The Jim Rutt Show

Multidimensional thinker Eric Smith has a wide-ranging talk with Jim about the origins of life, monetary systems, language & sustainability. Eric starts by sharing how geochemistry informs the origin of life topic, the dynamics of autocatalytic processes, how little we know about biological systems & what this might tell us about the Fermi paradox. The conversation then goes into the importance of institutions & a dynamic perspective on monetary systems, the subprime mortgage crisis, money substitutes & crypto. They then finish this chat by talking about Eric’s interest in linguistics & what it can learn from modern probability, key areas of focus for ecosystem sustainability, the challenge of reconciling ‘small local’ & ‘global policy’ approaches to sustainability, the role of civil society, and much more.

Multi-talented thinker & creator John Koza & Jim start by talking about what led him to create secure lottery ticket tech early in his career. They then go on to talk about how he got interested in genetic algorithms, his pioneering work in genetic programming, how powerful it is, and some of its stand-out applications. Lastly, John tells Jim what led him to create the National Popular Vote bill, how it works, its current state support, how it addresses the prisoner’s dilemma, the role partisanship plays, responses to common concerns about the bill, and more.

Tristan Harris & Jim start by talking about how Tristan’s career & education in design ethics are informed by being a magician in his youth. They then go on to talk about his experience at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, the history of psychologically informed business, the power of personalized digital/AI targeting, how algorithms can radicalize us & erode societal trust, the game theory of an attention economy, the breakdown of sense-making, impacts of ad-supported business models & possible alternatives, applying the fiduciary model to advertising & potential impacts taxing ads, political & social issues that come from rapid tech innovation, what’s needed for business to orient towards time well spent, the global information war & how we might protect societies from it, deep fakes, social media anonymity, what Tristan is optimistic about and much more.

Meditator & thinker Jared Janes talks with Jim about why he still uses the word ‘spiritual’, altered states vs altered traits, the equation & dynamics of suffering, understanding our own intentions, the confabulating mind, embodied intuition, the value & limits of conceptuality, what the self is & its usefulness, attention & awareness, the pleasure of concentration, metaphysics, and more.

Hanzi Freinacht, political philosopher, historian, sociologist, & author has a wide-ranging talk with Jim that starts by exploring what postmodern views are, how many postmodernists there might be & how they act. They, then go on to cover effective values memes & how they arise/interact, the dynamics of the model of hierarchical complexity, societal code, the progression from modern to post-modern & metamodern perspectives, how code & cognitive complexity interact, whether post-modernism is valuable, similarities of metamodernism & GameB, the promises & dangers of running metamodern code, why spirituality is important & its value/dynamics, Jim’s experience & ideas about mystical states, the yoga bourgeoisie, and much more.

Internet pioneer Ken McCarthy talks with Jim about why & how he first got on the internet in 1993, what it was like to be in tech in the 90’s, the walled gardens of the early internet, the birth of email, Well.com, the pre-commercial internet, brand vs direct response advertising & how they made their way to the internet, Ken’s online businesses, the early days of AOL, the timeline of internet media, the state of podcasting today, understanding market potential & targeting, dangers of sleazy marketing & ad-supported business models, the high cost of free services, Facebook & Google’s ad supremacy & what the future holds for them, publishing business models, the .com crash, and more.

Joe Edelman, philosopher, social scientist & designer starts this conversation with Jim by talking about how meaningfulness is connected to values, social norms & ideological commitments. Then, they go on to talk about the pros & cons of pluralism & coherence in today’s digital world, why Joe coined the phrase/metric ‘time well spent’ & its influence so far, pros & cons of ad-supported tech & potential changes to existing models, the trend of more private social media spaces, how to view the Overton window today, the future of ethical advertising, the promise of Notion.so, the goals of Turtleocracy, the Turtling game, and much more.

Professor & Author Melanie Mitchell and Jim have a wide-ranging talk about her work in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). They explore the differences between deep learning, symbolic techniques & hybrid systems, AI springs/winters & hype cycles, self-driving cars, strong (general) vs weak (narrow) intelligence, the black-box element of human & artificial intelligence, limitations of neural nets, the potential of evolutionary approaches to AI, embodied & social cognition, whether consciousness is needed for intelligence, reinforcement learning, common sense & understanding in AI, the value of metaphors & analogies in intelligence, and much more.

Author & Research Professor Jason Brennan talks with Jim about teaching in business school after studying philosophy, what a bleeding heart libertarian is, the ignorance & irrationality of voters, how well group identity predicts personal values, whether political engagement leads to rational politics, political discrimination, social signaling, epistocracy & other alternatives to democracy, what course evaluations actually measure in academia, grading inconsistencies & their unintended outcomes, college advertising & tuition costs, the moral grandstanding of tenure, and much more.

Forrest Landry, philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher talks with Jim about his company (Magic-Flight), what motivates his work, how he defines ethics, metaphysics & its connection to realism, free will & choice, the nature of time, how he defines & utilizes meaning, value & purpose, interaction between complicated & complex systems, human/ecological sustainability, core dynamics of collective intelligence, the challenges of sense-making, choice-making & implementation, civilizational collapse, the Fermi paradox, and much more.