What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?

[Horace]

Lex Fridman spoke to Yuval Noah Harari, author of the smash hit book Sapiens. This one was 2:44 in length.

Link to video

Lex positioned this one right after an interview with Netanyahu, to hear from the opposition. Harari's opposition is mostly about slippery slopes into a religious dictatorship.

Harari believes in the power of stories to shape humanity. His main example was fiat currency, which he claims is meaningless except for the story we are told that it's valuable. Which is a stupid point. Fiat currency is valuable by agreement, enforced by the credible threat of violence from the government that prints it. Stories have nothing to do with it. Harari needs to find a better example of the power of stories.

They also discussed 'public intellectual' mainstays about artificial intelligence and consciousness. They both admitted that consciousness cannot be determined anyway, and only has to be assumed to exist in others. Yuval claimed we don't believe livestock are conscious. Another stupid point. I guess almost everybody assumes livestock has some consciousness. Harari is preoccupied with suffering, and minimizing it. He thinks that if an AI can suffer, it's definitely conscious. He appeared to think that made a meaningful point. Which it doesn't. It only begs the question of consciousness. You can no more determine true suffering than you can determine true consciousness.

Anyway, it's good to get the other side of the Israel thing, even if there wasn't that much to chew on.

[bachophile]

I take it you prefer bibi?

I think he could outpoll trump and desantis if he was running for President.

But me, I’ve known him thirty years. I’ve had enough

[Horace]

@bachophile said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

I take it you prefer bibi?

I think he could outpoll trump and desantis if he was running for President.

But me, I’ve known him thirty years. I’ve had enough

I prefer neither. Just watching from a distance and trying to make sense of both sides.

[bachophile]

Well, u know me. The most sensible person around.

[Jon]

In last week’s Econtalk podcast, Russ Roberts interviewed Marc Andreesen on the future of AI.

It’s the optimistic take you rarely hear. Worth checking out.

Andreesen has a bird’s eye view on developments in the area, since he’s the cofounder of Andreesen-Horowitz he hears pitches basically every day from the extremely smart people with new ideas in the field.

[Horace]

Lex Fridman talks to a Palestinian who he considers to be a good representative for that side of the Israel/Palestine conflict:

Link to video

The terms he puts it in, are surprisingly simple. Americans tend to think of the conflict as super complicated and impossible to form an informed judgment on, but this guy's framing would contradict that. It's just a matter of people being kicked out of their homes by largely European and secular jews, after WW2. It's been retconned as a religious conflict, but this guy rejects that. The religious Jews and Palestinians had been coexisting in that area relatively peacefully, until the largely secular european jews forced their way in.

He finds it particularly hypocritical of Westerners to so passionately defend the rights of Ukrainians, while ignoring Palestinians with the same claim to have been invaded and imperialized.

I would assume that the Yuval Noah Harari types, or more generally the westernized leftist Israelis, would side with this Palestinian in his framing of the conflict. But I'm not sure.

[Horace]

Excellent conversation with the ever-reliable Jonathan Haidt, on Megan Daum's podcast:

Link to video

They discuss the psychology brought on by the internet, and the differences between boys and girls and generational cohorts in that regard.

One of my favorite points Haidt makes is to remind everybody that anger is not a negative emotion, unless it's a frustrated anger. If it's righteous anger, shared within a group, it's essentially a joyous emotion.

[George K]

@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

If it's righteous anger, shared within a group, it's essentially a joyous emotion.

[jon-nyc]

Or the Tucker Carlson show.

[Horace]

Coleman Hughes interviewed the authors of this book:

Their thesis is fine, in that it boils down to a truism about how humans participate in groupthink for social advantage within tribes, and principle plays a minimal role. Hardly an original thesis, but it is among the true ideas that most of us could stand to remind ourselves of. But the authors take it too far, both in the podcast and in the book itself, by claiming that ideology has literally nothing to do with anything. They mostly accomplish this through anecdote and history-mining. If a party known today for one idea, was once known for the opposite, their thesis is proven. The fundamental ideological difference of big government vs small government, for instance, is claimed to be nonsensical, since GWB and Trump expanded the government, yet "conservatives" didn't "flee the GOP" (whatever that means. Flee where?) over that. Or the GOP tends to want to fund the military and the police, which means they are for the expansion of government. Lazy, anecdote based proofs of nothing in particular, based on framings of ideology that imply one idea at a time must reign supreme in a person's mind, to the exclusion of any other ideas. They accuse the American public of being blatantly stupid, then build a case against blatant stupidity. But few people are so blinkered as they describe. I do agree that most people are more consumed with socially advantageous groupthink than they realize.

[Rainman]

Thoughtful and interesting post, Horace.
Thanks!
But for the average person, where is the "social advantage" and how is it manifested? That's J. Peterson's word I guess I stole it.

[Horace]

@Rainman said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

Thoughtful and interesting post, Horace.
Thanks!
But for the average person, where is the "social advantage" and how is it manifested? That's J. Peterson's word I guess I stole it.

One blatant advantage is the process of social climbing at work. In a large company, unless you're willing to parrot convincingly some extremely arguable 'diversity and inclusion' ideas, you have a hard ceiling on your potential advancement. That's one example of any number. Friends are important in myriad ways, and friendships among adults at school or work, are inevitably transactional. If you want to be friends in high status circles these days, it is best to express certain tribal ideas, upon which, from objective, non-tribal perspectives, reasonable people can easily disagree.

[Rainman]

That makes sense, thanks. But there are "friends" and then there are real friends. I am answering my own question as I think about it. I like your word "transactional" as it explains a lot in, "transactional friends" at work or at school. Not sure if I might be derailing this thread.
I do find it extraordinary how so many of you or y'all listen to podcasts, music, read, and work at the piano and fit all your respective activities into one normal day!

[Horace]

@Rainman said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

That makes sense, thanks. But there are "friends" and then there are real friends. I am answering my own question as I think about it. I like your word "transactional" as it explains a lot in, "transactional friends" at work or at school. Not sure if I might be derailing this thread.

There's a book called The Elephant in the Brain that goes into this. As a public intellectual, I actually developed the ideas in a handwavy way years before I read the book, but as a formalization of the concepts, the book is brilliant.

I do find it extraordinary how so many of you or y'all listen to podcasts, music, read, and work at the piano and fit all your respective activities into one normal day!

You can listen to books or podcasts and practice piano at the same time! Especially if it's mindless sight reading or repetition of technically difficult passages.

[Horace]

Sam Harris spoke to Bret Stephens, a never-Trumper erstwhile conservative, who now finds the Republican party risible. Talk about the metastasizing of TDS. Neither of these two, each of whom have a great deal of sympathy for conservative ideology, are capable of saying a nice thing about the GOP or its 2024 candidates. Well, Chris Christie gets a pass because he hates Trump too. They both hated Trump long before January 6, but they don't get past January 6 when defending their hatred of the guy. No need to. I bet Sam has cognitive dissonance about his attitude before then, when he was wavering about whether Trump or Clinton would have had better results in a presidential term.

They attempt to characterise why Trump appeals to some people, which is always the achilles heel of TDS sufferers. Stephens hovers around a decent point by saying the leftist cultural domination was an issue that Trump spoke to, but his framing was geared towards maintaining his new friends on the left. (He now writes for the NYT, while before his TDS, he wrote for the WSJ.) He doesn't like the word "woke" because it's "past its use by date", but he knows people know what he means when he says it. He says that cultural shift characterised by wokeness, induced rage in the right, and that rage was funneled by Donald Trump. One could more charitably, or even more fairly, just say that wokeness is socially destructive, and lots of people see that and would like to vote for a candidate who sees it too. But no. He has to characterise it with words carefully chosen to emphasise the reactionary "rage" induced. It's these sorts of word games that appeal to TDS sufferers, but which more reasonable thinkers can see through.

Ramaswamy was mentioned a couple times. I think it's safe to say that Sam won't be "platforming" him, though he hasn't come out and said it yet. Ramaswamy's contention that the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression arguably cost Trump the election, was dismissed with prejudice by Stephens. Stephens hasn't researched the topic, but because TDS, doesn't allow the idea to surface in his mind. Ramaswamy, on the other hand, has some polls and numbers to back up his contention. That information won't be appearing on the Sam Harris Podcast. Sam admitted that the suppression of the story was ok because Trump was not ok, full stop. So that's where he comes down. Not the first time he's admitted to having a catastrophe avoidance perspective on Trump. Journalistic integrity is just another thing of lesser importance than keeping Trump from the white house. Sam literally said that, if the Trump campaign has something that would help their campaign, but dropped it in a strategic manner soon before the election, journalists and tech companies are within their moral rights to suppress the story. Because Trump. This from one of our leading public intellectuals who's spent a great part of his life thinking about morality and lying and free speech. Sam continues to disappoint as he attempts to think his way through his TDS.

[taiwan_girl]

@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

Ramaswamy's contention that the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression arguably cost Trump the election, was dismissed with prejudice by Stephens. Stephens hasn't researched the topic, but because TDS, doesn't allow the idea to surface in his mind. Ramaswamy, on the other hand, has some polls and numbers to back up his contention.

"What if" is an interesting "thought exercise", and there is the one that if the FBI had not announced they were going to re-investigate Sec. Clinton a few weeks before the 2016 election, she would have won. There are signs that that announcement changed the results of the election.

In the Many Worlds Theory, there exists one universe where the FBI did not announce in 2016, and Sec. Clinton was elected president. President Trump lost in 2016 and did not run again in 2020. In this universe, the people in 2023 skip down gold pathways with dancing unicorns at their side.

There is another universe out there where the Hunter Biden case was investigated and President Trump was re-elected. In this universe, people also skip down gold pathways with dancing unicorns at their side.

Unfortunately, in this universe, neither happened and we have to live with President Trump winning in 2016 and President Biden winning in 2020.

[jon-nyc]

The at seems absurd. The story was never really suppressed (we’ve talked about this quite a bit, if anything Twitter’s 36 HR ban of the NYP had the opposite effect).

The problem with the laptop wasn’t that everyone knew it was damning to Joe so they suppressed it, it was the highly questionable provenance.

Recall both FoxNews and WSJ declined the story which is how it ended up at the post.

[Horace]

@taiwan_girl said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

Ramaswamy's contention that the Hunter Biden laptop story suppression arguably cost Trump the election, was dismissed with prejudice by Stephens. Stephens hasn't researched the topic, but because TDS, doesn't allow the idea to surface in his mind. Ramaswamy, on the other hand, has some polls and numbers to back up his contention.

"What if" is an interesting "thought exercise", and there is the one that if the FBI had not announced they were going to re-investigate Sec. Clinton a few weeks before the 2016 election, she would have won. There are signs that that announcement changed the results of the election.

In the Many Worlds Theory, there exists one universe where the FBI did not announce in 2016, and Sec. Clinton was elected president. President Trump lost in 2016 and did not run again in 2020. In this universe, the people in 2023 skip down gold pathways with dancing unicorns at their side.

There is another universe out there where the Hunter Biden case was investigated and President Trump was re-elected. In this universe, people also skip down gold pathways with dancing unicorns at their side.

Unfortunately, in this universe, neither happened and we have to live with President Trump winning in 2016 and President Biden winning in 2020.

In your head, do you think this post adds to any conceivably interesting discussion?

[Doctor Phibes]

@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

In your head, do you think this post adds to any conceivably interesting discussion?

Wow, tough crowd.

Thank God nobody here repeats themself over and over and over making the same point again and again and again.. Because that would be kinda' tedious. I bet it happens at an alternative reality TNCR.

[Horace]

@Doctor-Phibes said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

@Horace said in What are you listening to - Podcast Edition?:

In your head, do you think this post adds to any conceivably interesting discussion?

Wow, tough crowd.

Thank God nobody here repeats themself over and over and over making the same point again and again and again.. Because that would be kinda' tedious. I bet it happens at an alternative reality TNCR.

Well, you and jon have historically accused me of that (you after jon, not coincidentally), but over here in reality, neither of you could put most of my posts into your own words. Granted, you probably could if you took some time to read and understand them, but let's stop pretending about that.