Ben Yeoh Chats

I chat with C. Thi Nguyen who used to be a food writer and is now a philosophy professor at University of Utah.   Thi thinks about trust, art, games, and communities.    We discuss his first book, Games: Agency as Art. The book is about how games are the art form that work in the medium of agency.   We chat about the difference between play and games and wider games philosophy.   Thi worries about the problems on trusting experts, if oneself is not an expert and how none of us are experts in most domains.  We discuss making tea, process art and how we should be thinking about making food.  Fascinating topics across food and philosophy.   Transcript and links available here.   Contents and Youtube links below. 06:13 Thi on Gamification 12:15 Thi on Trust and what to be worried about a gamified system  16:25 Thi on philosophy of expertise and the challenge of finding experts to trust  20:58 Thi on board games recommendations  26:05 Is “play” better or “games” better? Thi answers on how games are different from play.  31:20 The importance of drinking games  34:13 The four types of games  36:35 How constraints are useful  45:47 What is process art  50:02 Games and cooking  57:39 How to make tea  1:02:16 Thi on creative productivity (don't kill the weird ideas)

Anton Howes on innovation history, the improving mindset and progress studies. Anton Howes is an innovation historian and policy thinker, we have a fascinating wide ranging conversation on innovation. Transcript and video available here.  We discuss raising the prestige of innovators today, but consider it easy to say but harder to enact.  Anton argues for the benefits of a “great Exhibition” as a direct mechanism to inspire an “improving” mindset - the type of mindset that leads to innovation.   Anton shares what he has discovered about how invention has happened in history; and whether stagnation has happened or not recently, that it might be good to send a signal on the importance of innovation in any case. Why incremental innovation might be underrated, and why the process of innovation (ideas, iterations) is not publicised more.   Anton discusses evidence that formal education has not been needed for historic inventors (an improving mindset being potentially more important) and whether there are more than enough innovation prizes currently.    We have a strong section on problems with copyright and how rules around copyright might not be fit for purpose today and how to pronounce “gimcrack” - a useless invention - and why having more gimcracks might be a sign of healthy innovation.   A fascinating walk through innovation history.    Anton Howes is an innovation historian and policy thinker. He’s written a brilliant history of the RSA - the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce - arguably Britain’s national improvement agency over the last 260 years - and is the RSA’s Historian in Residence. I recommend you check out his book, Arts and Minds. He writes a substack newsletter blog on innovation thinking that has won an award from Tyler Cowen’s Emergent Ventures. He has a day job as head of innovation research at the Entrepreneurs Network think tank and in my mind is an all round excellent thinker on innovation.

Tom Gosling was a partner at PwC, and an advisor to boards around executive pay and incentives, governance, and strategy. He's currently an Executive Fellow at London Business School and helps steer the work of the purposeful company collaboration.    Tom speaks about the benefits of purpose and the risk of corporate puff. We touch on audit reform and the challenges of regulation. We discuss the importance of democractic process and the role of government compared to the role of business. We underrate/overate carbon taxes, diversity targets, Milton Friedman and financial incentives.   On a personal note, we talk about the challenges of achieving a personal netzero, the joys of singing and the importance of understanding what makes you happy.  It's a fascinating conversation on many currently debated topics. Read the transcript. 

Jonathan Meth is a dramaturg, extraordinaire, director, curator, very involved in the European theatre and disability arts. He's a lecturer at Goldsmiths. He's worked with many of the major theatre organizations in Britain, and he's a fascinating theatre thinker. We speak about dramaturgy and theatre as playwright lead and theatre as colloboration lead. We discuss disability arts and a little about what autism has taught us. Jonathan looks at theatre funding and infrastrucutre and what it might mean to build back differently. We discuss his work with Fence and what he has learned teaching a wide mix of international students. Jonathan makes a case for the power of questions and curiosity. A transcript is available here along with video.

Rishi Dastidar and I chat about life, poetry, writing and poets always having another job. Rishi gives advice on how to be a poet, embracing Insta poets and whether last lines are harder than first lines, or second books harder than first books; and why we love lists and why we need to pay more attention to verbs. He is open to offers from companies seeking a Chief Poetry Officer. A fascinating and wide ranging chat from this leading British poet. Transcript at the blog here with video.   Links to Rishi’s books: Tickertape here and Saffron Jack here. His twitter here.  *** Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC amongst many others. His debut poetry collection Ticker-tape and his second book is Saffron Jack. He is chair of the London writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi edited  the final part of the Nine Arches Press writers’ trilogy, The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century.  (Blog on that here). Rishi is also head of brand language for Brand Pie.

I chat to Mya-Rose Craig, aka Birdgirl, about her love of birding touching upon birdsong and the mysteries of migration. We discuss accessibilty to nature, activism what in birding terms is a “lifer” and how to “pish”. There’s a transcript (unedited) here plus links to topics we talk about. Links: Black2Nature, Charity fighting for equal access to nature for Visible Minority Ethnic people. Mya-Rose Craig’s website. Get Birding, podcast.

Rebecca Giggs, an award-winning author known for her works in The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine, dives deep into her book 'Fathoms: The World in the Whale.' They explore humanity's connection to whales and the poignant symbolism they hold in ecological discussions. Giggs discusses the irony of whales as an extractive industry and shares quirky takes on cicadas and snails. The episode culminates in her writing process, emphasizing the joy of creativity and the advantages of mechanical keyboards for thoughtful bursts of writing.