Increments

#91 - The Uses and Abuses of Statistics (w/ Ben Recht)

September 4th, 2025  |  1 hr 16 mins

agi, artificial intelligence, rationality, statistics

What is statistics good for? Has it ever discovered anything? Where does the word "robot" come from? Ben Recht joins us to untangle these mysteries.

#87 - Gullibility, Belief, and Conformity (with Hugo Mercier)

June 20th, 2025  |  54 mins 13 secs

belief, communication, information, rationality, reason, trust

Hugo Mercier joins us to discuss his book "Not Born Yesterday" and his work on belief, gullibility, and how we change our minds.

#70 - ... and Bayes Bites Back (w/ Richard Meadows)

July 9th, 2024  |  1 hr 30 mins

bayesianism, decision-making, probability, rationality, uncertainty

Rich comes on to defend Scott Alexander against our criticisms. Are we being unfair? Are the Bayesians simply the Most Rational People (MRP) and we can't handle it?

#51 - Truth, Moose, and Refrigerated Eggplant: Critiquing Chapman's Meta-Rationality

May 29th, 2023  |  1 hr 12 mins

chapman, epistemology, nebulosity, popper, rationality

We discuss David Chapman's work on nebulosity, the correspondence theory of truth, and how it relates to Karl Popper's epistemology.

#48 (C&R Chap. 18) - Utopia and Violence

February 24th, 2023  |  1 hr 41 secs

popper, rationality, utopia, violence

Violent utopias? Utopian violence? Are the rationalists going to destroy the world? Chapter 18 of Conjectures and Refutations coming in hot.

#41 - Parenting, Epistemology, and EA (w/ Lulie Tanett)

June 20th, 2022  |  1 hr 18 mins

bayesianism, critical rationalism, effective altruism, epistemology, rationality

We're joined by the wonderful Lulie Tanett to talk about effective altruism, pulling spouses out of burning buildings, and why you should prefer critical rationalism to Bayesianism for your mom's sake.

#39 - The Enigma of Reason

April 27th, 2022  |  1 hr 1 min

bias, cognitive biases, evolution, psychology, rationality, reason

A discussion of The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber.

#11 - Debating Existential Risk

September 16th, 2020  |  1 hr 29 mins

bayesianism, existential risk, probability, progress, rationality

#10 (C&R Series, Ch. 4) - Tradition

August 13th, 2020  |  1 hr 15 mins

criticism, knowledge, progress, rationality, tradition