The Metagame

Daniel Kazandjian
  • 4.6 (10)
  • PHILOSOPHY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Practical philosophy for playing with life. themetagame.substack.com

  1. 6D AGO

    #50 - Alex Olshonsky | You're Probably Addicted to Thinking

    Alex Olshonsky is a coach, somatic therapist, and writer. After a polysubstance addiction nearly killed him during his Silicon Valley years at Twitter, Salesforce, and Slack, he found freedom in somatic psychology and contemplative practice. He now coaches founders and people in recovery, co-founded the psychedelic-assisted addiction nonprofit Natura Care, and writes the Substack Deep Fix. In this highly practical episode, we talk about his life a “professional drug addict” and his beautiful article You’re probably addicted to thinking. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 29m

  2. APR 28

    #49 - Richard Ngo | The Case For Virtue Ethics In The Age of AGI

    Richard Ngo is one of a handful of people who've worked on AGI safety at both DeepMind and OpenAI. After three years as a futurist on OpenAI's Governance team, he left to pursue independent research on coalitions, virtue ethics, and the foundations of cooperation. He’s also a science fiction author (The Gentle Romance: Stories of AI and Humanity) and writes at Mind the Future. We talk about virtue ethics, egregores, academic fraud, memeplexes, cooperation, parts-work, and what it was like to work with Sam Altman. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 57m

  3. APR 21

    #48 - Matt Southey | A Gentle Introduction to Nick Land

    "Nothing human makes it out of the near future." - Nick Land Matt Southey is a leading expert on the philosophy of Nick Land with a PhD in Religion from Rice University. He is also the founding editor of The Latecomer, an online magazine which publishes essays on the long-term future. Matt's excellent piece on "A Brief History of Accelerationism" can be found here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    38 min

  4. APR 14

    #47 - Michael Smith | Hostile Telepaths: Why Your Brain Deceives Itself to Survive Social Reality

    Michael “Valentine” Smith is a co-founder of CFAR (the Center for Applied Rationality) and the author of influential LessWrong essays including The Hostile Telepaths Problem, Kenshō, and The Intelligent Social Web. He’s also been described as “one of the most powerful wizards in the Bay Area.” In this conversation, he explains why your brain creates fog and self-deception to survive social situations, what it actually takes to find clarity, and why "working on yourself" might be the wrong frame entirely. We also do a live coaching demo debugging my own procrastination. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 48m

  5. APR 7

    #46 - Jake Orthwein | Unraveling the Dream: Psychedelics, Meditation, and the Brain

    Jake Orthwein is the creator of Frame Problems, a video essay channel on science, art, philosophy, politics, and culture. In this episode, Jake talks about his upcoming film for Sam Harris‘s mindfulness app Waking Up. We explore the latest neuroscience on consciousness and how it might explain the psychedelic experience, religious phenomenology, meditation and what it all means for a good life. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 22m

  6. FEB 9

    #45 - Alex Zhu & Romeo Stevens | Debating the Perennial Philosophy

    Alex Zhu is a math olympian and researcher exploring the convergence of analytical rationality and religion. He’s also the co-founder of AlphaSheets. He’s currently working on a rigorous framework for bridging AI alignment and mysticism. Romeo Stevens is one of co-founders of the Qualia Research Institute and the founder of Mealsquares. He writes extensively about buddhism, pedagogy, skill development and psychotherapeutic modalities. You can find his work on his blog, Lesswrong and Twitter. In this episode, Alex and Romeo explore their disagreement around perennialism. The idea that all the world’s major religions are pointing to the same thing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 37m
  7. #44 - Pranab Sachi | Getting Things Done by Feeling Your Feelings

    JAN 22

    #44 - Pranab Sachi | Getting Things Done by Feeling Your Feelings

    Pranab Sachi is the co-founder of Attention Copilot, a service that blends meditation and therapy techniques with real-time productivity support. He applies non-dual teachings, IFS, somatic awareness, and emotional processing to help people experience deep work on demand. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 25m

  8. JAN 7

    #43 — Max Shen | How Trapped Emotions Create Physical Pain

    Max Shen is a pain researcher with a background in computational cognitive science and degrees from MIT. After developing severe RSI in grad school, he devoted himself to understanding pain from the inside out. Remarkably, his pain was cut in half just from reading Dr. John Sarno's Healing Back Pain. Max’s work blends active inference, non-dual teaching, and Pain Reprocessing Therapy to create practical, self-guided tools for lasting pain relief. He’s also the creator of DebugYourPain.org. Resources: * Max Shen’s Substack (Debug Your Pain)' * To find out about Max’s coaching, see here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

    1h 32m
See All (50)

Ratings & Reviews

4.6
out of 5
10 Ratings

About

Practical philosophy for playing with life. themetagame.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Daniel Kazandjian
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    50
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Daniel
  • Show Website
    The Metagame

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