NonProphets

Episode 77 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss a request for listener input on the Pantone Color of the Year (2:59), Iran and Saudi Arabia (8:47), with a detour into Russian/Ukrainian cultural cynicism (18:06), and the Trump whistleblower scandal/contretemps/nothing burger (25:39). They close with a discussion of the Democratic candidates, including Atief's recent...

Episode 76 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott talk about what they did over the summer (01:05); why they've been less enthusiastic about following politics lately (06:03); what they think about the Democratic primary debates so far (10:49); whether the Democrats should go low when Republicans go low (18:29); to what extent we're responsible for the ethics and policies of...

Episode 75 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott interview David Epstein, author of the best-selling books Range and The Sports Gene . We talk to David about what it means to have range and how the 10,000 hour rule falls short (00:38); how to adapt to "wicked" learning environments (03:10); why "omnivorous generalists" are better at forecasting (18:40); how his research inf...

Episode 74 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss the ethics of providing information, such as forecasts, to clients (00:45), why public information may be preferable to private when it comes to managing the risk of information misuse (13:12), and why it's so much simpler, from a moral perspective, to just paint houses (17:31). They close with a discussion of recent...

Episode 73 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Robert and Scott interview UC Santa Cruz cosmologist and Metaculus co-founder Anthony Aguirre. We talk to Dr. Aguirre about why he founded Metaculus (01:10); forecasting the far future and catastrophic events (14:08); forecasting the development of AI (21:30); calibrating forecasts (29:25); catastrophic risk and the Future of Life Institute (40:06);...

Episode 72 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott interview superforecaster and novelist Dan Mayland. Dan is the author of a series of spy novels set in and around Iran and the Greater Caspian region. We talk to Dan about how he got into writing novels (00:39); what will become of the Iran nuclear deal (08:56); how common conspiracies are in real life (14:05); his forthcomin...

Episode 71 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss managing the risks associated with emerging technologies (00:28), what's going on in Venezuela (28:05), whether the UK may require aid in the event of a hard Brexit (32:13), as well as the concepts of a "cheese submarine" (35:09) and a "glass cliff" (35:59). They close with a discussion of the 2020 Democratic presiden...

Episode 70 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott forecast listener questions. We discuss who will win Chicago's mayoral election (01:18); whether it makes sense to buy a hybrid or electric car (11:56); and whether the US will pass its own version of the EU's GDPR data privacy law (19:09). We close out the episode by talking about Isaac Asimov's prediction for 2019 (38:03) a...

Episode 69 of the NonProphets podcast, Atief, Robert, and Scott talk to Marc Koehler. Marc is the Vice President of Good Judgment Inc., in charge of government relations and co-head of analytics as well as an accomplished superforecaster. He was simultaneously the top forecaster on the internal Intelligence Community Prediction Market, the Good Judgment Project superforecaster prediction market, a...

Episode 68 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott look back at their 2018 forecasts and forward to 2019 (2:23); the significance of US Secretary of Defense James Mattis' resignation for the US' relationship with its allies (8:57); iterated tit-for-tat games (18:00); the normalization of authoritarian politics (22:47); the US government shutdown and the Wall (26:45); our pred...

Episode 67 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott perform their annual ritual of predicting the next Pantone color of the year (00:21), and then discuss their predictions for Time’s 2018 Person of the Year (20:07), both of which are now public. Overtaken by events! But, still fun. As always, you can reach us at nonprophetspod.wordpress.com or at nonprophetspod@gmail.com. (re...

Episode 66 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss what happened in US midterm elections and what will happen next. We talk about why Claire McCaskill lost in Missouri (01:27); the Green New Deal and whether the Democrats should make Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House again (13:27); voter suppression in the election (25:30); what's going to happen in US politics over t...

Episode 65 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss Predictit (0:15); US midterm elections (7:39); why most conspiracy theories are false (23:04); how no one likes to be laughed at (27:46); the Missouri Senate race (33:02); the possibility of post-election violence (35:47); Trump's claim that he can effectively amend the 14thAmendment (42:38); and Draymond Green and th...

Episode 64 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss whether we should care about nukes (1:15), the difficulty of tackling big problems (4:02), The Invention of Peace, pseudo-events, cruelty, and what we care about (10:16), and national identity and immigration (16:05). They then discuss the midterms, including which issues matter (26:57), the Missouri senate race (29:1...

Episode 63 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court in light of allegations that he tried to rape a fifteen-year-old girl when he was in high school. We talk about the PredictIt market for how many votes Kavanaugh will get in the Senate by October 31 (00:20); the nature of the allegations against Kavanaugh (09:38); how...

Episode 62 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief and Robert, with Scott away, talk about a PredictIt deal for users, as well as a frankly fantastic contest the podcast is having for our listeners (00:10). We then discuss the upcoming midterms, including data sources that we find probative (9:12), and the median voter theory, Missouri and Hawaii politics, and races that we find interesting (17...

Episode 61 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott talk about what they were up to all summer while they weren't podcasting. They discuss the anti-terrorism conference sponsored by Iran that Scott attended (00:58); the politicization of the administrative state (07:01); the use of pretexts in political debates (09:43); how Robert lost money by bailing out of a bet about Hawai...

Episode 60 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott catch up on what they've been up to, including Atief following the Supreme Court's upcoming Lucia vs. SEC decision (00:55), Robert attending the Hawaii state Democratic convention (16:34), a discussion of being a new parent in the context of national politics (29:47), including which celebrities we would swap in for Trump (34...

Episode 59 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott talk to Will Jennings, head of public engagement at the political prediction market PredictIt. Will previously worked in the Obama White House and for the vice presidential campaign of Senator Tim Kaine. We talk with Will about what PredictIt is and how it works (00:45); how prediction markets can be sources of news and infor...

Episode 58 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott talk to Byron Reese about his new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity . We talk what motivated the book (00:33); what "the Fourth Age" is (02:00); the role of ideas and culture in history (07:35); whether automation will cause technological unemployment (09:00); whether automati...

Episode 57 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott probe the limits of their new political reality with a thought experiment that they called "Everything's on the Table" (aka "Plausible/Implausible"). After discussing the rules of the game (01:01), they discussed the possibility of an announcement about Korean reunification (4:07), Hungary (Hungaria?) making arrests in a Geor...

Episode 56 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss "the backfire effect"—the fact that people sometimes seem to hold ideas even more firmly after being confronted with evidence they are wrong. We talk about Andrew Gelman's skepticism of the recent New England Journal of Medicine finding that firearm injuries in the US drop 20% while NRA members are attending national...

  Episode 55 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott discuss their Predictit account, including the class of questions on which they have been losing money (1:04), as well as how they approach gaining probative information out of Trump administration pronouncements (12:00). They then discuss Russia, including propaganda and assassinations (22:08), whether Scott is a Time Lord...

Episode 54 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott talk about the impact of the Parkland shooting on US politics (01:45); the rapidly shifting Republican orthodoxy (14:32); whether democratic norms are weakening (24:51); Transparency International's 2017 Corruption Index (40:33); whether there will be any material change in US gun laws in the next six months (48:50); and whic...

Episode 53 of the NonProphets podcast, in which Atief, Robert, and Scott talk about a 1968 collection of essays speculating what 2018 would be like called  Toward the Year 2018 . We talk about whether it's really possible to predict the future fifty years out (00:19); the difficulty of forecasting changing norms and tastes (05:12); what the book got right and what it got wrong (10:01); how much ou...