Monocle Moments

Jaap van Beek

In Monocle Moments, I talk to the most interesting people I can possible find and I dig deep to bring you a fascinating listening experience.

Episodes

  1. 08/02/2020

    #12 Professor Robert Plomin - How DNA Makes Us Who We Are​

    About the Episode: Let’s say you are fat. Is that your fault? Can you really do anything about it? Can we predict that you’re gonna be fat when you’re gonna grow up? Or is that just because of how your parents raised you? This is just one of the many interesting topics that Professor Robert Plomin and I will get into today. Now Professor Plomin is a psychologist and geneticist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics. He is ranked among the 100 most eminent psychologists in the history of science. Just let that sink in. Apart from his incredibly impressive scientific career, Robert also wrote a book with which he hopes to reach beyond the scientific community called “Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are”. And I found out about all this by listening to a podcast he did with Sam Harris, after which I started wondering what the point even was of making the monocle moments podcast. We will talk about this. Other topics include whether or not parenting matters, the impact this may have on medical insurance, but mostly how the discoveries could make people’s lives better. Although Robert’s message is purely about his research, and he does not get into emotion all too much, I think you’ll enjoy Robert’s soft spokenness and honesty in this conversation. Shownotes: Book: https://amzn.to/30ldPj3 Email: robert.plomin@kcl.ac.uk Find out about your own DNA: https://www.23andme.com/ Sam Harris Podcast with Robert Plomin: https://samharris.org/podcasts/211-the-nature-of-human-nature/ Intelligence Squared Debate: https://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/parenting-doesnt-matter-or-not-as-much-as-you-think/

    #12 Professor Robert Plomin - How DNA Makes Us Who We Are​
  2. 06/19/2020

    #9 Myrthe Frissen - Vegetables Without Borders

    Myrthe Frissen is my guest today. She is the founder of Vegetables Without Border, which is an amazing project that was started in order to tackle food waste. However, once the project got going and started getting bigger, they realized it also helps bringing people together in meaningful ways, and it promotes healthy eating to people. So Myrthe is an MD herself, and she’s specializing in environmental medicine, and in this conversation we talk about vegetables without borders, we talk about what made her go vegan, why she doesn’t every really bring up that she is vegan, apart from in this conversation because I asked her, and we talk about changing human behaviour. And then in the end we also talk about why she decided to no longer work in the hospital. Enjoy! Shownotes: Vegetables Without Borders: Vegetables Without Borders (VWB) is a volunteer organization that saves surplus food from ending in the trash by cooking up a storm of delicious plant-based dishes and inviting fellow citizens for a free buffet.* The Rotterdam born initiative ended in the top 5 of national volunteer organizations in 2018, and is was invited to speak at the first edition of topconference “The Netherlands making an impact” (NMI). *Due to the measures concerning the coronacrisis the community center closed and the volunteers have set up the first 100% vegan foodbank to redirect their usual wastestreams to the people most in need, a spin-off named “Veggies to the Rescue”. About Myrthe Myrthe Frissen is a medical doctor and clinical researcher currently specializing in environmental medicine. You can contact her for further information about Vegetables Without Borders, plantbased nutrition and its environmental as well as health effects, zero-waste-cooking, recommendations for healthcare providers such as dieticians or any other question that come to mind after hearing this podcast (including how to be optimistic about hopeless futures). If you are ever in Rotterdam or Schiedam feel free to drop by the project and have dinner with us (reservations are recommended). Links: Website https://www.groentenzondergrenzen.nl/?lang=en Instagram https://www.instagram.com/groentenzondergrenzen_gzg/?hl=nl Mentioned Article (about the journalist who asked how she could be so happy) https://versbeton.nl/2019/12/ons-kent-ons-dineren-bij-groenten-zonder-grenzen/ Media Report VWB https://www.rijnmond.nl/media/95841/Groenten-Zonder-Grenzen-een-oplossing-voor-voedselverspilling-en-eenzaamheid The Game Changers https://gamechangersmovie.com/ Forks Over Knives https://www.forksoverknives.com/

    #9 Myrthe Frissen - Vegetables Without Borders
  3. 04/17/2020

    #3 Monocle Moments - Loïc Roldán Waals

    Loic is a data scientist and probably one of the most rational people I know. It seems like he has pondered on every topic in existence and has smart things to say about them. He is really good at learning and teaching. In this episode we get into learning and teaching, coding, riddles, mathematics and financial independence. At the end I ask some difficult questions from the book of questions which gets us into some interesting discussions. SnowNotes: Why we sleep https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501144324/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1501144324&linkCode=as2&tag=monocle03-20&linkId=5960b2fb80a38d287f52a96270d36b3a Kurtzgezagt https://www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt Article about what we called "The Boundry of Knowledge": https://ardalis.com/the-more-you-know-the-more-you-realize-you-dont-know Video explaining the picture of a black hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_GVbuddri8 Code for the toilet paper numbers (requires jupyter notebook for graph): https://github.com/loicrw/Random-problems/blob/master/Random%20Problems/Toilet%20Paper%20Numbers.ipynb Math olympiad that talks about invariants and how difficult it is to gauge question difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M64HUIJFTZM Video about why your friends have more friends than you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEjhO65FYks Rotterdam ai bootcamp link: https://lovelacecamp.ai About going back to your "base happiness": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill The Egg short story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI Let's plant 1,000,000 trees! https://teamtrees.org/ Loic's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lo%C3%AFc-rold%C3%A1n-waals-60b51383/

    #3 Monocle Moments - Loïc Roldán Waals

About

In Monocle Moments, I talk to the most interesting people I can possible find and I dig deep to bring you a fascinating listening experience.