Change My Mind

Alex Buxeda

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The purpose of dialogue is to let ideas die instead of us.

9H AGO

What is Trust? w/ Karl Friston

I am joined by neuroscientist Karl Friston to discuss, from first principles, what trust is.The trust we put in others, and in our institutions, is a sociological feature emergent from biology. It is here that predictions first appear. This conversation inspired an article we co-wrote:https://schweizermonat.ch/trust-is-a-law-of-nature/

1h 2m
JAN 26

In Defense of Liberalism w/ Cass Sunstein

Lukas Leuzinger and Alex Buxeda interview Cass Sunstein for Schweizer Monat. They dissect the mechanics of liberalism. Sunstein defines a tradition that encompasses Hayek and Burke. He counters the claims of Patrick Deneen. He argues that choice does not destroy faith or family. The dialogue shifts to nudges. Sunstein explains how choice architecture assists humans without it being manipulation. They analyze speech standards. They contrast the First Amendment with the laws of Switzerland and Germany. Sunstein outlines the divisions of power. He warns against the expansion of the executive. Buy Sunstein's latest book: On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom Check Sunstein's books here

41 min
12/11/2025

Sound Money or Soft Despotism w/ Barbara Kolm

Barbara Kolm, President of the Austrian School of Economics, joins Alex Buxeda to dismantle the myths of monetary nationalism, expose the political incentives behind inflation, and explain why trust collapses when money becomes a political tool. They explore Carl Menger’s legacy, why money is a discovery not an invention, how time and information shape economic order, and why Europe is quietly drifting toward central planning through the “law of rules”. From Bitcoin’s “don’t trust, verify,” to demographic decline, taxation traps, bureaucratic overreach, CBDCs, nudging theory, and the collapse of competitiveness in Europe, this episode is a deep dive into the institutions that shape freedom, responsibility, and prosperity.

42 min
10/02/2024

Entropy and Understanding

In this episode, we explore how consilience collapses concepts, the nature of entropy, markets as anticipation machines, biology as a model of past environments that survives by matching the present and future, the division of labor freeing mental bandwidth, energy as the basis of value, and the provisional nature of all knowledge.

2h 37m
02/05/2024

Efficiently Feeding the World with Microalgae W/ Fengzheng Gao

Today, I had a conversation with Fengzheng Gao. Fengzheng is a researcher specializing in Microalgal Biotechnology, and he holds two doctorates, one in Bioprocess Engineering and another one in Aquatic Product Processing and Storage Engineering. He has contributed to over 20 scientific publications. We talked about the potential of microalgae in optimizing the food chain in order to provide abundant food to the poorest at an accessible cost, how microalgae can supplement the iron intake of the people suffering from iron deficiencies better than conventional iron supplements, the vastly promising future of algae strains in solving any nutritional problem we might face, bioengineering as a solution to climate change and much more. Check Gao's Linkedin Google Scholar Profile⁠

48 min
12/17/2023

Intelligence, Neurodivergence and Epistemology W/ Abel Abelson

Abel Abelson, a neurodivergent writer and YouTuber, has navigated the unique challenges of being distinct from the majority, on which our conversation focuses mainly. He was recognized by Mensa with an IQ of 133, which places him in the 98th percentile in terms of cognitive ability. Today we talked about whether every problem can be solved through further understanding, how one can be content with the fact that one will be discontent, the apparent incompatibility of acceptance and performance, how to define happiness, the need for enough similarities between two people to have a successful relationship, the pursuit of transcendent threads of logic, how the reason you like football has nothing to do with football and all to do with the fact that you are an ape, the huge variance among people in curiosity and intelligence and the best way to approach it, disgustingness of the anti-egalitarian nature of the massive differences in intelligence across the population, the leverage of your actions as a measure of your intelligence, the nature of trauma, the power of mindfulness, the self-fulfilling effect of believing that you have a problem, progressive voluntary exposure as a solution to fear and trauma, the incoherence of free will as uncaused behavior, the need for immediate regulation of our emotions after a dramatically negative event to avoid trauma, the need to update our knowledge faster than every 1000 years, the perpetual ability to establish dialogue if you criticize the antibodies of the incendiary ideas, and the incoherence of the Naturalistic fallacy. You can find Abel on YouTube Buy Abel’s books on Amazon

3h 10m
12/06/2023

Free Will & Stoicism W/ Abdi

Today I am joined by my friend Abdi. In this conversation we talked about: that what causes suffering is the interpretation of the facts, not the facts themselves, framing free will as the ability to ditch a vice, how we don't choose to choose-proving the inexistence of free will as unconstrained decisions, how uncaused behavior is an incoherent concept as a round square, how 99% of the cost of vice is in the creation of future vice, the end of history illusion, how the misalignment between feedback and reality is THE civilizational problem, how we are drowning in information-related to the paradox of choice that emerges from more abundance than one can handle, the explore-exploit tradeoff, how we should be open to being surprised, how as Aristotle said the sweet spot is in the mean between the extremes, how morality is a navigation problem, how trying to falsify stereotypes can be extremely valuable, how we should treat others as if we could learn something from them, the need for both conservatism and progressivism, how blaming is mostly useless, how virtue is always in our hands.

1h 35m
07/14/2023

Comfortable Limiting Beliefs and Universal Laws W/ Lukas S

Today I had a conversation with Lukas S, he is a personal coach that focuses on human performance and mindset training. Check him out on Instagram at ⁠⁠otokstrength⁠⁠ or online at ⁠⁠otokstrength.com⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠theprotocol.life⁠⁠ We talked about how complaining is useless but it feels good to us, how finding common ground with people who believe opposite ideas is what allows your or others' minds to be changed, the importance of self-awareness to not be fooled into the fake things that the status quo advocates for, distinguishing what furthers our long-term objectives and what does not, how getting rid of what does not contribute to the long-term objectives maximizes our potential, how we have agency but admitting so requires taking responsibility over our mediocre lives, how doing less is the key to perform more (via negativa), how enduring through long periods of time without positive feedback is what suck feels like and it is the thing that differentiates success from mediocrity, the importance of keeping promises to ourselves, and how all levels of well-being (like relationships, finance, and health) should be taken care of in order to have a good life and how it is hard to dismiss one without doing so with the others.

1h 22m

The purpose of dialogue is to let ideas die instead of us.

Creator

Alex Buxeda
Years Active

2021 - 2026
Episodes

48
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Alex Buxeda
Show Website

Change My Mind