Remake

TODAY'S GUEST

Jay McClelland is a Computational Cognitive Neuroscientist and one of the founding fathers of the field of neural networks and deep learning in the 1980s, which led directly to today's explosion in AI and machine learning algorithms that are transforming our lives. He is the Lucie Stern Professor at Stanford University, where he was formerly the chair of the psychology department, and is currently a Consulting Research Scientist at DeepMind, perhaps the leader in machine learning technologies today.

Jay is best known for his work on statistical learning and parallel distributed processing, applying connectionist models (or neural networks) to explain cognitive phenomena such as spoken word recognition and visual word recognition. Today, he works on integrating language, memory, and visuospatial cognition in an integrated understanding system to capture human intelligence and enhance artificial intelligence, exploring how education and human-invented tools of thought can enhance human and machine intelligence.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• Lessons from his youth, where he moved around the world as a child and interacted with different religions and backgrounds, which helped him understand that we are shaped by our contexts and experiences.
• His entry into cognitive psychology, and going beyond the laws of behavior into: Why do people behave the way they do?
• Building neural networks to model cognition.
• His world-changing PDP paper (Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition), a paper that was published in 1986 and transformed this whole field, and directly led to more and more people embracing the connectionist model and neural networks.
• The fact and meaning of bi-directionality in neural networks. What does it mean that information can flow both ways in the same network structure?
• Generative models, and in this context, OpenAI's DALL-E 2 algorithm, which can create amazing illustrations and artworks — and should we credit generative or creative algorithms with artistry and give them credit for their art?
• Consciousness — does it extend beyond humans and is it something that we may be able to find someday in algorithms?

Talking to Jay really reminded me of the best in mankind, that through curiosity, asking interesting questions, and constructing thought models and experiments, we can unlock such a subtle and fundamental thing like cognition and the connectionist model, which then unlocks all of this power for society at large. We now have this responsibility to reign in the worst of mankind in how we exploit, curate, and share in the benefits of this incredible power. This will be a running topic for us, AI in the future. We explore the power of design and human-centered thinking to create a better future for everyone.

This conversation with Jay is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with leading authors, thinkers, designers, makers, scientists, and social entrepreneurs who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Jay McClelland.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[7:28] Life in the Present

[9:08] Early Childhood Perspectives

[12:33] A Path to Psychology

[22:16] Modeling Cognition

[27:37] Neural Networks

[35:16] The Significance of Bi-Directionality

[40:21] Bistable Perception

[43:55] The Truth of Mathematics

[49:24] An Emergentist

[55:17] Technology and AI

[1:01:17] An Accumulation of Experience

[1:07:20] On Consciousness

[1:15:47] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Jay's Links
  • 🏫 Stanford University
  • 🏫 Columbia University
  • 🏫 University of Pennsylvania
  • 🤖 DeepMind
  • 📘 Parallel Distributed Processing, Vol. 1: Foundations by James L. Mcclelland and David E. Rumelhart
  • 📘 Parallel Distributed Processing Vol. 2: Psychological and Biological Models by James L. Mcclelland and David E. Rumelhart
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @JLMcCelland
• Other Links
  • 🏫 Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
  • 🏫 Future of Humanity Institute
  • 🎵 Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again by Bob Dylan
  • 🤖 DALL·E 2
  • 📕 On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
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• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Irene Au is Design Partner at Khosla Ventures, where she works with early-, mid-, and late-stage startup CEOs. She is dedicated to raising the strategic value of design and user research within software companies through better methods, practices, processes, leadership, talent, and quality. Irene has unprecedented experience elevating the strategic importance of design within technology companies, having built and led the entire User Experience and Design teams at Google, Yahoo!, and Udacity. She began her career as an interaction designer at Netscape Communications, where she worked on the design of the internet's first commercial web browser.

Irene also teaches yoga at Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto where she is among the teacher training program faculty and is a frequent author and speaker on mindfulness practices, design, and creativity. An adjunct lecturer at Stanford University, she teaches product design in the mechanical engineering department. Irene also serves as a trustee for the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design.

Irene authored the definitive O'Reilly book, Design in Venture Capital, and her popular essays can be found on Medium. She has been featured in WIRED magazine, Fast Company magazine, CommArts magazine, and on the cover of Mindful magazine.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• Developing listening skills as an introspective child, and how feeling like an outsider helped her develop those skills.
• Her electrical engineering studies, and her transition into looking at how technology influences society and people and how we live.
• Her time at Netscape, and tying together the products for a consistent look and feel across a suite of products that came out at the time called Netscape Communicator.
• Her move from Netscape to Yahoo!, and what went wrong for Yahoo! as a company trying to find its way.
• Her time at Google as we look at it from all angles. What was the state of design at Google before she joined and what were the changes she tried to implement as she brought human-centered design and practices to Google?
• Hiring strategies, staff training, and how design workshops ultimately became the Design Sprint at Google.
• What is design and what is a designer?
• And the role of the designer in venture capital.

I think my greatest takeaway from this interview is this sense of hope that someone like Irene is able to walk into these very "techy" cultures and produce real change. And all it takes is really showing the value of the work and being willing to engage and promote better practices. I think Irene will be an inspiration to many non-engineers who find themselves in heavy engineering cultures and want to make a contribution.

This conversation with Irene is one of many weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, best-selling authors, designers, makers, scientists, impact entrepreneurs, and others who are working to change our world for the better. So please follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Irene Au.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:54] Life in the Present

[7:08] Early Childhood Driving Forces

[9:40] A Journey to Design

[13:20] Entering Netscape

[16:00] The Challenges of the Early Internet

[19:23] A Transition From Netscape to Yahoo!

[22:58] The Infrastructure of Yahoo!

[30:14] Good Design Versus Bad Design

[34:04] The Winners and the Failures

[39:48] Infusing Design With Google

[45:55] Design Thinking Workshops

[52:13] A Sideways Career Move

[58:35] What is Design Today?

[1:05:26] The Human Meaning of Design

[1:08:58] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Irene's Links
  • 🌎 Irene Au Website
  • 🌎 Khosla Ventures
  • 🌎 Netscape Communications
  • 🌎 Yahoo!
  • 🌎 Google
  • 🌎 Udacity
  • 🌎 Trinity Ventures
  • 🏛️ Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  • 🏫 Stanford University
  • 🏫 University of Illinois System
  • 📘 Design in Venture Capital
  • 📄 Irene Au Medium Essays
  • 🎤 TED Talk
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @ireneau
  • 📺 YouTube Channel
• Other Links
  • 📕 Engineering Psychology and Human Performance by Christopher D. Wickens
  • 📕 Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson
  • 📕 The Psychology Of Everyday Things by Don Norman
  • 🌎 IBM Research
  • 🌎 NCSA Mosaic™
  • 🌎 Microsoft Windows
  • 🌎 UNIX
  •  Apple Mac
  • 📄 Microsoft Office
  • 📞 411
  • 🗣️ Facebook
  • 🥅 ESPN
  • ❤️ Match
  • 📺 WarnerBros
  • 🏠 Airbnb
  • 🌎 Google Chrome
  • 🌎 Notion
  • 📄 Coda
  • 🏫 Carnegie Mellon University
  • 🌎 IDEO
  • 🌎 Intuit®
  • 🎧 Jake Knapp Interview
  • 🎧 John Zeratsky Interview
  • 📕 Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz
  • 🌎 LINE Corporation
  • 🌎 GV
  • 🏫 Stanford d.school
  • 📺 Project Runway
  • 🌎 Oracle
  • 🌎 Gusto
  • 🌎 Salesforce
  • 🎵 The Cure
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Dan Formosa consults with companies and organizations worldwide on design and innovation. He was an early proponent of "design for all" (a.k.a. Inclusive Design). He lectures internationally on design, research, and the future of design, and is the recipient of numerous design awards.

Dan holds degrees in product design, ergonomics, and biomechanics. He co-founded the Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He is the host of the very successful YouTube series Well Equipped, produced by Epicurious for Condé Nast, critiquing in a semi-serious way the design and usability of various kitchen gadgets.

He also co-founded 4B Collective, a group focused on design and gender, and recently established ThinkActHuman to reflect his goal of design for a better world.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• Growing up in the 1950's in the US, and seeing segregation and the opposite of inclusion.
• The superficial design of the television era — designing to increase perceived value, and to increase purchases based on looks.
• His experience designing on a computer in the 70's.
• Designing kitchen gadgets.
• The need for multidisciplinary thinking, ergonomics, psychology, and other fields of knowledge.
• What makes a good designer?
• The importance of asking questions and being uncomfortable.
• The connection of design and religious studies, with meditation and mindfulness as tools for a designer.
• Design and inclusion.
• The 4B Collective — gender and design.
• The model of collective versus agency, and the difference between a process-based approach versus a knowledge-based approach in design.
• Qualitative versus quantitative metrics.
• And the death of the brand.

We talked in the middle of April 2022, and I was looking forward to chatting with Dan when I watched his hilarious and informative product review videos he's done with Epicurious, where he takes a kitchen gadget and critiques every aspect of its design, ergonomics, and function. We also had a short prep call before the interview, where it became clear to me what a serious design thinker he is, and how much we can all learn from him. It was really a joy to talk to Dan and explore his way of seeing the world and his unique approach to design.

This conversation with Dan is one of a dozen or so weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and investors who are working to change our world for the better in some meaningful way. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Dan Formosa.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:15] Life in the Present

[6:45] Early Childhood Driving Forces

[9:39] A Journey to Design

[16:46] The Joy of Design

[20:18] A Glimpse Into a Designer's Mind

[21:57] What is Design?

[24:27] A Superficial View of Design

[28:06] Ergonomics and Biomechanics

[31:51] Other Types of Knowledge

[33:02] What Makes a Good Designer?

[43:24] The 4B Collective

[53:24] Quantitative Versus Qualitative

[57:49] Death of the Brand

[1:02:13] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Dan's Links
  • 🌎 Dan Formosa Website
  • 🏫 Syracuse University
  • 🏫 Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts
  • 📺 Well Equipped by Epicurious
  • 👩 4B Collective
  • 🌎 ThinkActHuman
  • 🎤 TED Talk
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @danformosa
  • 📺 YouTube Channel
• Other Links
  • 🚗 BMW
  • 🧑‍🍳 Epicurious
  • 🌎 Condé Nast
  • 🏫 Stanford d.school
  • 📺 Mad Men
  • 📺 Inside by Bo Burnham
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Vibin Joseph is the Co-founder, Executive Director, and Chief Executive Officer at BiOZEEN, a company that's revolutionizing vaccine production and reducing the cost of vaccine manufacturing around the world. He's a technopreneur, business model enthusiast, and talent facilitator with a passion to make a better world through unleashing the potential of our times. He's an Engineer with degrees from Imperial College London, and a doctorate from Warwick University, United Kingdom.

His research interest lies in the cross-functional domains of systems design, productivity, design psychology, and moderating influencers in the pharmaceutical industry.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• Reducing vaccine manufacturing costs, and how he went about breaking the monopoly on vaccine production, training people to produce locally using these open source methods.
• His motivation — how he was inspired by Ayurveda and holistic principles and holistic approaches to medicine, and how he was taught these basic principles of service from his grandparents.
• The history of vaccine production and its inefficiency.
• Why vaccines aren't a very appealing business.
• Bioreactors and how a more modular and adaptable approach, including self cleaning modules, could really help make the process cheaper and more efficient.
• How to break into a tough industry and how experience can sometimes be a baggage and prevent you from seeing the obvious.
• How he said no to being acquired by venture capital firms and stayed true to his purpose, which was lowering the cost of vaccines.
• And his spiritual perspective on leading a team, managing people, and creating value in the world.

This conversation with Vibin is one of a dozen or so weekly conversations we have lined up for you with people who are trying to make our world better. These include thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and impact investors who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Dr. Vibin Joseph.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:24] Life in the Present

[9:04] Early Childhood Happiness

[11:32] A Journey to Biology

[14:55] The Scale of the Problem

[19:01] The Three Major Players

[23:04] Targeting the Manufacturers

[25:43] An Open Source Approach

[32:30] Universal Bioreactors

[36:55] Overcoming Skepticism

[45:43] Finding a Purpose

[52:27] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Vibin's Links
  • 💉 BiOZEEN
  • 🏫 Imperial College London
  • 🏫 University of Warwick
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @Vibin_BJoseph
• Other Links
  • 🎧 Christian Madsbjerg Interview
  • ✈️ Top Gun
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Dr. Amy Milton is an Associate Professor in Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and the Ferreras-Willetts Fellow in Neuroscience at Downing College Cambridge. Her research focuses on understanding how memories persist and become updated in the brain, with the aim of using this knowledge to develop new forms of treatment for mental health disorders based on maladaptive emotional memories. She's trying to understand the conditions under which emotional memories become unstable, particularly those contributing to post traumatic stress disorder and drug addiction.

We talked in the middle of April 2022. When I heard about Amy's research and watched her TED Talk about editing memories, I thought this was something out of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's not often that you encounter treatment with such transformative results and such promise, and at the same time, such scary potential. Despite her very technical subject, Amy was easy to talk to and I appreciated the care she took in explaining her research and its implications to a general audience.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• How from a very early age, she was fascinated with the gap between what people intended to do and what they ended up doing, growing up with parents who were smokers.
• Editing memories, and how new information can be incorporated and the memories themselves disrupted.
• Studying addiction and the connection between addiction and memory, and how disrupting certain memories can prevent relapse.
• Different types of memories — implicit memories and explicit memories, episodic memories, emotional memories, habits.
• What does the smell of baking bread have to do with memory's role in addiction?
• What can we do to fight addiction?
• The role of memories in phobias and PTSD.
• Exposure therapy and how it can get better with memory modification.
• The use of psychedelics in therapy and in addiction, and how understanding the memory component of that can help us understand, potentially, psychedelics better.
• Virtual reality exposure.
• And the ethical considerations of modifying someone's memory, whether it be through overuse, abuse, or a tyranny where individual rights are not a consideration.

This is one of a dozen or so weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and investors who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Dr. Amy Milton.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[4:54] Life in the Present

[6:29] Early Childhood Lessons

[9:06] A Path to Studying Memory

[11:33] Taxonomy of Memory

[17:10] The Difference Between a Habit and a Non-Habit

[20:09] Being Mindful of Habits

[23:46] Living with an Understanding of Memory

[26:55] Maladaptive Memories

[32:55] Extinction Learning and PTSD

[37:18] Edit Mode

[49:59] The Ethics of Editing Memories

[57:17] Alternative Ways of Dealing with Trauma

[1:02:23] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Amy's Links
  • 🏫 University of Cambridge
  • 🎤 TED Talk
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @DrAmyMilton
• Other Links
  • 🏫 New York University
  • 🏫 The University of Texas at Austin
  • 🎥 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Dr. Herbert Gintis is an American economist, behavioral scientist, and educator known for his theoretical contributions to sociobiology, especially altruism, cooperation, epistemic game theory, gene-culture coevolution, efficiency wages, strong reciprocity, and human capital theory. He's currently External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and carries a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

Throughout his career, he has worked extensively with economist, Samuel Bowles. Their most recent book, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution, was published by Princeton University Press in 2011.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• Why pandemics change everything.
• Why people have entangled minds, and what this means for fighting misinformation.
• Why conspiracy theories operate like religions.
• Growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, as a curious and science-minded kid.
• The five powers of human beings.
• His journey through math, economics, the social sciences and sandal making.
• The risks of becoming a single discipline thinker.
• The contradictory models of human behavior in the humanities.
• Why people vote despite the fact that their individual vote doesn't determine the outcome.
• His model of social rationality.
• What does it mean to be conscious?
• The explanation of altruism as a phenomenon.
• And many, many other topics.

Herbert is a remarkably prolific researcher, writer, and thinker. And this conversation is packed to the brim with insights and fascinating questions. It's one of a dozen or so weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and impact investors who are working to change our world for the better.

So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe so you don't miss them.

And now, let's jump right in with Dr. Herbert Gintis.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[3:45] Life During Covid

[6:27] Entangled Minds

[10:29] Early Childhood Curiosity

[13:17] Mathematics and Spirituality

[17:43] A Transition to Economics

[20:38] A Lesson in Marxism

[22:24] Models of Human Behavior

[33:21] Altruism and Strong Reciprocity

[37:05] The Rational Actor Model and Game Theory

[52:00] Entanglement and the Internet

[55:58] Physics and Consciousness

[1:05:15] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Herbert's Links
  • 🌍 Herbert Gintis Website
  • 🏫 Santa Fe Institute
  • 📘 Individuality and Entanglement: The Moral and Material Bases of Social Life
  • 📘 A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution
  • 📘 Game Theory in Action: An Introduction to Classical and Evolutionary Models
  • 📘 The Bounds of Reason: Game Theory and the Unification of the Behavioral Sciences
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @hgintis
• Other Links
  • 📕 On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
  • 📕 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST David Allen is one of the world's most influential thinkers on productivity. His 35 years experience as a management consultant and executive coach have earned him worldwide recognition. His bestselling book, the groundbreaking "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity", has sold millions and been published in thirty languages; and the "GTD" methodology it describes has become a global phenomenon, being taught by training companies in more than ninety countries. David, his company, and his partners are dedicated to teaching people how to stay relaxed and productive in our fast paced world.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we discuss:

[2:58] Life During the COVID Pandemic, Living in the Netherlands

[6:23] Effects of COVID on GTD Implementation

[9:13] Loving Magic, Models and Systems

[11:30] Crucial Design Innovations in Tech

[14:43] Early Attempts at GTD Software

[16:14] Being an Exchange Student in Zurich in High School

[18:53] Choosing an Experimental Liberal Arts College

[23:19] Becoming a Spiritual Seeker in the 60's and 70's

[27:01] Helping Businesses Improve Their Process

[28:40] Searching for Models

[30:28] The Roots of GTD

[31:48] First Big Corporate Break

[34:26] The Getting Things Done Book

[35:44] What is GTD?

[37:57] Is GTD the Natural Way of Planning?

[41:49] The Design of GTD

[45:47] Iterative Development

[47:39] To GTD or Not to GTD?

[49:08] Geeking Out Over the reMarkable Tablet

[53:55] The Spiritual Aspects of GTD

[1:00:32] GTD and Spontaneity

[1:05:02] The Dao of Small Things

[1:07:06] Does David Allen Have Unproductive Days?

[1:09:18] GTD and Pipelines

[1:13:31] A Short Sermon from David Allen

EPISODE LINKS

• David's Links
  • 🌍 GettingThingsDone.com
  • 🌍 GTDConnect.com
  • 📘 Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
  • 📕 Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done
  • 📔 Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and the Business of Life
  • 📣 Twitter: @gtdguy
  • 📺 David Allen's TEDx Talk
• Other Links
  • 🌎 John-Roger.org
  • 🌎 Charles Simonyi, Software Engineer
  • 🌎 I Ching
  • 📔 Daodejing
  • 🌎 Rumi, the Sufi Poet
  • 📝 reMarkable Tablet

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Dave Johnson is a lecturer at the Stanford Law School and at the Stanford d.school, where he teaches negotiation through design thinking. Before Stanford, he worked as a lawyer for 20 years in Silicon Valley tech companies. His most recent articles are designed for legal systems and designing online mediation.

He's currently writing a book under the working title, Climate Change Activism by Design.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• The role of law and how design can make it better.
• His ideas on climate change and climate change activism.
• How object-oriented programming and design, and the philosophy behind it, could be implemented in the world of law.
• Chaos theory, object-oriented modeling, and fuzzy logic.
• The question of what is law, norms versus laws, spaghetti code in law versus object-oriented and object modeling.
• The legislative system as all input and no output.
• His involvement and passion for climate change and climate change activism, and how he wanted to inspire more people to become active and activists, rather than an activist.
• The issue of individuals who are following climate trends and climate science, and getting really overwhelmed and feeling that there's not much they can do as individuals. And giving those individuals the tools to organize, collaborate, arrange small teams around specific tasks, and build a real force for change from the ground up.

We spoke at the end of March, 2022, and I was excited to get into this conversation because I love the idea of law and policy by design. I really think that the legal institutions and laws and policies are some of our most powerful tools for keeping chaos at bay and for keeping society functioning properly. And I really believe that tools from the world of design, particularly empathy and ideation, prototyping and testing, and iteration — that a lot of these core practices could really bring a lot of value in the world of law. So seeing that Dave is straddling these two worlds was very interesting to me.

This conversation with Dave is one of a dozen or so weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and investors who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now let's jump right in with Dave Johnson.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[4:27] COVID in Singapore

[8:50] Early Childhood Driving Forces

[10:54] A Journey to Law

[13:14] From Chaos Theory to Object Modeling and Fuzzy Logic

[19:22] What is Law?

[24:24] The Application of Law

[30:04] Adding Versus Subtracting

[31:37] Law and Design

[41:20] Climate Activism

[47:48] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Dave's Links
  • 🌍 David Johnson Website
  • 🏫 Stanford d.school
  • 🏫 Stanford Law School
  • 🏫 Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @Johnson_DavidW
• Other Links
  • 📕 Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick
  • 📕 Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic by Bart Kosko
  • 🏫 UCLA
  • 🏫 University of California, Berkeley
  • 📰 The New York Times
  • 🎧 Leidy Klotz Interview
  • 📕 Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less by Leidy Klotz
  • 🏫 Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

This week, we're sharing an interview I did recently with Louisa Jane Smith, host of the RE Podcast!

Join us as I go from host to guest, and discuss AI consciousness, Buddhism, sense of self, the future of religion, the ethics of algorithms, and religion for Atheists.

We also discuss:

• What it means to be human.
• What our needs and our weaknesses are.
• And what we need to be our best self, the need for connection.

Each week, we release a new episode with top thinkers, designers, makers, authors, entrepreneurs, and impact investors who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

I hope you enjoy!

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[0:26] Introduction

[1:47] The Risks of AI

[10:58] Indra's Net

[13:12] Transhumanism

[18:03] A Sense of Self

[20:17] A Meditation Journey

[22:35] Connection and Hope

[25:11] Designing Reality

[28:33] Religion for Atheists

[37:19] Stay Curious

EPISODE LINKS

• Eran's Links
  • 🌍 Eran Dror Website
  • 🌍 Remake Labs
  • 🎧 Remake Podcast
  • 💼 Eran's LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 💼 Remake's LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Eran's Twitter: @eran_dror
  • 📣 Remake's Twitter: @RemakeLabs
  • 📺 YouTube Channel
• Louisa's Links
  • 🎧 The RE Podcast
  • 📣 Twitter: @TheREPodcast1
• Other Links
  • 🏫 Future of Humanity Institute - University of Oxford
  • 🐬 Big History Project
  • 🧘 Insight Meditation Society
  • 📕 De L'Esprit Des Lois by Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
  • 🌍 Google
  • 📕 Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion by Alain de Botton
  • 🌍 Sunday Assembly
  • ✡️ Lab/Shul
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium

TODAY'S GUEST

Malcolm Ray is an author, journalist, activist, and academic specializing in economic history. He is the author of the groundbreaking The Tyranny of Growth: Why Capitalism has Triumphed in the West and Failed in Africa. The book provides a new lens to interpret and reimagine economics and its place in Africa and the world.

Malcolm began his career in the Anti-Apartheid Movement during the 1980s and early 90s, where he developed a habit of independent, but critical thinking. He practiced journalism for more than a decade in the early 2000s before making his way into academia, eventually succumbing to the magnetic appeal of his first love, creative writing.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this conversation we talk about:

• Growing up and experiencing racism and severe exclusion under Apartheid.
• How he became an activist fighting Apartheid in South Africa, and later a journalist.
• The loss of his mother due to COVID, and the economic context in which it happened, which provided a motivation for him to write this book.
• What's wrong with today's model of growth and the growth dogma?
• Lives vs. livelihood, and how the current growth model benefits elites, but not the vast majority of people.
• 80+ years of growth doctrine and where did it come from?
• The historical origins of GDP, and how the US created GDP to justify the expenses of war and "sell" it to the American people in a less than honest way.
• What GDP and growth dogma is doing to the poor and to developing nations around the world.
• We also talk about what gives him hope.

Malcolm is one of these voices I wish many more people heard. Like a detective, he took the time to unpeel the growth doctrine and get to its rotten GDP core. That really helps us understand what's wrong with GDP, and why our economy is becoming less and less equal. Essentially, you get what you measure, which is a model that leaves many so-called externalities out for no conceivable reason. Many things we care about are explicitly excluded from the calculation.

This conversation is one of a dozen or so weekly conversations we already have lined up for you with thinkers, designers, makers, authors, activists, entrepreneurs, and impact investors who are working to change our world for the better. So follow this podcast on your favorite podcast app, or head over to remakepod.org to subscribe.

And now, let's jump right in with Malcolm Ray.

TIMESTAMP CHAPTERS

[5:04] COVID Tragedy

[10:06] Early Childhood Challenges

[13:48] A Sense of Injustice

[18:14] A Journey Through Journalism to Literature

[23:19] A Conspiracy of Elites

[28:08] The Tyranny of Growth

[35:58] The Historical Origins of GDP

[41:34] Models for Measuring Growth

[45:39] Hope for the System

[48:49] A Short Sermon

EPISODE LINKS

• Malcolm's Links
  • 📘 The Tyranny of Growth: Why Capitalism has Triumphed in the West and Failed in Africa
  • 📘 Free Fall: Why South African Universities are in a Race Against Time
  • 💼 LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile
  • 📣 Twitter: @malcolm_ray18
• Other Links
  • 🎤 TED Talk - Alain de Botton

ABOUT US

• Remake Podcast: Visit us: RemakePod.org
  • 🙏🏻 Rate the show on iTunes
  • 🙏🏻 Support us! Join the Podcast Member community
  • 💌 Share your thoughts: [email protected]
  • 👉 Listen or Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts・Google Podcasts・RadioPublic・Overcast・Stitcher・PocketCasts・Castro・SoundCloud・Spotify・YouTube・Deezer
• Remake Labs: RemakeLabs.com・Medium・LinkedIn・Community・Twitter・Facebook・Instagram
• Eran Dror: EranDror.com・LinkedIn・Twitter・Medium