Increments

Oct 23 2024 76 ep. 80 mins 116

Increments Podcast artwork

Vaden Masrani, a senior research scientist in machine learning, and Ben Chugg, a PhD student in statistics, get into trouble arguing about everything except machine learning and statistics. Coherence is somewhere on the horizon. Bribes, suggestions, love-mail and hate-mail all welcome at [email protected].

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#0 - Introduction

May 19 2020 8 mins

Ben and Vaden attempt to justify why the world needs another podcast, and fail. Support Increments

#75 - The Problem of Induction, Relitigated (w/ Tamler Sommers)

Oct 23 2024 101 mins

When Very Bad Wizards meets Very Culty Popperians. We finally decided to have a real life professional philosopher on the pod to call us out on our nonsense, and are honored to have on Tamler Sommers, from the esteemed Very Bad Wizards podcast, to argue with us about the Problem of Induction. Did Popper solve it, or does his proposed solution, like all the other attempts, "fai

#74 - Disagreeing about Belief, Probability, and Truth (w/ David Deutsch)

Oct 01 2024 92 mins

What do you do when one of your intellectual idols comes on the podcast? Bombard them disagreements of course. We were thrilled to have David Deutsch on the podcast to discuss whether the concept of belief is a useful lens on human cognition, when probability and statistics should be deployed, and whether he disagrees with Karl Popper on abstractions, the truth, and nothing but the

#73 - The Unfairness of Proportional Representation

Sep 13 2024 85 mins

Want to make everyone under 30 extremely angry? Tell them you don't like proportional representation. Tell them proportional representation sucks, just like recycling. In this episode, we continue to improve your popularity at parties by diving into Sir Karl's theory of democracy, and his arguments for why the first-past-the-post electoral system is superior to proportional

#72 (C&R, Chap. 19: Part II) - On the (alleged) Right of a Nation to Self-Determination

Aug 27 2024 51 mins

Part two on Chapter 19 of Conjectures and Refutations! Last time we got a little hung up arguing about human behavior and motivations. Putting that disagreement aside, like mature adults, we move on to the rest of the chapter and Popper's remaining theses. In particular, we focus on Popper's criticism of the idea of a nation's right to self-determination. Things were go

#71 (C&R, Chap 19: Part I) - The History of Our Time: An Optimist's View

Aug 02 2024 72 mins

Back to the Conjectures and Refutations series, after a long hiatus! Given all that's happening in the world and the associated rampant pessimism, we thought it would be appropriate to tackle Chapter 19 - A History of Our Time: An Optimist's View. We get through a solid fifth of the chapter, at which point Ben and Vaden start arguing about whether people are fundamentally g

#70 - ... and Bayes Bites Back (w/ Richard Meadows)

Jul 09 2024 90 mins

Sick of hearing us shouting about Bayesianism? Well today you're in luck, because this time, someone shouts at us about Bayesianism! Richard Meadows, finance journalist, author, and Ben's secretive podcast paramour, takes us to task. Are we being unfair to the Bayesians? Is Bayesian rationality optimal in theory, and the rest of us are just coping with an uncertain world? I

#69 - Contra Scott Alexander on Probability

Jun 20 2024 105 mins

After four episodes spent fawning over Scott Alexander's "Non-libertarian FAQ", we turn around and attack the good man instead. In this episode we respond to Scott's piece "In Continued Defense of Non-Frequentist Probabilities", and respond to each of his five arguments defending Bayesian probability. Like moths to a flame, we apparently cannot let the p

#68 - Libertarianism IV: Political Issues (w/ Bruce Nielson)

May 30 2024 110 mins

The final part in a series which has polarized the nation. We tackle -- alongside Bruce Nielson as always -- the remaining part of Scott's FAQ: Political Issues. Can the government get anything right? Has Scott strawmanned the libertarian argument in this section? Is libertarianism an economic theory, a political theory, a metaphysical theory, or a branch of physics? And what d

#67 - Libertarianism III: Social Issues (w/ Bruce Nielson)

May 09 2024 105 mins

Have you ever wanted to be more rich? Have you considered just working a bit harder? Welcome to part III of our libertarian series, where we discuss Part B: Social Issues of Scott Alexander's Anti-Libertarian FAQ, which critiques the libertarian view that if you're rich, you deserve it, and if you're poor, well, you deserve that too. As always, the estimable Bruce Niels