The Valmy

Podcast: Village Global Podcast Episode: What Tyler Cowen Thinks About Basically EverythingRelease date: 2018-11-30Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationIn this extended episode of Venture Stories, Erik interviews Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University. They discuss about a wide range of topics, including Tyler’s book Stubborn Attachments, the value of watching sports, travel, Bitcoin, the Knicks, and Effective Altruism — among many, many others.Tyler explains why he has only two “stubborn attachments” — human rights and economic growth. He takes us through his argument that there’s a moral imperative for economic growth. He talks about why economic growth is the greatest force for good in the world, why redistribution isn’t as effective as Effective Altruists would like, and why we dramatically underestimate the effects of compounding. He discusses some of the reactions to the book and why he says he’s “poked the left in the eye and poked the right in the eye” with Stubborn Attachments. They discuss the reasons for the extraordinary economic growth of East Asian countries and what kinds of lessons the West could take from those examples. Tyler talks about whether religion has an impact on economic growth and why inequality isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be.Erik asks Tyler what he would do if he could wave a magic wand and change a number of entities, including the US healthcare system, the Knicks, and the Department of Education. Tyler tells Erik whether he would buy Bitcoin and gives his thoughts on central banking and Austrian economics. He also explains why travel is so valuable and why “at the margins people should be more like anthropologists.”Erik asks Tyler where his views diverge from those of a number of prominent intellectuals, including Thomas Piketty, Russ Roberts, Ayn Rand, and Glen Weyl. Tyler explains why he suspects the environment in which someone grew up influences their thinking style.Tyler’s own podcast Conversations with Tyler has been a big inspiration to Erik and Venture Stories, so Erik concludes with an homage with a round of overrated vs. underrated and by asking Tyler what his production function is for the podcast.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Podcast: Philosophize This! Episode: Episode #158 ... The Creation of Meaning - Nietzsche - The Ascetic IdealRelease date: 2021-10-05Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationToday we look at the creation of meaning through the work of Nietzsche. Thank you so much for listening! Could never do this without your help. Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis Social:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philosophizethispodcastX: https://twitter.com/iamstephenwestFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/philosophizethisshow

Release date: 2021-08-27Notes from The Valmy:Source: University of Oxford (The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics) https://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/uehiro-lectures-2015 Release date: 2015-01-01Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization

Podcast: Philosophy Bites Episode: Roger Crisp on VirtueRelease date: 2008-10-12Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationRoger Crisp discusses the nature of virtue in this interview with Nigel Warburton for  the Philosophy Bites podcast.

Podcast: Philosophy Bites Episode: Roger Crisp on UtilitarianismRelease date: 2007-07-16Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationHow should we live? John Stuart Mill, one of the great thinkers of the nineteenth century thought that we should maximise happiness. Here Roger Crisp, author of an acclaimed book on Mill, explains Mill's utilitarian ethical theory.

Podcast: 80,000 Hours Podcast Episode: #102 – Tom Moynihan on why prior generations missed some of the biggest priorities of allRelease date: 2021-06-11Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationIt can be tough to get people to truly care about reducing existential risks today. But spare a thought for the longtermist of the 17th century: they were surrounded by people who thought extinction was literally impossible. Today’s guest Tom Moynihan, intellectual historian and author of the book X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction, says that until the 18th century, almost everyone — including early atheists — couldn’t imagine that humanity or life could simply disappear because of an act of nature. Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. This is largely because of the prevalence of the ‘principle of plenitude’, which Tom defines as saying: “Whatever can happen will happen. In its stronger form it says whatever can happen will happen reliably and recurrently. And in its strongest form it says that all that can happen is happening right now. And that's the way things will be forever.” This has the implication that if humanity ever disappeared for some reason, then it would have to reappear. So why would you ever worry about extinction? Here are 4 more commonly held beliefs from generations past that Tom shares in the interview: • All regions of matter that can be populated will be populated: In other words, there are aliens on every planet, because it would be a massive waste of real estate if all of them were just inorganic masses, where nothing interesting was going on. This also led to the idea that if you dug deep into the Earth, you’d potentially find thriving societies. • Aliens were human-like, and shared the same values as us: they would have the same moral beliefs, and the same aesthetic beliefs. The idea that aliens might be very different from us only arrived in the 20th century. • Fossils were rocks that had gotten a bit too big for their britches and were trying to act like animals: they couldn’t actually move, so becoming an imprint of an animal was the next best thing. • All future generations were contained in miniature form, Russian-doll style, in the sperm of the first man: preformation was the idea that within the ovule or the sperm of an animal is contained its offspring in miniature form, and the French philosopher Malebranche said, well, if one is contained in the other one, then surely that goes on forever. And here are another three that weren’t held widely, but were proposed by scholars and taken seriously: • Life preceded the existence of rocks: Living things, like clams and mollusks, came first, and they extruded the earth. • No idea can be wrong: Nothing we can say about the world is wrong in a strong sense, because at some point in the future or the past, it has been true. • Maybe we were living before the Trojan War: Aristotle said that we might actually be living before Troy, because it — like every other event — will repeat at some future date. And he said that actually, the set of possibilities might be so narrow that it might be safer to say that we actually live before Troy. But Tom tries to be magnanimous when faced with these incredibly misguided worldviews. In this nearly four-hour long interview, Tom and Rob cover all of these ideas, as well as: • How we know people really believed such things • How we moved on from these theories • How future intellectual historians might view our beliefs today • The distinction between ‘apocalypse’ and ‘extinction’ • Utopias and dystopias • Big ideas that haven’t flowed through into all relevant fields yet • Intellectual history as a possible high-impact career • And much moreChapters:Rob’s intro (00:00:00)The interview begins (00:01:45)Principle of Plenitude (00:04:02)How do we know they really believed this? (00:13:20)Religious conceptions of time (00:24:01)How to react to wacky old ideas (00:29:18)The Copernican revolution (00:36:55)Fossils (00:42:30)How we got past these theories (00:51:19)Intellectual history (01:01:45)Future historians looking back to today (01:13:11)Could plenitude actually be true? (01:27:38)What is vs. what ought to be (01:36:43)Apocalypse vs. extinction (01:45:56)The history of probability (02:00:52)Utopias and dystopias (02:12:11)How Tom has changed his mind since writing the book (02:28:58)Are we making progress? (02:35:00)Big ideas that haven’t flowed through to all relevant fields yet (02:52:07)Failed predictions (02:59:01)Intellectual history as high-impact career (03:06:56)Communicating progress (03:15:07)What careers in history actually look like (03:23:03)Tom’s next major project (03:43:06)One of the funniest things past generations believed (03:51:50)Producer: Keiran Harris.Audio mastering: Ben Cordell.Transcriptions: Sofia Davis-Fogel.

Podcast: Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS Episode: Shklar on HypocrisyRelease date: 2021-04-20Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationJudith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices (1984) made the case that the worst of all the vices is cruelty. But that meant we needed to be more tolerant of some other common human failings, including snobbery, betrayal and hypocrisy. David explores what she had to say about some of the other authors in this series – including Bentham and Nietzsche – and asks what price we should be willing to pay for putting cruelty first among the vices.Recommended version to buyGoing Deeper:David Runciman, Political Hypocrisy (2008)Katrina Forrester, ‘Hope and Memory in the thought of Judith Shklar’, Modern Intellectual History (2011)Samantha Ashenden and Andreas Hess, 'The Theorist of Belonging', Aeon (2020)[Audio]: 'The Moral Philosophy of the Good Place,' Vox See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Podcast: Utilitarian Episode: The Feeling of Value - Sharon Hewitt RawletteRelease date: 2020-08-29Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationSharon Hewitt Rawlette and I discuss the metaethical thesis of her book The Feeling of Value, which centers around normative qualia. We touch upon perspectival bias, pain and pleasure, how to construct a robust moral realism, the is-ought distinction, the open question argument, evolutionary debunking arguments, the experience machine, the repugnant conclusion, the best argument against utilitarianism and whether we have made moral progress all things considered.

Podcast: Access to Excellence Podcast Episode: With Emergent Ventures, Tyler Cowen puts money where his mind isRelease date: 2021-05-04Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationEmergent Ventures, which looks for big and unique ideas, has raised $60 million and funded 200 projects. Mason economist and co-founder Tyler Cowen says the grants are “something you can win that’s not about connections.” Push ideas, he said. “Make the world tell you no.” Cowen also talks about how the Fast Grants program is helping fight Covid-19, why having children can help fight climate change and why he is bullish on the U.S. economy.

Release date: 2021-04-29Notes from The Valmy:Source: YouTube (Stripe Press) https://d37ugbyn3rpeym.cloudfront.net/stripe-press/TAODSAE_zine_press.pdf Release date: 1996-06-06Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization