Episode · The Ben & Marc Show · 2023-10-24
Books mentioned on Why It's Time to Be A Techno-Optimist
Last week, Marc Andreessen released his new vision for the future – “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/).
Marc Andreessen discussed The ultimate resource by Julian Lincoln Simon. Ben Horowitz recommended When Reason Goes on Holiday by Neven Sesardic.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The ultimate resource
The Ultimate Resource by Julian Lincoln Simon is a provocative economic book arguing that human ingenuity, creativity, and population growth are the ultimate drivers of abundance rather than scarcity.
Discussed“so this was also the argument to connect this back to the idea of human population so this this was the argument for this guy Julian Simon who I admire a lot yeah um who who wrote this book called The Ultimate resource”
Where to get it
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When Reason Goes on Holiday
When Reason Goes on Holiday by Neven Sesardic is a nonfiction book exploring how brilliant scientists and high-IQ individuals can hold radical, misguided, or seemingly irrational political and social views.
Recommended“I'll give a plug for great book that you recommended when reason goes on holiday which is sort of the story of how the great physicists and inventors did on politics and policy and Game Theory you take super high IQ people and you put them in a research or university setting”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing Leviathan
“Like nature really has it out for you, um, and if you're unprotected in a state of nature like it, you know, the old, the old thing is you know life and state of nature is, is is is what is it nasty, brutish and short, poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short, Hobbes, yeah, exactly. And so so look technology,”