The Bayesian Conspiracy

We speak with Robert McIntyre, winner of the Small Animal Brain Preservation Prize, about recent advances in brain preservation. A pretty good introduction to connectomics is this TED Talk by Sebastian Seung Robert recommends some papers on recent advances in scanning and simulation of brain tissue — 1, 2, 3, 4 — and also the Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap Robert’s paper on Aldehy...

If this episode sounds a little sub-par, it’s because Steven edited it since Kyle was on vacation. Let his reputation remain intact! Check out Naveen Mishra on twitter! @urstrulymishra   Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark Stanford’s Legal Design Lab Legalese: an open-source project to draft legal documents the way programmers develop software! Quantifying Decentralization  

The Only Way to Win is Not to Play Major source used by Eneasz – Our Mind Can Be Hijacked Meditations on Moloch A recent Molochian short story Eneasz likes – Three Bodies at Mitanni The Two Income Trap Age of Em Superstitious Mice The Capt America/National Anthem Meme – spread by Russians? Tristan Harris […]

A quick primer, and what do they have to do with EA? Bitcoin mining takes off in Venezuela due to hyperinflation of the local currency and nearly-free electricity. China is starting to shut down legal BitCoin use. What makes Ethereum special? Ethereum already using as much electricity as a small country. Rhys Lindmark on Twitter […]

Eneasz talks about his first Burning Man experience Sorry this is late. Please accept a 167 minute episode as apology? And 9/26 is Petrov Day! The 10 Principles of Burning Man, at the official Burning Man Organization site Eneasz’s series of posts on Burning Man – (0) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (some repetition from what’s in […]

We speak with aspiring rationalists with children. Our previous episode pondering children – Kids, These Days Louis C.K. has a bunch of stuff on parenting I Wonder by Annaka Harris, a book on emotional intelligence for children Article on treating kids like people The Rider and the Elephant (and the Path!) Pet Semetary Nonviolent Communication Republican […]

Julia Galef’s ‘Update Project‘. Check out some of the other links on her website too. Steven: “There’s a ton of content and techniques in this area that I wanted to cover and didn’t get a chance to. I’m including a couple of further reading suggestions below.” Brienne Yudkowsky’s blog “Agenty Duck” is the best source […]

More ritual than spirituality, honestly. We were aiming for both, but caught up in ritual. Perhaps we’ll revisit the spirituality aspect in a future episode! Melting Asphalt on Religion, Politics, and Self-Suppression Welcome to Night Vale, and my All Hail summary The type of poetry Eneasz likes is called “villanelles.” Here are four great examples. […]

You can’t control (well) what you can’t count Samzdat’s posts that served as the basis of much of this episode: Man as a Rationalist Animal, and The Meridian of Her Greatness. Also: The Use and Abuse of Witchdoctors for Life (not Witchdoctors Without Borders, as Eneasz misremembered) Matt Freeman’s podcast – We’ve Got Worm Also from […]

Under the Aegis of Transhuman Spiderman + Other Considerations (and Listener Feedback Catch-up) Fiction The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, by Roger Williams The Golden Age, by John C Wright Utopia, LOL?, by Jamie Wahls (+audio version) Red Legacy and Other Stories, by Eneasz Brodski Non-Fiction Making Beliefs Pay Rent The Psychological Unity of Humankind, by […]

Going beyond our meat-suits Transhumanism as Simplified Humanism text. Also available in audio here, starting at 6:52 Eneasz with PZ Meyers, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and David Brin: The Immortality Debate The Fun Theory Sequence (also – here’s a quick summary, but the summaries really never do the sequences full justice) Chinese scientists genetically modify human embryos China accused of [&...

AlphaGo is back. Patrick talks about its latest accomplishments, its future, and other topics in game advances. Our first AlphaGo episode (a very early one, sorry about the audio quality) News of the most recent AlphaGo adventures Steph Curry’s training is on a new level Eneasz’s favorite type of tool-assist challenges – Item Abuse. DOTA […]

All the cool kids are doing podcasts about drugs, so… The DARE program’s lack of efficacy (see also: Wikipedia page on DARE studies) How to get addicted to heroin without really trying. Eneasz thought he read this in The New Yorker, but it was actually Cracked, which is like the New Yorker except more prestigious. […]

** Fixed the audio. Please re-download for the correct episode. ** Drugs that boost mental performance for dummies. Did caffiene help kickstart the Enlightenment era? FOR SCIENCE! /r/nootropics for your nootropic discussion needs Other places to discuss include Nootropics Depot and Longecity Gwern’s posts on nootropics in general, and in-depth on Modafinil in particular The Flynn […]

Slate Star Codex article – You Kant Dismiss Universalizability Wikipedia page on the Revelation Principle Eliezer’s post on LessWrong – Ends Don’t Justify Means (Among Humans) Another LessWrong post – Protected From Myself Louis CK bit on Lying (1:46 seconds long) Short book by Sam Harris on Lying (six minute preview of audiobook) Scott Alexander post […]

We talk with Tsvi from MIRI Game-playing algorithm that pauses Tetris “On The Origin of Circuits“, discussing a chip hardware evolution experiment MIRI’s technical research agenda overview Alignment for advanced machine learning systems paper from MIRI Musk’s OpenAI Paul Christiano’s about page, which links to his paper Tsvi mentioned Logical induction paper from MIRI Reason [&#8...

The Logical Fallacy of Generalizing from fictional evidence Genie Button Though Experiment Wait but Why on AI Part 1 and Part 2 The Downfall meme we mentioned. This is Steven’s favorite version. Yudkowsky vs Hanson – Great AI FOOM debate  and the Video Sam Harris AI TED talk Albion’s Seed – SSC Redditor provides an incredible explanation […]

Who can access the external part of your brain that you carry around in your pocket? What rights do you have to it? With Chase. Police demand audio records from the Echo of a murder victim, Amazon displeased (more details) EFF defends podcasting (as a whole) from a patent troll Speaking of which – The EFF […]

We discuss a famously controversial post, despite our better judgement. With Sean and Matt. The Post: Torture Vs Dust Specks Rationality: From AI to Zombies – The Podcast Shut Up And Multiply is actually taken from two posts: Circular Altruism and The “Intuitions” Behind “Utilitarianism” Three Worlds Collide (also in audio) The Ones Who Walk Away From […]

Crystal Society (or read it for free) (or listen to most of it as audio) Crystal Mentality Quick Links: Aubrey de Grey’s TED talk on extreme longevity Ending Aging – Aubrey de Grey’s book “The Sequences” – Compiled in book form. Max Harms on Cryonics (Video)  Micromort – The unit used to measure a one in a million […]

Forgive the pun. I couldn’t help myself. (Steven) In this bonus episode, Eneasz and Steven respond to some of the feedback to the Nazi Punching episode. Thank you to everyone who provided thoughtful comments. Be assured we read everything, but we only have so much time to respond on the air. The Innocence Project is […]

Being effective vs. feeling good. EA is a big topic, this is really just an intro for the uninitiated. The Life You Can Save, by Peter Singer (and the inspired-by website) Money: The Unit of Caring, by Eliezer Yudkowsky Nobody is Perfect, Everything is Commensurate, by Scott Alexander What Is The Greatest Good? – an EA profile […]

When is it OK to punch Nazis? With Sean. Original Richard Spencer being punched video Follow-up video of the guy who punched him being briefly confronted Eneasz’s two posts on the topic Ken White of Popehat On Punching Nazis (he’s against it, for good legal reasons) A pro-punching piece a friend sent to Eneasz The Alternative Right […]

Eliezer Yudkowsky’s original post on Neural Categories and hanging nodes. Scott Alexander on Diseased Thinking and a longer essay Concept Networks. The very worthwhile analysis on holiday gift giving reddit comment. Google’s deep learning utilizes these sorts of networks. “The Great AI Awakening” discusses this at some length, and is Eneasz’s source for visual recogni...

The Conspirators meander through various topics, using a Tinder encounter as a framing story:     Steven’s OKCupid stats come from Rationally Speaking episode 89 Katrina’s OKCupid stats (and pic) come from Big Lies People Tell The Toxoplasma of Rage Dan Dennett’s talk Haidt on The Moral Roots of Conservatives and Liberals Philosophers and their beards […]