Key insights—economics, finance, political economy, and wrestling with how to teach the world good economics through every means possible, & some means impossible... braddelong.substack.com braddelong.substack.com
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Where do we come from? What brings us together? Why do we love? Why do we destroy? On Humans Podcast features conversations with leading scholars about human nature, human condition, and the human journey. From the origins of war to the psychology of love, each topic brings fresh insights into perennial questions about our self-understanding. Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans Articles: OnHumans.Substack.com About your host: Ilari Mäkelä is a London-based science communicator with training in Phi ...
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Your world is evolving—find out how with Carter Phipps, co-author of the Wall St. Journal bestseller Conscious Leadership. He’s an optimist, a generalist, and an integrative thinker. Now he has an excuse for his insatiable book-buying habit—a show that explores the movements, trends, people, and ideas that are shaping the future. Phipps is also author of Evolutionaries, and cofounder of the Institute for Cultural Evolution. Through in-depth interviews and occasional rants and reflections, th ...
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Out of the Crisis, a podcast hosted by myself, Eric Ries, highlights leaders from all sectors who are providing and coordinating relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. No one is more heroic than the healthcare workers and those on the frontlines treating the sick. But there’s also a role for others, particularly those in positions of privilege, to play in this crisis. As I’ve worked to make my own contributions, I’ve crossed paths with many different people and organizations offering t ...
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LXII: Noah Needs Nuance!
1:04:03
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Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour... Key Insights: * Brad DeLong says: You say economics and economists in decline—I see bad economists in decline. * Brad DeLong says: You see missile defense as remarkably effective—I see it…
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42 | Why Agriculture? Climate Change and the Origins of Farming ~ Andrea Matranga
58:22
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Agriculture changed everything. Traditionally, this “Neolithic Revolution” was celebrated for opening the gates of civilisation. Recently, it has been compared to the original sin. But whatever our take on agriculture, we should be puzzled by one thing: Why did our ancestors start to farm in the first place? It's not like early farmers had improved…
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41 | What Can Moral Dilemmas Tell Us About Ourselves? ~ Peter Railton
1:11:39
1:11:39
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You are driving a car. The brakes stop working. To your horror, you are approaching a busy street market. Many people might be killed if you run into them. The only way to prevent a catastrophe is by turning fast to the right. Unfortunately, a lonely pedestrian might be killed if you do so. Should you turn? Many people say you should. After all, ki…
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The Birth of Modern Prosperity, Part 4 | Grasping Towards Equality (with Branko Milanovic)
36:26
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The Industrial Revolution played in the hands of the rich. A century after James Watt revealed his steam engine in 1776, the richest 1% owned a whopping 70% of British wealth. Then things changed. Across rich countries, inequality plummeted for decades. Join Branko Milanovic on this quest to understand the evolution of inequality during the buildin…
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The Birth of Modern Prosperity, Part 3 | Power to the People (with Daron Acemoglu)
36:09
36:09
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The Industrial Revolution did not create modern prosperity. Indeed, the British workers saw little or no improvements in their wages between 1750 and 1850. They did, however, experience ever-worsening working conditions. Then things changed. Britain became a democracy. And with democracy, the economy changed, too. Or so argues Daron Acemoglu, one o…
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The Birth of Modern Prosperity, Part 2 | Laboratories of the New Era (with Brad DeLong)
35:25
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For millenia, patriarchy, population growth, and extractive elites made the world a bleak place for most humans. But there are good news, too: everything changed around 1870. And the changed happened due to the taming of the genius of people like Nikolai Tesla. So runs the argument my guest today, Brad DeLong. I will let him explain it to you. You …
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1
Bobby Azarian: The Beauty of Evolutionary Thinking
1:36:49
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On this episode of Thinking Ahead, we’re discussing one of my favorite subjects, evolution. Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist, a science journalist, and a true evolutionary. His book The Romance of Reality explores the evolution of the universe and life, purpose, complexity, and consciousness with rich vision that far transcends the all-t…
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The Birth of Modern Prosperity, Part 1 | The Shape of the Story (with Oded Galor)
29:39
29:39
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We live longer and grow taller than ever before. We are healthier and wealthier. Our ancestors could hardly have imagined a life of such prosperity. A future archaeologist would be equally puzzled. How did we become so rich so fast? What changes could have been so dramatic as to literally change the height of our species? Our modern prosperity is n…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LXI: DeLong Smackdown Watch: Snatching Back the Baton for Supply-Side Progressivism Edition
1:08:44
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Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour... Key Insights: * A number of years ago, Brad DeLong said that it was time to “pass the baton” to “The Left”. How’s that working out for us? #actually, he had said that we had passed the ba…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LX: DeLong Smackdown Watch: China Edition
46:35
46:35
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Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour... Key Insights: * Someone is wrong on the internet! Specifically Brad… He needs to shape up and scrub his brain… * Back in the 2000s, Brad argued that the U.S. should over the next few gene…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LIX: Mourning the Death of Vernor Vinge
1:11:33
1:11:33
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Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour... Key Insights: * Vernor Vinge was one of the GOAT scifi authors—and he is also one of the most underrated… * That a squishy social-democratic leftie like Brad DeLong can derive so much ins…
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40 | Mothers, Fathers, And The Many Myths We Have Held ~ Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
59:12
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Over half a century, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has challenged many of our myths about parenting, attachment, and "human nature". In this conversation, we dive into her remarkable career, culminating in her new book, Father Time. [You can now order Father Time via Amazon or Princeton Uni Press] We discuss a variety of topics, from hunter-gatherer parenting…
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39 | Did Humans Evolve In Small Groups? ~ Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
48:21
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Modern cities are unique. Never before have so many people lived so close to each other. But just how unique is our modern cosmopolitanism? Completely unique, says a traditional theory. Humans evolved in groups. These groups were not only smaller than modern cities. They were smaller than medieval towns. Indeed, hunter-gatherers often move in bands…
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38 | Can We Understand Infinity? ~ Adrian Moore
1:17:31
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Infinity is a puzzling idea. Even young children ponder its various manifestations: What is the biggest number? Does the universe have an edge? Does time have a beginning? Philosophers have tried to answer these questions since time immemorial. More recently, they have been joined by scientists and mathematicians. So what have we learned? Can we fi…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LVIII: Acemoglu & Johnson Should Have Written About Technologies as Labor-Complementing or Labor-Substituting
1:08:18
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In which Noah Smith & Brad DeLong wish Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson had written a very different book than their "Power & Progress" is... Key Insights: * Acemoglu & Johnson should have written a very different book—one about how some technologies complement and others substitute for labor, and it is very important to maximize the first. * Neither…
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37 | How Did Humans Evolve? Why Did We? ~ Ian Tattersall
1:09:37
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Why are we furless? Why do we cook our food and use spoken language? And how does climate change, sashimi, or the banks of Central America relate to human origins? Human evolution is a deeply puzzling topic. But behind this dense mist lies many keys to our self-understanding. To guide us through the foggy territory, I am joined by Dr Ian Tattersall…
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36 | How Did Consciousness Evolve? Did It? ~ Eva Jablonka
55:14
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We are conscious creatures. But why? Why did consciousness evolve? Can we use biology to explain the origins of feeling and meaning? Or will consciousness forever escape the grip of the scientific method? Eva Jablonka has thought hard about these issues. An eminent evolutionary biologist, she became famous for her pioneering work on epigenetic inhe…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LVII: The "Vibecession" Is Losing Its Vibe
47:34
47:34
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Producer Confidence & Consumer Confidence (in the Economy), & Our Confidence (in Our Analyses): Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour... Key Insights: * The disjunction between all the economic data having been very good and ver…
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Why do we love? What brings us together? How to heal ethnic hatred? According to my guest, the answer to all these questions lies in the human desire to grow ourselves through connecting with others. Arthur Aron is a psychologist who studies human bonding in all its forms. A pioneer in the field, he has studied topics from connecting with strangers…
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Mental Health Bonus | The Origins of ADHD, Anxiety, and Depression ~ Nikhil Chaudhary
14:28
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Can evolution shed light on our mental health? Nikhil Chaudhary thinks so. He is an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge who specialises in the links between evolution and psychiatry. In this clip, Dr Chaudhary explores the evolutionary origins of ADHD, depression, and anxiety. For our longer conversation on parenting and family life, see …
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LVI: Economic Development: Oks & Williams, Rodrik & Stiglitz
1:07:44
1:07:44
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& a start-of-the-semester academic-email-addresses-only paid-subscription sale: Key Insights: * Young whippersnappers Oks and Williams are to be commended for being young, and whippersnapperish—but we disagree with them. * Contrary to what Brad thought, the fertility transition in Africa really has resumed. * The problem of how you provide mass emp…
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34 | Family Lessons From Hunter-Gatherers ~ Nikhil Chaudhary
1:04:59
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We expect a lot from parents, especially from mothers. “Maternal instincts” are such, we are told, that mothers should gain almost literal superpowers from the joy of parenting. Unfortunately, many parents face a different reality. Having children can be one of the most stressful times of life, amplified by feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Why is …
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Encore | This Conversation Touched The Most Hearts in 2023 ~ Helen Fisher
1:38:01
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Happy New Year 2024! To celebrate the new year, Spotify sent me a bunch of data points about 2023. I was particularly interested in one question: which conversation moved people the most? I already knew which episode people played the most. (That's episode 17 with Bernardo Kastrup.) But to listen is one thing. To share with friends and family is an…
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33 | Could Homo Floresiensis Be Alive Today? ~ Gregory Forth
1:02:03
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This is the final episode of 2023. And it is an odd episode. My guest is Gregory Forth. He is an anthropologist who specializes in the biological theories of indigenous peoples. Forth was doing this work on the Flores Island, Indonesia, during the 2003 discovery of a new hominin species: Homo floresiensis. This was an exciting discovery for many. B…
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32 | The Evolution of Inequality Under Capitalism ~ Branko Milanović
1:00:13
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Capitalism can cause massive economic inequalities. Indeed, a century after Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations, the richest 1% owned a record-breaking 70% of England’s wealth. Not surprisingly, this era saw the rise of a very different economic theorist: Karl Marx. [You can see this and many other graphs here.] But does capitalism have to incre…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LV: The Forthcoming Successful Development of the Asia Circle, & Dehyperglobalization
59:08
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Key Insights: * Finally, at long last, over the next two generations the tide is likely to be flowing strongly toward near-universal global development... * The fear was that dehyperglobalization would rob poorer countries of their ability to develop the export comparative advantages to support the manufacturing engineering clusters they need for l…
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31 | Meaning of Life Beyond Space and Time ~ Donald Hoffman
33:22
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The tension between science and religion is perhaps the greatest tension of our age. Is the world fundamentally made of atoms, quarks, and quantum fields? Or is the material world but a secondary realm, lesser in meaning to the kingdom of God? There are many iterations of this tension. But there are also bridge-builders; thinkers who want to bridge…
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30 | Could Consciousness Explain The Laws Of Physics? ~ Donald Hoffman
1:03:28
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The world is governed by objective laws of physics. They explain the movements of planets, oceans, and cells in our bodies. But can they ever explain the feelings and meanings of our mental lives? This problem, called the hard problem of consciousness, runs very deep. No satisfactory explanation exists. But many think that there must, in principle,…
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29 | Did Men Hunt and Women Gather? ~ Cara Ocobock
1:28:36
1:28:36
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How natural is a sexual division of labour? Very natural, claims a popular theory. Indeed, it was the secret to our success: men evolved to hunt, women to forage. This allowed women to focus on childcare while staying economically productive; after all, one can gather food with children. Men, on the other hand, could focus on high-risk hunting. At …
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28 | A Natural History of Equality ~ Sarah Brosnan
1:10:14
1:10:14
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“Why do we care about equality? Is it an invention of the European Enlightenment? Or is it something rooted in human nature?” These questions launched episode 15 with philosopher Elizabeth Anderson. Titled “A Deep History of Equality”, our conversation ranged from Pleistocene hunter-gatherers to Chinese communism. Today’s episode continues the ques…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LIV: We Go Off Message with Special Guest Brian Beutler
54:02
54:02
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The SubStackLand community gains another valuable member. We welcome him to the NFL SubStackLand: Key Insights: * Bing-AI says “Brian Beutler” is pronounced “Bryan Bootler”—that is, rhymes with “lion shooter”, which shows how far political incorrectness has penetrated Silicon Valley… * Noah has figured out a solution to his problem of losing the sc…
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27 | Is the Human Brain Special? ~ Suzana Herculano-Houzel
1:10:53
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The human brain is sometimes called the "most complex thing in the universe”. It allows us to study ourselves, other animals, and the cosmos itself. Indeed, we often think of our brain as the pinnacle of animal evolution. But what do we actually know about the human brain? How different is it from the brain of an elephant? A chimpanzee? A raccoon? …
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Encore | How Love Synchronises Our Brains ~ Ruth Feldman
40:22
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How literally can we be in "synch" with someone? Very literally, said my guest in episode 3. Originally titled “A Musical Biology of Love”, this was a fascinating episode with jazz musician and neuroscientist Ruth Feldman. We recorded the episode one year ago, almost to the day. I have thought a lot about it ever since. So here it is again, with re…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LIII: Rule #1: No Schmittposting!
1:10:54
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Liberals vs. leftists once again, with the principal conclusion being that trying to find and join your tribe by shouting online—Schmittian picking-an-enemy as the core of your identity—is no way to go through life, son. Nor is artfully screenshotting in order to make sure your readers do not see the sentence just below the ones you quote. In which…
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26 | Do Machines Improve the Human Condition? ~ Daron Acemoglu
48:28
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Machines allow us to do more work with less effort. They sound like an obviously good thing. But there is a tension here. New gadgets and new technologies - new simple “machines” - have been invented throughout history. But it looks like the living standard of the average person did not change for most of that time. So what happened to all the extr…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LII: Growth, Development, China, the Solow Model, & the Future of South & Southeast Asia
49:57
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Key Insights: * The Chinese Communist Party is very like an aristocracy—or maybe it isn’t… * If it is, it will in the long run have the same strong growth-retarding effects on the economy that aristocracies traditionally have… * Or maybe it won’t: China today is not Europe in the 1600s… * We probably will not be able to get Noah to read Franklin Fo…
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Encore | Is War Natural For Humans? ~ Douglas P. Fry
1:15:19
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To complete a trilogy on the anthropology of war, here is episode 8 from the archives. Enjoy! SUPPORT THE SHOW Please consider becoming a supporter of On Humans. Even small monthly donations can make a huge impact on the long-term sustainability of the program. Visit: Patreon.com/OnHumans Get in touch: ilari@onhumans.org _______ Thomas Hob…
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25 | What Can Chimpanzees Tell Us About War and Peace? ~ Brian Ferguson
1:16:30
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Is war natural for humans? This question launched episode 8 of this podcast. In that episode, anthropologist Douglas Fry argued that war is a new phenomenon. Yes, history is full of wars. But war arrived on stage only 10-15 thousand years ago – or in many areas, much later. And while war is undoubtedly part of human capacity, it is hardly our hardw…
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PODCAST: Hexapodia LI: Begun, Þe Attack on Biden Industrial Policy Has!
52:05
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Key Insights: * Critics: Cato-style libertarians, including AEI’s Michael Strain. The last die-hard classic Milton Friedman-style economic libertarians—and starting in 1975, Milton Friedman would say, every three years, that the Swedish social democratic model was going to collapse in the next three years. * Critics: Progressives—Biden is a tool of…
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Hexapodia L: Why Is Such a Good Economy Seen as Bad?
48:25
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Key Insights: * Brad has a new microphone! * Noah has jet lag: he is just back from Japan. * Brad has jet lag: he is just back from Australia. * Perhaps inflation’s ebbing has not yet made its way into the minds of people when they answer pollsters. * We reject the hypothesis that it is because of lagging real incomes. * More difficult mortgage bor…
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24 | How War Shapes Our Humanity ~ Greta Uehling
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What does war do to the human psyche? It can traumatise. It can cause grief. It can normalise violence and make demons out of the enemy. But difficult times can also elevate our care and compassion. And while much of the new solidarity is focused on those on “our side”, the helping hand does not always stop at the border. Or so argues anthropologis…
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23 | Walking Towards the Human Condition ~ Jeremy DeSilva
1:22:29
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Humans are odd in many ways. But perhaps the oddest of our features is our upright posture. We walk on two legs. And we are the only mammal to do so. So why do we walk upright? And why does it matter? Jeremy DeSilva is a fossil expert and a professor of paleoanthropology at Dartmouth College. He is also the author of a remarkable book, aptly titled…
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Hexapodia XLIX: We Cannot Tell in Advance Which Technologies Are Labor-Augmenting & Which Are Labor-Replacing
45:24
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Key Insights: * Brad’s microphone is dying, and a new one is on order. * However, 75% of the talking on this episode is Noah: he came loaded for bear. * Although Noah has not yet read Acemoglu & Johnson’s Power & Progress, he nevertheless has OPINIONS! * Friedrich von Hayek was right when he pointed out that we could not know the shape of future te…
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22 | Do Young Children Care About Others? Searching For The Seeds Of Human Morality ~ Amrisha Vaish
1:18:27
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Here is a common view on human development: In the beginning, children can only think about themselves. Slowly, they learn to care about others — or more cynically, they learn to pretend that they care about others. Variations of this view have been promoted by thinkers from Sigmund Freud to Richard Dawkins. This view has then been used to make pre…
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Amiel Handelsman: Race and Maturity in the American Experience
1:19:04
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The topic of race is never far from our lips when we are talking about the American experience. And yet, the complexities, confusions, minefields, and missteps that often confront those who work to overcome America’s racial legacy can make this a subject that people shy away from. That’s why my guest today is such a breath of fresh air. He’s taken …
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PODCAST: “Hexapodia” is þe Key Insight! XLVIII: The "Late-Antiquity Pause"
1:14:12
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Key Insights: * Rome did fall. It did not merely “transform”. * Across Eurasia, from 150 to 800 or so there was a pronounced “Late-Antiquity Pause” in terms of technological progress and even the maintenance of large-scale social organization. * There was a proper “Dark Age” only in Britain, Germany, the Low Countries, and France—with Spain, Italy,…
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21 | What Kind of Apes Are We? ~ Richard Wrangham
1:02:23
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What would a Neanderthal think about our species? What about a chimpanzee? When compared to our cousins, how friendly or violent are we? Richard Wrangham is a chimpanzee expert and professor of human biology at Harvard. He is one of the most important evolutionary anthropologists alive and truly one of the dream guests for this podcast. It was a gr…
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Season Highlights ~ Living With True Egalitarians (with Vivek Venkataraman)
7:55
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Season 2 is out this Saturday, 17th of June! In this final highlight from season 1, anthropologist Vivek Venkataraman talks to Ilari about living with Batek hunter-gatherers. The Batek live in the rainforests of Malaysia and are famous for being one of the most egalitarian society ever studied: things are shared, decisions are made together, and me…
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Season Highlights ~ Was Marx Right About History But Wrong About The Future? (with Brad DeLong)
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Season 2 is kicking off on the 17th of June! In the meanwhile, we have time for a couple of more highlights. This one is from episode 18 with economic historian Brad Delong, author of Slouching Towards Utopia.
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Season Highlights ~ How Geography Shaped Patriarchy, Slavery, and Enlightenment Philosophy (with Oded Galor)
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In this highlight from season 1, Ilari talks with economist Oded Galor about how factors such as soil quality can explain cultural differences, such as variations in the level of patriarchy. For the full episode and show notes, see episode 13. For the first episode with Galor, see episode 12. Season 2 is out in June! Do consider subscribing to stay…
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