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#179 – Randy Nesse on why evolution left us so vulnerable to depression and anxiety
Mental health problems like depression and anxiety affect enormous numbers of people and severely interfere with their lives. By contrast, we don’t s…
2 years, 1 month ago
#178 – Emily Oster on what the evidence actually says about pregnancy and parenting
"I think at various times — before you have the kid, after you have the kid — it's useful to sit down and think about: What do I want the shape of th…
2 years, 2 months ago
#177 – Nathan Labenz on recent AI breakthroughs and navigating the growing rift between AI safety and accelerationist camps
Back in December we spoke with Nathan Labenz — AI entrepreneur and host of The Cognitive Revolution Podcast — about the speed of progress towards AGI…
2 years, 2 months ago
#90 Classic episode – Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be
You wake up in a mysterious box, and hear the booming voice of God: “I just flipped a coin. If it came up heads, I made ten boxes, labeled 1 through …
2 years, 2 months ago
#112 Classic episode – Carl Shulman on the common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implications
Preventing the apocalypse may sound like an idiosyncratic activity, and it sometimes is justified on exotic grounds, such as the potential for humani…
2 years, 2 months ago
#111 Classic episode – Mushtaq Khan on using institutional economics to predict effective government reforms
If you’re living in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, your best bet at a high-paying career is probably ‘artisanal refining’ — or, in plain language, steal…
2 years, 2 months ago
2023 Mega-highlights Extravaganza
Happy new year! We've got a different kind of holiday release for you today. Rather than a 'classic episode,' we've put together one of our favourite…
2 years, 3 months ago
#100 Classic episode – Having a successful career with depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome
Today’s episode is one of the most remarkable and really, unique, pieces of content we’ve ever produced (and I can say that because I had almost noth…
2 years, 3 months ago
#176 – Nathan Labenz on the final push for AGI, understanding OpenAI's leadership drama, and red-teaming frontier models
OpenAI says its mission is to build AGI — an AI system that is better than human beings at everything. Should the world trust them to do that safely?…
2 years, 3 months ago
#175 – Lucia Coulter on preventing lead poisoning for $1.66 per child
Lead is one of the most poisonous things going. A single sugar sachet of lead, spread over a park the size of an American football field, is enough t…
2 years, 3 months ago