
Vaden Masrani
Co-Host of Increments
I’m currently a Ph.D student at the University of British Columbia where I focus on machine learning, probabilistic programming, bayesian inference and other topics included under the umbrella term "artificial intelligence." I'm also interested on the applied side of machine learning, and have worked on computer vision, natural language processing for biomedical applications, and particle physics in my masters and undergraduate days.
Here, however, I try to avoid all the technical mumbo-jumbo and just shoot the s*** with my good buddy, and childhood friend, Ben Chugg. Some philosopher we never talk about once said "because knowledge is an adventure of ideas", and that's our only goal with the podcast - to enjoy the adventure.
Vaden Masrani has hosted 86 Episodes.
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#37 - Montessori Education w/ Matt Bateman
February 16th, 2022 | 1 hr 21 mins
child development, childhood, education, education reform, maria montessori, work
We're joined by Matt Bateman, the director of the Montessori think tank Montessorium, to talk all things education.
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#36 - Analyzing Effective Altruism as a Social Movement
January 26th, 2022 | 56 mins 15 secs
core values, cults, effective altruism, groupthink, social movements
Vaden and Ben debate Effective Altruism and provocatively ask "Is EA a cult?" and come up with a resounding... Kinda. Maybe. It's hard to say.
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#35 - Climate Change III: Fossil Fuels
November 29th, 2021 | 47 mins 48 secs
climate change, energy, energy transitions, fossil fuels, peak oil, shale gas revolution, vaclav smil
A dive into the science and politics of fossil fuels, guided by the inimitable Vaclav Smil.
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#34 - Climate Change II: Growth, Degrowth, Reactions, Responses
November 9th, 2021 | 55 mins 3 secs
apocalypticism, climate change, degrowth, economic growth, optimism, specialization, trade
Round two of climate change! We talk about the degrowth movement, why economic growth is good for wellbeing, and respond to some of the criticism we received in the previous episode.
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#33 (C&R Series, Ch. 3) - Instrumentalism and Essentialism
October 25th, 2021 | 40 mins 10 secs
essentialism, instrumentalism, language, politics, progress
We discuss Popper's delicious criticism of two dominant approaches to knowledge in physics and philosophy departments: instrumentalism and essentialism.
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#32 - Climate Change I: Initial Thought-Crimes
October 5th, 2021 | 51 mins
alarmism, climate change, environmentalism, nuclear energy, renewables
We dip our toes into the heated (heating?) waters of the climate debate. Sorry Greta.
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#31 - The Fall of the Weinstein Republic
September 14th, 2021 | 54 mins 51 secs
animal suffering, physics, secular guru, tim nguyen, weinstein
We had a semi-serious conversation about environmentalism in store for you, but we got trapped by the WIN (Weinsteinian institutional narrative). Like a black hole, the epic meltdown of Weinstein's and the confrontation with Tim Nguyen -- apparently the only adult in the room -- pulled us in, and we couldn't avoid talking about it.
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#30 - Let's all just have a good cry (w/ Christofer Lövgren)
August 30th, 2021 | 1 hr 39 mins
community, criticism, crying, david deutsch, free will, labels
Christofer Lövgren joins us for a wide ranging discussion on community, criticism, and crying.
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#29 - Some Scattered Thoughts on Superforecasting
August 16th, 2021 | 45 mins 20 secs
good judgement project, philip tetlock, politics, probability, superforecasting
We discuss Philip Tetlock's work on Superforecasting.
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#28 (C&R Series, Ch. 9) - Why is Logic Applicable to Reality?
July 19th, 2021 | 1 hr 1 min
arithmetic, logic, philosophy of mathematics, rules of inference
We discuss Chapter 9 of Conjectures and Refutations: Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality?
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#27 - A Conversation with Marianne
June 28th, 2021 | 2 hrs 1 min
activism, police, politics, race, social media
Marianne recounts her summer. That's all we'll say for now.
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#26 - Moral Philosophy Cage Match (with Dan Hageman)
June 8th, 2021 | 1 hr 33 mins
cluelessness, derek parfit, meta-ethics, thought experiments, wild animal suffering
Dan Hageman joins us to celebrate our completely fair treatment of Derek Parfit, to utterly agree with our use of thought experiments, and to deem us the world's most renown meta-ethicists.
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#25 - Mathematical Explanation with Mark Colyvan
May 24th, 2021 | 2 hrs 7 mins
counterfactual, explanation, logic, philosophy of mathematics, probability, thought experiments
We're joined by professor Mark Colyvan to talk about the philosophy of mathematics, logic, and thought experiments.
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#24 - Popper's Three Worlds
May 11th, 2021 | 1 hr 13 mins
abstractions, explanation, logic, popper, reality
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#23 - Physics, Philosophy, and Free Will with Sam Kuypers
May 3rd, 2021 | 1 hr 33 mins
education, free will, justice, learning, quantum mechanics, scientific realism
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#22 - Thinking Through Thought Experiments
April 14th, 2021 | 1 hr 16 mins
derek parfit, einstein, peter singer, thought experiments