Affix

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Chris wants to get into micro-grids. If you know anything about them please tell me! Our main article is about jobs that pay in status instead of money.

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets
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The year ahead - by the RBA. Chris got the gist, maybe you will too?

Context is that which is scarce. Also apparently editors? I feel like that sentence could be much snappier?

Minds almost meeting - a podcast of two highly intelligent and unorthodox thinkers recorded at the bottom of the ocean via two cans on a string

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This will be the last of our regularly scheduled episode. As our lives ramp up and we take on different responsibilities we have decided to take a break from our schedule. We may come back from time to time, so if you'll have us in your feed, we'd love to stay!

This week we mostly talk about ways we could use more energy after Matt Yglesias convinced us that we should


You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

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Winners take all - a commentary on billionaire philanthropy by Anand Giridharadas

Chris' fancy coffee machine - The Delonghi Dinamica S vs X-men

Technology connections and Malcom Gladwell both love dishwashers!

80,000 hours rates climate change as  "This is a pressing problem to work on, but you may be able to have an even bigger impact by working on something else."

Plasma cutters cut steel beems using electricity, contrary to what some say.

Brian becomes a world record holder! He's not any more, but he was!!!!!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

This week we discuss what's gone wrong with science and the replication crisis. We also discuss how inequality may improve life globally riffing off Scott Sumner.


You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

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A plug for effective altruism - the statistical life you can save is still a life!

Dominic Cummins has thoughts on how to make the government actually control the government again.

Max the axe sure loved firing public servants.

The data colada blog broke the story of the dishonesty in Dan Ariely's work on dishonesty.

Psychology's "priming" is probably not real

Diablo 2 resurrected has finally been released!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

This week we discuss why the internet intelligentsia really do not like the Australian lockdowns (each word is a different link, that's how much they hate us).

I try to explain to Brian why Slime Mold Time Mold thinks we're getting fat. Something to do with chemicals?

Brian is launching his world famous youtube channel!!!

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

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Stubborn Attachments - by Tyler Cowen. If we think that future lives are as valuable as our own, then economic growth is one of the highest moral imperatives. (Funny that an economist would have that thesis)

A history of factory safety - possible pre-reading for a future episode!

I tried to find a reference for my story about mega-yacht story, but I did find an article explaining how much yacht you can afford! I can afford a dinghy.

John Howard sacked many high-ranking public servants upon coming to power in the night of the long knives

The Jolly Swagman podcast has a fascinating episode on Australia's (botched) vaccine rollout.

Ben and James from Exponant discuss the idea that you have to make your priority stack explicit when thinking about complicated issues.

Why are we getting fat?

Doomsday by Nero, what a banger

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

After opening this discussion saying we have no feedback or followup we spend half this podcast musing on questions raised about government power and growth. Our main topic this week is how politics isn't as bad as you think. You're allowed to not vote for someone because you don't like their tax policies, you don't have to paint them as an existensial threat to our entire way of life.

If you know whether an Australian minister can fire a public servant we really want to know!!

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

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The giving what we can pledge is a movement founded by EA to encourage giving 10% of their income and then not feeling like you have to keep doing "more"

The case against crisis-mongering - our main topic curtesy of Matty Glesias (or maybe Matt Yglesias, no one knows)

Fight club perfectly encapsulated the post-cold war malaise of the late 90s

Go find Brian on youtube talking about diablo 2 speed runs! (what else)

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

This week we once again revisit the topic of wealth and income inequality, first through the lens of cryptocurrency and then through the lens of if it matters at all (I mean....probably...at least a bit).

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

Digitization and the demand for physical books

Nintendo sues a ROM website and wins.....not that much money compared to the size of Ninentdo

If this podcast has no other impact than getting more subscribers to pay for green-fleet then I shall consider it a massive success

Against overuse of the gini coefficient - Vitalik Buterin including the chart we said we'd link

The Motte and Bailey arugment is everything wrong with political debate in 2020?

Should we care about wealth inequality?

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A discussion of aging and wisdom, more forms of government that we should try, and Chris exhorts you, yes you specifically, to become a billionaire.

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

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I'm just going to put a link to Marginal Revolution here. I feel like all we do is reference blogs we found there first.

Rob Wiblin is the director of research at 80,000 hours. He makes podcasts of about that length regularly.

Paul Graham (not Marc Andresson) muses on life is short.

Wait but why on being in the tail end of many important experiences in your life

The eleventh podcast about the Menzies government. Finally I have something to listen to.

You should be a billionaire - and if you do, don't forget our top tier Patreon!

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

Our major topic this week is on Tricameral Legislatures by slime-mold time-mold. What if instead of 2 branches of government we had 3? According to this article, something either very silly, or possibly a little profound.

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

Could a issue and project tracking system work outside of software?

Using prediction markets to fund investigative journalism

The 80,000 hours podcast. I know our podcast can go long, but 80,000 hours might be too long.....

Don't read this article if you want to know why denim is blue. It's useless.

The culture wars are long wars. Millenials and Gen X are drastically losing their religion compared to other generations

Hello Internet - the quintessential "two guys talking" and an inspiration for this podcast

So many world records you'd think it's an leap year. Which raises the question, when will Diablo II speedrunning be recognised as an olympic sport?

Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

Our main topics this week are Brian pushing back to the tyranny of merit on the Jolly Swagman podcast. Brian actually recorded an entire rant on this, but has mellowed to the point where we're willing to share his musings with you. Chris found Noah Smith's interview with Marc Andreesen fascinating and used it to kick off 7 million tangents.


You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

The Dutch East Indies are a real colony that did exist.

The Standards Store is also something that exists, which is crazy to me.

The Internet's Own Boy - a story of an amazing man who was taken from us too soon

On Cultural Progress - A pushback to the article discussed in Episode 24 by super-listener SurelyKnott

Napolean was the best general ever according to a hard to scrutinise machine learning algorithms

It's time to build and technology saves the world. Marc Andreeson sure loves the tech industry, but he makes some good points.

Just in Time manufacturing and Lean Manufacturing. Chris's original career

Nassim Taleb's Black Paper trashing bitcoin 

 Please contact us or support us on Patreon!

We are moving the show to fortnightly. We still love you all, it's just a lot of work (mostly for Brian)

This week we talk about total factor productivity growth, and whether higher wages (through worker power, alternatives like UBI or minimum wage laws) cause greater innovation. Chris forgets that the Dutch had colonies despite his Oma (grandmother) growing up in one, and we discuss peak culture, and whether the Affix Podcast actually *is* peak culture and it's all downhill from here.

You can also find us on discord or reddit

Big list of coffee bets - now also on Melange app.

9 is unlucky in Japan, not China -  in Japan specifically, the number 9 is a bad-luck number that sounds like “suffering” when spoken aloud

Our main article by Noah Smith on total factor productivity growth.

Hotels are investing in robot vacuum cleaners.

Labour cost differences during the industrial revolution.

The superstar effect vs unions.

Brian's topic this week is "This is what peak culture looks like"

The Three Body Problem - an amazingly imaginative science fiction trilogy.

Why didn't we invent the bicycle a hundred years earlier?