Rationally Speaking Podcast
Rationally Speaking is the bi-weekly podcast of New York City Skeptics. Join host Julia Galef and guests as they explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense, likely from unlikely, and science from pseudoscience. Any topic is fair game as long as we can bring reason to bear upon it, with both
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Science
Society & Culture
Philosophy
Is cash the best way to help the poor? (Michael Faye)
The idea of giving poor people cash, no strings atta...
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Dec 23 2021 52m
Chapter 1 8 mins
Give DirectlyChapter 2 4 mins
Pros and Cons of Giving CashChapter 3 11 mins
Why Cash?Chapter 4 10 mins
Direct Cash Aid to the Extremely PoorChapter 5 3 mins
Positive and Negative Effects of Cash TransfersChapter 6 9 mins
Cash Transfers for Poverty AlleviationChapter 7 3 mins
Giving Cash to Combat Poverty
Humanity on the precipice (Toby Ord)
Humanity could thrive for millions of years -- unle...
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Dec 10 2021 1h 8m
Chapter 1 10 mins
The Effective Altruism MovementChapter 2 13 mins
Existential ThreatsChapter 3 4 mins
The Risks of Artificial IntelligenceChapter 4 8 mins
Risks of Artificial IntelligenceChapter 5 7 mins
Existential Risk EstimationChapter 6 8 mins
Near Misses to Estimate Existential RiskChapter 7 12 mins
The Importance of Long-Term ThinkingChapter 8 1 min
Environment and Moral Education
Dangerous biological research - is it worth it? (Kevin Esvelt)
Kevin Esvelt, a scientist at MIT, argues that resear...
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Nov 30 2021 1h 7m
Chapter 1 13 mins
Developing More Dangerous Viruses in the LabChapter 2 5 mins
The Risks of Pandemic Enhancement ResearchChapter 3 10 mins
Working With Pandemics in the LabChapter 4 7 mins
Risks and Benefits of CRISPR-Based Gene DrivesChapter 5 14 mins
The Dangers of Gene DrivesChapter 6 14 mins
Harms of Eliminating Mosquitoes With Gene DriveChapter 7 57 sec
The Dangers of Pandemic Prediction Research
Why we're polarized (Ezra Klein)
Ezra Klein explains how Republican and Democrats in ...
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Nov 5 2021 1h 18m
Chapter 1 11 mins
Polarization and Sorting in AmericaChapter 2 4 mins
Sorting and Polarization in US PoliticsChapter 3 5 mins
The Unstable American Political SystemChapter 4 6 mins
The Problem With American PoliticsChapter 5 8 mins
The Problem With PolarizationChapter 6 14 mins
The Sorting of the American Political PsycheChapter 7 4 mins
Polarization Appears to Have IncreasedChapter 8 4 mins
Civil Rights Movement Impact on American PoliticsChapter 9 5 mins
Soil's Impact on Political PartiesChapter 10 11 mins
Polarization in AmericaChapter 11 1 min
How Does Political Polarization Happen?
The genetic lottery (Kathryn Paige Harden)
Kathryn Paige Harden, author of “The Genetic Lottery...
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Oct 15 2021 1h 4m
Chapter 1 10 mins
The Controversy Around Research on Genes and Social OutcomesChapter 2 8 mins
Perceptions of Scientists' MoralsChapter 3 4 mins
Genetic Influence on Educational SuccessChapter 4 11 mins
Family Income and Education Polygenic IndexChapter 5 17 mins
Benefits and Risks of Incorporating GeneticsChapter 6 3 mins
Racial Gap in IQ ScoresChapter 7 7 mins
The Disagreement
How to reason about COVID, and other hard things (Kelsey Piper)
Journalist Kelsey Piper (Future Perfect / Vox) discu...
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Sep 14 2021 1h 17m
"Price gouging" in emergencies
Every time there’s an emergency, the prices of certa...
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Aug 19 2021 52m
How to be a data detective (Tim Harford)
When you see a statistic reported in the news, like ...
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Jun 10 2021 1h 2m
Are Uber and Lyft drivers being exploited?
How much do Uber and Lyft drivers really earn, after...
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Apr 9 2021 1h 1m
Unfair laws / Why judges should be originalists (William Baude)
Is there any justification for seemingly unjust laws...
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Mar 19 2021 1h 3m
Intellectual honesty, cryptocurrency, & more (Vitalik Buterin)
Julia and guest Vitalik Buterin (creator of the open...
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Mar 4 2021 1h 16m
Understanding moral disagreements (Jonathan Haidt)
Julia and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (The Ri...
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Feb 18 2021 1h 6m
The case for one billion Americans, & more (Matt Yglesias)
Matt Yglesias talks about One Billion Americans, his...
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Feb 3 2021 1h 40m
What’s wrong with tech companies banning people? (Julian Sanchez)
Companies like Twitter and Facebook are increasingly...
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Jan 20 2021 56m
The case for racial colorblindness (Coleman Hughes)
Coleman Hughes explains why he favors a "colorblind"...
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Jan 5 2021 1h 10m
Are Democrats being irrational? (David Shor)
Data scientist David Shor discusses some of the bad ...
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Dec 22 2020 1h 21m
The moral limits of markets / The problem with meritocracy (Michael Sandel)
Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel argues with Julia...
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Dec 8 2020 59m
Deaths of despair / Effective altruism (Angus Deaton)
Economist and Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton discusses ...
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Nov 24 2020 1h 4m
Are Boomers to blame for Millennials' struggles?
Rationally Speaking returns from hiatus with a look ...
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Nov 9 2020 59m
Rationally Speaking #244 - Stephanie Lepp and Buster Benson on "Seeing other perspectives, with compassion"
This episode features a pair of interviews on a simi...
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Nov 30 2019 42m
Rationally Speaking #243 - Bryan Caplan on "The Case for Open Borders"
The idea of open borders -- letting people move free...
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Nov 12 2019 49m
Keith Frankish on "Why consciousness is an illusion"
Philosopher of mind Keith Frankish is one of the lea...
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Oct 29 2019 43m
Rationally Speaking #241 - Thibault Le Texier on "Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment"
The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the most fa...
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Oct 15 2019 54m
Rationally Speaking #240 - David Manheim on "Goodhart's Law and why metrics fail"
If you want to understand why things go wrong in bus...
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Sep 17 2019 59m
Rationally Speaking #239 - Saloni Dattani on "The debate over whether male and female brains are different"
Several recent books have argued there's no differen...
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Sep 3 2019 48m