Undertone

Henry Oliver is the author of the book "Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life" and prolific blogger on literature. Episode transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:38) Late Bloomers (0:07:28) Great Man theory of history (0:16:14) The Common Reader (0:20:56) Rear Window (0:22:58) Literature vs film or music (0:26:41) Mimesis (0:30:07) Ar...

Jan Swafford is an author and composer of classical music. He's written canonical biographies on Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Ives, and is a composer of works such as Landscape with Traveler, From the Shadow of the Mountain, and The Silence at Yuma Point. Episode transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:43) Beethoven and immortality (0:02:35) Mozart and human nature (0:04:43) Mozart an...

Eli Dourado is the chief economist at the Abundance Institute and writes and thinks about how to increase the pace of American economic growth. Episode transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:43) Non-TFP econ metrics (0:04:59) Are ideas getting harder to find? (0:06:52) Economics as a field (0:10:43) Tyler Cowen’s influence (0:13:00) Culture and economic growth (0:16:13) Uniqueness of the U...

Sebastian Mallaby is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Mallaby contributes to a variety of publications, including  Foreign Affairs,  the  Atlantic,  the  Washington Post,  and the  Financial Times , where he spent two years as a contributing editor. He’s the author of many of my favorite business books of all time including Th...

Nabeel is a Visiting Scholar at the Mercatus Center focused on developing an optimistic vision for AI, but as you’ll see in this conversation his breadth of interests goes about as wide as you can imagine. We talk about foreign film, interpreting the Iliad, Shakespeare, Wittgenstein, Derek Parfit, SF vs. NYC, AI, startups, and a lot more. Episode transcript Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:49) Nab...

Sarah and I talk about ultrasound neuromodluation, AI, and cancer research. -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:22) Ultrasound neuromodulation (0:02:33) Where is it in the tech lifecycle? (0:03:48) Why should it be possible? (0:07:44) How impactful will neuromodulation be? (0:12:08) Startups working on neuromodulation (0:16:33) Could we read minds? (0:18:54) Public acceptance of neuromodulation (0...

Alexey and I talk about science, productivity, and utilitarianism. -- Timestamps (00:00) Intro (00:23) How accessible should a good research paper be? (03:47) Good taste (07:07) What does Russia get right? (12:05) Favorite Dostoyevsky novel (14:16) Utilitarianism (16:42) High IQ v genius (17:59) Tyler Cowen's advice (20:13) Bad science (31:25) Productivity (32:55) Updating beliefs (35:18) Medi...

Noah and I talk about Keynes' 15 hour work week, Piketty's r>g, economic development in Africa, Javier Milei, Anime, and more. -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:30) Noah’s intellectual influences (0:10:20) Javier Milei (0:11:43) Which macroeconomist would Noah give the highest grade? (0:13:47) Defining mainstream macro in 2024 (0:18:22) Innovation in macroeconomics (0:21:48) NGDP targ...

Tyler and I talk about nearly everything. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:28) Identifying talent on Tyler’s podcast (0:03:48) Why are follow up questions overrated? (0:04:21) Tyler’s preferred guest career stage (0:05:16) Optimal frequency for recording podcasts (0:05:50) Tyler’s podcast prep (0:07:39) Importance of in-person episodes (0:09:56) What would Tyler ask Paul McCartney (0...

Samo and I talk about history, gerontocracy, and energy. -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:21) Knowledge decaying over time (0:06:02) History and the overabundance of information (0:11:10) History as a profession (0:13:32) What would Hitler and Stalin think of our textbooks? (0:16:44) What would we gain from a more accurate picture of history? (0:22:31) Defining Live Players and Great Founders (...

Vitalik and I talk about libertarianism, Ethereum, and AI. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:21) Governance mechanisms (0:02:32) Talent in crypto (0:10:02) Talent clusters (0:15:23) Crypto conferences (0:19:07) Vitalik’s vision for ETH (0:28:51) Libertarian canon (0:47:25) ETH cultural or technological innovation? (0:53:19) Learning languages in the age of AI (0:57:05) AI and d/acc (1...

Adam and I talk about humor, peer review, and the future of science. Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:45) Is bias overrated? (0:01:46) Researcher ambition (0:05:52) Illusion of moral decline (0:08:10) Morality over time (0:11:33) Humor and teaching (0:13:48) Misconceptions about humor (0:16:48) Lost in translation (0:21:07) Good research ideas (0:27:37) Peer review (0:29:51) Science House (0:35:29...

Scott and I talk about film, literature, asset bubbles, and monetary policy. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:33) Fiction for economists (0:03:44) Knausgaard or Proust? (0:07:04) TV or film? (0:11:58) Joseph Conrad and Werner Herzog (0:14:29) Underrated writers (0:16:47) Do pessimists make better art? (0:18:34) Cultural pessimism (0:25:03) Meaning in jobs (0:28:54) Behavioral vs clas...

Sam and I talk about Hegel, LLM consciousness, and intellectual breadth. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:38) Joseph Heath (0:02:52) Iain Banks and defunctionalized culture (0:05:46) Memetic cultures (0:06:39) Misinterpreting Hegel (0:08:05) Sam's Hegelian influence (0:09:41) Libertarian dialectic (0:13:39) Should EA become explicitly religious? (0:20:53) Hegel and AI (0:25:07) W...

Zvi and I talk about AI and strategy games. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:43) What makes a good strategy game? (0:05:29) Culture of Magic: The Gathering (0:10:14) Raising the status of games (0:13:31) First mover advantage in LLMs (0:18:23) Consumer vs. enterprise AI (0:21:28) Non-technical founders (0:25:24) Where Zvi gets the most utility from AI (0:28:56) Straussian views on AI...

Rohit and I talk about efficient organizations, influencing curiosity, the future of VC. -- Timestamps (00:00) Intro (00:17) BS jobs (04:36) SBF on employee efficiency (11:02) AI on employee efficiency (14:56) Efficient organizations as a thesis (19:53) Are people or more less curious today? (25:10) Firms influencing curiosity (34:06) Return to office (39:00) Future of VC (47:23) Trading on margin...

Steve and I talk about gene editing, polygenic scores, and human flourishing. Transcript -- Timestamps (0:00:00) Intro (0:00:33) Genomic Prediction (0:05:54) IVF (0:12:34) Phenotypic data (0:15:42) Predicting height (0:28:27) Pleiotropy (0:39:14) Optimism (0:45:03) Gene editing (0:48:27) Super intelligent humans (1:01:27) Regulation (1:06:36) Human values (1:17:38) Should you do IVF? (1:26:06) 23a...

Bryan and I talk about his new book, Voters as Mad Scientists . -- Timestamps (00:00) Intro (05:15) Social desirability bias (15:15) Left v right (22:07) The respect motive (28:40) Material v rhetorical dominance (33:00) Extremism (39:28) Venerating great names (44:04) Bryan's bets (48:07) Bryan's alternative to democracy (58:53) Where to find Bryan's work -- Links - Voters as Mad Scie...

Robin and I talk about the sacred, humanity's descendants, and social rot. Episode transcript: ⁠ ⁠https://www.danschulz.co/p/1-robin-hanson⁠⁠ -- Timestamps (00:00) Intro (00:31) Changing careers late in life (01:29) Philosophy (04:33) AI (15:20) The sacred (29:56) Humans exploring the universe (38:02) Social rot (46:52) The Elephant in the Brain -- Links - The Age of Em - The Elephant in the B...