Ben Yeoh Chats: Recent Episodes
Benjamin Yeoh
Ben Yeoh chats to a variety of thinkers and doers about their curiosities, ideas and passions.
If you are curious about the world this show is for you.
I have extended conversations across humanities and science with artists, philosophers, writers, theatre makers, activists, economists and all walks of life.
Hansong Li is a political theorist and historian of political, economic, and legal thought. We discussed a breadth of topics ranging from the Tangut language, Eastern philosophy, development economics, to modern political ideologies and cultural expressions. Hansong’s insights shed light on historical contexts while drawing connections to contemporary issues.
The conversation delves into broader philosophical and economic themes, comparing past and present political thoughts and examining the effects of international aid on development. Hansong emphasizes the importance of learning from history and cultural interactions for a more nuanced understanding of contemporary global dynamics.
Transcript, video and links: www.thendobetter.com/arts/2024/6/14/hangsong-li-china-tangut-political-economy-history-podcast
Contents:The Tangut People and Their LanguageModern Interpretations of Chinese PhilosophyGlobal South and Regional ConceptsMontesquieu and Sea ImageryRousseau's Plan for CorsicaEconomic Development in Northeast AsiaInternational Aid: Help or Hindrance?Global Economic Thought: East vs. WestHamilton: A Political and Cultural AnalysisUnderrated or Overrated?Current Projects and Life Advice
Rasheed Griffith discusses the factors impeding progress in the Caribbean and shares his optimism for the region. He identifies the decline in public sector quality since the 1960s as a major obstacle. Transcript and links here.
Griffith suggests that reforming the public sector could significantly advance the Caribbean by attracting international talent and improving policy implementation. He also discusses the historical impact of British technocracy in the Caribbean, proposing that adopting a more internationalized public service could be beneficial. Griffith urges a shift towards leveraging global trade for growth.
The discussion also touches on the potential of dollarization, the limited utility of charter cities in the Caribbean, and the importance of understanding regional culture through food and history.
“every Caribbean country should be dollarized. No exceptions. Caribbean countries, any small country, there is very little utility of having your own currency except for having the ability of the government to mismanage it at some point in time. And that has historically been the case in the Caribbean, been the case in Latin America, been the case in Europe, Asia, it goes down the line.
There is no real extra benefit you have from having your own currency, as a very small country, dependent on a global currency anyway. This manifests even stranger things. So for example, Caribbean still has very harsh capital controls, not all Caribbean, but the ones that have their own currency do, and that limits people's freedom to consume as much as what they want.
It also has again, the ever present risk and reality of the government abusing the exchange Abusing money creation tool obviously hurts the exchange rate hurts inflation all those kind of things So when you really look into it, there's no proper counter argument to dollarization to me when someone says What's the counter argument to me?
That's like saying what is the argument in favor of having an unsound currency? It's a non starter in that sense.”
We talk about culture including reggae, VS Naipaul and Rastafarians. And on food:
“when you understand why you, in Barbados, eat curry goat and roti, of course that has a very big impact on how you think about your own history. Jerk chicken, is very famous in Jamaica. I think it's very difficult to get good jerk chicken outside of Jamaica. There are some spots in London that have some good jerk chicken, but usually, if you go to a place that has jerk chicken, it's likely not actually jerk chicken.
Any case, even jerk chicken, for example, if you understand how it works is very deeply into how Jamaican history operates. So it came from Mexico after the slaves, this plantation has this thing called Maroon, like free slave holdings in the mountains in Jamaica. And jerk chicken is one of the food products they actually created.
It's very, goes really far back. And one of the current ingredients of jerk chicken that we usually use in sauce is soy sauce. Now soy sauce, of course, it's not from Jamaica, it's from China primarily speaking. So you see how the Chinese influence in Jamaica, for example, goes back to the food, like the core Jamaican food has this Chinese influence as well.”
We discuss how to assess talent, what questions to ask in an interview and how to be better for interviews.
We play underrated/overrated on: GDP, Universal Basic Income and carbon tax.
Griffith shares insights into his creative process and the importance of public intellectual engagement.
Finally we end on some advice thoughts. Advice:
"I think people should try to be a lot more public in their thoughts. Writing things online for the public is a nice constrained device."
A conversation with Henry Oliver, author of 'A Second Act', exploring the concept of late bloomers. Transcript here.
Oliver elaborates on societal pressures, hidden talents, and how these impact individual successes at various life stages, advocating for a broader recognition of potential beyond conventional timelines.
The dialogue includes themes such as the significance of networks, the role of luck, and the historical context of late blooming, challenging prevailing notions of talent and achievement.
Following this, the conversation delves into the philosophical contributions of John Stuart Mill, particularly focusing on his expansion of utilitarianism and its inadvertent influence on contemporary moral behaviors like vegetarianism. It contrasts Mill’s stance on liberty and value measurement with other philosophers and highlights the importance of engaging with diverse perspectives for personal growth. The chat connects Mill’s philosophies to present-day issues.
We end on Henry’s advice: the importance of personalized approaches to absorbing content, seeking expertise, the application of tailored advice over generic guidance; and to ignore those who do not have recent advice experience.
On Hidden Talents and Societal Barriers:
"So in the case of someone just happens to emerge later, and in the case of someone has been held back, I would call that hidden both times. Because very often when you've been held back by your circumstances, people like actually cannot see your talents. And so they are hidden, not in the sense that you've kept them in, or you were scared, or whatever, but in the sense that, you could have put it on your t-shirt and people wouldn't have realized."
On Overcoming Historical Bias and Recognizing Talent:
"And obviously historically, very often that was to do with if you were a woman, if you were a person of color people just aren't going to, people literally aren't going to take that seriously. But that, to me, is interesting, it's an interesting demonstration of the fact that, You can be very confident that you know how to find talent, and that you know who's a good chap and who would be good at this job, and be completely blind to what is right in front of you."
Contents:
- 00:13 Learning from Henry’s mother
- 01:01 Exploring Hidden Talents and Societal Constraints
- 03:34 The Nuances of Midlife Crises and Opportunities for Growth
- 07:45 The Power of Networks and Circumstances in Shaping Late Bloomers
- 10:23 Margaret Thatcher: A Case Study in Late Blooming
- 16:20 Seizing Luck and the Importance of Being Prepared
- 21:32 The Role of Networks in Realizing Potential
- 30:20 Addressing Societal Biases and Embracing Equality of Opportunity
- 34:29 Rethinking Talent: Early Bloomers vs. Late Bloomers
- 42:55 The Fluidity of Intelligence and the Potential for Growth
- 45:29 Exploring Misunderstood Characters in Literature
- 45:56 Audrey Sutherland: The Unrecognized Kayaking Legend
- 47:09 Malcolm X: A Misunderstood Figure in History
- 48:46 The Ones That Didn't Make the Cut: Missed Profiles
- 51:28 The Writing Process: Insights and Personal Habits
- 54:51 The Fascinating World of London's Churches
- 59:36 Underrated and Overrated: A Deep Dive into Mindsets and Philosophies
- 01:18:23 Current Projects and Life Advice
Alyssa Gilbert, the director of the Center for Climate Change Innovation at the Grantham Institute, talks about the current gaps in climate technology investments. She discusses her research into areas that are currently underfunded, including transport and energy. She also covers the importance of energy efficiency, especially in relation to the built environment. Alyssa emphasizes the necessity of various models in the fight against climate change, including private sector initiatives, philanthropy, and governmental grants - and highlights the need for a diverse range of solutions. She also speaks about the innovation within the London climate tech ecosystem and shares her perspective on various topics including carbon offsets, behavior change, and geoengineering.
Transcript/Video here: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2024/3/1/alyssa-gilbert-climate-tech-innovation-policy-technology-podcast
- 00:15 Discussion on Climate Technology Investment
- 01:15 Exploring Areas of Underinvestment in Climate Change
- 01:54 Climate Change Adaptation and Innovation
- 02:23 The Role of Heavy Industry in Climate Change
- 03:15 Climate Change Policies and Energy Efficiency
- 05:10 Challenges in Implementing Energy Efficiency
- 08:09 Debate on Degrowth vs Techno-optimism
- 11:34 Role of Venture Capital and Philanthropy in Climate Change
- 16:11 London's Climate Tech Ecosystem
- 21:58 Pitching Climate Change Ideas
- 24:17 Role of Big Companies in Climate Change Innovation
- 25:49 The Importance of Corporate Involvement in Innovation
- 26:26 A Glimpse into a Day in the Life of a Climate Innovator
- 29:13 Overrated or Underrated: A Discussion on Climate Solutions
- 40:48 Exciting Projects on the Horizon
- 44:02 Advice for Those Interested in Climate Action
Garrett Graff, a writer and historian who specializes in 'near history', discusses his book, 'UFO', about the US government's search for alien life. He touches upon how we often misunderstand UFO sightings, suggesting they could be due to a mix of physical anomalies and governmental or adversary secret flight technologies. Graff also shares his belief in the possibility of alien civilizations, arguing probabilities suggest the existence of life outside Earth. He then relates UFO conspiracies to a societal mistrust in government and institutions, tying it back to events like the Watergate scandal. Graff finally introduces his forthcoming oral history book on D-Day, emphasizing how his work emphasizes explaining and organizing complex events in an understandable and comprehensive way.
"When people ask 'do UFOs?'...That's not actually the question that they mean. The question that they really mean is, 'are we alone?' Because the truth of the matter is of course UFOs exist. All a UFO is an unidentified flying object, and there are things out there that we don't know what they are. Whether those are extraterrestrial is a very different question and potentially unrelated to the question of, are there extraterrestrials."
Transcript and video available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2024/2/14/garrett-graff-aliens-mysteries-of-ufos-watergate-911-government-trust-podcast
Contents:
- 00:31 Exploring the Mysteries of UFOs
- 03:05 The Probability of Alien Life
- 06:21 The Government's Role in UFO Research
- 19:03 The Impact of Conspiracy Theories
- 29:40 The Connection Between UFOs and Politics
- 33:28 The Importance of Trust in Government
- 47:21 The Writing Process and Future Projects
In this in-depth conversation, data scientist and researcher Hannah Ritchie delves into key insights from her new book 'Not The End of The World', which challenges the pervasive idea that human society is doomed due to environmental degradation. She explores various environmental problems, including climate change and plastic pollution, and emphasizes the potential for progress in tackling these critical issues. Hannah also discusses the essential role of technology and outlines the importance of lifting people out of poverty as a measure against climate change. Her argument centers around the balance of environmental change and human impact in achieving a sustainable planet. Furthermore, she provides advice on dealing with climate anxiety, career progression, and essential work ethics. Link to transcript, video and more here: www.thendobetter.com/arts/2024/1/26/hannah-ritchie-sustainability-progress-not-the-end-of-the-world-podcast
Approach: Hannah's work is primarily driven by data, focusing on the interplay between sustainability, climate change, and patterns of global development. Her new book, "Not the End of the World," addresses one of the most significant challenges of our time - environmental sustainability.
In the book, Hannah dispels a range of myths associated with environmental issues. She counters the prevailing narrative which claims we are doomed and there's nothing left to do about our environmental crisis. Instead, she believes we can change the narrative and become the first generation to build a sustainable planet.
Tackling Climate Change:
Hannah's optimism for combating climate change stems from the significant strides made in technology, especially renewable energy technologies. These technologies are no longer mere futuristic imaginings. They are realistic, economical, and deployable on a large scale.
However, she acknowledges the difficulty of the task at hand. The world is on track for 2 and a half to 3 degrees of warming which puts us in challenging terrain. We need rapid technological change coupled with significant societal transformation to alter our trajectory.
Addressing Biodiversity Loss:
Biodiversity loss, according to Hannah, is among the most challenging problems explored in her book. The manifestation of this crisis is nuanced as it involves intricate geo-political and economic dynamics. While technology can help, solving the biodiversity crisis will require simultaneous action on many fronts, from controlling deforestation to addressing climate change and overfishing.
Hana Loftus is a co-founder of HAT Projects. HAT are award winning architects, planners and enablers for the built environment. Projects include: London’s Science Museum Smith Centre, transformation of Trinity Works (a disused church), Ely Museum, Jerwood gallery and Jaywick Sands’ Sunspot. As well as practising planning and design, she writes on the subject and plays a great fiddle and violin.
Transcript and Video here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2024/1/10/hana-loftus-architecture-regeneration-planning-resilience-design-podcast
The discussion is around the challenges and opportunities in architecture and urban planning. The topics range from finding systemic housing solutions for poverty-stricken communities in Alabama, exploring the importance of practical real-world experiences for architecture students,
"I think as a young architect, firstly learning how a building is actually put together; nailing bits of wood together, wiring a house, plumbing a house, pouring foundations, all of that practical stuff is critical... And anybody can do that. Anybody can get tools and learn how to build something."
and discussing the Sunspot project that addresses affordable business units in Jaywick Sands, a poor area of east England. Hana talks about the lifespan and adaptability of buildings. She highlights the critical aspect of maintaining quality in construction and the risks in cost-cutting, referencing the Grenfell tragedy.
We discuss the political challenges of the Green Belt policy, proposing a 'finger model' for development, and the importance of exploring rural domains. Hana emphasises acquiring practical experience and making a concrete impact in the world.
Transcript and summary bullet points below.
- Building Houses and Rural Studio Experience
- Understanding the Realities of Rural Alabama
- The Impact of Building with Your Own Hands
- Working with the Community: The Story of Miss Phillips
- The Importance of the Front Porch in Southern Homes
- Reflections on Building Experience
- Transition from Alabama to East of England: Jaywick Sands
- Understanding the History and Challenges of Jaywick Sands
- The Regeneration Strategy for Jaywick Sands
- The Complexities of Place-Based Regeneration
- The Role of Consultation in Community Development
- The Sunspot Project: A Case Study in Localised Economic Stimulation
- Reflections on the Success of the Sunspot Project
- The Balance Between Planning and Unplanning in Community Development. The role of beauty.
- Nationwide Economic and Climate Perspective
- Local Agency and Development Opposition, Challenges in the Planning System
- Inequality and Climate Resilience
- Design Codes and Pattern Books: A Debate
- The Aesthetics of Development and Cultural Relevance
- The Lifespan of Buildings:
- The Future of Building Design and Sustainability
- The Role of Transport in Sustainable Planning
- The Impact of Construction Industry Structure
- Rethinking Greenbelt Policy for Sustainable Development
- Current and Future Projects: A Glimpse
- Life Advice: Making a Mark in the World
Lucy Easthope is a professor, lecturer and leading authority on emergency planning and recovering from disaster. Lucy has advised on major disasters over the last decades including the 2004 tsunami, 9/11, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell, and the Covid pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine. She challenges others to think differently about what comes next after tragic events, and how to plan for future ones.
Her book When the Dust Settles is both memoir of her life in disaster recovery and a personal journey through life, love and loss.
I ask Lucy about what she is hopeful about looking to the future.
"I think one of the things is this ability to be able to back, back and forth between really terrible thoughts and risks which we have to do in emergency planning, and then just take incredible joy from a moment in the day... My work is one of the greatest privileges of it; is just seeing people being great a lot. So that gives me a lot of hope."
We talk about how many disasters I’ve been a by-stander to (Thailand tsunami, 9/11, Grenfell, 7/7, mortar bomb attack) and how disaster is recurring.
We chat about Lucy’s activism from young and growing up around Liverpool.
Lucy has been very involved around personal items, and the belongings of people in disasters.
I ask about why it's such an important part of Lucy’s work. We chat about the interdisciplinary nature of here work.
We talk about the Welsh notion of hiraeth /ˈhɪərʌɪθ/. This longing for a place to which there is no return.
I ask about Lucy’s writing process and how she writes. We talk about themes in her life and writing such as working class roots and feminism. We discuss the importance of humour and why Lucy is pranked a lot.
We touch on Lucy’s personal losses of miscarriage.
I ask about what is misunderstood about disaster management and what organisations and people can do. How to think about balancing risk and opportunity. We talk about the problems of systemic and structural challenges.
We end on Lucy’s current projects and her life advice.
“Don't go to work on a row. I was reflecting with a friend recently and she said, "A lot of people say that they live life as if it's precious and you might not be here tomorrow, or the people you love might not be here tomorrow. But you Lucy, really do." And what does that look like? Everybody I love knows that I love them. Every time I say goodbye to my children, every time I go to work, it's always on the premise of how fragile this is. I think if we remember that, it sets us up to perhaps be kinder to each other. I also think that one of the most important things to me is to go back to those basics about particularly as we go into yet another difficult winter or difficult times, is think about just that couple of things that can make a difference. I think people are very anxious about trying to save the whole world. You don't need to save the whole world, just make somebody a cup of tea. Just make that tiny little kind of chaos theory difference, and that's enough.
Transcript and video: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/12/10/lucy-easthope-disaster-recovery-risk-hope-planning-memoir-when-the-dust-settles-podcast
Nina Gené is CEO of Jasmine Social Investments. Nina leads Jasmine’s investment strategy and diligence process, guiding the team to identify and support the next generation of great social entrepreneurs. Jasmine funds high-performing social ventures and outstanding social entrepreneurs who are solving a basic need of the very poor.
Ben and Nina discuss what venture philanthropy means and the Jasmine strategy on philanthropy.
We delve into the investment process that Jasmine uses. How Nina identifies opportunities, the type of qualities Nina looks for in a social entrepreneur and an organisation.
We discuss success investment examples, how we might think of impact investing and how it may differ from grants. We talk about the advantages of being neutral to structure, ie, being able to fund using grants, debt or equity. Whatever suits.
We chat about the influence of venture investing and how entrepreneurs think. How Jasmine shares information and due diligence and what help they give investee companies.
We talk about measuring impact, and the challenges of scaling up.
We mentioned the pros and cons of working in New Zealand, whether Spanish food is under rated and finish on advice Nina has.
Nina on the importance of the ability to scale:
“I'd say that scale is one of the most important criteria that we have because we want to make bets on people that will end up figuring it out and have a survey that will save lives. When this happens, we obviously want this to go to millions and millions of people; so that's kind of the hope and dream of it. The way we define scale we define it as an intervention that can reach up to 1 million people. It doesn't necessarily need to be multi-country. We work with an organization called Luala that are influencing the way that health is provided to a million people in one district in Kenya. That's very important and we support those groups during the R&D phase.
But what we do expect then is to scale the work only when they have that strong evidence on hand, but also the right economics of that impact. We support them through that journey and fund them as long as they show us success every year. That's why having a set of metrics and scorecards and milestones-- We're not sticklers for, "Oh, you said you were going to do ten and you've only done nine. You're out the door." We understand that there are ups and downs and we're very long term funders.”
Transcript is here.
Video with captions is available here.
Pen Vogler is a food historian. Her latest book is Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain. Her previous books include work on food in the life and works of Dickens and Jane Austen - Dinner with Dickens: and Dinner with Mr Darcy.
In the podcast, Ben and Pen discuss various aspects of British culture and history we can learn from the British relationship with food. The discussion delves into several fascinating topics surrounding the transition from hunting-gathering societies to agricultural ones, the phenomenon of the commons and enclosures, the historical regulation of bread prices, and the impact of government intervention in food systems. The podcast also touches on the personal experiences of Pen in Czechoslovakia.
Throughout the conversation, the overarching theme was how food, from its production to its consumption, is deeply entwined with historical, cultural, and social factors, and how understanding these dynamics can offer insights into present-day food-related challenges and culture.
Highlights:
Transition to Agriculture: The transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture, known as the Neolithic Revolution around 4200 BC, was gradual. Although humans began farming, hunting aided by dogs continued. Interestingly, there seemed to be a decrease in fish consumption even among communities near water, which may be tied to a new identity as agriculturalists.
Strawberries: are they feminine and how have supermarkets made the strawberry market. The notion of strawberries being considered feminine was discussed, with a historical perspective of fruit consumption differing between genders. Supermarkets have popularized strawberries, making them a significant seasonal item.
Queuing and Supermarkets: The change from traditional queuing at shops to self-service in supermarkets was discussed. This shift was initially due to labor shortages post-World War and was supported by the government.
Sugar's Historical Significance: The historical transformation of sugar from a flavor enhancer to a replacement food was discussed. The early introduction of sugar into children’s diets, driven in part by companies like Nestle, and its long-term health implications were also highlighted.
Yorkshire Pudding and Meat Consumption: The tradition of Yorkshire pudding being used to fill up family members so the male head could consume more meat was discussed. This tradition reflects the historical gender and age hierarchies in food distribution within a family.
Fish and Class Distinction: The class distinction between consuming different types of fish, such as salmon being associated with aristocracy while carp being considered a working-class fish, was discussed. The historical roots of these distinctions date back hundreds of years, and are intertwined with the broader themes of commons, enclosure, and social status. The discussion explores how fishing evolved with societal changes, particularly during the industrial era.
Food Security and Import Dependency: The discussion touched on the UK's food security and its dependency on imports, which has fluctuated over centuries based on various social, economic, and political factors.
Food Etiquette: touch on traditional etiquette like the "posh" way of eating peas with a fork and how certain eating habits signify a person's social status.
Overrated/Underrated Foods: Pen and Ben briefly discuss the perceived value of certain foods like tripe, gin, goose, and herring, and how these perceptions have evolved over time.
Their conversation offers a rich tapestry of insights on how food, history, and culture are intricately woven together, and how exploring these connections can yield engaging narratives and a deeper understanding of societal norms and practices.
Transcript available here.
Joanne Limburg is an award-winning British writer known for her poetry, novels, and memoirs. In the podcast, she discusses her latest book Letters to My Weird Sisters: On Autism, Feminism, and Motherhood, in which she feels a kinship with historical female figures and addresses letters to them.
Some notes on the conversation:
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On Virginia Woolf: Joanne found connections in Woolf's personal writings about feeling like an outsider and struggling to dress appropriately for society. This resonated with Joanne's own experiences. We chatted on how dress and fashion is seen in society.
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On Adelheid Bloch: Adelheid was murdered in the Holocaust. Joanne wanted to write her a letter as an act of solidarity, to say she is not forgotten.
Adelheid Bloch. (She is mostly non-speaking). She was a young woman who was murdered as part of the Nazi program of murdering intellectually disabled people or disabled people of any kind. We have nothing of her voice. We have only a few records, a very sad record and the words that condemned her to death which were horrible words; idiot, unworthy of life. I was thinking about those two words and how we stand in the shadow of them and what they meant for her, and what is the supposed link between them. So my letter to her is kind of exploring history because there's not much of her to say. Also, I wanted to write a letter to her to say, "You are not left out. You are a sister too, and I apologize for all the times you have been left out."
And,
…it was a matter of great importance that I write this letter to Adelheid and that people see that she's human and that she's not totally different from me. Because there's an issue in sort of discourse around autism, as I'm sure, sure. There's a difference between high functioning and low functioning. So there's constant stress between splitters and lumpers as there is with any classification.
We can't possibly be the same thing or we all are the same thing. Also, I tend to lump not because I particularly want to get all the attention that people imagine comes from being severely afflicted. It doesn't. I think actually what you get from being seen to be severely afflicted is ignored and pushed aside, not massive amounts of attention. But because I think it's safer if we hang onto them. If you can't have solidarity with someone as opposed to pity or care, they're not safe because they're outside identification. “
- On autism and motherhood: Joanne realized the so-called "refrigerator mothers" blamed for autism were likely neurodivergent themselves, profoundly misunderstood. The misreading led to damaging views of autism.
“ it seemed glaringly obvious to me that these so-called refrigerator mothers were neurodivergent, and that their neurodivergent presentation was being horribly unkindly and disastrously misread.”
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On grief: Joanne wrote a book after her brother's death aiming to create something beautiful, a monument. Grief comes in waves and is still raw for some types of loss.
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On writing: Joanne listens for an "echo" when writing, for something unexpected to emerge. She moved from notebooks to typing, which matches her thought speed better. Teaching helps crystalize her own thinking.
I know of some others who find typing better than notebooks.
- On advice: Joanne stresses compassion for oneself and others. She is drawn to how language shapes reality and is exploring that in current poetry and lyric essay work.
The conversation covers writing as therapy, Jewish identity, and navigating societal expectations as a woman and mother. Joanne offers deep insights from a life spent exploring profound human experiences through writing.
There is a transcript link here which also has video if you find captions or video a more accessible platform.
Fuchsia Dunlop is a cook and food writer specialising in Chinese cuisine. She was the first Westerner to train as a chef at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, and has spent much of the last two decades exploring China and its food.
In her latest book, Invitation to a Banquet, Fuchsia explores the history, philosophy and techniques of China's rich and ancient culinary culture. Each chapter examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a singular aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it's the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine.
In this podcast episode, Fuchsia joins host Ben to dive deep into the history, culture and techniques behind Chinese cuisine. From the ancient origins of steaming to the finer points of knife skills and texture, Fuchsia provides fascinating insights into what makes Chinese food so unique. We talk about our origin food dishes:
“there's one dish that is very dear to me that sort of expresses partly why I fell in love with Sichuanese food. And that's fish fragrant aubergine or eggplant. I think when I went to live in Sichuan in 1994, what was so impressive was that the local food was unlike anything I'd had in England. It was all very fresh and healthy and all these seasonal vegetables and amazing flavors. That's the thing about Sichuanese cuisine that it's all about the art of mixing flavors. So this particular dish for me just represents the sort of-- I mean, it's made with pickled red chilies, ginger, garlic, spring onion, and a bit of sweet and sour. Then you have the sumptuous kind of golden butter-ness of the aubergines. So it's a really homely dish with cheap ingredients and it's sensational. Sichuan everyone thinks [numbing and hot], lots of chilli and Sichuan pepper. But actually, it has this kind of melodious heat with a hint of sweetness and it's just conjuring up this complex flavor from a few limited palette of seasonings. I think that's one of the things that I fell in love with Sichuanese food”
Fuchsia debunks common myths and misperceptions about Chinese food in the West, from the idea that it's unhealthy to the notion that exotic ingredients are eaten only out of poverty. She traces how historical circumstances led Chinese cuisine to be seen as cheap and lowbrow in the West compared to French or Japanese food.
Delving into the cultural exchange around food, Fuchsia offers a nuanced take on debates over cultural appropriation and argues that an openness to different cultures can be "life enhancing." She shares colorful anecdotes from her research and travel in China that bring dishes like Pomelo Pith and Shanghainese "Western food" to life.
We chat about:
- Steaming and its importance as a cooking technique.
- The importance of bland food, and how my mother needs to eat rice regularly
- How to understand mouthfeel and the joy of texture in Chinese cuisine
- Knife skills and the skills of the wok
- Fuchsia’s writing process
On mouthfeel and texture:
“if you want to be able to experience it all and to eat on a kind of equal basis of appreciation with Chinese friends, then you really need to open your mind and palate to texture because it's so important. But the interesting thing is-- because I've written about this and talked about it a lot because I find it fascinating. It's also really funny because so many of the words we use in English to describe these textures sound really disgusting.”
Transcript and links available here.
Fergus Butler-Gallie is a priest and writer. His latest book, Touching Cloth, is a memoir on his time as a priest in Liverpool.
We cover many topics relating to Fergus's life, work, and perspectives on faith and the Church of England. I also ask him what he would do with the Church of England if he had a magic wand.
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Fergus provides insights into life in Liverpool, discussing local culture, diversity, and the famous Liverpool accent. He argues that many stereotypes and assumptions about the city are inaccurate.
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We explore how Fergus's time as a minister in Liverpool impacted his faith, with Fergus sharing that it was an overall positive experience that affirmed his sense of calling.
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Discussing the Church of England, Fergus critiques the managerial bureaucracy and argues for decentralization and a return to an earlier model. He wants more inspiring, eccentric bishops.
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We discuss eccentric reverends from history that Fergus has chronicled, including a food-obsessed dean who famously ate the mummified heart of King Louis XIV.
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Fergus shares thoughts on the Eucharist and transubstantiation, after I suggest an analogy to actors embodying a role. We discusses how wearing a clerical collar changes how one is perceived.
"Dean Buckland was dean of Westminster, which is a very high profile job in the Church of England. And he made it his mission to try and eat everything that had ever existed. So he ate mice, he ate tadpoles...And they go and say, "Oh, now we reach the most impressive thing that we have." And they're very carefully taking it out this casket. And they said, "Because you're such a privileged group of people, we're going to hand it around to all of you. And this is the mummified heart of King Louis XIV smuggled out of France at the revolution and now kept here in our private museum." And it goes around all the people. They look at it and think, "Oh, this is amazing. This is wonderful." It gets to Dean Buckland, he looks at it and he says, "I've never eaten King before." And he pops it in his mouth."
We play a short game of over rated under rated and end on Fergus’ life advice.
Fergus rates: James Bond, the British monarchy, Afternoon tea, The House of Lords, Double decker buses , Black cabs, Pubs, and Cricket.
On life advice: Fergus recommends reversing our instincts - don't take seriously what we think we should, and take seriously what we think we shouldn't. For those considering ordination, he advises prayer and cautions it's not for everyone.
"There are things in life that should be taken seriously and there are things in life that should not be taken seriously. The real thing to realize is that they're the opposite way around to the way you think they are. Anything you think should be taken seriously, don't take it seriously. Anything you think should not be taken seriously, take it seriously."
Transcript and video available here.
David Edmonds is a philosopher, writer, podcaster and presenter. His most recent book is a biography of Derek Parfit. Parfit: A philosopher and his mission to save morality.
“Derek was perhaps the most important philosopher of his era. This scintillating and insightful portrait of him is one of the best intellectual biographies I have read.” -Tyler Cowen
Other books include: The Murder of Professor Schlick, Would You Kill the Fat Man? and (with John Eidinow) the international best-seller Wittgenstein’s Poker. He’s a Distinguished Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. With Nigel Warburton he produces the popular podcast series Philosophy Bites. For three decades, he was a multi-award winning presenter/producer at the BBC.
We start off discussing “Trolley problems” and the ethical implications of choosing between lives now and in the future. Edmonds provides a nuanced perspective, discussing the argument that while a life in the future is (almost) as valuable as a life today, the decision to kill five lives today could potentially reduce future life.
Would you kill five people today, or five people in 100 years?
"I think I would choose five in a hundred years, but it would be a very marginal decision…on the whole, I agree with Parfit in I think that there should be no moral discounting in that I think a life in the future is as valuable as a life today. But presumably if you kill five lives today, you are affecting who gets born. So that's why I would kill five lives in the future because I might be also reducing future life as well if I take lives today."
We chat about if thought experiments are even useful at all (contra, Diane Coyle, who dislikes them).
I then ask about real life challenges such as NHS budgets and potentially choosing between saving pre-term babies or diabetics.
I ask David about his favorite paradox (think about God and a very large breakfast) and give him the St Petersburg paradox to answer.
"Can God cook a breakfast so big that He can't eat it?"
We discuss the life of Derek Parfit, his personality and obsessions. Whether he might have been a good historian (vs philosopher), the pros and cons of All Souls College and if an autistic cognitive profile mattered.
David gives his view on why Derek’s second book was (and is) considered inferior to his first.
We also touch on Effective Altruism (EA) and Derek’s influence on longtermism and possible foundational philosophical roots to the EA movement.
We end on what chess opening David would use against Magnus Carlson, what countries David would like to visit, current projects and life advice David has.
Transcript and video available here.
David Ruebain is one of the most thoughtful thinkers I know on disability, equality and the law. He is currently a Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Sussex with strategic responsibility for Culture, Equality and Inclusion including dignity and respect. He is an adviser to the football premier league, the former director of legal policy at the equality and human rights commission and has been in the top 25 most influential disabled people in the UK. (Link to transcript below)
We chat on:
Social change seems to come about in a complex way. But peaceful protests seem to have had influence on some social topics. What is the importance of protest? In particular, thinking about the disability rights movement.
David gives insights into his role and view into the UK disability rights movement. The roles of agency and simplicity of message. The comparison with the climate protest movements.
David’s work with the UK football premier league and also the equality commission. What types of policies are successful for equality and diversity. What challenges are structural and what that implies for solutions.
The role of interdependence and that means at the moment. Whether the law can deliver inclusion and what that means.
How ordinary talking about equality seems now vs the 1970s. But how it itself will not be enough for humanity.
“Equality is what we all wanted in the seventies; for those of us who considered ourselves progressive. But now it feels fairly vanilla really as an idea. Equality is simply about level playing fields, with its sort of a zero sum game approach to if two people are in a race, nobody should be unfairly disadvantaged for any relevant consideration, which of course is true. It's sort of almost unarguable. But it isn't especially ambitious. … But if we are really to bring about the change which will ensure the survival of the species and other species, it will need more than equality, I think.”
We end on David’s current projects and life advice.
“....do what you need to do to believe in yourself because so many of us don't or doubt ourselves. That doesn't mean to say-- I think first of all, that knowing there's nothing profoundly wrong with anyone, including whoever you are. But secondly, knowing that from that perspective you get to learn and evolve; it doesn't mean you say rigid in the position. ...There's something about really believing in yourself…”
Link to transcript and video here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/6/5/david-ruebain-disability-protest-movements-law-equality-inclusion-interdependence-podcast
Jennifer Doleac studies the economics of crime and discrimination. In July 2023, Jenn will join Arnold Ventures as the Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice. We chat about trends and causes of crime. How guns, drugs and policing interact with crime trends.
…there was this huge increase in violent crime in particular in the late early eighties, early nineties. And suddenly violent crime started falling dramatically in the mid-1990s. We still aren't entirely sure why that is the case, this big mystery in the economics of crime world. But we do know that basically crime has been falling since then until very recently. So during the pandemic and since the pandemic, we've seen this big uptick in homicide and shootings, at least in the US. Again, we're not entirely sure why that change. It's kind of like trying to describe what's going on in the stock market. There are lots of sort of little blips and everything, and you can have big picture understanding of the economy and what drives growth, but not be able to predict fluctuations in the stock market. So it's similar with crime rates
But overall, we're still in a place where homicide rates and violent crime rates are much lower than they were in the early to mid-nineties. So overall things have gotten much safer, especially in our big cities; we're much safer. But of course, as you said, there's a lot of variation place to place; particular neighborhoods, particular communities, they're the brunt of a lot of violent crime that is still going on. So it's a major public safety or major public problem and concern for policymakers in particular places and that has become more of a focus in recent years as homicides and shootings have gone up, which of course we're not used to after this big decline for decades...
We talk about what we know of policies that work on reducing crime, and how challenging the recent uptick in crime statistics is to ideas on reforming criminal justice.
We discuss alternatives to jail, and what type of interventions can work on crime, such as sentencing for misdemeanors, and access to healthcare.
Jenn explains why the “broken window” theory of crime has not really held up. The mixed studies on body cameras and how deterrents (like DNA databases and CCTV) seem to work.
Jenn discusses her work suggesting some policies have had unintended consequences related to “ban the box” (where employers are not allowed to know of former convictions on initial job application), and related to her paper on the Moral Hazard of Lifesaving Innovations: Naloxone Access and Opioid Abuse (which has proved controversial in some quarters).
We play overrated/underrated on: Texas, diversity and universal basic income. We end on Jenn’s current projects and life advice.
Transcript and video are here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/5/8/jennifer-doleac-crime-policing-policy-podcast
Jenn also hosts her own podcast: Probable Causation, a podcast about law, economics, and crime.
Patrick House is a neuroscientist and writer. His research focused on the neuroscience of free will and in particular how mind-control parasites altered a rat’s behaviour.
We once had a long chat on the rainy streets of Glasgow. This chat – which I may not fully recall – involved speaking on what consciousness is, and touched on his work on mind-control bugs.
He’s written a collection of essays: Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness
“Consider different translations of a poem: Each has something relevant to say, but none can entirely capture the essence. House repeatedly returns to a case in which a woman was undergoing brain surgery to address epilepsy. At one point, the surgeons touched a part of the brain that made her laugh. Did this indicate that emotional responses are simply an aspect of the physical matter inside our skulls?”
We had a long chat on this. I asked him:
Do you dream in colour ?
Whether lucid dreaming is real?
What he meant by: "If I were asked to create, from scratch and under duress, a universal mechanism for passing consciousness from parent to child, I would probably come up with something a bit like grafting a plant." ?
Memory in childhood
What he finds the most terrifying result in neuroscience
What translating poetry has in common with understanding consciousness
Whether animals have consciousness
What he thinks of AI and why he no longer plays Go
Patrick asks me if I would write a play only for robots.
We end on Patrick’s advice:
“My suggestion is to have phenomenological date night with whoever you're interested in the world and ask what their dreams are really like and if it's in images or what inside of their head is really like and see if you get anything, see if you solve any conflict.”
It was lovely long form chat about consciousness and the mind.
Transcript/Video here: www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/3/27/patrick-house-neuroscience-understanding-consciouness-podcast
Chris Stark is the Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body which advises the UK and the devolved governments on emissions targets and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. I think he is one of the most important and thoughtful thinkers on climate change policy today. This is his second time on the podcast. We covered many topics in 2022 which you can check out here.
This time I ask on:
- How does it matter that we will pass 1.5c ?
- What did we learn after COP27 (climate conference in Egypt in 2022)
- How do you think we should think about NetZero at the corporate level
- How should we be thinking of adaptation and the CCCs latest report
- the CCC work on UK domestic energy rating
- Heating and building strategy
Some of the recent politics decisions and discussions such as the UK government decision on a Cumbria coal mine.
What the US IRA (inflation reduction act) might mean for climate policy:
“Now you asked me, has anything changed since last we spoke? And yes, it has. Something quite substantial has changed in the United States of America. So we have this inflation reduction act which is an unfortunate act in only one sense, really. It's the IRA. So in the UK of course it's very difficult to talk about the IRA being good. But it's just a kind of game changing piece of legislation. At the core of it I think is a fairly simple thing really which speaks to our last discussion about the difficulty of implementing carbon taxes. The economic logic of making dirty stuff more expensive than clean stuff is still there.But it turns out that the effort of putting carbon tax on something that you actually need in the present society is enormous politically and maybe it's best at just to make the green stuff cheap. Broadly, that's what the Inflation Reduction Act has done. It has done so in quite a controversial way. We're having a discussion now about the protectionist elements of the Inflation Reduction Act. It is a very protectionist piece of legislation but it has lit a fire under some of these green technologies.
Chris outlines some of the challenges of a carbon tax and why a carbon tax and dividend may also not work.
Chris ends on advice on to think about climate impact and future projects.
Transcript and video available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2023/2/23/chris-stark-2023-climate-policy-netzero-adaptation-incentives-podcast
Jade O’Brien was a stock broker (equity sales) for over 7 years. She then retrained as a teacher and has taught in both the state sector and the private sector in the UK.
Jade used to pitch me stock ideas and speak about the investment world. I was very curious on why she decided to change careers to become a teacher.
We chat about what drove Jade to the world of finance. What she viewed as the pros and cons, and what it is like as a woman in a male dominated world and advice she has.
Jade outlines her experience of finance which has many positives as well as challenges, and what might have changed over the decade.
(Ben) So what would you say to women wanting to make it in the city or in financial services?
Do it. Give it a go. I mean, I'm speaking for myself here and I have read that the imposter syndrome feeling is very common within women in finance. But then again, I think, well maybe that imposter syndrome is for everyone in finance but men can hide it better. So I would say do it. Everybody feels insecure and doesn't really know what's going on at times. To have the confidence to go for it and also to not necessarily feel like you need to follow my path of giving up finance and becoming a teacher. I don't think that's something you need to do if you are genuinely interested in finance and you want to get to the top. I think it's definitely possible.
We discuss the factors that made Jade change her jobs. How we might think about death and how she found teacher training.
We chat on how we might “value” teaching and why it’s hard to rate teachers. Why some people ask for more homework, and others ask for less homework and how both views can have merit.
We address:
- The importance of mentors
- the funding situation in UK state supported schools
- A glimpse of teacher training
- Differences between state and private schools in the UK
- Why she thinks teacher quality in both state and private settings are similar
- Why teaching class can feel private
- Views on SEN (special education) policy
- Streaming (where it might work, where it might fail and why she changed her mind)
- What Jade’s perfect class size is, and why
- Her views on uniforms
- School start times
- School food
- Exercise
- The importance of gratitude
This was an amazing long form conversation addressing many of the debates within education today.
Transcript and Video available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/2/2/jade-obrien-from-stockbroker-to-teacher-being-a-woman-in-finance-schools-and-teaching-podcast
Kanjun is co-founder and CEO of Generally Intelligent, an AI research company. She works on metascience ideas often with Michael Nielsen, a previous podcast guest. She’s a VC investor and co-hosts her own podcast for Generally Intelligent. She is part of building the Neighborhood, which is intergenerational campus in a square mile of central San Francisco. Generally Intelligent (as of podcast date ) are looking for great talent looking to work on AI.
We get a little nerdy on the podcast but we cover AI thinking, fears on rogue AI, and the breakthroughs of Chat AI. We discuss some of her latest ideas in meta science based on the work she has done with Michael Nielsen (previous podcast here) and what are the important questions we should be looking at.
We chat about the challenge of old institutions, the value of dance and creativity and why her friends use “to kanjun” as a verb.
We cover her ideas on models of trauma and why EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy) and cognitive therapies might work.
We discuss why dinosaurs didn’t develop more.
We chat around “what is meaning” and “what is the structure of knowledge”, what are the strengths and weakness of old institutions; culture vs knowledge vs history and other confusing questions.
Kanjun gives her advice on how to think about dance (dance like you are moving through molasses).
"Dance is inside of you. It just needs to be unlocked."
We play underrated/overrated on: having agency, city planning, death of institutions, innovation agencies, high frequency trading; diversity
Kanjun thinks on how capitalism might want to be augmented and what excites Kanjun about AI and complex systems.
Kanjun asks me questions and I offer my critique on Effective Altruism.
This is quirky long form conversation on a range of fascinating topics.
Transcript and video available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2023/1/17/kanjun-qiu-ai-metascience-institutional-knowledge-trauma-models-podcast
Florence Evans is an art dealer, historian, curator, collector and mud larker. We chat on what does mudlarking tell us about history ? What does art tell us about being human ?
…we mustn't forget is that ultimately there's a real human connection with beauty. So conceptual art aside which serves an important purpose and helps us to think and challenges us in many ways. On the other hand, there's a human need, I think, a kind of nesting instinct to have art for the home, things of beauty to lift your spirits. I think that's really elemental. …
Florrie chats on the cultural history of mudlarking, the stories found objects represent from the both the darker side of human history such as beads and the slave trade, as well as the lighter sides of found items.
We discuss one of her favourite finds, a whole child’s shoe from the Tudor era.
We chat on what we’ve puzzled out from our river finds including a hand blown glass apothecary bottle from the 1600s.
We discuss: bottles, beads, coins, stories, Roman items, buttons and costumes and more…
We touch on her philosophy as an art collector and what art means to us as humans.
One of my happiest achievements in my career thus far was curating an exhibition on mudlarking and mudlarked art in 2019 for the Totally Thames Festival. That was an exhibition that I put on showing art by artists featuring mudlark finds, still life photographs by Hannah Smiles; a photographer of mudlarked finds and portraits of mudlarks as well that she had taken. That was in the Bargehouse which is a massive warehouse space on the South Bank by the Oxo Tower; so right by the river.That was a joy to be asked to do that and it felt like it was a fusion of both my passion, hobby; mudlarking and what I do in work which is curate and look at art. So that was a fusion of art and mudlarking and looking at craft and elevating it to art. Looking at history and saying, "This is part of who we are as human beings. We create-- There is an impulse and an urge to make things of beauty. Even things that are utilitarian, there's beauty to be found." And that kind of links back to the philosophy of someone like William Morris who believed that art should always be useful and beautiful.
What art Florrie likes and collects and the challenge of modern art.
Florrie gives her advice on art collecting and life.
I've always done what I love and it gives me great satisfaction. You can always find your people, you can always find your niche even just by going online. It's amazing how the world opens up. As long as you are doing something that you're passionate about, you should be okay.
Transcript and links available here: www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/12/27/florence-evans-mud-larking-art-collecting-and-art-dealing-podcast
Michael Nielsen is a scientist at the Astera Institute. He helped pioneer quantum computing and the modern open science movement. He is a leading thinker on the topic of meta science and how to improve science, in particular, the social processes of science. His latest co-authored work is ‘A Vision of metascience: An engine of improvement for the social processes of Science’ co-authored with Kanjun Qiu . His website notebook is here, with further links to his books including on quantum, memory systems, deep learning, open science and the future of matter.
I ask: What is the most important question in science or meta science we should be seeking to understand at the moment ?
We discuss his vision for what a metascience ecosystem could be; what progress could be and ideas for improving the the culture of science and social processes.
We imagine what an alien might think about our social processes and discuss failure audits, high variance funding and whether organisations really fund ‘high risk’ projects if not that many fail, and how we might measure this.
We discuss how these ideas might not work and be wrong; the difficulty of (the lack of) language for new forming fields; how an interdisciplinary institute might work.
The possible importance of serendipity and agglomeration effects; what to do about attracting outsiders, and funding unusual ideas.
We touch on the stories of Einstein, Katalin Kariko (mRNA) and Doug Prasher (molecular biologist turned van driver) and what they might tell us.
We discuss how metascience can be treated as a research field and also as an entrepreneurial discipline.
We discuss how decentralisation may help. How new institutions may help. The challenges funders face in wanting to wait until ideas become clearer.
We discuss the opportunity that developing nations such as Indonesia might have.
We chat about rationality and critical rationality.
Michael gives some insights into how AI art might be used and how we might never master certain languages, like the languages of early computing.
We end on some thoughts Michael might give his younger self:
The one thing I wish I'd understood much earlier is the extent to which there's kind of an asymmetry in what you see, which is you're always tempted not to make a jump because you see very clearly what you're giving up and you don't see very clearly what it is you're going to gain. So almost all of the interesting opportunities on the other side of that are opaque to you now. You have a very limited kind of a vision into them. You can get around it a little bit by chatting with people who maybe are doing something similar, but it's so much more limited. And yet I know when reasoning about it, I want to treat them like my views of the two are somehow parallel but they're just not.
Transcript/Video available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/11/15/michael-nielsen-metascience-how-to-improve-science-open-science-podcast
Saloni Dattani is a founding editor at Works in Progress, a researcher at Our World in Data and a commissioning editor at Stripe Press. She has recently been profiled by Vox as part of the Future Perfect 50. Saloni is an excellent thinker on progress and science with recent articles for Wired (on making science better) and Guardian (on challenge trials).
Saloni tells me what are the most important questions in science that we should be working on.
We discuss making science better and thinking around challenge trials, making science more open source, reforming peer review and thinking around experimental clinical trial design.
We talk about vaccines, why Saloni tends to optimism and what risks and opportunities she is thinking about.
Borrowing from Tyler Cowen, I ask:
How ambitious are you ?
Which of your beliefs are you least rational about?” (Or what is she most irrational about?)
What is something esoteric you do ?
We play over rated / under rated on:
Substack, Misinformation, Doing a PhD, Women in Science; Vaccines and Drugs
We end on Saloni’s current projects and advice.
Transcript and video available here: www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/11/8/saloni-dattani-improving-science-important-questions-in-science-open-science-reforming-peer-review-podcast
Jérôme Tagger is CEO of Preventable Surprises. Jérôme is a thinker on long term ESG trends (a catch-all phrase for extra-financial environment, social and governance) and systemic risks. He was a Director at the Global Impact Investing Network, the founding COO of the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment, Head of Research at Eurosif and Chief Revenue Officer at ImpactAlpha.
Link to video and transcript: www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/11/2/jrme-tagger-sustainability-esg-as-a-negotiation-impact-investing-podcast
We chat about the differing roles of companies, civil society and government. What Jérôme thinks about the most important levers and theories of change.
Why ESG could be thought of as a form of negotiation.
Whether we have an idea on what the neglected issues or under rated ESG challenges are.
What you should be thinking of as the chief exec of a think tank start-up. How we should think about building institutional capital. The importance of relationships and “social capital”.
Whether we should consider “less democracy, technocractics rather than democratic decision making.
What Jérôme thinks about billionaire philanthropy.
What Jérôme is hearing about views on regulation on greenwashing and, in particular, on SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, EU).
“...
I haven't talked to a single person whether on the finance side, on the NGO side, civil society or otherwise that is happy with this regulation.”
Jérôme ends with advice and current projects.
Mark Koyama is an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason. Mark researches comparative national state economic development and the rise of religious tolerance. He is interested in how historical institutions functioned and in the relationship between culture and economic performance.
Transcript: www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/10/9/mark-koyama-how-the-world-became-rich-economic-history-intangibles-culture-progress-podcast
I ask why it has taken economists and historians so long to form central views on how we have become rich?
Mark discusses what historic progress might tells us about economic development today. I ask about the interaction between the main factors behind economic progress such as: institutions, culture, infrastructure, geography, energy.
I question the role of common law and ask about living constitutions. Mark discusses his reading of the literature and how the UK is relatively unique in its living constitutions.
I query the role of intangibles and the patent system and briefly lay out the case (after Brad De Long) for importance of industrial labs and the corporate form. Mark discusses these factors and their importance from the 1870s but also what was important pre-1870.
We chat about culture (using Joe Henrich’s terms) as a set of heuristics. Mark discusses the literature on the importance and role of slavery (probably not the most major facotr in the UK’s industrialization, but still heavily argued), and the role and roots of social progress such as women’s rights.
We cover impacts of war and also the black death from an economic history view and we discuss the challenge on climate.
We play over/underrated on : GDP, carbon tax, representative democracy governance mechanisms, universal basic income.
Mark ends with current projects and advice.
"….So podcasts; everything is online basically. The young person who's ambitious and interested can actually get to speed quickly. So you can teach yourself econometrics by watching tons of YouTube videos. Most people won't because there's other stuff to watch on YouTube, there's other stuff to do. I could be teaching myself foreign languages on YouTube and I'm not doing it because my opportunity costs I guess is maybe high. But if you're young and wanted to study this stuff, you can get a huge head start just by use of the internet cleverly. Tyler Cowen’s advice is find the right mentors. Find some people and learn from them. But you get a huge amount early on to give yourself a head start before you go to university because to be honest, the university experience isn't necessarily going to be all that…"
Jacob Soll is a professor of philosophy, history and accounting. His latest book is Free Market: The History of an Idea. Jake has works on the history of accounting, The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations (2014); the influence of Machiavelli, "The Prince" (2005) and Louis XIV’s First minster, Jean-Baptiste Cobert, The Information Master (2009). Jake works on accounting standards and financial transparency as well as the history of ideas.
Transcript, video and links here: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/9/24/jacob-soll-the-history-of-free-market-ideas-cicero-adam-smith-hamilton-machievelli-podcast
We discuss is better accounting can save the world by looking at externalities, natural capital and human capital better.
We chat about the central role of Cicero and stoic thought in the history of free market thinkers, and how Cicero was in this respect more influential than Aristotle.
Jake talks about how Christian thinkers, and Franciscan monks thought about free markets and also Alexander Hamilton and Machievelli.
We discuss the role of institutions in shaping thought. Jake argues for the importance of patenting ideas and if UK’s patent office gave the country an edge when the industrial revolution started.
We debate if “idea” or “dream” would be a better word to encompass the historic thinking on free markets.
We discuss the role of culture, to what extent protectionism and some tariffs helped economies develop historically.
We play underrated/overrated on: GDP as a measure, carbon tax, standardized sustainability measures, and UBI, universal basic income.
We end on Jake’s current projects and life advice. Study more serious humanities books!
Don't read easy to read books. I think they are the most destructive thing on our culture; these CEO books. “Pull up your boots and tie your shoes in the morning. Don't let the government give you eggs.” I read some of these books and I'm like, "How is this helping anybody?" Go back and read the kind of books we were reading when we were actually building big states and building things that have proved sustainable. If you don't know what they are, just go back and read great literature and great novels. What is that? Well, you can make a decision. It can come from any country. It can come from any religion, but there are great books. Over centuries I see traditional books that we've decided over time are extremely useful to us. Go back and read those. For me, it's the 19th century novel. It has become Roman and Greek philosophy. It's also become the early works of the fathers of the church which never ceased to fascinate me. The writings of William of Ockham… Those are fascinating books. Read serious books. I really think it's time to put down the Harry Potter and get challenged.
Naomi Fisher is a clinical psychologist. She has written a book: Changing Our Minds: How children can take control of their own learning. The bookis an excellent look at self-directed education also known in the UK as home education, or in the US as home school or unschooling.
We discuss her background as a psychologist and her work with autistic people. We chat about her experience of eleven schools and why she has ended up asking questions about control. Why we control people and particularly why we control children.
Naomi discusses the different schools of thought on education and why progressive doesn't necessarily mean child-led education and why she likes the idea (Alison Gopnik) of a child as scientist.
We chat about what Naomi views as the problems of the current system such as the overuse of exams and why behvaiourism only covers a tiny slice of what learning is in the real world. Naomi highlights some of the benefits of a self-directed education process and what home education can bring.
We talk about the amount of time we have spent in the world of Minecraft. Why parents may be overworried about the use of technology and screen time. Why YouTube might be more beneficial than not.
Naomi answers my question on how to deal with child meltdown and outlines the idea of zones of tolerance. I pose a question on to what extent we should influence a child’s learning “syllabus” and Naomi outlines her view that a child should always have agency and not be forced into “learning” but that does not mean we should not seek to give a child a rich environment and opportunity to learn.
Naomi answers listener questions. First, if home education is only for rich people, and, second, the impacts of the pandemic on home educators.
We play overrated/underrated and Naomi rates: the government setting the curriculum, the role of exams, social media and technical colleges.
Naomi talks about her latest projects including a second book on neurodiversity and self-directed education, called “A Different Way to Learn” available in 2023.
Naomi ends with advice:
“my number one advice for parents would be trust your instincts about what your child needs and how your child is. There are a lot of parents I talk to they say, "I think that my child is really unhappy or I think that my child needs these things, but the professionals are telling me that I'm wrong." I think you need to just retain your knowledge that you know your child better and you probably have a really good sense. You don't just know your child better, but in most cases you share genes with your child. Therefore you often have a kind of intuitive understanding of the experiences that your child is having and that you can get inside their heads in a way that professionals often can't. So I would say really listen to your instincts, give yourself space to think about what you think as sort of apart from what everybody tells you, you should be thinking. The other thing is lean into the things that your child likes; whatever they are, lean into them and embrace them because this is a short time of life when they're like this and when they're young and it is an amazing opportunity to connect with them if you choose to do that rather than choosing to pull them away from the things that they love.”
Transcript available here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/8/31/naomi-fisher-home-education-unschool-agency-in-learning-meltdowns-child-led-learning-cognitive-psychology-podcast
Kana Chan is living in Kamikatsu which is Japan’s first “zero waste” village in rural Japan. She writes a substack at Tending Gardens and runs INOW which is an educational homestay programme to stay to at Kamikatsu. In 2021, she was selected as an Emerging Climate Leader Asia-Pacific through the ProSPER.Net Leadership Programme. She has lived and worked in Bangladesh, and travelled widely as a photographer and story teller. Kana cares deeply about climate action, sustainable tourism, and education.
I ask Kana about how she arrived in Kamikatsu.
I ask what people should understand or misunderstand, how Kana finds Japanese culture and how it differs between rural and city. What she misses about the city.
What people have learned coming to Kamikatsu, all the farming knowledge she has learned growing and harvesting her own food, and what the process of tea farming (awa bancha) has been like.
Kana explains that zero waste currently means here that 80% of all waste in the village is recycled (in 45 different categories!) and how the villagers manage their waste systems.
We play overrated/underated on toilets that play music, sitting in hot baths and Japan train journeys.
Kana ends on her latest projects and her advice on what can be learned from disconnecting from a culture of convenience.
"I think being able to just see a diverse amount of the way people live and seeing how people choose to spend their time, how people choose to spend their money, I think can be just a really enriching experience. And so you have those things to contrast and see, "Oh, that's probably something I can take into my own life or not." I don't think the countryside is necessarily for everyone, but I do think that people can incorporate aspects that bring more nature into their lives or bring more self-sufficiency into their lives and I think a good starting point for that is spending time in the countryside and then being able to see what you can take back to wherever home is for you.
If you do decide to move to the countryside, just changing your frame of mind and seeing the things that are inconveniences as opportunities for you to spend your time in other ways, and disconnecting from a culture of convenience can be just a really personally enriching thing. That's what I've found for myself and so, yeah, I hope everyone gets to spend some time in the countryside; whether it's permanent, temporal, or just transient. If Kamikatsu interests you in particular or sustainability from a countryside perspective, I'd be happy to welcome you here to Kamikatsu"
Transcript and link to video available here: www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/8/1/kana-chan-living-in-a-zero-waste-village-in-rural-japan-kamikatsu-podcast
Larry Temkin is a moral philosopher. He has major works on inequality (book: Inequality); transitivity and social choices (when A > B > C, A > C ?; book: Rethinking the Good) and recently on the philosophies of doing good (critiquing some aspects of Effective Altruism, long-termism, international aid, utilitarianism | book: Being Good in a World of Need). As of 2022, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
The podcast is in two parts. The second part focuses on Effective Altruism (EA) ideas. The first part looks at transitivity, and other debates in philosophy through a pluralist lens. This is part 2 on EA ideas.
The whole conversation is 3 hours long, so please feel free to dip in and out of it, and if you are intrigued go and look to Larry’s original works. There is a link to a transcript and commentray in a blogpost at the end.
In the podcast, I ask:
I ask how Larry comes up with such unique ideas such as on inequality and transitivity, and the story of how he was rejected by three great philosophers when he first proposed his idea. (In part 1)
Larry explains consequentialist notions of personhood, especially with respect to a question I had on Singer’s view on disability, and even though our general views are more pluralist. (In part 1)
I pose a dilemma I have about the art of a friend who has done awful things, and Larry explains the messiness of morals. (In part 1)
(In part 2) Larry recounts the dinner with Derek Parfit, and Angus Deaton, along with a billionaire and other philosophers. This dinner gave Larry bad dreams and lead to Larry thinking up many disanalogies to Peter Singer’s classic pond analogy.
We discuss the pond analogy and how it may or may not be a good analogy for doing good in foreign places especially the disaster that was Goma. Larry discusses how he changed his mind on whether international aid may be doing more harm than good and both philosophical and practical reason behind it.
Larry also discusses some concern on the the possible over focus on long-termism.
We barely touch on Larry’s work in inequality, but I will mention that it has been influential in how the World Health Organisation and potentially ultimately China has viewed access to healthcare. The work has also highlighted the complexity around equality, and that it may be more individualistic and more complicated than often assumed.
Throughout all of this is the strong sense of a pluralistic view of the world, where we may value many attributes such as fairness, justice, health and that a focus on only one value may lead us astray.
Larry ends with life advice:
“I've taught many students over the years. I'm coming to the end of my career. I'm retiring. I've had countless students in my office over the years who are struggling with the question of, "How should I lead my life? This is extremely controversial, but being the pluralist that I am, I believe in a balanced life. Now, you can find balance in a number of ways. But just as I'm a pluralist about my moral values, I'm a pluralist about what's involved in being a good person and what's involved in leading a worthwhile human life. I'm signed up in the camp of, "We only have one life to lead."
Transcript and video, plus blog posts here: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/7/24/larry-temkin-transitivity-critiques-of-effective-altruism-international-aid-pluralism-podcast
Larry Temkin is a moral philosopher. He has major works on inequality (book: Inequality); transitivity and social choices (when A > B > C, A > C ?; book: Rethinking the Good) and recently on the philosophies of doing good (critiquing some aspects of Effective Altruism, long-termism, international aid, utilitarianism | book: Being Good in a World of Need). As of 2022, he was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
The podcast is in two parts. The second part focuses on Effective Altruism ideas. The first part looks at transitivity, and other debates in philosophy through a pluralist lens. This is part 1.
The whole conversation is 3 hours long, so please feel free to dip in and out of it, and if you are intrigued go and look to Larry’s original works. I provide some links in the blogpost link at the end to his books and some commentary from others (Tyler Cowen, reviewers) and a transcript.
In the podcast, I ask:
How should we value a human life?
What is transitivity? And we discuss the axioms that transitivity underpins for economic, social and moral choices.
I ask how Larry comes up with such unique ideas such as on inequality and transitivity, and the story of how he was rejected by three great philosophers when he first proposed his idea.
Larry explains consequentialist notions of personhood, especially with respect to a question I had on Peter Singer’s view on disability, and even though our general views are more pluralist.
I pose a dilemma I have about the art of a friend who has done awful things, and Larry explains the messiness of morals.
Larry recounts the dinner with Derek Parfit, and Angus Deaton, along with a billionaire and other brilliant philosophers. This dinner gave Larry bad dreams and lead to Larry thinking up many disanalogies to Peter Singer’s classic pond analogy.
We discuss the pond analogy and how it may or may not be a good analogy for doing good in foreign places especially the disaster that was Goma. Larry discusses how he changed his mind on whether international aid may be doing more harm than good and both philosophical and practical reasons behind it.
Larry also discusses some concern on the the possible over-focus on long-termism.
We barely touch on Larry’s work in inequality, but I will mention that it has been influential in how the World Health Organisation and potentially ultimately China has viewed access to healthcare. The work has also highlighted the complexity around equality, and that it may be more individualistic and more complicated than often assumed.
Throughout all of this is the strong sense of a pluralistic view of the world, where we may value many attributes such as fairness, justice, health and that a focus on only one value may lead us astray.
“I've taught many students over the years. I'm coming to the end of my career. I'm retiring. I've had countless students in my office over the years who are struggling with the question of, "How should I lead my life? This is extremely controversial, but being the pluralist that I am, I believe in a balanced life. Now, you can find balance in a number of ways. But just as I'm a pluralist about my moral values, I'm a pluralist about what's involved in being a good person and what's involved in leading a worthwhile human life. I'm signed up in the camp of, "We only have one life to lead."
Transcript and video: https://www.thendobetter.com/arts/2022/7/24/larry-temkin-transitivity-critiques-of-effective-altruism-international-aid-pluralism-podcast
Leigh Caldwell is a cognitive economist. Leigh has done excellent work around the psychology of pricing and exploring how people consume intangible products with their mind. He has founded several software companies and is co-founder of the Irrational Agency.
We chatted on Leigh graduating from university at 18, what attracted him to the internet and wanting to start companies and what lead him to the path of psychology, behavioral economics and ultimately to cognitive economics.
How the question of “Why do we get so much of what's important to us from what is manufactured inside our heads?” inspired Leigh to understand more about the brain.
Leigh dicusses his ideas on why the human brain might have developed the mental tools that we have. We explore the idea of mental simulation, what the brain may be incentivised to do and how the brain may solve the challenge of planning for future action and deferred gratification.
Leigh discusses the idea of discounting the future, the challenge of long causality chains in our scenario thinking and how the ease of imagination may impact how we think of future actions.
Leigh explains his model exploring agency and choice, and the difficulties and limitations of models.
We discuss the power of stories, why narrative might work and the possible process of conditioning and deconditioning to story narratives. Why once a myth or pattern is embedded, it is so difficult to work around.
Leigh gives me some free consulting on how to price and sell sustainable investing products, how to use surveysand how a small company could do it themselves to an extent. We discuss utility theory and nudge economics.
We play over-rated/under-rated on: nudging, carbon tax, carbon labels, being a generalist, deliberative democracy; and Scottish Independence.
We end on current projects and Leigh’s life advice.
‘...storytelling is your voice going out there and hopefully having as big an impact as you want. But, story hearing is the other side of it. We should be listening to the stories of all the people around us, and the many people whose stories are not heard in society. By hearing those stories and understanding what underlies them, then we will be able to figure out what the right story is that we might then want to tell…”
Transcript/Video: https://www.thendobetter.com/investing/2022/7/21/leigh-caldwell-cognitive-economics-power-of-stories-how-the-mind-consumes-dreams-and-plans-future-actions-podcast
David Finnigan is an award winning theatre maker, writer and games creator from Ngunnawal country, Australia. David produces performances and writing that explores concepts from Game Theory, Complex Systems science, Network Theory and Resilience. He has also had the dubious honour of performing on stage with me, in our performance lecture collaboration, Thinking Bigly. He has a show coming up at The Barbican, London, 27 September, 2022: You’re Safe Til 2024: Deep History.
We discuss how all art might be considered climate art. Thus we should consider jobs as jobs, why put green there? or health is health. This can take some of the heat out of the language.
Even in the great depression, we sort of look back now. There's a tradition of screwball comedies in the great depression. Now, we look back at them and they had nothing to do with the kind of political issues and economic issues at the time. But we look back at them now and say, "Oh, they were deliberately escapist from those conditions of the time." So whatever you kind of create now it's very hard to not find a way to read it. That is a climate reading. And when something becomes all encompassing like that, it's almost such a broad term that it ceases to be useful to use it. I'm thinking now of your comment the other day where you said, "When we talk about climate health or we talk about climate justice, that's just health and that's just justice." At what point is it relevant to use the word climate and at what point is it unnecessary? Because climate's everything. Climate's everywhere. So it becomes a bit too vague.
We chat about the process of creativity in particular in performing arts. The importance of David finding a community in his home town and the constant making of work at the start of his artistic journey.
David discusses what he learned from scientists and his father. How this has integrated into his art.
We debate on what is most misunderstood about Australia and London.
I ask David what he learned from injured possums. David talks about London foxes and Underground mosquitoes.
How theatre is narrow but deep. How theatre is bad for being able to pay rent. What David learnt from theatre in the Philippines.
What we learn from failure. How we practice creativity and how we improve. David’s work in music and spoken word.
We end on David’s current projects including his one man climate show coming up at the Barbican.
David gives his advice to creatives.
“Don't ask for career advice, don't ask for professional advice. Ask people their story.”
Transcript and Video available here.
Sophie Purdom co-writes a climate and innovation newsletter read by tens of thousands, ClimateTech VC. Sophie has worked in start ups as an operator. She is a venture capitalist investor. She has written widely on sustainable investing.
We speak on how Sophie came to climate tech investing, the importance of knocking on doors and being helpful.
What Sophie learned working for local government (Providence) and how climate has always been her through line into investing.
We discuss what areas of climate tech are over-invested in and under-invested in, and why she’s interested in the climate-industrial-tech area.
We chat about investment philosophy, the VC geography and gender lens and how she seeds the landscape on access to capital at the seed and pre-seed stage.
Sophie explains the concept of “brown spinning” and the pros/cons of taking assets private or selling brown assets to less responsible entities.
“This concept is what we would call brown spinning. So taking publicly held brown or underperforming - from a climate perspective - assets private in order to hypothetically avoid rigorous accounting and operate with capital providers that are less ESG inclined. Fascinating topic. One of the many downsides to divestment: if there's a will then money will often find a way to finance these things.One positive example in the case of reversing brown spinning s is AGL in Australia. One of the largest energy giants out there and billionaire, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes playing the activist investor role as an individual, coming in and buying up more and more percentage ownership in this business in an effort to strongly nudge activists, push them towards greener practices and he succeeded in getting that board vote and changing the outcomes of that business. So that's one very rare splashed all over the front page of the media example of how there's a way of green spinning these private brown assets potentially back to good. But to be fair, the majority of the stories that should be told unfortunately go in the other direction.One that caught my eye …Another billionaire, Harold Hamm is trying to take the shale (gas) Company that he founded - Continental Resources - private. He owns (already) about 83% of this oil and gas US based company. The idea is take the company private because the public market investors are skeptical of plowing money into a non-ESG aligned (strategy). He thinks he can get a better return or cheaper capital in the private market - the quintessential brown spinning concept. I'm concerned about it. I'm not exactly sure what you do here other than you can't go too hard or too fast on ESG reporting requirements without bringing folks along on the management train and leave them out because the worst case scenario is they hop off of the reporting requirements and go operate in the dark.”
We play over-rated, under-rated on: Lifting Weights, Carbon tax, Green New Deal, Tesla
Carbon offsets, Nuclear Power, Carbon removal and the woolly mammoth.
We finish on Sophie’s current projects and her career and life advice.
Transcript and video available here.
Francesca Sanderson managed an ethical equities fund at JPMorgan as an asset manager but quit that to live for a year living off grid. She then became a social impact investor with Big Society Capital and now runs the Arts Impact programmes currently at Nesta.
We chat about what she learned, missed and loved about living off-grid. How she has a more pluralist world view.
Fran talks about what she learned at JP Morgan. The power and the weaknesses of institutional and organisational strength.
“when I was at JP Morgan,I would be watching people move from their CFA and then go now I'm going to do an MBA and I'll be “why do you want to do an MBA? That's not interesting.” Now, with the benefit of 20 years hindsight, I don't think there's anything more interesting or crucial than how organizations work and how stuff gets done”
We discuss social impact, its opportunities and risks and highlight some brilliant projects.
We chat on the the tyranny of numbers and data and the tension between process and oversight, and over burdensome bureaucracy and slowness.
We play overrated/underrated addressing stakeholder capitalism, the settlement movement, and cycling.
Fran ends on her advice, be trustworthy:
“I think that this is a reflection on life and society and where we are today. Trust is underrated. I think I just behave in a trustworthy fashion. It's a long termist thing. It's not freewheeling, can we get away with its culture at all, but ultimately for the benefit of the planet of society, just be honorable when it's not an easy thing to do.”
Transcript and video are available here.
Nadia Asparahova (previously writing under Nadia Eghbal) is an independent researcher with widely read essays on a range of topics most recently philanthropic funding including effective altruism and ideas machines, and recent ideas in funding science. She’s written books about the open source community. She has worked in start ups and venture. She set up and ran Helium grants, a microgrant programme. She is an Emergent Ventures fellow.
We speak about what she learned from microgranting and reviewing thousands of applications.
We discuss what she thinks about EA influenced philanthropy, and why she is personally pro-pluralism.
Nadia talks about why doesn’t consider herself a creator and the downsides and upsides on he creator economy as currently formed. We discuss parallels with the open source community.
We chat about Nadia’s work as an independent researcher versus her work at start-ups and how they are fulfilling in different ways.
Nadia examines what faith means to her now. We chat on the importance of intuition and the messiness of creative science and learning. We talk about science funding and how we might be the cusp of something new. Nadia expresses optimism about the future as we discuss possible progress stagnation.
On a more personal note, we chat about how Nadia was a vegetarian and how and why she changed her mind. But also that she could not be a complete only carnivore either. We discuss the importance of family stories that shape us and the role the stories of her grandmother played in her life.
We play over-rated under-rated:
-Effective Altruism
-Miami
-Crowdfunding
-Toulouse
-Newsletters
-Katy Perry
Nadia talks briefly about a seed of an idea around anti-memetics. Nadia ends with her advice to others. Follow your curiosities.
Transcript is available here.
How are crypto billionaires most likely to change charitable giving Effective Altruism (EA) aside?
“Broadly my worldview or thesis around how we think about philanthropy is that it moves in these sorts of wealth generations. And so, right now we're kind of seeing the dawn of the people who made a lot of money in the 2010s with startups. It's the “ trad tech” or startup kind of cohort. Before then you had people who made a lot of money in investment banking and finance and the early tech pioneers, they all formed their own cohort. And then you might say crypto is the next generation after that, which will eventually break down into smaller sub components for sure but we don't really know what those things are yet, I think, because crypto is still so early and they've sort of made money in their own way.
...When you have a group of people that have made money in a certain way that is almost by definition it's because it's a new wealth boom. They made their money in a way that's distinctly different from previous generations. And so, that becomes sort of like a defining theory of change or worldview. All the work that they are doing in this sort of philanthropic sense is finding a way to impose that worldview. …what will crypto's contribution to that be?
...I think in the crypto kind of generation you might see instead of thinking about the power of top talent, I think they're more about giving people tools to kind of build their own worlds..."
Carl Saxton-Pizzie trained as an actor and worked in tv before founding a sustainable grocery delivery company, Wholegood, in 2007 (with a van and £500). Wholegood is on track for £30m in revenue and employes 160 people. This is a small business success story, a start up in the “old economy” but very much touching “new economy” ideas such as sustainability and delivery services. You can find Wholegood products in most UK retailers, Ocado one of the largest examples.
We talk about Carl’s entrepreneur journey, what acting taught him and the importance of sustainability and purpose. I ask him what he wished he had known in 2007.
Carl thinks over some of his best ideas and worst ideas including why organic coconut water didn’t work out and how brilliant his non-plastic packaging is.
We discuss the importance of mental health, resilience and managing and why story telling is important.
What it might mean to have a great career, why trucking is under rated and who the fastest packer is.
We think on the plastic bag tax, minimum wages and being scared of failure.
We chat on how being an actor is a kind of “classlessness” but why qualifications can be over rated.
Carl ends with his career and life advice.
It's so easy to become blinkered with your single vision of what success or your current success looks like that you stop forgetting that there will be other successes. You can get up and you can carry on. You have to be brave and you have to be able to not get lost in the idea that you're currently in. Step back or step out and do something else.
Transcript and video is available here.
Annemarie is Director of Innovation for the Seetec Group. Before that, she was, Director of Policy and Strategy at Future Care Capital - a national charity that uses the insight gathered through evidence-based research to advance ideas that will help shape future health and social care policy to deliver better outcomes for society.
We chat about what is under appreciated about libraries and how to think about public goods and common ownership of those goods.
Annemarie discusses the idea of a Sovereign Health Fund and how to think about healthcare data as a public good, what trust is needed and how health value can be created by pooling data.
We discuss the benefits and cons of social media, how tricky regulation is (partly because it always behind the times) and how there might be more benefits that commonly thought of.
Annemarie talks about her work and Seetec’s on the future of justice and how leveraging data and digital technology can help shape a better justice system and also prevent re-offending. She offers insights in to how new technology is creating new forms of crime and whether more careful thinking can prevent these types of crime from occuring. How will crime in the metaverse work out?
We chat about how different ownership models and for-profit or not-profit can shape the purpose and outlook for employees. The importance of optimism and the sense of looking after something for the next generation.
Annemarie notes Henry VIII gave powers to the secretary of state but didn’t consider accountability provisions. She raises the challenge of accounting standards for intangible assets and proposes an idea of giving NFTs (digital assets) to children at birth (cf. Bored Ape Yacht Club).
Annemarie is more of a nonfiction reader but she commissioned a work of science fiction and we speak about imagining different types of future and how to inspire people.
We play overrated/underrated on:
- Big Tech regulation
- GPDR (data regulation)
- GDP
- Carbon tax
- Digital Health
- Innovation agencies
- Calories on menus
Annemarie ends our conversation on giving out her life advice.
Transcript and video are available here.
What is it like to go deaf and then gain back your hearing? On this episode, I speak to Sophie Woolley.
Sophie is a writer, performer and theatre maker. We have been friends for a while and I have learned a lot about Deaf culture and from her personal journey and one as a creative.
We have a meandering chat about her creative journey, how felt she had to write about her story of going deaf and then gaining hearing again via a cochlear implant. We recorded the podcast while Sophie is in Taiwan. She chats a little on her experience there and Taiwan’s COVID management.
This is a long conversation between friends discussing the complexities of Sophie’s experience. I was particularly intrigued by her thinking on what it might mean to be a cyborg and being augmented and being part of both Deaf culture and hearing culture. I am still thinking about her comment about captioning AI being her friend and how we can often simply criticise AI in a way we would not critique a human. (But also there’s no need to anthropomorphize AI either).
Transcript and Video links here. Image credit: Justin Munitz
Stian Westlake is the chief exec at the Royal Statistical Society, and before that he was a policy advisor to government and the executive director at Nesta. He is the co-author with Jonathan Haskel of Capitalism without Capital, and they have a new book out, Restarting the Future (22 March 2022).
Stian discusses how recessions might be different under an intangible economy. I ask him (H/T Tyler Cowen) how national security concerns might be different in a very intangible world. Part of his answer:
...if you are an interconnected, relatively open economy, and Russia was always the most relatively interconnected of the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China] countries, the intangible economy kind of makes it easier to turn off those taps in a way…. how dependent some of these kinds of more security based, more military based factors have been on intangible assets. We've probably all seen the stories of the dependence of the Russian air force on US GPS devices, which has led to them being more observable and perhaps has played a role in the fact that they have not been as present in the conflict as people thought they would be. I think that kind of interconnectivity is like many things in the intangible economy. It's great for winners, it's great if you're the US or if you're a US ally and it's probably not so great for the losers. …
We chat about these observations:
- Stagnation
- Inequality
- Dysfunctional Competition
- Fragility
- Inauthenticity
And Stian offers an intangible lens to explain the observations.
We discuss: BS jobs and whether culture and trust might be upstream of this.
Why we need new institutions to tackle intangible challenges, whether this would be more technocractic and if there is a political economy challenge on this.
The importance of where the intangible meets the tangible, for instance, we have heat pump technology but not the intangible systems and ideas to install them. Sanitation is “hardware” but building and co-ordinating all this is an intangible and institutional challenge more than a hardware challege.
What the trade-off is between losing red tape and increasing the risk of corruption.
Stian argues for why the tax treatment of debt and equity would be a good idea (while acknowledging this would be politically hard).
We play over/under rated on:
Innovation Prizes, Blogging, Sugar tax, Carbon tax, Plastic Bag Tax, Innovation agencies, GDP and UBI, universal basic income.
Stian ends with some life and career advice.
Video and transcript are available here, with further links.
Stephan Guyenet completed a PhD in neuroscience, then went on to study the neuroscience of obesity and eating behavior as a postdoc. He’s also been involved with Givewell and Open philanthropy projects. In 2017, he wrote the book the Hungry Brain.
We discuss two competing obesity models: one based around a model of energy balance with the brain as one of the main central controllers.
And one model which s based more around an insulin - carbohydrate pathway. The carbohydrate - insulin model emphasizes the role of insulin from glycemic load inputs.
While not necessarily mutually exclusive, Stephan explains how the brain centric energy balance model can explain some data, in his view, that the carb-insulin model does not. Stephan notes much individual variability and how the naming “energy-balance” is perhaps not the best type of name for the model.
We discuss the challenge of processed foods, which tend to be easy to eat and tasty foods. Stephan notes that the combination of fat + carb (eg in chocolate!) is very appetising. We chat about the role of genetics, and satiety.
We chat about two classes of obesity drugs, one rimonabant (using cannabinoid receptor pathways) which has been withdrawn; and the other being GLP-1s. We talk about the possible role of inflammation and some intriguing data on Alzheimer’s. I ask about his view on intermittent fasting, also on the microbiome.
I talk about my challenges with exercise and we discuss how some people probably are not wired to enjoy intensity training whereas some others are.
We talk about effective altruism and what he has learnt from his work at Givewell.
We play over-rated | under rated on:
- Climate Change
- Nuclear War
- Rogue AI risk
- Giving away more wealth
- Animal welfare
- Diversity of thought
We chat about making cider, growing your own food and cycling in Seattle.
Stephan ends with his general diet advice.
Links to academic papers and video available here.
Alec is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress. The IFP is dedicated to to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress while safeguarding humanity’s future. Alec and co-founder Caleb Watney are supported by prominent progress thinkers such as Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collinson.
We discuss the competing interests that prevent physical infrastructure such as power lines, or cafe “parklet” structures from being easily built.
Alec explains how using a framework borrowed from Effective Altruism: impact (will it be impactful), tractability (is it possible?), under-researched (are many other people working on the challenge?) - is a useful framing.
Alex discusses why biosecurity (pandemic preparedness), meta-science (understanding how science progresses) and immigration (in particular high skilled) are the initial areas of interest and what other areas, like climate, might be next.
We speculate on what intractable bluesky policies we would potentially pursue.
We play over-rated/under-rated (in honour of Tyler Cowen):
-Carbon tax
-Planning laws
-Crypto
-Rogue AI
-Animal welfare
-Charter cities
-Innovation agencies
-Remote working
Alec ends with his life advice for others in thinking about a career on how to have the most impact in your life.
Transcript and video are available here, with links.
Chris Stark is the Chief Executive of the UK’s Climate Change Committee. The committee is an independent statutory body which advises the UK and developed governments on emissions targets and preparing for and adapting to the impacts of climate change. I think he is one of the most important and thoughtful thinkers on climate change policy today.
We discuss what is most misunderstood about climate policy, the likely co-benefits and the scale of investments needed especially in the UK in replacing “old inefficient stock”.
What positives/negatives came out of COP26 (recent international climate conference) and what to hope for in COP27 and beyond. Why COP26 might have been considered a corporate COP as a criticism but why that might not be bad.
Why sector specific strategies might be a better plan than a focus on carbon tax.
Why adaptation or resilience has been a bit of a “Cinderella” in climate discussions. What the science suggests is already baked into 2050 scenarios and so what we should be thinking about adaptation as well as mitigation.
The complexities and challenges around “behaviour change” and why it’s not a great term. Why we might not need a complete culture change (in the sense of changing lifestyles) but the intersection of behaviour and technology. (For instance, still driving cars but electric cars on a decarbonised grid.)
Why a sense of fairness is one the most important climate policy (political economy) considerations and what we should think about in terms of climate impacts falling unequally across countries and peoples.
What role finance has to play. Chris references the work of Nick Robins here.
We discuss:
- Climate assemblies (and why Chris changed his view on them)
- Divest/engagement strategies
- Carbon offsets
- Carbon taxes
- The role of nuclear
- Land use
- Road charging
And we end with advice Chris has for people.
Transcript and video is available here, along with links to the CC and Nick Robins work.
David Spiegelhalter is an expert on medical statistics. He was the president of the Royal Statistical Society and is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence communication. He is also a World Champion, in a version of pool called Loop and hosts his own podcast, Risky Talk. David has a new book out (with Anthony Masters), COVID by Numbers, which is an excellent book on COVID statistics. This follows his previous bestseller, the Art of Statistics.
David discusses what was most surprising and misunderstood about COVID statistics. David emphasises how numbers can be emotional and weaponised and what we can do to protect ourselves.
We chat about what thinking about risk and techniques we should teach children and think about in every day life. Ideas such as baseline risk and absolute vs relative risk.
We think about unintended consequences, the agency challenges of regulators and how to think of a range of risk. David explains fat tails and extreme values and that, for instance, AI risk is an extreme existential risk but perhaps over rated.
I learn about the “Rose Paradox” and “Cromwell’s law”, in statistics. The Rose paradox suggests policy might be useful at a general population level but not at an individual basis. For instance, government messages about drinking less and things like that can be rational at the population level and yet it's also rational for individuals to take no notice of it.
Cromwell’s law implies many life events are not 0% or 100% and you should take that into account in decision making. Or, in plain English, you should always imagine there's something you haven't thought of.
We discuss the risks of alcohol and touch on air pollution and cholesterol (statin drugs), and how to think about medical statistics.
David explains the attraction and beauty of stained glass art.
David ends with life advice about enjoying life and taking (good, well-managed) risks in order to have a fulfilling life.
Transcript and video are available here.
Steve Uwin is a theatre director and writer. Amongst many accomplishments he has been the artistic director of the Rose theatre, founder of ETT, English Touring Theatre. He is also chair of the charity Kids, which provides services to children with disabilities.
We speak about whether we need language to be human and what non-verbal people teach us.
We chat on how theatre has developed over the decades and Steve’s appreciation of Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble. We touch on Steve’s experience of theTraverse theatre, dealing with the very different stakeholders of the Rose Theatre; and how European theatre, realism and London has influenced theatre over the decades; what’s enjoyable about theatre over film.
Steve discusses how much of liberal progressive thinking may overlook the history and challenges of disability. While contested, we chat about the possible roots of this in the 18th century enlightenment and its influences today. We talk about the importance of self-advocacy but also the challenges of self-advocacy if you are - for instance - non-verbal.
Steve talks about going viral on Twitter around “mock gloom” and disability. He also provocatively suggests five of the greatest artists of the last century.
We comment on:
Bob Dylan
The artist Piero della Francesca
And what he has in his library of thousands of books
And finish with his current projects and life advice Steve has.
To let you know… The audio is a little crackly on Steve’s side. Apologies in advance.
It’s still listenable, but there’s also a transcript if easier, here. Enjoy. Thanks.
Zeke Hausfather is a climate scientist and energy systems analyst whose research focuses on observational temperature records, climate models, and mitigation technologies. He spent 10 years working as a data scientist and entrepreneur in the cleantech sector, where he was the lead data scientist at Essess, the chief scientist at C3.ai, and the cofounder and chief scientist of Efficiency 2.0. He also worked as a research scientist with Berkeley Earth, was the senior climate analyst at Project Drawdown, and the US analyst for Carbon Brief. Follow his Twitter for his climate thoughts.
We discuss:
What is most misunderstood about climate science today.
Why many doomsday scenarios are unlikely but yet serious damage from climate is happening now.
Why scientists have been poor in communicating what is mean by tipping points with respect to climate.
How he thinks about climate “tail risk” and how tail risk diminishes the less heating happens.
The problems with “averages” and how there is uncertainty not only about our amount of emissions, but the sensitivity of the climate to our emissions.
Why climate is better thought of as a gradient rather than point thresholds.
The problem with climate economics due to time horizons, long time horizons and the discounting models economists use.
Zeke’s view on the range of different projections coming out post COP26 and what they mean.
Zeke’s thoughts on:
-degrowth
-carbon tax
-techno-optimists
-nuclear power
-carbon offsetting
-divestment movement
-gas as a transition fuel
-green New Deal
-Bjorn Lomborg
Zeke finishes with advice for people who want to be involved in climate.
Video/Transcript available here.
Ben's Twitter here.
Aella is perhaps most famous on twitter for shining a light on the life and economics of Camgirls and escorts; and asking challenging questions. But her independent research is larger than that and has encompassed reporting on LSD and psychedelics use, circling, the nature of faith, and enlightenment. She grew up homeschooled in a fundamental Christian household before leaving home at 17.
The transcript and conversation includes adult themes and mild profanity from Aella and is recommended 18+.
We discuss what is most misunderstood about escort work and the additional needs of men such as emotional intimacy. How Aella thinks of her own compartmentalisation.
What you should say about male anatomy size. How insecurity can go both ways on male thinking on size.
What Aella thinks about Twitter and making questions and polls.
What it was like to have ideas you took for granted completely turned on their head. For instance, what she was taught to think of gays.
We chatted about her interest in psychedelics, speaking to people who think they are enlightened and spirituality. And what that intersection with rationality is for her.
She discusses several viewpoints of the Rationalist community and her views on Effective Altruism. Her thoughts on archaeology and thinking about moral arguments in their place in time.
Why she feels to strongly about home school.
Her thoughts on losing faith.
What it was like working in a factory, and what the point of secret messages she scratched at her work were.
How she has struggled with cultural norms.
How she answers some of her own questions:
You're in a room with 10,000 people. You get to ask three binary questions. Yes or no. For each question, the people who answer the question according to the way you want, they stay and the people who don't leave the room. What do you ask?
We play underrated / overrated on these topics:
- Accordion
- Ballroom Dancing
- Pronouns
- Abalone
- Sweating on command
She talks about emotional pain and tells me what the practice of circling is all about.
We end on what her research interests are and what her life advice is.
Transcript and video here.
Ben's Twitter here.
Jason Mitchell is Co-Head of Responsible Investment at Man Group. He was a hedge fund manager and he is a poet. He’s a deep thinker on all things sustainable and finance. He hosts a brilliant podcast on sustainability, A Sustainable Future.
We chat on his poetry and how he witnessed refugees in the Mediterranean sea.And what poetry has taught him.
“rescued by our boat one morning, the man asked me, is it true what they tell us, the traffickers, about these waters, that the sea has no bottom? I told him no, there is indeed a floor, half a mile or more below us. And Europe is a much farther, more difficult journey than the traffickers promised you”.
Whether fund managers on average know enough outside finance and his journey into sustainability.
Jason discusses the Jevons paradox. How we use something more the more efficient it becomes.
Jason gives views in overrated/underrated on:
-Carbon Tax
-Divestment as a social political tool
-Shareholder activism as a theory of change
-Carbon offsets (and shorting as a tool)
-sustainable finance regulation
-Stakeholder capitalism
We end with Jason’s favourite podcasts that he has hosted, what people misunderstand and his advice for others.
“no doesn't mean never”
Transcript and video is available here.
Follow Ben on Twitter.
Dan Goodley is a professor of disability studies and education at the School of Education, University of Sheffield. Dan co-directs iHuman, which sits at the intersections of Critical Disability Studies and Science and Technology Studies. iHuman is addressing ome significant questions of contemporary society including: what does it mean to be human?
Dan has written the thought provoking book: Disability and Other Human Questions.
We chat about who and how do we decide who gets to be human? I pose what thinking about the rights (or lack of) that Britney Spears has is relevant to disability rights thinking.
Dan wide ranging thoughts on what disability and other intersectional studies have suggested to him. These include:
Thinking about “ability” and what the social model of disability suggests. What a critique of idealising able bodies and able minds might mean.
What medicalisation means and how it is different to medicine.
How humans are interdependent and what that suggests about our relationships.
How technology is impacting Dis/abled humanness.
What being a Nottingham Forest Football fan has taught Dan.
And Dan’s life advice: Move from the object to embrace the subject.
Transcript and video are here. Dan's book here: Disability and Other Human Questions
Ben's Twitter is @benyeohben and Dan is @DanGoodley
Bec Hill is an actor, comedian and writer famous for flip charts with misheard music lyrics. She has a wide array of talents including as a writer, a recent children’s book series: Horror Heights, The Slime and hosting make-away takeaway for children's ITV. She has her own podcast A Problem Squared which she co-hosts with Matt Parker.
We speak about the use of arts and craft in comedy and thinking about children’s comedy. How she found acting as a “straight actor” in David Finnigan’s Kill Climate Deniers.
How she met her partner and how he has helped direct and collaborate on her shows.
How faith helps guide her life. How her ADHD diagnosis has helped her understanding.
That all things can be funny, but do you want to make a joke out of all things? We discuss the right to offend, but think about whether we should make jokes about everything.
The best uses for PVA glue, duct and glitter and her practical advice for aspiring stand-up comics (it’s to do with the microphone).
Transcipt and Video available here.
Book Link: Horror Heights, The Slime
Meaghan Kall is an epidemiologist at what used to be known as Public Health England but is now the UK Health Security Agency. She and her colleagues have been working flat out for two years producing some of the world's best COVID data.
We speak about annoying and funny COVID myths.
She gives her view on COVID vaccine waning, Long COVID and risk in children; and how we are going to come to terms with COVID as an endemic disease (think about managing flu, although with different outcomes).
We dive into what it means to be an epidemiologist and think about the social determinants of health. With the lens of looking at HIV epidemiology, we discuss how certain populations are more adversely impacted.
We discuss what caring for disabled children as meant for us and how that insight is another facet of what it means to be human.
We think about what “expected value” means and how science can not answer matters of policy which have to be decided also by thinking of our values and other trade-offs.
Meaghan gives the advice she is currently giving family and friends and ends with some thinking on life career advice.
Transcript and video available here.
Ben's Twitter @benyeohben and Meaghan's Twitter @kallmemeg
Clare Montagu was the Chief Operating Officer of one of London’s largest hospice groups, Trinity Hospice. Before that, she was a UK government minister special advisor.
We talk about the challenges and joys of running a hospice. Much of great hospice care is looking after people in their own homes and in the community. Hospice care goes beyond the medical. For instance, letting a patient die in the garden under a tree because that’s their wish. This is care a hospital can not give. The hospice is staffed 24/7, pets can come, family can stay. The hospice is part of the community.
We chat about the importance of death admin. You don’t want to have your stash found by your parents or the state to take your inheritance estate. We speak on why Clare uses straight forward language about death and why we don’t talk about death enough.
Clare reflect on the challenges of COVID and gives her insights into how difficult running the hospice during the pandemic. She gives a sense of what being on the frontlines meant. How to find protective supplies, mortuary bags and and the lack of plans from the state.
We discuss the economics of a hospice. UK hospices are not state funded but mostly funded by charity. Clare had a GBP15m operating budget or closer to GBP10m for healthcare operations (excluding the costs of running charity shops etc) this looked after 2,500 - 3,000 people in a typical year. (In a year, in the UK about 9,000 people die for every 1 million of population; London has c. 9 million population and so 80,000 Londoners die very year).
We debate the difficulty of what funding a minimum service hospice would be like.
We discuss the challenges of state capacity decisions in the light of swine flu and why governments will always tends to spend on a problem now rather than have insurance in stock piles.
Clare gives insights into the life of a special adviser, some of the highs and lows and the comedy moments, and some of the policy she is proud of (helping Children in care).
Clare suggests that while governments often get things very wrong, they are also have to deal with particularly conflicted issues and trade-offs such as security versus liberty.
Clare has volunteered at a charity doing a manual warehouse job recently and she offers insights into that type of job and we discuss jobs that can have “purpose” and jobs where it is difficult to think you are on a “mission”
Finally, Clare reflects on how to have a good death and her life advice. “show up and do something about the stuff that you care about”.
Transcript and Video Available here. You can follow Ben on Twitter, @benyeohben and keep in touch on his newsletter.
Jonathan Wolff is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy. Before he was Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Humanities at UCL. He is currently developing a new research programme on revitalising democracy and civil society. His other current work concerns equality, disadvantage, social justice and poverty, as well as applied topics such as public safety, disability, gambling, and the regulation of recreational drugs. He has had a long-standing interest in health and health promotion, including questions of justice in health care resource allocation, the social determinants of health, and incentives and health behaviour. He writes a regular column on higher education for The Guardian.
We discuss how to value life and the relevance to public policy for healthcare, and Jo’s initial interest stemming from work on railway safety.
Jo gives insights in how disability studies informed his philosophy and how behind the curve political philosophy was last century and apologises on behalf of political philosophy.
Jo is concerned over vaccine equity and we discuss what role and duty biopharmaceutical companies have and who should pay for vaccines.
Jo outlines his aspiration and idea of a society of equals,
Jo rates multiculturalism, direct democracy, Adam Smith, the future of the city, cryptocurrencies and pronouns.
We chat about the philosophy of musical performance seen through the lens of music therapy.
We end talking about what a productive day looks like and his advice for young people.
This sums up to:
- Be Kind,
- Think in other people’s shoes,
- Think of where your power and privilege comes from, and,
- Study subjects that interest you
Transcript and video are available here.
Economist Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy, Cambridge University. She co-directs the Bennett Institute, where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity. Her work has touched innovation, technology and intangibles; sustainability, inequality and measuring beyond GDP.
We discuss the challenges of the current narrowness in economics both in terms of the diversity of people it attracts and the paucity of wider ranging interdisciplinary thinking.
Diane’s 1997 book (The Weightless World) was prescient over many technology, innovation and intangibles trends but sustainability was a missing hole. We discuss sustainability and what she felt she missed and what she had right.
Diane critiques degrowth ideas while noting the challenges which catalyse that type of thinking.
We chat about measurement challenges in an intangible world and how while GDP might have measured more usefully in the past but that in the present it misses many areas of value. In passing, Diane critiques happiness indices and elements of the human development index.
We address the UK’s productivity challenges (but don’t expect we have solved it?!) and conclude it is not only a measurement challenge.
We discuss inequality and “superstar earners” across all sectors and possible solutions.
Diane over-rates / under-rates:
Universal Basic Income, a Job guarantee policy, Industrial Policy, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, running the economy hot; and the New Zealand Prime Minister.
We discuss minimum wage and tax policy. Win-win investment ideas and end with what a productive day looks like and advice for would-be economists.
Transcript and Video available here.
Mark Ravenhill is one of our greatest living theatre makers. I claim this in part because of the length of his writing career, 25 years+ and still going strong, and in part because of the variety of form and type of work. His work has extended into directing and performing Mark will be co-artistic director (with Hannah Price) of the Kings Head theatre where he is outlining plans to portray stories that would fly under the rainbow flag (an allusion to multitude types of queer stories out there).
Podcast notes: Mark articulates why representation now for all kinds of stories that would fly under the rainbow flag is important and sketches out his vision as co-artistic director. We discuss the differences between German and British theatre cultures. The surprising lack of influence from visual art on British theatre (compared to eg German theatre or many other kinds of theatre).
The satisfaction of bringing a popular story, like David Walliams Boy in the Dress to a wider (out of London) audience. We chat about how representative (or not) theatre is touching on working class and outside of London audiences, if right wing playwrights are missing considering the British people keep returning right leaning governments; and how, of course, the landscape of public views and opinion is much more complicated than that.
The importance of listening in a world where many people are defending their right to speak (and many of those defenders having never been without that right to speak) - making space to listen to other voices.
Mark’s curiosity and love of life-long learning and what ballet has taught him. The differences and similarities in how he approached his recent biographical work about his mother, father and himself.
We play over-rated/under-rated and Mark rates:
- -Automatic writing
- -Speaking in verse all day
- -Dressing up or outside in techniques
- -Chekhov and non-English theatre
- -Theatre Games
(Only one of these is overrated).
We discuss the importance of Keith Johnston’s book Improv (note my podcast with Lee Simpson also discuss Keith’s work) and how Mark has used the exercises in the book.
I ask Mark, what question theatre should be asking today.
Mark finishes with advice to creatives on not being swayed too much by others (well-intentioned or not) advice.
Transcript and video available here.
Follow Mark on Twitter @markravenhill2
Follow Ben on Twitter @benyeohben
Sally Phillips is well known for her award winning acting, writing and comedy. She had roles in 'I'm Alan Partridge', 'Smack the Pony', 'Green Wing', and 'Miranda'; and in the US, Veep. In 2016 she fronted the documentary 'A World Without Down's Syndrome?' (BBC2). I think she should also be better known for her disability rights advocacy.
We talk about types of clowning and why the clown always says ‘yes’; the challenges of older women roles in the entertainment industry and discuss the differences between US comedy and British comedy.
We chat about the importance of faith to Sally and what the aphorism: there being two routes to God (love and suffering) means. We talk about embracing uncertainty, being curious and open minded and the practice of prayer.
The disability community is important to us. We both have children with disabilities. We talk in detail about how that impacts us, how the mainstream world interacts with the disabled and despite the challenges how to have fulfilled lives.
Sally ends with advice for fledgling creatives and expectant mothers.
Ollie makes a guest star experience telling us the best thing about having Down’s.
Transcript and video available here.
Sally's Twitter: @sallyephillips, IG: sallysmack
Ben's Twitter: @benyeohben
How does individual shareholder activism work? How does personal agency and systems change work together in a theory of change? How do we become change makers? What did Catherine's mother teach me?
Catherine is Chief Executive of ShareAction. She coordinates civil society activism to promote responsible investment Catherine was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014. ShareAction campaigns have significantly altered corporate strategy and government policy. For instance, on HSBC establishing environmental targets and Tesco making healthy food commitments.
- We chat about Catherine’s journey into activism and the theories of change that have influenced her.
- We discuss how poetry, Ursula Le Guin and feminism have impacted us.
- How to convince open minded skeptics to your cause.
Transcript and video available here.
Topics covered:
-Catherine’s activism journey
-Catherine on community and theory of change
-ShareAction theory of change
-Healthy eating campaign, ideas on fiduciary duty
-How to decide on campaign topics
-Converting skeptics
-What poetry taught me dividual agency at National Express
What poetry taught me
-Questions on individual pension investors vote
-Maximising the well being of people
-Responsible Investment Bill idea, maximising welfare
-Better growth not degrowth
-Problems of vaccine nationalism
-Underrated/overrated: art, cycling, carbon tax, voting, remote work, having children
-Catherines advice to young people
Tassos Stevens is artistic director of Coney. The transcript of the podcast here. Prior to Coney, he did a doctorate in Psychology, won the inaugural James Menzies-Kitchin Award for theatre directors, did the NT Studio Directors Course, ran the ROAR platform to support new work and new artists on the London fringe, and also worked as critic, teacher, many flavours of researcher, salesman, and chef.
We chat about pivotal moments of theatre and explore what interactive and immersive mean for theatre.
The importance of play and “making belief’ as opposed to “suspending disbelief”
How to involved audiences in agency and what Tassos advises for young people interested in theatre.
Matt Clancy is a progress fellow at Emergent Ventures. He teaches at Iowa State University and writes on Substack a newsletter called New Things Under the Sun, which you should subscribe to if you are interested in anything innovation related. Matt has also synthesised many of the emerging studies on remote working. Transcript and video links here.
We discuss whether progress has been stagnating and the importance of moral and social progress as well as technological.
Whether small team or large teams are better for invention.
How important are agglomeration effects and how a declining agglomeration impact might make the case for remote work stronger.
The role of innovation prizes and patents for incentivising innovation and if copyright is too long.
Whether innovation agencies (eg ARPA) are the answer and what Matt would do as an executive director of one.
Differences between UK and US university systems and advice for young people.
Matt’s thinking on remote work.
Short introduction to Ben Yeoh Chats.
If you are curious about the world this show is for you.
I have extended conversations across humanities and science with artists, philosophers, writers, theatre makers, activists, economists and all walks of life.
Episodes include:
-What is like to go to Columbia University at 15 and be valedictorian with Leopold Aschenbrenner?
-What should worry us about gamification with philosopher Thi Nguyen ?
-What sparks invention with innovation historian, Anton Howes ?
-What do story telling and improvisation tell us about being human with Lee Simpson.
-I’ve learned a tremendous amount doing these shows and hope you enjoy and learn too.
Enjoy.
Lee Simpson is a founder member of Improbable (theatre makers and improvisers), a long time Comedy Store Player (since the 1980s) and one of Paul Merton's Impro Chums. He’s also been a croupier, cinema projectionist and breakfast show DJ. He’s written plays, appeared in sit-coms and in some films, been on some Radio 4 panel shows and once did a very poor poodle act at the London Palladium. That vast range highlights two strong threads one in the world of improv and another in the world of theatre making. Transcript available here and video version available here.
-I speak to Lee on his roots in theatre and improv and the importance of Keith Johnstone’s work.
-Lee outlines his thoughts on on his drama school experience, two schools of improv (US and UK) andhow improv and theatre misunderstand one another.
-We discuss the infrastructure (or lack of) behind improv and theatre and techniques on listening to the audience and feedback loops in performing.
-We sketch out ideas on structure and story form, on being human and Lee explains status structure as a technique.
-We chat about how humans understand the world and how we view our lives as story that changes through time.
-Lee reflects on being part of a comedy group for a long time and shares a stroy on Mo Mowlam.
-We talk on how to “build back better” in the arts and what Open Space is and techniques for listening and genuine connections to art.
-We end with advice Lee has for young people.
Contents:
- 01:17 Lee on his roots in theat re and improv and Keith Johnstone.
- 04:07 Lee on his drama school experience and two schools of improv
- 09:43 How improv and theatre misunderstand one another.
- 13:32 Lee on the infrastructure (or lack of) behind improv and theatre. On listening to the audience and feedback loops in performing.
- 21:27 Lee on current UK Improv organisations
- 26:56 Money no issue… what the work of Improbable would do
- 29:01 Ben on language of improv and comedy, repetition and twist
- 32:29 Lee on structure and story form, on being human. Explains status structure.
- 36:44 Lee on how humans understand the world. Viewing our lives as story that changes through time.
- 42:47 On being part of a comedy group for a long time.
- 43:00 On Mo Mowlam being involved with the comedy store players
- 47:37 Mo Mowlam’s final months and concerns on anti-democracy
- 53:33 Lee on “Build Back Better”
- 57:46 Lee on Open Space, techniques for listening and genuine connections to art
- 1:05:07 Improv teaching you to listen to yourself
- 1:07:46 More on OpenSpace
- 1:15:34 Advice for young people, Ben channeling phantom Lee
- 1:17:15 Lee’s advice: step outside your path a little.
I had an excellent chat with Leopold Aschenbrenner. Leopold is a grant winner from Tyler Cowen’s Emergent Ventures. He went to Columbia University, aged 15, and graduated in 2021 as valedictorian. (Contents below ↓ ↓ ). He is a researcher at the Global Priorities Institute, thinking about long-termism. He has drafted a provocative paper encompassing ideas of long-termisim, existential risk and growth.
For some of our conversation we were joined by phantom Tyler Cowen imagining what he might think. We discussed Leopold’s critique of German culture and whether he’d swap German infrastructure for the American entrepreneurial spirit.
Whether being a valedictorian is efficient, if going to University at 15 is underrated and life at Columbia University.
What you can learn from speed solving Rubik’s cubes and if Leopold had to make the choice today if he’d still be vegetarian.
Thinking about existential risk, Leopold considers whether nuclear or biological warfare risk is a bigger threat than climate change and how growth matters and if the rate of growth matters as much depending on how long you think humanity survives.
Considering possible under rated existential risk Leopold sketches out several concerns over the falling global birth rate, how sticky that might be and whether policy would be effective. We consider what is worth seeing in Germany, how good or not GDP is as a measure and what we should do with our lives.
Leopold has wide ranging thoughts and in thinking and working on fat tail existential ruin risks is working on saving the human world. Fascinating thoughts.
Transcript Here with links and a video version here. Ben Yeoh's microgrants here.
1:35 How to think about a future career (80000 hours)
4:10 Is going to university at 15 years old underrated?
6:22 In favour of college and liberal arts vs Thiel fellowships
9:14 Is being a valedictorian efficient (H/T Tyler Cowen)
13:01 Leopold on externalities and how to sort smart people
15:08 Learnings from Columbia. The importance of work ethic.
19:50 Leopold learning from Adam Tooze and German history
22:16 Leopold critiques German culture on standing out.
23:08 Observations on decline of German universities
25:22 Leopold concerns on the German leadership class 30:25 German infrastructure and if it feels poor
34:13 Critique of too much netflix
35:27 What to learn from speed cubing Rubik’s cubes and weird communities
38:04 Leopold’s story of Emergent Ventures and what he found valuable
40:08 Embracing weirdness and disagreeableness
42:20 Leopold considering whether US entrepreneurial culture worth swapping for German infrastructure
44:44 Leopold on social ills of alcohol
44:59 Examining Leopold’s ideas of existential risk and growth
48:49 Different views depending on time frame:700 years or millions of years
52:18 Leopold’s view on importance of growth and risk of dark ages
57:07 Climate as a real risk but not a top existential risk 1:01:02 Nuclear weapons as an underrated existential risk
1:01:45 View on emergent AI risk 1:03:20 Falling fertility as an underrated risk
1:15:35 Mormon and eternal family
1:17:29 Underrated/overrated with phantom Tyler Cowen
1:36:10 What EA gets right/wrong, EA as religion? 1:44:56 Advice: Being independent, creative and writing blogs
I chat with C. Thi Nguyen who used to be a food writer and is now a philosophy professor at University of Utah. Thi thinks about trust, art, games, and communities.
We discuss his first book, Games: Agency as Art. The book is about how games are the art form that work in the medium of agency. We chat about the difference between play and games and wider games philosophy.
Thi worries about the problems on trusting experts, if oneself is not an expert and how none of us are experts in most domains. We discuss making tea, process art and how we should be thinking about making food. Fascinating topics across food and philosophy.
Transcript and links available here. Contents and Youtube links below.
06:13 Thi on Gamification
12:15 Thi on Trust and what to be worried about a gamified system
16:25 Thi on philosophy of expertise and the challenge of finding experts to trust
20:58 Thi on board games recommendations
26:05 Is “play” better or “games” better? Thi answers on how games are different from play.
31:20 The importance of drinking games
34:13 The four types of games
36:35 How constraints are useful
45:47 What is process art
50:02 Games and cooking
57:39 How to make tea
1:02:16 Thi on creative productivity (don't kill the weird ideas)
Anton Howes on innovation history, the improving mindset and progress studies. Anton Howes is an innovation historian and policy thinker, we have a fascinating wide ranging conversation on innovation. Transcript and video available here.
We discuss raising the prestige of innovators today, but consider it easy to say but harder to enact.
Anton argues for the benefits of a “great Exhibition” as a direct mechanism to inspire an “improving” mindset - the type of mindset that leads to innovation.
Anton shares what he has discovered about how invention has happened in history; and whether stagnation has happened or not recently, that it might be good to send a signal on the importance of innovation in any case. Why incremental innovation might be underrated, and why the process of innovation (ideas, iterations) is not publicised more.
Anton discusses evidence that formal education has not been needed for historic inventors (an improving mindset being potentially more important) and whether there are more than enough innovation prizes currently.
We have a strong section on problems with copyright and how rules around copyright might not be fit for purpose today and how to pronounce “gimcrack” - a useless invention - and why having more gimcracks might be a sign of healthy innovation.
A fascinating walk through innovation history.
Anton Howes is an innovation historian and policy thinker. He’s written a brilliant history of the RSA - the royal society for arts, manufactures and commerce - arguably Britain’s national improvement agency over the last 260 years - and is the RSA’s Historian in Residence. I recommend you check out his book, Arts and Minds. He writes a substack newsletter blog on innovation thinking that has won an award from Tyler Cowen’s Emergent Ventures. He has a day job as head of innovation research at the Entrepreneurs Network think tank and in my mind is an all round excellent thinker on innovation.
Tom Gosling was a partner at PwC, and an advisor to boards around executive pay and incentives, governance, and strategy. He's currently an Executive Fellow at London Business School and helps steer the work of the purposeful company collaboration.
Tom speaks about the benefits of purpose and the risk of corporate puff. We touch on audit reform and the challenges of regulation. We discuss the importance of democractic process and the role of government compared to the role of business. We underrate/overate carbon taxes, diversity targets, Milton Friedman and financial incentives.
On a personal note, we talk about the challenges of achieving a personal netzero, the joys of singing and the importance of understanding what makes you happy.
It's a fascinating conversation on many currently debated topics. Read the transcript.
Jonathan Meth is a dramaturg, extraordinaire, director, curator, very involved in the European theatre and disability arts. He's a lecturer at Goldsmiths. He's worked with many of the major theatre organizations in Britain, and he's a fascinating theatre thinker.
We speak about dramaturgy and theatre as playwright lead and theatre as colloboration lead. We discuss disability arts and a little about what autism has taught us. Jonathan looks at theatre funding and infrastrucutre and what it might mean to build back differently.
We discuss his work with Fence and what he has learned teaching a wide mix of international students.
Jonathan makes a case for the power of questions and curiosity.
A transcript is available here along with video.
Rishi Dastidar and I chat about life, poetry, writing and poets always having another job. Rishi gives advice on how to be a poet, embracing Insta poets and whether last lines are harder than first lines, or second books harder than first books; and why we love lists and why we need to pay more attention to verbs.
He is open to offers from companies seeking a Chief Poetry Officer.
A fascinating and wide ranging chat from this leading British poet.
Transcript at the blog here with video.
Links to Rishi’s books: Tickertape here and Saffron Jack here. His twitter here.
Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC amongst many others. His debut poetry collection Ticker-tape and his second book is Saffron Jack. He is chair of the London writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi edited the final part of the Nine Arches Press writers’ trilogy, The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century. (Blog on that here). Rishi is also head of brand language for Brand Pie.
I chat to Mya-Rose Craig, aka Birdgirl, about her love of birding touching upon birdsong and the mysteries of migration. We discuss accessibilty to nature, activism what in birding terms is a “lifer” and how to “pish”.
There’s a transcript (unedited) here plus links to topics we talk about. Links:
Black2Nature, Charity fighting for equal access to nature for Visible Minority Ethnic people.
Mya-Rose Craig’s website.
Get Birding, podcast.
We discuss the award winning book, Fathoms: the world in the whale by Rebecca Giggs. Our conversation covers seeing the history of humanity through the lens of the whale, activism movements, and the poetic in writing.
Whales as an extractive industry and why the book is not prescriptive in what we might do. We play overrated/underrated. Rebecca rates: cicadas, snails, worms and plankton. We end with the process of writing. Why mechanical keyboards might help, and writing in bursts.
Rebecca's essays and writing have been in The Atlantic, Granta, The New York Times Magazine. Her recent work has featured our relationship with animals in a time of both technological change and ecological crisis. www.rebeccagiggs.com and twitter @rebeccagiggs
Ben Yeoh is a playwright and investor. He keeps a personal blog at thendobetter.com and twitter @benyeohben
A transcript is available at here.
Link to Book (Amazon)
