#677: HERESIES — Exploring Animal Communication, Cloning Humans, The Dangers of The American Dream, and More
The Tim Ferriss Show
*How constitutions are overrated and only a starting point. *
Transactions in close-knit communities can be based on verbal agreements and shared rules./nConstitutions are more like wedding vows, meant to adapt and evolve over time./nAmending the constitution is difficult due to intentional design./nLack of common values and beliefs leads to polarization and potential breakdown./nA constitution provides a starting point for building shared values and beliefs./nOver time, a constitution may need to be general enough to maintain common understanding.
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Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm very excited to publish this episode. This is an experimental format, and we are calling it HERESIES.
The objective of this format is to encourage and celebrate independent thinking.
Please enjoy!
Bios of the co-hosts and guests:
Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. You can find my most recent interview with him at tim.blog/kevinkelly.
He is the author of the new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. Other books by Kevin Kelly include Out of Control, the 1994 classic book on decentralized emergent systems; The Silver Cord, a graphic novel about robots and angels; What Technology Wants, a robust theory of technology; Vanishing Asia, his 50-year project to photograph the disappearing cultures of Asia, and The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future, a New York Times bestseller.
Kevin is currently co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, which is building a clock in a mountain that will tick for 10,000 years. He also has a daily blog; a weekly podcast about cool tools; and a weekly newsletter, Recomendo, which is a free, one-page list of six very brief recommendations of cool stuff. He is also a Senior Maverick at Wired. He lives in Pacifica, California.
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Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) is a Harvard professor, ethical philosopher and advisor, public intellectual, religious scholar and historian, and author of 10 books, including his latest, The Broken Constitution: Lincoln, Slavery, and the Refounding of America. You can find my interview with him at tim.blog/noah.
Noah is the founder of Ethical Compass, which helps clients like Facebook and eBay improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. Noah conceived and designed the Facebook Oversight Board and continues to advise Facebook on ethics and governance issues.
Noah is host of the Deep Background podcast, a policy and public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, and a former contributing writer for The New York Times. He served as senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and subsequently advised members of the Iraqi Governing Council on the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution.
He earned his A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard, finishing first in his class. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a DPhil from Oxford University, writing his dissertation on Aristotle’s Ethics. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and clerked for Justice David Souter of the U.S. Supreme Court.
He is the author of 10 books, including Divided by God: America’s Church-State Problem—and What We Should Do About It; What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building; Cool War: The United States, China, and the Future of Global Competition; Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices; and The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.
His upcoming book is Bad Jew: A Perplexed Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People, which is currently available for pre-order.
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Maggie Spivey-Faulkner is an anthropological archaeologist and practitioner of Indigenous archaeology, currently working as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. She also serves as an assistant chief of the Upper Georgia tribal town of the Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek, a state-recognized Native American group in South Carolina. Her work focuses on using anthropological data to upend harmful misconceptions of Native American peoples embedded in public policy, science, and the public consciousness.
Maggie was raised in a tight-knit extended family in rural Hephzibah, Georgia. She is an international fellow of The Explorers Club, a former junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis in 2018 and her A.B. from Harvard College in 2008.
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Joshua L. Steiner is a partner at SSW, a private investment firm, and a senior adviser at Bloomberg, L.P., where he was previously Head of Industry Verticals. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Steiner co-founded and was co-president of Quadrangle Group, LLC, a private equity and asset management firm. Before co-founding Quadrangle, he was a managing director at Lazard. From 1993 to 1995 he served as chief of staff for the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
He serves on the boards of Yale University, the International Rescue Committee, and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Steiner received a B.A. in history from Yale and an M.St. in modern history from Oxford University.
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[11:34] Defining “heresy.”
[14:22] Josh’s heresy: We need to teach listening over talking.
[32:48] Noah’s heresy: Constitutions are overrated.
[55:01] Maggie’s heresy: American middle-class culture is ruining everything.
[1:14:54] Tim’s heresy: We’re on the cusp of meaningfully communicating with animals.
[1:35:23] Kevin’s heresy: Human cloning is OK.
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