Aiming for the Moon

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Ethical hacking is essential in the tech world as it exposes the holes and bugs in systems before bad people can use them. This same mindset can be applied to the legal system in order to “hack” it before "black hat" hackers exploit the problems. In this episode, Dr. Bruce Schneier (full bio below) explains this philosophy and the steps to apply it.
Topics:

• What are public-interest technologists?
• Hacking the legal system
• Practical hacking
• The Big Tech monopoly
• Surveillance Capitalism
• What can the next generation do?
• What books have had an impact on Dr. Schneier
• What advice Dr. Schneier has for teenagers

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a "security guru" by the Economist. He is the New York Times best-selling author of 14 books -- including Click Here to Kill Everybody -- as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. His influential newsletter, Crypto-Gram, and blog, Schneier on Security, are read by over 250,000 people. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and AccessNow, and an advisory board member of EPIC and
VerifiedVoting.org. He is the Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, Inc.
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Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/
Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk

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In this episode, Professor James Salzman explains how ownership is the secret root of civilizations. From the time they can say "Mine!", people bump into ownership arguments. From traffic laws, to grocery store shopping, to whether or not you can lean your chair back on airplanes, ownership design confronts all of us throughout our lives.
Here are a few topics Prof. Salzman discusses-

• What are common instances of ownership design?
• What are the six stories of ownership?
• What are examples of cultural ownership customs?
• How do laws form to support ownership customs?
• What are ancient creation stories that involve ownership?
• Can big tech companies really use our data for free?

James Salzman is the Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Law and at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara. He is the co-author of the bestselling book, "Mine!: How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control our Lives," and author of "Drinking Water: A History." In twelve books and more than 100 articles and book chapters, his broad-ranging scholarship has addressed topics spanning drinking water, trade and environment conflicts, ownership engineering, and creating markets for ecosystem services. There have been over 100,000 downloads of his articles. He frequently appears as a media commentator and has lectured on environmental policy on every continent.

Our Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk

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One of the most anticipated technologies of the future is AI. What will it be? What will it do? How will we react? But, before we can anticipate sentiency, which we will discuss in this episode, we must train AI to do its jobs. However, that requires properly organized data sets, a new topic in the town square. If AI is to imitate the data it is given, how do we determine what data to give it? This is a looming question in the fog of the future as the data we train AI with today creates our relationship with this unknown tech tomorrow and, in many ways, shapes the future we will soon inherit. Join me as I examine this with my friend, Sarah Newman (Full bio below). (Check out my 100th episode special with Sarah Newman here)

Topics-

• Data Sets and Data Nutrition - Why and How the data of today shapes the future of AI tomorrow
• AI and Sentiencey- Will it happen?
• Artificial General Intelligence
  • What is it?
  • The current state of AGI
  • The future of AGI
• Value Alignment - Before we give AI our values, we must determine what our values are
  • Universal values - Are there such things?
  • Ultimate purpose - Does man have an ultimate purpose?
• What books have had an impact on you?
• What advice do you have for teenagers?

Sarah Newman is Director of Art & Education at metaLAB at Harvard, at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Working at the intersection of research and art, her work engages with technology’s role in human experience, and interrelations between complex systems. In addition to her art practice, she is also an educator, and leads creative workshops to address interdisciplinary research problems. Her research in artificial intelligence and related technologies investigates how emerging technologies embed and mirror historical social and ethical challenges. Newman is Co-Founder of the Data Nutrition Project, which designs tools and practices for responsible AI development. She holds a BA in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in Imaging Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Newman's work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Rome, and London, and she has held artist residencies in Germany, Sweden, and Italy. Newman has previously been an AI Grant Fellow, a Harvard Assembly Fellow, a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, a Fellow at the Royal Society of Art, a Rockefeller AI Bellagio Resident, an artist-in-residence at Northeastern School of Law, and a grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts; with the Data Nutrition Project, she was awarded the 2022 Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity.
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Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/
Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aiming4moon
Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
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In this episode, I talk to NYT bestselling author, Ryan Holiday (full bio below), about the disciplined life. His latest book, Discipline is Destiny, comes out September 27 (2022).
Topics:

• The Three Types of Discipline
• The Purpose of Discipline
• Why should we have self-control?
• Why to define a Primary Focus
• How to structure skill-building around assignments
• Practical habits for a disciplined day
• What books have had an impact on Ryan Holiday
• Ryan Holiday's advice for teenagers

When Ryan Holiday was 19 years old, he dropped out of college to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. Mr. Holiday had a successful marketing career at American Apparel and went on to found a creative agency called Brass Check, which has advised clients like Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as many prominent bestselling authors, including Neil Strauss, Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss. He is the author of ten books, including The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, Conspiracy and Stillness is the Key which have sold more than 2 million copies in thirty languages and has a following among NFL coaches, world-class athletes, TV personalities, political leaders, and others around the world. Mr. Holiday spends much of his time on a ranch outside Austin, Texas where he does his writing and work in between raising cattle, donkeys, and goats.

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Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/
Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aiming4moon
Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk

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In this episode, I talk with Dr. Carolyn Chen, author of Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley and associate professor of ethics at the University of California, Berkeley, (scroll down for full bio), about the “religion of work” in “techtopias.”
Topics:

• Work as religion
• Tech workers as believers
• The cult of productivity
• Should we let this happen?
• The sacraments and saints of Work
• The monkish lifestyle of workers
• What books have had an impact on Dr. Chen
• What advice Dr. Chen has for teenagers

Books Mentioned: (I get a cut)

• Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley - https://amzn.to/3pLH5Lx
• Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion - https://amzn.to/3ccvC4H
• The Hidden Lives of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discovers from a Secret World - https://amzn.to/3Cno8qk
• Justice: What's the Right Things to Do? - https://amzn.to/3AdgCeG

Dr. Carolyn Chen, a sociologist, is an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Getting Saved in America (Princeton) and the co-editor of Sustaining Faith Traditions. She lives in Kensington, California.

Socials! -

Lessons from Interesting People substack: https://taylorbledsoe.substack.com/
Website: https://www.aimingforthemoon.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiming4moon/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aiming4Moon
Taylor's Blog: https://www.taylorgbledsoe.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-TwYdfPcWV-V1JvjBXk