We Are Not Saved

My aunt directed me to an article about an appalling video. It seems like more and more, what was unimaginable 20 years ago is now completely normal. The question is why? What is the underlying motiv…

I have a tendency to cover a wide variety of topics, but what's the common theme. Here I revisit a subject I haven't touched on since the very first episode. What's the common theme for this podcast?…

In the final episode of the Mormonism and AI series I finally really dive into the religious implications of considering life a test of morality in a way similar to what must be done with AIs. As par…

Taking things up from where I left them at the end of the last episode I go into more detail about the various ways you might try to ensure that a conscious AI is moral, and examine the problems each…

I return to the subject of Mormonism and Artificial Intelligence, though this time in a more comprehensive fashion. This is the first part which covers the current state of AI, the challenges it alre…

Visions of the future end up in one of three categories. Either the future will be awesome, or it will basically be the same (TV, couches and central air will all still exist) or the world will end, …

Social media is one of the biggest battlefields in the current divisive cultural war, but how much does social media itself contribute to the divisiveness? By creating an entirely new framework for i…

In this episode I discuss the idea of the Overton Window. The sorts of things you can propose without people thinking you're crazy. In particular I focus on how it moves, but always to the left, and …

It has been remarked that one of the strangest features of today is that every side thinks they're losing. Immigrants are convinced they’re all about to be deported. Christians feel under attack by a…

For episode 50 (something I neglected to mention while actually recording the podcast) we return to look at the point of the podcast, why it's sometimes important to be pessimist and why rationalists…

If you were to look at the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica, as John Derbyshire did in 2006 you would find 152 countries listed. How many of them survived intact to the present day, meaning no change in …

In this podcast I introduce the concept of supernormal stimuli. Originally uncovered when scientists discovered that some birds prefer artificial eggs as large as they are to their own eggs. From the…

One of the major things coming down the pike is job automation. Robots and AI are getting better and better at doing jobs that used to be only available for humans. In this podcast I examine that phe…

One of my fundamental positions is that we are in a race between societal collapse on one hand and a technological singularity on the other. But there are some who think it will be neither and others…

What is civilization? And how do we preserve it? In this episode I connect the idea of time preference to civilization and point out how we are becoming more and more short term in our desires and ac…

I examine whether we should still be worried about overpopulation. I also look at the phenomenon of falling birth rates and what it says about the societies that experience falling fertility. Also wh…

A review and discussion of the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger. In particular an examination of how stress and struggle can improve mental health, and how by removing both struggle and community moder…

In my continuing obsession with the Mormon Transhumanist Association I report back from their annual conference. Specifically I look at their vision of the future vs. mine, the limits of growth and w…

Having recently gone to the MTA Conference I ended up with more commentary than could fit in the normal episode. So this is a bonus episode. Additionally as part of the patreon rewards I committed to…