Knowledge acquired by means of the senses
POPULARITY
Categories
TL;DR We describe the persona selection model (PSM): the idea that LLMs learn to simulate diverse characters during pre-training, and post-training elicits and refines a particular such Assistant persona. Interactions with an AI assistant are then well-understood as being interactions with the Assistant—something roughly like a character in an LLM-generated story. We survey empirical behavioral, generalization, and interpretability-based evidence for PSM. PSM has consequences for AI development, such as recommending anthropomorphic reasoning about AI psychology and introduction of positive AI archetypes into training data. An important open question is how exhaustive PSM is, especially whether there might be sources of agency external to the Assistant persona, and how this might change in the future. Introduction What sort of thing is a modern AI assistant? One perspective holds that they are shallow, rigid systems that narrowly pattern-match user inputs to training data. Another perspective regards AI systems as alien creatures with learned goals, behaviors, and patterns of thought that are fundamentally inscrutable to us. A third option is to anthropomorphize AIs and regard them as something like a digital human. Developing good mental models for AI systems is important for predicting and controlling their behaviors. If our goal is to [...] ---Outline:(00:10) TL;DR(01:02) Introduction(06:18) The persona selection model(07:09) Predictive models and personas(09:54) From predictive models to AI assistants(12:43) Statement of the persona selection model(16:25) Empirical evidence for PSM(16:58) Evidence from generalization(22:48) Behavioral evidence(28:42) Evidence from interpretability(35:42) Complicating evidence(42:21) Consequences for AI development(42:45) AI assistants are human-like(43:23) Anthropomorphic reasoning about AI assistants is productive(49:17) AI welfare(51:35) The importance of good AI role models(53:49) Interpretability-based alignment auditing will be tractable(56:43) How exhaustive is PSM?(59:46) Shoggoths, actors, operating systems, and authors(01:00:46) Degrees of non-persona LLM agency en-US-AvaMultilingualNeural__ Green leaf or plant with yellow smiley face character attached.(01:06:52) Other sources of persona-like agency(01:11:17) Why might we expect PSM to be exhaustive?(01:12:21) Post-training as elicitation(01:14:54) Personas provide a simple way to fit the post-training data(01:17:55) How might these considerations change?(01:20:01) Empirical observations(01:27:07) Conclusion(01:30:30) Acknowledgements(01:31:15) Appendix A: Breaking character(01:32:52) Appendix B: An example of non-persona deception The original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: February 23rd, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dfoty34sT7CSKeJNn/the-persona-selection-model --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---
Hello Interactors,Watching all the transnational love at the Olympics has been inspiring. We're all forced to think about nationalities, borders, ethnicities, and all the flavors of behavioral geography it entails. After all, these athletes are all there representing their so-called “homeland.” And in the case of Alysa Liu, her father's escape from his. Between the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the fall of the Berlin wall, “homeland” took on new meaning for many immigrants. This all took me back to that time and the start of my own journey at Microsoft at the dawn of a new global reality.HOMELAND HATCHED HEREWith all the focus on Olympics and immigration recently, I've found myself reflecting on my days at Microsoft in the 90s. As the company was growing (really fast), teams were filling up with people recruited from around the world. There were new accents in meetings, new holidays to celebrate, and yummy new foods and funny new words being introduced. This thickening of transnational ties made Redmond feel as connected the rest of the world as the globalized software we were building. By 2000 users around the world could switch between over 60 languages in Windows and Office. In behavioral geography terms, working on the product and using the product made “here” feel more connected to “elsewhere.”This influx of new talent was all enabled by the Immigration Act of 1990. Signed by George H. W. Bush, it increased and stabilized legal pathways for highly skilled immigrants. This continued with Clinton era decisions to expand H-1B visa allocations that fed the tech hiring boom. I took full advantage of this allotment recruiting and hiring interaction designers and user researchers from around the world. In the same decade the federal government expanded access to the United States, it also tightened security. Terrorism threats, especially after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, spooked everyone. Despite this threat, there was more domestic initiated terrorism than outside foreign attacks. The decade saw deadly incidents like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 by radicalized by white supremacist anti-government terrorists, which killed 168 and injured hundreds, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history before 9/11.A year later, the Atlanta Olympic bombing and related bombings by anti-government Christian extremists caused multiple deaths and injuries. Clinic bombings and shootings by anti-abortion extremists began in 1994 with the Brookline clinic shootings and continued through the 1998 Birmingham clinic bombing. These inspired more arsons, bombings, and shootings tied to white supremacist, anti-abortion, and other extreme ideologies.Still, haven been shocked by Islamist extremists in 1993 (and growing Islamic jihadist plots outside the U.S.) the federal government adopted new security language centered on protecting the “homeland” from outside incursions. In 1998, Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive 62, titled “Protection Against Unconventional Threats to the Homeland and Americans Overseas,” a serious counterterrorism document whose title quietly normalized the term homeland inside executive governance.But there was at least one critical voice. Steven Simon, Clinton's senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council, didn't think “Defense of the Homeland” belonged in a presidential directive.Simon's retrospective argument is that “homeland” did more than name a policy, it brought a territorial logic of legitimacy that the American constitution had historically resisted. He recalls the phrase “Defense of the Homeland” felt “faintly illiberal, even un-American.” The United States historically grounded constitutional legitimacy in civic and legal abstractions (people, union, republic, human rights) rather than blood rights or rights to soil. Membership was to be mediated by institutions, employment, and law rather than ancestry.“Homeland” serves as a powerful cue that suggests a mental model of ‘home' and expands it to encompass a nation. This model is accompanied by a set of spatial inferences that evoke familiarity, appeal, and even an intuitive sense. However, it also creates a sense of a confined interior that can be breached by someone from outside.This is rooted in place attachment that can be defined as an affective bond between people and places — an emotional tie that can anchor identity and responsibility. But attachment is not the same thing as ownership. Research on collective psychological ownership shows how groups can come to experience a territory as “ours.” This creates a sense of ownership that can be linked to a perceived determination right. Here, the ingroup is entitled to decide what happens in that place while sometimes feeding a desire to exclude outsiders. When the word “homeland” was placed at the center of statecraft it primed public reasoning from attachment of place through care, stewardship, and shared fate toward property ownership through control, gatekeeping, and exclusion. It turns belonging into something closer to a property claim.What makes the 1990s especially instructive from a geography perspective is that “access” itself was being administered through institutions that are intensely spatial: consulates, ports of entry, employer locations, housing markets, and the micro-geographies of office life. The H-1B expansions was not simply generosity, but a form of managed throughput in a system designed to meet labor demand. And it was paired with political assurances about enforcement and domestic worker protections.Mid-decade legal reforms strengthened enforcement by authorities in significant ways. Mechanisms for faster removals and stricter interior enforcement reinforced the idea that the state could act more decisively within the national space. The federal government found ways to expand legal channels that served economic objectives while also building a governance style increasingly comfortable with interior control. “Homeland” helped supply the conceptual bridge that made that socioeconomic coexistence feel coherent.It continues to encourage a politics of boundary maintenance that determines who counts as inside, what kinds of movement are legible as normal, and which bodies are perpetually “out of place.” If the defended object is a republic, the default language justification is legal and civic. If the defended object is a homeland, the language jurisdiction becomes territorial and affective. That shift changes what restrictions, surveillance practices, and membership tests become thinkable and tolerable over time. HOMELAND'S HOHFELDIAN HARNESSIf “homeland” structures a place of belonging, then “rights” are the legal grammar that tells us what may be done in that place. The trouble is that “rights” are often treated as moral abstract objects floating above context. Legally, they are structured relations among people, institutions, and things. But “rights” can take on a variety of meanings.Wesley Hohfeld, the Yale law professor who pioneered analytical jurisprudence in the early 20th century, argued that many legal disputes persist because the word “right” is used ambiguously.He distinguished four basic “incidents” for rights: claim, privilege (liberty), power, and immunity. Each is paired with a position correlating to another party: duty, no-claim (no-right), liability, and disability. When the police pull you over for speeding you hold a privilege to drive at or below the speed limit (say, 40 mph). The state has no-right to demand you stop for going exactly 40 mph. But if you're clocked at 50 mph, the officer enforces your no-right to exceed the limit which correlates to the state's claim-right. You have a duty to comply by pulling over. If the officer then has power to issue a ticket, you face a liability to have your driving privilege altered (e.g., fined). But you also enjoy an immunity from arbitrary arrest without probable cause.Let's apply that to “homeland” security.If a politician says we must “defend the homeland,” it can mean at least four different things legally:* Claim-Rights: Citizens can demand that the government protect them (e.g., from attacks). Officials have the duty to act — think TSA screening or border patrol.* Privileges: Federal Agents get freedoms to act without legal blocks, such as stopping and questioning people in so-called high-risk zones, while bystanders have no-right to interfere.* Powers: Federal Agencies hold authority to change your legal status. For example, they can label you a watchlist risk (e.g., you become a liability). This can then lead to loss of liberties like travel bans, detentions, or asset freezes.* Immunities: Federal Officials or programs shield themselves from lawsuits (via qualified immunity or classified data rules), effectively blocking citizens' ability to sue.Forget whether these are legitimate or illegitimate, Hohfeld's point is they are different forms of rights — and each has distinct costs. Once “homeland” is the object, the system tends to grow powers and privileges (capacity for overt or covert operations), and to seek immunities (resistance to challenge), often at the expense of others' claim-rights and liberties.Rights are not only relational, but they are also often spatially conditional. The same person can move through zones of legality experiencing different practical rights. Consider border checkpoints, airports, perimeters of government buildings, protest cites, or regions declared “emergency” zones. Government institutions operationalize these spaces as “behavioral geographies” which determines who gets stopped, where scrutiny concentrates, and which movements count as suspicious.The state looks past the abstract bearer of unalienable liberties and due process to see only a physical entity whose movements through space dissolve their Constitutional immunities into a series of observable, trackable traces. Those traces become inputs to enforcement. This is what makes surveillance so powerful. “Homeland” governance is especially trace-hungry because it imagines safety as a property of space that must be continuously maintained.But these traces are behavioral cues and human behavior is never neutral. They are interpreted through normalized cultural and institutional schemas about who “belongs” in which places. Place attachment and territorial belonging can become gatekeeping mechanisms. Empirical work on homeland/place attachment links it to identity processes and self-categorization. Related work suggests that collective psychological ownership — “this place is ours” — can predict exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants and outsiders. In legal terms, those social attitudes can translate into pressure to expand state powers and narrow outsiders' claim-rights.A vocabulary rooted in a ‘republic' tends to emphasize rights as universal claims against the state. This is where we get due process, equal protection, and rights to speech and assembly. A homeland vocabulary tends to emphasize rights as statused permissions tied to membership and territory. Here we find rights of citizens, rights at the border, rights in “emergencies”, and rights conditioned on “lawful presence.” The shift makes some restrictions feel like a kind of protecting of the home. Hence the unaffable phrase, “Get off my lawn.”HOMELAND HIERARCHIES HUMBLEDIf the “homeland” is framed as a place-of-belonging and rights are the grammar of that place, then the current crisis of American democracy boils down to a dispute over the nature of equality. This tension is best understood through the long-standing constitutional debate between anticlassification and antisubordination, which dates back to the Reconstruction era. Anticlassification, often called the “colorblind” or “status-blind” approach, holds that the state's duty is simply to avoid explicit categories in its laws. Antisubordination, by contrast, insists that the law must actively dismantle structured group hierarchies and the “caste-like” systems they produce. When the state embraces a “homeland” logic, it leans heavily on anticlassification to mask a deeper reality of spatial subordination.In what we might call the “Theater of Defense,” agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increasingly rely on anticlassification principles to justify aggressive interior crackdowns. They frame enforcement as a territorial necessity by protecting the sanctity of the soil itself. A workplace raid or roving patrol, in this view, does not target any specific group. Instead, it simply maintains the “integrity” of the homeland. This reflects what law professor Bradley Areheart and others have described as the “anticlassification turn,” where formal attempts to embody equality end up legitimizing structural inequality.Put differently, the state exercises a Hohfeldian Power to alter individuals' legal status based on their geographic location or “lawful presence.” At the same time, it shields itself from legal challenge by insisting that the law applies equally to everyone who is “out of place.” This claim of territorial neutrality is a dangerous legal fiction. As scholars Solon Barocas and Andrew Selbst have shown in their work on algorithmic systems, attempts at neutral criteria often replicate entrenched biases. Triggers like “proximity to a border” or “behavioral traces” in a transit hub do not produce blind justice. They enable targeted scrutiny and the erosion of immunity for those whose identities fail to match the “belonging” model of the “homeland.” The state circumvents its Hohfeldian Disability, avoiding the creation of second-class statuses, by pretending to manage space rather than discriminate against persons.This shift from a civic Republic to a territorial “homeland” is the primary driver of democratic backsliding. Political scientist Jacob Grumbach captured this dynamic in his 2022 paper, Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding. Analyzing 51 indicators of electoral democracy across U.S. states from 2000 to 2018, Grumbach developed the State Democracy Index. His findings reveal how American federalism has morphed from “laboratories of democracy” into sites of subnational authoritarianism. States with low scores on the index — often under unified Republican control — have pioneered police powers that insulate partisan dominance. We see this in the rise of state-level immigration enforcement units, the criminalization of movement for marginalized groups, and the expansion of a “right to exclude.”These states are not just enforcing the law. They are forging what Yale legal scholar Owen Fiss would recognize as a new caste system. By fixating on “defending” state soil against “infiltrators,” legislatures dismantle the public rights of the Reconstruction era — the right to participate in community life without indignity. Today's backsliding policies transform the nation's interior into a permanent enforcement zone. They reject the Enlightenment ideals of America, rooted in beliefs like liberty, equality, democracy, individual rights, and the rule of law. To fully understand Constitutional history, we best acknowledge that America's universalist creedal definition wasn't solely European. David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything shows how Enlightenment values of liberty and equality arose from intellectual exchanges with Indigenous North American thinkers. Kandiaronk, a Huron statesman, traveled to Europe in the late 17th century and debated French aristocrats. His critiques were published and circulated widely among European intellectuals, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. Graeber and Wengrow point out that before the widely popular publication of these dialogues in 1703, the concept of "Equality" as a primary political value was almost entirely absent from European philosophy. By the time Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men in 1754, it was the central question of the age.Kandiaronk criticized European society's subservience to kings and obsession with property. He contrasted it with the consensual governance and individual agency of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy embodied in their Great Law of Peace — a political order prioritizing the public right to exist without state-sanctioned indignity.The writers of the U.S. Constitution codified a Republic of “unalienable rights,” synthesizing Indigenous/European-inspired liberty with Hohfeldian Disabilities that legally restrained the state from territorial monarchy. Backsliding erases this profound philosophical endeavor. Reclaiming the Republic means honoring the Indigenous critique that a nation's legitimacy rests on its people's freedom, not its fences.We seem to be moving from governance by the governed to protecting an ingroup. In Hohfeldian terms, the state expands its privileges while shrinking the claim-rights of the vulnerable to move and exist safely. This leads to “spatial subordination,” managed through adiaphorization — a concept from social theorist Zygmunt Bauman's 1989 Modernity and the Holocaust. Bauman, a Polish-Jewish survivor who escaped the Nazis' grip on his early life, drew “adiaphora” from the Greek for matters outside moral evaluation. Modern bureaucracies make horrific actions morally neutral by framing them as technical duties, enabling atrocities like the Holocaust without personal ethical torment.As territorial belonging takes precedence, non-belongers are excluded from moral and legal obligations. They become “non-spaces” or “human waste” in the eyes of ICE and DHS. This betrays antisubordination, the “core and conscience” of America's civil rights tradition, as Yale constitutional scholars Jack Balkin and Reva Siegel called it. A democracy can't endure if it permanently relegates any group to legal impossibility. In the “homeland”, immigrants may live, work, and raise families for decades, yet remain mere “traces” to expunge. Weaponized place attachment turns affective bonds into property claims. This empowers the state to “cleanse” those deemed to be “out of place.” Rights become statused permissions, not universal ideals. If immunity from search depends on territorial status, the Republic of laws has yielded to a Heimat — a term the Nazis' usurped for their blood-and-soil homeland…that they then bloodied and soiled.Reversing this demands confronting the linguistic and legal architecture that rendered it conceivable. It's time to rethink the “homeland” frame and its anticlassification crutch. A truer and fairer Republic would commit to antisubordination and the state would be disabled from wielding space for hierarchy. A person's immunity from arbitrary power should be closer to an inalienable right to be “secure in one's person” that holds firm beyond checkpoints or workplace doors…or your front door.Steven Simon was right to feel uneasy with Clinton's wording. “Homeland” planted a seed that sprouted into hedgerows of exceptional powers and curtailed liberties. Are we going to cling to a “homeland” secured by fear and exclusion, forever unstable, or finally become a Republic revered for securing universal law and rights? As long as our rights remain geographically conditional, we all dwell in liability. Reclaiming the Republic, and our freedoms within it, may require transforming the Constitution from a Hohfeldian map of perimeters into a boundless plane of human dignity it aspires to be. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io
In this episode, we welcome back return guest Hank Bessembinder for a deeply analytical conversation spanning leveraged ETFs, volatility, and the future of performance measurement. Hank walks us through his latest research on leveraged single-stock ETFs, clarifying the misunderstood concept of "volatility decay" and decomposing returns into rebalancing effects and frictions. The results are striking: meaningful underperformance relative to simple levered benchmarks, driven by both embedded costs and the mechanics of daily resets. In the second half, we shift gears to a more foundational question: What is a return, really? Hank challenges the dominance of arithmetic averages and even geometric means, arguing that neither truly captures the long-term investor experience. He introduces the concept of the sustainable return—a measure based on the cash flows an investment can support without depleting capital—and outlines how it could reshape academic finance and real-world financial planning. Key Points From This Episode: (0:01:03) Welcome back to Hank Bessembinder and overview of his recent research. (0:06:16) What "volatility decay" really means—and why the term may be misleading. (0:09:16) Why volatility does not necessarily reduce mean returns in constant leverage ETFs. (0:10:11) Ex-ante decision-making and the wedge between mean and median outcomes. (0:11:26) Single-stock vs. index leveraged ETFs: Similar mechanics, different magnitudes. (0:12:52) Why past research has been so cautionary about long-term use of leveraged ETFs. (0:15:53) How rebalancing costs differ for long and short leveraged products. (0:16:57) The benchmark: Levered buy-and-hold versus constant daily rebalancing. (0:19:46) Empirical results: Long funds underperform by ~0.8% per month; short funds by ~1% per month. (0:21:10) Decomposing underperformance into rebalancing effects and frictions. (0:24:15) The real (though rare) possibility of returns below –100% in leveraged products. (0:27:04) Simulation results over 50 years: Skewness, negative medians, and rebalancing drag. (0:28:38) Why volatility tends to coincide with reversals—and why reversals drive rebalancing costs. (0:31:15) Practical guidance: Who, if anyone, should use leveraged single-stock ETFs. (0:34:58) The limitations of arithmetic means and single-period models. (0:36:55) Why aggregate investors are not buy-and-hold investors. (0:39:17) The shortcomings of arithmetic averages, alphas, and Sharpe ratios for long-horizon measurement. (0:42:38) Why log returns don't solve the core measurement problems. (0:44:56) The case for dollar-weighted returns and the limitations of IRRs. (0:48:18) Modified IRRs and their role in capturing aggregate investor outcomes. (0:50:14) Introducing the sustainable return: Measuring what can be withdrawn without depleting capital. (0:53:22) Expected sustainable return and its close relationship to the geometric mean. (0:56:09) Proportional sustainable return and withdrawal-based performance measurement. (1:00:00) Individual stock returns through the lens of sustainable returns. (1:00:53) Nudging academic finance beyond the "econometric streetlight." Links From Today's Episode: Meet with PWL Capital: https://calendly.com/d/3vm-t2j-h3p Rational Reminder on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-rational-reminder-podcast/id1426530582. Rational Reminder on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/rationalreminder/ Rational Reminder on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Benjamin Felix — https://pwlcapital.com/our-team/ Benjamin on X — https://x.com/benjaminwfelix Benjamin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminwfelix/ Cameron Passmore — https://pwlcapital.com/our-team/ Cameron on X — https://x.com/CameronPassmore Cameron on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronpassmore/ Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)
Cross-posted to LessWrong.Summary History's most destructive ideologies—like Nazism, totalitarian communism, and religious fundamentalism—exhibited remarkably similar characteristics: epistemic and moral certainty extreme tribalism dividing humanity into a sacred “us” and an evil “them” a willingness to use whatever means necessary, including brutal violence. Such ideological fanaticism was a major driver of eight of the ten greatest atrocities since 1800, including the Taiping Rebellion, World War II, and the regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler. We focus on ideological fanaticism over related concepts like totalitarianism partly because it better captures terminal preferences, which plausibly matter most as we approach superintelligent AI and technological maturity. Ideological fanaticism is considerably less influential than in the past, controlling only a small fraction of world GDP. Yet at least hundreds of millions still hold fanatical views, many regimes exhibit concerning ideological tendencies, and the past two decades have seen widespread democratic backsliding. The long-term influence of ideological fanaticism is uncertain. Fanaticism faces many disadvantages including a weak starting position, poor epistemics, and difficulty assembling broad coalitions. But it benefits from greater willingness to use extreme measures, fervent mass followings, and a historical tendency to survive and even thrive amid technological and societal upheaval. Beyond complete victory or defeat, multipolarity may [...] ---Outline:(00:16) Summary(05:19) What do we mean by ideological fanaticism?(08:40) I. Dogmatic certainty: epistemic and moral lock-in(10:02) II. Manichean tribalism: total devotion to us, total hatred for them(12:42) III. Unconstrained violence: any means necessary(14:33) Fanaticism as a multidimensional continuum(16:09) Ideological fanaticism drove most of recent historys worst atrocities(19:24) Death tolls dont capture all harm(20:55) Intentional versus natural or accidental harm(22:44) Why emphasize ideological fanaticism over political systems like totalitarianism?(25:07) Fanatical and totalitarian regimes have caused far more harm than all other regime types(26:29) Authoritarianism as a risk factor(27:19) Values change political systems: Ideological fanatics seek totalitarianism, not democracy(29:50) Terminal values may matter independently of political systems, especially with AGI(31:02) Fanaticisms connection to malevolence (dark personality traits)(34:22) The current influence of ideological fanaticism(34:42) Historical perspective: it was much worse, but we are sliding back(37:19) Estimating the global scale of ideological fanaticism(43:57) State actors(48:12) How much influence will ideological fanaticism have in the long-term future?(48:57) Reasons for optimism: Why ideological fanaticism will likely lose(49:45) A worse starting point and historical track record(50:33) Fanatics intolerance results in coalitional disadvantages(51:53) The epistemic penalty of irrational dogmatism(54:21) The marketplace of ideas and human preferences(55:57) Reasons for pessimism: Why ideological fanatics may gain power(56:04) The fragility of democratic leadership in AI(56:37) Fanatical actors may grab power via coups or revolutions(59:36) Fanatics have fewer moral constraints(01:01:13) Fanatics prioritize destructive capabilities(01:02:13) Some ideologies with fanatical elements have been remarkably resilient and successful(01:03:01) Novel fanatical ideologies could emerge--or existing ones could mutate(01:05:08) Fanatics may have longer time horizons, greater scope-sensitivity, and prioritize growth more(01:07:15) A possible middle ground: Persistent multipolar worlds(01:08:33) Why multipolar futures seem plausible(01:10:00) Why multipolar worlds might persist indefinitely(01:15:42) Ideological fanaticism increases existential and suffering risks(01:17:09) Ideological fanaticism increases the risk of war and conflict(01:17:44) Reasons for war and ideological fanaticism(01:26:27) Fanatical ideologies are non-democratic, which increases the risk of war(01:27:00) These risks are both time-sensitive and timeless(01:27:44) Fanatical retributivism may lead to astronomical suffering(01:29:50) Empirical evidence: how many people endorse eternal extreme punishment?(01:33:53) Religious fanatical retributivism(01:40:45) Secular fanatical retributivism(01:41:43) Ideological fanaticism could undermine long-reflection-style frameworks and AI alignment(01:42:33) Ideological fanaticism threatens collective moral deliberation(01:47:35) AI alignment may not solve the fanaticism problem either(01:53:33) Prevalence of reality-denying, anti-pluralistic, and punitive worldviews(01:55:44) Ideological fanaticism could worsen many other risks(01:55:49) Differential intellectual regress(01:56:51) Ideological fanaticism may give rise to extreme optimization and insatiable moral desires(01:59:21) Apocalyptic terrorism(02:00:05) S-risk-conducive propensities and reverse cooperative intelligence(02:01:28) More speculative dynamics: purity spirals and self-inflicted suffering(02:03:00) Unknown unknowns and navigating exotic scenarios(02:03:43) Interventions(02:05:31) Societal or political interventions(02:05:51) Safeguarding democracy(02:06:40) Reducing political polarization(02:10:26) Promoting anti-fanatical values: classical liberalism and Enlightenment principles(02:13:55) Growing the influence of liberal democracies(02:15:54) Encouraging reform in illiberal countries(02:16:51) Promoting international cooperation(02:22:36) Artificial intelligence-related interventions(02:22:41) Reducing the chance that transformative AI falls into the hands of fanatics(02:27:58) Making transformative AIs themselves less likely to be fanatical(02:36:14) Using AI to improve epistemics and deliberation(02:38:13) Fanaticism-resistant post-AGI governance(02:39:51) Addressing deeper causes of ideological fanaticism(02:41:26) Supplementary materials(02:41:39) Acknowledgments(02:42:22) References --- First published: February 12th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EDBQPT65XJsgszwmL/long-term-risks-from-ideological-fanaticism --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
Today we are rehashing Younger Season 4, Episode 5: "The Gift of the Maggie." Join us as we discuss Josh taking a visit to Montana's art studio, Empirical's search for the next best romance writer, Kelsey's budding relationship with Zane and so much more!
Today we are rehashing Younger Season 4, Episode 4: "In the Pink." Join us as we discuss an eventful lunch with one of Empirical's original authors, a funeral that turns into a networking event, Liza re-entering the dating scene, and so much more!
In this episode, we explore something a little different, but deeply connected to everything we do in medicine, leadership, and human connection: the power of storytelling. Whether it's patient handover, clinician-to-clinician stories, or the messroom chat, stories fill our everyday lives. My guest today is Clare Murphy, a world-renowned storyteller who has been bringing the ancient art of story firmly into the modern world since 2006. Clare has performed across the globe, sharing stories with audiences as diverse as the All-Blacks coaches, Mission Critical Teams, scientists, schoolchildren, and even Irish President Mary Robinson. Her work also transcends entertainment. Clare teaches storytelling as a tool for connection, communication, and meaning-making, working with diverse communities that include asylum seekers, climate scientists, social entrepreneurs, firefighters, and veterans who have lost limbs.Her client list speaks volumes: NASA, the All-Blacks, the Mission Critical Team Institute, The Drive Project, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, Routes Collective, and NHS England. Together, we'll unpack how story shapes the way we understand the world, how it can help us connect with our teams, our patients, and ourselves in the moments that matter most. You can find Clare's work here: https://claremurphy.org/Empirical research suggests that Paramedics routinely recount emergency calls during downtime to make sense of their work. This storytelling functions as a form of tactical resilience to managers, other services, patients, bystanders, and each other, and often involves strong language. The paper can be found here:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251772924_Heroes_and_Lies_Storytelling_Tactics_among_ParamedicsThis Podcast is sponsored by World Extreme Medicine.World Extreme Medicine provides internationally recognised education for clinicians and operators working in pre-hospital, remote, expedition, humanitarian, and high-risk environments. Their programmes focus on practical, experience-led learning, equipping professionals with the skills to make sound clinical and operational decisions when resources are limited, evacuation is delayed, and conditions are extreme.With courses covering expedition and wilderness medicine, hostile environments, dive medicine, human performance, leadership, and austere care, World Extreme Medicine brings together a global faculty with real-world experience from some of the most challenging settings on earth. To explore courses, free educational resources, and upcoming webinars, visit:www.worldextrememedicine.com
With me in this episode is Ed Bellis, co-founder and CEO of Empirical Security. Empirical uses a scoring system informed by customer data to create tailored risk prioritization models. Ed started Empirical in 2024 after leaving Cisco, three years after they acquired his previous company Kenna. Kenna was a vulnerability management and prioritization tool that aggregated data from an organization's scanners and enriched that data with threat intelligence to better prioritize risk. In many ways, Kenna helped lead the way in modern vulnerability management by creating an abstraction layer over the scanners themselves. Empirical is now further pushing the bounds following advances in machine learning and AI to go beyond Kenna's limitations. In the episode we discuss the alluring sales pitfalls for new founders, the importance of a "fast no", Cisco's acquisition strategy and execution, modern VM in light of AI penetration testing, and more.Empirical Website
For over a century, neuroscience has assumed that consciousness is generated by the brain.But what if this assumption is wrong?In this episode of Mind-Body Solution, Dr. Tevin Naidu is joined by Professor Edward F. Kelly - co-author of Irreducible Mind, Beyond Physicalism, Consciousness Unbound (and many more) — to examine the empirical and conceptual evidence that consciousness cannot be fully explained by brain activity alone.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 – Introduction: The Limits of Brain-Based Models: Kelly's career, scope of inquiry, and why physicalism fails to account for mind08:55 – First Direct Encounter with Psi Phenomena: Meeting high-performing experimental subjects and abandoning residual skepticism13:45 – Why Physicalism Cannot Accommodate Psi as Facts of Nature: Empirical accumulation forces a worldview shift17:10 – The Cultural Consequences of Reductive Materialism: How mechanistic metaphysics shapes ecological and existential crises21:30 – Irreducible Mind: Strategy and Scope: Why Kelly and colleagues targeted physicalism empirically first29:30 – Extreme Psychophysical Phenomena: Stigmata, maternal impressions, and mind–body influence beyond placebo33:50 – Dissociative Identity Disorder & Multiple Centers of Consciousness: Why unitary brain-mind assumptions break down37:20 – Near-Death Experiences Under Clinical Unconsciousness: Verified perception during anesthesia and cardiac arrest41:05 – Empirical vs Conceptual Failures of Materialism: Why both lines of critique are now unavoidable44:50 – The Need for a Post-Physicalist Theory: Why data alone can't shift science without a new metaphysical framework49:25 – Beyond Physicalism: Surveying Alternative Worldviews: Idealism, dual-aspect monism, panentheism, and mystical traditions55:10 – Whitehead, Process Philosophy & Its Limits: Why mystical experience must be taken seriously as data59:20 – William James, the Subliminal Self & the Pluralistic Universe: Consciousness as layered, expansive, and not brain-produced1:03:35 – Consciousness Unbound: New Empirical Frontiers: Reincarnation cases, precognition, and psychedelic-induced mysticism1:07:45 – Bernardo Kastrup, Analytic Idealism & Survival Debates: Where Kelly agrees—and where he diverges1:11:30 – Physics, Possibility & Reality Beyond Actuality: Quantum foundations, potentiality, and expanded ontology1:15:55 – The New Book: Narrowing to Viable Post-Physicalist Theories: Why process philosophy and organismic biology are converging1:19:20 – Consciousness Below the Brain: Cells, Organisms & Evolution: Why mind may extend deep into life itself1:23:30 – Closing Reflections: Toward an Expanded Science of Mind: What replacing physicalism actually means for humanityEPISODE LINKS:- Ed's Website: https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/dops-staff/ed-kelly/- Ed's Publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q42C6BwAAAAJ&hl=en- Ed's Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001IU2STWCONNECT:- Website: https://mindbodysolution.org - YouTube: https://youtube.com/@MindBodySolution- Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/mindbodysolution- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu- Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu- Website: https://tevinnaidu.com=============================Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.
In this Brand Highlight, we talk with Michael Roytman, CTO of Empirical Security, about a problem many security teams quietly struggle with: using general purpose AI tools for decisions that demand precision, forecasting, and accountability.Michael explains why large language models are often misapplied in security programs. LLMs excel at summarization, classification, and pattern extraction, but they are not designed to predict future outcomes like exploitation likelihood or operational risk. Treating them as universal problem solvers creates confidence gaps, not clarity.At Empirical, the focus is on preventative security through purpose built modeling. That means probabilistic forecasting, enterprise specific risk models, and continuous retraining using real telemetry from security operations. Instead of relying on a single model or generic scoring system, Empirical applies ensembles of models tuned to specific tasks, from vulnerability exploitation probability to identifying malicious code patterns.Michael also highlights why retraining matters as much as training. Threat conditions, environments, and attacker behavior change constantly. Models that are not continuously updated lose relevance quickly. Building that feedback loop across hundreds of customers is as much an engineering and operations challenge as it is a data science one.The conversation reinforces a simple but often ignored idea: better security outcomes come from using the right tools for the right questions, not from chasing whatever AI technique happens to be popular. This episode offers a grounded perspective for leaders trying to separate signal from noise in AI driven security decision making.Note: This story contains promotional content. Learn more.GUESTMichael Roytman, CTO of Empirical Security | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-roytman/RESOURCESLearn more about Empirical Security: https://www.empiricalsecurity.com/LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bellis_a-lot-of-people-are-talking-about-generative-activity-7394418706388402178-uZjB/Are you interested in telling your story?▶︎ Full Length Brand Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#full▶︎ Brand Spotlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#spotlight▶︎ Brand Highlight Story: https://www.studioc60.com/content-creation#highlightKeywords: sean martin, michael roytman, ed beis, empirical security, cybersecurity, ai, machinelearning, vulnerability, risk, forecasting, brand story, brand marketing, marketing podcast, brand story podcast, brand spotlight Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Guest Suggestion Form: https://forms.gle/bnaeY3FpoFU9ZjA47Disclaimer: This video is intended solely for educational purposes and opinions shared by the guest are his personal views. We do not intent to defame or harm any person/ brand/ product/ country/ profession mentioned in the video. Our goal is to provide information to help audience make informed choices. The media used in this video are solely for informational purposes and belongs to their respective owners.Order 'Build, Don't Talk' (in English) here: https://amzn.eu/d/eCfijRuOrder 'Build Don't Talk' (in Hindi) here: https://amzn.eu/d/4wZISO0Follow Our Whatsapp Channel: https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaokF5x0bIdi3Qn9ef2JSubscribe To Our Other YouTube Channels:-https://www.youtube.com/@rajshamaniclipshttps://www.youtube.com/@RajShamani.Shorts
In this episode of ScaleUp Radio Shorts, Kevin Brent and Granger Forson unpack the remarkable ScaleUp journey of Dr. Mark Kotter, a neurosurgeon, stem cell biologist, and founder of Bit Bio, a deep-tech biotech company that's raised over $200 million and scaled to 200+ people. It's a story that starts with clinical frustration and leads to a cutting-edge company using AI to literally reprogram cells. But beyond the science lies a business story that any entrepreneur can learn from, full of lessons on leadership, values, team alignment, and the bumpy road of scale.
Each year, this is our most anticipated session — and for good reason. In this Annual Reflections & Projections Webinar, Hotspotting Founder Terry Ryder and Managing Director Tim Graham review how Australia's property market actually performed in 2025, then use those insights to map what's ahead for 2026 and beyond. This session cuts through the noise and headlines to focus on real data, real cycles, and real opportunities.
Send us a textEnglish-Word of the Day: [Empirical]Unlock your English potential with our daily IELTS vocabulary series!
Australian property investors are being misled by headlines - here’s why location, not media noise, will determine who wins in 2025. In this episode of Get Invested, Bushy Martin sits down with long-time favourite and one of Australia’s most respected property research analysts, Terry Ryder, founder of Hotspotting and author of Why Property Values Rise. Together they cut through the noise to reveal what really drives sustainable property growth - and why most investors never build the portfolio they dream of. Terry unpacks why 70–80% of value growth comes down to local area selection, not the property itself, and why treating Australia as “one market” is lazy and dangerous. He explains how $900B+ of infrastructure is reshaping jobs, incomes and housing demand across thousands of micro-markets - and why forward-looking indicators matter far more than backward-looking stats. From the rise of apartments and overlooked suburbs, to the spectacular failure of doom-and-gloom forecasts, Bushy and Terry give investors a practical GPS for choosing outperforming locations using Terry’s EMPIRICAL formula alongside Bushy’s 3I’s & 3P’s. If you’re serious about building a lifestyle-funding portfolio - not just a random collection of properties - this conversation is essential listening. Connect with Terry Ryder https://www.hotspotting.com.au Take the next step with Bushy Personal Solutions Session Get clarity and personalised guidance: Book now Property W.E.A.L.T.H Program - live now! Be first to access discounts + free Module 1: Find out more https://courses.bushymartin.com.au/property-wealth Find your Freedom Formula Success in property starts with your 'why', and then the 'what' and 'how'. Let me, Bushy Martin, lead you through it! Sign up for my Freedom Formula program. The first session is absolutely free, and it only takes around an hour! Find out more https://bushymartin.com.au/freedom-formula-course Subscribe to Property Hub for free now on your favourite podcast player. Take the next step - connect, engage and get more insights with the Property Hub community at linktr.ee/propertyhubau Get property investment and wealth resources, and book a Personal Solution Session with Bushy. All the links and info are here: linktr.ee/propertyhubau About Get Invested, a Property Hub show Get Invested is the leading weekly podcast for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full ‘self, health and wealth’ potential. Hosted by Bushy Martin, an award winning property investor, founder, author and media commentator who is recognised as one of Australia’s most trusted experts in property, investment and lifestyle, Get Invested reveals the secrets of the high performers who invest for success in every aspect of their lives and the world around them. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to get every Get Invested episode each week for free. For business enquiries, email andrew@apiromarketing.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Copious empirical evidence is overwhelming, Principles illumination revelation metaphor simile numerology types and foreshadowing
A screencast from Chapter 6 in CH 221 entitled “Empirical Formulas”
What is COVENANTS Specialized Pastoral Care/Christian Counseling Ministry?
Empirical creatures require proof in order to BELIEVE. Unfortunately the only PROOF of Jesus Christ resurrection is DEATH. And then ONLY those who BELIEVE, receive the FINAL PROOF of Holy Spirit redemption and Jesus Christ resurrection. As for the OTHERS, as they have BELIEVED, so too that's what they GOT!Contact Us: Covenants.llc1@yahoo.com; CovenantsOnLine.com; @Covenants; or call 304.528.9220.
Empire Supports with Serecrul!I actually edited this one...Want to join the discussion? Here's the discord: https://discord.gg/ZpSMNXpw4NWant to join the Patreon? https://patreon.com/RogueSupport790?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Back to basics baby. We're doing a couple introductory episodes on Popper's philosophy of science, following Chapter 10 of Conjectures and Refutations. We start with Popper's theory of content: what makes a good scientific theory? Can we judge some theories as better than others before we even run any empirical tests? Should we be looking for theories with high probability? Ben and Vaden also return to their roots in another way, and get into a nice little fight about how content relates to Bayesianism. We discuss Vaden's skin care routine If you find your friend's lost watch and proceed to lose it, are you responsible for the watch? Empirical vs logical content Whether and how content can be measured and compared How content relates to probability Quotes My aim in this lecture is to stress the significance of one particular aspect of science—its need to grow, or, if you like, its need to progress. I do not have in mind here the practical or social significance of this need. What I wish to discuss is rather its intellectual significance. I assert that continued growth is essential to the rational and empirical character of scientific knowledge; that if science ceases to grow it must lose that character. It is the way of its growth which makes science rational and empirical; the way, that is, in which scientists discriminate between available theories and choose the better one or (in the absence of a satisfactory theory) the way they give reasons for rejecting all the available theories, thereby suggesting some of the conditions with which a satisfactory theory should comply. You will have noticed from this formulation that it is not the accumulation of observations which I have in mind when I speak of the growth of scientific knowledge, but the repeated overthrow of scien- tific theories and their replacement by better or more satisfactory ones. This, incidentally, is a procedure which might be found worthy of attention even by those who see the most important aspect of the growth of scientific knowledge in new experiments and in new observations. - C&R p. 291 Thus it is my first thesis that we can know of a theory, even before it has been tested, that if it passes certain tests it will be better than some other theory. My first thesis implies that we have a criterion of relative potential satisfactoriness, or of potential progressiveness, which can be applied to a theory even before we know whether or not it will turn out, by the passing of some crucial tests, to be satisfactory in fact. This criterion of relative potential satisfactoriness (which I formu- lated some time ago,2 and which, incidentally, allows us to grade the- ories according to their degree of relative potential satisfactoriness) is extremely simple and intuitive. It characterizes as preferable the theory which tells us more; that is to say, the theory which contains the greater amount of empirical information or content; which is logically stronger; which has the greater explanatory and predictive power; and which can therefore be more severely tested by comparing predicted facts with observations. In short, we prefer an interesting, daring, and highly informative theory to a trivial one. - C&R p.294 Let a be the statement ‘It will rain on Friday'; b the statement ‘It willbe fine on Saturday'; and ab the statement ‘It will rain on Friday and itwill be fine on Saturday': it is then obvious that the informative contentof this last statement, the conjunction ab, will exceed that of its com-ponent a and also that of its component b. And it will also be obviousthat the probability of ab (or, what is the same, the probability that abwill be true) will be smaller than that of either of its components. Writing Ct(a) for ‘the content of the statement a', and Ct(ab) for ‘thecontent of the conjunction a and b', we have (1) Ct(a) = Ct(b). This contrasts with the corresponding law of the calculus of probability, (2) p(a) >= p(ab)
A screencast from Chapter 2 in CH 221 entitled “Empirical Formulas and Isomers”
It's a bye week, so what have we to do but speculate? The boys preview Nebraska, look at the college football landscape, and draw conclusions. Then they discuss the other sports on campus, and take your social media questions. Join us next week on Twitter and IG @spartan_pod and @spartanpod on Bluesky.And watch again on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@spartan_pod
Join this channel to get access to perks: EARLY Access, EXCLUSIVE Episodes & Much More! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpeD7roEp99UANH0HVZ3dOA/joinWhat's Your Story - Writer / Director Shane Black? #118 He started his career as an actor but in the 1990's he became the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, He then broke into directing with 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang', then onto Marvel with arguably the best 'Iron Man' movie & the hilarious 'The Nice Guys'.We chat about writing 'Lethal Weapon' at just 22, how he climbed the ranks and reached the very top, the truth behind 'The Last Action Hero', the magic of Robert Downey Jr & working with Mark Walhberg on his latest movie 'Play Dirty'.Credits Include Lethal Weapon 1&2 / Kiss Kiss Bang Bang / Iron Man 3 / The Last Action Hero / The Nice Guys / The Last Boy Scout / The Predator / The Long Kiss Good Night / Monster Squad / Play Dirty... etc-----------------------------Host - Actor/Writer Elliot James Langridge Please contact (Scott Marshall Partners) -----------------------------Our SponsorsMoviePosters.com is the #1 place for movie posters old and new! use our affiliate link https://www.movieposters.com/?sca_ref=8773240.c977RvLKKpL& Get 10% off with code LIFEINFILM10BetterHelp provides you with access to the largest online therapy service in the world. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/lifeinfilm-----------------------------‘Play Dirty' is on Amazon Prime now-----------------------------Thank you to Shane, Thank you to Greg and the team at Empirical.As always thank you to our sponsors MoviePosters.com & BetterHelp-----------------------------If you enjoyed this episode, please review and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and You Tube etc and please share. It makes a huge difference. -----------------------------Join us on Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, @LIFEINFILMpod. Check out the Patreon at patreon.com/Lifeinfilmpodcast & Join this channel to get access to perks: EARLY Access, EXCLUSIVE Episodes & Much More! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpeD7roEp99UANH0HVZ3dOA/join-----------------------------Please don't forget to LIKE & SUBSCRIBE! ╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗ ║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ ╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ ╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝Thanks for watching this episode ... see you in the next video!
Today we are rehashing Younger Season 3, Episode 4: "A Night at the Opera." Join us as we discuss the rising tensions between Bryce and Empirical, Diana's new romance, Kelsey, Lauren and Liza attending Vidpop and so much more!
In this episode, I speak with Rachel about using Energy Psychology (EP) and Sound Healing (SH) in her psychotherapy work. Rachel describes how she was originally trained psychodynamically and had been in psychodynamic therapy herself. After Rachel learned about EP from her acupuncturist she pursued training in the approach, and found it was very effective with clients. She also worked with an EP psychotherapist and experienced a significant shift. Rachel explains that EP facilitates changes in subtle energy resulting in shifts in behaviors, emotions, physical symptoms, anxiety, PTSD, performance and other issues. Rachel discussed the most well-known EP approach, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Many people have learned it as a technique to help regulate the nervous system. With more in depth training, EFT can be used for a variety of issues one might bring to a therapist. Rachel discusses how she integrates SH into other EP techniques. She has found that it often increases the speed and ease of change. Rachel discussed the significant research support for EP, including numerous double blind, randomized and controlled research studies. Lastly, Rachel shared practical strategies listeners can use to calm their nervous system and also demonstrated the sound produced by her various SH instruments. Rachel Michaelson, LCSW is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of California with over 35 years of clinical experience. Along with providing individual and group psychotherapy, Rachel is a clinical supervisor and consultant, who specializes in energy psychology and sound healing. She is a certified Diplomate in Comprehensive Energy Psychology (D-CEP) and has training in several energy-based therapeutic modalities including Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Havening Techniques, Advanced Integrative Therapy (AIT), Tapas Acupuncture Technique (TAT,) Psych-K, Trauma Tapping Technique and other energy medicine techniques. Rachel has developed an Energy Psychology protocol called Release Issues Past and Present which she uses with individuals and in groups and teaches to other mental health providers. When working with clients, Rachel often integrates sound healing by utilizing calibrated tuning forks and chimes to facilitate change. For over 25 years Rachel has been providing training to mental health professionals on a variety of topics including Energy Psychology, Sound Healing, trauma informed care, clinical supervision, law and ethics, telehealth, diagnoses, time and paperwork management, and suicide. Rachel is a past chair of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology's Humanitarian Committee.
Today we are rehashing Younger Season 3, Episode 2: "The Marshmallow Experiment." Join us as we discuss a young investor's visit to Empirical, Kelsey learning some disturbing info from Chad, and so much more!
At a time when startups are primarily funded by private market investors, who you know has become a critical factor in gaining access to that venture capital. But how does the reliance on alumni and professional networks create barriers for startups from historically disadvantaged groups?Emmanuel Yimfor '20 is a finance professor at Columbia Business School and holds a Ph.D. from Rice University. His research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, diversity and private capital markets, with insights into gender and racial disparities in venture capital funding, board representation and how resources could be more equitably allocated.Emmanuel joins co-host Maya Pomroy '22 to discuss his career journey from working at a Cameroonian telecommunications company to teaching at some of the top U.S. business schools, as well as his research on the influence of alumni networks in venture capital funding, how AI tools can address biases in lending, and finally how he's teaming up with his son to bring AI tools to young innovators and entrepreneurs in Cameroon. Episode Guide:01:00 Exploring Entrepreneurial Finance03:36 The Role of Networks in VC Funding08:10 Emmanuel's Journey From Cameroon to the U.S.12:34 The Rice University Experience15:43 Research on Alumni Networks and Funding21:49 Algorithmic Bias in Lending33:17 Empowering Future Innovators in Cameroon38:42 Final Thoughts and Future OutlookOwl Have You Know is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.Episode Quotes:Rethinking who gets funded in venture capital31:07: What does good networks mean exactly? If you look at venture capital partners, for example, right? They have worked at McKinsey before they became venture capital partners. So they have worked at certain companies, they have done certain jobs that then led them to become VCs. And so to the extent that we have a lack of representation in this pipeline of jobs that is leading to VC, then the founders that do not come from these same backgrounds do not have as equal access to the partners. And so what that suggests is something very basic, which is like, just rethink the set of deals that you are considering. That might expand the pool of deals that you consider, because, you know, there might be a smart person out there that is maybe not the same race as you, but that has an idea that you really, really want to fund. And that is something that I think, like, everybody would agree with. You know, we want to allocate capital to its most productive uses.From hard data to meaningful change29:13: So I have a belief in America, at least based on my life journey, which is: if you work hard for long enough, somebody is going to recognize you and you will be rewarded for it. And so I really believe that America takes in data, thinks about that data for a while to think about whether the research is credible enough, and then, using that data, they are a good Bayesian, so they get a new posterior. They act in a new way that is consistent with what the new before and the new data. And so I think about my role as a researcher as just like, you know, providing that data. Here is the data, and here is what is consistent with what we are doing right now. Now, you know, what you do with that information now is like, you know, update what you are doing in a way that is most consistent with efficient capital allocation—is my hope.Why Emmanuel finds empirical work so exciting 21:34: Empirical work is so exciting to me because then you are like, "I am a little bit of a police detective." So you take a little bit of this thing that feels hard to measure, and then you can create hypotheses to link it to the eventual outcomes, to the extent that that thing that is hard to measure is something that is leading to efficient capital allocation. Then, on average, you know, this feeling that you get about founders that are from the same alma mater should lead to good things as opposed to leading to bad things. And so, you know, that is exactly the right spirit of how to think about the work.Show Links: TranscriptGuest Profiles:Emmanuel Yimfor | Columbia Business SchoolEmmanuel Yimfor | LinkedInEmmanuel's Website
On Thursday 7th August, I walked around Bethnal Green with Christopher Daniel, who organises Long Now London.We walked through East London, discussing architecture, philosophy, and the importance of long-term thinking. We explored the evolution of our own projects, especially Long Now London and Bryan's discussion group Through a Glass Darkly. We delved into broader themes like societal change, the impact of technology, and embodied experience versus conceptual abstraction. We wandered the streets, thinking about history, our own personal stories, and how to create meaningful and sustainable communities.The Bertrand Russell quote I butchered:“Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.”See some photos I took of East London over on SubstackMy piece on HeraclitusMy piece on Dependent ArisingJamie Stantonian on the Uffington White HorseAnab from Superflux whom Chris mentioned a few times.I wrongly called one of the Greek schools of medicine "Dogmatist" when I should have said "Rationalist"; Sextus opposes both dogmatism and rationalism. The three schools of medicine in 2nd century AD were "Empirical," "Rationalist," and "Methodist."
Dr Catherine Hynes brings Neuroscience and Neuropsychology underpinnings to her Clinical work with trauma and dissociation. Lisa and Catherine discuss the impact of trauma on memory, the controversies around repressed memories, recovered memories and false memories, and explore best practice guidelines for therapists working in this space. www.catherinehynes.net/training/ to learn more about Catherine's training and workshops. Recommended reading and research in this topic: Callus, E., Gallina, E., & Fernandez, I. (2024).EMDR: dispelling the false memory creation myth in response to Otgaar et al. (2022a). Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1366137. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1366137 Dalenberg, C. J., Brand, B. L., Gleaves, D. H., Dorahy, M. J., Loewenstein, R. J., Cardeña, E., Spiegel, D. (2012). Evaluation of the evidence for the trauma and fantasy models of dissociation. Psychological Bulletin, 138(3), 550-588. Freyd, Jennifer (1996). Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Geraerts, E., Schooler, J. W., Merckelbach, H., Jelicic, M., Hauer, B. J. A.,& Ambadar, Z. (2007). The reality of recovered memories: Corroborating continuous and discontinuous memories of childhood sexual abuse. Psychological Science, 18, 564 –568. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01940.x Goodman-Delahunty, J., Nolan, M. & van Gijn Grosvenor, E. Empirical guidance on the effects of child sexual abuse on memory and complainants' evidence, Report for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 2017. Houben, S. T. L., Otgaar, H., Roelofs, J., & Merckelbach, H. (2018). Lateral eye movements increase false memory rates. Clinical Psychological Science, 6, 610–616. doi:10.1177/2167702618757658. Lee, C., de Jongh, A., & Hase, M. (2019). Lateral eye movements,EMDR, and memory changes: A critical commentary on Houben et al. (2018) [Letter]. Clinical Psychological Science, 6, 403–404. doi:10.1177/216770261983039 Loftus, E. (1993) The Reality of Repressed Memories. American Psychologist. 48(5):518-37 Pezdek, K., Finger, K., & Hodge, D. (1997). Planting false childhood memories: The role of event plausibility. Psychological Science, 8(6), 437–441. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00457. Ross CA, Ridgway J, Neighbors Q, Myron T. Reversal of Amnesia for Trauma in a Sample of Psychiatric Inpatients with Dissociative Identity Disorder and Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. J Child Sex Abus. 2022 Jul;31(5):550-561. doi: 10.1080/10538712.2022.2067096. Epub 2022 Apr 19. PMID: 35437119.a van der Hart, O. & Nijenhuis, E.R.S. (1995) Amnesia for traumatic experiences. Hypnosis 1995; 22:73-86 van der Hart, O. & Nijenhuis, E.R.S. (1999) Bearing Witness to Uncorroborated Trauma: The clinician's development of reflective belief. Professional Psychology, Research and Practice. Vol 30, Number 1, pp 37-44.
Recorded June 13, 2025 Jamie talks asset management for higher education with Andy from Empirical Systems at Infocomm 2025. Discover how Empirical is revolutionizing the way educational institutions manage their technology assets, providing a comprehensive solution that streamlines information storage and budgeting for classroom and conference room tech. Andy shares his journey from Cornell University to developing this innovative system, revealing the challenges he faced in classroom technology management during the pandemic. Learn about the key features of Empirical, including a user-friendly data import process enhanced by AI, which allows institutions to easily integrate existing information and track assets effectively. The conversation also highlights the powerful forecasting dashboards that enable users to project costs for technology upgrades over multiple years, making budgeting a breeze for middle management. With insights into the importance of data accuracy and the ability to visualize financial forecasts, this episode is packed with valuable information for anyone involved in AV technology in education. To learn more about Empirical Systems and request a demo, visit empirical-av.com. If you enjoy this episode, please share it with your fellow AV enthusiasts and consider supporting the AV SuperFriends! We stream live every Friday at about 300p Eastern/1200p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
In this episode, Rick discusses Alloys' rapid growth and the changing landscape of the fitness industry.Rick reveals how Alloy has been able to scale its fitness franchise model, now with over 300 locations sold and 100 open, all while catering to an underserved age group: 45-65-year-olds.He also highlights how the wellness space is becoming increasingly complex with trends like cold plunges and extreme diets, and how the focus should return to foundational practices like strength training and regular movement.Rick shares his philosophy of focusing on strength training first, followed by cardiovascular health through walking, and a small amount of high-intensity effort to finish the session. He also talks about the growing awareness of wellness, with innovations like GLP-1 weight loss drugs and their relationship to fitness. Strength training can help mitigate some of their potential downsides.Tune in to hear Rick's thoughts on the future of fitness and wellness.Key TakeawaysIntro (00:00)Alloy's rapid growth and market strategy (01:35)Empirical evidence and market fit (03:24)Market reception and success stories (06:16)Modern fitness prescription and wellness fatigue (11:12)Strength training and cardiovascular activity (14:47)Challenges of class-based fitness (24:54)Impact of GLP-1 and future of fitness (29:44)Additional Resources:- Alloy Personal Training- Learn About The Alloy Franchise Opportunity---------You can find the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.If you haven't already, please rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts!
Can artificial intelligence transform how we navigate the most challenging dialogues on campus? Join us for a thought-provoking episode featuring philosopher and educator Simon Cullen, as he unveils his pioneering work at the intersection of education, technology, and constructive disagreement.In conversation with John Tomasi, Simon explores how open inquiry is both advanced and imperiled by disagreement, and describes his academic journey from Australia to Princeton and Carnegie Mellon. Central to the discussion is ‘Sway' an AI-powered platform developed by Simon and his team to foster rigorous, evidence-based dialogue among students on controversial topics. Sway intelligently pairs students with opposing views and acts as a “guide on the side,” scaffolding reasoning, encouraging intellectual humility, and ensuring that exchanges remain constructive and charitable. Simon shares the empirical findings from thousands of Sway-mediated dialogues, where measurable increases in students' openness, comfort, and analytical reasoning have been observed—even on divisive subjects like gender, immigration, and the Israel-Palestine conflict. In This Episode:
Natural gas producers have long struggled to differentiate their product in a market that treats gas as a commodity. When it comes to carbon intensity (CI), the industry is reliant on emission factors and self-reported data, and lacks a credible, data-driven approach to proving their gas carries a lower CI. With new regulations like the Inflation Reduction Act's Waste Emission Charge and Europe's carbon border tax, the opportunity to produce verifiable low-emission gas has grown dramatically. Enter “empirical gas”—natural gas measured in real time with actual data instead of estimates. In this episode, I catch up with my buddy Mark Smith, CEO of Clean Connect, about how his company integrates AI, camera-based monitoring, and process simulation software to create real-time, third-party verifiable emissions data. This transformation not only reduces tax burdens but unlocks access to premium markets willing to pay for low-carbon gas. The implications are massive for producers, traders, and tech firms alike.
Today we are rehashing Season 2, Episode 2 of Younger: "The Mao Function." Join us as we discuss a bizarre bar trivia night, Empirical losing their beloved sick-lit author, Kelsey receiving a compelling offer from a competitor, and so much more!
Check out Ryan @ https://www.instagram.com/empirical_concepts_training/https://ectraining.net/Check out the podcast "Manny Talks Shooting". Wherever you listen to podcasts. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/manny-talks-shooting/id1552710518 Anchor: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mannytalksshooting Manny Talks Shooting Merch: Check out the Title Sponsor: https://www.d2customguns.com/ Follow us on: mannytalksshooting.comhttps://linktr.ee/mannytalksshooting Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mannytalksshooting/ Email: manny@mannytalksshooting.comMusic courtesy of Ben Sound at https://www.bensound.com
The Capitalism and Freedom in the Twenty-First Century Podcast
Jon Hartley and Robert Barro discuss Robert's career in economics including his long list of famous students, and research on Ricardian equivalence, fiscal theory of the price level, government spending multipliers, business cycles and the legacy of New Keynesian modeling, economic growth, political economy, the interplay between religion and economics, and much more. Recorded on March 18, 2025. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Robert J. Barro is a Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and a B.S. in physics from Caltech. Barro is co-editor of Harvard's Quarterly Journal of Economics and has been President of the Western Economic Association and Vice President of the American Economic Association. He was a viewpoint columnist for Business Week from 1998 to 2006 and a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 1998. He has written extensively on macroeconomics and economic growth. Recent research involves rare macroeconomic disasters, corporate tax reform, religion & economy, empirical determinants of economic growth, and economic effects of public debt and budget deficits. Recent books include The Wealth of Religions: The Political Economy of Believing and Belonging (with Rachel M. McCleary), Economic Growth (2nd edition, with Xavier Sala-i-Martin), Nothing Is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium, Determinants of Economic Growth, and Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society. Jon Hartley is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon also is the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution, a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and the chair of the Economic Club of Miami. Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a Fixed Income Portfolio Construction and Risk Management Associate and as a Quantitative Investment Strategies Client Portfolio Management Senior Analyst and in various policy/governmental roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada. Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. ABOUT THE SERIES: Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics. For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/
In our most recent edition of the OLNS, we shared findings of an empirical study of Growth Share programs in German start-ups.
Episode 90 features a conversation with Ruth Shelton, The Empirical Herbalist. For over two decades, Ruth has cultivated a life devoted to the plants—growing, foraging, formulating, and teaching throughout the Midsouth. Together we explore what it means to be in relationship with plants, how food history intertwines with healing, and the spiritual intelligence of the natural world. Ruth shares personal stories, practical guidance, and soulful reflections on how plants can guide, teach, and nourish us on every level. She explains what initially drew her to herbalism, and how plants have become sacred teachers and allies in her life. She also shares her perspective on the spiritual and energetic aspects of herbalism, how to begin working with plants through ritual and meditation, and why honoring the cultural roots of food and herbal practices is vital for true healing. Towards the end we talk about the importance of reclaiming food history in herbalism, how overlooked traditions can offer potent medicine, and why reconnecting with ancestral plant knowledge is a radical act of remembrance.Find Ruth at:theempiricalherbalist.comInstagram: @empiricalherbal Facebook: The Empirical Herbalist
In this episode, we dive into the challenges of valuing digital assets with Ryan Connor, Jon Charbonneau from DBA, and Matthew Sigel from VanEck. The discussion covers the applicability of traditional valuation models to crypto, the role of sentiment and flows, the impact of tokenomics, and the relevance of technical analysis in the space. Thanks for tuning in! As always, remember this podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice. -- Missed DAS? Join us from June 24th-June 26th at Permissionless IV! Tickets: https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless-iv -- Follow Jon: https://x.com/jon_charb Follow Matthew: https://x.com/matthew_sigel Follow Ryan: https://x.com/_ryanrconnor Follow Blockworks Research: https://x.com/blockworksres Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3foDS38 Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3SNhUEt Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3NlP1hA Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ Join the 0xResearch Telegram group: https://t.me/+z0H6y2bS-dllODVh -- Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:59) Do TradFi Valuation Metrics Apply to Crypto? (7:57) Crypto Native Valuation Metrics (11:47) How Do Tokenomics Affect Valuations? (19:18) Using Technical Analysis -- Check out Blockworks Research today! Research, data, governance, tokenomics, and models – now, all in one place Blockworks Research: https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ Free Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on 0xResearch is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Boccaccio, Danny, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
Empirical Paranormal has been investigating the paranormal in the Southern Tier of New York for over two decades. They have uncovered compelling evidence of apparitions, phantom scents, and unexplained sounds in historic locations like the Phelps Mansion, the Bundy Museum, and the Kilmer Mansion. From witnessing a never-wound clock randomly chiming at all hours to capturing eerie EVP recordings, Empirical Paranormal combines cutting-edge technology with empathetic and intuitive methods to gather proof of spirit activity. We'll delve into their investigative process, the stories that have haunted them for years, and the fascinating findings that continue to challenge what we think we know about the spirit world. Today on The Grave Talks, a conversation about Hauntings in Binghamton, with Gina Caprari. Amy Scolaro and Dominic Caprari of Empirical Paranormal. This is Part Two of our conversation. For more information, find them on Facebook and YouTube or go to their website empiricalparanormal.com. Become a Premium Supporter of The Grave Talks Through Apple Podcasts or Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/thegravetalks) There, you will get: Access to every episode of our show, AD-FREE! Access to every episode of our show before everyone else! Other EXCLUSIVE supporter perks and more
Empirical Paranormal has been investigating the paranormal in the Southern Tier of New York for over two decades. They have uncovered compelling evidence of apparitions, phantom scents, and unexplained sounds in historic locations like the Phelps Mansion, the Bundy Museum, and the Kilmer Mansion. From witnessing a never-wound clock randomly chiming at all hours to capturing eerie EVP recordings, Empirical Paranormal combines cutting-edge technology with empathetic and intuitive methods to gather proof of spirit activity. We'll delve into their investigative process, the stories that have haunted them for years, and the fascinating findings that continue to challenge what we think we know about the spirit world. Today on The Grave Talks, a conversation about Hauntings in Binghamton, with Gina Caprari. Amy Scolaro and Dominic Caprari of Empirical Paranormal. For more information, find them on Facebook and YouTube or go to their website empiricalparanormal.com. Become a Premium Supporter of The Grave Talks Through Apple Podcasts or Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/thegravetalks) There, you will get: Access to every episode of our show, AD-FREE! Access to every episode of our show before everyone else! Other EXCLUSIVE supporter perks and more
Today we are recapping Season 1, Episode 4 of Younger: "The Exes." Join us as we discuss the chaos that ensues as Kelsey and Liza celebrate Bjornberg joining Empirical.
Starbucks makin changes… Plane “Overdue” in Alaska… Stolen Eggs… Sweet July's closing... Whale songs and Sub movies… Critics Choice Awards… Email: Chewingthefat@theblaze.com NFL Honors… www.shopblazemedia.com Subscribe to Blaze TV www.blazetv.com/jeffy Who Died Today: Virginia Halas McCaskey 102 / Adan Manzano 27… Ex-interpreter gets 57 months… Michigan State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky sterilized… Game Show: What's The Lie? Contestant: Ann Latzke… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"The Distressor is an iconic piece of gear." Dave talked about his journey from musician to audio engineer, creating the iconic Distressor compressor, the role of distortion, harmonics, and thoughtful gear selection in achieving masterful audio mixing and production, and offered practical advice for aspiring recording engineers. Get access to FREE mixing mini-course: https://MixMasterBundle.com My guest today is Dave Derr, a musician raised in a family of engineers destined to rock and make his mark on the recording industry. Dave started with studying classical piano, composition, and theory as a Music Major in college but still loved ripping solos on his '67 Gibson SG Special. This passion for music led him to a 12-year journey with the band Jack of Diamonds, touring the Philadelphia, Delaware, and Maryland areas. But Dave wasn't just rocking the stage—he was also the guy fixing the band's guitars, keyboard rigs, and PA systems. This hands-on experience sparked his path to becoming an Electronics Technician and eventually a studio engineer. Dave landed a gig at Eventide and worked alongside industry giants, contributing to the design of iconic gear like the H3000, H3500, and DSP4000. And after hours? He ran his own recording studio at home, refining his craft night and day. In 1994, Dave's talents culminated in the creation of the Distressor—a modern classic that's now a staple in major studios worldwide. Empirical Labs now has over 42,000 Distressors sold and an entire line of analog processors and digital plugins and their latest creation, the PUMP, a powerful 500 Series compressor based on the Distressor is breaking new ground for getting killer sounds in the studio or out in the field. I am super excited to have Dave Derr joining us on the podcast today. This is a big day for me, the show, and definitely a bucket list interview! PS Go to empiricallabs.com to find the Arousor and BIG FrEQ plugins where you can use the coupon code RSR10 for 10% off. THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS! http://UltimateMixingMasterclass.com https://www.adam-audio.com https://www.native-instruments.com Use code ROCK10 to get 10% off! https://www.izotope.com Use code ROCK10 to get 10% off! https://roswellproaudio.com/ https://www.makebelievestudio.com/mbsi Get your MBSI plugin here! https://RecordingStudioRockstars.com/Academy https://www.thetoyboxstudio.com/ If you love the podcast, then please leave a review: https://RSRockstars.com/Review CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE SHOW NOTES AT: https://RSRockstars.com/489
Join us, as we chat with Lars Williams, the innovative mind behind Empirical Spirits, to explore the art and science of distillation. Lars delves into the creative process behind their latest creation, a unique cilantro spirit that pushes the boundaries of flavor. We discuss how Empirical Spirits blends culinary techniques and fermentation to craft their distinctive spirits. Lars shares insights into their philosophy of reimagining ingredients and breaking traditional rules of distillation. ____________________________________ Join us every Monday as acclaimed bartender, Erick Castro, interviews some of the bar industry's top talents from around the world, including bartenders, distillers & authors. If you love cocktails & spirits then this award-winning podcast is just for you. SUPPORT US ON PATREON: Get early access to episodes, exclusive bonus episodes, special content and more: https://www.patreon.com/BartenderAtLarge WATCH OUR VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/bartenderatlarge FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM: Erick Castro: www.instagram.com/HungryBartender Bartender at Large: www.instagram.com/BartenderAtLarge FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: Erick Castro: www.twitter.com/HungryBartender Bartender at Large: www.twitter.com/BartendAtLarge
"I think stories are the way we shift the Overton window — so widen the range of things that are acceptable for policy and palatable to the public. Almost by definition, a lot of things that are going to be really important and shape the future are not in the Overton window, because they sound weird and off-putting and very futuristic. But I think stories are the best way to bring them in." — Elizabeth CoxIn today's episode, Keiran Harris speaks with Elizabeth Cox — founder of the independent production company Should We Studio — about the case that storytelling can improve the world.Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.They cover:How TV shows and movies compare to novels, short stories, and creative nonfiction if you're trying to do good.The existing empirical evidence for the impact of storytelling.Their competing takes on the merits of thinking carefully about target audiences.Whether stories can really change minds on deeply entrenched issues, or whether writers need to have more modest goals.Whether humans will stay relevant as creative writers with the rise of powerful AI models.Whether you can do more good with an overtly educational show vs other approaches.Elizabeth's experience with making her new five-part animated show Ada — including why she chose the topics of civilisational collapse, kidney donations, artificial wombs, AI, and gene drives.The pros and cons of animation as a medium.Career advice for creative writers.Keiran's idea for a longtermist Christmas movie.And plenty more.Material you might want to check out before listening:The trailer for Elizabeth's new animated series Ada — the full series will be available on TED-Ed's YouTube channel in early January 2025Keiran's pilot script and a 10-episode outline for his show Bequest, and his post about the show on the Effective Altruism ForumChapters:Cold open (00:00:00)Luisa's intro (00:01:04)The interview begins (00:02:52)Is storytelling really a high-impact career option? (00:03:26)Empirical evidence of the impact of storytelling (00:06:51)How storytelling can inform us (00:16:25)How long will humans stay relevant as creative writers? (00:21:54)Ada (00:33:05)Debating the merits of thinking about target audiences (00:38:03)Ada vs other approaches to impact-focused storytelling (00:48:18)Why animation (01:01:06)One Billion Christmases (01:04:54)How storytelling can humanise (01:09:34)But can storytelling actually change strongly held opinions? (01:13:26)Novels and short stories (01:18:38)Creative nonfiction (01:25:06)Other promising ways of storytelling (01:30:53)How did Ada actually get made? (01:33:23)The hardest part of the process for Elizabeth (01:48:28)Elizabeth's hopes and dreams for Ada (01:53:10)Designing Ada with an eye toward impact (01:59:16)Alternative topics for Ada (02:05:33)Deciding on the best way to get Ada in front of people (02:07:12)Career advice for creative writers (02:11:31)Wikipedia book spoilers (02:17:05)Luisa's outro (02:20:42)Producer: Keiran HarrisAudio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic ArmstrongContent editing: Luisa Rodriguez, Katy Moore, and Keiran HarrisTranscriptions: Katy Moore
Today, we're diving into the complexities of modern life, society, politics, and the search for meaning with the insightful and thought-provoking David Pakman. In this compelling conversation, Tom and David explore the disconnection and purposelessness many people feel today, and whether religious practices still hold the key to fulfillment. They tackle a broad range of topics, from the increase in suicides to the role of social media pressures, and the evolving significance of religion in the age of scientific understanding. David Pakman provides his perspective on the decline of religious affiliations, the politicization of religion, and the broader societal issues contributing to our current sense of disillusionment. Moreover, they delve into the complex realm of U.S. foreign and domestic policy, debating the country's role as a global policeman, support for Ukraine, and the public's complicated perception of authoritarian figures. The conversation also touches on immigration policies, the aging political leadership in the U.S., and the rising religiosity among certain right-wing figures. As the episode unfolds, you'll hear Pakman's candid views on the cognitive abilities of political figures like Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the ethical imperative of comprehensive immigration reform, and the significant economic contributions of undocumented workers. We wrap up with a thought-provoking discussion on shared values, societal integration, and the importance of tolerance and respect in a diverse world. SHOWNOTES 00:00 Harris campaign failure if Trump wins again. 03:08 Comparing Trump and Harris's contrasting future visions. 07:24 Support Ukraine with military equipment, avoid troops. 10:00 Global responsiveness necessary for reliable international agreements. 13:30 Putin fans' Ukraine cash claims debunked: troll. 18:29 Address visa overstays, company hiring, legal immigration. 21:27 Shared values, not ethnicity, define American identity. 24:25 Hispanic, Jewish, Argentinian, identity and shared values. 27:27 Non-Greek marriage anxiety despite warm welcome. 30:24 Flexible asylum policies, competitive growth via migration. 35:22 Biden presidency nearing end, minimal concerns remain. 37:49 US prefers youth culture but has gerontocratic leadership. 40:41 Growing focus on religion becoming culturally defining. 45:34 People seek meaning in various belief systems. 46:33 Empirical understanding transcends religious or flat-earth beliefs. 49:41 Enjoyed conversation, subscribe for more episodes. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Range Rover: Explore the Range Rover Sport at https://landroverUSA.com Huel: Try Huel with 15% OFF today using code IMPACT at https://huel.com/impact. Netsuite: Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at https://netsuite.com/theory Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impact Design.com: Ready to transform your brand? Head to https://design.com/impacttheory and get up to 88% off. Betterhelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/impacttheory and get 10% off your first month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
If you're struggling with these gut and other health symptoms, you may be dealing with a vector borne illness such as lyme disease. What are the warning signs of vector borne illnesses, how do you test for them, and how do you treat them? All of this and more will be answered in this episode. Watch now! AcuDart Tick-Borne Disease Test Panel: https://www.acudarthealth.com/collections/individual-tests Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 03:22 What organisms cause chronic infections? 05:51 What are the symptoms? 14:53 Testing 18:17 Treatment 28:21 How & where do you get these infections?