Eric Kaufmann: Shall the Religious Still Inherit the Earth?

Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning | 8 January 2022 | 1h 25m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Eric Kaufmann about his book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. Predicts that due to the higher reproductive rates of religious groups compared to the secular population, the future is going to be more religious than the present. Discusses the contrast between this prediction and the fact that social and cultural change has made societies more secular in past centuries.

Humanity on the Precipice (Toby Ord)

Rationally Speaking | 10 December 2021 | 1h 08m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Toby Ord about this book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. Explains the possible existential risks we face, including climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence. Discusses what led him to take existential risk more seriously, which risks he considers underrated versus overrated, and how to estimate the probability of existential risk.

David Spiegelhalter: COVID Statistics, Risk and Medicine

Ben Yeoh Chats | 11 January 2022 | 1h 11m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with David Spiegelhalter about his book COVID by Numbers, co-authored with Anthony Masters. Discusses what was most surprising and misunderstood about COVID statistics; how numbers can be emotional and weaponised and what we can do to protect ourselves; what risk techniques we should teach children and think about in everyday life; unintended consequences; agency challenges of regulators; the “Rose Paradox” and “Cromwell’s law”; and the risks of alcohol and how to think about medical statistics.

Trust Me, I’m an Economist

The New Bazaar | 13 January 2022 | 1h 06m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Ben Ho about his book Why Trust Matters: An Economist’s Guide to the Ties that Bind. Discusses the role of trust in economic interactions: how the way that contracts are written can determine whether trust is enhanced or eroded; situations where pre-nuptial contracts enhance trust; religion’s role in fostering the kind of trust that matters to the economy; why gossip is good for trust; and when we can trust economic policymakers.

The discussion in this podcast about how gift-giving creates vulnerability, in turn creating trust, was very insightful for one so long jaundiced about the merits of gift-giving.

The Last King of America: Andrew Roberts on King George III

Uncommon Knowledge | 11 January 2022 | 1h 12m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Andrew Roberts about his book The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. Discusses the monarch who led England during the American Revolution and who has been made into something of a caricature by Americans, most recently by his portrayal in the musical Hamilton as a preening, stuck-up (but funny) king of England. Deconstructs that distortion to give a nuanced portrait of the man who created the conditions for America’s independence. Explains the dynamics between the British parliament and the nascent American government. Describes the writing of and subsequent British reaction to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Duncan Watts – Everything is Obvious

Getting to Yes, And | 2 May 2017 | 0h 31m | Listen Later
Interview with Duncan Watts about his book Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer. Discusses how and why many of our predictions are wrong and we invent stories to make sense of an often insensible world.

I loved this book when I read it years ago.

My Chat with Patrick Radden Keefe, Author of Empire of Pain

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad | 3 November 2021 | 1h 05m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Patrick Radden Keefe about his book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. Discusses the Sackler dynasty, Purdue Pharma, the opioid crisis (oxycontin), addiction, pharmaceutical companies, corporate social responsibility, business ethics, company malfeasance, plausible deniability, the business of medicine, philanthropy as a costly signal versus assuaging existential guilt, and more.

Ravi Shankar Interview

Thecuriousmanspodcast | 5 January 2022 | 1h 08m | Listen Later | iTunes | Spotify
Interview with Ravi Shankar about his book Correctional: A Memoir. Details his harrowing experiences with the law – incarcerated once innocently, and then again justly as his promotion to full professor was finalized. Describes his time in Hartford Correctional Center and those he shared time with. A story about the criminal justice system, mental health and self-journey.