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PODCAST

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast

Shane Farnsworth

Escaped Sapiens is a long-form podcast exploring science, intelligence, exploration, and the edges of human understanding through in-depth conversations with researchers, thinkers, and field experts. Visit Website About Shane Farnsworth Get in touch Suggest a guest If you enjoy the podcast, here"s how you can support it: Subscribe to the YouTube or ES Clips YouTube channels. Tap the 🔔 icon to recieve episode updates. Follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or subscribe to the RSS feed. If you enjoy

science

All Episodes

01:56:39

Solving Quantum Gravity | Pedro Vieira | Escaped...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2025/03/02

What is Holography and how does it help us Quantize gravity? In this conversation I speak with Pedro Vieira, one of the worlds leading experts on holographic dualities and their application in quantum gravity.We start our discussion with a few standard but big questions, like why is quantum gravity difficult, what is quantum field theory, and what is gauge symmetry. We then dive into the topic of holography, which in broad and provocative terms is the idea that our universe and everything in it

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50:49

Drone Warfare in Ukraine and the Future Of Combat |...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2025/02/09

In this conversation I speak with Sam Bendett, one of the worlds leading experts on Russian weapons development and capabilities, drones, AI, and the war in Ukraine. Sam is an advisor for the Center for Naval Analyses and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, an honorary “mad scientist” with the Mad Scientist Initiative of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, and a Russian military autonomy and artificial intelligence subject matter expert for the DOD’s Defense

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02:15:08

AI, Control, and the path to Dystopia | Pedro...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2025/01/20

Will we ever have an AI for president? In this episode of the podcast I speak with Pedro Domingos about the impact of AI on society, industry, and politics. Pedro is professor emeritus of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington and co-founded the International Machine Learning Society. He is also the Author of `The Master Algorithm' and `2040: A Silicon Valley Satire'. This episode is not a paid advertisement for Pedro's books, but we use his book `2040' to set the context

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01:17:16

From Destruction to Regeneration: The Future of...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2025/01/07

In this conversation I speak with renegade economist and creator of doughnut economics Kate Raworth. Kate is a Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, where she teaches on the Masters in Environmental Change and Management. She is also Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.We speak about economic transformation, and re-imagining economic possibilities for the 21st century. What should we design our economic system to do? Growth in GDP is a

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01:48:58

The Surprising Impact of Regenerative Farming | Joel...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/12/27

This conversation is the second part of a two part mini-series on Regenerative cattle farming. The question is: Does raising cattle really have to be so damaging to the environment? Can cattle be integrated into a natural system that sequesters carbon from the atmosphere, and if so what would that system look like?Joel Salatin segregates his land into small fenced off areas, which he rotates his cattle through. By moving his herd routinely he gives grass and other wild vegetation optimal time to

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01:41:41

Regenerative Farming And Carbon Negative Beef | Will...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/12/04

In this conversation I speak with Will Harris, who is a fourth generation cattle farmer. Will originally ran a standard industrial farm, but increasingly became dissatisfied by the welfare of his animals. That started a journey to change the way his farm ran, and over the years he has converted his operation piece by piece into a regenerative farm. That means no more grain feed, no more confined feed lots, no more hormones, no more pesticides. The basic idea is to focus on improving the land in

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02:04:19

What is Reality Made Of? Unscrambling the Quantum...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/11/21

In quantum mechanics the state of a physical system is described by a wavefunction, which provides information about the probabilities of various outcomes, such as finding a particle at a particular location in space. This differs dramatically from classical physics, where a particle is described by a definite position and momentum. As a result, quantum mechanics inherently involves a certain level of uncertainty. A key question is whether this uncertainty reflects a fundamental indeterminacy in

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01:58:06

The Future of Protein: Breeding The Super Tuber |...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/09/16

Wheat, soy, corn, potatoes—did we really domesticate the best crops nature had to offer? In this episode of the podcast, I speak with geneticist Padraic J. Flood, who specializes in population and quantitative genetics. Padraic left academia and a position in vertical farming to pursue a dream: the domestication of the Aardaker.The Aardaker is a small, unassuming plant native to moist temperate regions of Europe and Western Asia. It produces edible tubers similar to potatoes, but unlike potatoes,

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01:33:35

The "Self" Is An Illusion | Thomas Metzinger |...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/08/26

In this episode I speak with Professor Thomas Metzinger about how our strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerges out of objective events in the natural world. According to Thomas, no such things as selves really exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are what he calls `phenomenal' selves which our brains fabricate. In this episode I try to unpack what this means exactly, and what the implications are. Note: The first question of this interview has been

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01:13:09

Alcohol And The Birth Of Civilization | Edward...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/08/19

Why is alcohol use so widespread? The usual thinking is that despite its negative effects, alcohol is pleasurable and that is why we drink it. But this can't be the whole story because if alcohol is really so bad then cultures that prohibit drinking should dominate over those that like to drink, or you might think that a genetic mutation that makes drinking less pleasurable would spread rapidly through the population. In this conversation I discuss this mystery with sinologist and philosopher Edward

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01:53:32

Building A Theory Of Everything | Stephen Wolfram |...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/08/02

This is a conversation with Stephen Wolfram about his proposed theory of everything. Stephen is a British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, and CEO of Wolfram Research. He also created Mathematica, and Wolfram|Alpha & Wolfram Language, and is the Author of 'A New Kind of Science' as well as a number of other books.Stephen's attempt to derive all of the laws of nature (including gravitation, statistical mechanics, and general relativity) rests on two key ideas: 1. The idea

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01:44:19

Should We Deregulate Housing? | Bryan Caplan |...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/06/25

Housing regulation is often put in place for good reasons, namely comfort, safety, environmental protection, availability of utilities and services, and more. With each additional regulation, however, restrictions are being placed on what you can build, where you can build, and how quickly you can build it. Professor Bryan Caplan argues that our current mess of regulations dramatically increases the price of housing, by limiting supply. This, he argues, has disastrous effects on fertility, and many

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01:22:51

Decoding Human Speech From Brain Signals | Julia...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/06/09

Julia Berezutskaya is one of the worlds leading researchers working in the area of brain computer interfaces. She is part of the brain-computer interface group (dept. Neurology & Neurosurgery) at UMC Utrecht, where she works at the intersection of fundamental and clinical neuroscience research. A key goal of her work on the computational modeling of cognitive and neurobiological processes is to one day allow for the decoding of naturalistic human speech from the brain signals of patients who

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02:22:59

Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered? | Carl Bender...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/05/17

Carl Bender is an applied mathematician and mathematical physicist holding positions at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Heidelberg, Imperial College, London. He was also one of my own favorite lecturers. He taught me about perturbation theory and asymptotic series which are powerful mathematical tools for solving difficult problems in physics. I invited Carl on to the podcast to discuss complex numbers, and their application in physics. At a conceptual level Carl talks about

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52:18

Nuclear Energy: Rewards, Costs, and Advanced Reactors...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/04/21

What role should Nuclear Power play in energy production? This episode of the podcast explores the case for Nuclear Energy. I speak with Rachel Slaybaugh, who was an Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Division Director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She also served as a Program Director at the Department of Energy’s ARPA‑E, where she created the nuclear fission program. She is currently a partner at DCVC. We discuss three of the

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01:40:00

Marx, Capitalism, and Neoclassical Economics | Steve...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/03/19

On this episode of the podcast I speak with UCL Honorary Professor of Economics and ISRS Distinguished Research Fellow Steve keen. Steve famously predicted the 2008 market crash. He is also known for his criticism of modern economic theory, which he views as being inconsistent, unscientific, and empirically unsupported. He is currently working on a new science of economics built upon incontrovertible facts. We discuss the history of economic theory, the problems with neoclassical economics, and the

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56:54

Does Capitalism Destroy The Environment? | Jeffrey...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/02/19

On this episode of the Podcast I speak with economist and public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He served as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General for almost two decades, and is co-founder and chief strategist of the Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending extreme poverty and hunger. In this conversation we

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01:47:03

Avoiding The Threats From AI | David Shapiro |...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2024/01/20

In this episode of the podcast I speak with David Shapiro about some of the threats associated with AI development. We discuss the impact that generative AI will have on truth, trust in evidence, and divisive narratives. Who will pay for AI, and how will that determine the path of its development? Will artificial relationships and generated adult content lead to new forms of sexual addiction and social isolation? What impact will AI have on cyber security, and what will weaponized AI look like? How

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01:36:53

Narcissism And Success | Mitja Back | Escaped Sapiens...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2023/12/21

What is narcissism, and why do so many successful people seem to be narcissists? In this conversation I speak with Professor Mitja Back from the university of Muenster, who is one of the worlds leading experts on the topic of Narcissism. We discuss narcissism as a personality trait, how narcissistic traits develop (nature vs nurture), relationship breakdown, narcissism on social media, and the link between narcissism and success.►Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/JXDs3TbIiEk ►For more

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02:02:49

Creating Synthetic Life | Kerstin Goepfrich | Escaped...

The Escaped Sapiens Podcast ·

2023/12/12

In this conversation I speak with Professor Kerstin Göpfrich, who works at Heidelberg University at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), and who is also leading the Max Planck Research Group for the Biophysical Engineering of Life. Kerstin is attempting to construct living cells from scratch, piece by piece from non-living materials. So far she has created cell membranes, cytoskeletons, linkers for connecting cytoskeletons to the cell membrane, a mechanism for cell division, microscopic channels

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104 results

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