The Jim Rutt Show

The Jim Rutt Show episodes:

• 04.17.2024

  EP 235 Robin Hanson on Beware Cultural Drift

  Jim talks with Robin Hanson about the ideas in his essay "Beware Cultural Drift: Thoughts on modernity's monoculture mistake." They discuss drift in fundamental cultural values, the current unprecedented rate of change, boutique multiculturalism, weak selection pressures, drift without selection, understanding small cultures,...

  
• 04.09.2024

  EP 234 Richard Bartlett on an Experiment in Co-Living

  Jim talks with Richard Bartlett about the ideas in his essay "What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment." They discuss Jim's visit to a co-living house, community & its recent decline, starting small & iterating, the co-living experiment in Andalusia, pre-registration,...

  
• 04.04.2024

  EP 233 Robert Conan Ryan on Seven Ethical Perspectives

  Jim talks with Robert Conan Ryan about seven ethical perspectives and why everyone should know them. They discuss why understanding ethical stances is valuable, a horseshoe spectrum, pragmatism, virtue ethics, consequentialism, deontology, elitist power, deification, social justice, stacking up ethical...

  
• 04.03.2024

  EP 232 Matthew David Segall on Process Philosophy and the Origin of Life

  Jim talks with Matthew David Segall about the ideas in his and Bruce Damer's new essay, "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis." They discuss the "philosophy as footnotes to Plato" idea, the...

  
• 03.27.2024

  EP 231 Vance Crowe Interviews Jim Rutt on AI Risk

  Vance Crowe interviews Jim about how he maps the problem-space of current and future AI risk. They discuss the beginnings of AI, the era of broad AI, artificial general intelligence, the Wozniak test, artificial superintelligence, the paperclip maximizer problem, the...

  
• 03.12.2024

  EP 230 James Lindsay on a National Divorce

  Jim talks with James Lindsay about the ideas in his recent essay "National Divorce Is National Suicide." They discuss the meaning of a national divorce (where the United States would split into two countries), different shapes it could take, the...

  
• 03.07.2024

  EP 229 Jonathan Rowson on the Antidebate

  Jim talks with Jonathan Rowson of Perspectiva about a new social practice they're creating, the antidebate. They discuss the nature of debate, the spectacle of endemic polarization, why debate may be irredeemable, multiple ways of knowing, the Oxford Union debates,...

  
• 03.05.2024

  EP 228 Jeremy Sherman on the Emergence and Nature of Selves

  Jim talks with Jeremy Sherman about the ideas in his book Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves. They discuss how Jim found Jeremy's work, Jeremy's relationship with Terrence Deacon, the mystery of purpose, teleology, Aristotle's four causes,...

  
• 02.29.2024

  EP 227 Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life

  Jim talks with Stuart Kauffman about the ideas in the recent paper he co-authored with Andrea Roli, "Is the Emergence of Life an Expected Phase Transition in the Evolving Universe?" They discuss the fragmentation of the origins of life field,...

  
• 02.22.2024

  EP 226 Hannah Rosenberg on An Answer to Red Pilldom

  Jim talks with Hannah Rosenberg about the ideas in her essay "An Answer to Red Pilldom." They discuss the meaning & origins of red pilldom, how Hannah encountered red pilldom in close friendships, the idea that women are submissive, differences...

  
• 02.20.2024

  EP 225 Bruce Damer on a New Path for Psychedelics

  Jim talks with Bruce Damer about the new Center for MINDS and the ideas in his essay "Downloads from the Modern Dawn of Psychedelics." They discuss alternate ways psychedelics could have been introduced, Aldous Huxley & Humphry Osmond's speculative Outsight...

  
• 02.13.2024

  EP 224 Samo Burja on Geothermal Energy

  Jim talks with Samo Burja about the ideas in his recent article "Geothermal Energy Turns Planets Into Power Sources." They discuss the heat beneath the earth's surface, contributors to the heat, technological dependency between fracking & geothermal, the math of electricity,...

  
• 02.08.2024

  EP 223 Jordan Hall on Cities, Civiums, and Becoming Christian

  Jim talks with Jordan Hall about the ideas in his essay "From City to Civium" and about his recent conversion to Christianity. They discuss scaling laws, superlinear scaling in cities & Metcalf's law, technologies of density, virtualization of space, ephemeralizing of...

  
• 02.07.2024

  EP 222 Trent McConaghy on AI & Brain-Computer Interface Accelerationism (bci/acc)

  Jim talks with Trent McConaghy about the ideas in his recent essay "bci/acc: A Pragmatic Path to Compete with Artificial Superintelligence." They discuss the meaning of BCI (brain-computer interfaces) and acc (accelerationism), categories of AI, how much room there is...

  
• 02.06.2024

  EP 221 George Hotz on Open-Source Driving Assistance

  Jim talks with George Hotz about running Comma, an open-source driving assistance company. They discuss breaking the carrier lock on the iPhone at seventeen, Google's Project Zero, zero days, Mobileye & proprietary perception algorithms, cameras vs lidar, 6 levels of self-driving...

  
• 01.30.2024

  EP 220 Lene Rachel Andersen on Polymodernity

  Jim talks with Lene Rachel Andersen about the ideas in her book Polymodernity: Meaning and Hope in a Complex World. They discuss the meaning of polymodernism, working with four cultural codes, polymodernism vs metamodernism, the flaw in combining stage theories with...

  
• 01.25.2024

  EP 219 Katherine Gehl on Breaking Partisan Gridlock

  Jim talks with Katherine Gehl about her and Michael Porter's book, The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy. They discuss Jim's past familiarity with Michael Porter's work, Porter's five forces, the "what the hell...

  
• 01.24.2024

  EP 218 Max Borders on Christopher Rufo’s New Right Manifesto

  Jim talks with Max Borders about the ideas in his two-part essay series responding to Christopher Rufo's recent manifesto "The New Right Activism." They discuss the commentary form of the essays, pillar saints vs boy Pharoahs, the Gray Tribe, Rufo...

  
• 01.23.2024

  EP 217 Ben Goertzel on a New Framework for AGI

  Jim talks with Ben Goertzel about a paper he co-wrote, "OpenCog Hyperon: A Framework for AGI at the Human Level and Beyond." They discuss the way Ben defines AGI, problems with an economically oriented definition, the rate of advancement of...

  
• 01.11.2024

  EP 216 Kevin Dickinson on A Short History of the F-Word

  Jim talks with Kevin Dickinson about the ideas in his recent essay "A Short History of the F-Word." They discuss the mystery of the F-word's origins, a damn fucking abbot in the sixteenth century, the hierarchy of curse words, religious profanities, the poet William...

  
• 12.19.2023

  EP 215 Cody Moser on Inequality and Innovation

  Jim talks with Cody Moser about the ideas and findings in his and Paul Smaldino's paper "Innovation-Facilitating Networks Create Inequality." They discuss transient diversity, group performance vs the agent level, taking an agent-based modeling approach, Derex & Boyd's group potion-mixing...

  
• 12.07.2023

  EP 214 Douglas Rushkoff on Leaving Social Media

  Jim talks with Douglas Rushkoff about the ideas in his podcast monologue/Substack post "Why I’m Finally Leaving X and Probably All Social Media." They discuss Douglas's history with social media, the early social internet, Facebook's parasitism of legacy news, the...

  
• 12.05.2023

  EP 213 Robin Hanson on Declining Fertility Rates

  Jim talks with Robin Hanson about the ideas in his recent Substack writings on human fertility rates. They discuss why the fertility rate is important, fertility decline as a harbinger of societal decline, how income impacts fertility rate, investing in...

  
• 11.30.2023

  EP 212 Joy Hirsch on How the Brain Responds to Zoom

  Jim talks with Joy Hirsch about the findings in her paper "Separable Processes for Live 'In-Person' and Live 'Zoom-like' Faces," which explores how humans respond at the neural level to Zoom calls versus in-person interactions. They discuss the advantages of...

  
• 11.28.2023

  EP 211 Ben Goertzel on Generative AI vs. AGI

  Jim talks with recurring guest Ben Goertzel about the ideas in his paper "Generative AI vs. AGI: The Cognitive Strengths and Weaknesses of Modern LLMs." They discuss the exponential acceleration of AI development, why LLMs by themselves won't lead to...

  
• 11.20.2023

  EP 210 Frank Lantz on the Beauty of Games

  Jim talks with Frank Lantz about the ideas in his new book, The Beauty of Games. They discuss Frank's analysis of Benjamin Soule's arcade game Serpentes, reflecting on the enjoyment of games, panicking & choking, levels of understanding, Jim and his...

  
• 11.07.2023

  EP 209 C. Owen Paepke on the Purple Presidency

  Jim talks with C. Owen Paepke in part three of a mini-series on the No Labels potential third-party presidential campaign. They discuss Owen's early chemistry career, being without a political party, the situation of voting against instead of for candidates,...

  
• 11.02.2023

  EP 208 Jack Visnjic on Anacyclosis

  Jim talks with Jack Visnjic, aka Lantern Jack, about Polybius's theory of anacyclosis and cyclical history. They discuss the origins of the name Lantern Jack, cyclical patterns in history, a one-minute history of the first millennium B.C., public gain vs...

  
• 10.31.2023

  EP 207 Paul Watson on Adventures in Eco-Activism

  Jim talks with Paul Watson about his recent book Hit Man for the Kindness Club: High Seas Escapades and Heroic Adventures of an Eco-Activist. They discuss an early friendship with a family of beavers, cruelty to animals, the Kindness Club, moral...

  
• 10.26.2023

  EP 206 Ryan Clancy on No Labels

  Jim talks with Ryan Clancy, the chief strategist for No Labels, in the second of a 3-part series exploring different aspects of the No Labels possible third-party presidential campaign. They discuss the origins & history of the campaign, the idea...

  
• 10.24.2023

  EP 205 Matthew Pirkowski on Time Preference and Cooperation

  Jim talks with Matthew Pirkowski about the ideas in a recent tweet thread on time preference and its relationship with cooperation. They discuss the definition of time preference, defining parasitism, asymmetrical relationships, mutualism, commensalism, the increase in short-term thinking, a...

  
• 10.19.2023

  EP 204 Matt Bennett on the Case Against No Labels

  Jim talks with Matt Bennett about his arguments against the third-party political campaign No Labels. They discuss Matt's steelman of the campaign, being politically homeless, nuclear energy & the American left's unrealistic energy policies, the problem with No Labels' theory...

  
• 10.17.2023

  EP 203 Robert Sapolsky on Life Without Free Will

  Jim talks with Robert Sapolsky about the ideas in his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. They discuss what motivates his writing about the topic, turtles all the way down, closing off the escape valves, the general critique...

  
• 10.12.2023

  EP 202 Neil Howe on the Fourth Turning

  Jim talks with Neil Howe about the ideas in his new book, The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End. They discuss 3 ways humans have understood time, the...

  
• 10.10.2023

  EP 201 Tobias Dengel on the Age of Voice Technology

  Jim talks with Tobias Dengel about the ideas in his book The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology. They discuss the idea that voice tech will be the biggest shift since mobile, the problem of public babble,...

  
• 09.28.2023

  EP 200 Brian Chau on AI Pluralism

  Jim talks with Brian Chau about recent advancements in AI and viewing AI's relationship to society and politics through a pluralistic lens. They discuss fixed frames on AI, the horseless carriage fallacy, AI as a million dumb people, how LLMs invert...

  
• 09.26.2023

  EP 199 Yascha Mounk on the Identity Trap

  Jim talks with Yascha Mounk about the ideas in his new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power. They discuss tribalism among progressives, universalism, the story of Kila Posey, how over-emphasizing ethnic identity fosters zero-sum racial conflicts, how identitarianism...

  
• 09.19.2023

  EP 198 Cory Doctorow on Seizing the Means of Computation

  Jim talks with Cory Doctorow about the ideas in his new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. They discuss Cory's long affiliation with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, destroying Big Tech instead of "fixing" it, why tech lords are not evil...

  
• 09.07.2023

  EP 197 Susan Neiman on Why Left Is Not Woke

  Jim talks with Susan Neiman about the ideas in her latest book, Left Is Not Woke. They discuss the history & meaning of wokeness, the underlying reactionary assumptions of wokeness, making leftism & socialism acceptable terms, how the New Left of...

  
• 08.24.2023

  EP 196 Pamela Denise Long on Affirmative Action for Freedmen

  Jim talks with Pamela Denise Long about the ideas in an open letter from the Coalition of Concerned Freedmen to college presidents, responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on race-based affirmative action. They discuss the organizational developmental consultancy Youthcentrix,...

  
• 08.22.2023

  EP 195 Michael R.J. Bonner on Civilization, Collapse, and Renewal

  Jim talks with Michael R.J. Bonner about the ideas in his book In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present. They discuss the meaning of civilization, Gobekli Tepe, why technological change didn't bring about civilization, how civilization produces...

  
• 08.17.2023

  EP 194 Bob Reid on User-Owned Identity

  Jim talks with Bob Reid about identity verification and the financial stack behind his global financial platform Everest. They discuss decentralized user-owned identity, identity as a trillion-dollar opportunity, competing with customers, Know Your Customer, types of identity, the breakout fraud,...

  
• 07.20.2023

  EP 193 Aydan Connor on Rethinking Food Systems

  Jim talks with Aydan Connor about improving American food systems and reducing waste. They discuss Aydan's experience in the craft brewing industry, extremification of beer styles, wastefulness in beer production, how Aydan became interested in food systems, the obsession with...

  
• 07.18.2023

  EP 192 David Krakauer on Science, Complexity and AI

  Jim has a wide-ranging talk with David Krakauer about the ideas in his forthcoming paper "The Structure of Complexity in Machine Learning Science" and how AI may alter the course of science. They discuss data-driven science vs theory-driven science, a...

  
• 07.13.2023

  EP 191 Alicia Juarrero on Context, Constraints, and Coherence

  Jim talks with Alicia Juarrero about her new book Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence. They discuss Aristotle's four causes, applying them to complex dynamical systems, the overfocus on efficient cause, naive Newtonianism, nothing-but-ism, reconceptualizing causality in terms of constraints,...

  
• 07.06.2023

  EP 190 Peter Turchin on Cliodynamics and End Times

  Jim talks with Peter Turchin about the field he founded, cliodynamics, which applies the scientific method to history. They discuss the meaning & origins of cliodynamics, distinguishing cliodynamics from previous approaches, regularizing historical data, the interface between models & data,...

  
• 07.05.2023

  Currents 100: Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on Time as an Object

  Jim talks with Sara Walker and Lee Cronin about the ideas in their Aeon essay "Time Is an Object." They discuss the history of the idea of time, Newton's clockwork universe, the capacity for things to happen, the impossibility of time...

  
• 06.27.2023

  Currents 099: Samuel Scarpino on Preparing for the Next Pandemic

  Jim talks with Samuel Scarpino about what we've learned from Covid-19 and how to apply those lessons to preparing for the next pandemic. They discuss takeaways from cross-national comparisons, the social misery index, the failure to control the spread in...

  
• 06.23.2023

  Currents 098: Damien Walter on Science Fiction and the Rhetoric of Story

  Jim talks with Damien Walter about science fiction and the mechanics of myth. They discuss the roles of pathos & ethos in science fiction, Damien's lifelong fascination with sci-fi, the symbolon of "science fiction," Star Trek vs Star Wars, categorizing...

  
• 06.22.2023

  EP 189 Forrest Landry on Civilization Design

  Jim talks with recurring guest Forrest Landry about civilization design. They discuss the meaning of the concept, toolkits for problem-solving, why this work matters now, local hill-climbing, preconditions for sustainability, cultivating an epistemic commons, non-relativistic ethics, value ethics, grounding good...