Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar

Social media is tearing us apart by feeding into our need for status. Can we mitigate its effects? Chris Bail joins Vasant Dhar in episode 34 of Brave New World to share his research on how social media affects us -- and how we can fight back. Useful resources 1. Chris Bail at Duke, Sanford School of Public Policy, Google Scholar, Amazon, Twitter and his own website. 2. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing -- Chris Bail. 3. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (with Sinan Aral). 4. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (with Jonathan Haidt). 5. Helena Rosenblatt on Liberalism’s Long Journey -- Episode 32 of Brave New World. 6. We Have Never Been Here Before -- Thomas L Friedman. 7. Adam Alter on Beating Our Addictions -- Episode 28 of Brave New World. 8. The Hype Machine -- Sinan Aral.

The value of a company has a lot to do with the stories it tells about itself. Aswath Damodaran joins Vasant Dhar in episode 33 of Brave New World to discuss how narratives and numbers are related. Useful Resources: 1. Aswath Damodaran on YouTube, Blogspot, Twitter, Amazon and NYU Stern. 2. Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business -- Aswath Damodaran. 3. The Innovator's Dilemma -- Clayton M Christensen. 4. A Disruptive Cab Ride to Riches: The Uber Payoff -- Aswath Damodaran. 5. How to Miss By a Mile: An Alternative Look at Uber’s Potential Market Size -- Bill Gurley. 6. Possible, Plausible and Probable: Big markets and Networking effects -- Aswath Damodaran. 7. Up, up and away! A crowd-valuation of Uber! -- Aswath Damodaran. 8. The Success Equation -- Michael J Mauboussin. 9. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction — Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 10. Philip Tetlock on the Art of Forecasting -- Episode 31 of Brave New World. 11. The Zomato IPO: A Bet on Big Markets and Platforms! -- Aswath Damodaran. 12. Reciprocal Scoring: A Method for Forecasting Unanswerable Questions — Ezra Karger, Joshua Monrad, Barb Mellers and Philip Tetlock. 13. Trafalgar Polls. 14. The Hedgehog and the Fox -- Isaiah Berlin. 15. The Big Market Delusion: Valuation and Investment Implications -- Bradford Cornell and Aswath Damodaran. 16. The Market is Huge! Revisiting the Big Market Delusion -- Aswath Damodaran.

What is liberal democracy and has it lost its way? Helena Rosenblatt joins Vasant Dhar in episode 32 of Brave New World to add a historical perspective to this modern problem in our illiberal and polarized world. Useful resources: 1. The Lost History of Liberalism -- Helena Rosenblatt. 2. Thinking with Rousseau: From Machiavelli to Schmitt -- Helena Rosenblatt. 3. Helena Rosenblatt on Amazon. 4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Amazon. 5. The Technology Wars -- Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan.) 6. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 7. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral). 8. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 9. Justice Antonin Scalia on American exceptionalism. 10. The Future of Liberal Education -- Episode 11 of Brave New World (w Michael S Roth).

Yogi Berra once said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Philip Tetlock joins Vasant Dhar in episode 31 of Brave New World to discuss what  superforecasters do consistently well -- and how we can improve our judgement and decision-making. Useful resources: 1. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 2. Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? -- Philip Tetlock. 3. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 4. Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer -- Duncan Watts. 5. The Hedgehog and the Fox -- Isiah Berlin. 6. What do forecasting rationales reveal about thinking patterns of top geopolitical forecasters? -- Christopher W Karvetski, Carolyn Meinel, Daniel T Maxwell, Yunzi Lu, Barbara A.Mellers and Philip E.Tetlock. 7. Terry Odean on How to Think about Investing -- Episode 23 of Brave New World. 8. Reciprocal Scoring: A Method for Forecasting Unanswerable Questions -- Ezra Karger, Joshua Monrad, Barb Mellers and Philip Tetlock. 9. The Signal and the Noise -- Nate Silver. 10. FiveThirtyEight.

Goodbye big banks. Hello crypto. The world of finance is in the process of changing forever, and David Yermack is your guide. Yermack joins Vasant Dhar in episode 30 of Brave New World to share his road map of, well, this brave new world! Useful resources: 1. David Yermack at NYU Stern and Google Scholar. 2. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 3. Linus's Law (from The Cathedral and the Bazaar). 4. The DAO hack mentioned in the episode.

Capital is no longer a scarce resource. Attention is. Albert Wenger joins Vasant Dhar in episode 29 of Brave New World to discuss how the Industrial Age is past its expiry date, and what we need to do to prepare for the Knowledge Age.   Useful resources: 1. Albert Wenger at Union Square Ventures and Continuations. And on Twitter. 2. The World After Capital -- Albert Wenger. 3. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy -- Joseph Schumpeter's book in which he wrote about creative destruction. 4.  Homo Deus -- Yuval Noah Harari. 5. Free Lunch Society. 6. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World. 7. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 8. Notes on Elinor Ostrom on Wikipedia, Britannica, Econlib and the Nobel Prize website. 9. Adam Alter on Beating Our Addictions -- Episode 28 of Brave New World.

More and more, the digital world is being designed to turn us into addicts. Adam Alter joins Vasant Dhar in episode 28 of Brave New World to describe the sinister ways in which this happens -- and what we can do about it. Useful resources: 1. Irresistible -- Adam Alter. 2. Drunk Tank Pink -- Adam Alter. 3. Dopamine Nation -- Anna Lembke. 4. Anna Lembke on Beating Dopamine -- Episode 26 of Brave New World. 5. Addiction by Design -- Natasha Dow Schüll. 6.  Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World. 7. Bias, Lies, and Democracy -- Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi). 8. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.

Andrew Yang supports some game-changing ideas, such as UBI and taxing robots, and they're rooted in a radical vision of what America's politics should be. Yang joins Vasant Dhar in episode 27 of Brave New World to explain why the system is broken -- and how it can be changed. Useful resources: 1. Andrew Yang on his website, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon. 2. Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy -- Andrew Yang. 3. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 4. Erik Brynjolfsson on the Second Machine Age -- Episode 18 of Brave New World.

Are you addicted? You may be a slave to dopamine without realising it, whether in the substances you put into your body or the behaviors you adopt. Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 26 of Brave New World to discuss how we can beat this. Useful resources: 1. Anna Lembke's website. 2. Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence -- Anna Lembke. 3. Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It's So Hard to Stop -- Anna Lembke. 4. Digital Addictions Are Drowning Us in Dopamine -- Anna Lembke. 5. Is Social Media Hijacking our Minds? -- Anna Lembke and Nir Eyal. 6. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 7. True self and false self (Wikipedia). 8. Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self (1960) -- Donald Winnicott. 9. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 10. How I Became Extremely Open-Minded -- Ross Douthat.

There is a new religion in town. It has the best intentions, but it may harm those it claims to help. John McWhorter joins Vasant Dhar in episode 25 of Brave New World to talk about his book Woke Racism -- and on the dangers of this new social movement that could tear us apart. Useful resources: 1. Woke Racism -- John McWhorter. 2. The Coddling of the American Mind -- Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. 3. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 4.  The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks -- Randall Robinson. 5. The Case for Reparations -- Ta-Nehisi Coates. 6. What does anti-racism in mathematics look like? -- John McWhorter in conversation with Glenn Loury.