Motives and Institutions with Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson is an economist, futurist, and blogger at overcomingbias.com. His recently published book, co-authored with Kevin Simler, is called The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life. We talked about the new book; the internet; Robin's strategic insights on how to be an intellectual, especially for young-ish academic types such as myself; the near future; Robin's ideas about "futarchy;" the profit motive and the space of institutions beyond the profit motive.

Show Notes

Robin Hanson is an economist, futurist, and blogger at overcomingbias.com. I've been following Robin for a while now because he's a genuine intellectual: he thinks, speaks, and writes intensely and prolifically about whatever he wants, even if it seems weird to other people. His recently published book, co-authored with Kevin Simler, is called The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.

In this podcast, we talked about the new book; his larger motivation behind the book; which minds Robin would like to change; the internet; Robin's strategic insights on how to be an intellectual, especially for young-ish academic types such as myself; the near future; Robin's ideas about "futarchy"; Robin's book The Age of Em, the profit motive and the space of institutions beyond the profit motive; and a few other things.

Other Life

✦ Subscribe to the coolest newsletter in the world https://OtherLife.co

✦ Get a free Urbit ship at https://imperceptible.computer

✦ We're building a new country at https://imperceptible.country

IndieThinkers.org

✦ If you're working on independent creative work, join the next cohort of https://IndieThinkers.org

What is Other Life?

I study the lives of the wildest writers who ever lived.