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  • 202: Robin Hanson | Career, Viewpoints And Articles From His Blog “Overcoming Bias”

    Welcome to episode number 202, with Dr. Robin Hanson, co-author of The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.

    Robin Hanson is associate professor of economics at George Mason University, and research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a doctorate in social science from California Institute of Technology, master’s degrees in physics and philosophy from the University of Chicago, and nine years experience as a research programmer, at Lockheed and NASA.

    On my episode with Dr. Hanson, we discussed topics and tangents connecting off of his blog articles and book messages, including:

    • having a thing, whether it be a viewpoint or something you stand for
    • hidden motives and the ways they can be look at more rationally
    • the concept of the Great Filter, which is a viewpoint about the universe and lack of activity beyond our planet
    • viewquakes, and the ability to bring individuals to growth through change of their thinking that is not rigid
    • a message to young eccentrics, the value and efficiencies that they have, and how they can look at themselves
    • the way that Edward Snowden was a form of hero, and what kinds of traits Dr. Hanson might look for in relevant individuals
    • Black Mirror translating some of the scientific messages available to a broader audience
    • how stories are used by people, and if they are somewhat religious in the way that they function
    • more topics on the mindset that you take to a difficulty

    You can check out Dr. Robin Hanson’s blog at Overcoming Bias, look at his faculty page, or check out his biography. You can also take a look at my past text interview with Dr. Hanson and his The Elephant in the Brain  co-author Kevin Simler.

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  • 200: Scott E. Page | Modeling, Complex Systems, And Applications In “The Model Thinker”

    • welcome Professor Scott. E Page, Ph. D., of the University of Michigan, to episode 200 of the show
    • he currently teaches complex systems, computer science, and economics
    • also has taught an online course to initially 60000 people, and then a million people in its second iteration
    • on this episode, we discussed his career, many of the models presented in the book, and some applications of them in this world
    • many-models approach to modeling, that helps prevent modeling gaps
    • Markov models and their ability to represent an equilibrium state, with percentages representing transfer from one state to another
    • the impact of diversity on complex systems, which has been a large part of Professor Page’s focus, also in his earlier books The Diversity [Bonus] and Diversity and Complexity
    • how socioeconomic status is more likely to continue at the lower and upper bounds than for middle class folks, though they are 50% likely
    • discussion about entropy as representation of uncertainty, and how it differs from variance equitability of options
    • the Matthew effect of some support for something causing more support for it, causing a snowball
    • opioid models, and some of the issues with their treatment
    • we covered other topics not listed here, and it was great to speak with Professor Page about his material, which I am also interested in
    • you can check out The Model Thinker on Amazon, look at Professor Page’s Michigan webpage, or look at a listing of all his books.

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