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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

01:06:22

How can we save the world? (with Toby Ord)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/15

Read the full transcript here. What is "the precipice"? Which kinds of risks (natural or technological) pose the greatest threats to humanity specifically or to life on Earth generally in the near future? What other kinds of existential risks exist beyond mere extinction? What are the differences between catastrophic risks and existential risks? How serious is the threat of climate change on an existential scale? What are the most promising lines of research into the mitigation of existential

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01:16:49

Risk-Driven Development and Decentralization (with...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/11

Read the full transcript here. What is risk-driven development? How should we weigh advice, best practices, and common sense in a domain? What makes some feedback loops better than others? What's the best way to take System 2 knowledge and convert it to System 1 intuition? What are forward-chaining and backward-chaining? When is it best to use one over the other? What are the advantages and disadvantages of centralization and decentralization?Satvik Beri is a cofounder and head of Data Science at

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01:13:06

Statistics Intuitions and Social Science...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/07

Read the full transcript here. How should math be taught in primary and secondary schools? How much is science denialism caused by statistics illiteracy or lack of statistical intuitions? What do p-values actually mean? Under what conditions should null results be published? What are some of the less well-known factors that may be contributing to the social science reproducibility crisis?Stuart Buck was Vice President of Arnold Ventures (a $2 billion philanthropy) for nine years and led its

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00:56:37

Genomics and Health Outcomes (with Noor Siddiqui)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/04

Read the full transcript here. Why has there been such an explosion of progress in genomics recently? What's the right way to think about how genes affect the likelihood of experiencing certain health outcomes? How can people mitigate genetic risks for their potential children? What sorts of moral obligations (if any) do parents have to mitigate potential genetic risks for their children? How does Orchid's focus differ from other companies in the same space? What is "junk" DNA? What percentage of

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00:58:08

Rationality and Cognitive Science (with Anna Riedl)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/07/01

Read the full transcript here. What is the Great Rationality Debate? What are axiomatic rationality and ecological rationality? How irrational are people anyway? What's the connection between rationality and wisdom? What are some of the paradigms in cognitive science? Why do visual representations of information often communicate their meaning much more effectively than other kinds of representations?Anna Riedl is a cognitive scientist with a primary research interest in judgement and

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01:20:45

Self-Improvement and Behavior Change (with James Norris)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/26

Read the full transcript here. How can you live your best life? What's a good definition of "wisdom"? What are some possible taxonomies of life outcomes? What are some low-hanging fruit in the realm of self-improvement? What are some useful behavior change frameworks and techniques?All his life, James Norris has been searching for the best ways to change himself and change the world. He started as an entrepreneur at age 6 and since has co-founded or helped build 9 businesses and 16 organizations,

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01:31:47

Everyday Statistics and Climate Change Strategies...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/23

Read the full transcript here. What are "shed" and "cake" projects? And how can you avoid "shed" projects? What is the "jobs to be done" framework? What is the "theory of change" framework? How can people use statistics (or statistical intuition) in everyday life? How accurate are climate change models? How much certainty do scientists have about climate change outcomes? What are some promising strategies for mitigating and reversing climate change?Cassandra Xia (@CassandraXia) is the creator of

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01:15:36

Conscious Processes and Intelligence (with Richard...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/19

Read the full transcript here. What sorts of things do the conscious and unconscious parts of our minds do? How we can make people more intelligent? How much is intelligence heritable vs. environmental? What's the value (or disvalue) of holding interviews during the hiring process? When do we over- and under-use cost-benefit analyses?Richard E. Nisbett is one of the world's most respected psychologists. His work focuses on issues in social psychology and cognitive science. His newest book Thinking:

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01:06:12

Educational Restructuring and Investing (with Matt...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/17

Read the full transcript here. How can we restructure schools around student needs? What sorts of skills do people actually need in the 21st century, and how can education systems reorganize themselves around those skills? What sorts of things do impact investors look for when investing in education companies? How can teachers cultivate critical thinking and passion in the classroom? Should prejudice and privilege be addressed at the primary or secondary levels of education?Matt Greenfield is a

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01:05:32

Chinese Culture and Love Addiction (with Ava King)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/12

Read the full transcript here. How is Chinese culture different from American culture? For what reasons do Chinese people get plastic surgery, and how do those reasons differ from those of their American counterparts? What is love addiction? Are 12-step programs the only way (or the best way) of overcoming addiction?Ava King is an international singer, songwriter, and producer based out of LA. She was born and raised in France, spent a decade in China, then decided to move to LA to pursue her

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01:11:20

User Engagement and Expert Intuition (with Rob...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/09

Read the full transcript here. How do you design a product to handle user failure? How do you keep users motivated even when they fail? How do you successfully onboard new users? What are some different kinds of search behavior? How and when does gamifying a product increase user engagement and success? What psychological components do games attempt to engage with? How do we develop expert intuition in a domain?Rob Haisfield is a behavioral product strategy and gameful design consultant. He applies

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01:38:53

Psychological Models and Parenting (with Divia Eden)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/05

Read the full transcript here. What is the Internal Family Systems model? What kinds of information do our emotions give us? How many agents live in our heads? And, if there's more than one, how well do those agents cooperate? What is operant conditioning? What is attachment theory? How does parenting differ from animal training? Is decision theory able to unify many different psychological theories?Divia Eden has always been interested in understanding how minds work, and she currently spends most

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01:14:37

Productive Conversations and Feedback Loops (with...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/06/03

Read the full transcript here. How can we become better leaders? How can we give better feedback to others? How can we be better listeners? How can we give good advice? How do startups (or even existing companies) build great products? What sorts of things do experts actually know? When is it useful to poll customers for feedback?Julia Carvalho serves as an advisor to startups doing impactful things in the world. She thinks a lot about product strategy, teams, and prioritization. She likes emailing

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01:10:29

EA Efficacy and Community Norms (with Stefan Schubert)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/30

Read the full transcript here. How can people be more effective in their altruism? Is it better for people to give to good causes in urgent situations or on a regular basis? What causes people to donate to less effective charities even when presented with evidence that other charities might be more effective? We can make geographically distant events seem salient locally by (for example) showing them on TV, but how can we make possible future events seem more salient? How much more effective are

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01:18:25

Explanatory Depth and Growth Mindset (with Daniel...

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/26

Read the full transcript here. What is the illusion of explanatory depth? Are there forms of debate or dialogue that actually help people to change their minds (instead of stacking the incentives such that people feel forced to harden and defend their views)? What is epistemic "debt"? Should people avoid having opinions on things where they haven't thought deeply and carefully about all of the relevant considerations? How does one choose which experts to trust? What is "growth mindset"? How can

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01:24:30

AI Safety and Solutions (with Robert Miles)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/22

Read the full transcript here. Why is YouTube such a great way to communicate research findings? Why is AI safety (or alignment) a problem? Why is it an important problem? Why is the creation of AGI (artificial general intelligence) existentially risky for us? Why is it so hard for us to specify what we want in utility functions? What are some of the proposed strategies (and their limitations) for controlling AGI? What is instrumental convergence? What is the unilateralist's curse?Rob Miles is a

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01:32:52

Online and IRL Relationships (with Steve Dean)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/19

Read the full transcript here. To what extent do we put ourselves, each other, and our relationships in fixed, sharply-defined boxes? Do we exude trust to people we meet? How often do we project our own wants and needs onto other people? How do the experiences of men and women differ on dating apps? Why do men behave so badly towards women (both online and in the meatspace)? How can people improve their dating experiences? How do we tell our own stories? And how do we recognize the ways in which

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01:30:42

Utilitarianism and Its Flavors (with Nick Beckstead)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/16

Read the full transcript here. What is utilitarianism? And what are the different flavors of utilitarianism? What are some alternatives to utilitarianism for people that find it generally plausible but who can't stomach some of its counterintuitive conclusions? For the times when people do use utilitarianism to make moral decisions, when is it appropriate to perform actual calculations (as opposed to making estimations or even just going with one's "gut")? And what is "utility" anyway?Nick

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01:16:09

Cults and Social Needs (with Alice Mottola)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/12

What is a cult? What do people seem to mean when they use the word "cult"? Do cults always have a charismatic and/or narcissistic leader? Are cults always harmful? Are people ever really "tricked" into being in a cult? What needs are met by cults that aren't met by standard social structures? What sorts of interactions induce intimacy and/or solidarity among people?Alice Mottola is a perpetual student with experience in writing software, directing plays, conducting social psychology research, and

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01:52:45

History and Longevity (with Will Eden)

Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg ·

2021/05/08

Read the full transcript here. What are the benefits of studying history? How do we find useful historical analyses? Can learning about history save us from repeating it? Is America decaying as a nation, empire, and/or leading world power? Generally speaking, what causes empires to fail? Is the aging and decay experienced by organic bodies analogous to the aging and decay experienced by an empire (or by any complex system, for that matter)? What are all the reasons organisms age, decay, and die

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299 results

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