• 00:00:38 How Imran found his way from Wall Street to teaching option strategies at Options Insight.
• 00:09:42 What retail traders should learn before trading options. Why meme stocks options are such a ‘rational choice’ right now?
• 00:14:42 Where are the best opportunities for trading options to still have an edge?
• 00:24:45 What is Imran’s view on the delation/inflation scenario? Are commodities a good hedge?
• 00:29:35 Why does a ‘rational investor’ buy negative yielding bonds (or very low yielding bonds) at all considering the inflation risk?
• 00:36:35 Did Softbank successfully manipulate the stock market for mid-tier tech stocks in 2020?
• 00:43:19 Is there a ‘low risk’ strategy to buy/sell volatility?
• 00:48:56 What are excellent, low risk hedging strategies for a portfolio? Can a option based ‘hedge’ actually make money?
• 01:03:15 What is the strong relationship between low interest rates and money losing tech companies?
• 01:08:10 Is there are place for ‘value investors’ left? Why does the investment world basically just ‘bet on more free money’ instead?
• 01:13:14 What is Imran’s strategy to use options trading Bitcoin upside/ downside?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #95 Imran Lakha (How to use option strategies to improve your market edge).

Imran Lakha has been working with Citibank, Bank of America and Credit Suisse trading options. He now teaches options strategies at Options Insight.

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• 00:00:14 The short history of Erik’s discovery (and theory) of faster than light speed travel.
• 00:06:20 How Faster Than Light Speed travel would actually work?
• 00:16:20 How much energy would be required for a warp drive propulsion? Is there enough energy in the universe to make faster than light speed travel feasible?
• 00:25:29 Why the ‘twin paradox’ will be solved with a warp drive?
• 00:32:47 Did Stargate get the ‘warp’ drive idea right after all?
• 00:39:13 Are Black Holes a form of cosmic pollution left over by ‘misconnecting warp drives’?
• 00:44:50 Is time the same for everyone in the universe?
• 00:50:10 What compels us to be pioneers?
• 00:53:05 Do we live in a simulation?
• 01:03:43 What are other ‘faster than light’ phenomena in the universe?
• 01:14:34 How does ‘dark energy/ dark matter’ work? What do we know about it?
• 01:25:10 Are there more dimensions than the four we can easily interact with? Does time exist without a conscious observer?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #94 Erik Lentz (How to build an actual warp drive).

Apologies for the sound quality during the first few minutes – it gets much better after the initial five minutes!

Erik Lentz is a Ph.D. physicist and focuses on the theoretical, computational, and experimental aspects of searching for dark matter as well as faster than light travel.

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• 00:00:30 Thomas’ experience at Wall Street (including running his own hedge fund and an insider trading investigation while working with Steve Cohen) and why he started his latest firm Hedge Fund Telemetry?
• 00:18:40 How Thomas selects themes and timeframes for his daily newsletter?
• 00:24:25 What Thomas thinks of the crypto bubble?
• 00:35:44 Is deflation or inflation the bigger issue right now? Should low income jobs be made redundant?
• 00:46:32 What it means to be a hedge fund manager? Should we aspire to become a Hedge Fund managers? How hedge funds prop up nascent ‘strategy managers’?
• 01:05:02 Why and how should retail investors be exposed to as many financial instruments as possible?
• 01:08:02 What fund managers does Thomas admire?
• 01:14:02 What character types does the financial industry attract?
• 01:29:38 Why are negative (or extremely low) yielding bonds of interest to investors?
• 01:36:22 Thomas’ secret love for the Grand Tour/ Top Gear shows.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #93 Thomas Thornton (The past, present and future of Hedge Funds).

Thomas Thornton is a former portfolio manager, senior trader, and technical analyst with Level Global Investors and Galileo Capital. Thomas is writing a daily investment newsletter at Hedge Fund Telemetry.

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• 00:00:30 How did Peter get started studying intelligence and how he envisions computers and AI should become more intelligent?
• 00:06:31 What better approach can we take to build a thinking machine?
• 00:12:18 When will we have machines that can build and improve themselves?
• 00:16:50 How will the third wave of AI look like?
• 00:19:06 Is GPT-3 like magic or is it a failure?
• 00:21:06 Will we need to create a ‘Free Will’ to create an intelligence machine?
• 00:34:10 How self awareness and abstract concepts are a necessary predecessor to real intelligence?
• 00:39:49 Is overly logical thinking a hindrance in modelling ‘social functions’ in computers?
• 00:45:41 Can ‘real intelligence’ be an emergent property of ‘dumber algorithms’?
• 00:49:09 How aigo.ai is creating a chatbot with a brain?
• 00:59:03 How does aigo.ai learn from customer interactions?
• 01:12:15 Will we all live the lifes of kings soon? What abundance can we expect from the Singularity?
• 01:21:15 How much money should be allocated ‘Third Wave AI’?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – # 92 Peter Voss (How and when will we build really intelligent machines?).

Peter Voss is a serial entrepreneur and currently runs aigo.ai. The company implements a ‘Third Wave of AI’ with deep understanding of natural language, have short- and long-term memory, learn interactively, use context, and are able to reason and hold meaningful ongoing conversations.

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• 00:01:00 What is Convexity and how does it express itself?
• 00:02:59 Why startup founders usually enjoy positive convexity. Why bonds often come with negative convexity?
• 00:08:33 Why taking a flat fee is a good idea for money management?
• 00:14:03 Did Softbank create a ‘Gamma Melt-up’ buying an extraordinary amount of call options in 2020?
• 00:21:45 How to profit from increased interest rates? How to open up the upside without taking all the downside?
• 00:32:14 How the time horizon of investments has shrunk so much?
• 00:34:10 What is the state of productive carry-trades on right now? Should people look at Turkey, Mexico or Brazil?
• 00:37:43 What is ISDA and why it offers amazing way for financial contracts unavailable to retail investors.
• 00:42:59 How can retail investor get exposure to CDS (Credit Default Swaps) options through Simplify?
• 00:47:45 How big is a structural risk for a ‘risk drawdown event’?
• 00:58:51 Will the Fed be able to inflate out of the current deflationary scenario?
• 01:00:17 Will the rapid rise of technology allow us to grow out of the high debt level (just after WWII)?
• 01:03:12 How much are growth rates influenced by social and political attitudes?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #91 Harley Bassman (How to become a Convexity Maven?).

Harley Bassman looks back at a checkered career of 35+ years at Wall Street and also runs Convexity Maven. Harley currently works with Simplify.

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• 00:00:23 How Esther got started working on the intersection between mind and body and healthy living?
• 00:13:32 What impact Ether’s research has on the ability to improve living conditions with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Are we getting to few germs and viruses so that our immune system turns on ourselves?
• 00:21:11 How stress and our environment impacts our body and mind and how we can model it.
• 00:28:01 How do we identify environments that makes us calm? Why is a view of nature seen as a ‘paradise’ universally?
• 00:37:13 How chronic stress impacts us? Why do right amount of stress response is so important to function?
• 00:40:00 What is the differential between an average performance and a properly stressed (healthy stressed) individual?
• 00:54:33 How does chronic stress impact life expectancy and ‘chromosomal aging’?
• and much more!
  

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #90 Esther Sternberg (The science of the body and mind connection).

Esther Sternberg, MD, is internationally recognized for her discoveries in brain-immune interactions and the effects of the brain’s stress response on health: the science of the mind-body interaction. Dr. Sternberg is a Professor of Medicine in the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

She is the author of several books including Healing Spaces: the Science of Place and Well-being as well as The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions.

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• 00:00:34 What drove Bill to start minds.com back in 2011? Why minds.com is fundamentally different than other social networks?
• 00:07:31 Why did the ‘legacy’ social networks get so big?
• 00:11:22 Is there a better engagement algorithm? How ‘manipulative’ is the current engagement algorithm?
• 00:14:20 Why social networks all have such a similar business model and why they all struggle to keep you on the site (through emotional manipulation).
• 00:18:15 Are conservative media outlets really at an disadvantage on social media platforms? Why some make it and some don’t?
• 00:23:01 Is banning ‘offensive accounts’ by Facebook/ Twitter a good business decision?
• 00:29:48 How does minds.com run their backend? Can they easily be shut down by one cloud provider?
• 00:34:35 Could you run a whole website based on ‘blockchain web services’?
• 00:37:50 What should be the content moderation policy of a free speech social network like minds.com? Should ‘hate speech’ be a bannable offense?
• 00:52:06 Will we continue to put ‘social layers of separation’ between us?
• 01:02:46 Why are we all still on Facebook if we feel it is so bad for society?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – Bill Ottman (How to build and run a ‘free speech social network’?).

Bill Ottman is the CEO and co-founder at Minds.

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• 00:00:34 What drove Joe to research and write his latest book – The WEIRDest People in the World and what it suggests about the timeline of human development
• 00:08:10 What made us these WEIRD people? Why and how did the nuclear family emerge? How did marriage rules contribute to this? How did public markets evolve to support the growth of WEIRD people?
• 00:13:46 What role did the Catholic Church contribute to the rise of the WEIRD people? How did the Orthodox Church help develop a similar approach?
• 00:17:16 How early Christianity spread mostly through women in urban areas.
• 00:20:10 What actually drives the dialectic between pleasure and moral behavior? How are religions modifying our behavior to cooperate more and behave ‘less sinful’?
• 00:25:59 Is Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) right? Did we (the West) simply get lucky?
• 00:30:31 What should we keep in mind if we set up a new society from scratch?
• 00:34:47 What role should institutions play in a cultural development? Can they define the ‘ought’ but can they leave the ‘how’ open?
• 00:38:35 Why did other religions not copy the successful innovations of the Catholic Church? Is religion developing in a similar way of ‘creative destruction’?
• 00:44:10 Does more people (with diverse backgrounds) in the same space produce the most productivity?
• 00:49:29 Is our declining birth rate a bug or feature? Doesn’t it slow down or rate of innovation greatly?
• 00:52:45 What roles does polygamy and religion have in the birth rate?
• 00:59:01 is freedom a central part of a success of a civilization?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – Joe Henrich (WEIRD people and what drives a culture’s success?).

Joe Henrich is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University (and formerly a professor of psychology and economics at the University of British Columbia).

He is particularly interested in the question of how humans evolved from “being a relatively unremarkable primate a few million years ago to the most successful species on the globe”, and how culture shaped our species’ genetic evolution.

His latest book is now available on Amazon – The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous.

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• 00:00:35 How Jeff got started with Amazon Web Services in the place and how innovation has been moving along briskly with Amazon AWS.
• 00:06:15 How did it feel to promise an Internet File System and promise not to loose any data? How does AWS deal internally with failure and downtime?
• 00:11:24 How did Amazon add so much transparency to their IT department?
• 00:15:46 How did EC2 get so good so quickly between 2006 – 2011?
• 00:19:35 Why Amazon AWS works without any free support for customers. Why does support cost extra?
• 00:22:25 Where is the biggest growth and excitement with AWS right now?
• 00:24:06 Why is traffic and core CPU so much more expensive with AWS (up to 1,000 times more).
• 00:29:59 How does AWS Activate work and how does AWS support start-ups with free credits (up to one million dollars!)?
• 00:41:26 What is Jeff’s prediction how the cloud will develop in the next 10 years?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – Jeff Barr (The amazing story of Amazon Web Services).

Jeff Barr is the Chief Evangelist for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and has been its chief promoter since 2004.

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• 00:00:36 What great investors does Marc admire?
• 00:05:20 Why the world’s policy to print money (in Japan, Europe and the US now) is misguided and prohibits innovation?
• 00:13:32 Is the ‘socialist utopia’ upon us? What will happen to inflation? Why do we need a ‘Central Bank’ in the first place?
• 00:23:48 Will we be able to escape the current malaise with exponential technology growth?
• 00:28:45 Is there a ‘revolutionary period’ on the horizon?
• 00:35:01 Will we see a massive bank failure like Lehman Brothers again?
• 00:42:33 How China got so successful relative to the US and Western Europe? Will these powers clash in the foreseeable future?
• 00:53:42 Is America’s influence in the world a positive or negative force? Why it should lead more by example.

Marc Faber is the publisher of the GLOOM BOOM & DOOM report and is a world famous investor known for his ‘contrarian’ investment approach.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #86 Marc Faber (Gloom Boom & Doom).

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• 00:00:35 How Matthew got started in the video game industry?
• 00:03:58 How the video game industry has evolved since Matthew started?
• 00:15:43 How video game studios elect plans for a new game?
• 00:21:06 How much revenue is there in video games really? Is the demographics of users changing?
• 00:30:23 Given the addictive potential of video games – should we emphasize the skills users learn from video games more?
• 00:53:49 Will we live in an ‘all simulated’ world? Is that a good or bad thing?

Matthew Karch is the CEO and co-founder of Saber Interactive (now part of Embracer).

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #85 Matthew Karch (The video game industry and will we all live in immersive simulations soon?).

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• 00:00:14 The origin story of Ecademy – the original social network for business.
• 00:05:19 How social networks helped us get more connected but also made us more lonely at the same time. How can we find real trust and intimacy?
• 00:12:03 How the way we ‘make connections’ has changed so much. Is Clubhouse a good tool to improve on that?
• 00:16:06 What Social Media could have been? What went wrong in the last 10 years?
• 00:28:28 What ‘free energy’ and ‘free software and hardware’ will change the marketplace.
• 00:34:13 How a few ‘bad actors’ have hacked the Twitter and Facebook algorithm.
• 00:42:53 Is loneliness a ‘treatable side effect’ of how we encounter our new ‘social normal’?
• 00:48:01 How our life’s got easier but lonelier voluntarily. Is it all related to the changes in the Facebook algorithm in 2014?
• 00:59:22 Why ‘all the upside’ of my life came from an Internet?! Would Nietzsche have been a more positive person with the Internet?
• 01:10:52 Hear Thomas’ take on the ‘Fermi paradox’.

Thomas Power is a serial entrepreneur and independent Board Director based in the United Kingdom.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #84 Thomas Power (The Power of Social Networks).

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• 00:00:25 How Jesse has redefined ‘value investing’ for himself?
• 00:04:20 How momentum and trend investing has become so strong? Are contrarian investors able to tae advantage of the short cycles?
• 00:07:43 Is the ‘Fed put’ real? Can we slowly depreciate out of the current mania?
• 00:12:01 Are inflation expectations really rising? Is asset allocation broken?
• 00:28:10 Is energy a good investment short term / long term?
• 00:31:52 How Jesse deals with finding a catalyst for his investments?
• 00:37:12 Jesse’s take on crypto currencies? Will a crypto mania create real economic growth?
• 00:47:13 How does the financial industry cope with the enormous amount of disruption? Have hedge funds outsourced their thinking to algorithms?
• 00:59:30 How humans will have to adopt to increasing complexity to stay ahead of AI in the financial industry?
• 01:01:32 Are ‘Hedge Funds’ still able to build ‘money machines’?
• 01:08:32 Will the dollar as the reserve currency survive the next 20 years?

You may watch this episode in Youtube – #83 Jesse Felder (The state of the US economic malaise).

Jesse Felder publishes the The Felder Report and also hosts and produces the Superinvestors and the Art of Worldly Wisdom podcast.

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• 00:01:20 How Stefan’s journey to 193 countries unfolded.
• 00:03:31 How ‘Every Passport Stamp’ provided unique advice to cross borders into countries that rarely get any visitors. What are some of the shortcuts to get into countries that make that really hard?
• 00:23:04 What are we really seeking when we travel?
• 00:27:13 Stefan’s journey into the Chinese language? What he learned about China and the government?
• 00:52:33 What is Stefan’s take on slow or fast travel?
• 00:58:18 Stefan’s list of favorite places and trips?
• 01:14:48 What Mighty Travels Premium does and where the best departure airports for airfare deals are currently?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – # 82 Stefan Krasowski (The Rapid Chai Travel to 193 countries).

Stefan Krasowski is a public speaker, blogger at Rapid Travel Chai, and founder of Every Passport Stamp, the leading Facebook group for country collectors.

Stefan has traveled to every country in the world and is a member of the Circumnavigators Club and on the Board of Directors of the Travelers’ Century Club.

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• 00:01:34 What are the most vivid memories Jack has from his time at the CIA?
• 00:10:32 What Jack thinks of James Bond?
• 00:13:56 What is the actual toolset of the CIA? What powers can it actually use?
• 00:17:54 How dangerous is working for the CIA really?
• 00:23:43 What makes a good spy?
• 00:25:04 Why is Russia such an ‘underrated enemy’?
• 00:31:23 What are the US capabilities in Cyber?
• 00:43:02 What will the next global struggle of superpowers be about?
• 00:49:01 Can we bring in one billion new Americans?
• 00:56:23 What are the roles of current US alliances? Will Europeans be able to defend themselves in a global conflict?
• 00:59:45 What is the best use of Covert Operations run by the CIA?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #81 Jack Devine (The Russian threat and the role of the CIA).

Jack Devine is a former Acting Director and Associate Director of the CIA’s operations outside the United States and he spent 32 years in the CIA.

Jack Devine wrote a book about his experience in the CIA – Good Hunting and recently published a second book – Spymasters Prism.

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• 00:01:20 The genesis of the Loop device as an idea and business.
• 00:07:07 Why Loop considers itself much more a software than a hardware company?
• 00:10:56 Is hardware development going the way of software – make it once and sell it almost an unlimited time? How does one get started with developing hardware in China?
• 00:24:24 Is complexity the domain of humans? Will everything else be taken over by AI? Should everything in life be free? Is technology already delivering on this? Is work completely optional?
• 00:38:16 Are we not daring enough in the startup industry? Why did we give up on the sci-fi dreams of the 1960s and 1970s.
• 00:43:14 Is regulation and politics the real hindrance to innovation? Why do people go into extreme memes?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #80 Brian Gannon (How software is eating the Hardware industry & what’s wrong with innovation).

Brian Gannon is the CEO of Loop – the easiest way to stay connected with your family. Before starting his own business Brian worked with Maxim at their hardware video acceleration unit.

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• 00:02:51 How Eric set out to write entertaining books about serious subjects.
• 00:07:53 What Eric learned from Henry Miller and Ernest Hemingway? How much of an influence is travel for his discoveries?
• 00:14:11 Has Eric found a way to recreate clusters of geniuses in his journeys?
• 00:29:55 Why are philosophers from the last few hundred years so miserable? Is pondering about the ‘Big Questions’ risky and it makes it harder to enjoy life?
• 00:40:24 Why philosophy is so hard to scale?
• 00:50:37 What happened to journalism? Will the ‘good journalism’ ever come back and be sustained?
• 01:17:18 Why do some cultures developed differently and more than others?
• 01:31:15 Is philosophy actually the science of realizing we are in a simulation?
• 01:33:54 What is Eric’s next book about?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #79 Eric Weiner (One man’s fascinating search for happiness, genius and wisdom through philosophy).

Eric Weiner is a former foreign corespondent and New York Times journalist and is the author of several best selling book incl. Man Seeks God, The Geography of Bliss, The Geography of Genius and The Socrates Express.

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• 00:03:37 Why the Middle East seems ‘excel at conflict’ the last 70 years?
• 00:14:03 How America managed to avoid ethnic strife (unlike the Middle East)?
• 00:18:02 What is actually happening in Syria? What conflicts predates the war? How does ISIS fit into the Syrian War?
• 00:33:33 Why the major world powers abuse the Syrian conflict as a proxy conflict? What does Russia in particular want?
• 01:00:00 How can we rebuild Syria? Should we abolish sanctions? Do we need a new Marshall Plan for Syria?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #78 Joshua Landis (A deep dive into the Syrian conflict).

Joshua Landis is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies
and an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Read Joshua’s opinions on his blog or follow him on Twitter @joshua_landis.

Apologies for my terrible audio in this episode. Joshua’s excellent audio and video makes up for that – I hope!

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• 00:04:01 How Dubai feels during the Ramadan?
• 00:08:37 Why Dubai now gives citizenship to foreigners and allows companies to own real estate and corporations now?
• 00:16:29 Why Dubai’s regulations seem to actually help businesses and individuals instead of hampering progress constantly?
• 00:24:41 Why (the talk about) socialism is so popular in the US and how it contrasts with Dubai?
• 00:33:03 How Dubai’s social norms are liberalizing right now? Is the ‘Islamic enlightenment’ happing in Dubai right now?
• 00:48:32 How Dubai handled COVID.
• 01:01:22 How Dubai is developing a business case for vaccinations.
• 01:10:10 Has the world caught another virus of low productivity growth? How did it start? Is Dubai a place that can teach us to grow quicker?

You may view this episode on Youtube – Pablo Fetter (Dubai’s economic success story, Islam’s enlightenment, the art of killing a virus).

Pablo Fetter is an engineer, investment professional and education entrepreneur. Pablo’s been a globetrotter all his life and calls Europe, South America, Asia and the Middle East his home.

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• 00:03:00 How should we act when we find other conscious life? How should we settle other planets?
• 00:09:01 Is there a cosmic cross pollination process?
• 00:11:01 Why are images of alien space ships always so grainy? Is there already an alien base on Mars?
• 00:14:02 Did Aliens come to earth and upgrade us over time? Does time run differently in different parts of the universe?
• 00:20:46 Do we live in a simulation?
• 00:30:23 Should we all read a lot of science fiction? Why it is like a mind lab.
• 00:37:34 How would life on Mars look like?
• 00:50:08 How will we cope with increasing technological change? Will it keep accelerating?
• 01:01:19 What is Caitlin’s solution for the ‘Fermi Paradox’?
• 01:15:16 Are we being ‘indoctrinated by our past’?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – Caitlin McShea (Aliens, the Universe, Cosmic simulations & more).

Caitlin McShea is the director of the Santa Fe Institute’s InterPlanetary Project & host of the Alien Crash Site podcast.

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• 00:01:36 How Robert’s love for Mars and space got started?
• 00:03:36 Why Robert’s proposal to explore Mars was so different than other ideas? His experience pitching a Mars landing to NASA.
• 00:10:49 How Robert and Elon Musk discovered their joint interest for space exploration?
• 00:14:30 The beauty of Starship and why it can enable the settlement of Mars?
• 00:19:04 What was so interesting about the Orion spacecraft and the Mayflower concept?
• 00:22:57 What are popular appearances of a Mars colonization? When will we have a Mars base?
• 00:26:30 What role will geopolitics play in colonizing Mars?
• 00:28:44 What is the ‘business model’ for extended space exploration?
• 00:37:03 Is the radiation dosage a problem when colonizing Mars?
• 00:39:30 How can we terraform Mars? How long will that take?
• 00:43:08 What are the biggest open issues for colonizing Mars?
• 00:45:33 What sort of ‘political regime’ should rule Mars?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #75 Robert Zubrin (The Case for colonizing Mars).

Robert Zubrin is an aerospace engineer, author, and advocate for human exploration of Mars. He is the author of several books incl. The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must and The Case for Space.

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• 00:01:46 The genesis of Neyborly and its business model.
• 00:11:41 Is ‘commercial real estate’ in a secular crisis? What are the reasons for that? Is it (still) to expensive?
• 00:21:44 How did Neyborly fix the issue of long-term liabilities and short term income (that almost killed WeWork)?
• 00:29:18 How did Neyborly solve the hard part of multi local marketing?
• 00:42:03 How Neyborly is fostering a real community? Why is building a community so hard?
• 00:53:22 Did COVID and the tech industry change how people interact with each other.
• 01:04:29 Why an honest, rational debate of political topics is so hard in the Bay Area (and beyond)?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #74 Ben Seidl (How to rebuild a friendlier ‘Third Place’?).

Ben Seidel is the co-founder of Neyborly. He’s on a mission to build a network of gathering hubs using under-utilized, urban real-estate.

• 00:01:45 The genesis of Ben’s career as an entrepreneur and venture investor
• 00:18:57 Are valuations too high for seed stage Venture Capital rounds right now?
• 00:28:40 What are Ben’s best investments right now and what investments is Ben looking for?
• 00:34:53 Is there a better way for entrepreneurs to match with a VC? What should they look for?
• 00:44:59 How ben honed his skill at instant ‘lie detection’?
• 01:04:28 Can science fiction be an investment guide? What are Ben’s favorite science fiction books?
• 01:14:22 Will AI be a huge investment theme? Or is just a hype?
• 01:27:22 Will we go to Mars? Is it a good idea?
• 01:40:12 Is our inbuilt pioneering spirit rational? Will it pay off?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #73 Ben Narasin (What makes a smart venture investor and how to find one).

Ben Narasin is a Venture Partner at NEA and early-stage investor and former entrepreneur. Ben loves hearing your investment video pitch for his upcoming seed fund at Pitch Ben.

• 00:02:08 How Jeff’s journey to teaching entrepreneurship got started? How does he define entrepreneurship?
• 00:12:02 Why it is crucial to emphasize risk taking in our society.
• 00:18:48 Are the opportunities for entrepreneurs diminished? Is it the millennials’ generation ‘fault’ or is it the way we have run the economy? Is the ‘coddling of the American mind’ the problem?
• 00:28:52 Is venture investment really such a positive force in risk taking in society? Has the nature of businesses changed? Are they more ‘sales driven’ than ever?
• 00:39:52 Is there an entrepreneurial gene? Can we all be entrepreneurs?
• 00:45:33 How is entrepreneurship related to religion? Can we extract meta rules out of religions? Why is entrepreneurship not equally distributed globally?
• 01:11:59 How has entrepreneurship evolved over the millenia? Which countries do the best job at fostering entrepreneurship currently?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #72 Jeff Cornwall (Why and how we need to foster entrepreneurship).

Jeff Cornwall is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Belmont University. He also runs the Entrepreneurial Mind blog. He has authored nine books on entrepreneurship and was named the National Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year.

• 00:10:12 Why Europe chooses to be a late adopter (rather than an early adopter)?
• 00:16:19 Are cryptocurrencies and the blockchain a threat to traditional banks?
• 00:22:46 What impact will cheap/free education have on the world?
• 00:30:12 Why India seems to be eternally high on potential but low on promises kept.
• 00:38:02 The role of Hinduism and the caste system in India.
• 00:57:15 What is the impact of the Bengali Renaissance on India and the world?
• 01:10:03 What is the best way to protect minorities in a democracy?
• 01:13:19 Do zero percent interest rates mean we have given up on economic growth?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #71 Prabhu Guptara (Hinduism, India, the world’s monetary system).

Prabhu Guptara was for many years Executive Director at WOLFSBERG – The Platform for Executive and Business Development (a subsidiary of UBS). Prabhu Guptara specializes in exploring the impact which technology has on business companies as well as on societies around the world.

• 00:01:34 We were expecting the information and we got the enragement age. What Edward thinks of our Social Media landscape?
• 00:09:02 What are surprising ‘revenge effects’ of technology in recent history?
• 00:14:28 How close were the Romans in developing the steam engine? What impact do social developments have on our progress?
• 00:23:23 What impact does technology alone have on innovation?
• 00:27:10 Are information overload and increasing specialization two sides of the same coin?
• 00:39:36 Will we see the return of the heroic projects (like the Suez canal)?
• 00:56:35 Why did the communist innovation of the ‘5-Year-Plan’ succeed?
• 01:09:25 What will happen when the ‘Rise of the Machines’ starts?

You may also watch this episode on Youtube – #70 Edward Tenner (The surprising relation between technology and societal changes).

Edward Tenner is an independent writer, speaker, and consultant on technology and culture incl. The Future of Unintended Consequences. His latest book The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can’t Do is now available on Amazon.

• 00:01:43 How Systems2 discovered a world of alternate data and how financial data companies in this space operate?
• 00:12:23 Can there be a profitable Open Source investment community?
• 00:25:53 How much time is spent developing algorithms or cleaning datasets in Matei’s work?
• 00:34:11 What are surprising and low cost datasets one can acquire?
• 00:44:20 How good are predictions for actions of individuals today? Does Facebook and Google know everything about us?
• 00:58:20 Why antagonism is a great way to learn about your strength?
• And much more!

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #68 Matei Zatreanu (How alternative data is changing the world of finance?).

Matei Zatreanu is a quant, investor and entrepreneur and now heads System2.

• 00:01:53 What drove Jim to start the Ice Warrior project where he trains polar explorers.
• 00:09:16 How training for the Ice Warrior project actually works?
• 00:15:21 What sort of personalities typically succeed when Jim runs them through his Arctic training exercises?
• 00:25:30 The amazing logistics of Jim’s polar expeditions.
• 00:35:30 Can you drive to the North Pole? What is the difference between the ‘Magnetic Pole’ and the real ‘North Pole’?
• 00:40:06 Did Jim or an Ice Warrior member ever come close to loosing their life?
• 00:50:01 What role your metabolism plays in staying warm in extreme conditions?
• 00:58:03 Will we ever see Jim exploring the Himalayans?
• 01:06:23 Why do we go for such crazy challenges? Why do we need them?
• 01:16:37 What can we learn from Arctic expeditions that will help us build a Martian society or solve problems we have on earth.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #68 Jim McNeill (What the Arctic teaches us about humanity).

Jim McNeill is a former scientist and British polar explorer, presenter and keynote speaker and has created the Ice Warrior Project in 2001. The organization gives “ordinary” people the opportunity to become modern-day polar explorers.

• 00:02:26 What is really the difference between an incubator, accelerator and a seed stage fund? How does FoundersSpace.com work with entrepreneurs?
• 00:07:10 How Steve uses his experiences as a motivational speaker to help startups?
• 00:11:49 Can major innovation ever come from ‘Big Corporations’? How should it be done? Should we break up large Internet monopoly companies?
• 00:21:08 Is there a ‘mid-stage’ funding desert for most startups? Can and should it be addressed?
• 00:26:12 Steve’s favorite field(s) of investment right now?
• 00:31:30 Why Steve is so excited about brain computer interface technologies?
• 00:36:13 What does Steve think of the Singularity? What will happen to human jobs and activities?
• 00:56:16 How will we co-existed with intelligent machines?
• 01:04:19 Why wars (and life) resembles a ‘winner-takes-all’ game?
• 01:12:15 Why Steve became a digital nomad?
• 01:17:31 Why are some many billionaires so unhappy and don’t use their leverage for ‘the good of the world’? Or is that a myth?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #67 Steve Hoffman (Awesome venture investments, the singularity, being a modern explorer).

Steve Hoffman, or Captain Hoff, is the CEO of Founders Space. He’s a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books including ‘Make Elephants Fly‘ and ‘Surviving a Startup‘.

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• 00:01:38 What’s the current state of consciousness research? Why there is a surprising amount of progress?
• 00:09:10 Is the rise of the Homo Sapiens connected to the changes in consciousness?
• 00:11:43 How does the ‘attention schema’ work that Michael puts forward?
• 00:15:22 How will machine intelligence adopt consciousness?
• 00:21:28 What will it take to give self-driving cars consciousness?
• 00:27:37 Is consciousness and Free Will an illusion? Does it matter for Prof. Graziano’s research?
• 00:40:41 Where do the models for our brain come from? How can we be born with it despite the rather small data size of the DNA?
• 00:45:20 When will brain uploading be possible? Will it be possible at all?
• 00:53:03 What would happen to our consciousness when we multiply it?
• 01:03:03 Is the time speed of time related to our consciousness? What is the neurosciences of time? How can we travel to deep space?
• 01:08:58 Why does the structure of the DNA and computer code so strikingly similar?
• 01:11:11 Does the structure of our consciousness indicate that we are ‘living in a simulation’? Is there a real reality?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #66 Michael Graziano (Can we decode consciousness soon?).

Michael Graziano is a scientist and novelist and currently is professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University. Michael is the author of several books including Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience and Consciousness and the Social Brain.

• 00:01:37 Are we headed for deflation/ inflation or stagflation? How does Peter read the tea leaves?
• 00:08:33 Is regulation ultimately to blame for inflation?
• 00:13:57 Is the Federal Reserve to blame for the current crisis?
• 00:23:56 How does ‘yield curve’ work? Why is it so important?
• 00:30:34 How can we improve government policy (and Federal Reserve policy) to increase economic growth?
• 00:34:43 Can we really withdraw from the policy of ‘cheap money’ that most other countries in the world follow?
• 00:38:23 Is the European Union monetary regime likely to survive the next 10 years?
• 00:42:02 Will the Singularity jumpstart our productivity growth?
• 00:46:08 Is inflation just a clever federal tax scheme?
• 00:48:40 What countries are the best suited to increase economic growth?
• 00:52:35 Are precious metals up for a great run?
• 00:58:29 What are Peter’s favorite investments right now?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #65 Peter Boockvar (Inflation or Deflation/ What should the Fed do?/ Best investments right now).

Peter Boockvar is the editor of BoockReport.com and is the CIO of Bleakley Advisory.

• 00:03:33 How Mark Burgess started to develop CF Engine.
• 00:11:22 What is the genesis of ‘Promise theory‘? What problems does it solve?
• 00:30:51 How Mark moved between academic disciplines over the years?
• 00:34:51 What is ‘Smart Spacetime‘?
• 00:44:29 Does the universe have a direction? What creates that direction?
• 00:55:26 Are emotions necessary for an artificial intelligence?
• 01:07:07 How can a machine memory mimic the human brain?
• 01:16:57 Can ‘Promise Theory’ be used to describe ‘Intelligent Design’?
• 01:32:03 What are ‘low hanging fruits’ of scientific discovery in the next 20-30 years?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #64 Mark Burgess (CF Engine, Promise Theory, Semantic Spacetime).

Mark Burgess is the creator of CF Engine. He is widely known for his work on ‘Promise theory’ and ‘Semantic Spacetime’. He has published several books incl. Thinking in Promises: Designing Systems for Cooperation as well as Smart Spacetime: How information challenges our ideas about space, time, and process.

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In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Peter Sølling and I talk about:

• 00:01:43 the genesis of Peter’s Optimal Altruism project
• 00:15:13 What set of technologies does Peter expect going into the Singularity? And in what order?
• 00:25:01 Have we just lived through a lost decade in technology adoption?
• 00:34:01 How could ‘free energy’ change life on earth?
• 00:48:49 Does Free Will exist? Will it be affected by the Singularity?
• 01:04:57 The amazing story of the 12th Planet by Zechariah Sitchin and Intelligent Design.
• 01:12:41 Do we live in a simulation?
• 01:32:41 What is creativity and why we need more of it? How do we enable learning based on motivation?
• And much more!

You can watch this episode on – #63 Peter Sølling (Optimal Altruism, Sentience, Our onramp to the Singularity).

Peter Sølling is the Founder of the Optimal Altruism initiative. You can follow Peter on Instagram.

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• 00:01:47 How the world has changed since Jim Rogers first published Investment Biker and Adventure Capitalist?
• 00:06:23 Are looking at another stock market crash? When will it happen? Will technology (and productivity growth) be around to save us?
• 00:12:53 Are we headed for a drop of 50-80% in stock prices?
• 00:15:24 Is the Fed responsible for the bubble?
• 00:18:07 Are we headed for inflation or deflation according to Jim? Is the dollar gonna suffer?
• 00:26:26 Is Asia the future? What indicators show us that many countries in Asia are ahead of the US?
• 00:32:53 Is America with one billion citizens a good idea?
• 00:40:55 Jim Rogers’ surprising list of favorite countries to invest in.
• and much more!

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #62 Jim Rogers (When is the next crash coming/ Inflation or deflation / Jim’s favorite list of countries to invest in right now).

Jim Rogers is an investor and financial commentator based in Singapore. Jim is the author of eight books including the bestselling Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip.

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In this episode of he Judgment Call Podcast Jonny Price and I talk about:

• 00:03:38 Why Crowdfunding is so hot right now? Why was the ban on ‘consumer financing’ in place for almost 100 years?
• 00:11:02 What is the rate of return (IRR) for WeFunder investments? How can you hedge your bets with Crowdfunding?
• 00:24:11 Have we missed out on innovations during the last 20 years because Crowdfunding wasn’t available? Will it raise the amount of entrepreneurial activity?
• 00:29:30 Are we in a ‘seed stage’ accelerator bubble? How does WeFunder compete with startup accelerators? Does Crowdfunding only work if you spend heavily on marketing?
• 00:44:08 Why was kiva.org so successful and why did it stop growing eventually?
• 00:56:08 Why kiva.org re-invented a Business Credit Score and why it withdrew from general interest marketing?
• 01:07:36 How does WeFunder get rid of ‘bad actors’?

You can also watch this episode on Youtube – #61 Jonny Price (Wefunder, Crowdfunding, Kiva, Online Marketing).

Jonny Price is the Director of Fundraising at Wefunder, which helps startups and small businesses raise capital through investment crowdfunding. Before that Jonny worked at kiva.org.

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In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Steven B. Smith and I talk about:

• 00:02:01 How Steven’s latest book about the Virtue of Patriotism has been received? What does patriotism actually mean? Is patriotism just an emotion? Does patriotism imply a sense of superiority?
• 00:16:34 Should we start our own customized virtual countries? Is the nation state outdated and too many assumptions are ‘baked into the cake’ of the existing nation state?
• 00:33:29 Do we live in the best possible ‘political regime’?
• 00:37:23 Is Jean-Jacques Rousseau the original ‘father of socialism’? What are the advantages of his thought process and the direct democracy?
• 00:43:23 An origin story of the ‘two sides’ of the US political system? Are we wasting too many resources in a ‘repetitive debate’?
• 00:50:43 Why are we drawn to so many false dichotomies and narratives – especially on a federal level? Are we in a crisis of representative democracy?
• 00:59:10 Is the uptick in the rate of change the reason for the return to authoritarianism? Is an authoritarian regime the ‘Venture Capital’ of political regimes? Does democracy need more competition?
• 01:11:43 Why has there not been a revolution in the US since 1776?
• 01:18:41 Is the ‘falling out with god’ the root cause of what happened in the 20th century in Europe? What was the role of Germany during the time?
• 01:25:43 How the approach to (political) philosophy in Germany and East Asia so different.
• 01:31:11 Why WWI changed European politics forever?

You may also watch this episode on Youtube – Steven B. Smith (Patriotism, What makes great political regime, socialism, European powers).

Steven B. Smith has been teaching at Yale since 1984. Steven’s lecture series ‘Introduction to Political Philosophy‘ has been viewed 700,000 times on Youtube. Steven also has been a prolific author including  Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism , Political Philosophy (2012) and the Modernity and its Discontents .

His newest book “Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes” is now available on Amazon.

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In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Patricia Fara and I talk about:

• 00:02:05 What was the most important discovery when Patricia wrote her first book about 4,000 years of scientific development.
• 00:07:34 The surprising story how modern capitalism emerged from religion.
• 00:09:35 Is the scientific revolution real? Was is just part of a much bigger ongoing process? Was there a specific event that spawned the ‘cult of technology’?
• 00:16:42 Why science is less influenced by certain geniuses but byt a group of individuals making similar discoveries.
• 00:20:06 What is the right confluences between science and religion? Should science innovate in moral terms?
• 00:25:31 Does technology and science follow morals or is it the other way around? Is it ‘expensive’ to apply ‘higher morals’ or is it actually making society more productive?
• 00:34:07 Are we really living in the best time ever?
• 00:39:12 Will the age of the Polymath return?
• 00:45:09 How should we structure Basic Research?
• 00:50:53 What did Patrica find when researching Isaac Newton’s last 30 years of his life?
• 00:53:45 Is a ‘tough childhood’ a necessary ingredient for success? What motivates us to take actual risks?
• 01:02:00 Why Isaac Newton diverged from the majority opinion on the ‘Holy Trinity’?
• 01:07:01 What will most likely be fields of scientific breakthroughs? Where will they likely happen?
• 01:13:41 Is there an Intelligent Design for life on earth? Is suffering necessary to improve human behavior?
• 01:16:33 How Patricia became the President of the Antiquarian Horological Society. What role does time play and how that changed over time?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – Patricia Fara (What 4,000 years of scientific progress have taught us + Isaac Newton).

Patricia Fara is a historian of science at the University of Cambridge. She has written 12 books so far including her most recent book Life After Gravity: Isaac Newton’s London Career. In 2016 she became President of the Antiquarian Horological Society.

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In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast – Aubrey de Grey and I talk about:

• 00:02:16 How Aubrey de Grey got into the ‘longevity research‘ in the first place?
• 00:07:01 How Aubrey got the confidence to put a precise year to the ‘end of aging’.
• 00:12:01 What were the biggest obstacles to overcome in persuading the public that ‘aging can be ended’
• 00:13:30 Was setting up a money price for the extension of the lifespan of mice a good idea?
• 00:21:10 Why the longevity industry is burgeoning at the seams suddenly?
• 00:25:09 Will the benefit of an extended lifespan be equally available to a large part of the population?
• 00:31:01 Once aging is solved will we see a population of 100 billion on earth?
• 00:34:50 How Aubrey envisions life ‘past the Singularity’?
• 00:38:30 How will our brains react to aging? Are there any drugs that we can use right now that may delay aging?
• 00:42:01 Is the the FDA to blame for the slow innovation in the healthcare industry? Has COVID changed the regulatory environment?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #58 – Aubrey de Grey (Can we finally reverse aging ‘forever’?!).

Aubrey de Grey is the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Research Foundation. He has been an evangelist of longevity research for decades. He is also the author of ‘Ending Aging‘.

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In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Jeff Brickle and I talk about:

• 00:07:32 Jeff’s experience joining the Pentecostal church including the experience of ‘speaking in tongues’
• 00:13:25 The role of the ‘Holy Ghost’/ ‘Holy Spirit’ in Christian religion and the Pentecostal church in particular
• 00:24:34 What does it actually mean ‘Jesus Christ died for our sins’?
• 00:34:53 How the interpretation of the bible still adjusts to today’s understanding
• 00:40:42 The role of John in the New Testament. And how it must have felt to listen to an oral recitation of the biblical verse 2,000 years ago?
• 00:55:30 Jeff’s experience teaching in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia as well as Turkey.
• 01:06:07 Is there a crisis of ‘organized religion’?
• 01:10:01 Why is religion (and Christianity) so underrepresented on social media?
• 01:13:43 Why did Abrahamic religions spread so quickly? How much of an innovation were they? Are we looking at a new set of religions currently?
• 01:24:24 Are Christinatity (and the viral growth) a unicorn start-up?
• 01:38:15 Why reading the bible is such an inspiring experience that should not be missed out on (irrespective of your religion).

You may also watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #57 – Jeff Brickle (Christianity, Pentecostal Church, Theology).

Jeff Brickle is Professor of Biblical Studies at Urshan Graduate School of Theology. Jeff focuses primarily on the confluence of Johannine Literature with Ancient Media Culture (orality/aurality, sound mapping, memory arts, literary and book culture, performance, spatiality, intertextuality).

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Arnaud Collery and I talk about:

• 00:01:47 How Arnaud already had (full) careers as a leadership coach, inspirational speaker, actor, comedian, investment banker and philosopher at his young age.
• 00:10:26 Why ‘walking between worlds’ is such a cumbersome endeavor.
• 00:17:01 Why Europeans treat risk taking so much different than the US?
• 00:21:14 How Arnauld defines happiness?
• 00:28:32 Do we need traumatic experiences in our life to find our purpose?
• 00:36:01 Why some of most the most dangerous and violent regions of the world also bring out the most joy in people?
• 00:42:45 Is there a ‘happiness gene’?
• 00:49:01 Why we all want to be in ‘harmony with nature’? How society deals with a much newly customized ways of life and role models.
• 01:00:01 How Arnauld has hacked Hollywood.
• 01:25:01 How to spark motivation in people? How should we motivate our children?
• 01:36:29 What Arnauld thinks about extreme sports.

You can watch this episode on Youtube – Arnaud Collery (Happiness, Motivation, the life of a modern polymath).

Arnaud Collery has spent ‘many lives’ as an investment banker, army lieutenant, actor, motivational speaker and stand-up comedian all around the world. He currently builds Humanava.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast George Dyson and I talk about:

• 00:01:45 The Genesis story of George’s writing about the history of technology and science.
• 00:07:10 The amazing story of the Orion spacecraft.
• 00:14:50 Is the Big Stagnation real? Are we just measuring our success incorrectly?
• 00:21:30 How much did von Neumann and his contemporaries know about ‘giving birth’ to intelligent machines at their time?
• 00:26:40 Why is humanity so interested in technology? Are we already doomed?
• 00:36:10 The case for ethical machines. Will machines adopt ethics and religion?
• 00:43:45 How religions deal with limits to technology.
• 00:47:33 Can we all just get along without being innovative? Will we run the risk of an innovative power to sweep us away? Are we in a post-conflict society?
• 00:52:30 Is the hypothesis that we live in a simulation correct?
• 01:11:10 How we are motivated by our fathers and how we emulate them.
• 01:14:52 The history of the allied attacks on German cities of Hamburg and Dresden in WWII.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #55 – George Dyson (The amazing history of technology).

George Dyson is an author and historian of technology. He is the author of five bestselling books. His newest book is called Analogia : The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control – it is now available on Amazon.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Charles Veley and I talk about:

• 00:06:43 Is our desire to travel a product of ‘Hollywood manipulation’ like Indiana Jones and James Bond?
• 00:13:36 Is he desire to travel rooted in escapism?
• 00:18:43 How slow should you travel? How rewarding is country collecting compared to slow travel?
• 00:27:10 How mosttraveledpeople.com counts the places to go to in the world?
• 00:36:33 Why Charles left for a long sea voyage despite a newborn child at home.
• 00:42:21 Charles’ philosophy to show children the world.
• 00:47:31 Charles’ list of countries that positively surprised him.
• 00:55:29 How expectations change your perception of travel? And why it is so subtle to notice.
• 01:05:29 Is travel burn-out unavoidable? How can we keep the joy alive? Does the motivation to travel have an impact? Do fellow travelers influence us?
• 01:22:10 Has Costa Rica solved the ‘dark side’ of tourism? How can we solve overcrowding globally?
• and much more!

You may also watch this episode on Youtube – #54 – Charles Veley (The most traveled person in the world).

Charles Veley is a software executive and is currently the most traveled person in the world.

Charles also started and runs the mosttraveledpeople.com online community which is dedicated to help travelers to go to 949 unique places worldwide.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Noel Bagwell and I talk about:

• 00:01:41 Where do political topics and memes come from? How does ‘the crowd’ select and rank them? Are we being intentionally mis-directed politically?
• 00:10:55 When did the Internet get ‘corrupted’ from its ideals? What happened to Social Media companies?
• 00:15:30 An ode to psychopaths and sociopaths…
• 00:21:15 The short history of the emphasis on individual freedom in ‘the South’.
• 00:26:01 Is the current mental health crisis a product of unrealistic expectations?
• 00:31:20 Are we missing out by not teaching children enough about philosophy and economics?
• 00:35:03 Why is the US politically so much ‘on fire’ now?
• 00:48:16 Why libertarianism is misguided?
• 00:57:20 What is the new role of religion? How it has changed over time especially in America.
• 01:20:22 How are wisdom and knowledge related?
• 01:32:22 Will working with AI look like following GPS directions?
• and much more!

You may also watch this episode on Youtube – Noel Bagwell (Social Media, Libertarianism, Religion, The Future).

Noel Bagwell, is President and Chief Legal Counsel of Executive Legal Professionals.

Noel runs his own podcast ‘Profit from Legal‘.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Jane Chen and I talk about:

• 00:02:04 The origin story of Embrace and how many babies have been saved by Jane’s work.
• 00:09:35 How much of a role played the sales strategy in starting Embrace? How did that influence the company structure and funding?
• 00:15:35 Why selling in the developing world (and especially India) is so hard for Silicon Valley companies.
• 00:21:19 The challenges of moving and living in India. Why India is such a culture shock.
• 00:31:33 Why you can see so much joy despite the despair in many poor countries and neighborhoods just like India. Where does true happiness come from?
• 00:35:08 Is frustration necessary for learning?
• 00:40:10 How customized should a curriculum be?
• 00:43:11 Will the Singularity come to the Healthcare industry?
• and much more

You may watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #52 – Jane Chen (How to Embrace a warmer future).

Jane Chen is the co-founder of Embrace, a social enterprise startup that aims to help the 15 million premature and low birth-weight babies born every year, through a low-cost infant warmer.

Jane is also a TED speaker and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

You may learn more about Jane via her website.

In this episode of the Judgment call Podcast Jim Rutt and I talk about:

• 00:02:10 A look into the distinguished life and career experience of Jim
• 00:14:04 What is GameB all about? What are the main tenets of this new operating system for society?
• 00:21:01 Is GameB setting a limit of the growth of society? Should population size be limited? Why the ‘West’ need to reduce resource consumption by 80%.
• 00:29:03 How Jim envisions citizens to be enticed by GameB?
• 00:35:10 Why do we see the decline in productivity growth? Is that a sign of the GameA coming to an end?
• 00:43:59 Jim’s thoughts on the singularity.
• 00:51:30 What role does and did religion play in human and economic development?
• 01:07:57 What happened to the voice of the Silicon Valley CEOs in the Free Speech Debate? Why wokeism won’t overcome the forces of competition.
• 01:21:01 Why the influence of the Frankfurt school has grown so visibly in the last 10-20 years? Why is the draw to socialism to strong lately?
• 01:29:21 Is an America with ONE Billion people a good idea?
• 01:33:13 ‘America is the best thing that ever happened to the human race’. Who said it?
• 01:38:01 Are we headed for a single global government?
• and much more!

You may also this episode on Youtube – #51 Jim Rutt (Is GameB the new operating system for society?).

Jim Rutt is the former CEO of Network Solutions. The New York Times once referred to him as “the Internet’s bad boy” due to his reputation for creative mischief. He sold Network Solutions at the peak of the Dot Com boom and then went into scientific research. Jim has been affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute since 2002, serving as Chairman from 2009 thru 2012.

Tune into The Jim Rutt Show or follow Jim on Twitter and Medium.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Yaneer Bar-Yam and I talk about:

• 00:02:22 What is the science of complex systems? How does it choose the proper layer of abstraction?
• 00:11:33 What role social media plays in modelling a ‘social collective’?
• 00:14:47 Why AI is not helpful modelling the pandemic.
• 00:18:46 Is consciousness just an algorithm? Will it simply emerge if the algorithm is right?
• 00:22:01 Why humanity faces extinction in pandemics unless it organizes collective behavior according to Yaneer Bar-Yam.
• 00:22:15 Is COVID a virus that will stick around just like the flu? Is it different than diseases we suffered through over the millenia?
• 00:30:01 Can we still stop COVID? What would it entail? What role does the vaccine play?
• 00:34:13 Why we need another (real) and hard lockdown to burn out the virus according to Prof. Bar-Yam.
• 00:37:12 What is the exit strategy after a lockdown? Why no country has fully opened up yet (incl. travel restrictions).
• 00:40:00 Why travel bubbles never seem to get started (after being announced).
• 00:45:23 What we should do when a new virus hits? How we potentially stop any new virus?

Prof. Yaneer Bar-Yam is the President of the New England Complex Systems Institute. His recent work quantitatively analyzes the origins and impacts of market crashes, social unrest, ethnic violence, military conflict and pandemics, the structure and dynamics of social networks, as well as the bases of creativity, panic, evolution and altruism.

You can also watch this episode on Youtube – #50 – Yaneer Bar-Yam (Complex Systems and why we need another ‘real’ lockdown urgently).

He is the author of two books: a textbook Dynamics of Complex Systems, and Making Things Work, which applies complex systems science to solving problems in healthcare, education, systems engineering, international development, and ethnic conflict.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Ric Gazarian and I talk about:

• 00:04:49 Ric’s motivation to go to all 193 countries and why he intends to finish the challenge.
• 00:20:01 How Ric experienced Thailand during the last 12 months with almost no tourists. Why it is such a great place (even) for experienced travelers.
• 00:22:01 Ric’s surprising recommendation for an affordable, high value, safe country with culinary highlights
• 00:25:03 Why Uzbekistan is such a rewarding place for travelers.
• 00:40:23 How destinations deal with over-tourism and why the ‘best places’ remain in flux.
• 00:48:01 How Ric prepares and deals with potential dangerous situations in his travels.
• 01:04:21 Why the epic drive from Yakutsk to Magadan is so tempting.
• 01:08:21 Can we predict which individual will become an explorer?
• 01:10:01 How Ric got into making travel movies.

You may watch this episode on Youtube – #49 – Ric Gazarian (Why ‘extreme traveler status’ is worth chasing).

Ric Gazarian is the host of Counting Countries. He is the author of three books: Hit The Road: India, 7000 KM To Go, and Photos From Chernobyl.  He is the producer of two travel documentaries: Hit The Road: India and Hit The Road: Cambodia. Ric is also on his own quest to visit every country in the world. You can see where he has traveled so far and keep up with his journey at GlobalGaz.com.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Blaise Aguera y Arcas and I talk about:

• What inspired Blaisee to work so close to the ‘bleeding edge’ of innovation and technology for so many years
• Is the missing ‘explainability’ of AI really a problem?
• Why the complexity of languages (and it’s efficiency) is underrated?
• The impact of the ‘surveillance economy’ on customer perception – will it stay a ‘cat and mouse game’?
• Why the protection of our privacy is “required for survival”?
• How much of an advance will GPT-5 be? Will we become ‘data slaves’ to AI?
• Is there room for ‘personal opinions’ with AIs? Will AI optimize for ‘survival’? Does humanity even ‘optimize for survival’?
• Why ‘developed countries’ have such low rates of fertility compared to ‘developing countries’?
• Is ‘utility’ as a concept really at the core of ‘How the world works’?
• Should we fear AI overlords? Or should we embrace them?
• Is ‘Free Will’ a useful illusion? Is empathy a necessary precursor to consciousness?
• What is the relationship between religion and AI?

You may watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #48 – Blaise Aguera y Arcas (Artificial Intelligence, Free Will and Consciousness plus Religion).

Blaise is a software engineer, software architect, and designer. His TED presentations have been rated some of TED’s ‘most jaw-dropping.’

After working with Microsoft for seven years he now heads Cerebra, a Google Research organization.

In this episode Boris Kester and I talk about:

• What inspired Boris to travel to all 193 countries in the world?
• What is Boris’ recommendation about a great (and easily accessible) countries in Africa and Asia to travel to?
• How likely is it to get into a dangerous situation when traveling to so many ‘unknown’ countries?
• How Boris goes about planning his amazing trips.
• Why Madagascar is such a fascinating country.
• Will technology make travel virtual? How is technology changing travel?
• Why do we travel? Does travel make you a better person?
• Where does wisdom come from?

You can also watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #47 – Boris Kester (What traveling to all 193 countries teaches you about humanity).

Boris Kester has traveled to all UN-recognized 193 different countries. Boris maintains an amazing collection of trip reports and photos on his website traveladventures.org from his journeys. In his other life Boris works as a Senior Purser at KLM Dutch Airlines.

In this episode of the Judgment Call Podcast Patrick Smith and I talk about:

• Patrick’s scariest experiences flying planes for 30+ years.
• Why is the B737 MAX a flawed plane?
• Why innovation is stuck in the airline/airframe industry?
• How the airline industry will look like post-COVID?
• Patrick’s favorite airlines and places in the world.
• Why tourism has been on such a ‘dark trail’ before COVID happened?
• and much more!

You may also watch this episode on Youtube – The Judgment Call Podcast Episode #46 – Patrick Smith (Where’s the innovation in the airline industry?).

Patrick Smith is an airline pilot, air travel blogger and author. Patrick is the author of ‘Ask the pilot’ and ‘Cockpit Confidential’ – both available now on Amazon.