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Sep 8, 2020 • 48min

#31: Sir Nigel Shadbolt

The name "Nigel Shadbolt" is spoken in my corner of the world with hushed tones and much reverence. This is not only because he is a big deal generally, but because he is an especially around Jesus College, Oxford, where he currently serves as Principal. What exactly one does as Principal of an Oxford college, I'm not entirely sure, but like all of Sir Nigel's accolades, it seems pretty significant. Nigel has made contributions in a wide range of fields, including artificial intelligence and public policy. His work was key in developing the technology for the World Wide Web, alongside his long-time collaborator Tim Berners-Lee. Together they founded the Open Data Institute. Trust me on this one, Sir Nigel's list of accomplishments is long. I look forward to sharing this conversation with you.More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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Jun 30, 2020 • 1h 13min

#30: Daniel Everett on Being Fully Immersed

Dan Everett is the closest thing we have to a real life Indiana Jones. He is an academic whose work has mostly taken place in the far reaches of the jungle, where few others dare to tread. His crowning achievement is learning the Pirahã language, which before Dan undertook it had never before been cracked by an outsider. Dan began his swashbuckling career as a missionary and Bible translator. After a while, his ideological alliances shifted and he remained in the Amazon as an anthropologist and linguist. In this interview we talk about how this shift impacted his relationship with his family (imagine having a crisis of faith while on a mission in the Amazon while your entire family is along with you; his ex-wife, by the way, is still there as a missionary). We also talk about how he brought back evidence that directly contradicted major claims that Chomsky had made, his experience between the subject of famous American writer Tom Wolfe's last book before he died (The Kingdom of Speech), and Everett's forthcoming project on the life of Charles Sanders Peirce. Dan's official title is Trustee Professor of Cognitive Sciences at Bentley University.A picture of Dan, fully immersed: https://daneverettbooks.com/about-dan/More info available at codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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Jun 23, 2020 • 1h 22min

#29: Maria Konnikova on Doing the Work

One of Maria's biggest influence as an undergrad was Steven Pinker, who she studied under while at Harvard. The family resemblance is easy to see. She is so confident, smart, driven, and competent that it can at times verge on overwhelming. She earned her PhD in psychology from Columbia, where she studied under famous psychologist Walter Mischel. Eventually she went on to become a staff writer at the New Yorker. But lots of people get their PhD. Lots of people write for high profile magazines. What makes Maria truly unique is that she is the only writer ever to take leave of a job at the NYer to pursue a career as a professional poker player. This sabbatical is the subject of her new book, The Biggest Bluff. I am tremendously excited to her it the moment it comes out. Maria is a huge inspiration to me, and it was a great pleasure to have her on the show. We talk about her childhood as a Russian immigrant in America, the two crucial lessons she learned from Steven Pinker, the steps she took to establish herself as a writer, how she convinced Walter Mischel to take her on as a grad student by going against the conventional advice, what inspired her to get into taking on the subject of Sherlock Holmes in her first book, and the origins of her interest in poker and risky decision-making. Ultimately, I think the big lessons of Maria's fantastic career are not so difficult to understand. She wanted to be a writer. So what did she do? She wrote a lot. When she needed a further experience (e.g., getting her PhD, becoming a poker player) to serve her material, she went ahead and did it. There's no doubt about it: Maria has done the work.More info at codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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Jun 16, 2020 • 1h 12min

#28: Steven Pinker on Career Uncertainty

"Uncertainty" would not exactly be the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of Steven Pinker's current position in the world. But that wasn't always the case. There was actually a stretch in Steve's early career in which he found himself in the throws of uncertainty and anxiety. In this conversation, we dig into a lot of Steve's early career experiences, as well as his process as a writer. One of the things that stood out to me in what Steve said was that from early on he had an overarching sense that he wanted to study human nature. But it wasn't always precisely clear to him what that entailed -- or at least there were a number of paths he could've taken to get there. Obviously, he did quite a bit right throughout the process, but it was nonetheless fascinating to see the bets he made that paid off and how he balanced his options while equivocating about what the right move was. In addition to the nature of humans and their societies, we also talked about important subjects like the content of Steve's closet (including his notable collection of cowboy boots) and his advice for sourcing potential mates through literary and philosophical correspondence.Steve's official title is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. You will recognize him from his books -- including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Sense of Style, and Enlightenment Now -- as well as whatever mean thing Nassim Taleb has most recently tweeted about him. Be sure to keep an eye out for his forthcoming book on the tools of rationality.More info at: https://www.codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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Jun 9, 2020 • 1h 19min

#27: Mark Granovetter on Why There Are Revolutions

Mark and I recorded this interview about a month ago, before the outbreak of protests across the world in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. A lot has changed since then. Conversations are different, as are the topics under discussion. This interview does not reflect those changes, at least not directly. Even so, a number of the topics in our conversation and in Mark's research more generally are relevant. In my hometown of Seattle, I watched these protests turn violent as the city toppled into rioting and chaos. And while individual acts of vandalism and looting are deplorable, there is no doubt that riots have played a crucial role in societal change over the course of history. When a riot spurs on regime change, we call it a "revolution." As you'll hear in our conversation, the societal, economic, and psychological causes of revolutions has been an underlying motivation in many of Mark's great ideas. In particular are his threshold models of collective behavior, which compare the spread of rioting to -- of all things -- an epidemic. Still, these abstract concepts can seem very distant from the heart of the matter while it's unfolding around us. What I hope Mark's perspective and his research can help us keep in mind is that riots are not isolated events perpetrated solely by malicious individuals. They are reflections of the societal and economic systems in which they are embedded. It's easy enough to identify that connection between the actions of seemingly violent individuals and broken systems when it's occurring in someone else's country. Such dramatic actions may even appear a necessary impetus for change. But it can be harder to see the connection when it's happening in our own country and our own city. And while this does not mean we should support or condone violence, it should be taken as a signal of a massive issue with the system. Healthy societies and economies don't produce riots, no matter what the ideological motivation of their citizens might be. Throughout history these events have often proved to be tipping points into a different way of doing things. That different way can either be much better or much worse. Let's make sure that we are doing everything we can to make sure ours is a case of the first one.---So much of what is interesting in the world consists in the interplay between the specific and the general. Sciences tends to focus on the general ("what are the laws that govern the universe?") while humanities tend to focus on the specific ("what did this particular individual do at this particular time?"). There is also a similar interplay between studying behavior at the level of the individual ("what is this person's psychological state?") and studying behavior at the level of the group ("how do all these people fit together into a coherent whole?"). I know of no person who has dedicated his career more fully to the study of social behavior in a way that bridges these perspectives than my guest for this episode, Mark Granovetter. Mark is a professor of sociology at Stanford, and one of the most influential sociologists of all time. His work formed the backbone for Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, and several of his papers are among the most cited in his discipline. We cover a lot of ground in this episode, mainly drawing from Mark's early career experiences and where his most famous ideas came from. But we also get into his relationship to Gladwell, as well as the interplay between psychology and sociology. When talking about where his initial interests in sociology came from, he said something that I really loved because I think it captures the core of so much of his work: "Of course it was very interesting: 'Why was there a French revolution?' and 'Why was there a Russian revolution?'... But I realized that the thing I really wanted to understand was 'Why are there revolutions?'"More info at: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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May 19, 2020 • 51min

#26: Alan Baddeley on Proceeding Logically

Alan Baddeley is a professor of psychology at the University of York. He is best known for his model of working memory, which essentially won out in the history of cognitive psychology as the model of working memory. He's been in the game for many years, and a couple years back published a career retrospective called Working Memories, which details his experiences, where his ideas came from, and what he observed around him during the Cognitive Revolution. What is perhaps less known about Professor Baddeley is that he began his PhD doing memory working at Cambridge because his studentship was sponsored to help develop memorable postal codes for the U.K.'s postal service. Otherwise, he might not have become a memory researcher at all. In this episode we talk about how Bertrand Russell influenced him to become a psychologist, the difference between the U.S. and the U.K. during the Cognitive Revolution, and how to develop an academic career by proceeding through a series of logical steps. Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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May 12, 2020 • 42min

#25: Michèle Lamont on Building Big Ideas

This week's guest is someone very special. Michèle Lamont has had a huge impact on my own thinking as a psychologist. She is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and a Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Harvard University. The first time I encountered her work was in a book she wrote, published in 2000, called the Dignity of Working Men. It's a work of comparative sociology in which she interviews working class men in both New York and France, both black and white individuals, and essentially allows them to tell their story of the way they see the world while providing some sociological interpretation. It's a brilliant work, and has only become more relevant over time. I highly recommend to anyone interested in understanding more about a huge section of the population that isn't as well represented in typical academic discourse. At any rate, it was a huge honor to talk to her. She has a number of other books that you can check out. In this episode we talk a lot about how her ideas have built on top of one another over time, to really become a truly holistic comparative sociology covering a big part of our world.Here is the interview she mentioned in our conversation: https://sociologiskforskning.se/sf/article/view/19754 Oh, and the movie she was trying to think of was Mephisto by Werner Herzog.Michèle's website: http://www.michelelamont.org/Michèle's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mlamont6 My newsletter: https://www.codykommers.com/newsletter My Twitter: https://twitter.com/__cek Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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May 5, 2020 • 1h 14min

#24: Michael Inzlicht on the Optimal Number of Beers per Psychologist

Mickey Inzlicht wanted to be a dentist when he grew up. But unfortunately he only made it as far as Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, with a joint appointment in the Rotman School of Management. He represents one psychologist and two beers worth of the Two Psychologists Four Beers podcast. He's someone who I look up to a whole lot, and there's a lot about what he's been able to do in his career that I'd like to be able to do in my own: successful podcast, professor in social neuroscience (similar topic to the lab I'm doing my PhD in), strong family life, and seems to have a lot of fun doing all that stuff. He's done a lot of excellent work over the course of his career, my favorite of which is the effort paradox which is the idea that the most effort something costs us to pull off the more we value it. The paradox is that we are still for the most part effort averse creatures, try to avoid unnecessary hard work, and are unlikely to begin things that we think we necessitate a ton of it. In this episode we talk about his background in psychology, especially as a first generation college student. Mickey gets into his three top productivity tips that work for him. We also talk shop about pods, how he started his, as well as the podcast ecosystem generally. We wrap up discussing effort, value, meaning, and other topics related to Mickey's research. Mickey's Twitter: @minzlichtMickey's Pod: https://fourbeers.fireside.fm/Cody's Twitter: @__cekCody's Newsletter: https://www.codykommers.com/newsletter Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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Apr 28, 2020 • 53min

#23: Brad Love on Lifelong Exploration

Little known fact about Brad Love: he holds the world record for the youngest sounding voice for any fully grown adult male. Okay, that might not literally be true. But the guy sounds young -- a fact that belies his prominence and esteem as a professor in the field of cognitive science. In fact, he's such a venerable academic figure that he's mentored students who have gone on to establish themselves as venerable academic figures. So how does he keep himself so young? That's easy: constant exploration. As Brad says in our conversation, he has never felt like he quite locked into doing just one thing; he's always on the lookout for what strikes him as new, fresh, and interesting. We get into a wide-ranging discussion in this episode including the differences between the British and American higher education systems, how to read through a new scientific literature (for example, should you just open a thousand Chrome tabs and hope to get through them eventually?), and what the ideal psychology undergraduate curriculum would look like. We also talk about Brad's unique experiences as an undergrad at Brown and as a grad student at Northwestern. He is currently a professor at University College London, and is also a Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute.Brad's Lab: http://bradlove.org/Brad's Twitter: @Prof DataMy Twitter: @codykommersMy newsletter: https://www.codykommers.com/newsletter Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com
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Apr 21, 2020 • 47min

#22: Rob Henderson on the Search for Stability

Rob is a Gates scholar at Cambridge, doing his PhD in Psychology. He's written for such venerable outlets as the New York Times and Quillette. As you'll hear, he served in the Air Force and grew up in the foster system. He brings a different perspective than the usual one to the academic realm. Rob are exactly what we need in the academic world: people who have a different set of life experiences than the median one who are intelligent and thoughtful and trying to reconcile the empirical findings of psychological science with their own experiential portion of the world. He's got such an interesting story, which is mostly what we talk about here, and if you find it compelling I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you sign up for his newsletter.Rob's Twitter: @robkhendersonRob's newsletter: eepurl.com/gNOyq5Cody's Twitter: @codykommersCody's newsletter: codykommers.com/newsletter Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

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