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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 Jul 15, 2019
006 | Libra, crypto, and the future of humanity
Monday Jul 15, 2019
Monday Jul 15, 2019
Gianluca and Jared are joined by crypto expert Thomas Tumiel in a discussion about the details of Facebook’s new Libra cryptocurrency. They give a brief primer on the fundamentals of blockchains and cryptography, examine how Libra is implemented (compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum), discuss Facebook’s strategy for rollout, consider possible failure modes, and contrast the dystopian and utopian outcomes of a truly global cryptocurrency.
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Shownotes:
Mined For Change: https://minedforchange.org/
AI and Crypto Soc: https://www.facebook.com/UCTCryptoSoc/
Libra announcement: https://libra.org/en-US/
Early rumours about Libra: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17332894/facebook-blockchain-group-employee-reshuffle-restructure-david-marcus-kevin-weil and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/facebook-is-said-to-develop-stablecoin-for-whatsapp-transfers
Facebook crypto job postings: https://www.coindesk.com/facebook-is-hiring-5-new-staff-members-for-its-blockchain-team
Intro to Blockchain (from 3blue1brown): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4
“How does the blockchain work” by D’Aliessi on Medium:
Hash functions: https://medium.com/@isuruj/introduction-to-hashing-5b4daf343889 and
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-hashing/
Merkle Trees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree
Transaction times across different blockchains: https://medium.com/@johnhinkle_80891/the-fastest-cryptocurrency-transaction-speeds-for-2018-498c1baf87ef
Libra technical whitepaper: https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra-blockchain.pdf
Smart contracts (e.g. on Ethereum): https://blockgeeks.com/guides/smart-contracts/
“On the blockchain, nobody knows you’re a fridge” —Richard Gendal Brown: https://gendal.me/about/
Gas prices: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gas-ethereum.asp
Cloud computing on the blockchain vs. with cloud service providers (AWS, Google, etc.): https://medium.com/@eternacapital/blockchain-based-decentralised-cloud-computing-277f307611e1
Facebook (instagram + whatsapp) daily active users: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
Superforecasting by Phillip Tetlock: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23995360-superforecasting
Prediction markets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Civilisational Inadequacy: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zsG9yKcriht2doRhM/inadequacy-and-modesty
Efficient markets: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/efficientmarkethypothesis.asp
Shorting the market: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/shortselling.asp
WeChat and its ubiquity in China: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16721230/wechat-china-app-mini-programs-messaging-electronic-id-system
“Critical Vulnerability” pull request: https://cryptonews.com/news/cryptoverse-reached-level-9000-in-trolling-facebook-and-libr-4071.htm
Monday Jul 08, 2019
005 | Habit Frameworks and Sleep
Monday Jul 08, 2019
Monday Jul 08, 2019
Gianluca outlines his new Habit Formation Framework and future habit-related projects, Jared discusses his heuristics and hacks for a good day, and they both examine the consequences of sleep deprivation—especially on (medical) students.
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Shownotes:
“Atomic Habits” by James Clear : www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121378-atomic-habits
Loving Kindness meditation : https://www.headspace.com/meditation/compassion
Oak meditation/breathing app : https://www.oakmeditation.com/
ASMR : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response
Five-minute favour : https://www.forbes.com/sites/kareanderson/2013/07/17/pay-it-forward-with-the-five-minute-favor/#74088b596f5d
80000 Hours mega-article on how to be successful in any career : https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-be-successful
Art of Manliness episode on storytelling : https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-tell-better-stories/
“Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_
Oura Ring : https://ouraring.com
“Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker, PhD : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep
Matthew Walker on Joe Rogan : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwaWilO_Pig
Matthew Walker on FoundMyFitness (with Dr. Rhonda Patrick) : https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/matthew-walker
W.S. Halstead, the founder of the residency programme (and a drug addict) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stewart_Halsted
Neal Stephenson, a legendary Sci-fi author : https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/545.Neal_Stephenson
The Story Collider Podcast : https://www.storycollider.org/podcasts
No Such Thing As A Fish : https://audioboom.com/channel/nosuchthingasafish
The Wikicast : https://thewikicast.podbean.com/
Friday Jul 05, 2019
004 | Don't Ask a Genie to Cure Cancer
Friday Jul 05, 2019
Friday Jul 05, 2019
Gianluca and Jared speak about absurdism, existentialism, and an antidote to becoming bored with the world. They then think out loud about direction versus random walks as well as their visions for the long term future of humanity and how to even think about these kinds of massive questions. They also touch on attention and what it would mean to use it well, all things considered, some of the basics of Transhumanism, and what single thing each of us would wish for to give humanity its best chance at thriving!
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Shownotes:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Absurdism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Existentialism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/
Some great videos from The School of Life about Existentialism: ‘Philosophy - Sartre’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bQsZxDQgzU and ‘Existentialism and Dating’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcniOW0wc5k
Kurt Vonnegut books: ‘Slaughterhouse Five’: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4981.Slaughterhouse_Five and ‘Breakfast of Champions’: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4980.Breakfast_of_Champions
Bonus: Jared’s favourite article introducing a key concept related to Transhumanism: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/03/cryonics.html
80 000 Hours on why we should value the long term future: https://80000hours.org/articles/future-generations/ as well as a podcast episode (from the 80 000 Hours podcast) on a similar topic: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/why-the-long-run-future-matters-more-than-anything-else-and-what-we-should-do-about-it/ and a strong argument for thinking about existential risk: https://80000hours.org/articles/extinction-risk/
Book ‘The Art of Doing Science and Engineering’: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/530415.The_Art_of_Doing_Science_and_Engineering
‘The Last Question’, a short story by Isaac Asimov: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4808763-the-last-question P.S. a great reading can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0
‘Do Spoilers Change a Person's Enjoyment of a Television Show?’ https://digital.usfsp.edu/masterstheses/166/ and ‘Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories’ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797611417007?journalCode=pssa - two studies suggesting maybe spoilers aren’t as bad as we think? (that being said, don’t try me - Jared)
Jared’s current favourite explanation of the Buddhist concept of ‘emptiness’ comes from this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32895535-why-buddhism-is-true
A great, short video explaining some aspects of the Fermi Paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc (part 1), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fQkVqno-uI (part 2) and a bonus on the Great Filter hypothesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM
Wednesday Jul 03, 2019
003 | Synaesthesia and the Butterfly Effect of Remembrance
Wednesday Jul 03, 2019
Wednesday Jul 03, 2019
Gianluca and Jared record their first face-to-face episode! They think out loud about how to deduce germ theory as a hunter gatherer, why having interesting conversations is about making people interesting, not meeting interesting people, and finally speculate about why we might have a sense of self and whether it's outlived its usefulness!
Shownotes:
The (minimal) effects of creatine on cognitive performance : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21118604 and https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-005-0269-z
Tim Ferriss on morning routines : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHAyE0UC5I4
All the evidence for the efficacy and safety of creatine supplementation : https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/
Sam Harris’ guide to meditation : https://samharris.org/how-to-meditate/
Dr. Satchin Panda on Practical Implementation of Time-Restricted Eating (from FoundMyFitness podcast with Dr. Rhonda Patrick) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iywhaz5z0qs
Germ Theory (of disease) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease
Lactase Persistence : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence
Sonder, from Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows : https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/23536922667/sonder
Robert Wright’s “Why Buddhism is True” : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32895535-why-buddhism-is-true?from_search=true
Synaesthesia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia
The superior verbal memory span of Mandarin speakers due to faster rehearsal : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5880866/
Albert Camus : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
“Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” by Eliezer Yudkowsky : http://www.hpmor.com/
“Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!”, a great biography of the brilliant Richard Feynman : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35167685-surely-you-re-joking-mr-feynman
Jocko Willink (podcast) : http://jockopodcast.com/
Sam Harris (podcast) : https://samharris.org/
Steelmanning (with Sam Harris and Jordan B. Peterson) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh-DKbKlfag
Tuesday Jul 02, 2019
002 | Self-aware doorways & dog-space
Tuesday Jul 02, 2019
Tuesday Jul 02, 2019
Jared and Gianluca compare notes on their favourite productivity strategies and mindfulness techniques. They also explore the rhetorical bias of wisdom and the rationalist interpretation of cached thoughts; before making ill-advised attempts at explaining the nebulous concepts of "Idea Space" and "Short Inferential Distances".
Shownotes:
‘Getting Things Done’ book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1633.Getting_Things_Done?from_search=true
‘Eat That Frog’ book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95887.Eat_That_Frog_
Prediction Markets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
Read more about becoming an expert predictor with the ‘Superforecasting’ book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23995360-superforecasting?ac=1&from_search=true
HighExistence website: https://highexistence.com/ and 30 day challenge: https://jimmanueljoseph.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/30-challenges-to-enlightenment-high-existence/
Book ‘Algorithms To Live By’ on using computer science to make decisions: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25666050-algorithms-to-live-by
LessWrong post on “Cached Thoughts”,. We also talk about ‘cached replies’ a bit later in the podcast: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached-thoughts
The idea of ‘research debt’ and translating ideas: https://distill.pub/2017/research-debt/
Book ‘Elements of Eloquence’: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17415726-the-elements-of-eloquence
Book on habits and identity, ‘Atomic Habits’: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121378-atomic-habits
LessWrong post on ‘Expecting Short Inferential Distances’: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HLqWn5LASfhhArZ7w/expecting-short-inferential-distances