictional evidence Genie Button Though Experiment Wait but Why on AI Part 1 and Part 2 The Downfall meme we mentioned. This is Steven’s favorite version. Yudkowsky vs Hanson – Great AI FOOM debate and the … Continue reading →

Apr 12, 20172 hr 5 min

31 – Digital Rights and Privacy

Who can access the external part of your brain that you carry around in your pocket? What rights do you have to it? With Chase. Police demand audio records from the Echo of a murder victim, Amazon displeased (more details) EFF … Continue reading →

Mar 29, 20171 hr 22 min

30 – Of Specks and Omlettes

We discuss a famously controversial post, despite our better judgement. With Sean and Matt. The Post: Torture Vs Dust Specks Rationality: From AI to Zombies – The Podcast Shut Up And Multiply is actually taken from two posts: Circular Altruism and The … Continue reading →

Mar 15, 20171 hr 48 min

29 – Fiction and Fun with Max Harms

Crystal Society (or read it for free) (or listen to most of it as audio) Crystal Mentality Quick Links: Aubrey de Grey’s TED talk on extreme longevity Ending Aging – Aubrey de Grey’s book “The Sequences” – Compiled in book form. Max … Continue reading →

Mar 01, 20171 hr 15 min

Bonus Mini-Episode: I Did Nazi That Coming

Forgive the pun. I couldn’t help myself. (Steven) In this bonus episode, Eneasz and Steven respond to some of the feedback to the Nazi Punching episode. Thank you to everyone who provided thoughtful comments. Be assured we read everything, but … Continue reading →

Feb 22, 201756 min

28 – Effective Altruism

Being effective vs. feeling good. EA is a big topic, this is really just an intro for the uninitiated. The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer (and the inspired-by website) Money: The Unit of Caring, by Eliezer Yudkowsky Nobody … Continue reading →

Feb 15, 20171 hr 15 min

27 – On Punching Nazis

When is it OK to punch Nazis? With Sean. Original Richard Spencer being punched video Follow-up video of the guy who punched him being briefly confronted Eneasz’s two posts on the topic Ken White of Popehat On Punching Nazis (he’s against … Continue reading →

Feb 01, 20171 hr 31 min

26 – Concept Networks and Hanging Nodes

Eliezer Yudkowsky’s original post on Neural Categories and hanging nodes. Scott Alexander on Diseased Thinking and a longer essay Concept Networks. The very worthwhile analysis on holiday gift giving reddit comment. Google’s deep learning utilizes these sorts of networks. “The … Continue reading →

Jan 18, 20171 hr 14 min

25 – Tinder, Actually

The Conspirators meander through various topics, using a Tinder encounter as a framing story: Steven’s OKCupid stats come from Rationally Speaking episode 89 Katrina’s OKCupid stats (and pic) come from Big Lies People Tell The Toxoplasma of Rage Dan … Continue reading →

Jan 04, 20171 hr 25 min

24 – Signaling

Robin Hanson’s “What is Signaling?” Scott Alexander’s definition of signaling: a method of conveying information among not-necessarily-trustworthy parties by performing an action which is more likely or less costly if the information is true than if it is not … Continue reading →

Dec 21, 20161 hr 32 min

23 – Desirism with Alonzo Fyfe

Alonzo blogs at The Atheist Ethicist Common Sense Atheism’s ULTIMATE Desirism FAQ Link to The Atheist Ethicist’s overview of Desirism Wikia page on Desirism

Dec 07, 20161 hr 3 min

22 – Moral Philosophy

Doing the Right Thing Wikipedia on: Consequentialism Ethical Egoism Deontology Divine Command Theory Moral Relativism Virtue Ethics Care Ethics Euthyphro’s Dilemma Objectivism Katrina mentioned that she’d read that the impact of child rape is less severe on cultures where this practice … Continue reading →

Nov 23, 20161 hr 25 min

Bonus mini-episode: Trump-Reacting

The conspirators discuss a minor setback. The Safety Pin movement Scott Alexander on your model of the electorate A slightly-more-articulate version of Eneasz’s decision to change the deep past now Eliezer Yudkowsky on the optimism of Trump voters

Nov 15, 201621 min

21 – Kids, These Days

Considerations on Procreation Not having kids – is it like drinking unicorn blood, in that you’ll lead a cursed life, a half-life? How The Woman Got Her Period (“The endometrium seals off our main blood supply from the newly implanted … Continue reading →

Nov 09, 20161 hr 28 min

20 – What’s important?

Subjects the politicians aren’t talking about, that they really should be talking about. Links! UN resolution on antibiotics US banning of antibiotics in soap Guy with potentially antibiotic resistant tuberculosis (that ended up not so dangerous) sued CDC. More drug … Continue reading →

Oct 26, 20161 hr 25 min

19 – Political Pitfalls

Note: Oops! We accidentally used a crummy laptop microphone. Audio is lower quality for this episode. Links: Politics is the Mind Killer on Less Wrong “Chimpanzee Politics“: A book about two chimpanzees competing to run the “club of chimpanzees” featured on HPMoR … Continue reading →

Oct 12, 20161 hr 34 min

18 – Robin Hanson Interview

We speak with GMU economist Robin Hanson. (note that the audio improves significantly when we switch mics at ~20min) Robin blogs at Overcoming Bias We discuss his recent book, The Age of Em Robin Hanson discusses prediction markets in greater length … Continue reading →

Sep 28, 20161 hr 39 min

17 – The Feels

Feelings – should we have them? The Conspiracy decides! This American Life episode about Testosterone Julia Galef’s presentation on The Straw Vulcan. Also – a text summary of same Less Wrong article: “Feeling Rational” Steven Universe is The Best! Sam Harris … Continue reading →

Sep 14, 20161 hr 9 min

16 – Animals Again

We addressed a couple things that we missed last time, and got carried away. Katrina referenced the book “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?” Chimps have amazing flash-memory AIs can fly our fighter jets better than we … Continue reading →

Aug 31, 20161 hr 24 min

15 – Animals

Katrina referenced the book “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?” Wiki page about the author. See also, wikipedia on animal cognition. About the crow facial recognition and warning study. Prairie dog language study. The thought experiment … Continue reading →

Aug 17, 20161 hr 25 min

14 – Street Epistemology

Steve (@youngidealist on twitter) talks to us about Street Epistemology The Street Epistemology website, which has been significantly updated and expanded since we recorded this episode. Looking nice! The Street Epistemology book – A Manual For Creating Atheists Short text … Continue reading →

Aug 03, 20161 hr 20 min

13 – Game Theory

It’s about modeling agents making decisions, not game design. 🙂 – EB …but you can also apply game theory to game design. – KS Yvain’s sequence of posts introducing Game Theory Defecting is MADE OF FIRE Wikipedia on Dr. Axelrod’s Iterated … Continue reading →

Jul 20, 20161 hr 37 min

12 – Listener Feedback

We covered ten episodes of feedback in one hour (and a half)! After this, we’ll reply to comments regularly at the end of episodes. Comment either at the website (www.thebayesianconspiracy.com) or at the subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/thebayesianconspiracy/). Or email us – bayesianconspiracypodcast at … Continue reading →

Jul 06, 20161 hr 28 min

11 – Voting

Is it rational to vote? We realize the audio quality when we have live guests is terrible, we’re working to fix that now, hopefully things will start sounding better very soon. Thanks for bearing with us! Eneasz wants to say … Continue reading →

Jun 22, 20161 hr 13 min

10 – Polyamory (part 2)

The second half of our conversation on polyamory, because we talked and talked and the episode went long. As with Part 1, positions of other parties, including current and former partners, are very likely misrepresented in this episode. Links: More … Continue reading →

Jun 08, 20161 hr 19 min

9 – Polyamory (part 1)

What’s Polyamory got to do with Rationalism anyway? Be Advised: 1.) This episode contains curse words. 2.) Always, but especially when talking about sensitive, nuanced issues like human relationships, it’s important to note that we are only speaking for ourselves. … Continue reading →

Jun 01, 20161 hr 21 min

8 – Interview with Brian Dunning

We speak with Brian Dunning, best known as the host/creator of the Skeptoid podcast. He has also created Here Be Dragons, a 40-minute introduction to critical thinking. Mentioned in this episode: The Vanishing Village of Angikuni Lake Chris Hallquist on … Continue reading →

May 18, 20161 hr 3 min

7 – Kill All Humans?

[content warning: suicide, human extinction. Might be a bad idea to listen to if you suffer suicidal tendencies.] We speak to Jason, who would take extreme measures to end all suffering. However, lacking extreme powers, he recommends doing good as efficiently as possible, … Continue reading →

May 04, 20161 hr 20 min

6 – Cryonics

The Conspirators talk cryonics. Spoiler alert, they are signed up (and signing up soon) for the big freeze. Katrina is a cryocrastinator. The in-depth cryonics article that sparked this conversation, “Why Cryonics Makes Sense” by Tim : Wait But Why Essay … Continue reading →

Apr 20, 20161 hr 6 min

5 – When Grandmas ask “What is Rationality?”

An ELI5 (Explain Like I’m 5) episode. Our answers when someone asks “What is Rationality anyway?” and they have a bit of time. (If they don’t have time, Eneasz’s Elevator Pitch is “Rationality is a systematized method of making your beliefs … Continue reading →

Apr 06, 20161 hr 3 min
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