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Bonus: Damon Binder on Economic History and the Future of Physics

Jan 30, 2023

04:00:35

Episode guests

Damon Binder

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Einstein's Theory of the Universe

03:17

The Industrial Revolution and Its Effects on the World

01:43

Maxwell's Equations - The Speed of Light

04:38

Introduction

2min

What's Going on With the Hockey Stick?

4min

Are We on the Next Step?

6min

Is Life Expectancy Going Down With These Early States?

4min

Is There a Difference Between State Power and Average Quality of Life?

5min

What Does Like Optimal Peasant Utility Look Like?

2min

Do You Think Malthus Got Anything Wrong?

2min

The Carrying Capacity of Land

2min

The Industrial Revolution

2min

10.

Industrial Revolution

2min

11.

Is the Industrial Revolution a Driving Factor?

4min

12.

Is Industrialization Inevitable?

3min

13.

What's the Good News About Coal?

3min

14.

The Enlightenment and the Protestant Work Ethic

2min

15.

What's the Role of the Catholic Church in Europe?

2min

16.

What's the Story Behind the Industrial Revolution?

4min

17.

The Black Death Wage Factor Price Story

2min

18.

The Black Death and Population Growth

4min

19.

The Industrial Revolution

3min

20.

The Industrial Revolution and Its Effects on the World

2min

21.

Did the Industrial Revolution Cause Empire?

4min

22.

The New World's Exchange

2min

23.

The Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences

3min

24.

Is It a Security Dilemma?

3min

25.

How Far Can You Stretch That?

2min

26.

Is There a Good Answer to the Question of Population Growth?

2min

27.

Is There a Future for AI?

3min

28.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence?

2min

29.

Is There a Middle Ground for Biochemical Enhancement?

2min

30.

Is There a Limit to Growth in a Super Denmark World?

3min

31.

Degrowth Arguments

4min

32.

The Global North Should Like Degrowth a Bit

3min

33.

Are You a Skeptic of Existential Risk?

2min

34.

Is Accelerating the Development of Advanced Biotech a Good Idea?

3min

35.

Is It a Good Net Bad or Just a Side Show?

3min

36.

Crusader Kings

2min

37.

EA Research

3min

38.

What's the Basic Numbers in Cell Biology?

2min

39.

What's Up With Content Free Physics?

6min

40.

What Are the Different Camps of Theorists?

3min

41.

What Does Quantum Gravity Look Like?

5min

42.

How to Find a Muon?

4min

43.

How to Prove Quantum Gravity Effects With a Microscope?

5min

44.

Maxwell's Equations Explained Electricity and Magnetism

4min

45.

Maxwell's Equations - The Speed of Light

5min

46.

The Speed of Light Is the Same for Everyone

2min

47.

How Do You Measure the Speed of Light With Microsomoly Technology?

5min

48.

Special Relativity Is a Critical Feature of Particle Mechanics

2min

49.

Is There a Causal Structure in Relativity?

4min

50.

The Process of Mercury's Orbit

3min

51.

Einstein's Theory of the Universe

3min

52.

Einstein's Theory of General Relativity Was a Theoretical Beast

2min

53.

The Progress in Cosmology in the Second Half of the 20th Century

6min

54.

How to Calculate the Protons and Neutrons From the Standard Model?

2min

55.

The Higgs Boson - The Standard Model Predicts Everything

2min

56.

The Higgs Boson - Is There Anything New?

6min

57.

What Lessons Are Reliable From the String Theory Story?

3min

58.

Is There a Future for String Theory?

4min

59.

Is the Theory of Protein Folding True?

5min

60.

Is String Theory Correct?

1min

61.

What Are the Higgs Masses?

3min

62.

The Cosmological Constant Is Not Zero

2min

63.

The Cosmological Constant Is Not Zero, but It's Close to Zero

4min

64.

Is There a Bias Toward Logic?

4min

65.

Is There a Lot of Stuff in the Universe?

2min

66.

Is There a Universe That's Full of Life?

5min

67.

How Long Will the Last Stars Die?

3min

68.

Seeing Galaxies Is Not Visible Light

5min

69.

The Super Duper Black Hole

5min

70.

Theta Black, We're All Credits

5min

71.

Is the Universe Metastable?

3min

72.

I Don't Think We'll Be Able to Break Like the Speed of Light Barrier

3min

73.

Is There Anything Like First Principles Thinking Going on Here?

4min

74.

Are There Any Reasons to Prefer Digital Minds?

4min

Damon Binder is a research analyst at Open Philanthropy. His research focuses on potential risks from pandemics and from biotechnology. He previously worked as a research scholar at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, where he studied existential risks. Prior to that he completed his PhD in theoretical physics at Princeton University.

We discuss:

How did early states manage large populations?
What explains the hockeystick shape of world economic growth?
Did urbanisation enable more productive farming, or vice-versa?
What does transformative AI mean for growth?
Would 'degrowth' benefit the world?
What do theoretical physicists actually do, and what are they still trying to understand?
Why not just run bigger physics experiments to solve the latest problems?
What could the history of physics tell us about its future?
In what sense are the universe's constants fine-tuned?
Will the universe ever just... end?
Why might we expect digital minds to be a big deal?

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Hear This Idea

Bonus: Damon Binder on Economic History and the Future of Physics

Episode guests

Einstein's Theory of the Universe

The Industrial Revolution and Its Effects on the World

Maxwell's Equations - The Speed of Light

Links

Get the Snipdpodcast app

AI-poweredpodcast player

Discoverhighlights

Save anymoment

Share& Export

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Get the Snipd
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moment

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