The Joe Walker Podcast

2025 Retrospective — A Listener (Zac Gross) Interviews Me

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 05:12:45 +0000

In this special end-of-year episode, the tables are turned: I’m the guest, and I’m interviewed by Zac Gross — an Australian macroeconomist and long-time listener of the show.

We reflect on what I learned on the podcast in 2025 and what I changed my mind about. We also discuss the behind-the-scenes work of running the show, and my plans for 2026.

Sponsors

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Cabinet is Australia's Operating System — Here's How It Works (Glyn Davis & Terry Moran)

Mon, 22 Dec 2025 22:31:48 +0000

Glyn Davis and Terry Moran are two of the very small number of Australians who have literally sat in the Cabinet Room, week after week, watching the machinery of government operate from the inside.

Both served as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) — the most senior public servant in Australia. Terry held the role from 2008 to 2011 (including during the Global Financial Crisis). Glyn held it from 2022 to 2025.

Both have also held equivalent roles at the state level: Glyn as Director-General of the Office of the Cabinet in Queensland (1995–96), and Terry as Secretary of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet (2000–08). Before PM&C, Glyn was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne for thirteen years, and later ran the Paul Ramsay Foundation (Australia’s largest philanthropic foundation). Terry’s career spanned senior roles across the Commonwealth and Victorian public services, including as CEO of Victoria’s Office of the State Training Board, inaugural CEO of the Australian National Training Authority, and Queensland’s Director-General of Education. He later served as Chancellor of Federation University.

In this episode, we trace the routines, conventions, and systems that shape power in Canberra. Where, exactly, does a prime minister’s power come from? What separates a good Cabinet submission from a bad one? What actually happens in the Cabinet room once the doors close? How does Australia’s Westminster model differ from the UK and Canada? And why is Australia so unusually good at bureaucracy?

(Episode recorded on 8 December 2025.)

Sponsors

Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use the discount code "JOE".

To sponsor a future episode, go to https://josephnoelwalker.com/sponsor/

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Why Great Powers Sleepwalk to War — A Masterclass with Prof. Hugh White

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 19:30:00 +0000

2,500 years of strategic history, 11 books, one afternoon.

Hugh White is Australia's foremost strategic thinker: former senior adviser to Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in Defence, inaugural Director of ASPI, and principal author of the 2000 Defence White Paper. He is now Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University.

Before this conversation, I asked Hugh for the eleven books that most shaped his thinking on strategy, international relations and defence policy. We work through them one by one — what each book argues, what it gets right and wrong, how it shaped his worldview — and use them to tackle the big questions: why great powers start disastrous wars, how international orders collapse, and how Australia and America should respond to the rise of China.

Episode resources

Hugh's strategy reading list: https://josephnoelwalker.com/hugh-whites-strategy-reading-list/
Hugh's 1993 Tathra note: https://josephnoelwalker.com/hugh-whites-tathra-note/

Sponsors

Eucalyptus: the Aussie startup providing digital healthcare clinics to help patients around the world take control of their quality of life. Euc is looking to hire ambitious young Aussies and Brits. You can check out their open roles at eucalyptus.health/careers.
Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use the discount code "JOE".

To sponsor a future episode, go to https://josephnoelwalker.com/sponsor/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia's last great act of economic courage — Peter Costello

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 02:45:47 +0000

Peter Costello is the longest-serving Treasurer of Australia (1996–2007).

He led the most complex overhaul of Australia's tax system in the postwar era: introducing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) — a value-added consumption tax — while abolishing a range of indirect taxes (notably wholesale sales tax) and cutting income-tax rates.

I wanted to learn from Peter what it actually takes to achieve a reform at that scale — and why we haven’t managed anything like it since.

In this conversation, we discuss:

GST implementation war stories;
lessons on how to get big things done in government;
why major reform became so much harder after 2000;
why Peter would sometimes hide revenue estimates even from the prime minister; and
the baby bonus (introduced in 2004), which led to an uptick in Australia's total fertility rate — making Australia one of the only western countries to increase (albeit temporarily) its TFR since the demographic transition began.

Episode sponsor:

Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use the discount code "JOE".

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Discovery of The Bacterium Behind 5% of All Cancers — Barry Marshall

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 20:32:09 +0000

One bacterium causes roughly 1 in 20 cancer cases worldwide. It’s the most cancer-causing pathogen we’ve found—and the main cause of peptic ulcers. Its discovery overturned an ironclad medical dogma that the stomach was sterile.

Despite infecting about half of humanity, Helicobacter pylori wasn't discovered until 1979 and shown to cause gastritis and peptic ulcer disease in the early 1980s. Why did it evade detection for so long—and what finally broke through the consensus?

I went to Perth, Australia—where H. pylori was first discovered—to chat with Barry Marshall, gastroenterologist and co-recipient (with Robin Warren) of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering H. pylori and proving that it causes gastritis and peptic ulcer disease. Marshall famously infected himself with the bacterium to demonstrate causality and later helped develop clinical diagnostics like the urea breath test, which we demo live in the episode.

We discuss:

the rise and fall of stomach cancer in the West;
whether Darwin’s dyspepsia and Napoleon's stomach cancer trace to H. pylori;
the ulcer–cancer paradox;
Correa’s cascade: what H. pylori eradication reverses—and what it doesn’t;
the “H. pylori enigmas” (Africa, India, Costa Rica);
eradication prospects and an oral vaccine timeline;
how the field missed the discovery;
how the primitive internet enabled the discovery;
what the H. pylori discovery teaches us about how knowledge diffuses;
lessons from manufacturing millions of tests in Perth;
and much, much more.

Episode sponsors:

Eucalyptus: the Aussie startup providing digital healthcare clinics to help patients around the world take control of their quality of life. Euc is looking to hire ambitious young Aussies and Brits. You can check out their open roles at eucalyptus.health/careers.
Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use the discount code "JOE".

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australia’s ‘Great Stagnation’: Everything You Need to Know About The Productivity Crisis — Greg Kaplan & Michael Brennan

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 07:44:28 +0000

Stagnation! The 2010s witnessed Australia’s weakest productivity growth in six decades.

How much of the slowdown is homegrown? How much reflects the broader “great stagnation” plaguing the West?

How much is simply an artefact of the way “productivity” is measured?

And what would a credible new growth model for Australia—with its distinctive reliance on mining over manufacturing—actually look like?

To answer these questions and more, I’m joined by two of Australia’s smartest economists.

Greg Kaplan is the Alvin H. Baum Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is also the cofounder and chairman of e61, a non-partisan economic economic research institute in Australia.

Michael Brennan is the CEO of e61. He was previously chair of Australia's Productivity Commission and a Deputy Secretary of the Australian Treasury.

We discuss the forces behind falling construction productivity; how to think about “Australia’s most productive company”; where to find quality gains in the services sector; what we can learn from the stunning innovativeness of Australia’s agricultural industry; why we need new economic engines beyond the Sydney–Melbourne duopoly; and much, much more.

Episode sponsors:

Eucalyptus: the Aussie startup providing digital healthcare clinics to help patients around the world take control of their quality of life. Euc is looking to hire ambitious young Aussies and Brits. You can check out their open roles at eucalyptus.health/careers.
Vanta: helps businesses automate security and compliance needs. For a limited time, get one thousand dollars off Vanta at vanta.com/joe. Use the discount code "JOE".

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Francis Fukuyama — AGI and the Recommencement of History

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 20:30:00 +0000

Francis Fukuyama is a Stanford political scientist and the author of (among many other works) The End of History and the Last Man—arguably the most influential work in political science of the past half-century.

If “History” is driven by technology, how does Fukuyama now view biotech and AI—and their potential to usher in a new, post-human history?

These are difficult questions, but I wanted to ask Frank about topics that are both important and (at least for AI) on which he has spoken little until now.

We also get a sneak peek at his forthcoming book and discuss his ideas on bureaucracies, delegation, and state capacity.

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Laura Deming — On Pausing Biological Time & Preserving the Continuous Self

Tue, 20 May 2025 20:30:34 +0000

Laura Deming is a technologist and venture capitalist focused on anti-ageing and life extension. At 17, she founded The Longevity Fund (followed by age1), the first VC firm dedicated to longevity biotech, after being selected in the initial cohort of Thiel fellows (2011). Today she is also CEO and co-founder of Cradle, a startup pursuing human whole-body reversible cryopreservation.

I speak with Laura at Cradle’s San Francisco office. We start with the philosophical question of personal identity, and ask a deceptively simple question: what, exactly, do we want to preserve? From there we explore what a “more humane transhumanism” might look like, the game-theory of 200-year lives, scientific awe as a research tool, embodied thought-experiments to see inside the cell, how the FDA could shave years off longevity-drug timelines, the anti-memetic qualities of reversible cryopreservation, and why it might be the most leveraged problem in longevity.

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Eight Things I Learned From My Aussie Policy Series

Sun, 11 May 2025 00:41:50 +0000

I share the 8 biggest things I learned from my Australian policy series. The conversations totaled more than 12 hours of discussion.

Grateful to my guests and to everyone who attended the live events. Was really fun to meet and hang out with you all!

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Ken Henry — What Killed the Reform Era? [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Thu, 01 May 2025 04:00:03 +0000

This episode is the seventh instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on April 29, 2025.

I speak with Ken Henry—former Treasury Secretary and chair of the landmark Henry Tax Review—about why Australia hasn’t achieved major economic reform since the GST, and what must change to restart it.

We discuss how AGI could reshape the public service, intergenerational unfairness in the tax system, the collapse in business investment, how to build a new Australian city, and the roots of Australia's long-standing policy complacency.

Video available here:

Transcript available here:

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Sam Roggeveen — Why the US Won't Fight China for Dominance (and What it Means for Australia) [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 18:30:00 +0000

This episode is the sixth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 26, 2025.

I speak with Sam Roggeveen—Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program, and a former senior analyst at the Office of National Assessments—about why the United States won’t fight China for dominance in Asia, and what that means for an Australia long reliant on American protection.

We explore the limits of America’s resolve in Asia, why an alliance with Indonesia should be the top priority of Australian statecraft, whether new technologies like drones are reversing the long-held advantage of the defender, the possibility that Australia might one day acquire nuclear weapons, and how Sam’s “echidna strategy” could let us defend ourselves from a major Asian power without substantially boosting defence spending.

Video available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq9n62A07mE

Transcript available here: https://josephnoelwalker.com/sam-roggeveen-aus-policy-series/

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Peter Tulip — What Will It Actually Take to Solve the Housing Crisis? [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 19:00:00 +0000

This episode is the fifth instalment of my Australian policy series, recorded live in Sydney on February 12, 2025.

I speak with Peter Tulip—Chief Economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, and a former senior researcher at both the Reserve Bank of Australia and the US Federal Reserve.

We go deep into what's driving Australia's housing crisis, the problems with heritage rules and height restrictions, critiques of both NIMBY and YIMBY thinking, the sobering 10–20-year timeframe that even an “extremely ambitious” supply plan might require, and the cultural shift needed to reach a new equilibrium where housing is truly abundant.

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Judith Brett — How a Benthamite Political Culture Shaped Australia's Electoral System [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 03:19:46 +0000

Australia stands alone among English-speaking democracies with its compulsory, preferential voting system. But why?

This episode is the fourth instalment of my Australian policy series. It was recorded in Melbourne on March 6, 2025.

I speak with Judith Brett—Emeritus Professor of Politics at La Trobe University and author of the canonical history of Australia's electoral system, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage—about how Australia became an electoral trailblazer.

We trace the accidental adoption of near-universal manhood suffrage in the 1850s, the political calculations that led to compulsory voting and preferential voting, and why bureaucratic efficiency is so deeply woven into our electoral culture.

Along the way, we explore how Benthamite thinking and low taxation in the colonial era combined to create a voting system that is unique among English-speaking democracies.

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Richard Holden & Steven Hamilton — How Australia Gets It Done [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 19:30:00 +0000

This episode is the third of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Sydney on February 5, 2025.

We explore the concept of state capacity—the ability of governments to achieve their policy goals—and ask why Australia outperforms almost every other country in the world in this domain.

For the conversation, I'm joined by two of Australia's great public policy economists.

Richard Holden is professor of economics at UNSW Business School and president of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Steven Hamilton is assistant professor of economics at The George Washington University in Washington DC, and a former Australian Treasury official.

If you’d like to attend an upcoming salon, you can get tickets here.

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Andrew Leigh — Inequality and Egalitarianism [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:39:00 +0000

This episode is the second of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Sydney on January 29, 2025.

What is the relationship between economic equality and egalitarianism in the cultural sense? Where does Australia's egalitarian tradition come from? Are we too egalitarian? Is economic inequality increasing? What's been driving it? And does it even matter?

We sit down with Andrew Leigh to discuss these questions and more.

Dr. Andrew Leigh MP is Australia’s Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, and Treasury, and Assistant Minister for Employment. An economist by training, he was previously Professor of Economics at the Australian National University and earned his PhD from Harvard. The main theme of his academic research has been inequality.

If you’d like to attend an upcoming salon, you can get tickets here: https://josephnoelwalker.com/events/

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Abul Rizvi — Inside Immigration Policy [Aus. Policy Series - LIVE]

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 23:45:41 +0000

This episode is the first of my live policy salons. It was recorded in Melbourne on January 23, 2025.

In this salon, we go deep into Australia's immigration policy with Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. Abul managed Australia’s migration program from 1995 to 2007 and played a crucial role in the 2001 policy changes that massively increased the intake of skilled migrants—most notably by expanding pathways for overseas students.

If you’d like to attend an upcoming salon, you can get tickets here: https://josephnoelwalker.com/events/

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Behind the Scenes of My Interview Research Process — Andy Matuschak Crashes My Crib

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 02:53:54 +0000

This episode is a little different: I’m the one being interviewed—and my interlocutor is Andy Matuschak, an independent applied researcher focused on "tools for thought" (ways to augment human intelligence). Andy founded and led Khan Academy’s Research and Development Lab, and prior to that, he was a senior engineer at Apple where he helped build iOS. I first discovered Andy’s work in 2021, and it was a game changer for me and the podcast. We spoke on the show in 2022.

In 2024, I recorded some podcast interviews in the US, and had the pleasure of hanging out with Andy while I was in San Francisco.

In October, Andy dropped by my place in SF to go behind the scenes of my podcast research process and interview me while I prepared for a conversation with Larry Summers. This is an unvarnished, unfiltered look at my tech stack and how I prepare for my interviews. I'm very grateful to Andy for suggesting the idea and for so thoughtfully drawing out my current strategies, tactics and tools.

I support Andy's research. If you'd like to do so too, go here.

If you'd like to access my interview research notes for podcast interviews, you can support to access here.

Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTI69kKeaC4

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Eugene Fama — For Whom Is The Market Efficient?

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:22:56 +0000

Eugene Fama is a 2013 Nobel laureate in economic sciences, and is widely recognised as the "father of modern finance." He is currently the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago.

Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/eugene-fama-156/

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Richard Butler — Nuclear Diplomacy at the End of History

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 19:36:19 +0000

Richard Butler AC is a retired Australian diplomat. He served as Australia's first Ambassador for Disarmament (1983-1988), Australian Ambassador to the United Nations (1992-1997), and Chair of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (1997-1999). He also served as Chair of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Earlier in his career, he was Chief of Staff to Leader of the Opposition, and former Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam (1975-1977).

Butler played a crucial role in both the permanent extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995 and the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. His work helped establish the framework through which we still manage nuclear weapons risks today.

This is his first ever podcast interview.

Full transcript and research materials available here: https://josephnoelwalker.com/richard-butler-160/

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Larry Summers — AGI and the Next Industrial Revolution

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:58:52 +0000

Larry Summers is a former US Treasury Secretary (1999-2001), Chief Economist at the World Bank (1991-1993), and Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama (2009-2010). He also served as President of Harvard University (2001-2006).

Currently, he is the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University, and he sits on the board of directors at OpenAI, one of the fastest-growing companies in history.

Full transcript and video available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/larry-summers-159/

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Nassim Taleb — Meditations on Extremistan

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 23:49:03 +0000

Nassim Taleb is trader, researcher and essayist. He is the author of the Incerto, a multi-volume philosophical and practical meditation on uncertainty.

Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/nassim-taleb-158/

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Robert Boyd & Peter Richerson — How Ice Age Climate Chaos Made Humans Cultural Animals

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 21:52:10 +0000

Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson are anthropologists based in America. Their partnership was central to the development of Dual-Inheritance Theory, a framework that applies Darwinian evolution to culture and explains how genes and culture have intertwined to shape our species.

This is their first ever joint interview.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/boyd-and-richerson/

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Lucy Turnbull — Urbanism, YIMBYism, and Solutions to Australia's Housing Crisis (Bonus Live Episode)

Thu, 30 May 2024 21:20:12 +0000

Lucy Turnbull is an urbanist, businesswoman and philanthropist.

She was the first female Lord Mayor of Sydney, from 2003-4.

From 2015-20, she was the inaugural Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, tasked with delivering strategic planning for the whole of metropolitan Sydney.

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Bryan Caplan — The Economics of Housing Abundance

Mon, 13 May 2024 20:30:00 +0000

Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. A bestselling author, his books include The Case Against Education, Open Borders, and Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Deregulation.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/bryan-caplan-155

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2023 Retrospective — A Listener Interviews Me

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 17:00:00 +0000

In this special episode, the tables are turned as I'm interviewed by a listener of the show, DJ Thornton from Sydney. We reflect on the progress of the show in 2023, what I learned from this year's guests, and what's in store for 2024.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com

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David Deutsch & Steven Pinker (First Ever Public Dialogue) — AGI, P(Doom), & The Enemies of Progress

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 17:02:06 +0000

At a time when the Enlightenment is under attack from without and within, I bring together two of the most thoughtful defenders of progress and reason, for their first ever public dialogue.

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. I think of him as providing the strongest empirical defence of the Enlightenment (as seen in his book Enlightenment Now).

David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, and the father of quantum computing. I think of him as having produced the most compelling first principles defence of the Enlightenment (as seen in his book The Beginning of Infinity).

Full transcript available at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/153-deutsch-pinker-dialogue.

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Shruti Rajagopalan — On Spotting Talent, And Making Sense of Rising India

Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:29:49 +0000

Shruti Rajagopalan is an Indian-American economist. She leads the Indian political economy research program and Emergent Ventures India at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She also hosts the Ideas of India podcast.

Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com

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Raghuram Rajan — Debt, Monetary Policy, and Unintended Consequences

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 18:34:52 +0000

What were the deep causes of the global financial crisis and great recession? Has unconventional monetary policy in the wake of the crisis done more harm than good? And should monetary policy target financial stability?

I discuss these questions and more with Indian economist and Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Raghuram Rajan.

Raghuram Rajan was chief economist at the IMF from 2003 to 2006, and from 2013 to 2016 he was Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. As RBI Governor, he notably introduced India's inflation-targeting scheme, among many other achievements.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/151-raghuram-rajan

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Peter Singer — Moral Truths and Moral Secrets

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 20:59:48 +0000

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is widely regarded as the world's most influential living philosopher.

Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com

Episode recorded on 26 April 2023.

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Peter Turchin — Why Societies Fall Apart (And Why the US May Be Next)

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 20:30:00 +0000

Peter Turchin is a complexity scientist and one of the founders of cliodynamics — a new, cross-disciplinary field that applies mathematics and big data to test historical theories.

Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com.

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Stephen Wolfram — Constructing the Computational Paradigm

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 22:49:00 +0000

Stephen Wolfram is a physicist, computer scientist and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha, and the author of A New Kind of Science.

Full transcript available at: jnwpod.com.

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Katalin Karikó — Forging the mRNA Revolution

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 20:30:00 +0000

Katalin Karikó is a Hungarian-American biochemist. She is one of the inventors of mRNA technology.

Full transcript available at: thejspod.com.

Episode recorded on 15 February 2023.

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Richard Rhodes — The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Tue, 25 Jul 2023 20:30:00 +0000

Richard Rhodes is an American historian and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Full transcript available at: thejspod.com

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Ken Henry — An Economic Odyssey

Tue, 09 May 2023 21:09:30 +0000

Dr Ken Henry is an Australian economist who served as Secretary of Australia's Treasury from 2001 to 2011. He was instrumental in helping Australia avoid recession during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis — Australia was the only major advanced economy to do so.

Full transcript available at: thejspod.com

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Palmer Luckey — Science (Non)fiction

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 21:33:00 +0000

Palmer Luckey is an American tech entrepreneur and billionaire. He has founded two companies: Oculus VR (acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014), and Anduril (recently valued at $8.5 billion). He has been described as the real-life Tony Stark.

Full transcript available at: www.thejspod.com

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Daniel Kahneman — Dyads, And Other Mysteries

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 20:00:00 +0000

Daniel Kahneman is widely regarded as the most influential psychologist alive. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics (2002) for his work on judgment and decision-making under uncertainty, much of it done jointly with his late collaborator Amos Tversky. He is the author of the bestselling books Thinking, Fast and Slow and Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (written with Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein).

Full transcript available at: thejspod.com

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Talent Is That Which Is Scarce — Tyler Cowen

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 04:25:20 +0000

In the long run, talent allocation is almost everything. But as a society, we're not actually very good at it. The question of how to reliably match people with jobs they are well suited for is one of the big unsolved problems of our times.

Joe catches up with return guest Tyler Cowen to discuss the art of identifying talent. Tyler is a professor of economics at George Mason University and host of the podcast Conversations with Tyler. He is also the co-author of a new book, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World.

Full transcript available at: thejspod.com

Episode recorded: 18 May 2022.

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Intellectual Exoskeletons — Andy Matuschak

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 22:48:51 +0000

From language and writing to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, computers and Adobe Photoshop, our species has a history of inventing tools for augmenting our own intelligence. But what comes next?

Andy Matuschak is a developer and designer. He helped build iOS at Apple, founded and led Khan Academy's R&D lab, and now works as an independent researcher investigating 'tools for thought' — that is, technologies that can transform human cognition and creativity.

Full episode transcript available at: thejspod.com

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Rationality And Its Opposite — Steven Pinker

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 23:36:09 +0000

How rational are we? How can a species smart enough to set foot on the moon also be prone to conspiracy theories that the moon landing was fake? Joe speaks with Steven Pinker to discuss rationality — and its opposite.

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, an elected to the National Academy of Sciences and one of Time‘s 100 Most Influential People.

Full episode transcript available at: thejspod.com

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Against Bayesianism — David Deutsch

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 22:29:42 +0000

Bayesianism, the doctrine that it's always rational to represent our beliefs in terms of probabilities, dominates the intellectual world, from decision theory to the philosophy of science. But does it make sense to quantify our beliefs about such ineffable things as scientific theories or the future? And what separates empty prophecy from legitimate prediction?

David Deutsch is a British physicist at the University of Oxford, and is widely regarded as the father of quantum computing. He is the author of The Fabric of Reality (1997) and The Beginning of Infinity (2011).

Full episode transcript available at: thejspod.com

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The Lessons Of Afghanistan — William Dalrymple

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 23:33:24 +0000

William Dalrymple is an acclaimed historian and writer.

Show notes available at: josephnoelwalker.com/138-afghanistan

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The Race That Stopped The Nation — Richard Holden & Steven Hamilton

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:10:00 +0000

Richard Holden is Professor of Economics at UNSW. Steven Hamilton is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The George Washington University.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/holden-hamilton

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Ergodicity — Ole Peters

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 23:47:00 +0000

Ole Peters is a physicist and a Fellow at the London Mathematical Laboratory.

Show notes available at: josephnoelwalker.com/136-ergodicity

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The Tyranny Of Merit — Michael Sandel

Tue, 22 Jun 2021 20:30:00 +0000

Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University, where he is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory. His course “Justice” is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/michael-sandel

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The Spectre Of Havoc — Graham Allison

Mon, 14 Jun 2021 01:37:36 +0000

Graham Allison is an American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government Harvard University.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/graham-allison

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A General Theory Of Catastrophe — Niall Ferguson

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 20:30:00 +0000

Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of sixteen books, including most recently Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/niall-ferguson

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Policy In An Age Of Politics — John Hewson

Mon, 24 May 2021 08:33:00 +0000

John Hewson is a former Australian politician and was leader of the Liberal Party from 1990 to 1994.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/john-hewson

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A Practical Guide To Coping With Uncertainty — John Kay

Mon, 17 May 2021 09:36:00 +0000

John Kay is one of Britain's leading economists.

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Is Science Reaching Its Limits? — John Horgan

Mon, 10 May 2021 09:34:00 +0000

John Horgan is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He was senior writer at Scientific American from 1986-1997 and is the author of the bestselling book The End of Science.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/horgan

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Marvellous Melbourne And Australia's Darkest Depression — Graeme Davison

Tue, 04 May 2021 11:21:00 +0000

Graeme Davison is Australia's most eminent urban historian.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/graeme-davison

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A Forgotten Genius — Cheryl Misak

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 12:55:00 +0000

Cheryl Misak is a Canadian philosopher and the author of Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/misak

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Progress And Planet — Malcolm Turnbull

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 11:24:00 +0000

Malcolm Turnbull was the 29th Prime Minister of Australia.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/malcolm-turnbull

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The Craft Of Comedy And The Art Of A Lasting Partnership — Andy Lee

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 19:30:00 +0000

Andy Lee is one half of iconic Australian comedy duo Hamish & Andy.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/andy-lee

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The Reign Of Keynes, Part II — Lord Robert Skidelsky

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 05:11:00 +0000

Robert Skidelsky, FBA is a British economic historian. He is the author of a three-volume award-winning biography of British economist John Maynard Keynes.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/skidelsky

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Recollections Of A Wild Man In The Wings — Noam Chomsky

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 08:25:00 +0000

Noam Chomsky is the father of modern linguistics and one of the most cited scholars in modern history. He is also one of the most influential public intellectuals in the world, having written more than 150 books.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/chomsky

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There Is Such A Thing As Society — Sir Paul Collier

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 12:37:00 +0000

Sir Paul Collier is a British development economist. He is currently a professor of economics at the University of Oxford and was the Director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank between 1998 and 2003. Paul has authored numerous books, including The Bottom Billion, The Plundered Planet, and The Future of Capitalism. His latest book, co-authored with John Kay, is Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism.

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The Reign Of Keynes, Part I — Zach Carter

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 19:30:00 +0000

Zach Carter is a senior reporter at The Huffington Post and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/zach-carter

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The Doyen Of Behavioural Genetics On Untangling Nature And Nurture — Robert Plomin

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 21:28:00 +0000

Robert Plomin is one of the world's leading behavioural geneticists. He is currently MRC Research Professor in Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London.

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The Republic Is In Peril — Jack A. Goldstone

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 17:04:00 +0000

Jack A. Goldstone is an American sociologist and is widely regarded as one of the world's leading experts on the subject of revolutions.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/jack-goldstone

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Hard-Earned Lessons From A Maverick Who Made It — Mark Cuban

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 08:55:00 +0000

Mark Cuban is an American billionaire investor, entrepreneur and TV personality.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/mark-cuban

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The Wisdom Of Frank Wilczek

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 20:59:48 +0000

Frank Wilczek won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 and is considered one of the world’s most eminent theoretical physicists.

Full transcript available at: josephnoelwalker.com/frank-wilczek

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The Moral Causes And Consequences Of Economic Growth — Benjamin M. Friedman

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 19:30:00 +0000

Benjamin M. Friedman is widely recognised as one of the world's leading macroeconomists. He is currently the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University.

Read the full transcript at: josephnoelwalker.com/ben-friedman

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The Indiana Jones Of Anthropology On The Origins Of Western Psychology — Joe Henrich

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 21:01:00 +0000

Joe Henrich is Professor and Chair of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is the author of The Secret of Our Success and The Weirdest People in the World.

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Deaths Of Despair And The Future Of Capitalism — Angus Deaton

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 07:30:00 +0000

Sir Angus Deaton is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and coauthor of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.

Read the full transcript at: josephnoelwalker.com/deaton

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On Ayn Rand, Cooperation, And Successful Societies - David Sloan Wilson

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 04:40:00 +0000

David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist.

Read the full transcript at: https://josephnoelwalker.com/atlashugged

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What I Learned In 2020 - John Hempton

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 19:30:00 +0000

John Hempton is co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Bronte Capital.

Show notes

Selected links

Follow John: Blog | Twitter
'Approaches to Studying Policy Representation', paper by David Broockman
'Indebted Demand', paper by Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub and Amir Sufi

Topics discussed

Lessons from past market cycles. 4:51
Astarra-Trio. 10:43
Retail investors: Welcome to the party. 24:14
When John met Jim (Simons). 28:13
Can you predict market tops? 33:00
Are there any good reasons for believing this time really is different? 40:37
The Dunning-Kruger effect is everywhere. 52:18
A behavioural model of the coronavirus. 55:45
The illusion of the political centre. 1:10:19
How inequality may be distorting monetary policy, and vice versa. 1:23:00
SPAC attack. 1:26:03
The puzzle of Middleby. 1:31:15
Bull masturbating. 1:33:01
2020: a year of puzzles. 1:42:30

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Rational Minds Part 5: Heuristics Make Us Smart - Gerd Gigerenzer

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 06:47:00 +0000

Gerd Gigerenzer is a German psychologist and director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

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Rational Minds Part 4: The Blind Leading The Blind - David Hirshleifer

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 02:46:10 +0000

David Hirshleifer is a professor of finance and currently holds the Merage chair in Business Growth at the University of California.

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Rational Minds Part 3: Rethinking Bubbles - Vernon Smith

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 01:14:08 +0000

Vernon Smith won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. This is his second appearance on the show.

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Rational Minds Part 2: The Myth Of Tulip Mania - Anne Goldgar

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 04:09:26 +0000

Anne Goldgar is an historian and holds the Van Hunnick Chair in European History at the University of Southern California Dornsife.

Show notes

Selected links

Follow Anne: Website | Twitter
Tulipmania: Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden, by Anne Goldgar

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Rational Minds Part 1: A Nation Of Gamblers - Ed Glaeser

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 12:25:38 +0000

Ed Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

Show notes

Selected links

Follow Ed: Website
'A Nation Of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation And American History', 2013 Ely Lecture by Ed Glaeser
One Hundred Years Of Land Values In Chicago, by Homer Hoyt
The Land Boomers, by Michael Cannon
'25 years of housing trends' report by Aussie Home Loans

Topics discussed

A potted history of real estate speculation in the United States. 8:51
How would Ed describe the Great Convulsion of the 2000s to an alien observer? 13:40
Why is real estate well-suited to being a speculative asset? 16:04
If speculators aren't crazy, what are they? 17:00
Was the Great Convulsion primarily driven by credit availability? 20:44
What would a good Bayesian have thought in response to the 2000s housing market in the US? 22:23
Radical uncertainty and its implications for rationality in the context of housing markets. 24:06
Are extrapolative beliefs rational? 26:22
Are housing bubbles irrational? 29:51

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The Roaring Twenties And The Birth Of Consumer Credit - Martha Olney

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 07:14:54 +0000

Martha Olney is an economist and Teaching Professor in Berkeley's Economics Department.

Show notes

Selected links

Follow Martha: Website | Twitter
Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s, by Martha Olney
Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression, by Peter Temin
Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920 – 1940, by Roland Marchand
Traitor to his Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by H. W. Brands
'The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis', paper by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi

Topics discussed

How did Martha become interested in the history of consumer credit? 3:28
The birth of consumer credit. 6:54
How consumer credit companies and advertisers midwifed a change in cultural attitudes regarding borrowing. 16:41
What is the relationship between the increase in inequality and the rise in consumer credit during the 1920s? 31:34
Political elites in the Great Depression versus the Great Recession. 47:35
How did studying the 1920s prepare Martha for the Great Recession? 54:58
If private debt is capitalism's Achilles Heel, what should we do about it? 57:54

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Despair And Indignation Among The American White Working Class - Arlie Hochschild

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 06:16:27 +0000

Arlie Hochschild is one of the most influential sociologists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Show notes

Selected links

Follow Arlie: Website
Strangers In Their Own Land, by Arlie Hochschild
Power, Politics, and People, by C. Wright Mills
'Ayn Rand and Modern Politics', article by David Sloan Wilson
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, by Anne Case & Angus Deaton

Topics discussed

Arlie's childhood spread across the world. 5:08
How did C. Wright Mills influence Arlie? 8:34
Was sociology an easy career decision for Arlie? 11:20
When did Arlie decide she needed to write Strangers In Their Own Land? 12:54
Why is the Tea Party strongest in the southern states? 16:47
Why does the Tea Party love the atheist Ayn Rand? 25:14
What are 'deep stories'? 34:55
Taking the right's needs seriously. 42:07
Trump's power as an orator. 55:04
If the liberal elite failed to understand the white working class, how did a real estate magnate from Manhattan grock them so quickly? 1:03:10
Trump won 10.1 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016. What does that say about America today? 1:04:57
How can we learn to be more empathetic? 1:06:45

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Back To The Future - Tyler Cowen

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 04:05:00 +0000

Tyler Cowen is an economist and public intellectual par excellence.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Tyler: Website | Twitter | Podcast | Blog
•Stubborn Attachments, by Tyler Cowen
•Ideal Code, Real World, by Brad Hooker
•Utilitarianism and Co-operation, by Donald Regan
•Peter Thiel interview, Conversations with Tyler
•The Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen
•The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, by Benjamin Friedman
•Fully Growth, by Dietrich Vollrath
•'The Nobel Prize Isn't What It Used To Be', Bloomberg article by Tyler Cowen
•'Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2020'
•Superintelligence, by Nick Bostrom
•A Tract on Monetary Reform, by John Maynard Keynes
•Indian Currency and Finance, by John Maynard Keynes
•Individualism and Economic Order, by Friedrich Hayek
•The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by Robert Gordon

Topics discussed

•If God is dead, life is absurd and there are no rules, why shouldn't we just commit suicide?
•Why should we care about the distant future?
•Does rule utilitarianism collapse into act utilitarianism?
•How can we make decisions at all without succumbing to moral paralysis and total uncertainty?
•Why isn't the epistemic critique fatal to consequentialism?
•Why didn't Tyler donate the proceeds of Stubborn Attachments to an effective charity?
•What is the Great Stagnation?
•Why was 1973 the breakpoint in western productivity growth?
•Is the Great Stagnation overdetermined?
•What metric would Tyler look at to determine whether the Great Stagnation had ended?
•When did Tyler first become cognisant of the...

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A Labor Intellectual's Plan To Rebraid Our Frayed Social Fabric - Andrew Leigh

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Dr Andrew Leigh MP is an economist and Federal Labor parliamentarian.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Andrew: Website | Twitter
•Reconnected, by Andrew Leigh and Nick Terrell
•Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
•Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam
•Disconnected, by Andrew Leigh

Topics discussed

•What has Andrew's experience of the pandemic been like? 7:54
•Andrew's vision for Australian society. 9:40
•What was it like to work under Robert Putnam? 12:27
•What are some of the big lessons Andrew learned from Putnam? 15:00
•What is Andrew's research system? 17:43
•What is 'social capital'? 18:12
•What is the story of the decline of social capital in Australia? 19:24
•Pushing back on the idea of social capital. 21:17
•Andrew's favourite examples of social entrepreneurship in Australia. 29:00
•Has the net effect of the digital world been to connect or disconnect us? 31:38
•Why are some organisations better at building social capital than others? 35:07
•How does Andrew think about religion? 36:40
•How can we increase social capital by using systems or design thinking? 41:37
•What impactful community organisation is no one building? 44:05

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Frauds And Visionaries - Bethany McLean

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 12:19:00 +0000

Bethany McLean is an investigative journalist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Bethany: Website | Twitter
•The Smartest Guys in the Room, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
•'Is Enron Overpriced?', Bethany's March 5, 2001, article for Fortune
•'What Caused Enron?: A Capsule Social and Economic History of the 1990's', article by John Coffee
•Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou
•The Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse, by Marriane Jennings
•Spy The Lie, by Philip Houston, Michael Floyd and Don Tennant
•Saudi America, by Bethany McLean
•The Undoing Project, by Michael Lewis

Topics discussed

•How did Bethany become a journalist? 4:13
•How did Enron come to be Enron? 6:30
•How did Bethany see through Enron when most others were beguiled by it? 8:33
•What was the reaction to Bethany's original article expressing skepticism about Enron? 11:35
•Why was Enron an example of 'legal fraud'? 13:34
•How to spot the "dogs" dressed up as "ducks". 16:20
•What were the ultimate causes of Enron's collapse? 19:43
•How did so many smart people at Enron become so corrupted? 30:06
•Bethany's book recommendations. 32:42
•The fine line between frauds and visionaries. 34:56
•Self-deception. 41:56
•If Elizabeth Holmes succeeded, would the end have justified her means? 45:23
•Elon Musk. 46:54
•The truth about fracking. 55:14
•How does Bethany stay organised as a journalist? 57:17
•How does Bethany put questions to her sources? 58:36
•Balancing accuracy with narrative flair. 59:35
•Which factors help Bethany decide which facts to include in a story and which to omit from it? 1:05:40
•How to construct an effective narrative. 1:11:46
•What business model could scale up investigative journalism? 1:17:54
•How does democracy survive the eroding of journalism's traditional business model? 1:24:04

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The Rise And Fall Of Monetary Policy - Ian Macfarlane

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 19:30:00 +0000

Ian Macfarlane was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1996 to 2006.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Ian: Website
•The Deficit Myth, by Stephanie Kelton
•Macroeconomics, by William Mitchell, L. Randall Ray and Martin Watts
•'Indebted Demand', paper by Atif Mian, Ludwig Straub and Amir Sufi

Topics discussed

•Monetary policy. 4:44
•Modern Monetary Theory. 42:07
•Secular Stagnation and Indebted Demand. 1:11:10

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An Ode To The Uncorrelated Thinker - Eric Weinstein

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 02:10:00 +0000

Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and the Managing Director of Thiel Capital.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Eric: Website | Twitter
•The Three Languages of Politics, by Arnold Kling
•'Opinions and Social Pressure', paper by Solomon Asch

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Housing Bubble Week Epilogue: Not All Bubbles Are Created Equal - Vernon Smith

Sun, 27 Sep 2020 03:02:00 +0000

Vernon Smith won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002. Show notes Selected links •Follow Vernon: Website •Rethinking Housing Bubbles, by Vernon Smith and Steven Gjerstad •'Debt Deflation: Theory and Evidence', address by Mervyn King •'Is the 2007 US Sub-Prime Financial Crisis So Different? An International •Historical Comparison', paper by Rogoff and Reinhart •'Global Household Leverage, House Prices, and Consumption', FRBSF Economic Letter by Reuven Glick and Kevin Lansing •'Dealing With Household Debt', chapter by the IMF •'The great mortgaging: housing finance, crises and business cycles', paper by Jorda, Schularick and Taylor •'Leveraged bubbles', paper by Jorda, Schularick and Taylor •'Housing and the Economy', 2019 speech by Guy Debelle •'Bubbles, Crashes, and Endogenous Expectations in Experimental Spot Asset Markets', paper by Vernon Smith, Gerry Suchanek and Arlington Williams •A Life of Experimental Economics, Volume I, by Vernon Smith •The example scenario of pessimists and optimists buying 100 identical houses is from House of Debt, by Amir Sufi and Atif Mian •'The Leverage Cycle', paper by John Geanakoplos •'Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment', paper by Brad Barber and Terry Odean •The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki •'The Clinton Housing Bubble', WSJ article by Vernon Smith •''We're heartbroken': home in same family for 93 years passes in', 2018 The Daily Telegraph article •'Why are we so worried about household debt?',

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The Meaning Of Human Existence, And The Search For Alien Life - Avi Loeb

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 21:10:00 +0000

Avi Loeb is Chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Avi: Website
•The Myth Of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus
•The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn
•'The End of Spacetime', public lecture by Nima Arkani-Hamed
•Rendezvouz With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
•'Glowing Auras and "Black Money": The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program', NYT article (16/12/17)
•'2 Navy Airmen and an Object That "Accelerated Like Nothing I've Ever Seen", NYT article (16/12/17)

Topics discussed

•Avi's childhood growing up on a farm in Israel, and journey into academia. 5:16
•Avi's romance with philosophy, Satre, and Camus. 10:11
•When in their careers should scientists court risk? 15:24
•Albert Camus and The Myth Of Sisyphus. 21:10
•How does alien intelligence change the meaning of human existence? 24:50
•If there was no other intelligent life in the universe, would that make a god more likely? 34:51
•How far off is technology for 3D printing of...humans? 40:49
•What are the a priori odds of other intelligent life in the universe -- and how do we calculate them? 42:49
•Why is it so quiet out there? 47:25
•Space archaeology. 52:33
•Is space-time a doomed concept? 1:04:14
•How do we verify what happens beyond the event horizon of a black hole? 1:12:08
•The multiverse: bullshit or not? 1:17:25
•What could spacefaring aliens teach us about physics? 1:30:00
•'Oumuamua -- a possible interstellar spacecraft lurking in our solar system. 1:31:45
•The Pentagon UFO releases. 1:43:47
•Hostile aliens. 1:46:00
•The advantages of generalism. 1:54:43
•The meaning of life (42). 2:01:21

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Of Viruses And Vaccines - Peter Doherty

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 20:30:00 +0000

Peter Doherty is an immunologist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Peter: Website | Twitter
•'I'm 79, I won the Nobel Prize and I don't give a s---', AFR profile of Peter Doherty
•Pandemics: What Everyone Needs To Know, by Peter Doherty
•The (in)famous Imperial College paper

Topics discussed

•Has Peter always not given a shit? 7:32
•Peter's odd high school experience. 9:00
•How the media report on science. 12:30
•What is the difference between a virus and a bacterium? 15:08
•How does a new coronavirus come into existence? 17:47
•What is Peter's area of expertise and what does he know about pandemics? 22:57
•What has the coronavirus pandemic taught us about the usefulness of epidemiological models? 25:20
•The politicization of lockdowns. 35:57
•The origins of America and Australia's cultural differences. 47:33
•Social media and political polarisation. 57:05
•In weathering the pandemic relatively well, was Australia lucky or were the epidemiological models too pessimistic? 59:56
•Can we just lockdown the vulnerable segment of the population, rather than the whole population? 1:03:52
•Is Peter optimistic about keeping a lid on the virus until a vaccine arrives? 1:08:25
•What do governments need to learn from the pandemic to be better prepared for the next one? 1:16:00

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The Housing Supply Myth - Cameron Murray & Ian Mulheirn

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Cameron Murray is a Research Fellow at the University of Sydney's Henry Halloran Trust. Ian Mulheirn is Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Tony Blair Institute.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Cameron Murray: Website | Twitter
•Follow Ian Mulheirn: Website | Twitter
•Tackling the UK housing crisis: is supply the answer?', 2019 report by Ian Mulheirn
•'Innovative Approaches to Reducing the Costs of Home Ownership', 2003 report by Joye and Caplin
•'The Australian Housing Supply Myth', 2019 paper by Cameron Murray
•'The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply', paper by Albert Saiz

Topics discussed

•Why isn't a lack of supply the primary cause of high house prices? 14:40
•The role of interest rates. 18:46
•The tangled web of causality behind house prices. 36:42
•Narratives in housing markets: are they exogenous shocks or post hoc rationalisations? 41:40
•Where did the housing supply narrative come from? 46:41
•How would the UK government prop up its housing market if fundamentals deteriorated? 1:04:52
•Arguments in support of the housing supply myth. 1:05:48
•What makes for an intellectually defensible forecast of house prices? 1:29:17

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Inside Humanity's Infinite Improbability Drive - Matt Ridley

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 20:35:00 +0000

Matt Ridley is an author, journalist, biologist, and businessman. His books have sold over a million copies.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Matt Ridley: Website | Twitter
•How Innovation Works, by Matt Ridley
•The Origins of Virtue, by Matt Ridley
•Zero to One, by Peter Thiel
•Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin
•The Innovator's Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
•'The Use of Knowledge in Society', essay by Friedrich Hayek
•Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou
•The Great Stagnation, by Tyler Cowen
•The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by Robert Gordon

Topics discussed

•When did Matt first come to understand the disturbing notion of selfish gene theory? 8:55
•How did Matt, a biologist, become so interested in innovation? 16:20
•The infinite improbability drive. 20:30
•What's the difference between innovation and invention? 24:05
•What do most people (wrongly) believe about how innovation works? 25:48
•Why innovation relies on collaboration. 33:53
•Innovation is the child of freedom. But what amount or types of freedom are sufficient to underpin innovation? 40:35
•Why does innovation thrive in fragmented political systems? 46:39
•Does unfettered economic freedom tend irresistibly towards monopolies? 50:37
•Antitrust enforcement: have we been doing enough? 1:02:44
•The relationship between uncertainty and innovation. 1:05:58
•Frauds and visionaries. 1:14:20
•Uncertainty and economics. 1:15:26
•Are we in the midst of a Great Stagnation? 1:26:40
•Can we escape stagnation? 1:40:30

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Radical Uncertainty - Mervyn King

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 04:53:00 +0000

Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Mervyn King: Website
•Radical Uncertainty, by Mervyn King and John Kay
•The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by John Maynard Keynes
•'Debt deflation: Theory and evidence', paper by Mervyn King
•The End of Alchemy, by Mervyn King
•Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, by Don Watson
•The Poverty of Historicism, by Karl Popper
•Obliquity, by John Kay
•'Truth and Probability', essay by Frank Ramsey
•Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers, by Cheryl Misak

Topics discussed

•Why did Mervyn choose to study economics at Cambridge? 11:06
•Keynes' General Theory. 17:41
•Debt-deflation. 23:58
•When Mervyn met Ben. 29:20
•Was Mervyn caught off guard by the Global Financial Crisis? 31:40
•Does stability lead to instability? 38:18
•The stability heuristic. 41:43
•What is radical uncertainty? 49:54
•How technology creates radical uncertainty. 1:04:57
•Why has the economics profession overlooked radical uncertainty -- and when did this blindspot begin? 1:13:10
•Narratives. 1:25:18
•What does it mean to be rational? 1:31:21
•Speculative bubbles. 1:40:25

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The Doyen Of Economics Podcasting On Death, Lockdown, And The Art Of Socratic Dialogue - Russ Roberts

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 03:30:00 +0000

Russ Roberts is an economist and the host of EconTalk.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Russ Roberts: Website | Twitter
•EconTalk
•Macroeconomic Patterns and Stories, by Ed Leamer
•Fooled By Randomness, by Nassim Taleb
•Systemic Risk of Pandemic Via Novel Pathogens -- Coronavirus', paper by Joe Norman, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Nassim Taleb
•'To philosophize is to learn how to die', essay by Montaigne
•How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, by Russ Roberts

Topics discussed

•When and how did EconTalk begin? 8:55
•Has interviewing over 750 people made Russ a better or more effective person? 13:59
•How to really understand an idea. 32:00
•What has Russ learned from Nassim Taleb? 35:43
•The Precautionary Principle. 42:03
•The lockdown dilemma. 48:38
•The Precautionary Principle again. 1:11:52
•Is Russ afraid of death? 1:18:49
•What has Russ done to improve his craft as an interviewer? 1:27:18
•Where was Russ born and what did his parents do? 1:48:21
•Why did Russ study economics? 1:49:52
•Narrative economics. 1:51:13
•Who are the most important economists for non-economists to know? 1:57:12
•How does Russ think about what he does? 2:02:31
•Vipassana meditation. 2:06:26
•When would Russ recommend economics as an undergraduate degree? 2:17:18
•Adam Smith's distinction between being loved and being lovely. 2:21:14

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The Life and Times of a Thoroughly liberal Prime Minister - Malcolm Turnbull

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 03:01:00 +0000

Malcolm Turnbull was Australia's 29th Prime Minister.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Malcolm Turnbull: Website | Twitter
•A Bigger Picture, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Malcolm's speech at the 2010 Deakin Lectures
•Malcolm's speech at the 2010 BZE Stationary Energy Plan launch
•'Condolence on the Death of Robert Hughes', 2012 speech by Malcolm Turnbull
•Malcolm's 2015 speech challenging Tony Abbott's leadership
•The Fiery Chariot, by Lucille Iremonger
•Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke
•The Case for Conservatism, by Quintin Hogg
•The Reluctant Republic, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Fighting For the Republic, by Malcolm Turnbull
•Constitutional Advancement in a Frozen Continent: Essays in honour of George Winterton
•'An Alternative Republic Proposal', Anne Twomey's 2015 article in the ALJ
•Skin in the Game, by Nassim Taleb
•Antifragile, by Nassim Taleb

Topics discussed

•Which of Malcolm's speeches is he most proud of? 9:52
•Malcolm's childhood. 12:51
•Burkean Conservatism. 20:20
•How do governments know when they're reforming too quickly or too slowly? 26:11
•Resolving the core tension in the Australian Republican Movement. 42:59
•Same-sex marriage. 48:48
•The Minority Rule. 52:19
•Is the Liberal Party philosophically tenable? 59:35
•How does Malcolm assess prospective tech investments? 1:04:24
•Malcolm's intellectual shift on China. 1:07:19
•Malcolm's struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts. 1:11:42
•Antifragility. 1:15:48

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How To Put The Economy Into A Coma - Chris Edmond & Steve Hamilton

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 22:42:00 +0000

Chris Edmond and Steve Hamilton are Australian economists.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Chris Edmond: Website | Twitter
•Follow Steve Hamilton: Website | Twitter
•'A Rush Back to 'Normal' Would Be the Blunder of the Century', WIRED's interview of Larry Summers
•'Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand', Imperial College London paper by Neil Ferguson et al
•'How the recession we have to have can be sharp but short', The Australian Financial Review article by Steve Hamilton and Stan Veuger
•'Coronavirus: payroll subsidy will save the economy', The Australian article by Chris Edmond and Bruce Preston

Topics discussed

•What happens to an economy when non-essential workers are told to stay home? 9:22
•The false choice between health and economic outcomes. 20:53
•How long do lockdowns need to last? 36:39
•Are Australia's lockdowns hard enough? 43:46
•What does pandemic-appropriate fiscal stimulus look like? 46:29
•Is this the end of surplus fetishism? 59:45
•JobKeeper. 1:06:44
•Will Australia see further rounds of stimulus? 1:19:21
•Is the financial economy healthy? 1:22:33
•Which one piece of advice would Steve and Chris give to the Australian Government? 1:26:26

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The Price Of Uncertainty - Chris Joye

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 23:04:00 +0000

Chris Joye is Founder and Co-Chief Investments Officer at Coolabah Capital Investments. He is also a Contributing Editor with The...

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How An Italian Town Conquered Coronavirus - Andrea Crisanti

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 06:49:00 +0000

Andrea Crisanti is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Padua. He is part of the research team that eradicated coronavirus in Vo, a town in northern Italy.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Andrea: Website
•Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus dashboard
•Data on testing by country
•Marc Lipsitch's 18 March STAT article

Topics discussed

•The Italian crisis. 8:22
•Why has Lombardy become an epicentre of coronavirus? 9:50
•How does the situation in Veneto compare to that in Lombardy? 11:06
•How did Andrea become involved in the Vo experiment? 11:51
•What is the process for identifying infection people in Veneto? 17:20
•What is the R0 for asymptomatic people? 20:25
•What is the strategy employed at Vo? 24:32
•Is there still time for Australia and the US to implement the strategy used at Vo? 25:21
•Does the Vo strategy need to be implemented in full in order to be successful? 28:05
•Why have some Asian countries been better at controlling the virus than Western countries? 28:47
•Is the Vo strategy scalable? 29:43
•How should we think about the prospects of future waves of the virus? 30:34

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A (New) Darwinian Left - Peter Singer (Live in Melbourne)

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 08:05:00 +0000

Peter Singer is the world's most influential living philosopher.

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In The Foothills Of A Pandemic - Yaneer Bar-Yam

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 06:54:00 +0000

Yaneer Bar-Yam is a physicist and the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Yaneer: Website | Twitter
•Endcoronavirus.org
•Dynamics of Complex Systems, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•Making Things Work, by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)', research by Max Roser and Hannah Ritchie
•Powers of Ten YouTube video
•'An Introduction to Complex Systems Science and Its Applications', 2019 paper by Alexander Siegenfeld and Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'The Architecture of Complexity', 1962 paper by Herbert Simon
•'Science and Complexity', 1948 paper by Warren Weaver
•'More is Different', 1972 paper by Phil Anderson
•Scale, by Geoffrey West
•Johns Hopkins University coronavirus interactive map
•'Systemic Risk of Pandemic via Novel Pathogens -- Coronavirus: Note', January 2020 note by Nassim Taleb, Yaneer Bar-Yam, and Joe Norman
•The Square And The Tower, by Niall Ferguson
•'Long-range interaction and evolutionary stability in a predator-prey system', 2006 paper by Erik Rauch and Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Transition to Extinction', 2016 article by Yaneer Bar-Yam
•'Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities During the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic', 2007 paper by Howard Markel et al
•'Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic', 2006 paper by Neil Ferguson et al
•Join the fellowship of the doers: necsivolunteers@gmail.com

Topics discussed

•Yaneer's background and parents. 11:39
•Powers of Ten. 12:06
•Highlights from Yaneer's time as an MIT student. 15:29
•The role of chance in our lives. 21:28
•What is "complexity"? 25:42
•Complex systems. 30:23
•Emergence. 37:06
•Phase transitions. 44:26
•Self-organization. 49:48
•Universality. 55:12
•Applying complex systems science to the Arab Spring. 1:03:13
•Taking stock of the coronavirus epidemic. 1:12:47
•What is the current best estimate for th...

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Coronavirus, Covert Influence, And Cold War II - Kevin Rudd

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

Kevin Rudd was Australia's 26th Prime Minister and is the President of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow Kevin: Website | Twitter
•Mike Pence's Hudson Institute Speech (October 4, 2018)
•'The Sources of Soviet Conduct', 1947 article by "X" (George Kennan)
•Henry Kissinger's talk at Bloomberg's New Economy Forum (November 21, 2019)
•'Chinese Communist Party Influence at Australian Universities', lecture by Clive Hamilton
•'High Tide? Populism in Power, 1990 - 2020', report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
•'Going to Extremes: Politics after Financial Crises, 1870 - 2014', paper by Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick, and Christoph Trebesch
•'The Complacent Country', article by Kevin Rudd

Topics discussed

•Wuhan. 3:56
•What has the coronavirus revealed about the limits of the CCP's competence? 4:30
•Is the CCP underreporting coronavirus figures, as it did for SARS figures in 2003? 6:57
•Are China and the US in a new cold war? 8:44
•Would a new cold war have any hidden upsides? 11:56
•Chinese influence in Australian universities. 13:51
•How should Australia deal with Chinese influence? 17:58
•Cross-cultural communication between China and the West. 23:40
•How does the Left reformulate itself in the face of electoral defeats around the world? 27:51

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The Evolution Of A Renegade - David Sloan Wilson

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 20:00:00 +0000

David Sloan Wilson is an evolutionary biologist.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Freelancer.com and by Blinkist. You can find the Blinkist deal exclusive to listeners of this podcast at www.blinkist.com/swagman.

Show notes
Selected links

•Follow David: Website | Twitter
•The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
•River Out Of Eden, by Richard Dawkins
•The Descent Of Man, by Charles Darwin
•Animal Dispersion In Relation To Social Behavior, by Vero Wynne-Edwards
•Adaptation And Natural Selection, by George C Williams
•'Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences', 1994 paper by David Sloan Wilson & Eliot Sober
•The Meaning Of Human Existence, by E O Wilson
•'Gender and Politics Among Anthropologists in the Units of Selection Debate', 2014 survey by Yaworsky, Horowitz & Kickham
•The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson
•Sociobiology, by E O Wilson
•Governing The Commons, by Elinor Ostrom
•Animal Species And Evolution, by Ernst Mayr
•Simpson's paradox
•'The False Allure of Group Selection', Steven Pinker's Edge.org article
•'Understanding and Sharing Intentions: The Origins of Cultural Cognition', 2005 article by Mike Tomasello et al
•Dave's conversation with Jonathan Birch
•Darwin's Cathedral, by David Sloan...

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The Intellectual Wild South - Eric Weinstein

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 21:49:00 +0000

Eric Weinstein is a mathematician and the Managing Director of Thiel Capital.

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The Silent Hero Of The Australian Economy - Ian Macfarlane

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 20:09:00 +0000

Ian Macfarlane was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia from 1996 to 2006. He is the author of The Search For Stability and Ten...

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The Modern Empiricist Proving Old Wisdom On Household Debt And Recession - Amir Sufi

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 23:16:00 +0000

Amir Sufi is the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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How To Build A Future More Like Star Trek Than Terminator - Andrew Leigh

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 01:46:00 +0000

Dr Andrew Leigh MP is a member of the Australian federal parliament. He is currently Labor's Shadow Assistant...

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The Untold Tale Of How One Ruthless Company Subjugated A Subcontinent - William Dalrymple

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 21:27:00 +0000

William Dalrymple is an acclaimed historian and travel writer. He lives nine months of the year on a...

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On Radical Uncertainty, "Phantastic Objects", And Blowing Bubbles - David Tuckett

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 23:12:00 +0000

David Tuckett is a psychoanalyst, Professor, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty at...

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Lifting The Veil On Sydney's Crime And Skulduggery - Kate McClymont

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 20:56:00 +0000

Kate McClymont is Australia's most awarded journalist. An investigative reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald, she is famous...

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Markets And The Madness Of Crowds - Robert Shiller

Sat, 07 Sep 2019 07:53:00 +0000

Robert J. Shiller is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and one of the 2013 recipients of...

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The Dogged Journalist Who (May Have) Pricked A Property Bubble - Adele Ferguson

Fri, 09 Aug 2019 23:29:00 +0000

Adele Ferguson is an award-winning investigative journalist best known for her work exposing misconduct and fraud in the...

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The World According To A Maverick, Beach-Biding Stock Picker - John Hempton

Mon, 08 Jul 2019 14:30:00 +0000

John Hempton is a renowned short seller and the Founder and Chief Investment Officer at Australian-based hedge fund...

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Xi Loves Us, Xi Loves Us Not? - Kevin Rudd

Fri, 14 Jun 2019 12:25:00 +0000

This is an episode about a rising superpower (China) and its ruler (Xi Jinping). It's also a conversation...

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Housing Bubble Week Finale: It's The Housing Cycle, Stupid! - Ed Leamer

Thu, 23 May 2019 11:58:00 +0000

This episode is about why housing busts cause recessions. Few understand their nexus better than Ed Leamer. Ed...

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Housing Bubble Week: Getting Things Done In Western Sydney - John Hempton

Mon, 20 May 2019 14:50:00 +0000

The logic is inevitable: credit is as much a feature of housing bubbles as the moon is of...

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Housing Bubble Week: A Philosophy Of Bubbles - Timo Henckel

Sun, 19 May 2019 12:43:00 +0000

Bubbles are everywhere today — or so we're told. But what are they really? I speak with behavioural...

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Housing Bubble Week: Speculation And Unchartered Waters - Chris Joye

Thu, 16 May 2019 14:52:00 +0000

Chris Joye manages $3 billion as the Co-Chief Investment Officer at Australian fixed-income manager Coolabah Capital Investments, and...

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Housing Bubble Week: Housing Bubbles As Availability Cascades - Timur Kuran

Wed, 15 May 2019 23:16:00 +0000

Timur Kuran is a Turkish American economist.

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Housing Bubble Week: Lessons From Amsterdam's 'Gentlemen's Canal' - Piet Eichholtz

Tue, 14 May 2019 23:50:00 +0000

We all know that real estate is the best long-term investment for capital gains...

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Housing Bubble Week: Can We Predict Housing Bubbles? - Dean Baker

Mon, 13 May 2019 21:50:00 +0000

I speak with Dean Baker, US economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research...

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'Housing Bubble Week' & Joe's Speech To Mensa

Sun, 12 May 2019 19:28:00 +0000

I announce 'Housing Bubble Week' and share a speech I gave in Sydney in September 2018.

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Doing Good Better - Will MacAskill

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 19:49:00 +0000

Will MacAskill is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Oxford.

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The Evolution Of Bret Weinstein

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 09:42:00 +0000

Bret Weinstein came to public prominence as the professor at the centre of the 2017 Evergreen State College...

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The Three Big Lies Poisoning Young Minds - Jonathan Haidt

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 20:21:00 +0000

This is a conversation with renowned moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt.

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On Recessions - Andrew Charlton

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 20:25:00 +0000

Andrew Charlton is a Rhodes Scholar, economist, author and former prime ministerial adviser.

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Elephants In The Room - Jonathan Tepper

Mon, 03 Dec 2018 20:28:00 +0000

Which US and Australian industries are the most concentrated? How did Standard Oil inspire the Nazis? Why are...

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When The Sky Fell In - Kevin Rudd

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 20:33:00 +0000

Joe speaks with the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd. Kevin led Australia from December 2007 to...

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The Man Who Defied Europe - Yanis Varoufakis

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 20:40:00 +0000

Joe speaks with former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, the man who defied Europe to save Greece -...

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Where Venture Capital Meets Social Purpose - May Samali

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 18:15:00 +0000

Critical technological and societal changes of the last century have been spearheaded by entrepreneurs and the investors who...

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A Short Story Of Everything - David Christian

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 18:17:00 +0000

The universe is 13.8 billion years old and humans have existed for only 200,000 years. If that time...

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The Art/Science Of A High Impact Career - Rob Wiblin

Sat, 02 Jun 2018 18:20:00 +0000

Most people want to help others with their career, but what's the best way to do that? Become...

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The Brave Cookie Monster - Brendan Eich

Tue, 29 May 2018 18:22:00 +0000

Brendan Eich is widely regarded as a 'Father of the Web'. He is the creator of JavaScript and...

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The Legendary, Fraud-Sniffing Short Seller - Marc Cohodes

Thu, 24 May 2018 18:25:00 +0000

For thirty-seven years, Marc Cohodes has bet big money against bad companies. Due to his success, he is...

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My Friend Richard, And Theories Of The Universe - Leonard Susskind

Thu, 17 May 2018 18:27:00 +0000

Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch professor of Theoretical physics at Stanford University. He is widely regarded as...

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The Shape Of Probability - Harry Crane

Mon, 14 May 2018 18:29:00 +0000

Harry Crane is a scholar who specialises in statistics and probability. He is currently a professor of statistics...

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How Peter Thiel Destroyed Gawker - Ryan Holiday

Thu, 03 May 2018 18:30:00 +0000

In 2016, a Florida court delivered an astounding $140 million verdict against Gawker media for publishing a sex...

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