Moral Mayhem

In this episode, we talk about the difference between accepting and pathologizing sex differences, parsing the bell curve of the opposite sex, dynamics of the dating market, what pick up artists get right and more. In the last segment, we also talk about how the anti-woke crowd, that we usually agree with, are reading Andrew Huberman totally wrong.

Links to mentions:

Regan's appearance on Alex Kaschuta's podcast

Peter Attia interviews Andrew Huberman on his "life story"

Andrew Huberman interviewing James Hollis

Links and Resources:

Tickets to Regan's Salon: End of Faith by Sam Harris

Wikipedia: Karl Popper - Paradox of Intolerance

You can email us your thoughts, feedback or ideas for episodes to [email protected]

In this episode, we respond to Freddie DeBoer's case for socialism, in which he concedes that capitalism has driven massive welfare improvements, yet contends that it's rational to replace this process with a much more redistributive one now that society has made "sufficient" progress. We lay out all the reasons why we disagree and also hash out our mutual disagreements on the moral need for redistribution.

In this episode, we explore the question of why people value education? Do revealed preferences make a better case of education as a costly signal or a mechanism for human capital development? While it's obvious to most people that the answer is unlikely to be binary, we hash out our priors and work through some of the arguments for either side.

Links:

Malcolm Collins joins us to explore the alarming decline in fertility rates and its potential consequences for civilization. We discuss the role of religion and the rise of a "shadow religion" threatening to sterilize the world. 

Malcolm also shares his take on the implications of depopulation, the dangers of fascistic ideologies posing as progressivism, and the importance of a culture that values technology and pluralism in ensuring a flourish future.

Links and Resources

• Malcolm and Simone’s podcast: Based Camp Youtube, also on Substack, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
• Discord channel for pro-natalists
• Malcolm and Simone's books.
• The Collins Institute. 
• The Pragmatist Foundation.
• Regan's piece which Malcolm references.

In this episode, Regan and I talk about topics that have landed Canada, her homeland, in the news recently - immigration, euthanasia and yes...wokeness.

In this episode, we interview Sam Hammond, a senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation, about AI's potentially transformative impact on our institutions and economic growth. Sam shares his insights on how AI might affect centralization, coordination, and cooperation, drawing from his background in institutional economics. We explore various AI scenarios, the changing nature of value, and examine these issues through the lens of human evolution and meaning.

You can find and follow Sam's work on:
Twitter: @hamandcheese
Substack: Second Best
Foundation for American Innovation

In this episode, we explore why our career choices often fail to align with our stated values.  We discuss what helped each of us course correct and delve into the  interplay of money, meaning, and personal risk tolerance in career decisions. We explore the hidden influence of status quo bias, the strategic tradeoffs between intellectual stimulation, impact, and well-being, and the implications of discounting the quality of life in our later years. 

In this episode, we interview Bob Fischer,  a philosopher and senior researcher at Rethink Priorities. While discussing his work estimating the intensity of valenced states of farmed animals,  we touch on likelihood of sentience, hedonism as a theory of moral value, evolutionary functions of pleasure and pain, correlation between intelligence and intensity of experience states  We also discuss the implications of Bob's work for cause prioritization and how risk aversion should impact philanthropic allocations across human welfare, animal welfare and existential risk. 

Bob  is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University, a Senior Research Manager for Rethink Priorities, and the Director of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals. You can find him at https://www.bobfischer.net/.

Some of Bob's work that we enjoyed reading:
https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/dont-balk-at-animal-friendly-results
https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/welfare-range-estimates

Bob's recommended charities 
https://www.shrimpwelfareproject.org/
https://www.insectwelfare.com/