Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Read the full transcript here. NOTE: Spencer appeared as a guest on The 80,000 Hours Podcast back in March, and this episode is our release of that recording. Thanks to the folks at The 80,000 Hours Podcast for sharing both their audio and transcript with us! Does money make people happy? What's the difference between life satisfaction and wellbeing? In other contexts, critics are quick to point o...

Read the full transcript here. Why should we consider slowing AI development? Could we slow down AI development even if we wanted to? What is a "minimum viable x-risk"? What are some of the more plausible, less Hollywood-esque risks from AI? Even if an AI could destroy us all, why would it want to do so? What are some analogous cases where we slowed the development of a specific technology? And ho...

Read the full transcript here. What does effective altruism look like from a leftist / socialist perspective? Are the far left and EA the only groups that take radical egalitarianism seriously? What are some of the points of agreement and disagreement between EA & socialism? Socialists frequently critique the excesses, harms, and failures of capitalism; but what do they have to say about the e...

Read the full transcript here. How easy is it to shift our baseline level of happiness? What sorts of things can most effectively shift that baseline? And are they highly specific to each individual or generalizable to most people? What are the differences between conceptual and phenomenal self-love? Why might it be useful to view shame as a kink? How does self-love or self-acceptance differ from...

Read the full transcript here. How does Emmett's worldview differ from the standard Silicon Valley worldview? What's the difference between an ideology and a worldview? What's middle management useful for? How might democracy be improved? How important is optimism? Why do people seem to get less done each day than they expect to get done? When is high variance beneficial? Does every startup have a...

Read the full transcript here. Should people spend more time becoming better decision-makers? What are the main things that determine how our lives turn out? What's wrong with pro / con lists? When should we deviate from making decisions based on expected value calculations? What kinds of uncertainty might we encounter in the decision-making process? Are explicit decision calculations self-defeati...

Read the full transcript here. How do we know what's true in nutrition? Why aren't nutrition studies seemingly as "definitive" as (e.g.) physics experiments often seem to be? What is the "hierarchy of evidence"? Why is there such a disconnect between the kinds of evidence that actually seem to persuade people and the kinds of evidence that scientists view as valid and meaningful? How can we talk a...

Read the full transcript here. Can we measure everything that matters to us? When is measuring the correlates of a thing pretty much just as good as measuring the thing itself? Why are some people resistant to measuring certain things? What are some things people should be measuring but aren't? What's the connection between measuring things and assigning probabilities to events? How much do we kno...

Read the full transcript here. Why does it seem that many people read self-help books with no intention of actually doing what the books prescribe? Why are self-help books often less clear than it seems they ought to be? What are self-help books actually designed to do? Why do self-help authors continue to write as though their ideas will help everyone when it seems fairly obvious that no single s...

Read the full transcript here. What are the best ways to define "values" and "meaning"? How can democratic processes harness people's intrinsic values and sources of meaning to increase their agency, cooperation, participation, equality, etc.? To what extent do political rivals — or even the bitterest of political enemies — actually value many of the same things? Might we be able to use AIs as "ne...

Read the full transcript here. What exactly is quantum computing? How much should we worry about the possibility that quantum computing will break existing cryptography tools? When will a quantum computer with enough horsepower to crack RSA likely appear? On what kinds of tasks will quantum computers likely perform better than classical computers? How legitimate are companies that are currently se...

Read the full transcript here. Should we pause AI development? What might it mean for an AI system to be "provably" safe? Are our current AI systems provably unsafe ? What makes AI especially dangerous relative to other modern technologies? Or are the risks from AI overblown? What are the arguments in favor of not pausing — or perhaps even accelerating — AI progress? What is the public perception...

Read the full transcript here. What are the facts around Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX about which all parties agree? What was the nature of Will's relationship with SBF? What things, in retrospect, should've been red flags about Sam or FTX? Was Sam's personality problematic? Did he ever really believe in EA principles? Does he lack empathy? Or was he on the autism spectrum? Was he naive in his applic...

Read the full transcript here. How big of a problem is homelessness in the US? How many people in large cities like New York City or Los Angeles are unhoused? What's the best language to use when discussing this issue? How is "homelessness" defined? We usually don't label people without food or water as "foodless" or "waterless"; so why do we label people without homes as "homeless"? Why do we so...

Read the full transcript here. What are some common techniques for quantifying body language? How hard is it to identify poker "tells"? Are there any facial expressions or body movements that have universal meaning? What can be discerned about group dynamics just from watching a meeting over video call? What are the most common body language mistakes people make when going on dates or trying to ma...

Read the full transcript here. Is nothing objectively true? What kinds of things are we trying to communicate with the stories we tell? Why do we feel the need to take a side on every issue? Which sorts of issues should be tied to our identities? How can we set the definitions for terms in a conversation, if possible? Should people just believe whatever works for them? Is it better to try to compe...

Read the full transcript here. How did we end up with factory farming? How many animals do we kill every year in factory farms? When we consider the rights of non-human living things, we tend to focus mainly on the animal kingdom, and in particular on relatively larger, more complex animals; but to what extent should insects, plants, fungi, and even single-celled organisms deserve our moral consid...

Read the full transcript here. What's the best way to think about building an impactful career? Should everyone try to work in fields related to existential risks? Should people find work in a problem area even if they can't work on the very "best" solution within that area? What does it mean for a particular job or career path to be a "good fit" for someone? What is "career capital"? To what exte...

Read the full transcript here. It's our 200th episode! 🥳 What important things has Spencer gleaned from these 200 episodes? What has he learned about how to have better conversations? On what topics has he updated his views? What makes for a great question? Thank you, listeners, for listening, following, rating, reviewing, supporting, and communicating with us! You've helped the show continue to...

Read the full transcript here. Is it possible to change someone's life with a really short psychological intervention? What features do turning points in people's lives tend to share in common? What single-session interventions can work well for depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues? What expectations should reasonably be held in advance of a single-session intervention? By what mech...

Read the full transcript here. How does psychological time differ from clock time? How does a person's perception of time relate to their personal identity? How does a person's view of their past shape how they view their future? To what extent do people differ in the degree to which they feel like a single, continuous person across time? What effects does a person's perception of time have on the...

Read the full transcript here. Why is Stoicism important and useful today? What are the main ideas of Stoicism? How can you tell if you're "living well"? And if you're not living well, then how can you move yourself in that direction? How can we learn to accept and embrace life as it comes without losing our desire to improve ourselves and the world around us? Do people vary in the degree to which...

Read the full transcript here. What is a "theory of everyone"? Do the social sciences currently have enough firm knowledge to synthesize such a theory? Have we been getting smarter as a species over the last few hundred years? Were great historical thinkers smarter than today's greatest minds? Why are governments so prone to corruption? What is the COMPASS framework? What is the "no hyphen" immigr...

Read the full transcript here. Has the world been "lucky" so far with respect to nuclear weapons? How many people have died from nuclear weapons? To what extent do nuclear weapons actually deter aggression? How many countries currently have nuclear weapons or are in the process of building them? How can we discourage continued proliferation of (or even the desire to own) nuclear weapons? How tight...

Read the full transcript here. What does it really mean to align an AI system with human values? What would a powerful AI need to do in order to do "what we want"? How does being an assistant differ from being an agent? Could inter-AI debate work as an alignment strategy, or would it just result in arguments designed to manipulate humans via their cognitive and emotional biases? How can we make su...