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We're joined by the wonderful Lulie Tanett to talk about effective altruism, pulling spouses out of burning buildings, and why you should prefer critical rationalism to Bayesianism for your mom's sake. Buckle up! We discuss: Lulie's recent experience at EA Global Bayesianism and how it differs from critical rationalism Common arguments in favor of Bayesianism Taking Children Seriously What it was like for Lulie growing up without going to school The Alexander Technique, Internal Family Systems, Gendlin's Focusing, and Belief Reporting References EA Global Taking Children Seriously Alexander Technique Internal Family Systems Gendlin Focusing Social Media Everywhere Follow Lulie on Twitter @reasonisfun. Follow us at @VadenMasrani, @BennyChugg, @IncrementsPod, or on Youtube. Report your beliefs and focus your Gendlin's at incrementspodcast@gmail.com. Special Guest: Lulie Tanett.Support Increments

Is there any possibility of fruitful dialogue with your mildly crazy, significantly intoxicated uncle at Thanksgiving dinner? We turn to Karl Popper's essay, The Myth of the Framework, to find out. Popper argues that it's wrong to assume that fruitful conversation is only possible among those who share an underlying framework of beliefs and assumptions. In fact, there's more to learn in difficult conversations which lack such a framework. We discuss What is The Myth of the Framework? The relationship between the myth of the framework and epistemological and moral relativism Modern examples of the myth, including Jon Haidt's recent Atlantic essay and Paul Graham's Keep your identity small. Why there's more to learn from conversations where the participants disagree, and why conversations with too much agreement are uninteresting Linguistic relativism and the evolution of language as a refutation of the myth The relationship between the myth of the framework and the Enigma of Reason Quotes I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan. - Paul Graham, Keep your identity small The story of Babel is the best metaphor I have found for what happened to America in the 2010s, and for the fractured country we now inhabit. Something went terribly wrong, very suddenly. We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past. It’s been clear for quite a while now that red America and blue America are becoming like two different countries claiming the same territory, with two different versions of the Constitution, economics, and American history. But Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families. - Jonathan Haidt, Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid The proponents of relativism put before us standards of mutual understanding which are unrealistically high. And when we fail to meet these standards, they claim that understanding is impossible. - Karl Popper, MotF, pg. 34 The myth of the framework can be stated in one sentence, as follows. A rational and fruiful discussion is impossible unless the participants share a common framework of basic assumptions or, at least, unless they have agreed on such a framework for the purpose of the discussion. As I have formulated it here, the myth sounds like a sober statement, or like a sensible warning to which we ought to pay attention in order to further rational discussion. Some people even think that what I describe as a myth is a logical principle, or based on a logical principle. I think, on the contrary, that it is not only a false statement, but also a vicious statement which, if widely believed, must undermine the unity of mankind, and so must greatly increase the likelihood of violence and of war. This is the main reason why I want to combat it, and to refute it. - Karl Popper, MotF, pg. 34 Although I am an admirer of tradition, and conscious of its importance, I am, at the same time, an almost orthodox adherent of unorthodoxy: _I hold that orthodoxy is the death of knowledge, since the growth of knowledge depends entirely on the existence of disagreement. Admittedly, disagreement may lead to strif, and even to violence. And this, I think, is very bad indeed, for I abhor violence. Yet disagreement may also lead to discussion, to argument, and to mutual criticism. And these, I think, are of paramount importance. I suggest that the greatest step towards a better and more peaceful world was taken when the war of swords was first supported, and later sometimes even replaced, by a war of words. This is why my topic is of some practical significance._ - Karl Popper, MotF, pg. 34 My thesis is that logic neither underpins the myth of the framework nor its denial, but that we can try to learn from each other. Whether we succeed will depend largely on our goodwill, and to some extent also on our historical situation, and on our problem situation. - Karl Popper, MotF, pg. 38 References Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid, by Jonathan Haidt Keep your identity small, by Paul Graham The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber Glenn Loury and Briahna Joy Grey Normal Science and its Dangers Social media everywhere Follow us on twitter (@Incrementspod, @VadenMasrani, @BennyChugg), and on youtube. Tell us about your shaken framework at incrementspodcast@gmail.com Image: Cornelis Anthonisz (1505 – 1553) – The Fall of the Tower of Babel (1547)Support Increments

The most reasonable and well-reasoned discussion of reason you can be reasonably expected to hear. Today we talk about the book The Enigma of Reason by Dan Sperber and Hugo Mercier. But first, get ready for dogs, modern art, and babies! *We discuss * Reason as a social phenomenon The two roles of reason: To justify our actions, and to evaluate the reasons of others Reason as module of inference, and how that contrasts with dual-process theories The "intellectualist" vs the "interactionist" approach to reason Nassim Taleb's notion of "skin in the game" The consequences of reason having evolved in a particular (social) niche The marshmallow test and other debunked psychological findings Quotes: The interactionist approach, on the other hand, makes two contrasting predictions. In the production of arguments, we should be biased and lazy; in the evaluation of arguments, we should be demanding and objective— demanding so as not to be deceived by poor or fallacious arguments into accepting false ideas, objective so as to be ready to revise our ideas when presented with good reasons why we should. EoR (pg. 332) In our interactionist approach, the normal conditions for the use of reasoning are social, and more specifically dialogic. Outside of this environment, there is no guarantee that reasoning acts for the benefits of the reasoner. It might lead to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This does not mean reasoning is broken, simply that it has been taken out of its normal conditions. EoR (pg. 247) References Dan Sperber's talk at the Santa Fe Institute Image credit: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/oct/20/classics-barack-obama Social media everywhere Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link Send a reason, any reason, any reason at all, to incrementspodcast@gmail.com. Support Increments

We cover the spicy showdown between the two of the world's most headstrong philosophers: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. In a dingy Cambridge classroom Wittgenstein once threatened Popper with a fireplace poker. What led to the disagreement? In this episode, we continue with the Conjectures and Refutations series by analyzing Chapter 2: The Nature of Philosophical Problems And Their Roots In Science, where Popper outlines his agreements and disagreements with Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein. We discuss: Are there philosophical problems? Why are scientific disciplines divided as they are? How much of philosophy is meaningless pseudo-babble? (Hint: Not none) Wittgenstein's background and feud between him and Popper Wittgenstein 1 and 2 (pre and post Tractatus) The danger of philosophical inbreeding Two of Popper's examples of philosophical problems: 1. Plato and the Crisis in Early Greek Atomism 2. Immanuel Kant's Problem of Knowledge. Musica universalis The Problem of Change How is knowledge possible? Quotes My first thesis is that every philosophy, and especially every philosophical ‘school’, is liable to degenerate in such a way that its problems become practically indistinguishable from pseudo-problems, and its cant, accordingly, practically indistinguishable from meaningless babble. This, I shall try to show, is a consequence of philosophical inbreeding. The degeneration of philosophical schools in its turn is the consequence of the mistaken belief that one can philosophize without having been compelled to philosophize by problems which arise outside philosophy—in mathematics, for example, or in cosmology, or in politics, or in religion, or in social life. In other words my first thesis is this. Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted in urgent problems outside philosophy, and they die if these roots decay. C&R p.95 His question, we now know, or believe we know, should have been: ‘How are successful conjectures possible?’ And our answer, in the spirit of his Copernican Revolution, might, I suggest, be something like this: Because, as you said, we are not passive receptors of sense data, but active organisms. Because we react to our environment not always merely instinctively, but sometimes consciously and freely. Because we can invent myths, stories, theories; because we have a thirst for explanation, an insatiable curiosity, a wish to know. Because we not only invent stories and theories, but try them out and see whether they work and how they work. Because by a great effort, by trying hard and making many mistakes, we may sometimes, if we are lucky, succeed in hitting upon a story, an explanation, which ‘saves the phenomena’; perhaps by making up a myth about ‘invisibles’, such as atoms or gravitational forces, which explain the visible. Because knowledge is an adventure of ideas. C&R p.128 If you were to threaten us with a common household object, what would it be? Tell us at incrementspodcast@gmail.com, or on twitter: @VadenMasrani, @BennyChugg, @IncrementsPod. Support Increments

We're joined today by Matt Bateman, one of the founders of Higher Ground Education, to discuss the Montessori method of education and how it compares to other teaching methodologies. Get ready for tiny furniture, putting on your jacket upside down, and teaching your toddler to make eggs benedict. We discuss: Maria Montessori What is a Montessori education (besides tiny furniture)? How Montessori classrooms differ from regular ones Why long periods of interrupted problem solving is important for a child's development How Montessori integrates with technology Drawbacks of traditional methods of testing and grading, and how they might be amended The importance of cultivating a love of work How Matt wants to reform high school education Bio: Matt is one of the founders of Higher Ground Education, a worldwide Montessori network. He runs Montessorium, Higher Ground’s think tank. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, where he focused on the philosophy of science. Make sure to follow him on twitter for some golden education nuggets References: Matt on the Where We Go Next (formerly New Liberals) podcast. Montessorium Vocational Training for the Soul: Bringing the Meaning of Work to Schools Matt's History of Education Course Social media everywhere Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link Special Guest: Matt Bateman.Support Increments

In what is hopefully the last installment of Vaden and Ben debate Effective Altruism, we ask if EA lies on the cultishness (yes, that's a word) spectrum. We discuss: The potential pitfall of having goodness as a core value Aspects of Effective Altruism (EA) that put it on the cultishness spectrum Does EA focus on good over truth? Ben's experience with EA Making criticism a core value How does one resist the allure of groupthink? How to (mis)behave at parties How would one create a movement which doesn't succumb to cult-like dynamics? Weird ideas as junk food Error Correction intro segment Scott Alexander pointing out that Ivermectin works indirectly via: There’s a reason the most impressive ivermectin studies came from parts of the world where worms are prevalent, he says. Parasites suppress the immune system, making it more difficult for the human body to fight off viruses. Thus, getting rid of worm infections makes it easier for COVID-19 patients to bounce back from the virus. See full post below and summary news article here Czechoslovakia was not a part of the USSR @lukeconibear pointing out some climate models and data are publicly available. See for instance Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Chem model: https://github.com/geoschem/geos-chem Community Earth System Model (CESM): https://github.com/ESCOMP/CESM Energy Exascale Earth System model: https://github.com/E3SM-Project/E3SM @PRyan pointing out we were confused about the difference between economic growth, division of labour, and free trade Join the movement at incrementspodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on twitter at @IncrementsPod and on Youtube. Support Increments

Come experience the thrill of the shill as we discuss the somewhat-controversial natural resource called "fossil fuels". In this episode, we drill deep into opto-pessimist Vaclav Smil's excellent book Oil: A Beginner's Guide, in what is possibly our only episode to feature heterodox Russian-Ukrainian science, subterranean sound waves, and that goop lady - what's her name? It's unbelievable, right? We discuss: The science behind fossil fuels: How they're made, found, processed, and used Energy transitions and the shale gas revolution Global oil dependence and human rights The environmental costs of fossil fuels Will we reach Peak Oil? Why natural resources aren't milkshakes The future of fossil fuels (Note to Big Oil: Please send shilling fees to incrementspodcast@gmail.com) References Vaclav Smil: We Must Leave Growth Behind Vaclav Smil: Growth must end. Our economist friends don’t seem to realise that Oil: A Beginner's Guide Abiogenic petroleum origin - Wikipedia Social media everywhere Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link Quotes Modern life now begins and ends amidst the plethora of plastics whose synthesis began with feedstocks derived from oil - because hospitals teem with them. Surgical gloves, flexible tubing, catheters, IV containers, sterile packaging, trays, basins, bed pans and rails, thermal blankets and lab ware: naturally, you are not aware of these surroundings when a few hours or a few days old, but most of us will become all too painfully aware of them six, seven or eight decades later. And that recital was limited only to common hospital items made of polyvinylchloride; countless other items fashioned from a huge variety of plastics are in our cars, aeroplanes, trains, homes, offices and factories. Oil: A Beginner's Guide, p.10 A free market has not been one of the hallmarks of the 150 years of oil’s commercial history. The oil business has seen repeated efforts to fix product prices by controlling either the level of crude oil extraction or by dominating its transportation and processing, or by monopolizing all of these aspects. The first infamous, and successful, attempt to do so was the establishment of Standard Oil in Cleveland in 1870. The Rockefeller brothers (John D. and William) and their partners used secretive acquisitions and deals with railroad companies to gain the control of oil markets first in Cleveland, then in the Northeast, and eventually throughout the US. By 1904 what was now known as the Standard Oil Trust controlled just over 90% of the country’s crude oil production and 85% of all sales. Oil: A Beginner's Guide, p.32 Photochemical smog was first observed in Los Angeles in the 1940s and its origins were soon traced primarily to automotive emissions. As car use progressed around the world al] major urban areas began to experience seasonal (Toronto, Paris) or near-permanent (Bangkok, Cairo) levels of smog, whose effects range from impaired health (eye irritation, lung problems) to damage to materials, crops and coniferous trees. A recent epidemiological study in California also demonstrated that the lung function of children living within 500m of a freeway was seriously impaired and that this adverse effect (independent of overall regional air quality) could result in significant lung capacity deficits later in life. Extreme smog levels now experienced in Beijing, New Delhi and other major Chinese and Indian cities arise from the combination of automotive traffic and large-scale combustion of coal in electricity-generating plants and are made worse by periodic temperature inversions that limit the depth of the mixing layer and keep the pollutants near the ground. Oil: A Beginner's Guide, p.50 Support Increments

In this episode Ben convinces Vaden to become a degrowther. We plan how to live out the rest of our lives on an organic tomato farm in Canada in December, sewing our own clothes and waxing our own candles. Step away from the thermostat Jimmy. We discuss: The degrowth movement The basics of economic growth, and why it's good for developing economies in particular How growth enables resilience in the face of environmental disasters Why the environment is in better shape than you think Availability bias and our tendency to think everything is falling apart The decoupling of economic growth and carbon emissions Energy dense production and energy portfolios And we respond to some of your criticism of the previous episode, including: Apocalyptic environmental predictions been happening for a while? Really? Number of annual cold deaths exceed the number of annual heat deaths? Really? Your previous episode was very human-centric, and failed to address the damage humans are causing to the environment. What say you? Are we right wing crypto-fascists? (Answer: Maybe, successfully dodged the question) Social media everywhere Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani Check us out on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ Come join our discord server! DM one of us on twitter, or send an email to incrementspodcast@gmail.com to get a link References Two natural experiments on curtailing economic growth. Energy Crunch, and the effect of Covid-19 on developing countries (world bank) 10x more cold deaths than heat deaths. Original study in the Lancet. Chilling Effect by Scott Alexander. Decoupling of economic growth and pollution by Zeke Hausfather of the Breakthrough institute. Air Pollution Trends data (EPA) Number of deaths from natural disasters (Our World in Data). Original data taken from the EMDAT Natural Disasters database. Increase in global canopy cover 99 Good News Stories in 2018 you probably didn't hear about ...and 2019 ...and 2020 (also sign up for the FutureCrunch newsletter!) The Environmental Kuznets curves Quotes On Degrowth This would be a way of life based on modest material and energy needs but nevertheless rich in other dimensions – a life of frugal abundance. It is about creating an economy based on sufficiency, knowing how much is enough to live well, and discovering that enough is plenty. In a degrowth society we would aspire to localise our economies as far and as appropriately as possible. This would assist with reducing carbon-intensive global trade, while also building resilience in the face of an uncertain and turbulent future. Wherever possible, we would grow our own organic food, water our gardens with water tanks, and turn our neighbourhoods into edible landscapes as the Cubans have done in Havana. As my friend Adam Grubb so delightfully declares, we should “eat the suburbs”, while supplementing urban agriculture with food from local farmers’ markets. - Samuel Alexander, Life in a 'degrowth' economy, and why you might actually enjoy it It would be nice to hear it straight for once. Global warming is real, it’s here, and it’s mind-bogglingly dangerous. How bad it gets—literally, the degree—depends on how quickly the most profligate countries rein in their emissions. Averting catastrophe will thus require places like the United States and Canada to make drastic cutbacks, bringing their consumption more closely in line with the planetary average. Such cuts can be made more or less fairly, and the richest really ought to pay the most, but the crucial thing is that they are made. Because, above all, stopping climate change means giving up on growth. That will be hard. Not only will our standards of living almost certainly drop, but it’s likely that the very quality of our society—equality, safety, and trust—will decline, too. That’s not something to be giddy about, but it’s still a price that those of us living in affluent countries should prepare to pay. Because however difficult it is to slow down, flooding Bangladesh cannot be an option. In other words, we can and should act. It’s just going to hurt. - Daniel Immerwahr, Growth vs the Climate On Perennial Apocalypticism My offices were so cold I couldn't concentrate, and my staff were typing with gloves on. I pleaded with Jimmy to set the thermostats at 68 degrees, but it didn't do any good. - Paul Sabin, quoting Rosalynn Carter in The Bet Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the United Nations environmental program, told delegates that if the nations of the world continued their present policies, they would face by the turn of the century ''an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust.'' - New York Times, 1982 A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees", threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control." - AP News, 1989 On Environmental Conservation It’s not the case that humankind has failed to conserve habitat. By 2019, an area of Earth larger than the whole of Africa was protected, an area that is equivalent to 15 percent of Earth’s land surface. The number of designated protected areas in the world has grown from 9,214 in 1962 to 102,102 in 2003 to 244,869 in 2020. - Michael Shellenburger, Apocalypse Never, p.75 Thanks to habitat protection and targeted conservation efforts, many beloved species have been pulled from the brink of extinction, including albatrosses, condors, manatees, oryxes, pandas, rhinoceroses, Tasmanian devils, and tigers; according to the ecologist Stuart Pimm, the overall rate of extinctions has been reduced by 75 percent. - Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now, p.160 On Environmental Optimism Following China’s ban on ivory last year, 90% of Chinese support it, ivory demand has dropped by almost half, and poaching rates are falling in places like Kenya. WWF The population of wild tigers in Nepal was found to have nearly doubled in the last nine years, thanks to efforts by conservationists and increased funding for protected areas. Independent Deforestation in Indonesia fell by 60%, as a result of a ban on clearing peatlands, new educational campaigns and better law enforcement. Ecowatch See the remaining 294 good news stories here, here, and here Set your thermostats to 68, put those gloves on, and send an email over to incrementspodcast@gmail.comSupport Increments

Galileo vs the church - whose side are you on? Today we discuss Chapter 3 of Conjectures and Refutations, Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge. This is a juicy one, as Popper manages to simultaneously attack both philosophers and physicists, as he takes on instrumentalism and essentialism, two alternatives to his 'conjecture and refutation' approach to knowledge. We discuss: The conflict between Galileo and the church What is instrumentalism, and how did it become popular? How instrumentalism is still in vogue in many physics departments The Problem of Universals The essentialist approach to science Stars, air, cells, and lightning "What is" vs "How does" questions The relationship between essentialism and language, and its influence on politics. Viewing words as instruments See More: Instrumentalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumentalism Essentialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism The problem of universals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_universals Quotes: Few if any of the physicists who have now accepted the instrumentalist view of Cardinal Bellarmino and Bishop Berkeley realize that they have accepted a philosophical theory. Nor do they realize that they have broken with the Galilean tradition. On the contrary, most of them think that they have kept clear of philosophy; and most of them no longer care anyway. What they now care about, as physicists, is (a) mastery of the mathematical formalism, i.e. of the instrument, and (b) its applications; and they care for nothing else. -- C&R, Page 134 Thus my criticism of essentialism does not aim at establishing the non-existence of essences; it merely aims at showing the obscurantist character of the role played by the idea of essences in the Galilean philosophy of science (down to Maxwell, who was inclined to believe in them but whose work destroyed this belief). In other words my criticism tries to show that, whether essences exist or not, the belief in them does not help us in any way and indeed is likely to hamper us; so that there is no reason why the scientist should assume their existence. -- C&R, Page 141. But they are more than this, as can be seen from the fact that we submit them to severe tests by trying to deduce from them some of the regularities of the known world of common experience i.e. by trying to explain these regularities. And these attempts to explain the known by the unknown (as I have described them elsewhere) have immeasurably extended the realm of the known. They have added to the facts of our everyday world the invisible air, the antipodes, the circulation of the blood, the worlds of the telescope and the microscope, of electricity, and of tracer atoms showing us in detail the movements of matter within living bodies. All these things are far from being mere instruments: they are witness to the intellectual conquest of our world by our minds. But there is another way of looking at these matters. For some, science is still nothing but glorified plumbing, glorified gadgetmaking—‘mechanics’; very useful, but a danger to true culture, threatening us with the domination of the near-illiterate (of Shakespeare’s ‘mechanicals’). It should never be mentioned in the same breath as literature or the arts or philosophy. Its professed discoveries are mere mechanical inventions, its theories are instruments—gadgets again, or perhaps super-gadgets. It cannot and does not reveal to us new worlds behind our everyday world of appearance; for the physical world is just surface: it has no depth. The world is just what it appears to be. Only the scientific theories are not what they appear to be. A scientific theory neither explains nor describes the world; it is nothing but an instrument. -- C&R, Page 137-8. What's the essential nature of this podcast? Tell us at incrementspodcast@gmail.com Support Increments

After the immensely positive response to our previous episode on the Weinstein brothers - thanks @robertwiblin! - we thought we would keep giving the people what they want, and what they want is a long discussion on climate change. Specifically, the subject for today is: "The State of the Climate Debate". We touch on: The near perfect partisan split on climate change Will there be a climate apocalypse? The promise of nuclear energy as a solution The limitations of renewables Energy portfolios The rebound effect Degrowth economics Activist tactics and fear mongering Whether The Environment has become A Deity in environmentalist circles We expect very little pushback on this episode. References Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger. Greta Thunberg encouraging you to panic Thunberg's double crossing of the Atlantic in sailboat The Rebound Effect Quotes But real climate solutions are ones that steer these interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level, whether through community-controlled renewable energy, local organic agriculture or transit systems genuinely accountable to their users. -- Naomi Klein in the Nation Even if nuclear power were clean, safe, economic, assured of ample fuel, and socially benign, it would still be unattractive because of the political implications of the kind of energy economy it would lock us into. -- Amory Lovins, quoted from Forbes piece by Michael Shellenberger Send us panic-induced email at incrementspodcast@gmail.com. Support Increments