Ben Yeoh Chats

Alyssa Gilbert, the director of the Center for Climate Change Innovation at the Grantham Institute, talks about the current gaps in climate technology investments. She discusses her research into areas that are currently underfunded, including transport and energy. She also covers the importance of energy efficiency, especially in relation to the built environment. Alyssa emphasizes the necessity of various models in the fight against climate change, including private sector initiatives, philanthropy, and governmental grants - and highlights the need for a diverse range of solutions. She also speaks about the innovation within the London climate tech ecosystem and shares her perspective on various topics including carbon offsets, behavior change, and geoengineering.

Garrett Graff, a writer and historian who specializes in 'near history', discusses his book, 'UFO', about the US government's search for alien life. He touches upon how we often misunderstand UFO sightings, suggesting they could be due to a mix of physical anomalies and governmental or adversary secret flight technologies. Graff also shares his belief in the possibility of alien civilizations, arguing probabilities suggest the existence of life outside Earth. He then relates UFO conspiracies to a societal mistrust in government and institutions, tying it back to events like the Watergate scandal. Graff finally introduces his forthcoming oral history book on D-Day, emphasizing how his work emphasizes explaining and organizing complex events in an understandable and comprehensive way.

"When people ask 'do UFOs?'...That's not actually the question that they mean. The question that they really mean is, 'are we alone?' Because the truth of the matter is of course UFOs exist. All a UFO is an unidentified flying object, and there are things out there that we don't know what they are. Whether those are extraterrestrial is a very different question and potentially unrelated to the question of, are there extraterrestrials."

Hana Loftus is a co-founder of HAT Projects. HAT are award winning architects, planners and enablers for the built environment. Projects include: London’s Science Museum Smith Centre, transformation of Trinity Works (a disused church), Ely Museum, Jerwood gallery and Jaywick Sands’ Sunspot. As well as practising planning and design, she writes on the subject and plays a great fiddle and violin.

Lucy Easthope is a professor, lecturer and leading authority on emergency planning and recovering from disaster. Lucy has advised on major disasters over the last decades including the 2004 tsunami, 9/11, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell, and the Covid pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine. She challenges others to think differently about what comes next after tragic events, and how to plan for future ones.

Her book When the Dust Settles is both memoir of her life in disaster recovery and a personal journey through life, love and loss.

I ask Lucy about what she is hopeful about looking to the future. 

"I think one of the things is this ability to be able to back, back and forth between really terrible thoughts and risks which we have to do in emergency planning, and then just take incredible joy from a moment in the day... My work is one of the greatest privileges of it; is just seeing people being great a lot. So that gives me a lot of hope."

We talk about how many disasters I’ve been a by-stander to (Thailand tsunami, 9/11, Grenfell, 7/7, mortar bomb attack) and how disaster is recurring. 

We chat about Lucy’s activism from young and growing up around Liverpool. 

Lucy has been very involved around personal items, and the belongings of people in disasters.

I ask  about why it's such an important part of Lucy’s work. We chat about the interdisciplinary nature of here work.

We talk about the Welsh notion of hiraeth /ˈhɪərʌɪθ/. This longing for a place to which there is no return.

I ask about Lucy’s writing process and how she writes. We talk about themes in her life and writing such as working class roots and feminism. We discuss the importance of humour and why Lucy is pranked a lot.

We touch on Lucy’s personal losses of miscarriage.

I ask about what is misunderstood about disaster management and what organisations and people can do. How to think about balancing risk and opportunity. We talk about the problems of systemic and structural challenges.

We end on Lucy’s current projects and her life advice.

“Don't go to work on a row. I was reflecting with a friend recently and she said, "A lot of people say that they live life as if it's precious and you might not be here tomorrow, or the people you love might not be here tomorrow. But you Lucy, really do." And what does that look like? Everybody I love knows that I love them. Every time I say goodbye to my children, every time I go to work, it's always on the premise of how fragile this is. I think if we remember that, it sets us up to perhaps be kinder to each other. I also think that one of the most important things to me is to go back to those basics about particularly as we go into yet another difficult winter or difficult times, is think about just that couple of things that can make a difference. I think people are very anxious about trying to save the whole world. You don't need to save the whole world, just make somebody a cup of tea. Just make that tiny little kind of chaos theory difference, and that's enough.

Pen Vogler is a food historian. Her latest book is Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain. Her previous books include work on food in the life and works of Dickens and Jane Austen - Dinner with Dickens: and Dinner with Mr Darcy. 

In the podcast, Ben and Pen discuss various aspects of British culture and history we can learn from the British relationship with food. The discussion delves into several fascinating topics surrounding the transition from hunting-gathering societies to agricultural ones, the phenomenon of the commons and enclosures, the historical regulation of bread prices, and the impact of government intervention in food systems. The podcast also touches on the personal experiences of Pen in Czechoslovakia.

Throughout the conversation, the overarching theme was how food, from its production to its consumption, is deeply entwined with historical, cultural, and social factors, and how understanding these dynamics can offer insights into present-day food-related challenges and culture.

Highlights:

Transition to Agriculture: The transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture, known as the Neolithic Revolution around 4200 BC, was gradual. Although humans began farming, hunting aided by dogs continued. Interestingly, there seemed to be a decrease in fish consumption even among communities near water, which may be tied to a new identity as agriculturalists.

Strawberries: are they feminine and how have supermarkets made the strawberry market. The notion of strawberries being considered feminine was discussed, with a historical perspective of fruit consumption differing between genders. Supermarkets have popularized strawberries, making them a significant seasonal item.

Queuing and Supermarkets: The change from traditional queuing at shops to self-service in supermarkets was discussed. This shift was initially due to labor shortages post-World War and was supported by the government.

Sugar's Historical Significance: The historical transformation of sugar from a flavor enhancer to a replacement food was discussed. The early introduction of sugar into children’s diets, driven in part by companies like Nestle, and its long-term health implications were also highlighted.

Yorkshire Pudding and Meat Consumption: The tradition of Yorkshire pudding being used to fill up family members so the male head could consume more meat was discussed. This tradition reflects the historical gender and age hierarchies in food distribution within a family.

Fish and Class Distinction: The class distinction between consuming different types of fish, such as salmon being associated with aristocracy while carp being considered a working-class fish, was discussed. The historical roots of these distinctions date back hundreds of years, and are intertwined with the broader themes of commons, enclosure, and social status. The discussion explores how fishing evolved with societal changes, particularly during the industrial era.

Food Security and Import Dependency: The discussion touched on the UK's food security and its dependency on imports, which has fluctuated over centuries based on various social, economic, and political factors.

Food Etiquette:  touch on traditional etiquette like the "posh" way of eating peas with a fork and how certain eating habits signify a person's social status.

Overrated/Underrated Foods: Pen and Ben briefly discuss the perceived value of certain foods like tripe, gin, goose, and herring, and how these perceptions have evolved over time.

Their conversation offers a rich tapestry of insights on how food, history, and culture are intricately woven together, and how exploring these connections can yield engaging narratives and a deeper understanding of societal norms and practices.

Joanne Limburg is an award-winning British writer known for her poetry, novels, and memoirs. In the podcast, she discusses her latest book Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism, Feminism, and Motherhood, in which she feels a kinship with historical female figures and addresses letters to them. 

Some notes on the conversation:

- On Virginia Woolf: Joanne found connections in Woolf's personal writings about feeling like an outsider and struggling to dress appropriately for society. This resonated with Joanne's own experiences.  We chatted on how dress and fashion is seen in society. 

- On Adelheid Bloch: Adelheid was murdered in the Holocaust. Joanne wanted to write her a letter as an act of solidarity, to say she is not forgotten. 

Adelheid Bloch. (She is mostly non-speaking). She was a young woman who was murdered as part of the Nazi program of murdering intellectually disabled people or disabled people of any kind. We have nothing of her voice. We have only a few records, a very sad record and the words that condemned her to death which were horrible words; idiot, unworthy of life. I was thinking about those two words and how we stand in the shadow of them and what they meant for her, and what is the supposed link between them. So my letter to her is kind of exploring history because there's not much of her to say. Also, I wanted to write a letter to her to say, "You are not left out. You are a sister too, and I apologize for all the times you have been left out."

And,

…it was a matter of great importance that I write this letter to Adelheid and that people see that she's human and that she's not totally different from me. Because there's an issue in sort of discourse around autism, as I'm sure, sure. There's a difference between high functioning and low functioning. So there's constant stress between splitters and lumpers as there is with any classification.

We can't possibly be the same thing or we all are the same thing. Also, I tend to lump not because I particularly want to get all the attention that people imagine comes from being severely afflicted. It doesn't. I think actually what you get from being seen to be severely afflicted is ignored and pushed aside, not massive amounts of attention. But because I think it's safer if we hang onto them. If you can't have solidarity with someone as opposed to pity or care, they're not safe because they're outside identification. “

- On autism and motherhood: Joanne realized the so-called "refrigerator mothers" blamed for autism were likely neurodivergent themselves, profoundly misunderstood. The misreading led to damaging views of autism.  

“ it seemed glaringly obvious to me that these so-called refrigerator mothers were neurodivergent, and that their neurodivergent presentation was being horribly unkindly and disastrously misread.”

- On grief: Joanne wrote a book after her brother's death aiming to create something beautiful, a monument. Grief comes in waves and is still raw for some types of loss.

- On writing: Joanne listens for an "echo" when writing, for something unexpected to emerge. She moved from notebooks to typing, which matches her thought speed better. Teaching helps crystalize her own thinking.

I know of some others who find typing better than notebooks. 

- On advice: Joanne stresses compassion for oneself and others. She is drawn to how language shapes reality and is exploring that in current poetry and lyric essay work.

The conversation covers writing as therapy, Jewish identity, and navigating societal expectations as a woman and mother. Joanne offers deep insights from a life spent exploring profound human experiences through writing.

Fuchsia Dunlop is a cook and food writer specialising in Chinese cuisine. She was the first Westerner to train as a chef at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, and has spent much of the last two decades exploring China and its food.

In her latest book, Invitation to a Banquet, Fuchsia explores the history, philosophy and techniques of China's rich and ancient culinary culture. Each chapter examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a singular aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it's the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine.

In this podcast episode, Fuchsia joins host Ben to dive deep into the history, culture and techniques behind Chinese cuisine. From the ancient origins of steaming to the finer points of knife skills and texture, Fuchsia provides fascinating insights into what makes Chinese food so unique.  We talk about our origin food dishes:

“there's one dish that is very dear to me that sort of expresses partly why I fell in love with Sichuanese food. And that's fish fragrant aubergine or eggplant. I think when I went to live in Sichuan in 1994, what was so impressive was that the local food was unlike anything I'd had in England. It was all very fresh and healthy and all these seasonal vegetables and amazing flavors. That's the thing about Sichuanese cuisine that it's all about the art of mixing flavors. So this particular dish for me just represents the sort of-- I mean, it's made with pickled red chilies, ginger, garlic, spring onion, and a bit of sweet and sour. Then you have the sumptuous kind of golden butter-ness of the aubergines. So it's a really homely dish with cheap ingredients and it's sensational. Sichuan everyone thinks [numbing and hot], lots of chilli and Sichuan pepper. But actually, it has this kind of melodious heat with a hint of sweetness and it's just conjuring up this complex flavor from a few limited palette of seasonings. I think that's one of the things that I fell in love with Sichuanese food”

Fuchsia debunks common myths and misperceptions about Chinese food in the West, from the idea that it's unhealthy to the notion that exotic ingredients are eaten only out of poverty. She traces how historical circumstances led Chinese cuisine to be seen as cheap and lowbrow in the West compared to French or Japanese food.

Delving into the cultural exchange around food, Fuchsia offers a nuanced take on debates over cultural appropriation and argues that an openness to different cultures can be "life enhancing." She shares colorful anecdotes from her research and travel in China that bring dishes like Pomelo Pith and Shanghainese "Western food" to life.

We chat about:

• Steaming and its importance as a cooking technique.

• The importance of bland food, and how my mother needs to eat rice regularly

• How to understand mouthfeel and the joy of texture in Chinese cuisine

• Knife skills and the skills of the wok

• Fuchsia’s writing process 

On mouthfeel and texture:

“if you want to be able to experience it all and to eat on a kind of equal basis of appreciation with Chinese friends, then you really need to open your mind and palate to texture because it's so important. But the interesting thing is-- because I've written about this and talked about it a lot because I find it fascinating. It's also really funny because so many of the words we use in English to describe these textures sound really disgusting.”

Fergus Butler-Gallie is a priest and writer. His latest book, Touching Cloth, is a memoir on his time as a priest in Liverpool.

We cover many topics relating to Fergus's life, work, and perspectives on faith and the Church of England. I also ask him what he would do with the Church of England if he had a magic wand.

• Fergus provides insights into life in Liverpool, discussing local culture, diversity, and the famous Liverpool accent. He argues that many stereotypes and assumptions about the city are inaccurate.

• We explore how Fergus's time as a minister in Liverpool impacted his faith, with Fergus sharing that it was an overall positive experience that affirmed his sense of calling.

• Discussing the Church of England, Fergus critiques the managerial bureaucracy and argues for decentralization and a return to an earlier model. He wants more inspiring, eccentric bishops.
• We discuss eccentric reverends from history that Fergus has chronicled, including a food-obsessed dean who famously ate the mummified heart of King Louis XIV.

• Fergus shares thoughts on the Eucharist and transubstantiation, after I suggest an analogy to actors embodying a role. We discusses how wearing a clerical collar changes how one is perceived.

"Dean Buckland was dean of Westminster, which is a very high profile job in the Church of England. And he made it his mission to try and eat everything that had ever existed. So he ate mice, he ate tadpoles...And they go and say, "Oh, now we reach the most impressive thing that we have." And they're very carefully taking it out this casket. And they said, "Because you're such a privileged group of people, we're going to hand it around to all of you. And this is the mummified heart of King Louis XIV smuggled out of France at the revolution and now kept here in our private museum." And it goes around all the people. They look at it and think, "Oh, this is amazing. This is wonderful." It gets to Dean Buckland, he looks at it and he says, "I've never eaten King before." And he pops it in his mouth."

We play a short game of over rated under rated and end on Fergus’ life advice.

Fergus rates: James Bond, the British monarchy, Afternoon tea, The House of Lords, Double decker buses , Black cabs, Pubs, and Cricket.

On life advice: Fergus recommends reversing our instincts - don't take seriously what we think we should, and take seriously what we think we shouldn't. For those considering ordination, he advises prayer and cautions it's not for everyone.

"There are things in life that should be taken seriously and there are things in life that should not be taken seriously. The real thing to realize is that they're the opposite way around to the way you think they are. Anything you think should be taken seriously, don't take it seriously. Anything you think should not be taken seriously, take it seriously."

David Edmonds is a philosopher, writer, podcaster and presenter. His most recent book is a biography of Derek Parfit. Parfit: A philosopher and his mission to save morality.

“Derek was perhaps the most important philosopher of his era. This scintillating and insightful portrait of him is one of the best intellectual biographies I have read.” -Tyler Cowen

Other books include: The Murder of Professor Schlick, Would You Kill the Fat Man? and (with John Eidinow) the international best-seller Wittgenstein’s Poker.   He’s a Distinguished Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. With Nigel Warburton he produces the popular podcast series Philosophy Bites. For three decades, he was a multi-award winning presenter/producer at the BBC.  

We start off discussing “Trolley problems” and the ethical implications of choosing between lives now and in the future. Edmonds provides a nuanced perspective, discussing the argument that while a life in the future is (almost) as valuable as a life today, the decision to kill five lives today could potentially reduce future life.

Would you kill five people today, or five people in 100 years?

"I think I would choose five in a hundred years, but it would be a very marginal decision…on the whole, I agree with Parfit in I think that there should be no moral discounting in that I think a life in the future is as valuable as a life today. But presumably if you kill five lives today, you are affecting who gets born. So that's why I would kill five lives in the future because I might be also reducing future life as well if I take lives today."

Jennifer Doleac studies the economics of crime and discrimination. In July 2023, Jenn will join Arnold Ventures as the Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice. We chat about trends and causes of crime. How guns, drugs and policing interact with crime trends.

…there was this huge increase in violent crime in particular in the late early eighties, early nineties. And suddenly violent crime started falling dramatically in the mid-1990s. We still aren't entirely sure why that is the case, this big mystery in the economics of crime world. But we do know that basically crime has been falling since then until very recently. So during the pandemic and since the pandemic, we've seen this big uptick in homicide and shootings, at least in the US. Again, we're not entirely sure why that change. It's kind of like trying to describe what's going on in the stock market. There are lots of sort of little blips and everything, and you can have big picture understanding of the economy and what drives growth, but not be able to predict fluctuations in the stock market. So it's similar with crime rates

But overall, we're still in a place where homicide rates and violent crime rates are much lower than they were in the early to mid-nineties. So overall things have gotten much safer, especially in our big cities; we're much safer. But of course, as you said, there's a lot of variation place to place; particular neighborhoods, particular communities, they're the brunt of a lot of violent crime that is still going on. So it's a major public safety or major public problem and concern for policymakers in particular places and that has become more of a focus in recent years as homicides and shootings have gone up, which of course we're not used to after this big decline for decades...

We talk about what we know of policies that work on reducing crime, and how challenging the recent uptick in crime statistics is to ideas on reforming criminal justice.

We discuss alternatives to jail, and what type of interventions can work on crime, such as sentencing for misdemeanors, and access to healthcare. 

Jenn explains why the “broken window” theory of crime has not really held up. The mixed studies on body cameras and how deterrents (like DNA databases and CCTV) seem to work.

Jenn discusses her work suggesting some policies have had unintended consequences related to “ban the box” (where employers are not allowed to know of former convictions on initial job application), and related to her paper on the Moral Hazard of Lifesaving Innovations: Naloxone Access and Opioid Abuse (which has proved controversial in some quarters).

We play overrated/underrated on: Texas, diversity and universal basic income. We end on Jenn’s current projects and life advice.

Patrick House is a neuroscientist and writer. His research focused on the neuroscience of free will and  in particular how mind-control parasites altered a rat’s behaviour.

We once had a long chat on the rainy streets of Glasgow. This chat – which I may not fully recall – involved speaking on what consciousness is, and touched on his work on mind-control bugs.

He’s written a collection of essays: Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness

“Consider different translations of a poem: Each has something relevant to say, but none can entirely capture the essence. House repeatedly returns to a case in which a woman was undergoing brain surgery to address epilepsy. At one point, the surgeons touched a part of the brain that made her laugh. Did this indicate that emotional responses are simply an aspect of the physical matter inside our skulls?”

We had a long chat on this. I asked him:

Do you dream in colour ? 

Whether lucid dreaming is real?

What he meant by: "If I were asked to create, from scratch and under duress, a universal mechanism for passing consciousness from parent to child, I would probably come up with something a bit like grafting a plant." ?

Memory in childhood

What he finds the most terrifying result in neuroscience

What translating poetry has in common with understanding consciousness 

Whether animals have consciousness 

What he thinks of AI and why he no longer plays Go

Patrick asks me if I would write a play only for robots.

We end on Patrick’s advice:

“My suggestion is to have phenomenological date night with whoever you're interested in the world and ask what their dreams are really like and if it's in images or what inside of their head is really like and see if you get anything, see if you solve any conflict.”

It was lovely long form chat about consciousness and the mind.

Jade O’Brien was a stock broker (equity sales)  for over 7 years. She then retrained as a teacher and has taught in both the state sector and the private sector in the UK.

Jade used to pitch me stock ideas and speak about the investment world. I was very curious on why she decided to change careers to become a teacher.

We chat about what drove Jade to the world of finance. What she viewed as the pros and cons, and what it is like as a woman in a male dominated world and advice she has.

Jade outlines her experience of finance which has many positives as well as challenges, and what might have changed over the decade.

(Ben) So what would you say to women wanting to make it in the city or in financial services?

We discuss the factors that made Jade change her jobs. How we might think about death and how she found teacher training.

We chat on how we might “value” teaching and why it’s hard to rate teachers. Why some people ask for more homework, and others ask for less homework and how both views can have merit.

We address:

• The importance of mentors
• the funding situation in UK state supported schools
• A glimpse of teacher training
• Differences between state and private schools in the UK
• Why she thinks teacher quality in both state and private settings are similar
• Why teaching class can feel private
• Views on SEN (special education) policy
• Streaming (where it might work, where it might fail and why she changed her mind)
• What Jade’s perfect class size is, and why
• Her views on uniforms
• School start times
• School food
• Exercise
• The importance of gratitude

This was an amazing long form conversation addressing many of the debates within education today.

Kanjun is co-founder and CEO of Generally Intelligent, an AI research company. She works on metascience ideas often with Michael Nielsen, a previous podcast guest. She’s a VC investor and co-hosts her own podcast for Generally Intelligent. She is part of building the Neighborhood, which is intergenerational campus in a square mile of central San Francisco. Generally Intelligent (as of podcast date ) are looking for great talent looking to work on AI.

Florence Evans is an art dealer, historian, curator, collector and mud larker.  We chat on what does mudlarking tell us about history ? What does art tell us about being human ?

Florrie chats on the cultural history of mudlarking, the stories found objects represent from the both the darker side of human history such as beads and the slave trade, as well as the lighter sides of found items.

We discuss one of her favourite finds, a whole child’s shoe from the Tudor era.

We chat on what we’ve puzzled out from our river finds including a hand blown glass apothecary bottle from the 1600s.

We discuss: bottles, beads, coins, stories, Roman items, buttons and costumes and more…

We touch on her philosophy as an art collector and what art means to us as humans.

What art Florrie likes and collects and the challenge of modern art.

Florrie gives her advice on art collecting and life.

Saloni Dattani is a founding editor at Works in Progress, a researcher at Our World in Data and a commissioning editor at Stripe Press. She has recently been profiled by Vox as part of the Future Perfect 50. Saloni is an excellent thinker on progress and science with recent articles for Wired (on making science better) and Guardian (on challenge trials). 

Saloni tells me what are the most important questions in science that we should be working on.

We discuss making science better and thinking around challenge trials, making science more open source, reforming peer review and thinking around experimental clinical trial design.

We talk about vaccines, why Saloni tends to optimism and what risks and opportunities she is thinking about.

Borrowing from Tyler Cowen, I ask: 

How ambitious are you ?

Which of your beliefs are you least rational about?”  (Or what is she most irrational about?)

What is something esoteric you do ?

We play over rated / under rated on:

Substack, Misinformation, Doing a PhD, Women in Science; Vaccines and Drugs

We end on Saloni’s current projects and advice.

Mark Koyama is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason. Mark researches comparative national state economic development and the rise of religious tolerance. He is interested in how historical institutions functioned and in the relationship between culture and economic performance.   

Jacob Soll is a professor of philosophy, history and accounting. His latest book is Free Market: The History of an Idea. Jake has works on the history of accounting, The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations (2014); the influence of Machiavelli, "The Prince" (2005) and Louis XIV’s First minster, Jean-Baptiste Cobert, The Information Master (2009). Jake works on accounting standards and financial transparency as well as the history of ideas.

Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist. She has written a book: Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning. The book is an excellent look at self-directed education also known in the UK as home education, or in the US as home school or unschooling.  

We discuss her background as a psychologist and her work with autistic people. We chat about her experience of eleven schools and why she has ended up asking questions about control. Why we control people and particularly why we control children.

Naomi discusses the different schools of thought on education and why progressive doesn't necessarily mean child-led education and why she likes the idea (Alison Gopnik) of a child as scientist.

We chat about what Naomi views as  the problems of the current system such as the overuse of exams and why behvaiourism only covers a tiny slice of what learning is in the real world. Naomi highlights some of the benefits of a self-directed education process and what home education can bring.

We talk about the amount of time we have spent in the world of Minecraft. Why parents may be overworried about the use of technology and screen time. Why YouTube might be more beneficial than not.

Naomi answers my question on how to deal with child meltdown and outlines the idea of zones of tolerance. I pose a question on to what extent we should influence a child’s learning “syllabus” and Naomi outlines her view that a child should always have agency and not be forced into “learning” but that does not mean we should not seek to give a child a rich environment and opportunity to learn.

Naomi answers listener questions. First, if home education is only for rich people, and, second, the impacts of the pandemic on home educators.

We play overrated/underrated and Naomi rates: the government setting the curriculum,  the role of exams, social media and technical colleges.

Naomi talks about her latest projects including a second book on neurodiversity and self-directed education, called “A Different Way to Learn” available in 2023.

Naomi ends with advice:

Kana Chan is living in Kamikatsu which is Japan’s first “zero waste” village in rural Japan.  She writes a substack at Tending Gardens and runs INOW which is an educational homestay programme to stay to at Kamikatsu. In 2021, she was selected as an Emerging Climate Leader Asia-Pacific through the ProSPER.Net Leadership Programme.   She has lived and worked in Bangladesh, and travelled widely as a photographer and story teller. Kana cares deeply about climate action, sustainable tourism, and education.

I ask Kana about how she arrived in Kamikatsu.

I ask what people should understand or misunderstand, how Kana finds Japanese culture and how it differs between rural and city. What she misses about the city.

What people have learned coming to Kamikatsu, all the farming knowledge she has learned growing and harvesting her own food, and what the process of tea farming (awa bancha) has been like.

Kana explains that zero waste currently means here that 80% of all waste in the village is recycled (in 45 different categories!) and how the villagers manage their waste systems.

We play overrated/underated on toilets that play music, sitting in hot baths and Japan train journeys.

Kana ends on her latest projects and her advice on what can be learned from disconnecting from a culture of convenience.

"I think being able to just see a diverse amount of the way people live and seeing how people choose to spend their time, how people choose to spend their money, I think can be just a really enriching experience. And so you have those things to contrast and see, "Oh, that's probably something I can take into my own life or not." I don't think the countryside is necessarily for everyone, but I do think that people can incorporate aspects that bring more nature into their lives or bring more self-sufficiency into their lives and I think a good starting point for that is spending time in the countryside and then being able to see what you can take back to wherever home is for you.

If you do decide to move to the countryside, just changing your frame of mind and seeing the things that are inconveniences as opportunities for you to spend your time in other ways, and disconnecting from a culture of convenience can be just a really personally enriching thing. That's what I've found for myself and so, yeah, I hope everyone gets to spend some time in the countryside; whether it's permanent, temporal, or just transient. If Kamikatsu interests you in particular or sustainability from a countryside perspective, I'd be happy to welcome you here to Kamikatsu"

Larry Temkin is a moral philosopher. He has major works on inequality (book: Inequality); transitivity and social choices  (when A > B > C, A > C ?; book: Rethinking the Good) and recently on the philosophies of doing good (critiquing some aspects of Effective Altruism, long-termism, international aid, utilitarianism | book: Being Good in a World of Need). As of 2022, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

The podcast is in two parts. The second part focuses on Effective Altruism (EA) ideas. The first part looks at transitivity, and other debates in philosophy through a pluralist lens. This is part 2 on EA ideas.

The whole conversation is 3 hours long, so please feel free to dip in and out of it, and if you are intrigued go and look to Larry’s original works. There is a link to a transcript and commentray in a blogpost at the end.

In the podcast, I ask:

I ask how Larry comes up with such unique ideas such as on inequality and transitivity, and the story of how he was rejected by three great philosophers when he first proposed his idea. (In part 1)

Larry explains consequentialist notions of personhood, especially with respect to a question I had on Singer’s view on disability, and even though our general views are more pluralist. (In part 1)

I pose a dilemma I have about the art of a friend who has done awful things, and Larry explains the messiness of morals. (In part 1)

(In part 2) Larry recounts the dinner with Derek Parfit, and Angus Deaton, along with a billionaire and other philosophers. This dinner gave Larry bad dreams and lead to Larry thinking up many disanalogies to Peter Singer’s classic pond analogy.

We discuss the pond analogy and how it may or may not be a good analogy for doing good in foreign places especially the disaster that was Goma. Larry discusses how he changed his mind on whether international aid may be doing more harm than good and both philosophical and practical reason behind it.

Larry also discusses some concern on the the possible over focus on long-termism.

We barely touch on Larry’s work in inequality, but I will mention that it has been influential in how the World Health Organisation and potentially ultimately China has viewed access to healthcare. The work has also highlighted the complexity around equality, and that it may be more individualistic and more complicated than often assumed.

Throughout all of this is the strong sense of a pluralistic view of the world, where we may value many attributes such as fairness, justice, health and that a focus on only one value may lead us astray.

Larry ends with life advice:

Larry Temkin is a moral philosopher. He has major works on inequality (book: Inequality); transitivity and social choices  (when A > B > C, A > C ?; book: Rethinking the Good) and recently on the philosophies of doing good (critiquing some aspects of Effective Altruism, long-termism, international aid, utilitarianism | book: Being Good in a World of Need). As of 2022, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

The podcast is in two parts. The second part focuses on Effective Altruism ideas. The first part looks at transitivity, and other debates in philosophy through a pluralist lens. This is part 1.

The whole conversation is 3 hours long, so please feel free to dip in and out of it, and if you are intrigued go and look to Larry’s original works. I provide some links in the blogpost link at the end to his books and some commentary from others (Tyler Cowen, reviewers) and a transcript.

In the podcast, I ask:

How should we value a human life?

What is transitivity? And we discuss the axioms that transitivity underpins for economic, social and moral choices.

I ask how Larry comes up with such unique ideas such as on inequality and transitivity, and the story of how he was rejected by three great philosophers when he first proposed his idea.

Larry explains consequentialist notions of personhood, especially with respect to a question I had on Peter Singer’s view on disability, and even though our general views are more pluralist.

I pose a dilemma I have about the art of a friend who has done awful things, and Larry explains the messiness of morals.

Larry recounts the dinner with Derek Parfit, and Angus Deaton, along with a billionaire and other brilliant philosophers. This dinner gave Larry bad dreams and lead to Larry thinking up many disanalogies to Peter Singer’s classic pond analogy.

We discuss the pond analogy and how it may or may not be a good analogy for doing good in foreign places especially the disaster that was Goma. Larry discusses how he changed his mind on whether international aid may be doing more harm than good and both philosophical and practical reasons behind it.

Larry also discusses some concern on the the possible over-focus on long-termism.

We barely touch on Larry’s work in inequality, but I will mention that it has been influential in how the World Health Organisation and potentially ultimately China has viewed access to healthcare. The work has also highlighted the complexity around equality, and that it may be more individualistic and more complicated than often assumed.

Throughout all of this is the strong sense of a pluralistic view of the world, where we may value many attributes such as fairness, justice, health and that a focus on only one value may lead us astray.

“I've taught many students over the years. I'm coming to the end of my career. I'm retiring. I've had countless students in my office over the years who are struggling with the question of, "How should I lead my life? This is extremely controversial, but being the pluralist that I am, I believe in a balanced life. Now, you can find balance in a number of ways. But just as I'm a pluralist about my moral values, I'm a pluralist about what's involved in being a good person and what's involved in leading a worthwhile human life. I'm signed up in the camp of, "We only have one life to lead."

Leigh Caldwell is a cognitive economist. Leigh has done excellent work around the psychology of pricing and exploring how people consume intangible products with their mind. He has founded several software companies and is co-founder of the Irrational Agency. 

We chatted on Leigh graduating from university at 18, what attracted him to the internet and wanting to start companies and what lead him to the path of psychology, behavioral economics and ultimately to cognitive economics.

How the question of “Why do we get so much of what's important to us from what is manufactured inside our heads?” inspired Leigh to understand more about the brain.

Leigh dicusses his ideas on  why the human brain might have developed the mental tools that we have. We explore the idea of mental simulation, what the brain may be incentivised to do and how the brain may solve the challenge of planning for future action and deferred gratification.

Leigh discusses the idea of discounting the future, the challenge of long causality chains in our scenario thinking  and how the ease of imagination may impact how we think of future actions.

Leigh explains his model exploring agency and choice, and the difficulties and limitations of models.

We discuss the power of stories, why narrative might work and the possible process of conditioning and deconditioning to story narratives. Why once a myth or pattern is embedded, it is so difficult to work around.

Leigh gives me some free consulting on how to price and sell sustainable investing products, how to use surveysand how a small company could do it themselves to an extent. We discuss utility theory and  nudge economics.

We play over-rated/under-rated on: nudging, carbon tax, carbon labels, being a generalist, deliberative democracy; and Scottish Independence.

We end on current projects and Leigh’s life advice.

‘...storytelling is your voice going out there and hopefully having as big an impact as you want. But, story hearing is the other side of it. We should be listening to the stories of all the people around us, and the many people whose stories are not heard in society. By hearing those stories and understanding what underlies them, then we will be able to figure out what the right story is that we might then want to tell…”

Sophie Purdom co-writes a climate and innovation newsletter read by tens of thousands, ClimateTech VC.  Sophie has worked in start ups as an operator. She is a venture capitalist investor. She has written widely on sustainable investing.

We speak on how Sophie came to climate tech investing, the importance of knocking on doors and being helpful.

What Sophie learned working for local government (Providence) and how climate has always been her through line into investing.

We discuss what areas of climate tech are over-invested in and under-invested in, and why she’s interested in the climate-industrial-tech area.

We chat about investment philosophy, the VC geography and gender lens and how she seeds the landscape on access to capital at the seed and pre-seed stage.

Sophie explains the concept of “brown spinning” and the pros/cons of taking assets private or selling brown assets to less responsible entities.

We play over-rated, under-rated on: Lifting Weights, Carbon tax, Green New Deal, Tesla

Carbon offsets, Nuclear Power, Carbon removal and the woolly mammoth.

We finish on Sophie’s current projects and her career and life advice.

Francesca Sanderson managed an ethical equities fund at JPMorgan as an asset manager but quit that to live for a year living off grid.  She then became a social impact investor with Big Society Capital and now runs the Arts Impact programmes currently at Nesta.

We chat about what she learned, missed and loved about living off-grid. How she has a more pluralist world view.

Fran talks about what she learned at JP Morgan. The power and the weaknesses of institutional and organisational strength.

We discuss social impact, its opportunities and risks and highlight some brilliant projects.

We chat on the the tyranny of numbers and data and the tension between process and oversight, and over burdensome bureaucracy and slowness.

We play overrated/underrated addressing stakeholder capitalism, the settlement movement, and cycling.

Fran ends on her advice, be trustworthy:

Nadia Asparouhova (previously writing under Nadia Eghbal) is an independent researcher with widely read essays on a range of topics most recently philanthropic funding including effective altruism and ideas machines, and recent ideas in funding science.  She’s written books about the open source community. She has worked in start ups and venture. She set up and ran Helium grants, a microgrant programme. She is an Emergent Ventures fellow.

We speak about what she learned from microgranting and reviewing thousands of applications.

We discuss what she thinks about EA influenced philanthropy, and why she is personally pro-pluralism.

Nadia talks about why doesn’t consider herself a creator and the downsides and upsides on he creator economy as currently formed. We discuss parallels with the open source community.

We chat about Nadia’s work as an independent researcher versus her work at start-ups and how they are fulfilling in different ways.

Nadia examines what faith means to her now. We chat on the importance of intuition and the messiness of creative science and learning. We talk about science funding and how we might be the cusp of something new. Nadia expresses optimism about the future as we discuss possible progress stagnation.

On a more personal note, we chat about how Nadia was a vegetarian and how and why she changed her mind. But also that she could not be a complete only  carnivore  either. We discuss the importance of family stories that shape us and the role the stories of her grandmother played in her life.

We play over-rated under-rated:

-Effective Altruism

-Miami

-Crowdfunding

-Toulouse

-Newsletters

-Katy Perry

Nadia talks briefly about a seed of an idea around anti-memetics. Nadia ends with her advice to others. Follow your curiosities.

Annemarie is Director of Innovation for the Seetec Group. Before that, she was, Director of Policy and Strategy at Future Care Capital - a national charity that uses the insight gathered through evidence-based research to advance ideas that will help shape future health and social care policy to deliver better outcomes for society.

We chat about what is under appreciated about libraries and how to think about public goods and common ownership of those goods.

Annemarie discusses the idea of a Sovereign Health Fund and how to think about healthcare data as a public good, what trust is needed and how health value can be created by pooling data.

We discuss the benefits and cons of social media, how tricky regulation is (partly because it always behind the times) and how there might be more benefits that commonly thought of.

Annemarie talks about her work and Seetec’s on the future of justice and how leveraging data and digital technology can help shape a better justice system and also prevent re-offending. She offers insights in to how new technology is creating new forms of crime and whether more careful thinking can prevent these types of crime from occuring. How will crime in the metaverse work out?

We chat about how different ownership models and for-profit or not-profit can shape the purpose and outlook for employees. The importance of optimism and the sense of looking after something for the next generation.

Annemarie notes Henry VIII gave powers to the secretary of state but didn’t consider accountability provisions. She raises the challenge of accounting standards for intangible assets and proposes an idea of giving NFTs (digital assets) to children at birth (cf. Bored Ape Yacht Club).

Annemarie is more of a nonfiction reader but she commissioned a work of science fiction and we speak about imagining different types of future and how to inspire people.

We play overrated/underrated on:

• Big Tech regulation
• GPDR (data regulation)
• GDP
• Carbon tax
• Digital Health
• Innovation agencies
• Calories on menus

Annemarie ends our conversation on giving out her life advice.

What is it like to go deaf and then gain back your hearing? On this episode, I speak to Sophie Woolley.

Sophie is a writer, performer and theatre maker.  We have been friends for a while and I have learned a lot about Deaf culture and from her personal journey and one as a creative.

We have a meandering chat about her creative journey, how felt she had to write about her story of going deaf and then gaining hearing again via a cochlear implant. We recorded the podcast while Sophie is in Taiwan. She chats a little on her experience there and Taiwan’s COVID management.

This is a long conversation between friends discussing the complexities of Sophie’s experience. I was particularly intrigued by her thinking on what it might mean to be a cyborg and being augmented and being part of both Deaf culture and hearing culture.  I am still thinking about her comment about captioning AI being her friend and how we can often simply criticise AI in a way we would not critique a human. (But also there’s no need to anthropomorphize AI either).

Stian Westlake is the chief exec at the Royal Statistical Society, and before that he was a policy advisor to government and the executive director at Nesta. He is the co-author with Jonathan Haskel of Capitalism without Capital, and they have a new book out, Restarting the Future (22 March 2022). 

Stian discusses how recessions might be different under an intangible economy. I ask him (H/T Tyler Cowen) how national security concerns might be different in a very intangible world. Part of his answer:

We chat about these observations:

• Stagnation
• Inequality
• Dysfunctional Competition
• Fragility
• Inauthenticity

And Stian offers an intangible lens to explain the observations.

We discuss: BS jobs and whether culture and trust might be upstream of this.

Why we need new institutions to tackle intangible challenges, whether this would be more technocractic and if there is a political economy challenge on this.

The importance of where the intangible meets the tangible, for instance, we have heat pump technology but not the intangible systems and ideas to install them. Sanitation is “hardware” but building and co-ordinating all this is an intangible and institutional challenge more than a hardware challege.

What the trade-off is between losing red tape and increasing the risk of corruption.

Stian argues for why the tax treatment of debt and equity would be a good idea (while acknowledging this would be politically hard).

We play over/under rated on:

Innovation Prizes, Blogging, Sugar tax, Carbon tax, Plastic Bag Tax, Innovation agencies, GDP and UBI, universal basic income.

Stian ends with some life and career advice.

Stephan Guyenet completed a PhD in neuroscience, then went on to study the neuroscience of obesity and eating behavior as a postdoc. He’s also been involved with Givewell and Open philanthropy projects. In 2017, he wrote the book the Hungry Brain.

We discuss two competing obesity models: one based around  a model of energy balance with the brain as one of the main central controllers.

And one model which  s based more around an insulin - carbohydrate pathway. The carbohydrate - insulin model emphasizes the role of insulin from glycemic load inputs.

While not necessarily mutually exclusive, Stephan explains how the brain centric energy balance model can explain some data, in his view, that the carb-insulin model does not. Stephan notes much individual variability and how the naming “energy-balance” is perhaps not the best type of name for the model.

We discuss the challenge of processed foods, which tend to be easy to eat and tasty foods. Stephan notes that the combination of fat + carb (eg in chocolate!) is very appetising. We chat about the role of genetics, and satiety.

We chat about two classes of  obesity drugs, one rimonabant (using cannabinoid receptor pathways)  which has been withdrawn; and the other being GLP-1s. We talk about the possible role of inflammation and some intriguing data on Alzheimer’s. I ask about his view on intermittent fasting, also on the microbiome.

I talk about my challenges with exercise and we discuss how some people probably are not wired to enjoy intensity training whereas some others are.

We talk about effective altruism and what he has learnt from his work at Givewell.

We play over-rated | under rated on:

• Climate Change
• Nuclear War
• Rogue AI risk
• Giving away more wealth
• Animal welfare
• Diversity of thought

We chat about making cider, growing your own food and cycling in Seattle.

Stephan ends with his general diet advice. 

Alec is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress. The IFP is dedicated to to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress while safeguarding humanity’s future. Alec and co-founder Caleb Watney are supported by prominent progress thinkers such as Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collinson.

We discuss the competing interests that prevent physical infrastructure such as power lines, or cafe “parklet” structures from being easily built.  

Alec explains how using a framework borrowed from Effective Altruism: impact (will it be impactful), tractability (is it possible?), under-researched (are many other people working on the challenge?) - is a useful framing.  

Alex discusses why biosecurity (pandemic preparedness), meta-science (understanding how science progresses) and immigration (in particular high skilled) are the initial areas of interest and what other areas, like climate, might be next.  

We speculate on what intractable bluesky policies we would potentially pursue.  

We play over-rated/under-rated (in honour of Tyler Cowen): 

-Carbon tax  

-Planning laws  

-Crypto 

-Rogue AI 

-Animal welfare  

-Charter cities  

-Innovation agencies  

-Remote working   

Alec ends with his life advice for others in thinking about a career on how to have the most impact in your life.

Chris Stark is the Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body which advises the UK and developed governments on emissions targets and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. I think he is one of the most important and thoughtful thinkers on climate change policy today.

We discuss what is most misunderstood about climate policy, the likely co-benefits and the scale of investments needed especially in the UK in replacing “old inefficient stock”.

What positives/negatives came out of COP26 (recent international climate conference) and what to hope for in COP27 and beyond. Why COP26 might have been considered a corporate COP as a criticism but why that might not be bad.

Why sector specific strategies might be a better plan than a focus on carbon tax.

Why adaptation or resilience has been a bit of a “Cinderella” in climate discussions. What the science suggests is already baked into 2050 scenarios and so what we should be thinking about adaptation as well as mitigation.

The complexities and challenges around “behaviour change” and why it’s not a great term. Why we might not need a complete culture change (in the sense of changing lifestyles) but the intersection of behaviour and technology. (For instance, still driving cars but electric cars on a decarbonised grid.)

Why a sense of fairness is one the most important climate policy (political economy) considerations and what we should think about in terms of climate impacts falling unequally across countries and peoples.

What role finance has to play. Chris references the work of Nick Robins here. 

We discuss:

• Climate assemblies (and why Chris changed his view on them)
• Divest/engagement strategies
• Carbon offsets
• Carbon taxes
• The role of nuclear
• Land use
• Road charging

And we end with advice Chris has for people.

David Spiegelhalter is an expert on medical statistics. He was the president of the Royal Statistical Society and is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence communication. He is also a World Champion, in a version of pool called Loop and hosts his own podcast, Risky Talk.  David has a new book out (with Anthony Masters), COVID by Numbers, which is an excellent book on COVID statistics. This follows his previous bestseller, the Art of Statistics. 

David discusses what was most surprising and misunderstood about COVID statistics.  David emphasises how numbers can be emotional and weaponised and what we can do to protect ourselves.

We chat about what thinking about risk and techniques we should teach children and think about in every day life. Ideas such as baseline risk and absolute vs relative risk.  

We think about unintended consequences, the agency challenges of regulators and how to think of a range of risk.  David explains fat tails and extreme values and that, for instance, AI risk is an extreme existential risk but perhaps over rated. 

I learn about the “Rose Paradox” and “Cromwell’s law”, in statistics. The Rose paradox suggests policy might be useful at a general population level but not at an individual basis. For instance, government messages about drinking less and things like that can be rational at the population level and yet it's also rational for individuals to take no notice of it.

Cromwell’s law implies many life events are not  0% or 100% and you should take that into account in decision making.  Or, in plain English, you should always imagine there's something you haven't thought of.

We discuss the risks of alcohol and touch on air pollution and cholesterol (statin drugs), and how to think about medical statistics.  

David explains the attraction and beauty of stained glass art.  

David ends with life advice about enjoying life and taking (good, well-managed) risks in order to have a fulfilling life.

Steve Uwin is a theatre director and writer. Amongst many accomplishments he has been the artistic director of the Rose theatre, founder of ETT, English Touring Theatre. He is also chair of the charity Kids, which provides services to children with disabilities. 

We speak about whether we need language to be human and what non-verbal people teach us.

We chat on how theatre has developed over the decades and Steve’s appreciation of Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble. We touch on Steve’s experience of theTraverse theatre, dealing with the very different stakeholders of the Rose Theatre; and how European theatre, realism and London has influenced theatre over the decades; what’s enjoyable about theatre over film.

Steve discusses how much of liberal progressive thinking may overlook the history and challenges of disability. While contested, we chat about the possible roots of this in the 18th century enlightenment and its influences today. We talk about the importance of self-advocacy but also the challenges of self-advocacy if you are - for instance - non-verbal.

Steve talks about going viral on Twitter around “mock gloom” and disability. He also provocatively suggests five of the greatest artists of the last century.

We comment on:

Bob Dylan

The artist Piero della Francesca

And what he has in his library of thousands of books

And finish with his current projects and life advice Steve has.

To let you know… The audio is a little crackly on Steve’s side. Apologies in advance.

Aella is perhaps most famous on twitter for shining a light on the life and economics of Camgirls and escorts; and asking challenging questions. But her independent research is larger than that and has encompassed reporting on LSD and psychedelics use, circling, the nature of faith, and enlightenment. She grew up homeschooled in a fundamental Christian household before leaving home at 17.

The transcript and conversation includes adult themes and mild profanity from Aella and is recommended 18+.

We discuss what is most misunderstood about escort work and the additional needs of men such as emotional intimacy. How Aella thinks of her own compartmentalisation.

What you should say about male anatomy size. How insecurity can go both ways on male thinking on size.

What Aella thinks about Twitter and making questions and polls.

What it was like to have ideas you took for granted completely turned on their head. For instance, what she was taught to think of gays.

We chatted about her interest in psychedelics, speaking to people who think they are enlightened and spirituality. And what that intersection with rationality is for her.

She discusses several viewpoints of the Rationalist community and her views on Effective Altruism. Her thoughts on archaeology and  thinking about moral arguments in their place in time.

Why she feels to strongly about home school.

Her thoughts on losing faith.

What it was like working in a factory, and what the point of secret messages she scratched at her work were.

How she has struggled with cultural norms.

How she answers some of her own questions:

We play underrated / overrated on these topics:

• Accordion
• Ballroom Dancing
• Pronouns
• Abalone
• Sweating on command

She talks about emotional pain and tells me what the practice of circling is all about.

We end on what her research interests are and what her life advice is.

Dan Goodley is a professor of disability studies and education at the School of Education, University of Sheffield. Dan co-directs iHuman, which sits at the intersections of Critical Disability Studies and Science and Technology Studies. iHuman is addressing  ome significant questions of contemporary society including: what does it mean to be human?

Dan has written the thought provoking book: Disability and Other Human Questions.

We chat about who and how do we decide who gets to be human? I pose what thinking about the rights (or lack of) that Britney Spears has is relevant to disability rights thinking.

Dan wide ranging thoughts on what disability and other intersectional studies have suggested to him. These include:

Thinking about “ability” and what the social model of disability suggests. What a critique of idealising able bodies and able minds might mean.

What medicalisation means and how it is different to medicine.

How humans are interdependent and what that suggests about our relationships.

How technology is impacting Dis/abled humanness.

What being a Nottingham Forest Football fan has taught Dan.

And Dan’s life advice: Move from the object to embrace the subject. 

Bec Hill is an actor, comedian and writer famous for flip charts with misheard music lyrics. She has a wide array of talents including as a writer, a recent children’s book series: Horror Heights, The Slime and hosting make-away takeaway for children's ITV. She has her own podcast A Problem Squared which she co-hosts with Matt Parker.

We speak about the use of arts and craft in comedy and thinking about children’s comedy. How she found acting as a “straight actor” in David Finnigan’s Kill Climate Deniers.

How she met her partner and how he has helped direct and collaborate on her shows.

How faith helps guide her life. How her ADHD diagnosis has helped her understanding.

That all things can be funny, but do you want to make a joke out of all things? We discuss the right to offend, but think about whether we should make jokes about everything.

The best uses for PVA glue, duct and glitter and her practical advice for aspiring stand-up comics (it’s to do with the microphone).

Meaghan Kall is an epidemiologist at what used to be known as Public Health England but is now the UK Health Security Agency. She and her colleagues have been working flat out for two years producing some of the world's best COVID data. 

We speak about annoying and funny COVID myths.

She gives her view on COVID vaccine waning, Long COVID and risk in children; and how we are going to come to terms with COVID as an endemic disease (think about managing flu, although with different outcomes).

We dive into what it means to be an epidemiologist and think about the social determinants of health.  With the lens of looking at HIV epidemiology, we discuss how certain populations are more adversely impacted.

We discuss what caring for disabled children as meant for us and how that insight is another facet of what it means to be human.

We think about what “expected value” means and how science can not answer matters of policy which have to be decided also by thinking of our values and other trade-offs.

Meaghan gives the advice she is currently giving family and friends and ends with some thinking on life career advice.

Clare Montagu was the Chief Operating Officer of one of London’s largest hospice groups, Trinity Hospice. Before that, she was a UK government minister special advisor.

We talk about the challenges and joys of running a hospice. Much of great hospice care is looking after people in their own homes and in the community. Hospice care goes beyond the medical. For instance, letting a patient die in the garden under a tree because that’s their wish. This is care a hospital can not give. The hospice is staffed 24/7, pets can come, family can stay. The hospice is part of the community.

We chat about the importance of death admin. You don’t want to have your stash found by your parents or the state to take your inheritance estate. We speak on why Clare uses straight forward language about death and why we don’t talk about death enough.

Clare reflect on the challenges of COVID and gives her insights into how difficult running the hospice during the pandemic. She gives a sense of what being on the frontlines meant. How to find protective supplies, mortuary bags and and the lack of plans from the state.

We discuss the economics of a hospice. UK hospices are not state funded but mostly funded by charity. Clare had a GBP15m operating budget or closer to GBP10m for healthcare operations (excluding the costs of running charity shops etc) this looked after 2,500 - 3,000 people in a typical year. (In a year, in the UK about 9,000 people die for every 1 million of population; London has c. 9 million population and so 80,000 Londoners die very year).

We debate the difficulty of what funding a minimum service hospice would be like.

We discuss the challenges of state capacity decisions in the light of swine flu and why governments will always tends to spend on a problem now rather than have insurance in stock piles.

Clare gives insights into the life of a special adviser, some of the highs and lows and the comedy moments, and some of the policy she is proud of (helping Children in care).

Clare suggests that while governments often get things very wrong, they are also have to deal with particularly conflicted issues and trade-offs such as security versus liberty.

Clare has volunteered at a charity doing a manual warehouse job recently and she offers insights into that type of job and we discuss jobs that can have “purpose” and jobs where it is difficult to think you are on a “mission”

Finally, Clare reflects on how to have a good death and her life advice. “show up and do something about the stuff that you care about”.

Economist Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy,  Cambridge University. She co-directs the Bennett Institute, where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity. Her work has touched innovation, technology and intangibles; sustainability, inequality and measuring beyond GDP.  

We discuss the challenges of the current narrowness in economics both in terms of the diversity of  people it attracts and the paucity of wider ranging interdisciplinary thinking.

Diane’s 1997 book (The Weightless World) was prescient over many technology, innovation and intangibles trends but sustainability was a missing hole. We discuss sustainability and what she felt she missed and what she had right.

Diane critiques degrowth ideas while noting the challenges which catalyse that type of thinking.

We chat about measurement challenges in an intangible world and how while GDP might have measured more usefully in the past but that in the present it misses many areas of value. In passing, Diane critiques happiness indices and elements of the human development index.

We address the UK’s productivity challenges (but don’t expect we have solved it?!) and conclude it is not only a measurement challenge.

We discuss inequality and “superstar earners” across all sectors and possible solutions.

Diane over-rates / under-rates:

Universal Basic Income, a Job guarantee policy, Industrial Policy, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, running the economy hot; and the New Zealand Prime Minister.

We discuss minimum wage and tax policy. Win-win investment ideas and end with what a productive day looks like and advice for would-be economists.