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PODCAST

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking is a podcast about ideas that truly matter. If you enjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks, wish you had more deep, intellectual conversations in your life, or are looking for non-BS self-improvement, then we think you"ll love this podcast! Each week we invite a brilliant guest to bring four important ideas to discuss for an in-depth conversation. Topics include psychology, society, behavior change, philosophy, science, artificial intelligence, math,

science social sciences

All Episodes

01:25:55

When is suffering good? (with Paul Bloom)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/11/11

Read the full transcript here. When (if ever) can suffering be good? Is there an optimal ratio of pleasure to pain? What is motivational pluralism? Can large, positive incentives be coercive? (For example, is it coercive to offer to pay someone enormous amounts of money to do something relatively benign or even painful or immoral?) How can moving from making judgments about a person's actions to making judgments about their character solve certain moral puzzles? Why do we sometimes make seemingly

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01:26:04

What causes progress? And how can we stop it from...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/11/03

Read the full transcript here. What is progress? How do we (and should we) measure progress? What are the most important questions to ask in progress studies? What are the factors that lead to progress? Why has large-scale progress taken so long (i.e., why did we not see much progress until the Industrial Revolution)? Why did industrial revolution, scientific revolution, and democratic revolution all seem to start within a relatively short period of time of each other? How can we prevent progress

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01:00:31

Clearer paths and sharper ideas (with Lynette Bye)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/10/28

Read the full transcript here. What are "forward-chaining" and "backward-chaining", and how do they connect with theory of change? What sorts of mental habits and heuristics prevent you from brainstorming ideas effectively? How can you harness feedback effectively to sharpen your ideas? From whom should you solicit feedback? How can you view your own products with fresh eyes? What are some common struggles people encounter when starting or changing careers, and how can they be overcome? Why are

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01:10:24

How to measure impact, and why we may have all been...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/10/24

Read the full transcript here. Researchers in the Effective Altruism movement often view their work through a utilitarian lens, so why haven't they traditionally paid much attention to the psychological research into subjective wellbeing (i.e., people's self-reported levels of happiness, life satisfaction, feelings of purpose and meaning in life, etc.)? Are such subjective measures reliable and accurate? Or rather, which such measures are the most reliable and accurate? What are the pros and cons

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01:18:14

Major and minor scales of consciousness (with Andrés...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/10/13

Read the full transcript here. Should pleasure and pain be measured on logarithmic scales? How might such a scale affect utilitarian calculations? How do harmonic energy waves in the brain correspond to states of (or intensities of) consciousness? What sorts of conclusions can we draw about brain states given the resolutions and sampling rates of tools like fMRI, EEG, and MEG? What is the symmetry theory of homeostatic regulation, and how does it connect to pleasure and pain? Are uncomfortable or

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00:57:42

The art of being a creative person (with Georgia Shreve)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/10/07

Read the full transcript here. What is positive psychology? What is the PERMA model? From a creativity standpoint, is there a connection between music and writing? In various artistic fields, how hard is it to be creative without first achieving some level of technical mastery? How can one hone the skill of creativity? How useful is optimism for achieving happiness? What are the different sources from which humans derive pleasure? To what extent is western culture conscious of ageism? What does

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01:53:55

An interview with an A.I. (with GPT-3 and Jeremy Nixon)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/09/30

Read the full transcript here. What is machine learning? What are neural networks? How can humans interpret the meaning or functionality of the various layers of a neural network? What is a transformer, and how does it build on the idea of a neural network? Does a transformer have a conceptual advantage over neural nets, or is a transformer basically the equivalent of neural nets plus a lot of compute power? Why have we started hearing so much about neural nets in just the last few years even

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01:15:19

Beyond cognitive biases: improving judgment by...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/09/23

Read the full transcript here. How can we apply the theory of measurement accuracy to human judgments? How can cognitive biases affect both the bias term and the noise term in measurement error? How much noise should we expect in judgments of various kinds? Is there reason to think that machines will eventually make better decisions than humans in all domains? How does machine decision-making differ (if at all) from human decision-making? In what domains should we work to reduce variance in

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01:27:37

How to use your career to have a large impact (with...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/09/15

Read the full transcript here. What is 80,000 Hours, and why is it so important? Does doing the most good in the world require being completely selfless and altruistic? What are the career factors that contribute to impactfulness? How should people choose among the various problem areas on which they could work? What sorts of long-term AI outcomes are possible (besides merely apocalyptic scenarios), and why is it so important to get AI right? How much should we value future generations? How much

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01:15:31

Why does psychotherapy work (when it works at all)?...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/09/08

Read the full transcript here. How can we make psychotherapy more effective? How much confidence should psychotherapists have in the efficacy of their methods? How does deliberate practice differ from mere repetition? How can we overcome confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and other blind spots in our own fields of expertise? What are the most significant predictors of positive outcome achievement for clients in psychotherapy? When a patient has a physical ailment, doctors gather data,

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01:05:24

How broken is social science? (with Matt Grossman)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/09/02

Read the full transcript here. What makes studying humans harder than studying other parts of the universe? Is social science currently improving its rigor, relevance, and self-reflection? Is it improving its predictive power over time? Why have sample sizes historically been so small in social science studies? Is social science actually able to accumulate knowledge? Have social scientists been able to move the "needle" on real-world problems like vaccine adoption? Is social science becoming more

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01:26:39

How to communicate better with the people in your...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/08/28

Read the full transcript here. What are the "relating" languages? What strategies do we use when interacting with each other under various conditions? How does one formulate a new taxonomy in a field? What information can we glean from our own emotional and physical reactions? What is authenticity? What are the strengths and weaknesses of various personality typologies?Sara Ness is a facilitator, teacher, and community-builder who is internationally known for popularizing the field of Authentic

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01:18:25

How to hack your own brain (with Elizabeth Ricker)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/08/21

Read the full transcript here. Why should we be doing more experiments on our own lives? How should we approach and get started with self-experimentation? Why are such varying dietary changes able to improve people's well-being? What are some measures and interventions for improving executive function, memory and learning, emotional self-regulation, and creativity? Do brain games actually make you smarter? What are some promising nootropics? Should people use neurostimulation and/or neurofeedback

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01:29:13

Why do civilizations collapse? And is ours next?...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/08/19

Read the full transcript here. What is "long" history? Why don't historians usually focus on what happened before recorded human history? What (if anything) is special about agriculture when it comes to the development of civilization? How far back does human civilization go, and why should we care? Have humans always been gardeners? What factors cause civilizations to crumble or thrive? Should we reboot standardized tests and college admissions every few decades so that measures don't become

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01:17:08

Utopia on earth and morality without guilt (with Joe...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/08/11

Read the full transcript here. What are some of the challenges of defining utopia? What should a utopia look like? What are concrete versus sublime utopias? What are some of the failure modes related to various conceptions of utopia? Is it really that hard to create a shared, positive vision of the future? What is the value (or disvalue) of creating new people, especially in relation to the utopic or dystopic state of the world? What is "whole-hearted morality" versus "morality-as-taxes"? How can

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01:01:29

How do you leverage your limitations? (with Oliver...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/08/04

Read the full transcript here. How can we leverage our own limitations? Why does converting the average human lifespan from years to other units (like weeks) give us such a shock? What are the most useful kinds of reactions to contemplating our own mortality? What causes our feeling that time speeds up as we age? What is the "importance trap"? How should we handle the frustration or disappointment caused by our inability to do everything we want or need to do? Why is patience important in the world

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01:20:59

The secrets of effective learning (with Andy Matuschak)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/29

Read the full transcript here. How can we accelerate learning? Is spaced repetition the best way to absorb information over the long term? Do we always read non-fiction works with the goal of learning? What are some less common but perhaps more valuable types of information that can be put on flash cards? What sorts of things are worth remembering anyway? Why is it important to commit some ideas to memory when so much information is easily findable on the internet? What benefits are derived from

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01:11:46

Exploring your shadow and healing your traumas (with...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/25

Read the full transcript here. What is metamodernism? How does metamodernism relate to spiral dynamics? What does it look like to apply a metamodern approach to large-scale problems? What are shadow traits, and what is shadow projection? What do our reactions about others' behavior tell us about ourselves? What's going on psychologically and physiologically when we relive past traumas? What dosages of psychedelics are most effective in a therapeutic context? How soon will psychedelic substances

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01:07:50

Dances with robots (with Catie Cuan)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/21

Read the full transcript here. What is a choreographic interface? Is dance for everyone? What is dance for? What can dancers learn from roboticists, and what can roboticists learn from dancers? What are some of the practical difficulties one encounters when programming a robot to dance? Why do robots break or fail so often? What are the pros and cons of using virtual reality to train or test robots? Why don't we see more robots in everyday life? What are some everyday robotics applications coming

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01:49:04

Heaven and hell on earth: a trip to the limits of...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/18

Read the full transcript here. What is "metaphysical geometry"? What do we get out of surrendering to the idea of death? Why do some people find the sensation of intense fear to be pleasurable? Is psychosis valuable? Are all mental states valuable? Why are altered states of consciousness typically socially unacceptable, and why should we move towards accepting them? Could oxytocin be used as a less risky alternative to MDMA in therapeutic contexts?Anthony David Adams is a visionary, inventor,

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299 results

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