The Valmy

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

Podcast: Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS Episode: Rawls on JusticeRelease date: 2021-04-06Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationJohn Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) changed the face of modern political philosophy by reinventing the question of what constitutes fairness. From ‘the veil of ignorance’ to ‘reflective equilibrium’ it introduced new ways of thinking about the problem of justice along with new problems for thinking about politics. David discusses Rawls’s influence on what happened next.Recommended version to buyMichael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982, 1998) Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (1989)Katrina Forrester, In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy (2019)[Audio]: 'John Rawls' A Theory of Justice,' BBC Radio 3, Arts & Ideas  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Podcast: The TED Interview Episode: David Deutsch on the infinite reach of knowledgeRelease date: 2018-10-23Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationIt can be easy to believe that humans are insignificant. We’re specks of dust on a random planet in a vast universe. Less powerful than elephants. Fewer than ants. But David Deutsch believes that’s all beside the point, because humans possess one unique skill: attaining knowledge. David Deutsch – Oxford professor, father of quantum computing, recluse – convinced Chris years ago to take over leadership of TED with his ideas about knowledge. In this mind-bending conversation, the two dive into his theory that the potential reach of knowledge is infinite. They explore how knowledge first developed, why it sets us apart and what all of these heady concepts really mean for our present and future. To find out more about TED, please visit TED.com.Find the transcript at: go.ted.com/interviewdeutsch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Podcast: Hear This Idea Episode: #26 – Thomas Moynihan on the History of Existential RiskRelease date: 2021-03-22Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationThomas Moynihan is a writer and researcher interested in the history of ideas surrounding existential risk and human flourishing. He completed a PhD on the history of human extinction, and currently works with Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. His most recent book is called X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction. You can read much more about the topics we cover in this episode in our accompanying write-up: hearthisidea.com/episodes/thomas. It's not a transcript! If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, feel free get in touch through our website or by using the star rating form on each episode page. Please also consider leaving us a review wherever you're listening to this. If you want to support the show more directly and help us keep hosting these episodes online, consider leaving a tip. Thanks for listening!

Podcast: Subversive w/Alex Kaschuta Episode: Patrick Deneen - Liberalism & The Meaning of FreedomRelease date: 2021-03-17Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationYou can support this podcast at https://www.patreon.com/aksubversive ​Or check out my writing on Substack at https://alexkaschuta.substack.com/ I talk with Patrick Deneen about why Liberalism failed, about the frictionless society, being alone, technology and supernormal stimuli, why Libertarianism failed and keeps failing, the problems of scale, the West strip-mining the world for intelligence, fertility traps, and much more. We also cover what could come next, which will be the topic of Prof. Deneen's next book. Patrick Deneen is a Professor of Political Science at Notre Dame and the author of "Why Liberalism Failed." Music: Discovery by Scott Buckley https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0

Podcast: Many Minds Episode: Culture, innovation, and the collective brainRelease date: 2021-02-03Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationGreetings friends and happy February! Today’s episode is a conversation with Dr. Michael Muthukrishna, an Associate Professor of Economic Psychology at the London School of Economics. Michael’s research takes on a suite of topics that all start from a single big question: Why are we so different from other animals? Part of the answer has to do with our neural hardware. There’s no question we’ve got big brains—and Michael has some cool things to say about why they may have gotten so big. But Michael is just as focused on our cultural software—the tools and ideas we develop, tweak, share, and accumulate over time. You might say he’s more impressed by our collective brains than by our individual brains. To study all this, Michael builds formal theories and computational models; he runs experiments; and he constructs and analyzes huge databases. We cover a lot of ground in this episode. We talk about the finding that the size and interconnectedness of a social group affects the cultural skills that group can develop and maintain. We consider what actually powers innovation (hint: it’s not lone geniuses). We discuss how diversity is a bit double-edged and why psychology needs to become a historical science. And that, my friends, is hardly all—we also touch on cetaceans, religious history, and spinning plates. I’ve been hoping to have Michael on the show for months now. His work is deeply theoretical, advancing the basic science of what it means to be human. But it’s also engaged with important practical issues—issues like corruption and cultural diversity. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Dr. Michael Muthukrishna. Enjoy! A transcript of this show is available here.   Notes and links 4:30 - An introduction to “dual inheritance theory.” 11:00 - A 2013 paper by Dr. Muthukrishna and colleagues about the relationship between sociality and cultural complexity. 12:15 - A paper on the loss of cultural tools and traditions in the Tasmanian case. 21:20 – A 2016 paper by Dr. Muthukrishna and Joseph Henrich on innovation and the collective brain. 28:30 - The original paper on the notion of cultural “tightness” and “looseness.” 30:20 - A recent short piece by Dr. Muthukrishna on the paradox of diversity. 34:50 - A 2019 popular piece of mine on the phenomenon of “global WEIRDing.” 40:27 - The so-called Flynn Effect refers to the puzzling rise of IQ scores over time. It is named after James Flynn, who died only weeks ago. 42:30 - A paper about the significance of Luria’s work on abstract reasoning in Uzbekistan. 50:26 - A paper on the “cultural brain hypothesis,” the subject of Dr. Muthukrishna’s dissertation. 51:00 - A paper on brains as fundamentally “expensive.” 58:00 - Boyd & Richardson, mentioned here, have authored a number of highly influential books. The first of these was Culture and the Evolutionary Process. 59:35 - A 2015 paper on head size and emergency birth interventions. 1:01:20 - The stylized model we mention here is discussed and illustrated in this lecture from the 2020 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute. 1:03:15 – The paper by Dr. Muthukrishna and colleagues on cetacean brains and culture. 1:11:38 - The paper by Dr. Muthukrishna and colleagues on ‘Psychology as a Historical Science.’ 1:14:00 - The 2020 paper by Dr. Muthukrishna and colleagues introducing a tool for the measurement of cultural distance. 1:20:20 – Dr. Muthukrishna is part of the team behind the Database of Religious History. 1:24:25 - The paper by Dr. Muthukrishna and Joe Henrich on ‘The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation.’   Dr. Muthukrishna’s end-of-show reading recommendations: Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success & The WEIRDest People in the World Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas  You can keep up with Dr. Muthukrishna’s work at his personal website and on Twitter (@mmuthukrishna).   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://www.diverseintelligencessummer.com/, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Hilda Loury. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/. You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Podcast: Talking Politics: HISTORY OF IDEAS Episode: Bentham on PleasureRelease date: 2021-02-09Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationJeremy Bentham’s Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation is a definitive early statement of the basis of utilitarianism: how do we achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest number? David looks at Bentham’s rationale for this approach and the many criticisms it has faced. Bentham has often been accused of reducing politics to mechanical calculation and missing what really matters. But given the time in which he was writing, wasn’t the prioritisation of pleasure the most radical idea of all?Free online version of textRecommended version to purchaseGoing deeper…Philip Lucas and Anne Sheeran, ‘Asperger’s Syndrome and the Eccentricity and Genius of Jeremy Bentham’ (2006)Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975) Thomas McMullan, ‘What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance?’, The Guardian (2015)(Audio) In Our Time, Utilitarianism See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.