164 | Herbert Gintis on Game Theory, Evolutio...

The connectome is the wiring diagram of a brain, a big matrix that tells us what neurons talk to what other neurons. Understanding it is an important step to understanding how brains work, but a long way from the final answer. A big next step is understanding how neuronal circuit ...  Show more

Peter Singer has been an influential philosopher for a number of decades. He was a significant early voice in animal rights, has been a leading thinker of utilitarianism, and helped inspire the effective altruism movement. In this podcast episode, we try our best to talk about al ...  Show more

The classic economic theory embedded in western democracies holds an assumption that human beings will almost always behave rationally in the end and make logical choices that will keep our society balanced on the whole. Daniel Kahneman is the psychologist who won the Nobel Prize ...  Show more

Sam Harris speaks with Jonathan Haidt about his book The Coddling of the American Mind. They discuss the hostility to free speech that has grown more common among young adults, recent moral panics on campus, the role of intentions in ethical life, the economy of prestige in “call ...  Show more

Sam Harris speaks with Chris Anderson about generosity in the age of the Internet. They talk about the new spirit of cynicism in tech and finance, the problems with DEI, the Coleman Hughes controversy at TED, the norm of color blindness, the science of generosity, th ...

Why do we mirror other people’s accents? Does DJ Khaled get tired of winning? And also: life is good — so why aren’t you happy?