Lex Fridman Podcast - #292 – Robin Hanson: Alien Civilizations, UFOs, and the Future of Humanity

Robin Hanson is a professor at George Mason University and researcher at Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Robin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhanson
Robin’s Website: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson
Grabby Aliens (paper): https://grabbyaliens.com/paper
The Elephant in the Brain (book): https://amazon.com/dp/0197551955/ref=nosim?tag=turingmachi08-20
The Age of Em (book): https://amazon.com/dp/0198817827/ref=nosim?tag=turingmachi08-20

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(06:49) – Grabby aliens
(44:33) – War and competition
(50:07) – Global government
(1:02:58) – Humanity’s future
(1:13:00) – Hello aliens
(1:40:03) – UFO sightings
(2:04:40) – Conspiracy theories
(2:12:58) – Elephant in the brain
(2:26:29) – Medicine
(2:38:58) – Institutions
(3:05:52) – Physics
(3:10:43) – Artificial intelligence
(3:28:32) – Economics
(3:31:53) – Political science
(3:37:42) – Advice for young people
(3:46:33) – Darkest moments
(3:49:34) – Love and loss
(3:58:57) – Immortality
(4:02:53) – Simulation hypothesis
(4:13:10) – Meaning of life

Headlines From The Times - How mass shootings affect young voters

This year’s midterm elections were expected to be a referendum on the economy, but as gun violence is on the minds of Americans, yet again, millennials and zillennials, who’ve grown up in an era of massacres, might prove a constituency that no politician can ignore. If they show up to the ballot box, that is.

Today, we talk about how gun violence affects the politics of young voters.

Read the full transcript here.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guests: L.A. Times 2021-22 Los Angeles Times Fellow Anumita Kaur

More reading:

Newsletter: Essential Politics: Do mass shootings affect young voters?

School shootings have increased recently; the violence in Texas is among the deadliest

Thousands protest outside NRA convention in Texas days after massacre in Uvalde

The Intelligence from The Economist - Second time’s the charm? Somalia’s new president

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is Somalia’s first-ever reelected president. In an interview with our correspondent, he lays out his second-term ambitions for beating back jihadist insurgents and repairing relations with his neighbours. Why adapting to climate change is harder for people with less education. And why the film industry has high hopes for this summer’s blockbusters. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders - S6 Bonus: Christine Spang, Nylas

According to Christine Spang, she is secretly Canadian, being born in Toronto. She moved to Upstate New York when she was 3, and grew up there. She came from a family of engineers and entrepreneurs. After getting into an RPG game based on Lord of the Rings, she had to learn to code, run linux, and fell in love with software. In High School, she was a band geek, and was super into fantasy reading. These days she tends to focus more on hobbies that get her out and moving in the world, specifically rock climbing and plants.

Christine was working for a startup that ended up being sold to Oracle. At that point, she was considering what was next for her. The timing was fortuitous, as her friend from MIT was starting up something around extracting information from email.

This is the creation story of Nylas.

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Honestly with Bari Weiss - What To Do About Guns

Tulsa. Buffalo. Uvalde. Philadelphia. Chicago. And that’s just the past few weeks.


If you’re like me, you’ve had too many despairing conversations about the epidemic of gun violence in this country to count. This isn’t that. This is a conversation about what can actually, practically be done. 


David French is a senior editor of The Dispatch and the author of “Divided We Fall,” among other books. David is a veteran. He is also, as you’ll hear, a gun owner. 


Rajiv Sethi is a professor of economics at Barnard College at Columbia University who has been researching gun violence and writing about innovative solutions to the problem—even in a country with a robust Second Amendment.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bay Curious - Was Monterey Jack Cheese Created in Pacifica?

Monterey Jack cheese get its name from the nearby city of Monterey, but the city of Pacifica alleges it should really be called Pacifica Jack. On this week's episode, we get into the origin story behind this basic pantry cheese.

Additional Reading:


Reported by Christopher Beale. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, Jenny Pritchett, Ethan Lindsey and Vinnee Tong.

The Best One Yet - 🌮 “It’s got a taco elevator” — Taco Bell’s drive-thru supreme. Summer’s housing test-drive. Shopify’s new king.

Taco Bell just opened a restaurant that sits on stilts, because a nacho elevator defying gravity is the future of drive-thru. Summer is a startup that figured out how to let you test-drive a home (try-before-you-buy… a house). And Shopify’s shareholders just voted… to not be able to vote anymore.  $YUM $SHOP $ABNB Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypod And now watch us on Youtube Want a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form Got the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that too Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.