Optimizing Towards Nothing

In this episode of Moral Mayhem, we discuss and debate the ideas presented in Robin Hanson's essays on cultural drift. We examine his central argument that the emergence of a global monoculture, coupled with reduced existential pressures such as war and famine, enables the persistence of biological…

In this episode, we chat with Robin Hanson about his proposed solution to falling fertility rates in the US: since each newborn is effectively responsible for hundreds of thousands in national debt obligations, governments could endow parents with a portion of their children’s future tax payments -…

We’re talking about Love is Blind, the ‘scientific’ dating ‘experiment’ to discover how shallow reality TV stars really are (see the video version on Youtube). The show involves men and women dating in pods where they can hear but not see one another, and ultimately getting engaged “sight unseen” (…

In this conversation, we chat with Robin Hanson about his thesis on cultural drift, exploring the implications of the global monoculture and reduced selection pressures on the long-term future of humanity.  We think through the mechanisms for and potential solutions to cultural drift, such as deep …