Jim talks with Stuart Kauffman about cosmology, fundamental physics, and the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and inflation. They discuss how Stuart moved into these fields, the Michelson-Morley experiment, special relativity, cosmic background radiation, the new period of precision cosmology, dark energy, why the universe is expanding faster, t…

Jim talks with Alex Fink about his company Otherweb, which uses AI to filter out fake news and create a more reliable news ecosystem. They discuss how Alex came to care about this problem, the decline of news media, how advertising wrecked the internet, the idea of an info agent, Otherweb's curation engine, information filtering systems, unhooking …

Jim talks with Sam Sammane about the ideas in his new book The Singularity of Hope: Humanity's Role in an AI-Dominated Future. They discuss the hype around generative AI, obstacles to AGI, reinforcement learning, intuition & emotion, human-AI augmentation, rules of thumb, the plausibility of the brain as a quantum computer, Jim's ScriptHelper proje…

Will the Timberwolves win the NBA Championship this year? Yessirski! Sam and Jon excitedly recap the Timberwolves playoff run thus far and Jon shares about his 20 hour trip to Denver to watch the Wolves destroy the Nuggets in Game 2! Even if you're not a Wolves fan, you won't want to miss the stories and excitement. Two words - Naz Reid!…

Jim talks with Simon DeDeo about their wager concerning the likelihood of civil violence and mass killings in America in the next decade. They discuss the terms of the wager, the appropriate orders of magnitude, Alex Garland's Civil War, the American readiness to use violence, honor cultures, the movement from violence to political violence, indust…

If you thought the pain train stopped at Part 1, well, think again! In this highly anticipated follow-up episode, we dive deeper into the realm of Minnesota sports misery with even more fervor and frustration. In Part 2, our virtual guest Alex returns to commiserate with us about the ongoing saga of Minnesota's professional sports teams. With the T…

Jim talks with Gregg Henriques about his take on the free will versus determinism debate. They discuss the importance of definitions, the enlightenment gap, the complexity lens, why "will" is confusing & choice is a better referent, free choice vs determinism, levels of analysis, description vs explanation, freedom as description, the tree of knowl…

Are you a glutton for punishment? Do you enjoy stubbing your toe? If you've answered yes to either of these questions, you are going to LOVE this episode of Mediocre From Minnesota! As a Minnesota sports fans, we've become accustomed to failure, dashed hopes, and heartbreaking losses. Alex joins the show as our first virtual guest to chat about the…

Jim talks with Robin Hanson about the ideas in his essay "Beware Cultural Drift: Thoughts on modernity's monoculture mistake." They discuss drift in fundamental cultural values, the current unprecedented rate of change, boutique multiculturalism, weak selection pressures, drift without selection, understanding small cultures, agency risk, comparing…

In this episode, we are joined by Cory Beam (unfortunately no relation to Jim). Cory is a Company Commander in the Army Reserves in the great state of Texas. He's also a former Financial Advisor who took a brief detour to become a Police Officer. Now he's getting back into the Finance world and shares some of his dos and don'ts when it comes to mak…

Jim talks with Richard Bartlett about the ideas in his essay "What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment." They discuss Jim's visit to a co-living house, community & its recent decline, starting small & iterating, the co-living experiment in Andalusia, pre-registration, co-living plus events, finding the right place, the importance of land…

Jim talks with Robert Conan Ryan about seven ethical perspectives and why everyone should know them. They discuss why understanding ethical stances is valuable, a horseshoe spectrum, pragmatism, virtue ethics, consequentialism, deontology, elitist power, deification, social justice, stacking up ethical stances, Aristotle's golden mean, sociopaths i…

Jim talks with Matthew David Segall about the ideas in his and Bruce Damer's new essay, "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis." They discuss the "philosophy as footnotes to Plato" idea, the hot springs origin of life hypothesis, closing the gap between chemistry & life, Whitehead's idea of…

Get ready for the thrilling continuation of Nathan Borer's incredible journey in Part 2 of our two-part series. In this highly anticipated episode, we delve deeper into Nathan's life as he shares more insights into his dual passions of professional tile-setting and lifestyle action sports. Brace yourself for an even more captivating narrative as Na…

Listen along as we chat with Nathan Borer, a remarkable individual who embodies resilience, passion, and skill in two seemingly contrasting worlds - professional tile-setting and lifestyle action sports. In this captivating podcast, we navigate the extraordinary life journey of a talented tile-setter who also happens to be an avid enthusiast of act…

Vance Crowe interviews Jim about how he maps the problem-space of current and future AI risk. They discuss the beginnings of AI, the era of broad AI, artificial general intelligence, the Wozniak test, artificial superintelligence, the paperclip maximizer problem, the timeline of AGI, FOOM, limitations of current governance structure, bad uses of na…

Join us for Part 2 of our time with Jamie Rockney, “Chick of the Woods” - a passionate forager and mushroom aficionado. Jamie not only makes a living by foraging but also shares her expertise through engaging and informative foraging classes. Discover Jamie’s deep-rooted obsession with mushrooms as she shares fascinating stories of her foraging adv…

Join us in this captivating episode as we delve into the enchanting world of foraging with Jamie Rockney, “Chick of the Woods” - a passionate forager and mushroom aficionado. Jamie not only makes a living by foraging but also shares her expertise through engaging and informative foraging classes. Discover Jamie’s deep-rooted obsession with mushroom…

Jim talks with James Lindsay about the ideas in his recent essay "National Divorce Is National Suicide." They discuss the meaning of a national divorce (where the United States would split into two countries), different shapes it could take, the possibility of parallel experiments in civilization design, statistics on support for the idea, the prop…

Jim talks with Jonathan Rowson of Perspectiva about a new social practice they're creating, the antidebate. They discuss the nature of debate, the spectacle of endemic polarization, why debate may be irredeemable, multiple ways of knowing, the Oxford Union debates, the debate apocalypse of 2020, the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate, the elitist aspect o…

Jim talks with Jeremy Sherman about the ideas in his book Neither Ghost nor Machine: The Emergence and Nature of Selves. They discuss how Jim found Jeremy's work, Jeremy's relationship with Terrence Deacon, the mystery of purpose, teleology, Aristotle's four causes, the natural history of trying, crypto-Cartesianism, aims, emergent constraints, hyl…

Jim talks with Stuart Kauffman about the ideas in the recent paper he co-authored with Andrea Roli, "Is the Emergence of Life an Expected Phase Transition in the Evolving Universe?" They discuss the fragmentation of the origins of life field, Pasteur's test of spontaneous generation, primitive soup, Watson & Crick's discovery of the structure of DN…