Theo Jaffee Podcast

Samo Burja is a writer, historian, and political scientist, the founder of civilizational consulting firm Bismarck Analysis, and the editor-in-chief of governance futurism magazine Palladium.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:06 - Implications of OpenAI o1

10:21 - Implications of superintelligence on history

35:06 - Palladium, Chinese technocracy, ideology, and media

1:00:44 - Best ideas, philosophers, and works of the past 20-30 years

Links

Samo’s Website: https://samoburja.com/

Bismarck Analysis: https://www.bismarckanalysis.com/

Palladium: https://www.palladiummag.com/

Bismarck’s Twitter: https://x.com/bismarckanlys

Palladium’s Twitter: https://x.com/palladiummag

Samo’s Twitter: https://x.com/samoburja

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/19-samo-burja

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Alec Stapp is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a non-profit think tank dedicated to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:13 - Why can’t smart people fix the Bay Area?

3:38 - How to get normal people on board with IFP

10:23 - How to get smart people into governance

15:55 - How IFP chose its priorities

21:56 - How will IFP avoid mission creep?

24:17 - How important is academia today?

26:03 - Would Alec press a button to fully open borders?

29:45 - How prepared are we for another pandemic?

33:16 - Why don’t easy wins happen?

36:17 - Is Biden’s spending good?

40:51 - How important is the repeal of Chevron deference?

43:23 - Are land value taxes good?

45:01 - “The Project” for AGI and AI Alignment

48:19 - Is globalism dying?

50:32 - Overrated or Underrated?

59:28 - The most overrated issue

1:00:26 - The most underrated issue

Links

Institute for Progress: ifp.org

IFP’s Twitter: x.com/IFP

Alec’s Twitter: x.com/AlecStapp

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/18-alec-stapp

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Casey Handmer is the founder and CEO of Terraform Industries and a physicist, immigrant, pilot, dad, solar enthusiast, Caltech physics PhD and former Hyperloop One levitation engineer and NASA JPL software system architect.

0:00 - Intro

1:40 - Why don’t other people do what Terraform does?

2:51 - Why is solar better than nuclear fusion?

5:27 - Could carbon emissions actually be good?

8:38 - Why isn’t anyone stopping global warming with sulfur?

13:20 - Can America build something like Terraform?

20:53 - Solar and nuclear

23:10 - Why not terraform Venus instead of Mars?

30:47 - Why did Casey work at NASA instead of SpaceX?

37:18 - Why is Elon the only person with multiple huge companies?

39:59 - Why didn’t the Hyperloop work?

42:26 - Tile the desert with solar

46:03 - How does solar change geopolitics?

48:30 - How does Casey manage his time?

53:24 - How do you develop first principles thinking?

56:28 - Favorite place Casey has traveled to

59:21 - Outro

Casey’s Blog: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/

- You Should Be Working On Hardware: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/08/25/you-should-be-working-on-hardware/

- The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/the-solar-industrial-revolution-is-the-biggest-investment-opportunity-in-history/

- Future of Energy Reading List: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/future-of-energy-reading-list/

- Elon Musk Is Not Understood: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-is-not-understood/

- Why High Speed Rail Hasn’t Caught On: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/why-high-speed-rail-hasnt-caught-on/

Casey’s Website: http://caseyhandmer.com/

Casey’s Twitter: https://x.com/cjhandmer

Terraform Industries: https://terraformindustries.com/

Terraform Blog: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/

- Scaling Carbon Capture: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/scaling-carbon-capture/

- Terraform Industries Whitepaper: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/terraform-industries-whitepaper/

- Terraform Industries Whitepaper 2.0: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/terraform-industries-whitepaper-2-0/

- Permitting Reform or Death: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/permitting-reform-or-death/

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/17-casey-handmer

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Stephen Grugett and Austin Chen are co-founders of Manifold Markets, an online play-money prediction market and competitive forecasting platform. Stephen currently serves on the company’s management, while Austin recently stepped down to start Manifund, a unique, open-source grant program. This video is not sponsored in any way by Manifold, Manifund, or Manifest - I just think they’re cool.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

Part 1: Stephen Grugett

1:20 - Are prediction markets actually bad?

4:11 - Would Manifold use real money if allowed?

5:24 - How Manifold would use real money if allowed

6:08 - Would Manifold use crypto if allowed?

7:17 - Can you ever get long-term returns from prediction markets?

10:01 - Would subsidies ruin markets?

11:23 - Why Manifold beat real money on predicting the 2022 elections

16:00 - Would Stephen implement futarchy?

19:54 - Manifold Love

23:22 - Bet on Love

26:21 - Why Manifold is miscalibrated

29:06 - Insider trading and market manipulation

31:42 - Is it easier to make money on prediction markets or normal markets?

32:37 - Good prediction market UI

34:35 - Why should people trust market creators?

35:34 - Derivatives on prediction markets

37:20 - Stephen’s ginseng adventures

40:55 - Audience Q: why don’t Americans consume American ginseng?

41:35 - Audience Q: cancel culture and Richard Hanania

45:50 - Audience Q: why aren’t there more institutional investors in prediction markets?

47:33 - Audience Q: can journalists help resolve markets?

49:45 - Audience Q: is there any role for sweepstakes other than regulatory arbitrage?

Part 2: Austin Chen

51:14 - Are prediction markets insufficiently powerful?

54:22 - What prediction markets can do if not futarchy

55:36 - How Manifund was designed

59:35 - How Manifund chooses regrantors

1:00:49 - Why donate to Manifund?

1:03:09 - Does Dustin Moskovitz have too much power over EA?

1:04:29 - What Manifund would do differently with more money

1:05:52 - How Manifest gets so many interesting people

1:09:10 - How much did SBF’s fall damage EA?

1:10:04 - OpenAI

1:11:54 - Is this decade more important than other decades?

1:13:01 - Why aren’t more philanthropic organizations open?

1:15:35 - Manifund’s best projects

1:17:25 - How short AGI timelines would affect Manifund

1:19:21 - Audience Q: how Manifold ships fast

1:22:11 - Outro

Links

Manifold: https://manifold.markets

Manifund: https://manifund.com

Manifest: https://www.manifest.is

Manifold’s Twitter: https://x.com/manifoldmarkets

Manifund’s Twitter: https://x.com/manifund

Austin’s Twitter: https://x.com/akrolsmir

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/16-stephen-grugett-and-austin-chen

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Perry Metzger is an entrepreneur, technology manager, consultant, computer scientist, early proponent of extropianism and futurism, and co-founder and chairman of the Alliance for the Future.

0:00 - Intro

0:47 - How Perry got into extropianism

7:04 - Is extropianism the same as e/acc?

9:38 - Why extropianism died out

12:59 - Eliezer Yudkowsky

17:19 - Perry and Eliezer’s Twitter beef

19:46 - TESCREAL, Baptists and bootleggers

22:34 - Why Eliezer became a doomer

28:39 - Is singularitarianism eschatology?

37:51 - Will nanotech kill us?

45:51 - What if the offense-defense balance favors offense?

53:03 - Instrumental convergence and agency

1:05:35 - How Alliance for the Future was founded

1:12:08 - Decels

1:15:52 - China

1:25:52 - Why a nonprofit lobbying firm?

1:28:36 - How to convince legislators

1:32:20 - Can the government do anything good on AI?

1:39:09 - The future of Alliance for the Future

1:44:22 - Outro

Perry’s Twitter: https://x.com/perrymetzger

AFTF’s Twitter: https://x.com/aftfuture

AFTF’s Manifesto: https://www.affuture.org/manifesto/

An Archaeological Dig Through The Extropian Archives: https://mtabarrok.com/extropia-archaeology

Alliance for the Future: https://www.affuture.org/

Donate to AFTF: affuture.org/donate

Sci-Fi Short Film “Slaughterbots”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/15-perry-metzger

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University, the author of The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain, the writer of the blog Overcoming Bias, and one of the most interesting polymaths alive today.

0:00 - Intro

1:24 - Mathematical models and grabby aliens

9:11 - Will we run out of value in the future?12:23 - Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns

14:29 - Posadism

17:53 - Moral progress and Whig history

20:29 - Will there be a trad resurgence?

23:00 - Will Israel’s ultra-Orthodox problem globalize?

25:39 - Why will fertility rate keep dropping?

30:14 - Is declining fertility solvable technologically?

32:20 - What is wokeness? Has it peaked?

35:02 - Will virtualization make society more multicultural?

39:30 - How do institutions coordinate so well?

42:50 - Will ems care about death?

46:16 - Personal identity and death

49:30 - How much of Age of Em is applicable to LLMs?

51:09 - Why we shouldn’t worry about AI risk

55:40 - What if people don’t see AIs as their descendants?

1:00:41 - Other future tech deep dives

1:02:43 - Our very long-run descendants

1:06:08 - Time and risk preferences

1:08:34 - Wouldn’t ems be selected for docility?

1:11:24 - How Robin got involved in rationalism

1:13:22 - Girls getting the “ick”

1:16:56 - Have humans evolved since forager times?

1:18:28 - Cultural evolution

1:20:30 - Culture and prestige

1:22:49 - Why medicine in the US is bad

1:25:54 - Is academia the best truth-seeking institution in society?

1:28:52 - Peer review

1:31:13 - Which institutions are actually good?

1:32:33 - Why universities are all the same

1:37:40 - Bitcoin and speculation

1:46:44 - Demarchy

1:50:03 - Futarchy

1:53:56 - Applying prediction markets to dating apps

1:57:38 - The broadest thinkers and books in the world

2:00:59 - How Robin balances his many interests

2:01:58 - Teaching

2:03:12 - Outro

Robin’s Homepage: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/home.html

Overcoming Bias: https://www.overcomingbias.com/

Robin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhansonGrabby Aliens: https://grabbyaliens.com/

Age of Em: https://archive.is/LMrr9The Elephant in the Brain: https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/

Beware Cultural Drift: https://quillette.com/2024/04/11/beware-cultural-drift/

More Episodes

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Nick Simmons is a founding partner at Octu Ventures, a member-driven venture DAO investing in teams building on Urbit. Urbit is a new computing paradigm that provides complete ownership of your digital world.

0:00 - Intro

1:19 - What actually is Urbit?

5:43 - Urbit ID and Schelling points

9:05 - Why Urbit?

10:23 - Roko Mijic on Urbit vs. TikTok and Crypto

17:32 - Urbit vs. Worldcoin

22:26 - Niche or growth model?

28:50 - Why haven’t Urbit star prices recovered since 2021?

33:13 - Intrinsic value of Urbit address space

36:37 - Urbit as digital land

42:51 - Urbit and DeFi

45:42 - Personal AI on Urbit

51:35 - Urbit-native hardware

55:58 - Urbit design and aesthetics

1:02:15 - Outro

Urbit: https://urbit.org/

Octu: https://octu.ventures/

Urbit Blog: https://urbit.org/blog

“Creating Sigils”: https://urbit.org/blog/creating-sigils

“On Christopher Alexander”: https://urbit.org/blog/on-christopher-alexander

Nick’s Twitter: https://x.com/Halikaarn1an

More Episodes

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com/

Paul Buchheit is a programmer and entrepreneur who joined Google as its 23rd employee. He created Gmail, developed the first prototype of Google AdSense, and suggested the company’s motto, “don’t be evil”. He later co-founded FriendFeed and served as a managing partner at Y Combinator.

0:00 - Intro

1:15 - Issues with Google

3:47 - AI risk

5:21 - AI centralization and decentralization

8:01 - Open-sourcing frontier AI

9:59 - Paul’s Predictions

14:28 - Centralization, free speech, and censorship

24:16 - Trends in ideology

32:00 - Freeing people of narratives

35:49 - Alignment

39:06 - Startups and YC in 2024

50:30 - Email and communication interfaces

Paul’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/paultoo

Paul’s Blog: https://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/

More Episodes

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com/

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, writer at EconLib and Bet On It, and best-selling author of eight books, including You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism, the subject of this episode.

0:00 - Intro

2:04 - The Next Crusade

3:44 - Moderating X

6:11 - Inventing Slippery Slopes

8:04 - Right-Wing Antiwokes

10:20 - Nonconformism and Asperger’s

12:02 - Making society less conformist

16:44 - The rationality community

20:30 - Polyamory

23:28 - Caplan vs. Yudkowsky on methods of rationality

26:40 - Updating on AI risk

29:35 - Checking your nonconformity

31:10 - Making LinkedIn not suck

33:53 - The George Mason economics department

38:35 - Does tenure still matter?

40:03 - Improving education

46:50 - Should people living under totalitarianism conform?

49:30 - Natalism and birth rates in Israel

51:19 - Hedonic adaptation in the age of AI

53:52 - Should we abolish the FDA?

57:15 - Being a prolific writer

1:00:30 - Bryan’s writing advice

1:02:35 - Outro

Bryan’s Twitter: https://x.com/bryan_caplan

Bryan’s Blog, Bet On It: https://www.betonit.ai/

Buy You Will Not Stampede Me: https://www.amazon.com/You-Will-Not-Stampede-Non-Conformism/dp/B0CQPJ6DCT/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.95bGnREBhOREb8kL8JeVpjT4w1MPCEfRYcUNZuMAEHVdVGJYv9Ns80cVoAGLtZJPOA6b5DTvnMfO6tF6ZAfRybM2TL7EtaHQlsvbOZVOZro.EzrhsuVDhljbtjiqE_YqD9_RP0YXHFyVHMYEu9GOviI&qid=1708877990&sr=8-1

More Episodes

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com/

Liron Shapira is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and CEO of counseling startup Relationship Hero. He’s also a rationalist, advisor for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and Center for Applied Rationality, and a consistently candid AI doom pointer-outer.

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