I really love that you're doing these conversations. You're both so good at this! It feels like I'm sitting in a grad school seminar in the department of neglected but important questions.

Contrarian refuses to accept the definition of contrarianism and predictably has their own definition lol

the lady doth methinks

Agnes Callard badly needs to study Evolutionary Psychology I would suggest research by Michael B Peterson on Rational reasons to believe irrational beliefs And Hugo Mercier,s ( Not Born Yesterday) on why we don't get persuaded easily

You can really enrich your institutions on this by playing with Photoshop. Add solid color layers over an image then vary opacity and saturation.

This conversation feels like a classic case of long inferential distances. There was very little productive dialogue going on that is providing insight on the book or beyond the book.

The norm I would propose would be : Do not use ostracism/threats of ostracism against a third party to induce ostracism/threats of ostracism against a second party. Unfortunately, all I can say in it's favor is that violating it causes false social signaling.

3:46 to use a definite article ahead of the word “truth” is to make a proposition which fails full substantiation in all final analyses.

This episode was really really great. I had this visceral reaction that 1. this topic is deep and important, 2, that real progress got made just from two very smart people discussing this for an hour off the cuff, 3. the conversation ends and tragically, they get back to doing their real jobs publishing about whatever specific intelligence-signaling puzzle exercises win them esteem in their respective fields. I wanted to scream "No, don't stop! Figure this thing out! Nobody else is even trying!" I'm sure Agnes is putting a lot more effort constructing an elaborate defense of a novel take on some five-line paragraph in Plato. And even if she wins her argument, the significance of the victory barely affects even Plato specialists - after all, it's just one paragraph, and Plato wrote many. Meanwhile, this much deeper and more significant issue is being left to amateurs. How do all these universities exists with all these smart and rigorous professors, and yet this core feature of social existence doesn't get so much as its own discourse-corner? Sacrifice studies could be really interdisciplinary - empirical, conceptual, literary, etc. - and the stuff it might uncover could actually be significant to the whole world. It's clear to me that sometimes people sacrifice too much, and sometimes not enough, or they sacrifice the wrong thing. And often in those differences lies the difference between a life well lived and a life of wasted potential. And what matters more than that?

this was cool

Agnes' interpretation of the injury as her femininity and the movie as gender meta-commentary on tropes is the best thing I've ever heard her say. And yet it went completely unnoticed and the episode ended in 10 seconds. But maybe that's her femininity and this is meta-commentary.

Its certainly worth taking a spin. ❤ great ep.

The Freudian death drive might be relevant. If we want to die that would explain why we would not intentionally prolong life. Can we take this further to psychoanalyse Robin's desire to be frozen as itself a manifestation of the death wish in him. It could be his fantasised method of suicide.

Yeah… no one understands 🤷‍♂️

Hanson’s Mind vs Callard’s Mindlessness

@14:11 it's possible that there wasn't a linguistic color category for "blue" when Homer was wrote "the wine dark sea."

if there was a transparent glass that desaturated every color, so that you only see shades of grey, is that a version of transparent white?

The obscene element of the sexual geometries of the threesome should be relevant to the appeal of the four possibilities. Four to include fully homosexual triangles. They also seem to be ignoring the third edge of the homosexual relation in an MMF love triangle. Freud is also of some relevance here. The archetypal reading of the cuckold fantasy is that it recreates the primal scene. Finally I think that MMF threesomes are more popular in pornography among male viewers.

I'm not sure why love triangles matter, but okay. At the moment, I got nothing else that I want watch.

Wittgenstein must have never seen milk glass and had pretty severe aphantasia.

"...your grasp of colors has been colonized by physics in a weird way." Saying his perspective has been taken over by his field of study while also suggesting it's abnormal for something he's dedicated his career to having had that affect. What a take.

Sure there is transparent white, it's called overexposed photo, look it up on google, if it was a sheet of glass that changed what i see in that way, i would call it transparent white. For material to have that property it probably needs to emit additional light tho, so it's very hard to come around in our environment. You can produce it deliberately maybe

Wonderful discussion as always. I think your conversation overlaps well with others' thoughts on the frustration many have towards new online social tools. These social platforms make it much more difficult to sweep conflicts under the rug, and therefore make it harder to keep high status people around. Social media induces much more taking of sides--making us more frequently use the up-down framework simply because they make information less controllable by a group. The technology actually makes it harder to coordinate (i.e. sweep conflict under the rug.) Revolt of the public (Gurri), young people anxiety (Haidt), elite conflict (Turchin), etc.

If you don't want to take any action on shaping AI (or the future more generally) according to your values, this suggests either that 1) you essentially don't care about values, or 2) you don't think it's possible for your actions to successfully shape things in accordance with your values, or 3) you think the default course of action with no intervention on your part results in a future outcome that is perfectly aligned with your values. 1) seems absurd unless you are a complete nihilist or believe values don't exist. Values not existing is absurd to me (we can alternatively use "things I want" or even "things I want to want" instead of "values" if "values" is too overloaded); there are obvious things I can point to. e.g. I value living a fulfilling life (for myself and others). We can debate whether it's possible to accurately instill these values in AI, but that's problem 2), which may or may not be solvable, and is what the field of AI alignment is trying to solve in the context of AI. I would point to the fact that current LLM alignment methods seem to do a reasonable job at instilling notions like being polite and non-insulting (let's exclude things like jailbreaks or adversarial robustness for now, which is another problem alignment is trying to solve) despite those also being nebulous concepts, as some optimism for AI alignment possibly succeeding at shaping AI according to our values. 3) I think is also unreasonable for basically everyone. If you have even some uncertainty about how the future will turn out, you are incentivized to take action to increase the probability of the future turning out as you would like (forget about 200 years down the road, let's even think about 20 years; AGI could well be here before then). I believe David expressed something in line with this overall point in the talk. Importantly, I also believe that we need to work on AI alignment methods that align towards values of the broader (global) population rather than just a single person's values or those of a small group. (arguably this is one of my values also, that no small group of people should be able to dictate the values of powerful AI systems) As to whether we should slow down AI (capabilities) research, this could be an entirely different debate. Slowing down AI development has real, significant costs too. Arguably AI alignment research is also a form of capability research. Lots to unpack there. But I think it should be clear that AI alignment is something worth at least investigating.

Good one

This is a pretty great topic, and well-discussed. It might just be my two cents, but it seems like you (Agnes and Robin) have made some good steps in refining conversational dynamics. Good work! It is one of my favorite things about this podcast that the two of you often disagree; you've exemplified a practice of care and mutual inquiry over time, and it's fascinating to watch. Thanks again!

OMG I AM PROBABLY THE MOST EXCITED PERSON IN THE WORLD FOR THIS PODCAST IT'S LIKE IT WAS MADE FOR ME!! 🥳

Omg is that how philosopher think? Not surprising it's such a joke field

First minute is gold

this guy oozes creep everything about vibecamp has atrocious vibes

This one was painful....people that have trained their brains in physics have a very hard time thinking of the non physical...we know there is an up down, left right, black white, etc etc...

F. R. Leavis' famous critique of Snow is necessary reading in the history of responses to Snow (Leavis, 1962, Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow)

I think following this podcast religiously makes me an oficial member of the cult

It is criminal how I am not made aware of these conversations the moment they are uploaded 😄

Not if racism promotes self-preservation of one's culture.

I recently finished the books and thought about it. I think the message of the story is that war will destroy everything even existence and that the only way for survival is ultimately cooperation and compassion. and that we have to take responsibility for ourselves and not be cowards who think they are powerless and need a savior. also it´s ironic that benioff and weis are doing this show now because a song of ice and fire had a similar message if you think about it. now they got the chance to convey these values again.

This was great. I appreciated the comparisons to the shibboleth & I equally appreciated the comparisons to a historic revolution // Survivor. I got a lot out of both of you bringing your personal experiences in to this concept. I think what might be missing from the conversation is of course points that somebody who experiences marginalized positions could offer. When people (wrongly, in my opinion) assert that ONLY people of marginalized positions can talk about certain topics, the kernel of truth that I see is that people in specific identities have experiences that inform some of the gaps I think both of you are missing. For example: I am a queer person who grew up using the internet. I experienced first hand the subculture of queer-identified individuals across the globe (given that the common language was English) participate and create a new or revised culture of codes, and in-grouping. For example. There was time periods where using trans* (meaning transsexual) was the polite etiquette, and then periods where using the * was seen as problematic because the word transsexual itself fell out of fashion. There were periods where neo pronouns became the norm, then new ideas of agender aromantic asexual etc. I, at least, understood that this was going on in a SUB culture, basically invisible to the dominant culture at the time. there was a feeling of newness, generative ideas, and so people taking offense might have been common (tho performative more often than sincere) but there wasn’t serious consequences for the offender. I see the similarities between those times (in a largely ignored internet subculture), now being mirrored & reproduced in this growing mainstream culture and the new “etiquette of equality” dominating spaces of higher learning especially. And I think what both of you are suggesting at but maybe not fleshing out totally, is the ramifications of bringing this similar process of refining/redefining culture into mainstream (to echo the last point that this revolution has a long long way to go). One one hand, the inflation of respect’s demands serve to oust those who are not keeping up with the newest codes. The ousting which, in my youth only meant a poorly written scolding from a teenager you would never interact with again, now can be much more severe: exile from academic spaces, doxxing, and the irrevocable labeling of your character to a wide audience. On another hand, inflation of respect serves to self destruct the basic tenements of equality itself: literally wasting a whole discussion on trying to prove that you are not a threat or part of an in-group or giving a caveat to account for every single human experience under the sun. To me these issues that the mainstream is now facing is not new. But it is increasingly urgent because the process of building agreed apon codes and culture does not function in the mainstream the way that it does in a smaller group (and namely, a group where everyone is agreeing to participate). Anyway that’s my 2 cents. Thank you both for posting & sharing this video!!!

36:00 it is hard wired in the machine, & uses the disgust system usually. _JC

7:00 yeah, also sleeping bodies dont decay. _JC

Love Antigone!! So excited for this discussion

I can't stress enough how much I love this podcast..

“You either live in America or The United States” - Karlous Miller

I took about half an hour to watch the first 7 minutes just rewinding and following the conversation hahahaha… it’s glorious! I don’t know when I was as entertained for the last time!

"I know of no one who is capable of talking about capitalism without trying to sell you something."

Aren't all apologies in some way an acknowledgement of that I acted in a way that was overly self-centered? That's the avowal part = I admit that I was acting in my own perceived self-interest. The second part is perhaps less a disavowal of that same self-interest and more the acknowledgement that the interests of other selves are also valid. So I apologize to you for not properly taking into account your interests, out of my own ignorance or self-absorption. An apology is successful when I can demonstrate that I learned something-I understand your interests better so I can model them in my own mind in the future. They have become more real to me in the way my own interests always feel real. An apology fails when I can't demonstrate new learning or understanding of your interests-or that even if I do understand, I don't respect them or consider them as valid as my own. What am I missing?

This was great. Been a big fan of Agnes and Robin for a long while; I had no idea they had a podcast together. My god I have a lot of episodes to catch up on.....

Apologies embed the notion, implicitly, of repentance. You can both claim you freely chose something that you now disavow because you've undergone a change of heart. (Perhaps you'll get to this idea later)

Agnes is definitely a top 3 philosopher (her Philosophy Bites on complaint changed my life) and Robin is a top 3 economist (grabby aliens is so fun). Absolutely wild to hear such great minds discussing something that's both intimate (wanting a family) and grand (about the possible fall of civilization). Thanks so much for sharing your conversations!! :)

I liked the discussion about the phenomenology of rationality. Callard's point about the central role of humiliation is great food for thought-it makes it sound like a spiritual exercise, since humility is a constantly praised virtue in religions. I would have also wished to see Hanson contribute something of his own experiences; even though there may be many components and feelings in rationality, I would be surprised if he can't describe what a common feeling of rationality is.

if you think consumerism is an intrinsic net positive, then i have a shirt made from special wool to sell you. _JC