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Two aspiring rationalists bring you mind-bending ideas from science, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and medicine. Whether you enjoy wide-ranging discussions or are looking to upgrade your reasoning and critical thinking skills, this podcast will satisfy your intellectual hunger and sharpen your skeptical eye.
Episodes
Monday Aug 19, 2019
011 | Slack, attention and focus - or why more is less
Monday Aug 19, 2019
Monday Aug 19, 2019
This week on Bit of A Tangent we discuss the little known but unbelievably important concept of ‘slack’ - what it is, why having too little of it can be deadly and how to get more of it!
We also discuss the difference between attention and awareness and how can help you live a more engaged life, a simple rule of thumb to know when you’re using your time on earth well, and a quick trick to train your mind to dive straight into deep focus when you need to!
Lastly, we discuss how we’ve set up our personal devices to get the most out of them while minimising distractions and as a bonus this episode we mention two other podcasts we’re loving at the moment!
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Shownotes:
Slack and the Sabbath sequence by Zvi on Lesswrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/HXkpm9b8o964jbQ89
Main Lesswrong post on ‘slack’: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/HXkpm9b8o964jbQ89/p/yLLkWMDbC9ZNKbjDG
Farnam Street Mental models: https://fs.blog/mental-models/
Lying by Sam Harris: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18869177-lying
Jared’s essay on Algorithms: https://jaredtumiel.github.io/2019-08-11-use-algorithms/
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40672036-digital-minimalism?ac=1&from_search=true
The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25942786-the-mind-illuminated?ac=1&from_search=true
Naval Ravikant’s tweetstorm (some ideas mentioned definitely came from here): https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103360646823936
Deep work by Cal Newport:: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work?ac=1&from_search=true
Stayfocused (android app): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stayfocused&hl=en_US
StayFocusd - chrome website blocker: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji
David Epstein – Wide or Deep? - [Invest Like the Best, EP.133]https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/david-epstein-wide-or-deep-invest-like-the-best-ep-133/id1154105909?i=1000439925357
Good One: A Podcast About Jokes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1203393721
Monday Aug 12, 2019
010 | Flow states, optimal performance, and PhD hunter-gathering
Monday Aug 12, 2019
Monday Aug 12, 2019
A deep-dive into the Flow state. Gianluca and Jared discuss the physiology and psychology of being in “the zone,” and the decades of research behind this state of optimal cognitive and physical performance. They also trade hypotheses about how and why the Flow state may have evolved, using the model of cultural evolution within hunter-gatherer tribes.
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Shownotes:
Flow psychology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
6 components of Flow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)#Components
Free soloing (a perfect example of a high-risk flow activity): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7775622/
Anders Ericsson’s 10,000-hour theory: https://www.businessinsider.co.za/anders-ericsson-how-to-become-an-expert-at-anything-2016-6
[We couldn’t find the quote about abusing a tool]
Shower thoughts: https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/
Origins of the term “silver bullet”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet
An article discussing the McKinsey study on flow: https://hbr.org/2014/05/create-a-work-environment-that-fosters-flow
A brief primer on adrenaline, cortisol, and stress responses: https://www.livestrong.com/article/207432-adrenaline-cortisol/
Big 5 personality traits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
Neuroticism and Flow:
Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Challenge_vs_skill.svg
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the Father of Flow): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
Carl Jung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
Flow state and life satisfaction: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beautiful-minds/201111/who-enters-flow
Hedonic adaptation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
The exploitation of Flow states in video game design: https://medium.com/@raydaz/the-applications-relevance-of-flow-state-design-in-video-games-1572dac0d2c
Scott Alexander’s SlateStarCodex post which inspired Gianluca’s “PhD Hunter” idea: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/
Nobody on earth can build a pencil from scratch: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/i-pencil/
Monday Aug 05, 2019
009 | How to Win Friends and Influence Reality
Monday Aug 05, 2019
Monday Aug 05, 2019
This episode looks at how to disrupt social dynamics. Gianluca and Jared consider the properties of social modes and narratives, examine Don Hoffman’s theory of fictitious reality and its evolutionary origins, and discuss ways to overcome your social limits through psychological hacks like self-characterisation and frame shifting.
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Shownotes:
The Seven Basic Plots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
The Hero’s Journey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
The Map is Not The Territory: https://fs.blog/2015/11/map-and-territory/
Sam Harris on the Illusion of Free Will: https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/
Carl Sagan (a classical rationalist): https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Dragon_in_My_Garage
Mandatory Eliezer Yudkowsky link: https://www.lesswrong.com/users/eliezer_yudkowsky
The Map is Not the Territory (on LessWrong.com): https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory
The “Infinite” Coastline Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
Mental models: https://fs.blog/mental-models/
Intuitive (naïve) physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_physics
Human’s bias towards negative thoughts and emotions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
Don Hoffman—Reality Isn’t—on the After On podcast: https://after-on.com/episodes/026
Friston’s Free Energy Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_principle
Frame shift video with Tyrion (from Charisma on Command): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NQiHtbpa8s
Derren Brown: http://derrenbrown.co.uk/derren/
Derren’s interview on the Sam Harris podcast: https://samharris.org/podcasts/143-keys-mind/
Lying by Sam Harris (our favourite essay/book on honesty): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18869177-lying
The episode where we deep-dive on lying: https://www.podtangent.com/e/001-you-don-t-want-to-be-the-people-in-friends/
Information asymmetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_asymmetry
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Corrections:
Derren Brown was on the Sam Harris podcast, not the Tim Ferriss Show. See link above.
Monday Jul 29, 2019
008 | Design Your Workouts, but Evolve Your Algorithms!
Monday Jul 29, 2019
Monday Jul 29, 2019
In this episode, Jared and Gianluca throw caution to the wind and discuss their most controversial topic yet: what they think might be the best way to exercise! Specifically, they summarise the thesis behind the book ‘Body By Science’ by John Little and Doug McGuff and reveal their own workout routines. Along the way they also explore the field of evolutionary programming and genetic algorithms (hint: Gianluca just published his research paper on the topic!) and what these techniques could bring to the design of complex structures and systems!
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SHOWNOTES:
Gianluca’s research paper - “Warfarin dose estimation on multiple datasets with automated hyperparameter optimisation and a novel software framework”: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.05363
Genetic programming/evolutionary algorithms: http://www.cs.montana.edu/~bwall/cs580/introduction_to_gp.pdf
Evolved wind-turbines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZUNRmwoijw
Random walk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stgYW6M5o4k
Monte Carlo simulation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0F3S-46bIQ
Robin Hanson book - “The Elephant in The Brain”: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in-the-brain
Robin Hanson blog on signalling: http://www.overcomingbias.com/tag/signaling
Julia Galef’s podcast, “Rationally Speaking”: http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/
The halo effect: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Halo_effect
Body by Science: A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week by John Little, Doug McGuff: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4642174-body-by-science
A podcast by Tim Ferriss on the so-called “1-minute workout”: https://tim.blog/2017/01/23/the-one-minute-workout-designed-by-scientists-dr-martin-gibala/
Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan Experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI
Via negativa thinking (and other mental models) at Farnam Street Blog: https://fs.blog/mental-models/
Lateral shoulder raises tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5sNYB1Q6aM
Dr Rhonda Patrick on sauna use and heat: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/biohacker-summit-2016
Monday Jul 22, 2019
007 | Game Theory, Alignment, and Civilisational Inadequacy
Monday Jul 22, 2019
Monday Jul 22, 2019
In this episode, Jared and Gianluca introduce the fundamentals of Game Theory; before examining the AI alignment problem, civilisational inadequacy, and Moloch—the mythical characterisation of all things suboptimal. This episode makes heavy reference to an article called "Meditations on Moloch", from Scott Alexander’s SlateStarCodex blog. We highly recommend it.
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Shownotes:
SlateStarCodex article on Moloch : https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Background on the myth of Moloch : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch
Alan Ginsberg’s poem on Moloch : https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl
Game Theory : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
Prisoner’s Dilemma : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
Tragedy of the Commons : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Bostrom’s Vulnerable World Hypothesis : https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf
The AI Alignment Problem : https://intelligence.org/stanford-talk/
Stanislav Petrov, the Russian who prevented a nuclear war : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov