Increments

#108 - The OpenAI/HuggingFace "incident": Responding to Sam Harris and Ryan Greenblatt

Vaden has been annoyed about the Hugging Face incident for weeks, and the only known cure is yelling about it on the podcast. Ben, who as usual is more even-headed and o

#107 - Is Too Much Therapy Ruining a Generation?

At 3am, tossing and turning in your bed, have you ever wondered why this generation is full of a bunch of fragile sissies? Journalist Abigail Shrier has, and her answer i

#106 - The Successes, Failures, and Grifters of Neuroscience (w/ Tommy Blanchard)

After Jason Arday, the second biggest topic of conversation has of course been the rise of the neuro-grifting guru. And for good reason! Neuroscience has been causing con

#105 - The World of Bayesian Statistics (w/ Alex Andorra)

We've spent a long time bashing Bayesian epistemology on the podcast. Unfortunately, this is sometimes taken to mean that we bash all things Bayesian. But our God-fearing

#104 (C&R Chap 10, Part V) - The Duhem-Quine Thesis

It's only taken us 104 episodes of talking incessantly about Karl Popper to get one of the most important and popular criticisms of falsification: The Duhem-Quine thesis.

#103 - AI, Evolution, and The God Test (w/ Robert Wright)

Did you ever see the video of two regular people trying to fight Eddie Hall, the strongest man on earth? Ben and Vaden bring that same energy to this conversation, where

#102 - Criticizing Crit-rats (w/ Bruce Nielson and Peter Johansen)

Turning on our own! Vaden sits down with Bruce Nielson and Peter Johansen to discuss some of the bad memes that run rampant in the online "crit-rat" community, in an atte

#101 (C&R Chap 10, Part IV) - Was Popper Wrong about Verisimilitude?

Wasn't Popper a falsificationist? Then why did he try to develop ideas about corroboration and versimilitude - the extent to which a theory was closer to truth than anoth

#100 - Celebrating the Centennial

100 episodes! To celebrate, Vaden tries to get personal with Ben, while Ben dodges his questions and wants to know how Vaden feels about incest. All in all, a pretty typi

#99 - Debating Trump in Good Faith (w/ Don Robinson)

Ben is hesitant to talk too much about politics on the podcast. So, naturally, we're having a political debate. We have on a pseudonymous guest to talk Trump, MAGA, and w

#98 (C&R Chap 10, Part III) - What is truth?

"What is Truth?", said jesting podcasters, who then stuck around for an answer. Back at it again with The Conjectures and Refutations Series (part three) on Chapter 10: T

#97 - Did Effective Altruism Have Ulterior Motives From the Beginning?

Two years without discussing effective altruism -- did you miss it? Not as much as Vaden, surely. And probably a right bit more than Ben. Well, we're back in the game w

#96 (Bonus) - On the Limits of Introspection

Happy Christmas and Merry Festivus y'all! Today we're releasing a patreon episode, as both of us are away on vacation with the family for the holidays. In this episode we

#95 (C&R Chap 10, Part II) - A Problem-First View of Scientific Progress

After a long hiatus where we both saw grief counsellors over our fight about Popper's theory of content in the last C&R episode, we are back. And we're ready to play nice

#94 - Is AI Just a Tool? (w/ Scott Aaronson)

The time has come for Vaden to defend his faith in the face of cold, hard scientific rationality. Will AI take over the world, automating away everything that makes human

#93 (C&R Chap 10, Part I) - An Introduction to Popper's Theory of Content

Back to basics baby. We're doing a couple introductory episodes on Popper's philosophy of science, following Chapter 10 of Conjectures and Refutations. We start with Popp

#92 - Confronting the Paradox of Tolerance: Christianity in the age of Trump (w/ Jonathan Rauch)

We're joined by Jonathan Rauch to discuss what it means to be a radical incrementalist, how to foment revolution on geological timescales, and whether Christianity can be

#91 - The Uses and Abuses of Statistics (w/ Ben Recht)

Professor of electrical engineering and computer science Ben Recht joins us to defend Bayesianism, AI doom, and assure us that the statisticians have everything under con

#90 (Reaction) - Disbelieving AI 2027: Responding to "Why We're Not Ready For Superintelligence"

Always the uncool kids at the table, Ben and Vaden push back against the AGI hype domininating every second episode of every second podcast. We react to "We're not ready

#89 (C&R, Chap 6) - Berkeley vs Newton: The Battle Over Gravity

Phlogiston? Elan Vital? Caloric? Mention of any of these at a party, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson will be sure to take you out back and kick you in your essences. So why do "e