80,000 Hours Podcast

Nov 14 2024 261 ep. 132 mins 5.1k

80,000 Hours Podcast artwork

Unusually in-depth conversations about the world's most pressing problems and what you can do to solve them. Subscribe by searching for '80000 Hours' wherever you get podcasts. Produced by Keiran Harris. Hosted by Rob Wiblin and Luisa Rodriguez.

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#207 – Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on why she shut down her charity, and why more founders should follow her lead

Nov 14 2024 178 mins

"I think one of the reasons I took [shutting down my charity] so hard is because entrepreneurship is all about this bets-based mindset. So you say, “I’m going to take a bunch of bets. I’m going to take some risky bets that have really high upside.” And this is a winning strategy in life, but maybe it’s not a winning strategy for any given hand. So the fact of the matter i

Bonus: Parenting insights from Rob and 8 past guests

Nov 08 2024 95 mins

With kids very much on the team's mind we thought it would be fun to review some comments about parenting featured on the show over the years, then have hosts Luisa Rodriguez and Rob Wiblin react to them. Links to learn more and full transcript.After hearing 8 former guests’ insights, Luisa and Rob chat about:Which of these resonate the most with Rob, now that he’s been a dad f

#206 – Anil Seth on the predictive brain and how to study consciousness

Nov 01 2024 153 mins

"In that famous example of the dress, half of the people in the world saw [blue and black], half saw [white and gold]. It turns out there’s individual differences in how brains take into account ambient light. Colour is one example where it’s pretty clear that what we experience is a kind of inference: it’s the brain’s best guess about what’s going on in some way out ther

How much does a vote matter? (Article)

Oct 28 2024 32 mins

If you care about social impact, is voting important? In this piece, Rob investigates the two key things that determine the impact of your vote:The chances of your vote changing an election’s outcome.How much better some candidates are for the world as a whole, compared to others.He then discusses a couple of the best arguments against voting in important elections, namely:If an

#205 – Sébastien Moro on the most insane things fish can do

Oct 23 2024 191 mins

"You have a tank split in two parts: if the fish gets in the compartment with a red circle, it will receive food, and food will be delivered in the other tank as well. If the fish takes the blue triangle, this fish will receive food, but nothing will be delivered in the other tank. So we have a prosocial choice and antisocial choice. When there is no one in the other part of the ta

#204 – Nate Silver on making sense of SBF, and his biggest critiques of effective altruism

Oct 16 2024 117 mins

Rob Wiblin speaks with FiveThirtyEight election forecaster and author Nate Silver about his new book: On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.Links to learn more, highlights, video, and full transcript.On the Edge explores a cultural grouping Nate dubs “the River” — made up of people who are analytical, competitive, quantitatively minded, risk-taking, and willing to be con

#203 – Peter Godfrey-Smith on interfering with wild nature, accepting death, and the origin of complex civilisation

Oct 03 2024 85 mins

"In the human case, it would be mistaken to give a kind of hour-by-hour accounting. You know, 'I had +4 level of experience for this hour, then I had -2 for the next hour, and then I had -1' — and you sort of sum to try to work out the total… And I came to think that something like that will be applicable in some of the animal cases as well… There are achievements, there are

Luisa and Keiran on free will, and the consequences of never feeling enduring guilt or shame

Sep 27 2024 96 mins

In this episode from our second show, 80k After Hours, Luisa Rodriguez and Keiran Harris chat about the consequences of letting go of enduring guilt, shame, anger, and pride.Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.They cover:Keiran’s views on free will, and how he came to hold themWhat it’s like not experiencing sustained guilt, shame, and angerWhether Luisa would

#202 – Venki Ramakrishnan on the cutting edge of anti-ageing science

Sep 19 2024 140 mins

"For every far-out idea that turns out to be true, there were probably hundreds that were simply crackpot ideas. In general, [science] advances building on the knowledge we have, and seeing what the next questions are, and then getting to the next stage and the next stage and so on. And occasionally there’ll be revolutionary ideas which will really completely change your view of

#201 – Ken Goldberg on why your robot butler isn’t here yet

Sep 13 2024 121 mins

"Perception is quite difficult with cameras: even if you have a stereo camera, you still can’t really build a map of where everything is in space. It’s just very difficult. And I know that sounds surprising, because humans are very good at this. In fact, even with one eye, we can navigate and we can clear the dinner table. But it seems that we’re building in a lot of understa