William MacAskill on Longtermism

<p class="MsoNormal">Grief is affected by the passage of time in a way that some attitudes and emotions aren't. Samuel Scheffler explores why this might be so in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.</p> 

Philosophers who use thought experiments often believe their own intutions in response to them are unviersal. But that's not always so. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Edouard Machery discusses his research on this topic, and some of his surprising conclusions. Th ... Show More

Frantz Fanon, who was born in Martinique, died aged 36. He nevertheless made very significant contributions to the discussion of racism and colonialism, influenced strongly by the existentialist tradition. In this episode of the Philosphy Bites podcast David Edmonds discusses Fan ... Show More

<p>Philosopher William MacAskill of the University of Oxford and a founder of the effective altruism movement talks about his book <i>What We Owe the Future</i> with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. MacAskill advocates "longtermism," giving great attention to the billions of people wh ... Show More

Sam Harris speaks with Peter Singer, Francesca Minerva, and Jeff McMahan about the newly launched Journal of Controversial Ideas. They discuss the ethics of discussing dangerous ideas, the possibility of having a market in vaccines, the taboo around the topic of race and IQ, the ... Show More

<p>Journalist and author Robert Wright invited EconTalk's Russ Roberts to his podcast, NonZero, to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, knowing that there would be plenty to disagree about. The two then agreed to release their back-and-forth on their respective podcasts. The ... Show More

Do political subjects have a default obligation to obey the law? In episode 105 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss civil disobedience in the present context of university activism for divestment from genocide in Gaza. They chart the genealogy of the concept of disobedience in ... Show More

<p>Future forecaster and game designer Jane McGonigal ran a social simulation game in 2008 that had players dealing with the effects of a respiratory pandemic set to happen in the next decade. She wasn't literally predicting the 2020 pandemic—but she got eerily close. Her game, s ... Show More

<p>For someone who doesn't believe in goal-setting, Emmanuel Acho is highly accomplished. He's a former NFL linebacker, an Emmy-winning TV sports analyst, and the New York Times bestselling author of "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man" – and hosts a video series and po ... Show More

*This 20 Minute Spotlight was edited from our one-hour interview in 2017. We repeatedly and predictably make wrong decisions throughout, and in many aspects of, our lives. Dan Ariely wants to make the concepts of behavioral economics more accessible by describing them in non-acad ... Show More