Scott Alexander, Nick Land, and the Golden Era

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"I think he respects nick land in a way that we don't, because he's at least trying to tackle the problem. He's not just putting his leg head in the sand," she says of scott alexander. "Theseese facking guys think that they can like understand...the course of humanity at the level of thousands years is uhat i feel like i feel about scot alexander."

David and Tamler wind their way through the long-requested “Meditations on Moloch” by Scott Alexander, a comprehensive account of the coordination problems (personified by Allan Ginsberg’s demon-entity Moloch) that lead to human misery and values tossed out the window. Does Alexander’s rationalist conception of human nature ignore the work of VBW favorites like Joe Henrich and Robert Frank? Is he a little too friendly to the neo-social Darwinism view of some guy named Nick Land? And oh no, why does he have to go transhumanist at the end?! Plus, we talk about the unique comic vision of Norm Macdonald and why we loved him.