| # | Series | Episode |
| 1. |  | Future Generations 64 minutes View the transcript for this episode here: https://mindsalmostmeeting.com/episodes/future-generations... | Imagine two smart curious friendly and basically truth-seeking people, but from very different intellectual traditions. Traditions with different tools, priorities, and ground rules. What would they discuss? Would they talk past each other? Make any progress? Would anyone want to hear them? Economist Robin Hanson and philosopher Agnes Callard decided to find out. | Visit the Minds Almost Meeting websit... |
| 2. |  | The Afterlife 9 minutes Suppose you knew that after your natural death the human race would die out – perhaps, for some reason, humans had become infertile. How would that alter how you live your life? How would it change your attitude to the ideas and projects to which you are currently committed? This thought experiment is posed by American philosopher Samuel Scheffler. He believes that in this scenario, most of what currently gives our life significance would come to feel meaningless. This leads him to conclude that we care dee... |
| 3. |  | Samuel Scheffler on the Afterlife 18 minutes What do we really care about? In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Samuel Scheffler suggests that most of us care a lot about what happens after our deaths, and that affects what we feel about what is happening now and how we value it. |
| 4. |  | Samuel Scheffler, “Death and the Afterlife” (Oxford UP, 2013) 61 minutes Our moral lives are constructed out of projects, goals, aims, and relationships or various kinds. The pursuit of these projects, and the nurturing of certain relationships, play central role in giving our lives their meaning and value. This much is commonplace. What is not frequently noticed is that our practices of valuing and finding meaning in our lives draw upon the presumption that others will outlive us, that there will be generations of human beings continuing into the future. One way to grasp the si... |
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| 5. |  | Humanity on the precipice (Toby Ord) 69 minutes Humanity could thrive for millions of years -- unless our future is cut short by an existential catastrophe. Oxford philosopher Toby Ord explains the possible existential risks we face, including climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence.... |
| 6. |  | #72 - Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity's potential futures 194 minutes This week Oxford academic and 80,000 Hours trustee Dr Toby Ord released his new book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. It's about how our long-term future could be better than almost anyone believes, but also how humanity's recklessness is putting that future at grave risk — in Toby's reckoning, a 1 in 6 chance of being extinguished this century. | | I loved the book and learned a great deal from it (buy it here, US and audiobook release March 24). While preparing for this interv... |
| 7. |  | #208 — Existential Risk 65 minutes A Conversation with Toby Ord |
| 8. |  | EV - 134 Existential Risk with Phil Torres 69 minutes My guest this week is the well timed Phil Torres (@@xriskology), an expert on existential risk. We discuss the field of existential risk and several top contenders for what might kill us all. Phil's website: https://www.xriskology.com/ Editing by Brian Ziegenhagen, check out his pod: http://youarehere.libsyn.com/s02e02-rex-manning-day?fbclid=IwAR2L2_YIJvQpcw0nx6n... by GW Rodriguez Sibling Pod Philosophers in Space: https://0gphilosophy.libsyn.com/ Support... us at Patreon.com/EmbraceTheVoid If you en... |
| 9. |  | #59 - Torres on Existential Risk, Omnicidal Agents and Superintelligence In this episode I talk to Phil Torres. Phil is an author and researcher who primarily focuses on existential risk. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University. He has published widely on emerging technologies, terrorism, and existential risks, with articles appearing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Futures, Erkenntnis, Metaphilosophy, Foresight, Journal of Future Studies, and the Journal of Evolution and Technology. He is the author... |
| 10. | | #112 – Carl Shulman on the common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implications 229 minutes Preventing the apocalypse may sound like an idiosyncratic activity, and it sometimes is justified on exotic grounds, such as the potential for humanity to become a galaxy-spanning civilisation. |
| 11. | | #64 - Munthe on the Precautionary Principle and Existential Risk In this episode I talk to Christian Munthe. Christian is a Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He conducts research and expert consultation on ethics, value and policy issues arising in the intersection of health, science & technology, the environment and society. He is probably best-known for his work on the precautionary principle and its uses in ethical and policy debates. This was the central topic of his 2011 book The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk... |
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| 13. |  | 6| How to be a Good Ancestor: Thinking and Acting for the Future- with Roman Krznaric 82 minutes This episode is an interview with public philosopher Roman Krznaric. Roman is a founding member of the school of life, and has previously published books on empathy (Empathy: why it matters and how to get it) and redefining existentialism for the modern world (carpe diem regained). We discuss issues of empathy in this episode, but the discussion is focused around the ideas and problems raised by Roman's new book: The Good Ancestor- how to think long-term in a short term world. | Listen to this episode for a... |
| 14. |  | 207 | William MacAskill on Maximizing Good in the Present and Future 102 minutes I talk with philosopher William MacAskill about utilitarianism and longtermism. |
| 15. | | EV - 249 What We Owe The Future with Will MacAskill 65 minutes My guest this week is Will MacAskill, an associate professor in philosophy and research fellow at the global priorities institute at the University of Oxford. Will is one of the founders of the effective altruism and 80,000 hours, as well as a proponent of longtermism. His new book is “What we owe the future”. We discuss developments in longtermism and challenges like being co-opted or leading to undervaluing of present persons. Convocation: MacAskill What We Owe the Future: https://www.amazon.com/What-Owe-... |
| 16. | | #136 – Will MacAskill on what we owe the future 175 minutes People who exist in the future deserve some degree of moral consideration. |
| 17. |  | Will MacAskill on Creating Lasting Change 71 minutes Ryan talks to professor and writer Will MacAskill about his book What We Owe The Future, how to create effective change in the world, the importance of gaining a better perspective on the world, and more. Will MacAskill is an Associate Professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford. His research focuses on the fundamentals of effective altruism - the use of evidence and reason to help others as much as possible with our time and money - with a particula... |
| 18. | | Rationally Speaking #215 - Anders Sandberg on "Thinking about the long-term future of humanity" 43 minutes This episode features Anders Sandberg, a researcher at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, explaining several reasons why it's valuable to think about humanity's long-term future. |
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| 19. |  | Episode 81, ‘The End of Everything: Astrophysically Speaking’ with Katie Mack (Part I - The Death of the Universe) 63 minutes Welcome to 'Episode 81 (Part I of II)' where we’ll be discussing the death of the universe with Katie Mack. |
| 20. | | Episode 81, ‘The End of Everything: Astrophysically Speaking’ with Katie Mack (Part II - Further Analysis and Discussion) 47 minutes Welcome to 'Episode 81 (Part II of II)' where we’ll be discussing the philosophy of the universe’s end with theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack. |
| 21. | | 70 | Katie Mack on How the Universe Will End 83 minutes I talk with cosmologist Katie Mack about the various ways the world might end, from gentle fade-out to dramatic kaboom. |