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Non • Zero • Sum James

by Non • Zero • Sum James

A podcast where I read my blog to you, and chit-chat a little.I'm Non-Zero-Sum James, your companion on this exploration of win-win games and how they are essential for a better future. I've been writing here at nonzerosum.games for a couple of years now, and decided it was finally time to reproduce the content in the form in which I usually consume media, audio. So, playing catch-up, every couple of days I'll be reading from the blog, exploring a new aspect of game theory, moral philosophy, ethical economics and AI—looking for solutions to the complex problems we face in our world together.

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Episodes

  1. Win-Winning with Liv Boeree

    This week’s guest; Liv Boeree—host of the Win-Win Podcast, has been a key inspiration for nonzerosum.games from the start. Liv studied astrophysics and rose to prominence in the world of high-stakes poker. But for me, the public discussion she’s fuelled about using game theory and specifically...

  2. The Dividual—are we falling apart?

    The concept of a dividual raises an interesting question about how something can be both an entity, but also divisible. It's one of those terms which, since I've learned it, I see it everywhere, it's felt more and more relevant to the world today, as if we're living a new era of the dividual. |…

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  3. Are You a Crab in a Bucket?

    A classic behavioural model... perhaps not entirely based on scientific evidence, but an instructive story none the less. | For the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/crabbucket.html

  4. Furry Friends

    More and more my social feeds are populated with these little treats—interspecies friendships that give us a glimpse into the world of non-zero-sum interactions. | To enjoy all the visuals with the audio... visit: https://nonzerosum.games/furryfriends.html

  5. Parable of a Polyp

    Kicking off a series of episodes focused on non-zero-sum games in nature, beginning with a cooperative game with the highest of stakes. | For the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/parableofapolyp.html

  6. Interview: Vincent Knight—Game Theorist

    Our very first podcast interview, and starting strong with a Professor of Game Theory, Vince Knight from the University of Cardiff all the way on the other side of the world in Wales. | We sat down to talk about all sorts of applications of game theory in our personal and political lives, from…

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  7. Coach Krohn on Leadership

    This episode is a special one, with a special guest—my friend Coach Stuart (the Moose) Krohn. I explore Stuart's impact as a specialist in creating leaders.

  8. Emergence Spirals

    In response to Elizier Yudkowski's essay "The Futility of Emergence" I take a very long time explaining some ways to define and recognise emergence in a way that is useful. | For the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/emergencespirals.html

  9. Emergence is Beautiful

    What does living in an entropic universe mean for beauty... or meaning itself? | Original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/emergenceisbeautiful.html

  10. Replicators—The Pandoran Children of Emergence

    This episode explores Susan Blackmore's concept of Temes and the importance of replicators when understanding emergence. | Original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/replicators.html

  11. On the Shoulders of Substrates

    In the 5th part in our Emergence series, we look at a key mechanism of emergence; substrates. | Visit the original post here: https://nonzerosum.games/substrates.html

  12. Emergent Gravity

    This is one where you'll want to visit the page (https://nonzerosum.games/graviton.html) because it has an interactive gravity simulation that is central to the piece. This is a (speculative) proof of concept that went a bit further than initially expected, and likely a strong candidate for the...

  13. Emergence vs Entropy—a Universal Paradox

    How does emergence happen in a world determined by the second law of thermodynamics? It turns out that the universal trend towards entropy allows for pockets of emergence... as long as it increases entropy in the end! | For the original post visit: https://nonzerosum.games/emergencevsentropy.html

  14. Conway's Game—Emergence 2/8

    Now let's start looking at the dynamics of emergence—how to simple rules give rise to complexity. To do this we'll look at a simulation called "Conway's Game of Life" to see this process in action. | To play with the interactive simulations, visit: https://nonzerosum.games/conwaysgame.html

  15. The Cosmic Lottery—a prelude to emergence.

    Imagine you wake up one morning to a phone call, you've won a million dollars... well, you have, kinda, your prize though is consciousness. Join us on an 8-part series about non-zero-sumness at the very foundations of physics | https://nonzerosum.games/cosmiclottery.html

  16. Taking Credit

    Ever told someone your idea, only to hear them pass it off as their own? Well done, that's how passing on ideas works. | https://nonzerosum.games/takingcredit.html

  17. Collaborative Corner

    Want to work together to make something greater than the sum of our parts. Let's talk! | https://nonzerosum.games/collaborativecorner.html

  18. 5 Creative Principles

    It's our birthday... well, it was when the original post was written, so this episode goes behind the scenes at the site, focusing in on five creative principles (six actually) that can be applied to any creative project. | For the original post, pictures and diagrams visit:...

  19. Why I'm Keeping My Crappy Drawings

    This episode kicks off a group of episodes about creativity, beginning with my response to the proliferation of generative AI "art", and how it won't change my process, or art in general—it's something altogether different, like photography. | For the original post, links and pictures visit:...

  20. What About Us—Polymaths 3/3

    So, we've seen how reasoning by analogy can help people express their genius, but what about us normies? In this final episode of our Polymaths series we ask how this approach can help us, and how first principles can really backfire on a social level | For the original post and links visit:...

  21. The Whole Kitten Cavoodle—Polymaths 2/3

    What's not so good about first principles? | For the original post and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/polymaths2.html

  22. An Argument for Analogies—Polymaths 1/3

    This three-part series looks at two different ways that genius and innovation manifest in the world: first principles thinking and arguing by analogy. | For the original post and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/analogies1.html

  23. The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About—Solutions

    This series is not just about raising concerns, throughout we have been focused on specific and philosophical solutions to the problems raised and in this final post we gather these all in one place, ending the series with you hopefully feeling empowered to be part of the solution. | For the...

  24. The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About—Can AI Help?

    In this episode we ask if AI might be able to help with humanity's own alignment problem. Could making AI's primary objective be alignment, and have its current functionality grow out of that—performing tasks and answering questions for instance—as an extension of a general principle of aligning...

  25. The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About—The SCALE of the Issue

    This episode looks at the issue at three different scales; the human, the political and the biological. | For the original post and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/alignment4.html

  26. The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About—Getting Aligned Through History

    What do Aristotle, J.S Mill, Richard Nixon, Ibram X. Kendi and John Key have in common? They all tried to, at some point combine the interests of the individual and the collective. | For the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/alignment3.html

  27. The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About—Humanity's Alignment Problem

    In part 2 of this alignment series, we look at humanity's own alignment issue. | For the original post, links and pictures visit: https://nonzerosum.games/alignment2.html

  28. The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About—What is Alignment?

    The first in a series about humanity's own alignment problem... which we'll need to deal with before we can approach goal alignment in AI. | For the original post, notes and links: https://nonzerosum.games/alignment1.html

  29. Why?—Can we have both fairness & progress?

    In this post I try to distill the "why" of nonzerosum.games. | For the original post and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/why.html

  30. The End of Morality

    A hopeful conclusion to Andrew Tane Glen's series "Why Cooperate" | See the original post and links here: https://nonzerosum.games/whycooperate3.html

  31. Why Cooperate?—Part 2

    Andrew Tane Glen continues his 3-part series "Why Cooperate" | for the original post and links: https://nonzerosum.games/whycooperate2.html

  32. Why Cooperate?—Andrew Tane Glen introduces the super-defector

    this week I've invited Andrew Tane Glen to read his guest post "Why Cooperate". Andrew a software engineer and an Aristotle scholar (with a Masters in Philosophy) and also my best mate, with whom I talk philosophy on the regular. His unique creative and analytical philosophical approach often...

  33. What Can One Person do?—Alexei Navalny

    Written on the day of Alexei Navalny's death, a meditation on courage & sacrifice. | For the original post with links and resources: https://nonzerosum.games/oneperson.html

  34. Masculinity—a case for courage

    This one created a bit of a stir when I first wrote the post. Hopefully people can see that the message is a positive one, for everyone. | For the original post and links, visit: https://nonzerosum.games/masculinity.html

  35. The NPC → MC Spectrum

    For supplementary diagrams and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/npc.html

  36. No Matter Where You Get To... There You Are

    A funny story that wasn't so funny at the time (as is so often the case). | For the original post visit: https://nonzerosum.games/nomatterwhereyougetto.html

  37. Paine on Economic Justice

    The system didn't and doesn't need to be this way. | For the original post visit: https://nonzerosum.games/painejustice.html

  38. Rights & Liberties—are opposites

    I'm always trying to picture in my mind what sort of society I want to live in. To do this is to balancing the freedoms I'm willing to forego in order to provide rights that we determine to be essential to a healthy society. | This week's episode explores the new way of looking at Rights &...

  39. Why People in Poverty Make Poor Decisions

    In this episode we make the case for giving money to people who are bad with money! | For the original post and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/poverty.html

  40. Saving Lives Reduces Overpopulation

    I will be making the case that somewhat counter-intuitively, by saving lives we actually reduce over-population. | For the full post and references: https://nonzerosum.games/savinglives.html

  41. Effortocracy ~ I've had meritocracy all wrong

    've been wrong about the meaning of Meritocracy, and for good reason, there are many different definitions—the term has been used as a pejorative, as an aspirational term, as a definition of a government, and as a general way of allocating credit to individuals. But I understood it as this: A...

  42. Saidi, My Friend

    This episode begins a series on luck and circumstances, and asks "What do we owe to each other?" | For the original post and links visit: https://nonzerosum.games/saidi.html

  43. Goodhart's Law ~ the problem with singular goals

    This is one of those ideas that constantly recurs in my mind throughout my day, one of those perspective-affecting mental models that helps me navigate the world, and hopefully will do the same for you. | For the full post and links: https://nonzerosum.games

  44. We Don't Just Let People Die ~ so what next?

    A lot of politics out in the world appears to me at any rate to be based around a sort of kill-or-be-killed mentality, is if we live an the wild, and need to let nature sort the strong from the weak... but that's not the actual world we live in, so that political mentality is... well, nonsense. A...

  45. Looking to the Future ~ a simple recycling idea: part 3

    Let's take a look through our crystal ball at Glass Bottle Utopia. What are the problems, and who's solving them? | For the original article, links and pictures visit: https://nonzerosum.games/betterrecycling3.html

  46. Putting it on Plastic

    In part 2 of our series on recycling we look into the problems with plastic recycling and the importance of disincentivising the use of plastics. | For the original article, including useful links and references visit: https://nonzerosum.games/betterrecycling2.html

  47. 8 Bottles ~ a Simple Recycling Idea

    This series of 3 episodes are about recycling, and specifically an idea I'd like to put forward as a workable solution for governments, business and the environment—8 different standard-sized glass bottles and jars. | For illustrations and sources visit the original page:...

  48. Negative Moral Licensing ~ the even eviler twin

    Moral licensing is a well researched and understood phenomenon—I'm proposing something slightly different: negative moral licensing, where, instead of using our previous good actions to justify misbehaviour, we use the real or perceived misbehaviour of others to license ours. |...

  49. Moral Licensing ~ the makings of a very Negative-Sum Game

    Moral licensing is when you use previous virtuous actions to justify less than virtuous behaviour next... There are lots of studies referenced in this episode, you can find links to them all in the text of the original post. Have fun exploring the links, and of course all the pictures. | Original...

  50. A Positive Double Standard

    I have a confession: As a teenager I was desperate to learn how to win friends and influence people, to think and grow rich and develop the habits of highly effective people (seven to be precise)—I am James and I am a self-help-oholic. | Find the original blog + links here:...

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ABOUT THIS SHOW

A podcast where I read my blog to you, and chit-chat a little.I'm Non-Zero-Sum James, your companion on this exploration of win-win games and how they are essential for a better future. I've been writing here at nonzerosum.games for a couple of years now, and decided it was finally time to reproduce the content in the form in which I usually consume media, audio. So, playing catch-up, every couple of days I'll be reading from the blog, exploring a new aspect of game theory, moral philosophy, ethical economics and AI—looking for solutions to the complex problems we face in our world together.

HOSTED BY

Non • Zero • Sum James

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Non • Zero • Sum James have?

Non • Zero • Sum James currently has 73 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.

What is Non • Zero • Sum James about?

A podcast where I read my blog to you, and chit-chat a little.I'm Non-Zero-Sum James, your companion on this exploration of win-win games and how they are essential for a better future. I've been writing here at nonzerosum.games for a couple of years now, and decided it was finally time to...

How often does Non • Zero • Sum James release new episodes?

Non • Zero • Sum James has 73 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.

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You can listen to Non • Zero • Sum James on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.

Who hosts Non • Zero • Sum James?

Non • Zero • Sum James is created and hosted by Non • Zero • Sum James.
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