Best Matthew Goldin Podcasts (2023)

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Peter Hotez: The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science 41:05

3m ago41:05

41:05

In his new book, the doctor familiar on TV in his white coat and bow tie tells how his attempts to correct lies about covid vaccines led to death threats; while the lies themselves led to some 200,000 unnecessary deaths among those refusing vaccination.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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John Gray on Pessimism, Liberalism, and Theism 1:01:54

37m ago1:01:54

1:01:54

John Gray is a philosopher and writer renowned for his critical examination of liberalism, atheism, and the human condition. His unique perspective is shaped over a decades-long career, during which he has authored influential books on topics ranging from political theory to what we can learn from cats about on how to live a good life. His latest b…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Heather Cox Richardson: She’ll Write You a Letter 41:40

1d ago41:40

41:40

Two million of us get a letter in our inboxes every morning with a calm, clarifying take on what happened yesterday— from the perspective of a historian, yet written with the intimacy of a friend.By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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David Brooks: How to Know a Person 42:50

8d ago42:50

42:50

Columnist and author David Brooks tells how he’s changed over his 60 something years – in part through the books he’s written exploring how people see themselves and others. He shares the insights he’s gained into truly knowing the people around us.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Jennifer Burns on Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand 59:44

14d ago59:44

59:44

Jennifer Burns is a professor of history at Stanford who works at the intersection of intellectual, political, and cultural history. She’s written two biographies Tyler highly recommends: her 2009 book, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and her latest, Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative, provides a nuanced look into the inf…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Marcus du Sautoy: Around the World in 80 Games 40:50

15d ago40:50

40:50

Enjoy playing games? You’ll enjoy them even more once renowned mathematician, Oxford University professor and avid game player Marcus du Sautoy tells Alan why they so fascinate us. And Alan tells Marcus about his favorite game – one even Marcus didn’t know.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Brian Koppelman on TV, Movies, and Appreciating Art 1:01:18

27d ago1:01:18

1:01:18

Brian Koppelman is a writer, director, and producer known for his work on films like Rounders and Solitary Man, the hit TV show Billions, and his podcast The Moment, which explores pivotal moments in creative careers. Tyler and Brian sat down to discuss why TV wasn’t good for so long, whether he wants viewers to binge his shows, how he’d redesign m…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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How "Maid" Was Made 39:42

22d ago39:42

39:42

Stephanie Land’s lifelong passion for writing – along with a college degree she could ill afford – led to a bestselling book and a hit TV series, allowing her to escape the poverty trap ensnaring so many single mothers.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Githae Githinji on Life in Kenya 45:25

27d ago45:25

45:25

As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings, we’re releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nairobi and Kenya at large. This second installment features Githae Githinji, a Kikuyu elder and businessman working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearheaded by Jennings. Born in 1958 a…

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Conversations with Tyler

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Harriet Karimi Muriithi on Life in Kenya 42:37

27d ago42:37

42:37

As a follow-up to the episode featuring Stephen Jennings, we’re releasing two bonus conversations showing the daily life, culture, and politics of Nairobi and Kenya at large. This first installment features Harriet Muriithi. Harriet is a 22-year-old hospitality professional living and working in Tatu City, a massive mixed-used development spearhead…

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Conversations with Tyler

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Stephen Jennings on Building New Cities 53:42

28d ago53:42

53:42

Stephen and Tyler first met over thirty years ago while working on economic reforms in New Zealand. With a distinguished career that transitioned from the New Zealand Treasury to significant ventures in emerging economies, Stephen now focuses on developing new urban landscapes across Africa as the founder and CEO of Rendeavour. Tyler sat down with …

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Frank Felberbaum: Don’t Forget! 39:38

30d ago39:38

39:38

Not only does he have an astonishing memory himself, but Frank Felberbaum has taught thousands of others, including Alan, how to improve their memory skills – especially for putting names to faces.By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 23 trailer 33:44

1M ago33:44

33:44

Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include astronomer Abraham Amiri; memory expert Frank Felberbaum; and actor Leslie Odom Jr.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Jacob Mikanowski on Eastern Europe 1:00:12

1M ago1:00:12

1:00:12

Jacob Mikanowski is the author of one of Tyler’s favorite books this year called Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land. Tyler and Jacob sat down to discuss all things Eastern Europe, including the differences between Eastern and Western European humor, whether Poles are smiling more nowadays, why the best Polish folk art is…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Walter Isaacson: Shadowing Elon Musk 43:05

1M ago43:05

43:05

The acclaimed biographer spent two years in Musk’s company as his subject launched rockets, built electric cars, decided to save humanity by sending us to Mars, became the richest man in the world and bought Twitter – all the while often behaving like an “absolute jerk.”By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Laurel Braitman: Writing Wrongs 40:24

2M ago40:24

40:24

A life full of adventure while struggling with grief led her to what she does so effectively today – helping doctors to level with colleagues and patients through storytelling when things go wrong.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Re-release: Claudia Goldin on the Economics of Inequality 50:00

2M ago50:00

50:00

Harvard professor Claudia Goldin has made a name for herself tackling difficult questions. What was the full economic cost of the American Civil War? Does education increase or lessen income inequality? What causes the gender pay gap—and how do you even measure it? Her approach, which often involves the unearthing of new historical data, has yielde…

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Conversations with Tyler

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Ada Palmer on Viking Metaphysics, Contingent Moments, and Censorship 1:04:46

2M ago1:04:46

1:04:46

Ada Palmer is a Renaissance historian at the University of Chicago who studies radical free thought and censorship, composes music, consults on anime and manga, and is the author of the acclaimed Terra Ignota sci-fi series, among many other things. Tyler sat down with Ada to discuss why living in the Renaissance was worse than living during the Mid…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Carl Safina: Wisdom from a Baby Owl 40:30

2M ago40:30

40:30

Carl tells how rescuing a baby owl helped him and his wife get through the Covid lockdown – and how it renewed their bond with nature. There’s wisdom in it for the rest of us, too, whose relationship with the natural world is increasingly frayed.By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Joe Henrich: How Culture Has Shaped Our Bodies and Brains 39:19

2M ago39:19

39:19

He’s fascinated by how culture has shaped our evolution – not only changing our bodies and expanding our brains but even expanding our ability to cooperate. And the more diverse a culture, the better its ability to innovate.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Lazarus Lake on Endurance, Uncertainty, and Reaching One’s Potential 51:44

2M ago51:44

51:44

Lazarus Lake is a renowned ultramarathon runner and designer. His most famous creation (along with his friend Raw Dog) is the Barkley Marathons, an absurdly difficult 100-mile race through the Tennessee wilderness that only 17 people have ever finished in its nearly 30-year existence. Tyler and Laz discuss what running 100 miles tells you about you…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Kashmir Hill: Your Face Belongs to Us 40:16

3M ago40:16

40:16

That’s the title of a new book by New York Times technology reporter Kashmir Hill. Her book is both deeply researched and downright scary, as spelled out in the book’s subtitle: A Secretive Start-Up’s Quest to End Privacy As We Know it. A glimpse of your face in any photo you’ve ever uploaded can now lead to anyone discovering details of your life …

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Matthew Walker: Sleep REALLY Matters 40:10

3M ago40:10

40:10

Author of a best-selling book called Why We Sleep, and host of the Matt Walker Podcast, he’s become the go-to expert on everything to do with sleep, from how it keeps both mind and body healthy to why we dream.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Jerusalem Demsas on The Dispossessed, Gulliver's Travels, and Of Boys and Men 1:03:08

3M ago1:03:08

1:03:08

In this special episode, Tyler sat down with Jerusalem Demsas, staff writer at The Atlantic, to discuss three books: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and Of Boys and Men by Richard V. Reeves. Spanning centuries and genres and yet provoking similar questions, these books prompted Tyler and Jerusalem to wre…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Maya Shankar: Beginning from an Ending 41:39

3M ago41:39

41:39

A brilliant violinist in her teens, her world came crashing down when an injury ended her career even as it was beginning. Remarkably, she turned that loss into a PhD in neuroscience, a stint in the White House and a popular podcast about others also navigating drastic changes in their lives.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Vishy Anand on Staying in the Game 54:36

3M ago54:36

54:36

A five-time World Chess Champion, Vishy became India's first grandmaster at age 18, spurring a chess revolution in the country. Now 53, he is still a world top ten player and has been India's number one ranked player for 37 years. As newer talents emerge and old ones retire, Anand's continued excellence showcases an endurance seldom seen. Tyler and…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Adam Mastroianni: Why You So Often Get It Wrong 42:08

3M ago42:08

42:08

Do you believe people are worse now than they use to be? That smarter people are happier people? That you know when to quit a conversation? Wrong on all counts, according to Adam Mastroianni, a social psychologist. He’s also a professional improv performer and uses those skills teaching business school students.…

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Conversations with Tyler

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Celebrating Marginal Revolution's 20th Anniversary 58:56

3M ago58:56

58:56

When Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen launched Marginal Revolution in August of 2003, they saw attracting a few thousand academic-minded readers as a runaway success. To their astonishment, the blog soon eclipsed that goal, and within a decade had become one of the most widely read economics blogs in the world. Just as remarkably, the blog maintained …

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Nancy Kanwisher: Your Brain is a Swiss Army Knife 41:53

3M ago41:53

41:53

Nancy Kanwisher has discovered many areas of the brain that are specialized for one particular purpose— like recognizing faces – which is interesting to Alan because of his inability to remember the faces of people he meets. Other specialized areas include identifying food, which Alan so far has no trouble with.…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Elizabeth Rush: Journey to the Doomsday Glacier 39:54

4M ago39:54

39:54

She managed to write a lyrical, moving book about her journey to a massive glacier in Antarctica that, if it collapses into the ocean, would cause a catastrophic rise in sea level. Unexpectedly, it’s also a book about her difficulty in choosing motherhood in a time of radical climate change.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Paul Graham on Ambition, Art, and Evaluating Talent 55:11

4M ago55:11

55:11

Tyler and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham sat down at his home in the English countryside to discuss what areas of talent judgment his co-founder and wife Jessica Livingston is better at, whether young founders have gotten rarer, whether he still takes a dim view of solo founders, how to 2x ambition in the developed world, on the minute past wh…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Robert Klein: He Observes, We Laugh 40:08

4M ago40:08

40:08

The actor/writer/comedian has been an inspiration to comedians like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. And he’s been inspired himself by greats of the past in the exacting art of finding what’s funny in our daily lives – when observed from just the right angle.By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda - Season 22 trailer 19:02

4M ago19:02

19:02

Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include comedian Robert Klein; writer Elizabeth Rush; and neuroscientist Nancy Kanwisher.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Noam Dworman on Stand-Up Comedy and Staying Open-Minded 59:27

4M ago59:27

59:27

Tyler sat down at Comedy Cellar with owner Noam Dworman to talk about the ever-changing stand-up comedy scene, including the perfect room temperature for stand-up, whether comedy can still shock us, the effect on YouTube and TikTok, the transformation of jokes into bits, the importance of tight seating, why he doesn’t charge higher prices for his s…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Dan Dennett: Fake People Aren’t Funny 37:38

4M ago37:38

37:38

Counterfeit people, the seductively appealing Deep Fakes made possible by AI, are just the beginning of what the distinguished philosopher Dan Dennett says is a threat to humanity. This spring, he joined hundreds of other thought leaders in signing a starkly scary statement: AI threatens to make us extinct.…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Steve Sloman and Phil Fernbach: How Do You Know That? 39:11

4M ago39:11

39:11

Most of us don’t know most things. Yet most of us also think we understand a lot (OK, not quantum mechanics or Federal Reserve policy). We are all living with what Sloman and Fernbach argue is an Illusionof how much we know: a knowledge illusion. And this is fueling the fracturing of society.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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David Bentley Hart on Reason, Faith, and Diversity in Religious Thought 55:58

5M ago55:58

55:58

David Bentley Hart is an American writer, philosopher, religious scholar, critic, and theologian who has authored over 1,000 essays and 19 books, including a very well-known translation of the New Testament and several volumes of fiction. In this conversation, Tyler and David discuss ways in which Orthodox Christianity is not so millenarian, how th…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Aomawa Shields: When an Actor is Starstruck 41:13

5M ago41:13

41:13

Torn between astronomy and acting, she has landed in the sweet spot: leader of a research team judging other planets for their hospitality for life, while using the skills she learned as an actor to connect with and encourage a new generation of girls to become – as she was – entranced by the stars.By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Alan Lightman: Can Science Explain Spirituality? 38:12

5M ago38:12

38:12

A physicist whose world has no room for spirits, but who has experienced many eerily transcendent moments – both in nature and in his work – sets out to understand the unexplainable.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Reid Hoffman on the Possibilities of AI 1:01:57

5M ago1:01:57

1:01:57

In his second appearance, Reid Hoffman joined Tyler to talk everything AI: the optimal liability regime for LLMs, whether there’ll be autonomous money-making bots, which agency should regulate AI, how AI will affect the media ecosystem and the communication of ideas, what percentage of the American population will eschew it, how gaming will evolve,…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Steve Israel: Disagreeing Without the Hate 42:01

5M ago42:01

42:01

A member of the US House of Representatives for 16 years before retiring – unindicted and undefeated as he likes to say – Steve Israel knows the value of good communication, and the cost to us all when it’s missing.By Bobi NYC

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Dan Levitt: You Are Stardust. Really 40:04

5M ago40:04

40:04

Every atom in your body – and there are more than all the grains of sand in the world – came from outer space, many of them created moments after the Big Bang that began it all. Dan Levitt tells the stories of the remarkable people who figured out how all those atoms got into you.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Noam Chomsky on Language, Left Libertarianism, and Progress 50:38

6M ago50:38

50:38

Noam Chomsky joins Tyler to discuss why Noam and Wilhelm von Humboldt have similar views on language and liberty, good and bad evolutionary approaches to language, what he thinks Stephen Wolfram gets wrong about LLMs, whether he’s optimistic about the future, what he thinks of Thomas Schelling, the legacy of the 1960s-era left libertarians, the dev…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Adam Gopnik: The Joy of Getting Good at Something Hard 42:28

6M ago42:28

42:28

The New Yorker essayist explores the mystery of mastery as he tackles skills he believed he could never learn. Including boxing, figure drawing and – in his 50s – driving.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Peter Singer on Utilitarianism, Influence, and Controversial Ideas 52:24

6M ago52:24

52:24

Peter Singer is one of the world’s most influential living philosophers, whose ideas have motivated millions of people to change how they eat, how they give, and how they interact with each other and the natural world. Peter joined Tyler to discuss whether utilitarianism is only tractable at the margin, how Peter thinks about the meat-eater problem…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Brenna Hassett: Why We Are Weird 40:09

6M ago40:09

40:09

Of all the attributes that make us humans unique – or in archeologist Brenna Hassett’s view, weird – the weirdest of all is our extraordinarily long childhood. In her delightful book, Growing Up Human, she explores the many tricks evolution has invented to lengthen our childhoods, including her favorite: Grandmas.…

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Conversations with Tyler

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Seth Godin on Marketing, Meaning, and the Bibs We Wear 54:36

6M ago54:36

54:36

On good days, Seth Godin thinks about all the progress we’re making on climate change. On bad days, he thinks about the problem of racing bibs. Though pieces of paper safety-pinned to runners’ chests seem obviously outdated, the bibs persist, highlighting how difficult it can be to change a culture for the better. And yet Seth also persists to impr…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Michael Turner: The Dazzling Cosmos 39:30

6M ago39:30

39:30

When funding for the James Webb Space Telescope was in doubt, cosmologist Michael Turner argued passionately that it would transform our understanding of the origin and fate of our universe. Today, with the spectacular images being taken by the Webb exceeding even its designers’ dreams, Turner is “awed and ecstatic.”…

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Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda

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Daniel Libeskind: His buildings speak for themselves 41:37

7M ago41:37

41:37

The prizewinning architect has designed some of the world’s most dramatic, daring, and memorable buildings. Inspired by optimism, wonder, music, and light they challenge their visitors to experience them as a story.By Bobi NYC

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Conversations with Tyler

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Simon Johnson on Banking, Technology, and Prosperity 52:56

7M ago52:56

52:56

What’s more intense than leading the IMF during a financial crisis? For Simon Johnson, it was co-authoring a book with fellow economist (and past guest) Daron Acemoglu. Written in six months, their book Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, argues that widespread prosperity is not the natural consequence of …

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