A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/pannu-monrad Jassi Pannu is a Resident Physician at Stanford, a Visiting Scholar at John Hopkins, and a Fellow at the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative. Joshua Monrad is a Biosecurity Program Officer at Effective Giving and a Researcher at Oxford's Future Humanity Institute. We discuss: The post-COVID biosecurity landscape, including the American Pandemic...

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/mathieu Edouard Mathieu is the Head of Data at Our World in Data (OWID), a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems such as poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality. We discuss: What Ed learned from working with governments and the WHO A simple change the WHO could make to radically improve how...

A full writeup of this episode, including references and a transcript, is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/alexanian-ahuja Tessa Alexanian is the Safety & Security Program Officer at the iGEM Foundation, which organises a worldwide competition in synthetic biology and helps foster a collaborative community. She is a fellow at the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative, was previously a fellow at the Foresight Institute, and co-founded the East Bay Biosecurity...

Michael Aird is a senior research manager at Rethink Priorities, where he co-leads the Artificial Intelligence Governance and Strategy team alongside Amanda El-Dakhakhni. Before that, he conducted nuclear risk research for Rethink Priorities and longtermist macrostrategy research for Convergence Analysis, the Center on Long-Term Risk, and the Future of Humanity Institute, which is where we know each other from. Before that, he was a teacher and a stand up comedian. We discuss: Whether you...

A full writeup of this episode is available on our website: hearthisidea.com/episodes/esvelt-sandbrink. Kevin Esvelt is an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab, where he is director of the Sculpting Evolution group, which invents new ways to study and influence the evolution of ecosystems. He helped found the SecureDNA Project and the Nucleic Acid Observatory, both of which we discuss in the episode. Esvelt is also known for proposing the idea of using CRISPR to implement gene...

In this episode, Fin and Luca celebrate 50 episodes of Hear This Idea: all the highs, lows, and near-disasters along the way. We chat about: The HTI origin story Favourite behind the scenes moments Should we argue with guests more? Mistakes we've made (and are still making?) What we've learned about asking better questions Starting projects from scratch Ideas for the next 50 episodes Future topics, dream guests Why does this podcast exist? Podcasting tips A potential new program Our media...

Professor Doyne Farmer is the Baillie Gifford Professor in Mathematics at Oxford, the Director of the Complexity Economics programme at INET, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. In our conversation we discuss: How Doyne and his friends used physics and hidden computers to beat the roulette wheel in Las Vegas casinos Advancing economic models to better predict business cycles and knock-on effects from extreme events like Covid-19 Techniques for predicting technological...

Ajay Karpur is a Senior Program Associate in Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness at Open Philanthropy. He's hoping to start tweeting again soon, at @ajaykarpur. Joining as a guest co-host on this episode was Janvi Ahuja, who is a PhD student in computational biology at Oxford University, and part of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security ‘Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity’ program. She's tweeting at @jn_ahuja. In our conversation, we discuss: What is metagenomic sequencing, and why...

Dr Spencer R. Weart served as the Director of the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics from 1974 to 2009. He is the author of several books, including The Discovery of Global Warming and The Rise of Nuclear Fear. In our conversation, we discuss: How climate science emerged, what it took for scientists to form a consensus in the mid-1960s, and how that consensus has evolved since The IPCC’s emerging understanding of so-called “tipping points” in the climate...

Jason Crawford is the founder of The Roots of Progress, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century. He writes and speaks about the history and philosophy of progress, especially in technology and industry. In our conversation we discuss — What progress is, and why it matters (maybe more than you think) How to think about resource constraints — why they are sometimes both real and surmountable The 'low-hanging fruit' explanation for stagnation,...

Cristina Bicchieri is the S. J. Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. In our conversation we discuss — How to define social norms and distinguish them from similar concepts How social norms evolve and why they often persist, even in situations where they are harmful Real world policy applications of social norms, including covid and high-level decision making You can read more about the topics we cover in this episode's...

Lord Bird is the co-founder of The Big Issue, a magazine supporting street vendors who are homeless, a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, and co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Future Generations. In our conversation, we discuss — The Future Generations Bill, currently being discussed in the UK Parliament Causes of political short-sightedness Broader social issues facing the UK You can read more about the topics we cover in this episode's write-up:...

Sam Hilton is the Research Director at Charity Entrepreneurship, the Parliamentary Coordinator at the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for Future Generations, and a Research Affiliate at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk. In our conversation, we discuss — Charity Entrepreneurship's plans for the 2022 Incubation Program Exploratory Altruism and finding new cause areas Lessons for longtermist policy and thoughts on the Future Generations Bill You can read more about the topics...

Glen Weyl is Microsoft’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer Political Economist and Social Technologist (OCTOPEST), where he advises Microsoft’s senior leaders on macroeconomics, geopolitics and the future of technology. Glen also co-authored Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society; a book about "Revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to bring about fairness and prosperity for all". In our conversation, we discuss — Quadratic voting and funding The new...

Habiba Islam is a member of the 80,000 Hours career advising team. First, the two most important links: Apply to receive free career coaching: 80000hours.org/hti Apply to join the 80k career advising team here In this conversation, we talk about — How to begin planning a high-impact career What one-on-one calls with 80k are like (and why you might consider applying) Different motivations and framings for longtermism The case for being ambitious if you want to do good in your...

Michael Bhaskar is a writer, researcher and publisher. He is a former consultant Writer in Residence at DeepMind, and most recently he wrote a book called Human Frontiers, which tries to answer the question: “why has the flow of big, world-changing ideas slowed down?” In our conversation, we discuss — The 'Adams curve' How so much of the modern world was invented in exceptional 20th century research institutes such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC Evidence for slowdown in new ideas from...

Mike Hinge is a Senior Economist at ALLFED (Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters). In our interview, we discuss: Why nuclear fallout blocking sunlight could be one of the most extreme threats to the global food supply, and how this compares to the risk from climate change; How scientists and ALLFED model the fallout of nuclear winter, how it affects crop yields, and how it changes food prices for the global poor; Potential technologies for feeding everyone in case of a disaster, such as...

Keith Frankish is a philosopher of mind. He is an Honorary Reader at the University of Sheffield, UK, Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme at the University of Crete. In our interview, we discuss: What is the hard problem of consciousness? What is the illusionist theory of consciousness? What does illusionism have to do with ethics? When should we care for robot dogs? How should academics use twitter? You can read more...

Christoph Winter is an Assistant Professor of Law at ITAM in Mexico, a Visiting Scholar in Psychology at Harvard, and the founder of the Legal Priorities Project In our interview, we discuss: A global survey of legal academics about protecting future generations; How constitutional law might best help in this effort; Endangerment law and the "risk of creating a risk"; And lots more! You can read more about the topics we cover in this episode's write-up:...

Gillian Hadfield) is Director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. She is a Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto. In our interview, we discuss: Why humans invented law, and what Gillian describes as "the demand side" for legal infrastructure; Why social norms continue to be important today and how Ancient Athens managed to use a decentralised system of collective punishment; The case for "regulatory markets" in...

Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the author of Open Borders, The Myth of the Rational Voter, The Case Against Education, and Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. In our interview, we discuss: Causes of poverty Charter cities The case for open borders Democracy — is it overrated? Why do voters keep choosing bad policies? Do democracies last longer, grow faster, and go to war less? Stable global totalitarianism Should longtermists care more about having...

Ben Todd is the CEO & founder of 80,000 Hours, and helped to start the effective altruism movement. 80,000 Hours is a non-profit that provides free research and support to help people find careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems. In our interview, we discuss: Why your choice of career could be the most important ethical decision you ever get to make; 80K’s ‘problem, solution, personal fit’ framework for choosing a career; Whether longtermism should be...

Anders Sandberg is a researcher, futurist, transhumanist and author. He holds a PhD in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. His research covers the ethics of human enhancement, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, and very long-range futures. In this episode, we talk about The Fermi Paradox: if the universe is so big, where are all the aliens? What is...

Professor Jeffrey Sachs is the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and author of many bestselling books. In this episode, we talk about The need to reform the international financial system; The role of mitigating global catastrophic risk in sustainable development; The importance of expert advice and political leadership. You can read much more about the topics we cover in this episode...

Matt Ives is a Senior Research Associate in Complex Systems Economic Modelling at the University of Oxford. We discuss the reasons behind the astonishing decline in costs of renewable technologies, especially solar power, and the implications this has for fighting climate change. We also touch on modelling energy systems, financial discolour of climate/transition risks, and complexity economics. You can read much more about the topics we cover in this episode in our accompanying write-up:...