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The Lunar Society

The Lunar Society

By Dwarkesh Patel

Host Dwarkesh Patel interviews economists, scientists, and philosophers about their big ideas.

Watch on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/DwarkeshPatel
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5: Matjaž Leonardis - Science, Identity, and Probability

The Lunar SocietyAug 22, 2020

00:00
34:33
26: Pradyu Prasad - Imperial Japan, the God Emperor, and Militarization in the Modern World

26: Pradyu Prasad - Imperial Japan, the God Emperor, and Militarization in the Modern World

Today I talk to Pradyu Prasad (blogger and podcaster) about the book "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix. We also discuss militarization, industrial capacity, current events, and blogging. 

Get the Book: https://www.amazon.com/Hirohito-Making-Modern-Japan-Herbert/dp/0060931302

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/rsJxlybPByM

Follow Pradyu's Blog: https://brettongoods.substack.com/ 

Follow Pradyu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PradyuPrasad 

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp  

Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Intro 

(0:01:59) - Hirohito and Introduction to the Book 

(0:05:39) - Meiji Restoration and Japan's Rapid Industrialization 

(0:11:11) - Industrialization and Traditional Military Norms 

(0:14:50) - Alternate Causes for Japanese Atrocities Richard Hanania's Public Choice Theory in Imperial Japan (0:17:03)

(0:21:34) - Hirohito's Relationship with the Military 

(0:24:33) - Rant of Japanese Strategy 

(0:33:10) - Modern Parallel to Russia/Ukraine 

(0:38:22) - Economics of War and Western War Capacity 

(0:48:14) - Elements of Effective Occupation 

(0:55:53) - Ideological Fervor in WW2 Japan 

(0:59:25) - Cynicism on Elites

(1:00:29) - The Legend of Godlike Hirohito 

(1:06:47) - Postwar Japanese Economy

(1:13:23) - Blogging and Podcasting 

(1:20:31) - Spooky 

(1:38:00) - Outro 

Apr 27, 202201:38:60
25: Razib Khan - Genomics, Intelligence, and The Church of Science

25: Razib Khan - Genomics, Intelligence, and The Church of Science

Razib Khan is a writer, geneticist, and blogger with an interest in history, genetics, culture, and evolutionary psychology.

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/sh04dEtBAoE

Follow Razib on Twitter: https://twitter.com/razibkhan 

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

Time Stamps

(0:00:05) Razib's Background

(0:01:34) Dysgenics of Intelligence

(0:04:23) Endogamy and Genetic traits in India

(0:08:58) Similar Examples of Endogamy

(0:14:28) Why So Many Brahmin CEO's

(0:19:55) Razib the Globe Trotter, Geography Expert

(0:25:04) Male/Female Genetic Variance

(0:30:04) Agricultural Man and Our Tiny Brains

(0:34:40) The Church of Science

(0:42:33) Professorship, a family business

(0:44:23) Long History

(0:52:42) Future of Human Computer Interfacing

(0:56:30) Near Future of Gene Editing

(0:59:19) Meta Questions and Closing


Apr 21, 202201:03:18
24: Jimmy Soni - Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the Paypal Mafia

24: Jimmy Soni - Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and the Paypal Mafia

Jimmy Soni is the author of The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.


Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OEcOUgXvz7g

Buy the book: https://amzn.to/30PqMV2

Follow Jimmy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimmyasoni

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp


Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Bell Labs vs PayPal

(0:05:12) - Scenius in Ancient Rome and America's Founding

(0:07:02) - Girard at PayPal

(0:15:17) - Thiel almost shorts the Dot com bubble

(0:19:49) - Does Zero to One contradict PayPal's story?

(0:27:57) - Hilarious Russian hacker story

(0:29:06) - Why is Thiel so good at spotting talent?

(0:34:50) - Did PayPal make talent or discover it?

(0:40:40) - Japanese mafia invests in PayPal?!

(0:44:42) - Upcoming TV show on PayPal

(0:48:11) - Musk in ancient Rome

(0:52:12) - Why didn't Musk keep pursuing finance?

(0:56:32) - Why didn't the mafia get back together?

(1:00:06) - Jimmy's writing process

Apr 16, 202201:07:48
23: Bryan Caplan - Discrimination, Poverty, & Mental Illness

23: Bryan Caplan - Discrimination, Poverty, & Mental Illness

I interview the economist Bryan Caplan about his new book, Labor Econ Versus the World, and many other related topics.


Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/i70j-ZCPhXg

Buy Bryan's book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QF44HHG

Follow me on Twitter for new episodes: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

Check out my blog: https://dwarkeshpatel.com/


Timestamps:

0:00:00 Intro

0:01:35 How many workers are useless, and why is labor force participation so low?

0:04:49 Is getting out of poverty harder than we think?

0:11:45 Are elites to blame for poverty?

0:15:58 Is human nature to blame for poverty?

0:20:13 Remote work and foreign wages

0:25:45 The future of the education system?

0:30:33 Do employers care about the difficulty of a curriculum?

0:34:15 Why do companies and colleges discriminate against Asians?

0:43:03 Applying Hanania's unitary actor model to mental health

0:51:40 Why are multinationals so effective?

0:54:39 Open borders and cultural norms

0:59:15 Is Tyler Cowen right about automation?

Apr 12, 202201:04:45
22: Richard Hanania - Foreign Policy, Fertility, and Wokeness

22: Richard Hanania - Foreign Policy, Fertility, and Wokeness

Richard Hanania is the President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and the author of Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy: How Generals, Weapons Manufacturers, and Foreign Governments Shape American Foreign Policy.


Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QyWs-XomCk0


But the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09L9Y2W7S

Follow Richard on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichardHanania

Read Richard's Substack: https://richardhanania.substack.com/


Timestamps:

0:00:00 Intro

0:04:35 Did war prevent sclerosis?

0:06:05 China vs America's grand strategy

0:10:00 Does the president have more power over foreign policy?

0:11:30 How to deter bad actors?

0:15:39 Do some countries have a coherent foreign policy?

0:16:55 Why does self-interest matter in foreign but not domestic policy? 

0:21:05 Should we limit money in politics?

0:23:47 Should we credit expertise for nuclear detante and global prosperity?

0:28:45 Have international alliances made us safer?

0:31:57 Why does academic bueracracy work in some fields?

0:36:26 Did academia suck even before diversity?

0:39:34 How do we get expertise in social sciences?

0:42:19 Why are things more liberal?

0:43:55 Why is big tech so liberal?

0:47:53 Authoritarian populism vs libertarianism

0:51:40 Can authoritarian governments increase fertility?

0:54:54 Will increasing fertility be dysgenic?

0:56:43 Will not having kids become cool?

0:59:22 Advice for libertarians?

Feb 24, 202201:02:02
21: David Deutsch - AI, America, Fun, & Bayes

21: David Deutsch - AI, America, Fun, & Bayes

David Deutsch is the founder of the field of quantum computing and the author The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality.


Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EVwjofV5TgU


Read me Contra David on AI: https://dwarkeshpatel.com/universal-explainers/


Buy The Beginning of Infinity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143121359/

Follow David on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidDeutschOxf


Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

My blog: https://dwarkeshpatel.com/


Timestamps:

0:00:00 Will AIs be smarter than humans? 

0:06:34 Are intelligence differences immutable / heritable?

0:20:13 IQ correletation of twins seperated at birth

0:27:12 Do animals have bounded creativity?

0:33:32 How powerful can narrow AIs be?

0:36:59 Could you implant thoughts in VR?

0:38:49 Can you simulate the whole universe?

0:41:23 Are some interesting problems insoluble?

0:44:59 Does America fail Popper's Criterion?

0:50:01 Does finite matter mean there's no beginning of infinity?

0:53:16 The Great Stagnation

0:55:34 Changes in epistemic status is Popperianism

0:59:29 Open ended science vs gain of function

1:02:54 Contra Tyler Cowen on cvilizational lifespan

1:07:20 Fun criterion

1:14:16 Does AGI through evolution require suffering?

1:18:01 Would David enter the Experience Machine?

1:20:09 (Against) Advice for young people

Jan 31, 202201:24:11
20: Samo Burja - Founders, Markets, & Collapse

20: Samo Burja - Founders, Markets, & Collapse

Samo Burja is the founder of Bismarck Analysis and a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation. Samo writes and speaks about history, institutions, and strategy, and he is the creator of the Great Founder Theory of history.


Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/q_X13jNOQTk


Samo's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamoBurja

Subscribe to Bismarck Brief: https://brief.bismarckanalysis.com/


My twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

My blog: https://dwarkeshpatel.com/


Timestamps:

0:00:00 Intro

0:00:17 Are individuals causally responsible for history?

0:04:34 Was Napoleon a great founder?

0:08:47 What can great founder theory predict?

0:11:17 How many live players are there?

0:15:40 Is the market full of live players?

0:18:37 How to cozy up to both sides?

0:22:58 How do you become an intellectual?

0:27:34 Aligning incentives for intellectuals

0:30:40 What makes someone a great founder?

0:39:29 Why is the centralized internet inevitable?

0:42:21 Samo and I debate odds of civilizational collapse

0:48:17 Is GDP fake?

0:56:52 The world only has 1.5 civilizations

0:59:32 Advice to effective altruists

1:02:30 Advice to young people

Jan 10, 202201:04:23
19: Discussing Where's My Flying Car w/ Rohit Krishnan

19: Discussing Where's My Flying Car w/ Rohit Krishnan

Rohit Krishnan is a venture capitalist who writes about "the strange loops underlying our systems of innovation" at https://www.strangeloopcanon.com. 


We discussed J. Storrs. Hall's book Where Is My Flying Car?


Relevant essays from Rohit:

Review of Where Is My Flying Car: https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/p/wheres-my-flying-car

The Small Successes Of Nanotech: https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/p/a-progress-check-the-small-successes

Isolated Narratives of Progress: https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/p/isolated-narratives-of-progress

Meditations On Regulations: https://www.strangeloopcanon.com/p/meditations-on-regulations-quis-custodiet


Rohit's Twitter: https://twitter.com/krishnanrohit


Buy Where Is My Flying Car?: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Flying-Car-Storrs-Hall/dp/1953953182


Timestamps:

00:00 Why don't we have flying cars?

08:09 Should we expect exponential growth?

18:13 Machiavelli Effect and centralization of science funding

27:55 We need more science fiction

32:40 The return of citizen science?

37:40 Have we grown too comfortable for progress?

42:15 Is India the future of innovation?

47:15 Is there an upper-income trap?

50:30 Forecasts for technologies

Jan 03, 202257:39
18: Byrne Hobart - Optionality, Stagnation, and Secret Societies

18: Byrne Hobart - Optionality, Stagnation, and Secret Societies

Byrne Hobart writes The Diff, a newsletter about inflections in finance and technology with 24,000+ subscribers.  

The Diff newsletter: https://diff.substack.com/

Byrne's Twitter: https://twitter.com/byrnehobart 

---

Watch episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZI_tDsOhd5I

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp 

Timestamps: 

0:00:00 Byrne's one big idea: stagnation 

0:05:50 Has regulation caused stagnation? 

0:14:00 FDA retribution 

0:15:15 Embryo selection 

0:17:32 Patient longtermism 

0:21:02 Are there secret societies? 

0:26:53 College, optionality, and conformity

0:34:40 Differentiated credentiations underrated? 

0:39:15 WIll contientiousness increase in value? 

0:44:26 Why aren't rationalists more into finance? 

0:48:04 Rationalists are bad at changing the world. 

0:52:20 Why read more? 

0:57:10 Does knowledge have increasing returns? 

1:01:30 How to escape the middle career trap? 

1:04:48 Advice for young people 

1:08:40 How to learn about a subject?

Oct 05, 202101:11:32
17: Roger's Bacon - Using Cults to Power Science

17: Roger's Bacon - Using Cults to Power Science

Roger's Bacon is a pseudonymous blogger and the creator of the new Seeds of Science journal.


Seeds of Science: https://www.theseedsofscience.org/

Roger's Bacon blog: https://rogersbacon.substack.com/

Roger's Bacon Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogersBacon1


My blog: https://dwarkeshpatel.com/

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp


Timestamps

0:00:05 Who is Roger's Bacon?

0:05:03 The need for scientific diversity

0:10:50 Why are our institutions so homogenous?

0:19:35 In defense of cults

0:24:05 Does innovation require isolation?

0:32:16 Diversity of institutions vs individuals

0:36:05 Can we create weird secret societies?

0:42:40 Secret longtermists and pseudonymous thinkers

0:46:50 Science needs religion

0:54:50 How contingent is science

0:59:05 Seeds of Science

1:09:50 Randomness in science

1:14:55 Why committees suck

1:21:05 Resetting institutions and reinventing ideas

1:32:30 Teaching at a STEM high school

1:53:01 Big picture thinking vs technical skills

1:58:55 Finding blindspots

2:01:57 Being realistic about the far future

Sep 28, 202102:11:25
16: David Friedman - Dating Markets, Legal Systems, Bitcoin, and Automation

16: David Friedman - Dating Markets, Legal Systems, Bitcoin, and Automation

David Friedman is a famous anarcho-capitalist economist and legal scholar.  


David Friedman's website: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

My blog: https://dwarkeshpatel.com  


Timestamps:

0:00:00 Dating market 

0:12:15 The future of reputation 

0:27:30 How Friedman predicted bitcoin 

0:35:35 Prediction markets 

0:40:00 Can regulation stop progress globally? 

0:45:50 Lack of diversity in modern legal systems 

0:54:20 Friedman's theory of property rights 

1:01:50 Charles Murray's scheme to fight regulations 

1:06:25 Property rights of the poor 

1:09:07 Automation 

1:16:00 Economics of medieval reenactment 

1:19:00 Advice for futurist young people

Aug 09, 202101:23:53
15: Sarah Fitz-Claridge - Taking Children Seriously

15: Sarah Fitz-Claridge - Taking Children Seriously

Sarah Fitz-Claridge is a writer, coach and speaker with a fallibilist world view. She started the journal that became Taking Children Seriously in the early 1990s after being surprised by the heated audience reactions she was getting when talking about children. She has spoken all over the world about her educational philosophy, and you can find transcripts of some of her talks on her website.

Sarah's Website: https://www.fitz-claridge.com/

Sarah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/FitzClaridge

Follow me on Twitter for updates: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro 

01:23 Taking Children Seriously 

05:46 Are children rational? 

08:08 Coercion 14:56 Education 

26:01 Authority, discipline, and passion 

30:41 The psychological harm to children 

33:29 Dealing with toddlers 

40:08 Are we too optimistic about uncoerced children? 

47:38 Why is everyone wrong about children? 

53:48 Child labor 

56:43 Age of consent

Jun 04, 202158:15
14: Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress

14: Michael Huemer - Anarchy, Capitalism, and Progress

Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is the author of more than sixty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy, as well as eight amazing books.  

In this podcast, we had a wide ranging discussion about his book The Problem of Political Authority. His newest book is an amazingly clear and fun introductory philosophy textbook titled Knowledge, Reality, and Value.  


Watch this podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--xKsIgv7tE

Follow me on Twitter for new episodes: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp  

Buy Knowledge, Reality, and Value: https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Reality-Value-Mostly-Philosophy/dp/B091F5QTDS 

Buy The Problem of Political Authority: https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650  

Read his awesome blog: http://fakenous.net/  


Timestamps: 

0:00:00    Intro 

0:01:07 The Problem of Political Authority 

0:03:25 Common sense ethics  

0:09:39 Stockholm syndrome and the charisma of power 

0:18:14 Moral progress 

0:26:55 Growth of libertarian ideas 

0:33:37 Does anarchy increase violence? 

0:44:37 Transitioning to anarchy 

0:47:20 Is Huemer attacking our society?! 

0:51:40 Huemer's writing process 

0:53:18 Is it okay to work for the government 

0:56:39 Burkean argument against anarchy 

1:02:07 The case for tyranny 

1:11:58 Underrated/overrated 

1:25:55 Huemer production functionl 

1:30:41 Favorite books 

1:33:04 Advice for young people

May 28, 202101:37:04
13: Uncle Bob - The Long Reach of Code

13: Uncle Bob - The Long Reach of Code

Robert Martin (aka Uncle Bob) is a programming pioneer and bestselling author or Clean Code. We discuss the prospect of automating programming, spotting and developing coding talent, occupational licensing, quotas, and the elusive sense of style.  


Listen to his fascinating talk on the future of programming: https://youtu.be/ecIWPzGEbFc 

Read his blog about programming: http://blog.cleancoder.com/ 

Buy his  books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/ent... 


0:00 Automating programming 

8:40 Educating programmers (expertise, talent, university) 

21:45 Spotting talent 

26:10 Teaching kids 

29:31 Prose and music sense in coding 

32:22 Occupational licensing for programmers 

35:49 Why is tech political 

39:28 Quotas 

42:29 Advice to 20 yr old


176265

Nov 28, 202045:50
12: Scott Aaronson - Quantum Computing, Complexity, and Creativity

12: Scott Aaronson - Quantum Computing, Complexity, and Creativity

Scott Aaronson is Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center. 

He was also my professor for a class of quantum computing.

He's the author of one of the most interesting blogs on the internet: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/

Buy his book on Quantum Computing since Democritus: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Comput...

Follow me on Twitter to get updates on future episodes and guests: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp


Timestamps

0:00 Intro

0:33 Journey through high school and college

12:37 Early work

19:15 Why quantum computing took so long

33:30 Contributions from outside academia

38:18 Busy beaver function

53:50 New quantum algorithms

1:03:30 Clusters

1:06:23 Complexity and economics

1:13:26 Creativity

1:24:07 Advice to young people

Nov 20, 202001:27:05
11: Scott Young - Ultralearning

11: Scott Young - Ultralearning

I had a blast chatting with Scott Young about aggressive self-directed learning. Scott is the author of Ultralearning and famous for the MIT Challenge, where he taught himself MIT's 4 year Computer Science curriculum in 1 year. Scott has some of the best advice out there about learning hard things. It has helped yours truly prepare to interview experts and dig into interesting subjects.  

Please share if you enjoy!  


Follow me on Twitter for new episodes and blog posts: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp 

Scott's website: https://www.scotthyoung.com/Buy 

Ultralearning: https://www.amazon.com/Ultralearning-Master-Outsmart-Competition-Accelerate/dp/006285268X/ 


00:00 Intro 

01:00 Einstein 

13:20 Age 

18:00 Transfer 

24:40 Compounding 

34:00 Depth vs context 

40:50 MIT challenge 

1:00:50 Focus

1:10:00 Role models 

1:20:30 Progress studies 

1:24:25 Early work and ambition 

1:28:18 Advice for 20 yr old 

1:35:00 Raising a genius baby?

Nov 16, 202001:38:58
10: Charles Murray - Human Accomplishment and the Future of Liberty

10: Charles Murray - Human Accomplishment and the Future of Liberty

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/yYtyKmPZBto

I ask Charles Murray about Human Accomplishment, By The People, and The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead.  

Follow me on Twitter to be notified of future content: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp  

Follow Charles Murray: https://twitter.com/charlesmurray 

Read Human Accomplishment: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Accomplishment-Pursuit-Excellence-Sciences/dp/0060929642  

Read The Curmudgeon's Guide: https://www.amazon.com/Curmudgeons-Guide-Getting-Ahead-Behavior-ebook/dp/B00GL3PZ0K/  

Read By the People: https://www.amazon.com/People-Rebuilding-Liberty-Without-Permission/dp/0385346530  

0:00 Intro 

1:00 Writing Human Accomplishment 

6:30 The Lotka curve, age, and miracle years 

10:38 Habits of the greats (hard work) 

15:22 Focus and explore in your 20s 

19:57 Living in Thailand 

23:02 Peace, wealth, and golden ages 

26:02 East, west, and religion 

30:38 Christianity and the Enlightenment 

34:44 Institutional sclerosis 

37:43 Antonine Rome, decadence, and declining accomplishment 

42:13 Crisis in social science 

45:40 Can secular humanism win? 

55:00 Future of Christianity 

1:03:30 Liberty and accomplishment 

1:06:08 By the People 

1:11:17 American exceptionalism 

1:14:49 Pessimism about reform 

1:18:43 Can libertarianism be resuscitated? 

1:25:18 Trump's deregulation and judicial nominations 

1:28:11 Beating the federal government  

1:32:05 Why don't big companies have a litigation fund? 

1:34:05 Getting around the Halo effect 

1:36:07 What happened to the Madison fund? 

1:37:00 Future of liberty 

1:41:00 Public sector unions 

1:43:43 Andrew Yang and UBI 

1:44:36 Groundhog Day 

1:47:05 Getting noticed as a young person 

1:50:48 Passage from Human Accomplishment

Oct 28, 202001:52:19
9: Alex Tabarrok - Prizes, Prices, and Public Goods

9: Alex Tabarrok - Prizes, Prices, and Public Goods

I ask Alex Tabarrok about the Grand Innovation Prize, the Baumol effect, and Dominant Assurance Contracts.

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University and with Tyler Cowen a founder of the online education platform http://MRU.org.

Follow me on Twitter for my podcast and blog: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

Follow Alex Tabarrok: https://twitter.com/ATabarrok

Alex Tabarrok's and Tyler Cowen's excellent blog: https://marginalrevolution.com/ 

00:00 Intro 

00:34 Grand Innovation Prize 

08:45 Prizes vs grants 

14:10 Baumol effect 

27:50 On Bryan Caplan's case against education 

31:35 Scaling education online 

48:50 Declining research productivity 

52:15 Dominant Assurance Contracts 

58:40 Future of governance

1:04:05 On Robin Hanson's Futarchy

1:06:02 Beating Adam Smith

1:08:35 Our Warfare-Welfare State 

1:19:30 The Great Stagnation vs The Innovation Renaissance 

1:21:40 Advice to 20 year old

Oct 19, 202001:26:02
8: Caleb Watney - America's Innovation Engine

8: Caleb Watney - America's Innovation Engine

Caleb Watney is the director of innovation policy at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Caleb's Twitter: https://twitter.com/calebwatney

Caleb's new blog: https://www.agglomerations.tech/

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

My blog: https://dwarkesh.substack.com/

00:20 America's innovation engine is slowing

01:02 Remote work/ agglomeration effects

08:45 Chinese vs American innovation 

16:23 Reforming institutions 

19:00 Tom Cotton's critique of high skilled Immigration

22:26 Eric Weinstein's critique of high skilled Immigration

26:02 Reforming H1-B

30:30 Immigration during recession

32:55 Big tech / AI

38:20 EU regulation 

40:07 Biden vs Trump 

42:30 Federal R & D 

47:20 Climate megaprojects 

49:35 Falling fertility rates 

52:20 Advice to 20 yr old

Sep 04, 202055:06
7: Robin Hanson - The Long View

7: Robin Hanson - The Long View

Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the author of The Elephant in the Brain and The Age of Em.  

Robin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhanson

Robin's blog: https://www.overcomingbias.com/ 

Robin's website: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/home.html

My blog: https://dwarkeshpatel.com/

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

00:05 The long view 

15:07 Subconscious vs conscious intelligence 

20:28 Meditators 

26:50 Signaling, norms, and motives 

36:50 Conversation 

42:54 2020 election nominees 

49:25 Nerds in startups and social science 

54:50 Academia and Robin 

58:20 Dominance explains paternalism 

1:09:32 Remote work 

1:21:26 Advice for 20 yr old 

1:28:05 Idea futures 

1:32:13 Reforming institutions


Aug 31, 202001:40:29
6: Jason Crawford - The Roots of Progress

6: Jason Crawford - The Roots of Progress

Jason Crawford writes at The Roots of Progress about the history of technology and industry and the philosophy of progress.   

Jason's website: https://jasoncrawford.org/ 

The Roots of Progress: https://rootsofprogress.org/  

Jason's Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasoncrawford


My Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp

My Website: https://dwarkeshpatel.com

Aug 25, 202048:38
5: Matjaž Leonardis - Science, Identity, and Probability

5: Matjaž Leonardis - Science, Identity, and Probability

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/fTfDZO-p5Fo

Matjaž Leonardis has cowritten a paper with David Deutsch about the Popper-Miller Theorem. We talk about that, as well as the dangers of the scientific identify, the nature of scientific progress, and advice for young people who want to be polymaths.  

Matjaž's excellent Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatjazLeonardis 

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp 

My blog: dwarkeshpatel.com

Aug 22, 202034:33
4: Tyler Cowen - The Great Reset

4: Tyler Cowen - The Great Reset

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ayUZreGysTo               

Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Director of the Mercatus Center.   


0:00 The Great Reset 

2:58 Growth and the cyclical view of history 

4:00 Time horizons, growth, and sustainability 

5:30 Space travel 

8:11 WMDs and end of humanity 

10:57 Common sense morality 

12:20 China and authoritarianism 

13:45 Are big businesses complacent?

17:15 Online education vs university 

20:45 Aesthetic decline in West Virginia 

23:20 Advice for young people 

25:18 Mentors 

27:15 Identifying talent 

29:50 Can adults change? 

31:45 Capacity to change men vs women 

33:10 Are effeminate societies better? 

35:15 Conservatives and progress 

36:50 Biggest mistake in history 

39:05 Nuke in my lifetime 

40:35 Age and learning 

42:45 Pessimistic future 

43:50 Optimistic future 

46:28 Closing

Jul 10, 202047:04
3: Paul Frazee (Creator of BeakerBrowser) - Building the Future of the Web
Jun 12, 202054:12
2: Charlie Jungheim (aka Hermes of Reason) - Reason and Emotion

2: Charlie Jungheim (aka Hermes of Reason) - Reason and Emotion

The YouTuber Charlie Junghiem (aka Hermes of Reason) talks with me about inexplicit and explicit ideas, the link between reason and meditation, our political and emotional responses to COVID, and Black Lives Matter.  

 Charlie makes really awesome and funny YouTube videos about Popperian and Deutschian philosophy.

Follow him on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDCrUxqE3ThHrmLYsuM9fLQ/featured 

and Twitter: https://twitter.com/hermesofreason

Jun 09, 202001:28:41
1: Bryan Caplan - Nurturing Orphaned Ideas

1: Bryan Caplan - Nurturing Orphaned Ideas

For the inaugural episode of the podcast, Bryan Caplan talks with me about open borders, the idea trap, UBI, appeasement, China, the education system, and his next two books on poverty and housing regulation. 

Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a New York Times Bestselling author. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education, and Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration.

May 22, 202059:60