Clearer Thinking is a podcast about ideas that truly matter. If you enjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks, wish you had more deep, in...
The skills every adult human should have (with Raffi Grinberg)
Read the full transcript here. What life skills do most people fail to learn before adulthood? Why does this failure occur? What should constructive disagreement look like? When might it be impossible to overcome a disagreement? How can you appease your (or someone else's) "elephant"? What do many people get wrong about dating? How much exploration is necessary to figure out what kind of person is compatible with you romantically? Which basic financial skills do many adults lack? What are the best ways to invest? What is your personal "superpower"? Should schools strive to make kids well-rounded (as opposed to highly specialized)? How can you find job opportunities more effectively? How can you figure out what to do with your life? What stages of development do adults go through? What does healthy negotation look like? How much time should you spend consuming information versus processing it? How can you benefit from rejection? Whom should you be trying to impress?Raffi Grinberg is a business leader, author, and educator based in Washington, D.C. He is the Executive Director of Dialog and cofounder of The Constructive Dialogue Institute (with Jonathan Haidt), both multimillion-dollar education organizations that bring people together for conversations. He graduated with honors from Princeton University and previously worked in management consulting at Bain & Company. He is the author of a mathematics textbook published by Princeton University Press. He also created and taught the popular Adulting 101 course at Boston College. Learn more about him at his website, raffigrinberg.com.Further readingHow to Be a Grown Up: The 14 Essential Skills You Didn’t Know You Needed (Until Just Now), by Raffi Grinberg"The Inner Ring", by C.S. Lewis StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]
--------
1:22:04
Rethinking our assumptions about happiness (with Stephanie Harrison)
Read the full transcript here. What do most people get wrong about happiness? Why doesn't the happiness resulting from success last longer? Is it easier to "get ahead" today than it was 100 years ago? How are we trapped by our ideas of happiness? Does individualism help or hurt happiness? Where do hyper-individualistic messages come from (especially in the US)? How have those messages changed over the past several decades? How can people better open themselves up to help from friends and family? What is the "critical positivity ratio"? How might our understandings of "positive" and "negative" be skewed? What are "old" and "new" happiness? Is our "old" happiness linked to capitalism? What is the "empty" self? What are the differences between how men and women experience gender-normative pressures? Are younger generations more accepting of male emotionality? Is there — and should there be — such a thing as an ideal man or ideal woman? What does it really mean to "be who you are"? What do we owe to each other? What exactly is the opposite of "separateness"? Why do so many people have impostor syndrome?Stephanie Harrison is the founder of The New Happy and the author of New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong. You can learn more about her work by visiting thenewhappy.com or @newhappyco on social media. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]
--------
1:07:24
Evidence-Based Medicine and its discontents (with Gordon Guyatt)
Read the full transcript here. How were decisions made about which treatments to trust before the advent of "evidence-based" medicine? How strong are biological arguments for or against various treatments? When did the Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) movement begin? How did the EBM movement overcome initial resistance among medical professionals? What resources do doctors have at their disposals to find up-to-date information about treatment efficacies? Why is the pharmaceutical industry allowed such influence over information about treatments? What is the GRADE approach to EBM? What does EBM have to say about the role of patient preferences and values? How bad is being overweight? What are "surrogate" or "substitute" outcomes? How rigorous is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)? How often do treatments suffer from a lack of high-quality evidence of an effect versus plenty of high-quality evidence of a lack of an effect? What's the state of evidence about the placebo effect? What are the most exciting current initiatives in EBM?Gordon Guyatt is a McMaster University Distinguished Professor. His work has focused on Evidence-Based Medicine and promoting high-quality healthcare without financial barriers for all Canadians. His Order of Canada citation acknowledges both contributions. He has been honored as a Canadian Institute of Health Research Researcher of the Year and a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Learn more about Gordon and his work at clarityresearch.ca.Further reading"This is why you shouldn’t believe that exciting new medical study" by Julia Belluz @ Vox StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]
--------
1:15:12
AI, US-China relations, and lessons from the OpenAI board (with Helen Toner)
Read the full transcript here. Is it useful to vote against a majority when you might lose political or social capital for doing so? What are the various perspectives on the US / China AI race? How close is the competition? How has AI been used in Ukraine? Should we work towards a global ban of autonomous weapons? And if so, how should we define "autonomous"? Is there any potential for the US and China to cooperate on AI? To what extent do government officials — especially senior policymakers — worry about AI? Which particular worries are on their minds? To what extent is the average person on the street worried about AI? What's going on with the semiconductor industry in Taiwan? How hard is it to get an AI model to "reason"? How could animal training be improved? Do most horses fear humans? How do we project ourselves onto the space around us?Helen Toner is the Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). She previously worked as a Senior Research Analyst at Open Philanthropy, where she advised policymakers and grantmakers on AI policy and strategy. Between working at Open Philanthropy and joining CSET, Helen lived in Beijing, studying the Chinese AI ecosystem as a Research Affiliate of Oxford University's Center for the Governance of AI. Helen holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown, as well as a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a Diploma in Languages from the University of Melbourne. Follow her on Twitter at @hlntnr. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]
--------
1:21:57
Getting a handle on your goals and big life changes (with Tee Barnett)
Read the full transcript here. What are the best things to do to help someone achieve their goals? What kind of person should see a personal coach? And when should they do so? What makes for a good personal coach? How do you know which coaches are legit given that they aren't certified like counselors? Can everyone benefit from meeting with a coach? How can you harness modernity to live the kind of life you want? In what ways do people treat themselves as resources? What are the most common causes of burnout? How high should our internal standards be? What should people be thinking about as they make large life changes? Should people always try to improve themselves? What are some challenges that are specific to leaders? How can people make more time for and focus better on less tangible challenges like assessing their vision and goals for the future? How can you resurrect seemingly dead parts of your inner life?Tee Barnett is a Personal Strategist who has coached a variety of high-functioning leaders across several industries. He has also run coaching training programs and recently helped launch Supercycle, a personal and professional development community platform that brings an interdisciplinary approach to personal growth, including philosophy, phenomenology, natural sciences, sociology, etc. Learn more about him at his personal website, teebarnett.com, or Supercycle's website, supercycle.org; follow him on Twitter / X at @teebarnettsays; or email him at [email protected]. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]
Clearer Thinking is a podcast about ideas that truly matter. If you enjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks, wish you had more deep, intellectual conversations in your life, or are looking for non-BS self-improvement, then we think you'll love this podcast! Each week we invite a brilliant guest to bring four important ideas to discuss for an in-depth conversation. Topics include psychology, society, behavior change, philosophy, science, artificial intelligence, math, economics, self-help, mental health, and technology. We focus on ideas that can be applied right now to make your life better or to help you better understand yourself and the world, aiming to teach you the best mental tools to enhance your learning, self-improvement efforts, and decision-making. • We take on important, thorny questions like: • What's the best way to help a friend or loved one going through a difficult time? How can we make our worldviews more accurate? How can we hone the accuracy of our thinking? What are the advantages of using our "gut" to make decisions? And when should we expect careful, analytical reflection to be more effective? Why do societies sometimes collapse? And what can we do to reduce the chance that ours collapses? Why is the world today so much worse than it could be? And what can we do to make it better? What are the good and bad parts of tradition? And are there more meaningful and ethical ways of carrying out important rituals, such as honoring the dead? How can we move beyond zero-sum, adversarial negotiations and create more positive-sum interactions?
Italia