Topical Storm

Alex & Eli
  • 5.0 (49)
  • Society & Culture

Join Alex and Eli as they tackle interesting intellectual and philosophical topics with engaged excitement and commute-friendly brevity. New episodes every week with topics ranging from the study of consciousness to the economics of addiction.

  1. 10/25/2020

    28 | Existential Risk

    We take on the harrowing topic of existential risk and examine the many ways that things could go very badly for humanity. On the bright side, Nick Bostrom is always an enjoyable read.

  2. 10/07/2020

    27 | Hyperbolic Discounting

    It's widely known that humans tend to sacrifice long term rewards for smaller, more immediate gains. We tackle a less widely disseminated model of behavior called hyperbolic discounting that implies our impulsive decisions have some very surprising characteristics.

  3. 09/29/2020

    26 | Death and Cryonics

    We're back! Today we tackle cryonics, the movement that suggests cryo-preserving the body moments after legal death will enable humanity to one day greatly extend our lifespans.

  4. 02/16/2020

    25 | Roko's Basilisk

    We have a wacky one for you today! Roko's Basilisk, a thought experiment grounded in decision theory, suggests that a future AI could be incentivized to punish most of humanity for not helping bring it into existence.

  5. 02/09/2020

    24 | All About Jazz

    We take a break from heavy philosophy to discuss a fun topic: Jazz! This serves as a good introduction to the genre for any novice jazz listener or player.

  6. 01/26/2020

    Is Possibility Impossible?: Op-Ed 05

    Today we have an informal discussion about free will, possibility, and what it means to have agency. This was a fascinating conversation for us and we hope it encourages you to think critically about these topics!

  7. 01/19/2020

    23 | The Doomsday Argument

    We continue our discussion of anthropic reasoning from last episode by examining a very troubling thought experiment. Can we logically deduce that humanity is doomed?

  8. 01/12/2020

    22 | Anthropic Reasoning

    We return from our hiatus to discuss the Anthropic Principle and its applications to statistical reasoning. How should we think about probability when our own existence is correlated with an events occurrence?

See All (34)

Trailer

5
out of 5
49 Ratings

About

Join Alex and Eli as they tackle interesting intellectual and philosophical topics with engaged excitement and commute-friendly brevity. New episodes every week with topics ranging from the study of consciousness to the economics of addiction.

Information

  • Creator
    Alex & Eli
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2020
  • Episodes
    34
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Topical Storm