RS 217 - Aviv Ovadya on "The problem of false, biased, and artificial news"

Release date: September 16th, 2018

Aviv Ovadya

Aviv Ovadya, an expert on misinformation, talks with Julia about the multiple phenomena that get lumped together as "fake news." For example, articles that are straightforwardly false, misleading, or artificially created (think "Deepfakes," videos that make a politician appear to say something he didn't say). Which of those problems are more dangerous for our civilization? Are any of them tractable? And what might a solution look like?

Links 

Aviv's Website

"Is the First Amendment Obsolete?" by Tim Wu

"What Hath We Wrought" by Danah Boyd

Edited by Brent Silk

Music by Miracles of Modern Science

Full Transcripts 

RS 216 - Diana Fleischman on "Being a transhumanist evolutionary psychologist"

Release date: September 2nd, 2018

Diana Fleischman

On this episode of Rationally Speaking, professor Diana Fleischman makes the case for transhumanist evolutionary psychology: understanding our evolved drives, so that we can better overcome them. Diana and Julia discuss sexual preferences, jealousy, and other drives -- how immutable are they? How do we know? And how would it change society, if we could change the distribution of people we find attractive, or normalize new relationship structures such as polyamory?

Links 

"Uncanny Vulvas" by Diana Fleischman

"Essays on Reducing Suffering" by Brian Tomasik (includes essays on animal suffering)

"The Manipulated Man" by Esther Vilar

Edited by Brent Silk

Music by Miracles of Modern Science

Full Transcripts 

RS 215 - Anders Sandberg on "Thinking about the long-term future of humanity"

Release date: August 19th, 2018

Anders Sandberg

This episode features Anders Sandberg, a researcher at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, explaining several reasons why it's valuable to think about humanity's long-term future. Julia and Anders discuss the common objection that we can't predict or steer the future, and explore whether people really care if humanity dies out.

Links 

Anders Sandberg's website

"Dissolving the Fermi Paradox" by Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, and Toby Ord

"Blueberry Earth" by Anders Sandberg

"Death and the Afterlife" by Samuel Scheffler

"Life Extension Versus Replacement" by Gustaf Arrhenius

"An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies" by Gustaf Arrhenius

"Long-Term Trajectories of Human Civilization"

Edited by Brent Silk

Music by Miracles of Modern Science

Full Transcripts