Episode · Dwarkesh Podcast · 2020-08-31
Books mentioned on Robin Hanson - The Long View
Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the author of The Elephant in the Brain and The Age of Em.
Dwarkesh Patel discussed Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen and Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Stubborn Attachments
Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen is a philosophical and economics book that argues sustained long-term economic growth is a moral imperative essential for human flourishing.
Discussed“tyler cotton writes and stubborn attachments that if you really care about the long term the best you can do is just promote economic growth uh do you agree with that”
Where to get it
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Why Buddhism is True
Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright is an exploration of evolutionary psychology and ancient Buddhist philosophy that examines how the human mind creates suffering and how mindfulness can alter our perception of reality.
Discussed“robin wright actually wrote a book where he claimed exactly this um your back makes world peace”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (5) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Plugged The elephant in the brain
“so when we are talking in our book the elephant the brain about motives we're focused more on distal motives”
Plugged The elephant in the brain
“so similarly in our book in the brain we're talking about sort of the more basic fundamental motives”
Plugged The elephant in the brain
“so the key idea in our book is to say your conscious mind has a purpose it's built for a reason”
Plugged The elephant in the brain
“so we wrote this book the elephant in the brain that takes ten areas of life and talks about how the letters are different”
Plugged The elephant in the brain
“well so i mean we haven't said that much about the book so let me just say”