The brain is a complex machine, but some of us study its circuits and figure out its secrets. Anthony Zador joins Vasant Dhar in episode 35 of Brave New World to reveal what the cutting edge of neuroscience looks like. Useful resources: 1. Anthony Zador at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Google Scholar and Twitter. 2. Christof Koch on Amazon. 3. A critique of pure learning and what artificial neural networks can learn from animal brains -- Anthony Zador. 4. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence -- Hans Moravec. 5. The Nature of Intelligence -- Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann LeCun). 6. How the Mind Works -- Steven Pinker. 7. Ebbinghaus Illusion.

Social media is tearing us apart by feeding into our need for status. Can we mitigate its effects? Chris Bail joins Vasant Dhar in episode 34 of Brave New World to share his research on how social media affects us -- and how we can fight back. Useful resources 1. Chris Bail at Duke, Sanford School of Public Policy, Google Scholar, Amazon, Twitter and his own website. 2. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing -- Chris Bail. 3. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (with Sinan Aral). 4. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (with Jonathan Haidt). 5. Helena Rosenblatt on Liberalism’s Long Journey -- Episode 32 of Brave New World. 6. We Have Never Been Here Before -- Thomas L Friedman. 7. Adam Alter on Beating Our Addictions -- Episode 28 of Brave New World. 8. The Hype Machine -- Sinan Aral.

The value of a company has a lot to do with the stories it tells about itself. Aswath Damodaran joins Vasant Dhar in episode 33 of Brave New World to discuss how narratives and numbers are related. Useful Resources: 1. Aswath Damodaran on YouTube, Blogspot, Twitter, Amazon and NYU Stern. 2. Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business -- Aswath Damodaran. 3. The Innovator's Dilemma -- Clayton M Christensen. 4. A Disruptive Cab Ride to Riches: The Uber Payoff -- Aswath Damodaran. 5. How to Miss By a Mile: An Alternative Look at Uber’s Potential Market Size -- Bill Gurley. 6. Possible, Plausible and Probable: Big markets and Networking effects -- Aswath Damodaran. 7. Up, up and away! A crowd-valuation of Uber! -- Aswath Damodaran. 8. The Success Equation -- Michael J Mauboussin. 9. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction — Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 10. Philip Tetlock on the Art of Forecasting -- Episode 31 of Brave New World. 11. The Zomato IPO: A Bet on Big Markets and Platforms! -- Aswath Damodaran. 12. Reciprocal Scoring: A Method for Forecasting Unanswerable Questions — Ezra Karger, Joshua Monrad, Barb Mellers and Philip Tetlock. 13. Trafalgar Polls. 14. The Hedgehog and the Fox -- Isaiah Berlin. 15. The Big Market Delusion: Valuation and Investment Implications -- Bradford Cornell and Aswath Damodaran. 16. The Market is Huge! Revisiting the Big Market Delusion -- Aswath Damodaran.

What is liberal democracy and has it lost its way? Helena Rosenblatt joins Vasant Dhar in episode 32 of Brave New World to add a historical perspective to this modern problem in our illiberal and polarized world. Useful resources: 1. The Lost History of Liberalism -- Helena Rosenblatt. 2. Thinking with Rousseau: From Machiavelli to Schmitt -- Helena Rosenblatt. 3. Helena Rosenblatt on Amazon. 4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Amazon. 5. The Technology Wars -- Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan.) 6. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 7. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral). 8. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 9. Justice Antonin Scalia on American exceptionalism. 10. The Future of Liberal Education -- Episode 11 of Brave New World (w Michael S Roth).

Yogi Berra once said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Philip Tetlock joins Vasant Dhar in episode 31 of Brave New World to discuss what  superforecasters do consistently well -- and how we can improve our judgement and decision-making. Useful resources: 1. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 2. Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? -- Philip Tetlock. 3. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 4. Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer -- Duncan Watts. 5. The Hedgehog and the Fox -- Isiah Berlin. 6. What do forecasting rationales reveal about thinking patterns of top geopolitical forecasters? -- Christopher W Karvetski, Carolyn Meinel, Daniel T Maxwell, Yunzi Lu, Barbara A.Mellers and Philip E.Tetlock. 7. Terry Odean on How to Think about Investing -- Episode 23 of Brave New World. 8. Reciprocal Scoring: A Method for Forecasting Unanswerable Questions -- Ezra Karger, Joshua Monrad, Barb Mellers and Philip Tetlock. 9. The Signal and the Noise -- Nate Silver. 10. FiveThirtyEight.

Goodbye big banks. Hello crypto. The world of finance is in the process of changing forever, and David Yermack is your guide. Yermack joins Vasant Dhar in episode 30 of Brave New World to share his road map of, well, this brave new world! Useful resources: 1. David Yermack at NYU Stern and Google Scholar. 2. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 3. Linus's Law (from The Cathedral and the Bazaar). 4. The DAO hack mentioned in the episode.

More and more, the digital world is being designed to turn us into addicts. Adam Alter joins Vasant Dhar in episode 28 of Brave New World to describe the sinister ways in which this happens -- and what we can do about it. Useful resources: 1. Irresistible -- Adam Alter. 2. Drunk Tank Pink -- Adam Alter. 3. Dopamine Nation -- Anna Lembke. 4. Anna Lembke on Beating Dopamine -- Episode 26 of Brave New World. 5. Addiction by Design -- Natasha Dow Schüll. 6.  Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World. 7. Bias, Lies, and Democracy -- Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi). 8. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.

Andrew Yang supports some game-changing ideas, such as UBI and taxing robots, and they're rooted in a radical vision of what America's politics should be. Yang joins Vasant Dhar in episode 27 of Brave New World to explain why the system is broken -- and how it can be changed. Useful resources: 1. Andrew Yang on his website, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon. 2. Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy -- Andrew Yang. 3. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 4. Erik Brynjolfsson on the Second Machine Age -- Episode 18 of Brave New World.