Dwarkesh Podcast

Perhaps the most interesting episode so far.

Byrne Hobart writes at thediff.co, analyzing inflections in finance and tech.

He explains:

* What happened at FTX

* How drugs have induced past financial bubbles

* How to be long AI while hedging Taiwan invasion

* Whether Musk’s Twitter takeover will succeed

* Where to find the next Napoleon and LBJ

* & ultimately how society can deal with those who seek domination and recognition

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps:

(0:00:50) - What the hell happened at FTX?

(0:07:03) - How SBF Faked Being a Genius:

(0:12:23) - Drugs Explain Financial Bubbles

(0:17:12) - On Founder Physiognomy

(0:21:02) - Indexing Parental Involvement in Raising Talented Kids

(0:30:35) - Where are all the Caro-level Biographers?

(0:39:03) - Where are today's Great Founders?

(0:48:29) - Micro Writing -> Macro Understanding

(0:51:48) - Elon's Twitter Takeover

(1:00:50) - Does Big Tech & West Have Great People?

(1:11:34) - Philosophical Fanatics and Effective Altruism

(1:17:17) - What Great Founders Have In Common

(1:19:56) - Thinkers vs. Analyzers

(1:25:40) - Taiwan Invasion bets & AI Timelines

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Edward Glaeser is the chair of the Harvard department of economics, and the author of the best books and papers about cities (including Survival of the City and Triumph of the City).

He explains why:

* Cities are resilient to terrorism, remote work, & pandemics,

* Silicon Valley may collapse but the Sunbelt will prosper,

* Opioids show UBI is not a solution to AI

* & much more!

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps

(0:00:00) - Mars, Terrorism, & Capitals

(0:06:32) - Decline, Population Collapse, & Young Men

(0:14:44) - Urban Education

(0:18:35) - Georgism, Robert Moses, & Too Much Democracy?

(0:25:29) - Opioids, Automation, & UBI

(0:29:57) - Remote Work, Taxation, & Metaverse

(0:42:29) - Past & Future of Silicon Valley

(0:48:56) - Housing Reform

(0:52:32) - Europe’s Stagnation, Mumbai’s Safety, & Climate Change

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

I had a fascinating discussion about Robert Moses and The Power Broker with Professor Kenneth T. Jackson.

He's the pre-eminent historian on NYC and author of Robert Moses and The Modern City: The Transformation of New York.

He answers:

* Why are we so much worse at building things today?

* Would NYC be like Detroit without the master builder?

* Does it take a tyrant to stop NIMBY?

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps

(0:00:00) Preview + Intro

(0:11:13) How Moses Gained Power

(0:18:22) Moses Saved NYC?

(0:27:31) Moses the Startup Founder?

(0:32:34) The Case Against Moses Highways

(0:50:30) NIMBYism

(1:02:44) Is Progress Cyclical

(1:11:13) Friendship with Caro

(1:19:50) Moses the Longtermist?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

It was a pleasure to welcome Brian Potter on the podcast! Brian is the author of the excellent Construction Physics blog, where he discusses why the construction industry has been slow to industrialize and innovate.

He explains why:

Construction isn’t getting cheaper and faster,

“Ugly” modern buildings are simply the result of better architecture,

China is so great at building things,

Saudi Arabia’s Line is a waste of resources,

Environmental review makes new construction expensive and delayed

and much much more!

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

You may also enjoy my interviews with Tyler Cowen (about talent, collapse, & pessimism of sex). Charles Mann (about the Americas before Columbus & scientific wizardry), and Austin Vernon about (Energy Superabundance, Starship Missiles, & Finding Alpha).

Timestamps

(0:00) - Why Saudi Arabia’s Line is Insane, Unrealistic, and Never going to Exist

(06:54) - Designer Clothes & eBay Arbitrage Adventures

(10:10) - Unique Woes of The Construction Industry

(19:28) - The Problems of Prefabrication

(26:27) - If Building Regulations didn’t exist…

(32:20) - China’s Real Estate Bubble, Unbound Technocrats, & Japan

(44:45) - Automation and Revolutionary Future Technologies

(1:00:51) - 3D Printer Pessimism & The Rising Cost of Labour

(1:08:02) - AI’s Impact on Construction Productivity

(1:17:53) - Brian Dreams of Building a Mile High Skyscraper

(1:23:43) - Deep Dive into Environmentalism and NEPA

(1:42:04) - Software is Stealing Talent from Physical Engineering

(1:47:13) - Gaps in the Blog Marketplace of Ideas

(1:50:56) - Why is Modern Architecture So Ugly?

(2:19:58) - Advice for Aspiring Architects and Young Construction Physicists

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

It was a fantastic pleasure to welcome Bryan Caplan back for a third time on the podcast! His most recent book is Don't Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice.

He explains why he thinks:

- Feminists are mostly wrong,

- We shouldn’t overtax our centi-billionaires,

- Decolonization should have emphasized human rights over democracy,

- Eastern Europe shows that we could accept millions of refugees.

Watch onYouTube. Listen onApple Podcasts,Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcripthere.

Followme on Twitterfor updates on future episodes.

More really cool guests coming up; subscribe to find out about future episodes!

You may also enjoy my interviews with Tyler Cowen (about talent, collapse, & pessimism of sex), Charles Mann (about the Americas before Columbus & scientific wizardry), and Steve Hsu (about intelligence and embryo selection).

Timestamps

(00:12) - Don’t Be a Feminist

(16:53) - Western Feminism Ignores Infanticide

(19:59) - Why The Universe Hates Women

(32:02) - Women's Tears Have Too Much Power

(45:40) - Bryan Performs Standup Comedy!

(51:02) - Affirmative Action is Philanthropic Propaganda

(54:13) - Peer-effects as the Only Real Education

(58:24) - The Idiocy of Student Loan Forgiveness

(1:07:57) - Why Society is Becoming Mentally Ill

(1:10:50) - Open Borders & the Ultra-long Term

(1:14:37) - Why Cowen’s Talent Scouting Strategy is Ludicrous

(1:22:06) - Surprising Immigration Victories

(1:36:06) - The Most Successful Revolutions

(1:54:20) - Anarcho-Capitalism is the Ultimate Government

(1:55:40) - Billionaires Deserve their Wealth

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

It was my great pleasure to speak once again to Tyler Cowen. His most recent book is Talent, How to Find Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Across the World.

We discuss:

- how sex is more pessimistic than he is,

- why he expects society to collapse permanently,

- why humility, stimulants, & intelligence are overrated,

- how he identifies talent, deceit, & ambition,

- & much much much more!

Watch onYouTube. Listen onApple Podcasts,Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcripthere.

Followme on Twitterfor updates on future episodes.

You may also enjoy my interviews of Bryan Caplan (about mental illness, discrimination, and poverty), David Deutsch (about AI and the problems with America’s constitution), and Steve Hsu (about intelligence and embryo selection).

Timestamps

(0:00) -Did Caplan Change On Education?

(1:17) - Travel vs. History

(3:10) - Do Institutions Become Left Wing Over Time?

(6:02) - What Does Talent Correlate With?

(13:00) - Humility, Mental Illness, Caffeine, and Suits

(19:20) - How does Education affect Talent?

(24:34) - Scouting Talent

(33:39) - Money, Deceit, and Emergent Ventures

(37:16) - Building Writing Stamina

(39:41) - When Does Intelligence Start to Matter?

(43:51) - Spotting Talent (Counter)signals

(53:30) - Will Reading Cowen’s Book Help You Win Emergent Ventures?

(1:02:15) - Existential risks and the Longterm

(1:10:41) - Cultivating Young Talent

(1:16:58) - The Lifespans of Public Intellectuals

(1:24:36) - Is Stagnation Inevitable?

(1:30:30) - What are Podcasts for?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Charles C. Mann is the author of three of my favorite history books: 1491. 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet.

We discuss:

* why Native American civilizations collapsed and why they failed to make more technological progress

* why he disagrees with Will MacAskill about longtermism

* why there aren’t any successful slave revolts

* how geoengineering can help us solve climate change

* why Bitcoin is like the Chinese Silver Trade

* and much much more!

Timestamps

(0:00:00) -Epidemically Alternate Realities

(0:00:25) -Weak Points in Empires

(0:03:28) -Slave Revolts

(0:08:43) -Slavery Ban

(0:12:46) - Contingency & The Pyramids

(0:18:13) - Teotihuacan

(0:20:02) - New Book Thesis

(0:25:20) - Gender Ratios and Silicon Valley

(0:31:15) - Technological Stupidity in the New World

(0:41:24) - Religious Demoralization

(0:43:24) - Critiques of Civilization Collapse Theories

(0:48:29) - Virginia Company + Hubris

(0:52:48) - China’s Silver Trade

(1:02:27) - Wizards vs. Prophets

(1:07:19) - In Defense of Regulatory Delays

(1:11:50) -Geoengineering

(1:16:15) -Finding New Wizards

(1:18:10) -Agroforestry is Underrated

(1:27:00) -Longtermism & Free Markets

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Austin Vernon is an engineer working on a new method for carbon capture, and he has one of the most interesting blogs on the internet, where he writes about engineering, software, economics, and investing.

We discuss how energy superabundance will change the world, how Starship can be turned into a kinetic weapon, why nuclear is overrated, blockchains, batteries, flying cars, finding alpha, & much more!

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

Follow Austin on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps

(0:00:00) - Intro

(0:01:53) - Starship as a Weapon

(0:19:24) - Software Productivity

(0:41:40) - Car Manufacturing

(0:57:39) - Carbon Capture

(1:16:53) - Energy Superabundance

(1:25:09) - Storage for Cheap Energy

(1:31:25) - Travel in Future

(1:33:27) - Future Cities

(1:39:58) - Flying Cars

(1:43:26) - Carbon Shortage

(1:48:03) - Nuclear

(2:12:44) - Solar

(2:14:44) - Alpha & Efficient Markets

(2:22:51) - Conclusion

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Steve Hsu is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University and cofounder of the company Genomic Prediction.

We go deep into the weeds on how embryo selection can make babies healthier and smarter.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Read the full transcript here.

Follow Steve on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Timestamps

(0:00:14) - Feynman’s advice on picking up women

(0:11:46) - Embryo selection

(0:24:19) - Why hasn't natural selection already optimized humans?

(0:34:13) - Aging

(0:43:18) - First Mover Advantage

(0:53:38) - Genomics in dating

(0:59:20) - Ancestral populations

(1:07:07) - Is this eugenics?

(1:15:08) - Tradeoffs to intelligence

(1:24:25) - Consumer preferences

(1:29:34) - Gwern

(1:33:55) - Will parents matter?

(1:44:45) - Wordcels and shape rotators

(1:56:45) - Bezos and brilliant physicists

(2:09:35) - Elite education

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Will MacAskill is one of the founders of the Effective Altruist movement and the author of the upcoming book, What We Owe The Future.

We talk about improving the future, risk of extinction & collapse, technological & moral change, problems of academia, who changes history, and much more.

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Episode website + Transcript here.

Follow Will on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.

Subscribe to find out about future episodes!

Timestamps

(00:23) -Effective Altruism and Western values

(07:47) -The contingency of technology

(12:02) -Who changes history?

(18:00) -Longtermist institutional reform

(25:56) -Are companies longtermist?

(28:57) -Living in an era of plasticity

(34:52) -How good can the future be?

(39:18) -Contra Tyler Cowen on what’s most important

(45:36) -AI and the centralization of power

(51:34) -The problems with academia

Please share if you enjoyed this episode! Helps out a ton!

Transcript

Dwarkesh Patel 0:06

Okay, today I have the pleasure of interviewing William MacAskill. Will is one of the founders of the Effective Altruism movement, and most recently, the author of the upcoming book, What We Owe The Future. Will, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Will MacAskill 0:20

Thanks so much for having me on.

Effective Altruism and Western values

Dwarkesh Patel 0:23

My first question is: What is the high-level explanation for the success of the Effective Altruism movement? Is it itself an example of the contingencies you talk about in the book?

Will MacAskill 0:32

Yeah, I think it is contingent. Maybe not on the order of, “this would never have happened,” but at least on the order of decades. Evidence that Effective Altruism is somewhat contingent is that similar ideas have been promoted many times during history, and not taken on.

We can go back to ancient China, the Mohists defended an impartial view of morality, and took very strategic actions to help all people. In particular, providing defensive assistance to cities under siege. Then, there were early utilitarians. Effective Altruism is broader than utilitarianism, but has some similarities. Even Peter Singer in the 70s had been promoting the idea that we should be giving most of our income to help the very poor — and didn’t get a lot of traction until early 2010 after GiveWell and Giving What We Can launched.

What explains the rise of it? I think it was a good idea waiting to happen. At some point, the internet helped to gather together a lot of like-minded people which wasn’t possible otherwise. There were some particularly lucky events like Alex meeting Holden and me meeting Toby that helped catalyze it at the particular time it did.

Dwarkesh Patel 1:49

If it's true, as you say, in the book, that moral values are very contingent, then shouldn't that make us suspect that modern Western values aren't that good? They're mediocre, or worse, because ex ante, you would expect to end up with a median of all the values we could have had at this point. Obviously, we'd be biased in favor of whatever values we were brought up in.

Will MacAskill 2:09

Absolutely. Taking history seriously and appreciating the contingency of values, appreciating that if the Nazis had won the World War, we would all be thinking, “wow, I'm so glad that moral progress happened the way it did, and we don't have Jewish people around anymore. What huge moral progress we had then!” That's a terrifying thought. I think it should make us take seriously the fact that we're very far away from the moral truth.

One of the lessons I draw in the book is that we should not think we're at the end of moral progress. We should not think, “Oh, we should lock in the Western values we have.” Instead, we should spend a lot of time trying to figure out what's actually morally right, so that the future is guided by the right values, rather than whichever happened to win out.

Dwarkesh Patel 2:56

So that makes a lot of sense. But I'm asking a slightly separate question—not only are there possible values that could be better than ours, but should we expect our values - we have the sense that we've made moral progress (things are better than they were before or better than most possible other worlds in 2100 or 2200)- should we not expect that to be the case? Should our priors be that these are ‘meh’ values?

Will MacAskill 3:19

Our priors should be that our values are as good as expected on average. Then you can make an assessment like, “Are other values of today going particularly well?” There are some arguments you could make for saying no. Perhaps if the Industrial Revolution happened in India, rather than in Western Europe, then perhaps we wouldn't have wide-scale factory farming—which I think is a moral atrocity. Having said that, my view is to think that we're doing better than average.

If civilization were just a redraw, then things would look worse in terms of our moral beliefs and attitudes. The abolition of slavery, the feminist movement, liberalism itself, democracy—these are all things that we could have lost and are huge gains.

Dwarkesh Patel 4:14

If that's true, does that make the prospect of a long reflection dangerous? If moral progress is a random walk, and we've ended up with a lucky lottery, then you're possibly reversing. Maybe you're risking regression to the mean if you just have 1,000 years of progress.

Will MacAskill 4:30

Moral progress isn't a random walk in general. There are many forces that act on culture and on what people believe. One of them is, “What’s right, morally speaking? What's their best arguments support?” I think it's a weak force, unfortunately.

The idea of lumbar flexion is getting society into a state that before we take any drastic actions that might lock in a particular set of values, we allow this force of reason and empathy and debate and goodhearted model inquiry to guide which values we end up with.

Are we unwise?

Dwarkesh Patel 5:05

In the book, you make this interesting analogy where humans at this point in history are like teenagers. But another common impression that people have of teenagers is that they disregard wisdom and tradition and the opinions of adults too early and too often. And so, do you think it makes sense to extend the analogy this way, and suggest that we should be Burkean Longtermists and reject these inside-view esoteric threats?

Will MacAskill 5:32

My view goes the opposite of the Burkean view. We are cultural creatures in our nature, and are very inclined to agree with what other people think even if we don't understand the underlying mechanisms. It works well in a low-change environment. The environment we evolved towards didn't change very much. We were hunter-gatherers for hundreds of years.

Now, we're in this period of enormous change, where the economy is doubling every 20 years, new technologies arrive every single year. That's unprecedented. It means that we should be trying to figure things out from first principles.

Dwarkesh Patel 6:34

But at current margins, do you think that's still the case? If a lot of EA and longtermist thought is first principles, do you think that more history would be better than the marginal first-principles thinker?

Will MacAskill 6:47

Two things. If it's about an understanding of history, then I'd love EA to have a better historical understanding. The most important subject if you want to do good in the world is philosophy of economics. But we've got that in abundance compared to there being very little historical knowledge in the EA community.

Should there be even more first-principles thinking? First-principles thinking paid off pretty well in the course of the Coronavirus pandemic. From January 2020, my Facebook wall was completely saturated with people freaking out, or taking it very seriously in a way that the existing institutions weren't. The existing institutions weren't properly updating to a new environment and new evidence.

The contingency of technology

Dwarkesh Patel 7:47

In your book, you point out several examples of societies that went through hardship. Hiroshima after the bombings, Europe after the Black Death—they seem to have rebounded relatively quickly. Does this make you think that perhaps the role of contingency in history, especially economic history is not that large? And it implies a Solow model of growth? That even if bad things happen, you can rebound and it really didn't matter?

Will MacAskill 8:17

In economic terms, that's the big difference between economic or technological progress and moral progress. In the long run, economic or technological progress is very non-contingent. The Egyptians had an early version of the steam engine, semaphore was only developed very late yet could have been invented thousands of years in the past.

But in the long run, the instrumental benefits of tech progress, and the incentives towards tech progress and economic growth are so strong, that we get there in a wide array of circumstances. Imagine there're thousands of different societies, and none are growing except for one. In the long run, that one becomes the whole economy.

Dwarkesh Patel 9:10

It seems that particular example you gave of the Egyptians having s