The Nonlinear Library EA - My top 10 picks from 200 episodes of the 80k podcast by JWS
Sep 9, 2024
11:53
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: My top 10 picks from 200 episodes of the 80k podcast, published by JWS on September 9, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Intro
I think the 80,000 Hours Podcast is a great show. Despite the world of podcasts overflowing with content to choose from, it's reliably been a high-quality production that's been a regular part of my listening habits ever since I discovered it. It was also probably one of the first routes I become more aware of the EA community, which I suspect I might not be alone by.[1]
So, as the podcast numbers ticked up, the vague idea to write up a post shouting out some of my favourite episodes took root. I didn't get far with it from there, and now the unreasonable effectiveness of the 80k podcast production team has forced my hand! So in the post I'm going to link to my 10 favourite episodes, along with some final thoughts at the end.
I hope to share with you some of my favourite episodes, but I want to be clear that this is my list and not any sort of official ranking. If there's a really good episode that your surprised isn't on there, it may well because I haven't listened to that one yet! So, without any further ado, here's the Top 10 List:
My Top 10
10-4
10: #144 - Athena Aktipis on why cancer is actually one of the fundamental phenomena in our universe
While the podcast's title is nominally about cancer, I think the ideas in the podcast actually hint towards Autopoiesis, something I think connects a bunch of different causes I care about. I wasn't really aware of many of the things that Athena and Rob discuss in the episode so I found the discussing incredibly interesting, especially about how the concepts of growth, maintenance, and co-operation appear at many different levels in the universe.
9: #175 - Lucia Coulter on preventing lead poisoning for $1.66 per child
LEEP is probably one of the key EA success stories in recent years but hearing it through Lucia's own words and her own story, from CE incubation to actually bringing the results of lead concentration to the Malawi Ministry of Health, was really inspiring to hear. There's also some good discussion about the 10% Pledge and the age-old Randomista v Growth debate in the episode too.
8: #139 - Alan Hájek on puzzles and paradoxes in probability and expected value
This was another excellent episode where Rob and an incredbily smart, engaging guest got to do a deep dive into an idea and see where it went. I think Professor Hájek did a fantastic job sharing his knowledge in an enlightening way, and he really showcased a number of limits of expect value calculations (not least the realisation the probability(0) events can and do happen all the time) which left my mind blown in a good way.
7: #153 - Elie Hassenfeld on two big picture critiques of GiveWell's approach, and six lessons from their recent work
GiveWell looms large in the world of EA, so to get the CEO to come on the podcast and talk in this detail was great to see. I found Elie both an engaging guest and a persuasive interlocutor when he and Rob get into debates, and this definitely didn't seem like a softball interview to me. The Randomista v Growth section (at 02:20:00) is really good on this, and I wish Rob had actually put himself on the line a bit more since he clearly has a lot of sympathy with the 'Growth' side of the debate.
6: #129 - Dr James Tibenderana on the state of the art in malaria control and elimination
This podcast comes in at over 3 hours, but still I found it flying by as a listener. The topics range from the specific work of Maleria Consortium, the overall landscape of the battle against Malaria, as well as James' own story, including fighting off the disease himself. There's some much rich discussion that it feels like any of these could have been an episode on its own, so to get all 3-in-1 firmly puts th...
Intro
I think the 80,000 Hours Podcast is a great show. Despite the world of podcasts overflowing with content to choose from, it's reliably been a high-quality production that's been a regular part of my listening habits ever since I discovered it. It was also probably one of the first routes I become more aware of the EA community, which I suspect I might not be alone by.[1]
So, as the podcast numbers ticked up, the vague idea to write up a post shouting out some of my favourite episodes took root. I didn't get far with it from there, and now the unreasonable effectiveness of the 80k podcast production team has forced my hand! So in the post I'm going to link to my 10 favourite episodes, along with some final thoughts at the end.
I hope to share with you some of my favourite episodes, but I want to be clear that this is my list and not any sort of official ranking. If there's a really good episode that your surprised isn't on there, it may well because I haven't listened to that one yet! So, without any further ado, here's the Top 10 List:
My Top 10
10-4
10: #144 - Athena Aktipis on why cancer is actually one of the fundamental phenomena in our universe
While the podcast's title is nominally about cancer, I think the ideas in the podcast actually hint towards Autopoiesis, something I think connects a bunch of different causes I care about. I wasn't really aware of many of the things that Athena and Rob discuss in the episode so I found the discussing incredibly interesting, especially about how the concepts of growth, maintenance, and co-operation appear at many different levels in the universe.
9: #175 - Lucia Coulter on preventing lead poisoning for $1.66 per child
LEEP is probably one of the key EA success stories in recent years but hearing it through Lucia's own words and her own story, from CE incubation to actually bringing the results of lead concentration to the Malawi Ministry of Health, was really inspiring to hear. There's also some good discussion about the 10% Pledge and the age-old Randomista v Growth debate in the episode too.
8: #139 - Alan Hájek on puzzles and paradoxes in probability and expected value
This was another excellent episode where Rob and an incredbily smart, engaging guest got to do a deep dive into an idea and see where it went. I think Professor Hájek did a fantastic job sharing his knowledge in an enlightening way, and he really showcased a number of limits of expect value calculations (not least the realisation the probability(0) events can and do happen all the time) which left my mind blown in a good way.
7: #153 - Elie Hassenfeld on two big picture critiques of GiveWell's approach, and six lessons from their recent work
GiveWell looms large in the world of EA, so to get the CEO to come on the podcast and talk in this detail was great to see. I found Elie both an engaging guest and a persuasive interlocutor when he and Rob get into debates, and this definitely didn't seem like a softball interview to me. The Randomista v Growth section (at 02:20:00) is really good on this, and I wish Rob had actually put himself on the line a bit more since he clearly has a lot of sympathy with the 'Growth' side of the debate.
6: #129 - Dr James Tibenderana on the state of the art in malaria control and elimination
This podcast comes in at over 3 hours, but still I found it flying by as a listener. The topics range from the specific work of Maleria Consortium, the overall landscape of the battle against Malaria, as well as James' own story, including fighting off the disease himself. There's some much rich discussion that it feels like any of these could have been an episode on its own, so to get all 3-in-1 firmly puts th...