Using science to reimagine society and solve our biggest problems | Robin Hanson

This week on The Nick Halaris Show we are featuring Robin Hanson, an economics professor at George Mason University, the author of several fascinating books and the popular “Overcoming Bias” newsletter, and a true maverick, polymath thinker.  He has an incredible body of work and has studied and written about everything from AI and aliens to the psychology of bias and decision-making to how we can use betting markets to improve our society.  As you’ll hear in the episode, he’s even envisioned provocative ideas on how we might reimagine the idea of money itself and has proposed alternative ways to conduct democracy in light of all that we’ve learned about human psychology. 

I wanted to have Robin on the show to get some unique perspectives on how we can improve our complex, messy world.  As I’ve gotten more into big political and policy issues this year on the show, I’ve become more convinced that we are in desperate need of some new ideas and maybe even some radical ones.  As you’ll see in this episode, Robin is the perfect person for this.  Not only is he a wide-ranging and very critical thinker, but also, he’s not afraid to upset the status quo, even if it means challenging the very core of our existing power structures. Tune in to this fascinating episode to learn:

• The fascinating relationship between the idea of the sacred, society, culture, and our institutions of power
• Robin’s provocative idea of Sacred Money and how it could work to improve the way we pursue endeavors that have meaning beyond the profit-motive of capitalism
• How we can use betting markets to improve both our ability to aggregate information and to make decisions 
• Robin’s fascinating idea of Futarchy and why Robin thinks we might even be able to fix democracy itself by using voting on matters on values and betting markets to help us make the best decisions
• Why the rise of a global culture is potentially problematic for humanity  
• & Much, much more  

Stay tuned to the end to hear Robin’s thoughts on the foundational premise of this show and learn how he would use small-scale experimentation to fix America if given the power to do so.

As always, I hope you all enjoy this episode.  Thanks for tuning in!      

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