Startup Geometry Podcast

EP 044 Greg Kaminsky on Eastern and Western Esoteric Systems

Scott — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 02:10:54 +0000

Hello and welcome back to the Startup Geometry Podcast. This episode is brought to you by Windcastle Press, where a new pair of hardbacks of my translation of Giordano Bruno’s On The Shadows Of Ideas will soon be available.

We’re back after a long break to talk to Greg Kaminsky, host of the Occult of Personality Podcast, and author of two new books: Pronaos, dealing with the ngondro or preliminary practices of Vajrayana Buddhism, and Celestial Intelligences, dealing with the esoteric writings of Renaissance philosopher and magus Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, best known for his manifesto Oration on the Dignity of Man.

Download the episode here, or find us on your favorite podcatcher.

EP 043 Vinay Gupta on Survival and Enlightenment

Scott — Sat, 19 May 2018 14:56:23 +0000

I am, by temperament and experience, more sanguine about all of this than he is. I tend to think things will eventually work themselves out over time. My enlightenment experiences have been mild and pleasant; if mine had been as harrowing as his, I would probably feel as he does.

As a technical note, there were some sound issues on our Transatlantic Skype call, which occasionally made it sound as though one of us was conducting the call while having a bath or as if we had ghost hunter-style EVPs from beyond the grave on the line. I apologize for these and hope they do not interfere with your listening enjoyment.

Photo: Robin Hood Co-op

Photo: Robin Grane-McCalla

Show Notes and Links

Vinay Gupta

@leashless on twitter

Mattereum

Internet of Agreements

The Gupta State Failure Management Archive

Hexayurt

re.silience

Paul Wilson, The Calm Technique

Ethereum

Scott Nelson, Sweetbridge

Healing Earth Resources

Rocky Mountain Institute

BKS Iyengar, Light on Yoga

Nath tradition

Gurkhas

Yogiraj Gurunath Siddanath

EP 42 Camelia Elias on Clear Sight and Clean Cuts

Scott — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 01:30:13 +0000

Camelia Elias holds a PhD and DPhil and spent the last twenty years as a professor of literature, most recently at Roskilde University in Denmark. Recently, she escaped academia to start an online school, Aradia Academy, where she teaches cartomancy (card reading); that is, how to read—yourself, someone else, books, pictures, films, the situation, the problem, or anything else—without belief, emotion, preconceptions or other obscurations getting in the way.

She recently said, “Why is reading cards fascinating? Because their visual language allows us to bypass everything we know or think we know.”

Boiling our conversation down to the keywords, we talk about:

interesting—curiosity—dullness—belief—vastness—strategy—one cut—the present circumstances—”and yet”—concrete—psychomagic—Jodorowsky—Freud—Boom!

(L to R) Dr. Camelia Elias, Freya

EP 041 Gary Lachman on the Lost Knowledge of the Imagination

Scott — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 17:46:33 +0000

Today, I talk with Gary Lachman about his latest book, The Lost Knowledge of the Imagination. We discuss the need to balance the analytic “survival mode” consciousness of the external world with an older way of thinking that prioritizes the inner landscape and the imagination. We also discuss the necessity of creative outlets to regulate how much of the sensory world we take in and process, to open the valve all the way for peak experience and dial it down so we remember to do the dishes.

I spend a good bit of the interview groping toward, but never reaching, the concept of a gestalt as a shorthand mental representation of external or internal objects. Some events do not pack down well to a gestalt representation, while others form new gestalts on close examination. This process of gestalt analysis and synthesis runs behind the conversation we have here.

Gary Lachman is the author of twenty-one books on topics ranging from the evolution of consciousness to literary suicides, popular culture and the history of the occult. He has written a rock and roll memoir of the 1970s, biographies of Aleister Crowley, Rudolf Steiner, C. G. Jung, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Emanuel Swedenborg, P. D. Ouspensky, and Colin Wilson, histories of Hermeticism and the Western Inner Tradition, studies in existentialism and the philosophy of consciousness, and about the influence of esotericism on politics and society. He writes for several journals in the UK, US, and Europe, including Fortean Times, Quest, Strange Attractor, Fenris Wolf, and his work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Times Educational Supplement, Guardian, Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times, Mojo, Gnosis and other publications. He lectures regularly in the UK, US, and Europe, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. He has appeared in several film and television documentaries and on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and is on the adjunct faculty in Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Before becoming a full-time writer Lachman studied philosophy, managed a new age bookshop, taught English Literature, and was a Science Writer for UCLA. He was a founding member of the pop group Blondie and in 2006 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Lachman was born in New Jersey, but since 1996 has lived in London, UK.

I apologize for the occasional gaps in sound quality. These newfangled trans-Atlantic fiber-optic cables are sometimes troublesome. Or perhaps Mercury is in retrograde.

EP 040 Jason Fagone on Elizabeth Smith Friedman, Codebreaker

Scott — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 21:35:23 +0000

I used to see some amazing obituaries, often in British newspapers, detailing a remarkable life lived by someone who had worked undercover during WWII, escaped from Nazis, and gone on to live to a great old age. Frequently, these people were forgotten or never spoke of their adventures.

Elizabeth Smith Friedman, the subject of Jason Fagone’s new biography, The Woman Who Smashed Codes, is one of those rare people, though her story begins with a search for the true author of Shakespeare, runs through two world wars, includes a stint fighting gangsters and rumrunners (and the jealousy of J. Edgar Hoover) and the foundation of the NSA, and ends with more Shakespeare. It sounds like a whole series of detective novels rolled into one, yet Elizabeth was a real person with an amazing story.

EP 039 Daniel Ingram on Meditative States, Paths, and Ethical Living

Scott — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 02:50:43 +0000

Daniel Ingram has a successful career as an ER doctor, but he’s best known on the Internet for being a meditator and meditation teacher. He’s the author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: an Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book, which I first read about over on Scott Alexander’s blog Slate Star Codex here and here. Daniel made some waves in the dharma community by claiming to have attained enlightenment as an arahat.

On today’s podcast, we talk about the different ways to assess that claim, what states and insights may occur on the way to enlightenment, and what to do if you get yourself into a spiritual crisis of one sort or another. We also talk about some of my meditative experiences and how to use a candle flame as a focus for meditative practice.

EP 038 Lynne Kelly on The Memory Code

Scott — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 19:34:46 +0000

Lynne Kelly is a teacher, science writer and anthropologist of oral and pre-literate cultures. Her most recent book is The Memory Code, which deals with the use of memory techniques including rituals, songs, dances, portable devices, and large-scale geographic features and built structures as memory aids.

She has conducted a series of experiments to replicate memory techniques from the classical memory palace to handheld memory devices such as the Lukasa to rituals and storytelling. Today, we talk about how several early and modern cultures have used these memory techniques, why Stonehenge and Chaco Canyon may have been used as memory palaces, and why they were almost certainly centers for an oral culture’s knowledge economy.

As with our other conversations with anthropologists, it’s helpful to remember the following guidelines:

Do not confuse industrial technological advancement with intelligence. “Primitive” people, whether distant from you in space or time, were and are at least as smart as you. The less technology they had at hand, the more this is true. Fools die when times are hard, or as Lynne Kelly’s colleague Nungarrayi said to her, ”The elders are pragmatic old buggers. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t have survived.”
Most often, they are observationally correct even when they are theoretically wrong. We can identify the exact species of animals in cave paintings despite the fact that the artist didn’t have a grip on modern biology. Just as any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic, so does any technology sufficiently different from our own.
People of almost all cultures have been given to humor, hoaxes, tall tales, and flimflammery. Sometimes, when they tell you (or each other) something, they’re just having a laugh. Sometimes, they’re both having a laugh and expressing something serious.

Show notes and links may be found at: http://bottlerocketscience.blogspot.com/2017/09/ep-038-lynne-kelly-on-memory-code.html

EP 037 Phil Stutz and Barry Michels Return to Talk about Coming Alive

Scott — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 16:47:31 +0000

This is an unpodcast episode, consisting of a transcript only. Read the full interview over at bottlerocketscience.net.

Today on Startup Geometry, we’re talking with Phil Stutz and Barry Michels, authors of the new book Coming Alive. Since we last talked to them, they’ve been keeping busy with their highly successful psychotherapy practices, where much of their clientele consists of Hollywood creative professionals; running multiday retreats and seminars; and writing their second book, which deals with Part X, the self-sabotaging part of ourselves, the devil inside. When we’re able to overcome Part X, we become more engaged with life, more creative, and happier.

As one might expect with a discussion about inner sabotage, we experienced technical difficulties with the audio version of this interview. We were able to recover almost all of the contents of the interview in the print version below.

Special thanks go out to the members of The Tools Facebook Group, who asked some amazing questions about how the Tools can be used in very particular and challenging situations.

EP 036 Eric Obenauf of Two Dollar Radio on Indy Publishing

Scott — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 06:00:16 +0000

Eric Obenauf founded Two Dollar Radio to publish daring, experimental fiction that wouldn’t otherwise find its audience.

On this episode, we talk about how indy and small press publishing works, the importance of having your own taste, and the art of branching out (Two Dollar Radio now makes films, and they’re opening their new Headquarters store to be a hub for literature in the city and a cool place to hang out.

EP 035 Stephen Buranyi on Science Culture, Bad Data and Scientific Publishing

Scott — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 18:33:27 +0000

Stephen Buranyi writes about science and the socioeconomic structure of the scientific research system in place today. We talk about the joys and sorrows of being a scientist who has escaped the academy, how to pitch ideas for articles for general audience news publications, intentional and unintentional bad data, and the incentive structures surrounding scientific publication.

My apologies for the delay effect on Stephen’s end of the conversation. I like to think that it’s because we were using Mr. Bell’s original transatlantic cable.

Show Notes and Links

Stephen on Twitter

Stephen at The Guardian

“The High Tech War on Science Fraud”
“Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?“
Podcasts associated with both of these articles are available through The Guardian site.

The Metaresearch Center at Tillburg University

EP 034 Jon Taplin on Tech Monopolies and the Creative Economy

Scott — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 00:21:27 +0000

Jonathan Taplin is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. he was a Professor at the USC Annenberg School from 2003-2016. Taplin’s areas of specialization are in international communication management and the field of digital media entertainment. Taplin began his entertainment career in 1969 as Tour Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band. In 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese’s first feature film, Mean Streets, which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. Between 1974 and 1996, Taplin produced 26 hours of television documentaries (including The Prize and Cadillac Desert for PBS) and 12 feature films including The Last Waltz, Until The End of the World, Under Fire and To Die For. His films were nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe awards and chosen for The Cannes Film Festival five times. (via jontaplin.com)

Today, Jon talks about his new book, Move Fast and Break Things: How Google, Facebook and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy. It tells the story of how the Internet took a wrong turn from its early days as a source for innovation and wealth for individual creators and entrepreneurs, becoming a highly centralized set of monopolies and oligopolies that suck $50 billion a year in income away from content creators. This has hollowed out whole industries, leaving both producers and consumers less well off both economically and artistically. We discuss some of the history of the Net that led to this point, and some of the possible remedies for the problems we face.

EP 033 Shava Nerad returns to talk politics

Scott — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 22:54:58 +0000

Public Service Announcement: This week, the Senate released their version of the AHCA, which would cause 25 million people to lose their health insurance. Access to individual health insurance markets enables entrepreneurs, among others, to take the risk of leaving full time jobs with large corporations to build companies of their own. Without full funding for Medicaid, the cost of delivering healthcare to everyone rises. Please contact your Senators and representatives to tell them your position on this important issue.

Today on the podcast, Shava Nerad returns to talk about the ins and outs of political activism in the 21st century, how to make an impact as a technologically savvy organizer, and what you need to learn to be an effective citizen. Previously, Shava visited us to talk about her career as the founding Executive Director of the Tor Project and privacy activist.

EP 032 Frederick Schilling on Chocolate and Growing Sustainable Businesses

Scott — Thu, 25 May 2017 19:52:48 +0000

Frederick Schilling loves chocolate. He is the founder of Dagoba Chocolate, AMMA Chocolate and Big Tree Farms. He’s made a career out of launching products that are not only delicious and luxurious, but also environmentally and socially responsible. When he founded Dagoba, he launched the organic chocolate category. When he founded Big Tree Farms and AMMA Chocolate, he changed the lives of farmers on two continents.

Today, we talk about:

How he got interested in chocolate while a religion major at Ohio Wesleyan University.
His first big breaks in product development, distribution, suppliers and media.
Why cash and people are the scarce resources needed by any founder.
Visionary experiences with the chocolate goddess. (The plants have an agenda, as Michael Pollan and Gordon White like to say.)
Terroir of chocolate. Subtypes of cacao plants.
Impact of witch’s broom disease on the chocolate industry in Brazil. (see also the phylloxera pandemic that hit the wine industry)
Breeds of cacao trees: Criollo, Forestro, Trinitario.
How cacao spread with colonization.
Coconut nectar/coconut sugar.
How coconut sugar improves the lives of coconut farmers.
Fair trade and organic designations as an essential business advantage.

EP 031 Sid Kemp on Preparing for Success & Failure

Scott — Wed, 03 May 2017 01:43:17 +0000

Sid Kemp is a coach, consultant and the author of ten books on business success published by McGraw-Hill and Entrepreneur Press. Until a decade ago, Sid worked with top Fortune 500 companies, government agencies like the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and think tanks such as McKinsey Consulting and Deloitte Touche. Then he took their best practices and wrote the best seller, Entpreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Project Management for Small Business.

Today, we talk about the ins and outs of the consulting business, working with the inner and outer goals of the client, and planning for the equally challenging crises of wild success and disaster.

EP 030 Ben Joffe on Tibetan Ngakpa, Tantra and Medicine

Scott — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 14:27:31 +0000

Ben Joffe is a scholar of Vajrayana Buddhism, currently finishing his PhD at the University of Colorado, Boulder. On this episode, we talk about his first career as a teenaged tarot reader, the question of how Vajrayana and tantra have been impacted by the Tibetan diaspora and encounter with the global monoculture, the role of the ngakpa (non-celibate yogi), and Ben’s translation of Dr. Nida Chenagtsang’s books on traditional Tibetan medicine.

We experienced some technical difficulties during the recording of this episode. While the quality of the sound may be poor in some places, it is more than compensated for by the high quality of the guest.

EP 029 B Alan Wallace on the Great Perfection of Dudjom Lingpa

Scott — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 03:27:33 +0000

B. Alan Wallace

Today, I talk with B. Alan Wallace about his multiple careers as Buddhist contemplative and teacher, physicist and cognitive scientist, writer and translator. We discuss his road to becoming a monk and returning to laity, the meditative practices of Dzogchen, how to tell a good teacher (by the quality of their students), the remarkable career of Dudjom Lingpa, and how Buddhist contemplatives and neuroscientists can collaborate to effect a revolution in our understanding of the mind.

Bio

Dynamic lecturer, progressive scholar, and one of the most prolific writers and translators of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, B. Alan Wallace, Ph.D., continually seeks innovative ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices with Western science to advance the study of the mind.

Dr. Wallace, a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, has taught Buddhist theory and meditation worldwide since 1976. Having devoted fourteen years to training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, ordained by H. H. the Dalai Lama, he went on to earn an undergraduate degree in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College and a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford.

With his unique background, Alan brings deep experience and applied skills to the challenge of integrating traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with the modern world.

Show Notes

Alan Wallace’s website

Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies

Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

Dudjom Rinpoche

Gyatrul Rinpoche

Dudjom Lingpa

A Clear Mirror: The Visionary Biography of Dudjom Lingpa

Neurophilosophy

The “hard problem of consciousness”

EP 028 Max Gladstone on Writing Wizards Like Lawyers

Scott — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 05:17:28 +0000

Max Gladstone

Today, I talk with Max Gladstone, author of The Craft Sequence, in which a magical post-Apocalyptic society turns out to be not a terribly bad place to live, thank you very much. He describes his novels differently depending on who he’s talking to. For businesspeople, lawyers, and consultants, he says, “It’s just like your job, only with wizards.” Like many writers, he’s held a number of interesting and out-of-the-way jobs, as you can see from his bio below.

Bio

Max Gladstone is a two-time finalist for the John W Campbell Best New Writer Award, and a one-time finalist for the XYZZY Award. In July 2016
Tor Books published his most recent novel, FOUR ROADS CROSS. Other novels in the CRAFT SEQUENCE include, LAST FIRST SNOW, a tale of
zoning politics, human sacrifice, and parenthood. LAST FIRST SNOW is the fourth Craft Sequence novel, preceded by THREE PARTS DEAD, TWO
SERPENTS RISE, and FULL FATHOM FIVE.

Max studied Chan poetry and late Ming dynasty fantasy at Yale; he lived and taught for two years in rural Anhui province, and has traveled
throughout Asia and Europe. He speaks Chinese, can embarrass himself reading Latin, and is a martial artist, fencer, and fiddler. He’s also
worked as a researcher for the Berkman Center for Internet and Policy Law, a tour guide for the Swiss Embassy, a go-between for a suspicious
Chinese auto magazine, a translator for visiting Chinese schoolteachers, a Chinese philosophy TA, a tech industry analyst, and an editor. He has
wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat, sung at Carnegie Hall, and been thrown from a horse in Mongolia.

We recorded this conversation at pretty much the exact moment the Trump/Russia dossier hit the Internet. Before the conversation began, I asked Max if he’d like to discuss politics or current events. We ended up not talking politics until after we’d ended the interview. Missed opportunities.

He’s also written a volume in the Bookburners project, currently available for free here:

EP 027 Mitch Horowitz and the Secret History of America

Scott — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 02:38:50 +0000

Mitch Horowitz

Today on Startup Geometry, I talk with Mitch Horowitz, editor, voiceover artist, historian of alternative religion and the occult, and author of Occult America and One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life. We discuss the influence of experimental religions have had on American history, our favorite uncanny tourism sites, how the belief that “thoughts are causative” has affected the real world, and why having a Definite Chief Aim can help you achieve it.

EP 026 Gordon White on Podcasting and Prehistory

Scott — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 19:00:06 +0000

Gordon White

This week I talk to Gordon White, former “weird kid”, proprietor of the popular Rune Soup podcast and blog. Gordon is also a documentarian, world traveler, digital strategist and practicing magician. He’s the author of three books that came out in the last year or so: Star.Ships, which we discuss in this podcast; The Chaos Protocols, which takes a heterodox view of how to handle the post-financial crash economy; and Pieces of Eight, a personal history of the Chaos Magic movement.

This interview has a twin over on Gordon’s podcast, where he interviews me about the Bruno books.You can listen to that over on Rune Soup or on iTunes.

Episode Outline, Notes and Links

Being part of a traveling family, returning home to Australia
“You don’t go to London for the snorkeling.”
“A lot of people recycling Seth Godin’s slides at conferences.”
Why podcasting is the new blogging: “It’s a return to the real.”
Why “Were you a weird kid?” is a great first interview question.
Being weird is the only way to break even in the global monoculture.
Star.Ships discusses the prehistory of magical/religious/astronomical thought
The Flood myth as a reflection of Southeast Asian post-ice age cultures
How did they build Nan Madol on Pohnpei without modern technology?
Materialism vs. Idealism
Ancient aliens as a cultural mistake
Gobekli Tepe as a “stone guitar” and early star temple
Is it fair to compare modern animist hunter-gatherers to prehistoric ones? Yes, if prehistoric people were not stupid, which they weren’t.
“Everything in a hunter-gatherer culture is valuable; they don’t accumulate junk.”
Great Man Theory vs. Steam Engine Time
Kenneth Ruthven, Critical Assumptions, on influence:

Our understanding of literary ‘influence’ is obstructed by the grammar of our language, which puts things back to front in obliging us to speak in passive terms of the one who is the active partner in the relationship: to say that Keats influenced Wilde is not only to credit Keats with an activity of which he was innocent, but also to misrepresent Wilde by suggesting he merely submitted to something he obviously went out of his way to acquire. In matters of influence, it is the receptor who takes the initiative, not the emitter. When we say that Keats had a strong influence on Wilde, what we really mean is that Wilde was an assiduous reader of Keats, an inquisitive reader in the service of an acquisitive writer.
Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance theory

Gordon’s website

Gordon on Twitter

Michael Witzel’s The Origin of the World’s Mythologies

Graham Hancock Fingerprints of the Gods

Alien megastructures (or just a dimming star)

Kardasheff II civilization signal (or just a local one?)

EP 025 Robert Pool on Peak Performance

Scott — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 21:26:43 +0000

Robert Pool is a mathematician, science writer, and, together with Anders Ericsson, the author of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Today, we talk about the use of deliberate practice to improve physical and mental performance, why the 10,000 hour rule isn’t what you think it is, the relationship between talent and success (it’s less important than you think, what good mental representations will do for you, and why taste is essential to the development of expert skills.

EP 024 Cory Doctorow on the Copyfight

Scott — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 02:48:22 +0000

Cory Doctorow is a bestselling author of both science fiction and techno-sociological nonfiction, one of four editors of longtime popular weblog boingboing, and an activist and advocate for intellectual property rights, working extensively with the Electronic Freedom Foundation and others to put control of content back in the hands of the users like you and me.

Photo credit: Jonathan Worth 2013

Today, we talk about the EFF’s plan to defeat Digital Rights Management (DRM) as a business model of rent-seeking corporations. DRM is the set of digital locks on the content you buy–everything from eBooks to your car’s computer have DRM embedded–and while it isn’t impossible to break, it is highly illegal for you (or anyone) to do so. That means you don’t have control of things that you bought. It also means that security flaws cannot always be researched or revealed. That’s a big problem.

We also talk about how he became a writer and how he gets his writing done despite a punishing travel and speaking schedule. Spoiler: 250 words a day, every day will result in a finished product very quickly. That’s one page per day. You can do that, can’t you?

Show Links and Notes

EFF

The EFF on the DRM lawsuit

Bunnie Huang on the DRM lawsuit

boingboing

Cory’s website, craphound.com

Flickr

Twitter

The flashbake version control tool

Cory’s books include:

Little Brother

Information Doesn’t Want to be Free: Laws for the Information Age

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

EP 023 Kevin Kelly on Shaping the Future

Scott — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 14:10:06 +0000

Kevin Kelly spends a lot of time thinking about the future. He once spent six months imagining that he only had six months to live (and keeps a timer on his own life expectancy), and co-founded the Long Now foundation, built around the idea of a 10,000 year clock to promote very long term thinking. His current book, The Inevitable: Understanding the Twelve Technological Forces that will Shape Our Future, deals with the future that is happening now, the ongoing future, the one William Gibson says is already here, just not evenly distributed yet. He is the co-founder and current Chief Maverick of Wired, and is a prolific writer, publisher, photographer and founder of group projects, including the Cool Tools book and website, The Silver Cord, a crowdfunded graphic novel about angels, and the Quantified Self meetups.

Today, we talk about how to think about the future, why people choose personalization over privacy, what it might mean to look through someone else’s eyes for a day, and why the artificial intelligences in your future won’t be what you expect.

EP 022 Michelle Warnky on Overcoming Obstacles

Scott — Sat, 09 Jul 2016 17:25:21 +0000

Michelle Warnky is the owner of Movement Lab Ohio, a competitor in obstacle races and a traceusse de parkour (a parkour freerunner). You can see her on American Ninja Warrior, where she’s one of a small group of successful repeat competitors, and you can learn how to be a ninja in your own life at her gym.

Today, we talk about her experience as an English teacher in Kazakhstan, how to develop the skills you need to move your body through obstacles, and how she’s balanced her roles as solo competitor, teacher and business owner.

EP 021 Shava Nerad on Tech Careers, Surveillance and Privacy

Scott — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 13:40:14 +0000

Shava Nerad is the former Executive Director of the Tor Project, open source software that helps users protect their online privacy. She is currently CEO of Oddfellow Studios, and a frequent writer through Quora (where I met her) and on her Patreon site.

Today, we talk about her early days as the youngest female Chief Software Engineer at DEC and IT manager at MIT, how to manage and relate to very different people, how she won an argument with Richard Stallman, and how and why Tor came to be one of the most praised and reviled pieces of software in the world (often by the same people). Shava knows when to follow the rules and when to break them, and that turns out to be very valuable.

EP 020 Helen DeWitt

Scott — Sun, 29 May 2016 15:46:29 +0000

Helen DeWitt is the author of The Last Samurai, Lightning Rods, and, with Ilya Gridnef, Your Name Here. The Last Samurai, originally released by Miramax Books in 2000, is being released in a new edition by New Directions in May 2016. For many years, the book was passed along in secondhand copies among cognoscenti, and I’m glad to see it back in print.

Sibylla, a single mother from a long line of frustrated talents, has unusual ideas about child rearing. Yo Yo Ma started piano at the age of two; her son starts at three. J.S.Mill learned Greek at three; Ludo starts at four, reading Homer as they travel round and round the Circle Line. A fatherless boy needs male role models; so she plays the film of Seven Samurai as a running backdrop to his childhood. While Sibylla types out back copies of Carpworld to pay the rent, Ludo, aged five, moves on to Hebrew, Arabic and Japanese, aerodynamics and edible insects of the world – they might come in handy, if he can just persuade his mother he’s mature enough to know his father’s name. He is bound for knowledge of a less manageable sort, not least about his mother’s past. And at the heart of the book is the boy’s changing relationship with Sibylla – contradictory, touching and tender.

Today, we talk about how desperation breeds creativity, why we should all be able to choose our own parents, and the ecosystem of Berlin cafes.

A small correction: in our discussion of coffee drinks at Neues Ufer, the drink served in a small ceramic bowl was incorrectly identified as Kremkaffee; the correct drink name is Milchkaffee.

Show Notes

Helen’s website

Her blog, paperpools

Helen on twitter

Her Wikipedia entry

Her books:

People mentioned:

Edward Tufte, data display guru.

Emanuel Derman, Wall Street quant and professor. Previous guest of the show.

John Stuart Mill, Victorian polymath.

David Bowie, modern polymath.

EP 019 Luca Turin on the Secrets of Scent and the Scientific Method

Scott — Sun, 15 May 2016 20:52:04 +0000

Luca Turin is a biophysicist and expert in the sense of smell. He is best known to the scientific community as the proponent of the vibrational theory of olfaction: that smell receptors detect the vibrational frequencies of the molecular bonds of parts of the scent molecule. This theory represents an alternative to the older shape-based theory of smell: that scent molecules bind to specific receptors that conform to the shape of the scent molecule. The debate on this topic is detailed in Turin’s The Secret of Scent, and Chandler Burr’s The Emperor of Scent.

He is also the author, with his partner Tania Sanchez, of Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, which provides a sensual and witty look at over 1,000 commercially available perfumes. He also writes perfume criticism in several locations online, including at perfumesilove.com, and is a scent molecule designer and consultant to the industry.

Links and bonus materials

Luca’s TED talks:

Perfumes: The A-Z Guide website.

perfumesilove.com

Tania Sanchez on Twitter

People Mentioned in the Episode

Alexander Fleming

Chandler Burr

François Coty, founder of Coty

Estee Lauder

Mark Buxton, perfumer for Comme des Garçons, among others

EP 018 David Heinemeier Hansson

Scott — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 20:30:57 +0000

David Heinemeier Hansson is the co-founder (with Jason Fried) of Basecamp (formerly 37signals) , author of Remote and Rework (also with Jason Fried), and creator of the Ruby on Rails framework. He’s also a race car driver, having won the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, and an avid photographer.

Today, we talk about why it’s best to build products that you would (and do) use, the low-risk approach to building a company, why funding yourself helps to slow the clock, how that approach bleeds over to every aspect of the business (from marketing to management), and why much of his life is lived outside the office.

Show Links and Notes

Basecamp

Ruby on Rails

David Heinemeier Hansson

Website

signal vs noise blog

Twitter: @dhh, @dhhracing

Instagram: @dhh79

Medium: @dhh

Wikipedia

EP 017 Andrei Codrescu

Scott — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 22:30:46 +0000

Long before there were blogs or podcasts, Andrei Codrescu was writing online (much of it through his “hidden literary magazine” Exquisite Corpse) and publishing audio commentary (often as a commentator on NPR). He is the author of many books of poetry, essays and fiction, and has taught literature at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Baltimore and Louisiana State University, where he recently retired as the MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English.

Now, he’s planning on developing a podcast of his very own. Today, we talk about this upcoming project, which comments on his previous radio work, the importance of peripheral locations, and changes in Romania from the fall of Communism to the present day.

Show Notes and Links

Andrei CodrescuWebsite
Twitter: @acodrescu
Exquisite Corpse:Click on the large No to enter site
NPR archive

Ioan CulianuMircea Eliade
Lars Iyer
The Original Brothers Grimm translated by Jack Zipes
Lafcadio Hearn

EP 016 Emanuel Derman

Scott — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 01:00:51 +0000

Emanuel Derman first had a successful career as a particle physicist, and then an even more successful career on Wall Street, doing advanced mathematical modeling of financial instrument prices and volatility. Currently, he is a professor at Columbia University, where he directs the program in financial engineering. He’s the author of My Life as a Quant and Models.Behaving.Badly.

Today, we talk about the differences between models & theories, finance & physics, and life & experiments. We look under the hood of the Black-Scholes[-Merton] option pricing formula, talk about the gaps in classical and behavioral financial models, and find out what he would change about his life if he could live it again.

Show Notes and Links

EP 015 Barry Michels and Phil Stutz, Authors of The Tools

Scott — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 03:00:54 +0000

Barry Michels and Phil Stutz are two of the most sought-after psychotherapists in Los Angeles, particularly by creative professionals. They are also the authors of The Tools, a book that teaches you the techniques they use in their practice to help unlock creativity, decrease anxiety and to correct the negative patterns that interfere with your life.

In this podcast, we discuss the relationship between the Shadow (Carl Jung’s term for a subconscious part of your mind that contains your inner shame and other unconscious material) and creativity, plus the three immutable rules of dealing with a perpetually changing world. We also talk about their next book, dealing with Part X, or the inner enemy that tries to sabotage your growth and development.

Listen on iTunes

Show Notes and Links

Their website, where you can join their mailing list and learn more about the Tools.

Their Twitter @TheToolsBook

Pick up a copy of The Tools from Amazon

Read the New Yorker profile about them

Outline

[0.01.17] Example of a Tool: Inner Authority. The Shadow and creativity. Embracing your Shadow. Flow is your ability to tolerate imperfection. “Keep Writing Shit, Stupid.”

Viktor Frankl, Man’sSearch for Meaning.

[0.07.10] Part X, the destructive part of everybody. It prevents flow states. Outer Authority. Definition of a Tool. Giving your Shadow a positive message so it shows up for your next session. Sending a message to Part X. Changing habits requires inner and outer actions in the midst of the habit.

[0.14.50] Triggering the Tools. Using Cues. Training someone to function emotionally and psychologically in the present. “It’s easier than living the way you’re living now, because when you get used to intervening quickly in your own process, your free yourself.” Symptoms and vision of the world change.

[0.19.49] What do Barry and Phil use the Tools for? Reversal of Desire. Moving toward and through pain. Everything in life involves pain, but we desire to avoid pain. Alchemy as self-transmutation of soul forces. Socrates. Everyday problems become the Cue, but also fuel the alchemy. “Problems exist in your life to stir up these lower forces, but ultimately they exist in your life so you can transmute those forces into something higher and discover potentials you never knew you had.”

[0.25.00] Tantric Buddhism. Psychotherapy is not a uniform training program. Behind the problem is a wisdom. The right Tools for each individual.

[0.28.15] Cyclical quality of work. There is no Exoneration (illusion of an endpoint). “It’s not about cure, so much as continued work.” The Realm of Illusion. The Three Rules of Life: 1. Pain never goes away. 2. Uncertainty never goes away. 3. The need for constant effort never goes away.

[0.34.13] The Realm of Illusion vs. the Chain of Pearls. Part X tells you there’s an easier way. Procrastination. Scott’s problems with writing. Anything that means anything to you, that is the deepest expression of your soul, will be hard to write. Take dictation from your Shadow.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Steven Pressfield, TheWar of Art

[0.45.00] Introducing the concept of Part X to the public. Freud. Part X, the self-destructive part, is in everyone all the time. Part X becomes a stimulus toward development. Barry’s favorite chapter: Intensity. You gain by battling Part X. Those who win the war are those who fight it. Most people just fake it.

[0.54.13] Phil’s favorite chapter: Goodness. Plato’s higher world had three characteristics: Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Good vs. Evil. Faust. Evil is real, but the modern world doesn’t believe it. Part X is your embedded fragment of evil. Good is not simply the absence of evil. “What’s inside a human being is a mystery.”

Rudolf Steiner, Mystics of the Renaissance

EP 014 Renaissance Mathematicus Thony Christie

Scott — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 05:18:53 +0000

Thony Christie, historian of science and proprietor of the Renaissance Mathematicus and Whewell’s Ghost stops by to talk about Galileo, Newton, the Copernican controversy, and why it was smart to believe that the Earth didn’t move.

The story of how we came to understand that the Earth was not the center of the Universe is one of the most fascinating stories in the whole of the history of science. The debate over Copernicus’ heliocentric model lasted for centuries, and was carried out by mathematicians, theologians, philosophers and scientists. Observational evidence initially favored a geocentric model, and definitive proof did not appear until long after the first precise data (captured by Tycho Brahe and compiled by Kepler) had persuaded most scientists of their truth.

Independent scholar Thony Christie takes us through the debate on this episode of Startup Geometry.

[0.0.16] How did you get into the study of the History of Science? Eric Temple Bell Men of Mathematics. History of Mathematics and Logic: Church’s list of formal logicians, Boole, Jevons, and others.

[0.3.50] Renaissance Mathematicus and Whewell’s Gazette/Whewell’s Ghost (Whewell pronounced “Hewell”). John Wilkins, historian of biology.

[0.6.30] What was a “mathematicus”? Fields of study: astrology, astronomy, mathematics, cartography, design of engines of war, (sun)dialing, volumetrics.

Leonardo DaVinci once sent a letter describing his skills in some of these areas.

[0.14.46] Christoff Clavius. The Galileo Affair. Heliocentricity. Cardinal Barberini. Who can interpret the Bible? Cardinal Bellarmine. The difference between proof and speculation.

[0.27.00] Giordano Bruno. Miguel Serveto (Servetus).

[0.28.14] Newton. Newton & alchemy. Newton & religion. Kepler. Prisca Theologia.

[0.35.44] Interpreting Early Modern systems of thought. Lawrence Principe and William R Newman’s modern alchemical experiments. Phlogiston. Problems with turning lead into gold. (Not a problem for us, but requires a huge particle accelerator.) Roger Bacon.

[0.44.23] Newton predicted the end of the world (not before 2060). Other predictions of the end of the world. Jehovah’s Witnesses. The University of Chicago study of the Millerites.

[0.47.47] Discussion of the various Renaissance world systems or models of the universe. Why it’s obvious that the Earth doesn’t move. Tycho Brahe. Johannes Kepler. Gilbert, On the Magnet. How it was finally proved that the Earth does move. Chris Graney on star sizes, Setting Aside All Authority. Torricelli.

[1.00.00] The Rudolphine Tables. Not proof, but Kepler’s system fits the data, so Kepler’s model is probably right. Heliometers and elliptical orbits. Bradley, 1725, finds elliptical movement of stars due to Earth’s movement. Christiaan Huygens. The Earth bulges at the Equator and is flattened at the poles. Later confirmed by stellar parallax, Bessel, 1838.

[1.08.18] Book recommendations. Richard Westfall, Life of Isaac Newton. John Heilbronn, Galileo. Chris Graney, Setting Aside All Authority. Eric Scerri, The Periodic Table. My recs: Deborah Harkness, The Jewel House of Nature. (she also rediscovered The Book of Soyga, which was part of John Dee’s library, and is also a really good fiction writer.) Lost Enlightenment S. Frederick Starr.

EP 013 Andrew Johnson on Hypnosis

Scott — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 17:30:48 +0000

Andrew Johnson wants help you relax. He’s an online hypnotherapist and designer of a wildly popular series of hypnotherapy apps and mp3s.

Today, we talk about how to use relaxation techniques, including hypnosis and guided meditation, to change habits and improve quality of life.

We also contrast the mental state of relaxation produced by hypnosis or guided meditation from that of simple mindfulness techniques and the memory palace technique I discussed with Anthony Metivier in the previous episode, which I’m using while I’m interviewing Anthony, as I mention during our conversation (“the beach in Greece”). Anthony is a “non-visualizer”, while I’m at the other end of the spectrum.

Anthony also takes us through a simple “aliveness” meditation inspired by Eckhart Tolle, which you can use to help you focus, relax and feel more at home in your body.

Show Notes and Links

Andrew Johnson’s website

His Twitter: @andrewjohnson

His facebook page

His iTunes app store

His spoken word mp3s

Milton Erickson

The Guardian article on the deaths in Florida, which sensationalizes hypnosis

Eckhart Tolle

EP 012 Anthony Metivier on Magnetic Memory Methods

Scott — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 23:06:57 +0000

Anthony Metivier, proprietor of MagneticMemoryMethod.com, has taught fifty thousand people how to improve their memory using the memory palace technique. He is a one man content factory, producing books, podcasts, online videos and courses to teach foreign languages, meditation and relaxation, and memory improvement.

Today, we talk about how you can improve your memory, what makes for a good online course, and why friendship can be monstrous.

Listen on iTunes.

Show links and notes

Anthony’s website, magneticmemorymethod.com Twitter: @anthonymetivier
The Magnetic Memory Method Podcast

Anthony interviewed me last year about Giordano Bruno’s memory palaces.

Nelson Dellis, memory champion and mountain climber, @climbformemory on Twitter.

Nietzsche on friendship

Foucault on friendship

Joseph Epstein: Friendship, An Expose

Christian Slater

Very Bad Things

Mr. Robot

EP 011 Warren Ellis on Writing and Weirdness

Scott — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 01:45:32 +0000

Warren Ellis is a master storyteller with over twenty years experience producing amazing stories as serials, singles, graphic novels, books and films. He is also a very funny man, in all the best senses of the word.

From his website:

Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name.

Today, we talk politics, managing the creative pipeline, quiet technology, glamorless utilities and cunning folk.

Listen on iTunes.

Show Links and Notes

Warren Ellis on the web:

warrenellis.com, his website,

morning.computer, his daily writings,

find him on Twitter @warrenellis

Piggate, Prime Minister Cameron & that Black Mirror episode (NSFW, any of the things on this line)

Jeremy Corbyn, the seven craziest news stories about him,

Bison Sexhorn’s (@brainmage) tweet. I misquoted it slightly. The real tweet was:

“Jeremy Corbyn caught doing DIY, driving nails into the wall like a man hammering Christ himself to the cross.”

— Prof. Bison Sexhorn (@Brainmage) September 15, 2015

“The Littoral Space”, an essay on Bigend-Packerism and being a perpetual freelancer.

Amber Case, who conceptualized Calm Technology.

Ellis’s talk at Future Everything on Calm Technology:

Essay on cunning folk, particularly Cunning Murrell.

Startup Geometry Podcast Excerpt: Warren Ellis on Politics

Scott — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 02:33:08 +0000

Warren Ellis and I talk about the ways British and American politics are looking more and more like something he’s writing. Why Jeremy Corbyn is a return to classic Labor, and not a baby eating monster, and what Joe Biden should do about a possible Presidential run.

Download on iTunes

Check back on October 1st for the full interview.

EP 010 Nicolas Cole on Transformation as Personal Brand

Scott — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 00:01:48 +0000

Today, I talk with Nicolas Cole, a Creative Director with Idea Booth, a branding consultancy and think tank. When he was a teenager, he was a highly ranked World of Warcraft player and blogger, spending hours online as an Undead Mage while skating through high school. Now, Cole is a Quora Top Writer, author, fitness model, and marketing expert. In this episode, we talk about how he physically and mentally transformed himself over the last seven years, and what it takes to overcome the limitations you impose on yourself.

Listen to us on iTunes

Show Notes and Links

Cole’s website: nicolascole.com

You can buy his fitness and nutrition books on the site as well.

Find him on Instagram

Find him on Quora

Idea Booth

Celiac Disease

World of Warcraft Gladiators

Nicolas Cole visits with Abel James, The Fat Burning Man:

EP 009 Alice Dreger on Galileo’s Middle Finger

Scott — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 08:00:07 +0000

In this episode, I talk with Alice Dreger, author of Galileo’s Middle Finger and former Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University in Chicago. She resigned from the position following a dispute over censorship of an issue of the medical humanities journal Atrium.

I first heard about Alice when she livetweeted her son’s sex ed class, and in this episode we talk about the state of sex ed today, her work as an advocate for intersex individuals and conjoined twins, how she became interested in studying scientific controversies and contrarians, and answer some questions from listeners.

Listeners who have what used to be called a “sensitive constitution” may wish to avoid this episode, as we speak frankly about several adult topics, including genital anatomy, sexual behavior, and academic funding.Due to a higher than normal amount of email this month, any complaints about this episode must be hand-delivered to our Complaints Department, located in the secret caverns underneath Ulaan Bator, Mongolia.

Show Links and Notes:

Alice’s website: AliceDreger.com

Her latest book: Galileo’s Middle Finger

The Bad Girls issue of Atrium

Her method of collecting oral histories

The Storify stream of her sex-ed Livetweets

Wikipedia: Intersex

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Cliteromegaly

Hypospadias

The Geek’s Guide To Dating

“The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown” at The O’Floinn Spot, an account of the Galileo affair, in which Galileo’s scientific and political acumen comes off less well than in more widely circulated versions of the story, and the Catholic Church comes off somewhat better and less anti-scientific than expected.

EP 008 Justine Simonson & Marcus Lehmann of How To Make It In

Scott — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 20:15:21 +0000

Today, I talk with Justine Simonson and Marcus Lehmann, filmmakers and creators of the YouTube series How To Make It In _________.

From Justine & Marcus:

How To Make It In: Berlin is the premier season of a web series about small businesses and the owners who took a risk in creating them. This season features 10 unique entrepreneurs and small business owners from Berlin’s street food scene, tech startups, the service industry and more. Each season will be filmed in a different city around the world; Berlin is the premier location. Part travel show, part business series, How To Make It In:________ presents an in-the-know guide to its location while also delivering helpful tips for anyone who’s ever dreamed of quitting their day job and starting fresh.

The How To Make It In: Berlin series is available at www.howtomakeitin.co and on YouTube

Show Notes

What makes Berlin a good city for startups?
The essentials of a good documentary funding pitch
Ratio of shooting and editing
Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.
Justine’s work on Years of Living Dangerously and Doomsday Preppers
Marcus’s work on an Antarctic Icebreaker and Punkin’ Chuckin’
What goes in your gear bag or go bag? Headlamps, a legal release app for filmmakers on iPad, a wireless boom mike
Cameras: Canon 5D, Sony FS7, GoPro
Where else they’d like to film

If you enjoy these podcasts, please use iTunes to download, subscribe, rate and review each podcast, as this helps introduce them to new listeners.

EP 007 Alex Bandar of Columbus Idea Foundry

Scott — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 01:43:34 +0000

Live from the Columbus Idea Foundry makerspace and incubator, I talk with Alex Bandar about protoyping products, neighborhoods, cities and the Idea Foundry itself.

Alex Bandar is an engineer with a specialization in materials science and computer assisted design. In 2008, he founded the Columbus Idea Foundry, which has recently moved into a new and larger space, becoming the largest makerspace in the country. It is an anchor for the redevelopment of the Franklinton neighborhood of Columbus, and an important part of the Columbus entrepreneurial ecosystem.

September 19th and 20th, 2015, the CIF will take part in the Independents’ Weekend and will hold an open house as part of the event. If you’re in their neighborhood, please stop by for a visit.

Show Notes & Links

Columbus Idea Foundry

Franklinton Development Corporation

IC3D Printers Printers and high spec filament developed at the Foundry.

“Scrape” the electric motorcycle, designed by Todd Perkins, who also developed “The Inhaler”, a high speed electric car, and other high performance experimental vehicles.

Jotnot

The Four Hour Workweek Tim Ferriss

EP 006 Ed Cooke of Memrise

Scott — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 19:13:10 +0000

Ed Cooke is a Memory Grandmaster and CEO of Memrise, a company dedicated to making you better at learning and memory. Today, we talk about ways to maximize your memory, how get more out of life by paying better attention to it, and the Epicurian value of having good friends around you in life and work.

EP 005 Claudia Azula Altucher

Scott — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 21:34:52 +0000

Claudia Azula Altucher is an idea machine; an accomplished yoga practitioner and teacher; and a popular podcaster, author and YouTuber. Today, she brings all of this to the podcast to help you get your life on the move. She’ll teach you what you need to do to clean up your life, how to get your idea muscles sweating, and why she should be the next CEO of Twitter. You canfind her online at claudiayoga.com, through her podcasts, which include Ask Altucher and Claudia Yoga, and through the Claudia Yoga YouTube Channel. Her books, including, Become an Idea Machine: Because Ideas Are the Currency of the 21st Century are available through Amazon and, as they say, wherever books are sold. From the book’s description:

HOW DO I TRANSFORM MY LIFE? The answer is simple: come up with ten ideas a day.  It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad the key is to exercise your ‘idea muscle’, to keep it toned, and in great shape.  People say ideas are cheap and execution is everything but that is NOT true. Execution is a consequence, a subset of good, brilliant idea. And good ideas require daily work.  Ideas may be easy if we are only coming up with one or two but if you open this book to any of the pages and try to produce more than three, you will feel a burn, scratch your
head, and you will be sweating, and working hard.   There is a turning point when you reach idea number 6 for the day, you still have four to go, and your mind muscle is getting a workout. By the time you list those last ideas to make it to ten you will see for yourself what “sweating the idea muscle” means.   As you practice the daily idea
generation you become an idea machine. When we become idea machines we are flooded with lots of bad ideas but also with some that are very good. This happens by the sheer force of the number, because we are coming up with 3,650 ideas per year (at ten a day).   When you are inspired by an extraordinary idea, all of your thoughts break their chains, you go beyond limitations and your capacity to act expands in every direction. Forces and abilities you did not know you had come to the surface, and you realize you are capable of doing great things.  As you practice with the suggested prompts in this book your ideas will get better, you will be a source of great insight for others, people will find you magnetic, and they will want to hang out with you because you have so much to offer.   When you practice every day your life will transform, in no more than 180 days, because it has no other evolutionary choice. Life changes for the better when we become the source of positive, insightful, and helpful ideas.  Don’t believe a word I say. Instead, challenge yourself to try it for the 180 days and see your life transform, in magical ways, in front of your very eyes.

If you enjoy the show & would like to hear more episodes, please download, rate and subscribe through iTunes, as your enthusiasm for the show means a lot. Please comment below if you have suggestions for future episodes.

EP 004 Brad DeLong on Macro and the Meltdown

Scott — Wed, 17 Jun 2015 18:17:02 +0000

Brad DeLong visits Startup Geometry today to talk about economic currents and current economics. He may or may not have confessed to being a hyperintelligent swarm of bees in human form, a historian in disguise as an economist, and/or a Keynesian. He reviews the effects and effectiveness of US economic policies including the 2009 Recovery Act; the Trans-Pacific Partnership; tax, education, infrastructure and other proposals. We discuss the entertainment revolution and the fall of middle class security, and what to do if someone has a bigger yacht than you.

Note: I have to apologize for referring to Lois McMaster Bujold a “very competent writer” in the podcast. I tend toward understatement when in interview mode. She’s a tremendous writer, and I read everything she publishes greedily, as soon as it comes out. I facepalm myself regularly.

Show Notes

[0.00.36] Brad DeLong is a hyperintelligent swarm of bees in human form, John Scalzi, Lois McMaster Bujold, gender politics in SF, Science fiction and economics as worldbuilding exercise.

[0.05.48] How economists are made. Jay Forrester’s world dynamics model, education with Roger Wood, Gregg Erickson, Andrei Schleifer, Larry Summers, being an assistant professor applicant in economics vs. history.

[0.09.25] Trends in the economic profession, economics considered as the Nile delta. Ulrika Malmendier , Stefano DellaVigna, and Raj Chetty as leading researchers at the behavioral, individual scale. Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez at the macro, sociological scale.

[0.13.58] Keeping in mind the lessons of the Great Depression. George Osborne and the perpetual budget surplus idea.

[0.16.00] Why is Ricardian Equivalence not a thing? Why should the government invest? What’s the benefit to putting off our bills?

[0.21.19] What about tax cuts as stimulus?

[0.23.23] Why transfer payments, tax credits, infrastructure spending, are better than cutting taxes on the rich from either an efficiency and equity standpoint. The effectiveness and politics of the 2009 Recovery Act. Christina Romer, Barack Obama. $600B in stimulus, where we needed $4T. A fire engine intervenes.

[0.29.54] Prospects for improving the situation now. Impact of the social safety net on JK Rowling & entrepreneurs. “You get very few tightrope walkers without a powerful safety net.”

[0.32.40] Hillary Clinton’s agenda. Zero debt grads, infrastructure broadly defined.

[0.38.20]Costs and benefits, 20th c. vs. 21st c. Losing the secure middle class existence, gaining better entertainment and communication. Who’s rich, and what does that mean psychologically? George Romney vs. Mitt Romney. Jann Wenner vs. Paul Allen. Spalding Gray on the Hamptons. The Buddha: “Desire is infinite.”

[0.43.00] The end of the fundamental problems (fire, flood, famine, marauding Huns & water buffalo) as we climb the Maslow hierarchy. Noah Smith. The entertainment revolution.

[0.47.30] The trade deals. How the TPP could be improved, and what its flaws are. How to negotiate a trade agreement that’s better in its distributional effects.

[0.55.45] One policy recommendation & one personal recommendation for the listeners. Obama’s most costly mistake. The R statistical package. Controlling your infinite desires.

Read more from and about Brad DeLong at the Equitablog at the Center for Equitable Growth, or at his blog, DeLong’s Grasping Reality, and is readily Google-able.

Startup Geometry Podcast: Excerpt on Trade with Brad Delong

Scott — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 01:07:46 +0000

In this short preview of my interview with economist Brad Delong, we discuss the economic and social impact of the trade deals currently being negotiated by the US Trade Representative, including the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), Trade Promotion Authority and related bills under consideration in Congress this month.

The full interview will be available next week. Please check back regularly.

EP 003 Adam Swartzbaugh may secretly be Captain America

Scott — Thu, 21 May 2015 21:44:36 +0000

Adam Swartzbaugh, founder of the Genesis Network, works to defeat human trafficking and help rebuild local networks to help with disaster recovery. He’s not only an active social entrepreneur, he’s also a rapid language learner, world traveler and multi-sport athlete. He’s also the only man I know who’s won in hand-to-hand combat with a hawk.

In this episode of the Startup Geometry Podcast, I talk with Adam about:

What made him interested in the problem of human trafficking in Southeast Asia
How providing educational opportunities in remote locations is the key to interrupting trafficking networks
How finding a calling changes your motivational & energy levels
Why attending a highly creative university while doing a highly structured ROTC program made for a powerful combination of experiences
What adventure sports can do for you

Show links

EP 002 Christoph Rehage

Scott — Thu, 07 May 2015 22:34:49 +0000

“Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.”

-Werner Herzog.

In this episode, I talk with Christoph Rehage, who filmed himself walking more than 5000km across China over the course of a year. Most of you will be familiar with him from the YouTube video that resulted from the trip:

He’s also the author of three books, published in German and Chinese, an avid reader of travel books, collector of fine vodkas, filmmaker, photographer and newspaper columnist. We talk about his early travels, what China looks like beyond Beijing and the big cities, what Germany and China have to teach each other, and how travel improves our lives.

Show links:

ChristophRehage.com, his website.

His books, which I hope will be published in English in the near future:

EP 001 Steven Brust, PJF

Scott — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 02:59:18 +0000

Welcome to the Startup Geometry podcast, where we talk to the creators, innovators and explorers who make the world what it is.

In this episode, I talk with Steven Brust, author of the Vlad Taltos/Dragaera novels. We talk about his writing process, important influences and future plans. I’ve been a huge fan of Steven’s, ever since his first novel, Jhereg, introduced us to wisecracking assassin Vlad Taltos and his sidekick Loiosh back in 1983. His latest books are Hawk and The Incrementalists.

You’ll notice that I immediately mispronounce his last name (which is pronounced BROOST, though spelled BRUST), despite having pasted a note with the phonetic spelling of his name to the microphone I was using at the time.

Podcasting is HARD.

This podcast can be found on iTunes and Stitcher, or accessed directly below.

Show links:

Dreamcafe, Steven Brust’s homepage

His Twitter account: @stevenbrust

At the Tor.com site:

An excerpt from Hawk
An excerpt from The Incrementalists
An interview with Jo Walton about the Dragaera books
A short story set on Dragaera

The Isaiah Berlin quote I referenced with regard to Incrementalist politics was in an interview with him which was excerpted in The 50 Year Argument, a documentary on the New York Review of Books, where I first saw and heard it. Similar sentiments could be found elsewhere in his work, for example in Crooked Timber, a collection of his essays and lectures.