The Filan Cabinet
An interview podcast where I, Daniel Filan, interview guests about topics I'm interested in, with the aim of clarifying how the guest understands that topic.
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Episode 15 - On learning Latin /
In which I monologue about my experience learning Latin. Links:
- My friend’s podcast episode
- r/latin
- Lingua Latina
- Playlist of someone reading out loud the chapters (plus some related material)
- We need to talk about Latinitas
- Legentibus
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Episode 14 - The 2024 Eclipse /
In this episode, I give you updates from my trip with friends to see the 2024 total solar eclipse. Questions answered include:
- Why are we bothering to go see it?
- How many of us will fail to make it to the eclipse?
- Does it actually get darker during a total solar eclipse, or is that just an optical illusion?
- What moral dilemma will we face, and what will we do?
- Whose lav mic will mysteriously fail to work during their interview?
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Episode 13 - Aaron Silverbook on anti-cavity bacteria /
In this episode, I speak with Aaron Silverbook about the bacteria that cause cavities, and how different bacteria can prevent them: specifically, a type of bacterium that you can buy at luminaprobiotic.com. This podcast episode has not been approved by the FDA. Specific topics we talk about include:
- How do bacteria cause cavities?
- How can you create an anti-cavity bacterium?
- What’s going on with the competitive landscape of mouth bacteria?
- How dangerous is it to colonize your mouth with a novel bacterium?
- Why hasn’t this product been available for 20 years already?
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Episode 12 - Holly Elmore on AI pause /
In this episode, I talk to Holly Elmore about her advocacy around AI Pause - encouraging governments to pause the development of more and more powerful AI. Topics we discuss include:
- Why advocate specifically for AI pause?
- What costs of AI pause would be worth it?
- What might AI pause look like?
- What are the realistic downsides of AI pause?
- How the Effective Altruism community relates to AI labs.
- The shift in the alignment community from proving things about alignment to messing around with ML models.
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Episode 11 - Divia Eden and Ronny Fernandez on the orthogonality thesis /
In this episode, Divia Eden and Ronny Fernandez talk about the (strong) orthogonality thesis - that arbitrarily smart intelligences can be paired with arbitrary goals, without additional complication beyond that of specifying the goal - with light prompting from me. Topics they touch on include:
- Why aren’t bees brilliant scientists?
- Can you efficiently make an AGI out of one part that predicts the future conditioned on some plans, and another that evaluates whether plans are good?
- If minds are made of smaller sub-agents with more primitive beliefs and desires, does that shape their terminal goals?
- Also, how would that even work?
- Which is cooler: rockets, or butterflies?
- What processes would make AIs terminally value integrity?
- Why do beavers build dams?
- Would these questions be easier to answer if we made octopuses really smart?
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Episode 10 - Jeffrey Heninger on Mormonism /
In this episode I chat with Jeffrey Heninger about his religious beliefs and practices as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes colloquially referred to as “the Mormon church” or “the LDS church”. Topics we talk about include:
- Who or what is God?
- How can we know things about God? In particular, what role does religious experience play?
- To what degree is modern morality downstream of Jesus?
- What’s in the Book of Mormon?
- What does modern-day prophecy look like?
- What do Sunday services look like in the LDS church?
- What happens after you die?
- Why don’t Mormons drink coffee?
- What’s the role of utopianism in Mormon life?
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Episode 9 - Effective Altruism Global: Bay Area (2023) /
Every year, the Centre for Effective Altruism runs a number of “Effective Altruism Global” (EA Global or EAG for short) conferences thru-out the world. This year, I attended the one held in the San Francisco Bay Area, and talked to a variety of participants about their relationship with effective altruism, the community around that idea, and the conference.
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Episode 8 - John Halstead on climate doom /
In this episode I chat with John Halstead about whether climate change will kill us all. He thinks it won’t. Topics we talk about include:
- How did the effective altruism community come to have someone dedicated to the question of whether climate change will kill us all?
- How bad will climate change likely be?
- How is the role of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere different from that of other greenhouse gasses?
- How big a volcano would have to go off to warm up the world by 10 degrees Celsius?
- How concerned should we be about climate change as a general stressor that makes other risks worse?
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Episode 7 - Shea Levy on Objectivism /
In this episode I speak with Shea Levy about Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, and what it has to say about ethics and epistemology. Topics we talk about include:
- What is Objectivism?
- Can you be an Objectivist and disagree with Ayn Rand?
- What’s the Objectivist theory of aesthetics?
- Why isn’t there a biography of Ayn Rand approved of by orthodox Objectivists?
- What’s so bad about altruism, or views like utilitarianism?
- What even is selfishness?
- Can we be mistaken about what we perceive? If so, how?
- What is consciousness? Could it just be computation?
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Episode 6 - Oliver Habryka on LessWrong and other projects /
In this episode I speak with Oliver Habryka, head of Lightcone Infrastructure, the organization that runs the internet forum LessWrong, about his projects in the rationality and existential risk spaces. Topics we talk about include:
- How did LessWrong get revived?
- How good is LessWrong?
- Is there anything that beats essays for making intellectual contributions on the internet?
- Why did the team behind LessWrong pivot to property development?
- What does the FTX situation tell us about the wider LessWrong and Effective Altruism communities?
- What projects could help improve the world’s rationality?
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Episode 5 - Divia Eden on operant conditioning /
In this episode, I speak with Divia Eden about operant conditioning, and how relevant it is to human and non-human animal behaviour. Topics we cover include:
- How close are we to teaching grammar to dogs?
- What are the important differences between human and dog cognition?
- How important are unmodelled “trainer effects” in dog training?
- Why do people underrate positive reinforcement?
- How does operant conditioning relate to attachment theory?
- How much does successful dog training rely on the trainer being reinforced by the dog?
- Why is game theory so fake?
- Is everything really just about calmness?
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Episode 4 - Peter Jaworski on paid plasma donation /
In this episode, Peter Jaworski talks about the practice of paid plasma donation, whether it’s ethical to allow it, and his work to advocate for it to be legalized in more jurisdictions. He answers questions such as:
- Which country used to run clinics in a former colony to pay their former colonial subjects for their plasma?
- Why can’t we just synthesize what we need out of plasma?
- What percentage of US exports by dollar value does plasma account for?
- If I want to gather plasma, is it cheaper to pay donors, or not pay them?
- Is legal paid plasma donation one step towards a dystopia?
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Episode 3 - Ameen Soleimani on cryptocurrency /
In this episode, cryptocurrency developer Ameen Soleimani talks about his vision of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as his current project RAI: an ether-backed floating-price stablecoin. He answers questions such as:
- What’s the point of cryptocurrency?
- If this is the beginning of the cryptocurrency world, what will the middle be?
- What would the sign be that cryptocurrency is working?
- How does RAI work?
- Does the design of RAI make it impossible for it to be widely used?
- What’s wrong with how the US dollar works?
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Episode 2 - Wayne Forkner on God /
In this episode, Presbyterian Pastor Wayne Forkner talks about God, Christianity, and the Bible. He answers questions such as:
- What is ‘God’?
- Why do people talk about Jesus so much more than the Father or the Holy Spirit?
- What is heaven actually like?
- If justification is by faith alone and not by works, why does the Bible say “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone”?
- How can people tell that out of all the religions, Christianity is the right one?
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Episode 1 - Carrick Flynn on his congressional campaign /
In this episode, Carrick Flynn talks about his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for Oregon’s 6th congressional district. In particular, we talk about his policies on pandemic preparedness and semiconductor manufacturing. He answers questions such as:
- Was he surprised by the election result?
- Should we expect another Carrick campaign?
- What specific things should or could the government fund to limit the spread of pandemics? Why would those work?
- What is working at a semiconductor plant like?