Razib Khan is a writer, geneticist, and blogger with an interest in history, genetics, culture, and evolutionary psychology.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Podcast website here.Follow Razib on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes

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Time Stamps

(0:00:05) Razib's Background

(0:01:34) Dysgenics of Intelligence

(0:04:23) Endogamy and Genetic traits in India

(0:08:58) Similar Examples of Endogamy

(0:14:28) Why So Many Brahmin CEOs

(0:19:55) Razib the Globe Trotter, Geography Expert

(0:25:04) Male/Female Genetic Variance

(0:30:04) Agricultural Man and Our Tiny Brains

(0:34:40) The Church of Science

(0:42:33) Professorship, a family business

(0:44:23) Long History

(0:52:42) Future of Human-Computer Interfacing

(0:56:30) Near Future of Gene Editing

(0:59:19) Meta Questions and Closing

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Jimmy Soni is the author of The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website here.

Follow Jimmy on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes!

Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Bell Labs vs PayPal

(0:05:12) - Scenius in Ancient Rome and America's Founding

(0:07:02) - Girard at PayPal

(0:15:17) - Thiel almost shorts the Dot com bubble

(0:19:49) - Does Zero to One contradict PayPal's story?

(0:27:57) - Hilarious Russian hacker story

(0:29:06) - Why is Thiel so good at spotting talent?

(0:34:50) - Did PayPal make talent or discover it?

(0:40:40) - Japanese mafia invests in PayPal?!

(0:44:42) - Upcoming TV show on PayPal

(0:48:11) - Musk in ancient Rome

(0:52:12) - Why didn't Musk keep pursuing finance?

(0:56:32) - Why didn't the mafia get back together?

(1:00:06) - Jimmy's writing process

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I interview the economist Bryan Caplan about his new book, Labor Econ Versus the World, and many other related topics.

Bryan Caplan is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and a New York Times Bestselling author. His most famous works include: The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education, and Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Podcast website here.
Follow Bryan on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Intro

(0:00:33) - How many workers are useless, and why is labor force participation so low?

(0:03:47) - Is getting out of poverty harder than we think?

(0:10:43) - Are elites to blame for poverty?

(0:14:56) - Is human nature to blame for poverty?

(0:19:11) - Remote work and foreign wages

(0:24:43) - The future of the education system?

(0:29:31) - Do employers care about the difficulty of a curriculum?

(0:33:13) - Why do companies and colleges discriminate against Asians?

(0:42:01) - Applying Hanania's unitary actor model to mental health

(0:50:38) - Why are multinationals so effective?

(0:53:37) - Open borders and cultural norms

(0:58:13) - Is Tyler Cowen right about automation?

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Richard Hanania is the President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and the author of Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy: How Generals, Weapons Manufacturers, and Foreign Governments Shape American Foreign Policy.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website here.

Follow Richard on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Read Richard's Substack: https://richardhanania.substack.com/

Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Intro

(0:04:35) - Did war prevent sclerosis?

(0:06:05) - China vs America's grand strategy

(0:10:00) - Does the president have more power over foreign policy?

(0:11:30) - How to deter bad actors?

(0:15:39) - Do some countries have a coherent foreign policy?

(0:16:55) - Why does self-interest matter in foreign but not domestic policy? 

(0:21:05) - Should we limit money in politics?

(0:23:47) - Should we credit expertise for nuclear detante and global prosperity?

(0:28:45) - Have international alliances made us safer?

(0:31:57) - Why does academic bueracracy work in some fields?

(0:36:26) - Did academia suck even before diversity?

(0:39:34) - How do we get expertise in social sciences?

(0:42:19) - Why are things more liberal?

(0:43:55) - Why is big tech so liberal?

(0:47:53) - Authoritarian populism vs libertarianism

(0:51:40) - Can authoritarian governments increase fertility?

(0:54:54) - Will increasing fertility be dysgenic?

(0:56:43) - Will not having kids become cool?

(0:59:22) -Advice for libertarians?

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David Deutsch is the founder of the field of quantum computing and the author The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality.

Read me contra David on AI.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Read the full transcript with helpful links here.

Follow David on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future podcasts.

Timestamps

(0:00:00) - Will AIs be smarter than humans? 

(0:06:34) - Are intelligence differences immutable / heritable?

(0:20:13) - IQ correletation of twins seperated at birth

(0:27:12) - Do animals have bounded creativity?

(0:33:32) - How powerful can narrow AIs be?

(0:36:59) - Could you implant thoughts in VR?

(0:38:49) - Can you simulate the whole universe?

(0:41:23) - Are some interesting problems insoluble?

(0:44:59) - Does America fail Popper's Criterion?

(0:50:01) - Does finite matter mean there's no beginning of infinity?

(0:53:16) - The Great Stagnation

(0:55:34) - Changes in epistemic status is Popperianism

(0:59:29) - Open ended science vs gain of function

(1:02:54) - Contra Tyler Cowen on civilizational lifespan

(1:07:20) - Fun criterion

(1:14:16) - Does AGI through evolution require suffering?

(1:18:01) - Would David enter the Experience Machine?

(1:20:09) - (Against) Advice for young people

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Samo Burja is the founder of Bismarck Analysis and a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation. Samo writes and speaks about history, institutions, and strategy, and he is the creator of the Great Founder Theory of history.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website here.

Follow Samo's Twitter. Follow my twitter for updates on future episodes.

Subscribe to Bismarck Brief: https://brief.bismarckanalysis.com/

Thanks for reading The Lunar Society! Subscribe to find out about future episodes!

Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Intro

(0:00:17) - Are individuals causally responsible for history?

(0:04:34) - Was Napoleon a great founder?

(0:08:47) - What can great founder theory predict?

(0:11:17) - How many live players are there?

(0:15:40) - Is the market full of live players?

(0:18:37) - How to cozy up to both sides?

(0:22:58) - How do you become an intellectual?

(0:27:34) - Aligning incentives for intellectuals

(0:30:40) - What makes someone a great founder?

(0:39:29) - Why is the centralized internet inevitable?

(0:42:21) - Samo and I debate odds of civilizational collapse

(0:48:17) - Is GDP fake?

(0:56:52) - The world only has 1.5 civilizations

(0:59:32) - Advice to effective altruists

(1:02:30) - Advice to young people

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Rohit Krishnan is a venture capitalist who writes about "the strange loops underlying our systems of innovation" at https://www.strangeloopcanon.com. 

We discussed J. Storrs. Hall's book Where Is My Flying Car?

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website + transcript here.

Relevant essays from Rohit:

Review of Where Is My Flying Car

The Small Successes Of Nanotech
Isolated Narratives of Progress

Meditations On Regulations

Follow Rohit's Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Why don't we have flying cars?

(08:09) - Should we expect exponential growth?

(18:13) - Machiavelli Effect and centralization of science funding

(27:55) - We need more science fiction

(32:40) - The return of citizen science?

(37:40) - Have we grown too comfortable for progress?

(42:15) - Is India the future of innovation?

(47:15) - Is there an upper-income trap?

(50:30) - Forecasts for technologies

Timestamps:

00:00 Why don't we have flying cars?

08:09 Should we expect exponential growth?

18:13 Machiavelli Effect and centralization of science funding

27:55 We need more science fiction

32:40 The return of citizen science?

37:40 Have we grown too comfortable for progress?

42:15 Is India the future of innovation?

47:15 Is there an upper-income trap?

50:30 Forecasts for technologies

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Byrne Hobart writes The Diff, a newsletter about inflections in finance and technology with 24,000+ subscribers.  

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website here.
The Diff newsletter: https://diff.substack.com/

Follow Byrne on Twitter.

Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes!

Thanks for reading The Lunar Society! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Timestamps: 

(0:00:00) - Byrne's one big idea: stagnation 

(0:05:50) -Has regulation caused stagnation? 

(0:14:00) - FDA retribution 

(0:15:15) - Embryo selection 

(0:17:32) - Patient longtermism 

(0:21:02) - Are there secret societies? 

(0:26:53) - College, optionality, and conformity

(0:34:40) - Differentiated credentiations underrated? 

(0:39:15) - WIll contientiousness increase in value? 

(0:44:26) - Why aren't rationalists more into finance? 

(0:48:04) - Rationalists are bad at changing the world. 

(0:52:20) - Why read more? 

(0:57:10) - Does knowledge have increasing returns? 

(1:01:30) - How to escape the middle career trap? 

(1:04:48) - Advice for young people 

(1:08:40) - How to learn about a subject?

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Roger's Bacon is a pseudonymous blogger and the creator of the new Seeds of Science journal.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Seeds of Science: https://www.theseedsofscience.org/

Roger's Bacon blog: https://rogersbacon.substack.com/

Follow Roger's Bacon Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for more updates.

Timestamps

(0:00:05) - Who is Roger's Bacon?

(0:05:03) - The need for scientific diversity

(0:10:50) - Why are our institutions so homogenous?

(0:19:35) - In defense of cults

(0:24:05) - Does innovation require isolation?

(0:32:16) - Diversity of institutions vs individuals

(0:36:05) - Can we create weird secret societies?

(0:42:40) - Secret longtermists and pseudonymous thinkers

(0:46:50) - Science needs religion

(0:54:50) - How contingent is science

(0:59:05) - Seeds of Science

(1:09:50) - Randomness in science

(1:14:55) - Why committees suck

(1:21:05) - Resetting institutions and reinventing ideas

(1:32:30) - Teaching at a STEM high school

(1:53:01) - Big picture thinking vs technical skills

(1:58:55) - Finding blindspots

(2:01:57) - Being realistic about the far future

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

David Friedman is a famous anarcho-capitalist economist and legal scholar.  

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website + transcript here.
David Friedman's website: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps:

(0:00:00) - Dating market 

(0:12:15) - The future of reputation 

(0:27:30) - How Friedman predicted bitcoin 

(0:35:35) - Prediction markets 

(0:40:00) - Can regulation stop progress globally? 

(0:45:50) - Lack of diversity in modern legal systems 

(0:54:20) - Friedman's theory of property rights 

(1:01:50) - Charles Murray's scheme to fight regulations 

(1:06:25) -Property rights of the poor 

(1:09:07) - Automation 

(1:16:00) - Economics of medieval reenactment 

(1:19:00) - Advice for futurist young people

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