The Scientific Worldview

This episode features: -Will AI replace all human jobs? -When will we get artificial general intelligence? -When will we get superintelligence? -What is the chance that a billion people die in a global catastrophe? -What is the chance that humanity goes extinct? -In a world with advanced AI, will life feel meaningless? -Is it possible to clone humans? -Can you upload your mind to a computer? -Why did humanity take over the world? -Would it be possible to create an artificial intelligence that is smarter than any human? -Will there be a "singularity"? -How will governments react to developments in AI? -Why do people oppose AI?

This episode features: -Is American society sexist? -Do men hate women? -Are men more likely to commit suicide? -Why are most divorces initiated by women? -Are women discriminated against in university? -Are women held to the same standards as men in the military and law-enforcement? -Do police reduce crime? -Does incarceration reduce crime? -Why does the United States imprison so many people? -Which parts of the world have the highest crime rates? -Why did shoplifting increase in San Francisco? -Why do young people commit more crime? -Why do men commit more crime? -Does poverty cause crime? -Do smart people commit more crime? -Do genes predispose people to commit crimes? -Does therapy reduce recidivism?

This episode features: -Did mask mandates help prevent the spread of covid? -Why did the US government engage in censorship during the pandemic? -Does violent media cause violence? -What are the benefits of religion? -Should there be limits on artistic expression? -Why does the truth matter? -What is cancel culture? -Should men be allowed to talk about abortion? -Who decides what counts as "hate speech"? -Why are some forms of bigotry acceptable, while others are not? -What is the euphemism treadmill? -What do Hispanic people think of the term "Latinx"?

This episode features: -Does porn cause sexual assault? -Does porn cause people to have more sex? -Will climate change destroy the world? -Is death bad? -Does death give meaning to life? -Does death give us motivation? -If we were immortal, would life get boring? -Is immortality physically possible? -Why are people attracted to religions, cults, and political ideologies? -Why do so many ideologies predict the end of the world is coming soon? -Should we restrict how much soda people drink?  

This episode features: -Should polygamy be legal? -Should you be able to sell your organs? -Should euthanasia be legal? -Is it permissible to sell children? -Is surrogacy wrong? -Does surrogacy harm the child? -Is it acceptable for someone to use surrogacy to have as many children as possible? -Is it ethical to create many embryos and then choose which to implant based on genes? -Should we use genetic engineering to address disabilities? -Should we use genetic engineering to enhance ourselves? -Is incest between consenting adults wrong?

This episode features: -Is there a "moment" of conception? -Are most abortions due to recklessness? -Is the death penalty wrong? -Should we use corporal punishment? -Is solitary confinement ethical? -Is it wrong to kill animals? -Does equality matter? -What is fairness? -Do some people deserve more than others? -Is taxation theft? -Should the government take from the rich and give to the poor? -Should the government take from the beautiful and give to the ugly? -Should the government take from the tall and give to the short?

This episode features: -Is suffering always bad? -Is suffering necessary for great art? -Is having kids good or bad? -Would the world be better with more people in it? -Would the world be better off without humanity? -Do we want to be sad sometimes? -What's the point of sports? -Is life mostly suffering? -If we live in a deterministic universe, is anyone responsible for their actions? -Are psychopaths responsible for their crimes? -What is the relationship between effective altruism and autism?

This episode features: -Should transgender women compete in women's sports? -Should we have open borders? -Is it wrong to eat your dog? -When is it OK to break a promise? -When is it OK to lie? -Is it OK to steal if you really need the money? -If somebody wants to become a slave, should they be able to? -Are you obligated to donate to charity? -Do rights exist? -Why are people donating their money to help shrimp?

This episode features: -Should a doctor kill one patient to save five? -Is nationalism good or bad? -Which is more morally valuable, a pig or 1000 squirrels? -Are fish conscious? -Are trees morally valuable? -Should we care about AIs even if they aren't conscious? -Are you obligated to keep a promise you made to a dead person? -Is art valuable even if nobody looks at it? -Is withdrawing life-support the same as murder? -Which is better: an unequal world with more happiness, or an equal world with less happiness? -Is it wrong to favor your child over a random stranger? -Is love bad? -Is an immortal lizard more valuable than all of humanity? -Is utilitarianism useless in an infinite universe?

This episode features: -Do animals matter? -Would it be bad if humanity went extinct? -Should you kill one person to save five? -Should you kill your friend to save five strangers? -Does the environment matter? -Why do we care less when more lives are on the line? -Were philosophers from 200 years ago right about everything? -Should you donate to charity? -What are the best charities to donate to? -Should we care more about people close to us than people who are farther away? -Is it wrong to buy yourself an ice cream? -What is effective altruism? -Should you go vegan? -Should you switch from eating chicken to eating beef? -Do future people matter? -What could we do to change the future? -Are we at risk of extinction?

This episode features: -Is morality objective? -Does morality come from God? -If God tells you to torture babies, should you do it? -Why are women more likely to be vegan? -Why are men more supportive of war? -Why are introverts more libertarian? -Is everyone evil? -How do people find meaning in their lives? -Why are people so obsessed with politics? -Why care about morality? -Have humans evolved to perceive moral truth? -Do most people think that morality is objective? -What is the appeal of an objective morality? -What's the point of ethics?

This episode features: -Is beauty objective? -What does it mean to have good taste in music? -Are some people better at recognizing beauty? -How do musical preferences change as people age? -Do people tend to like the music that came out when they were young? -Can you predict somebody's musical taste based on their personality? -Is music today better than the music of the past? -Why are people drawn to magical explanations? -Is morality objective? -Would aliens agree with us on moral questions? -Has there been moral progress? -Why do the young and the old disagree on moral issues? -Why has the world gotten more liberal over time?

This episode features: -Is math invented or discovered? -What is truth? -What is reality? -Would intelligent aliens use the same math as us? -Do infants know math? -Do animals know math? -Can you trust your own reasoning? -Why does reasoning work? -Why is math so useful?

This episode features: -Were our ancestors cannibals? -Why did people engage in human sacrifice? -Is slavery still practiced today? -Do we work more than people of the past? -Is the world better than it used to be? -Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors peaceful? -The history of torture -The history of slavery -The history of infanticide -Is school bullying on the rise? -Has the world suicide rate been increasing? -Has our treatment of animals improved or gotten worse?

This episode features: -What's wrong with socialism? -Are taxes necessary? -Why are drugs so expensive when they first come out? -Do we need the government to protect the environment? -Why did prohibition fail? -Do politicians understand economics? -Are government bureaucrats lazy? -Are Scandinavian countries socialist? -What is communism? -Why were so many people murdered, tortured, and imprisoned under socialist regimes? -How is our understanding of history biased? -Is history written by the victors? -How was the history of the American Civil War taught differently in northern versus southern states?

This episode features:  -Are labor unions bad? -How should we respond to AI generated art? -Why do we use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar? -Why does the price of everything end with 99? -Why do people tip more than they used to? -Why do so many products have extra fees? ("Service fee", "convenience fee" etc.) -How do department stores trick you into feeling like you're getting a great deal? -Should we stifle innovation in order to protect jobs? -Is free trade good? -Why do we have tariffs? -Why does the government cater to special interest groups? -What is a cartel?

This episode features: -Is rent control bad? -Should we have a minimum wage? -Why do most economists oppose raising the minimum wage? -Does the minimum wage increase unemployment? -Why are there housing shortages? -Why has housing quality gone down in some cities? -Why isn't new housing being built? -Why don't current homeowners want new housing to be built? -What would happen if it was illegal to tip waiters? -Why do you need a license to be a hairdresser? -Why do you need a license to be an interior designer? -Why do you need a license to shampoo hair in Tennessee?

This episode features: -What causes inflation? -Why doesn't the government just print a bunch of money and give it to people? -Why did two British musicians set one million pounds on fire? -What would happen if we set one trillion dollars on fire? -Why do big businesses treat their employees better than small businesses? -Can we reduce gun violence by buying people's guns from them? -Why did gun violence go down in Australia in the 90s? -How did Walmart become so successful? -Why is America rich? -Are prices set by greed? -The invisible hand -Why is it good for prices to go up during a shortage? -Why does the price of everything go up over time? -Why is it common for economic policies to be worse than useless?

This episode features: -Was life better in the 1950s? -Will we run out of natural resources? -Has global inequality been increasing or decreasing? -Are rich people happier? -Why has human life expectancy more than doubled? -Why is the world so rich compared to the past? -Just how rich is the United States? -Why is most news negative? -If population goes up, will that make us richer or poorer? -What happens when artificial intelligence can perform all human jobs? -Are humans selfish?

This episode features: -Can posing like Wonder Woman improve your public speaking ability? -Can the future affect the past? -Have scientists found evidence for the existence of psychic powers? -Why is there an average difference in math scores between men and women? -Where do stereotypes come from? -Is psychology politically biased? -Is "growth mindset" real? -Is "priming" real? -Is "stereotype threat" real? -Can you affect the way someone votes by showing them an American flag? -How to tell if research is reliable or not -Is willpower a limited resource? -Can you replenish your willpower by consuming glucose?

This episode features: -Why are Irish people able to drink milk in adulthood? -Do scientists intentionally produce fake research? -What tricks do scientists use to get the results that they want? -How do new words get invented? -Who decides how a language is spoken? -How does science work? -What percent of studies are trustworthy? -Why do psychology textbooks contain inaccurate information? -Where do social norms come from?

This episode features: -Do celebrity suicides cause people to commit suicide? -Why do we use the QWERTY keyboard? -Why doesn't the United States use the metric system? -Are chimpanzees smarter than children? -How long can a person survive in the wilderness for? -Why did humans take over the planet? -Why do we copy celebrities? -How do marketers prey on our psychology? -Why do people care about the political beliefs of actors? -How do memes spread? -Why do common expressions often rhyme? -Why is there so much political outrage on social media? -Why do so many people want to immigrate to the United States? -Why do successful religions tend to encourage reproduction? -What is the function of conservative moral intuitions?

This episode features: -Why does the average US wedding cost $30,000? -Does college make you smarter? -Does college build character? -Do you forget most of what you learn in college? -Why does Coca-Cola spend so much money on advertising? -Why don't countries just agree to get rid of their nuclear weapons? -How to get a world-class college education for free -Why do jobs today require more education than they used to?

This episode features: -Who's prettier, liberals or conservatives? -Who's happier, liberals or conservatives? -Why do politicians sometimes intentionally make things worse? -Do we have an innate political instinct? -If most voters are ignorant, how could democracy work? -Is democracy good? -What are the upsides of monarchy? -What causes political gridlock? -How do genes affect politics? -What makes people feel awe? -The politics of surrogacy, sex work, and healthcare  

This episode features: -Is empathy bad? -Is there such thing as "real" altruism? -Why are people altruistic? -How do people decide which charity to donate to? -Why was the Ice Bucket Challenge so successful? -Can you make money by donating to charity? -What is the probability that your vote will determine the outcome of a presidential election? -Do people vote their self-interest? -Do taller politicians receive more votes? -Do attractive politicians win more elections?

This episode features: -Do babies have a sense of right and wrong? -How are liberals psychologically different from conservatives? -Is it morally permissible to recline your seat on an airplane? -The psychology of abortion rights, gay marriage, environmentalism, and organ trade -The psychology of drugs, gambling, and prostitution -Do genes influence moral judgment? -Do genes predict someone's political beliefs? -Which moral principles are found across all cultures? -The trolley problem

This episode features: -How do salespeople manipulate us? -Why do food delivery apps lie to us? -How do people use fashion to show off their social status? -Why do so many people hate the rich? -Persuasion techniques -Dating dynamics -Are most people conformist sheep? -Would most people electrocute a puppy just because an authority figure told them to do so?

This episode features: -How to have a smart baby -Are people with bigger brains smarter? -Are people with bigger heads smarter? -Does mental illness make someone more creative? -What determines someone's personality? -What determines someone's intelligence? -Do smarter people make more money? -How does your personality change as you age? -Can intelligence be measured? -Are there multiple types of intelligence? -Do Head Start programs make kids smarter? -Could genetic engineering make humanity smarter? -Are smarter people more creative? -Does creative brilliance require 10,000 hours of practice?  

-Why do people like scary movies?  -What does your bedroom say about your personality? -Is the Myers-Briggs legit? -How do men and women differ in terms of personality? -Why do people choose to suffer? -Why do people like art? -Why do some people like exercising? -Why do religious rituals sometimes involve pain? -What can you know about someone after meeting them briefly? -Why was someone willing to pay hundreds of dollars for Britney Spears' chewed up bubblegum?

-Does having children make people happy? -Are men happier than women? -What draws people into racist/sexist ideologies? -Are religious people happier than non-religious people? -Are polygraph tests effective at detecting lies? -Are police officers good at detecting lies? -Can money buy you happiness? -Are extroverts happier than introverts?

-Does psychotherapy work? -Three massive experiments tell us that some modern medicine must be useless or harmful -Why are doctors biased towards more aggressive treatment and testing? -Is acupuncture effective? Chiropractic? Naturopathy? Reiki? -Freud's ideas about "penis envy" and the Oedipus complex -Why was bloodletting practiced for 2000 years? -Can electroconvulsive therapy treat depression? -Things that can help people who are anxious or depressed

-Why have rates of transgender identification increased in adolescents? -Why did anorexia become much more common starting in 1983? -Why is depression more common in women? -Is depression caused by low levels of serotonin? -Is depression a disease? -Why do most people with major depression have an anxiety disorder as well? -Does telling people about PTSD make them more likely to develop PTSD? -Puppy pregnancy syndrome: after being bit by a dog, people believe they are pregnant with puppies

This episode features: -Why do liberals and conservatives hate each other? -Are there hidden symbols in dreams? -Can dreams predict the future? -Can you learn while sleeping? -Why do we sleep? -Treatments for insomnia -How to learn better -How to accurately predict how long it will take to finish your Christmas shopping

This episode features: -How often do people lie? -Do we deceive ourselves? -What happens when you disconnect the two hemispheres of the brain? -Blindsight: some blind people can still use visual information to make decisions -What is the most disliked personality trait? -Why can't people admit when they're wrong? -Why are most people overly optimistic? -Why do most people think that they are better than the average person?

This episode features: -How common are homicidal fantasies? -Why are men overrepresented in high status professions? -Why are men taller than women (on average)? -Why are men strong? -Why isn't everyone beautiful? -Why isn't everyone smart? -Why does mental illness exist? -What is the purpose of romantic jealousy?

This episode features: -How do humans detect cheaters? -Can you tell how generous someone is by the way they look? -What is the #1 rated most desirable trait in a long-term mate? -What does Maury Povich teach us about human nature? -Why is your mother's mother your nicest grandparent? -Why do mothers invest more in their children compared to fathers? -Why would somebody donate their kidney to a stranger? -Are humans selfish?

This episode features: -Do men have more sexual fantasies than women? -Why are men attracted to younger women? -Was homosexuality selected for by evolution? -What are women attracted to? -Why do pregnant women develop food aversions? -Why do people like spicy food? -Why do humans make art?

This episode features: -Will teaching your child to play violin make them smarter? -Do genes determine someone's personality? -Do genes determine how smart someone is? -Do genes affect how happy you are? -Do genes affect whether you'll get married? -Are psychopaths responsible for the crimes they commit? -Do parents affect the political beliefs of their children? -Has the world gotten better or worse over the last 200 years? -Did the DARE program reduce drug use? -Did the Scared Straight program reduce crime?

This episode features: -Why do we get goosebumps? -Why do some people turn red when they drink alcohol? -Do people around the world express emotion in the same way? -Why are so many people afraid of snakes? -If you have two siblings, can you be more genetically related to one than the other? -Why do giraffes have long necks? -Why do ostriches have wings? -Did humans "evolve from" monkeys?

This episode features: -Why do people wear ugly clothing? -Why do people overestimate how often they do the dishes? -How do marketers manipulate us into spending more money? -Why do people finish boring movies? -How to make optimal decisions (using math!) -The gambler's fallacy -Is a hotdog a sandwich? -What is sex? -Is sex on a spectrum?

This episode features: -What is probability? -Bayes' theorem -Is there a God? -Can you prove that God does *not* exist? -Can morality exist without God? -Are religious experiences hallucinations? -Pascal's wager -If there is a God, why is there so much suffering in the world?

This episode features: -Is the universe deterministic? -Do we have free will? -What is death? -Brain emulation -Cryonics -Is astrology accurate? -Are ghosts real? -Is it possible to speak with the dead? -Do psychic powers exist? -Do souls exist?

This episode features: -The doomsday argument -Is our universe fine-tuned for life? -Are we living in a simulation? -What is consciousness made of? -Are animals conscious? Which ones? -The Sleeping Beauty problem -Panpsychism

This episode features: -Why is there something rather than nothing? -How big is space? -Do parallel universes exist? -Are there aliens? -How did life originate? -The Fermi paradox -What is time? -Is time travel possible? -Quantum mechanics