Manifold
Steve Hsu
1 Listener
All episodes
Best episodes
Seasons
Top 10 Manifold Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Manifold episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Manifold for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Manifold episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
01/25/22 • 64 min
James Lee is a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota. He is a leading researcher working in behavior genetics and statistical genetics. In this episode, he discusses recent progress in the genomic prediction of complex traits such as cognitive ability and educational attainment. Lee also discusses his recent Wall Street Journal editorial on embryo selection, Imagine a Future Without Sex.
Resources
- Imagine a Future Without Sex: Reproductive technology may lead us to realize too late that being human is better than playing God
- James Lee academic web page
- Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC)
- Nature Genetics: Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon.
Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.
You can find Steve's writing on his blog Information Processing.
1 Listener
10/06/22 • 54 min
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economics professor, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development. Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and is a University Professor, Columbia's highest academic rank.
Steve and Jeffrey discuss:
0:00 Jeffrey Sachs’ experience on the Lancet Commission for COVID-19
13:41 Potential for bioweapons research
19:06 Why a lab leak is plausible
32:38 Possible defenses for COVID coverup
43:56 Government secrecy and other areas of concern
48:08 Reflections on Nord Stream sabotage
Resources:
The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19
pandemic, Sachs et al., Sept. 14 2022: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext
Why the Chair of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission Thinks The US
Government Is Preventing a Real Investigation Into the Pandemic,
Current Affairs, Aug 3 2022: https://www.jeffsachs.org/interviewsandmedia/64rtmykxdl56ehbjwy37m5hfahwnm5
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
–
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.
1 Listener
06/16/22 • 103 min
Gregory Clark is Distinguished Professor of Economics at UC-Davis. He is an editor of the European Review of Economic History, chair of the steering committee of the All-UC Group in Economic History, and a Research Associate of the Center for Poverty Research at Davis. He was educated at Cambridge University and received a PhD from Harvard University.
His areas of research are long-term economic growth, the wealth of nations, economic history, and social mobility.
Steve and Greg discuss:
0:00 Introduction
2:31 Background in economics and genetics
10:25 The role of genetics in determining social outcomes
16:27 Measuring social status through marriage and occupation
36:15 Assortative mating and the industrial revolution
49:38 Criticisms of empirical data, engagement on genetics and economic history
1:12:12 Heckman and Landerso study of social mobility in US vs Denmark
1:24:32 Predicting cognitive traits
1:33:26 Assortative mating and increase in population variance
Links:
For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Lineage of 400,000 English Individuals 1750-2020 shows Genetics Determines most Social Outcomes
http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/ClarkGlasgow2021.pdf
Further discussion
https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/03/genetic-correlation-of-social-outcomes.html
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Alms
The Son Also Rises
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book)
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
--
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.
05/21/20 • 77 min
Corey and Steve talk to Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and author of Loserthink. Steve reviews some of Scott’s predictions, including of Trump’s 2016 victory. Scott (who once semi-humorously described himself as “left of Bernie”) describes what he describes as Trump’s unique “skill stack”. Scott highlights Trump’s grasp of the role of psychology in economics, and maintains that honesty requires admitting that we do not know whether many of Trump’s policies are good or bad. Scott explains why he thinks it is mistaken to assume leaders are irrational.
Resources
- Transcript
- Scott Adams (Blog and Podcast)
- Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America
- Kihlstrom J. F. (1997). Hypnosis, memory and amnesia. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 352(1362), 1727–1732. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1997.0155
- Hypnosis and Memory (Blog Post)
01/16/20 • 44 min
This conversation occurred just after President Trump withdrew US forces from Northern Syria. Steve, Corey and Sebastian debate ISIS and the Kurds. Sebastian argues that men who went to war after 9/11 wanted to experience communal masculinity, as their fathers and grandfathers had in Vietnam and WWII, a tradition dating back millennia. When they came home, they faced the isolation of affluent contemporary American society, leading to high rates of addiction, depression, and suicide. War veterans in less developed countries may be psychologically better off, supported by a more traditional social fabric.
Resources
08/08/19 • 67 min
John Schulman is a research scientist at OpenAI. He co-leads the Reinforcement Learning group and works on agent learning in virtual game worlds (e.g., Dota) as well as in robotics. John, Corey, and Steve talk about AI, AGI (Artifical General Intelligence), the Singularity (self-reinforcing advances in AI which lead to runaway behavior that is incomprehensible to humans), and the creation and goals of OpenAI. They discuss recent advances in language models (GPT-2) and whether these results raise doubts about the usefulness of linguistic research over the past 60 years. Does GPT-2 imply that neural networks trained using large amounts of human-generated text can encode “common sense” knowledge about the world? They also discuss what humans are better at than current AI systems, and near term examples of what is already feasible: for example, using AI drones to kill people.
Resources
05/16/24 • 85 min
Molson Hart is the CEO of Viahart, an educational toy company. He has deep experience selling products manufactured in China, using Amazon and other platforms. He produced a documentary about the challenges Amazon's market dominance creates for sellers and buyers worldwide. His recent video about a recent trip to visit factories in China went viral, generating millions of views on X.
- Molson Hart on X: https://x.com/Molson_Hart
- Amazon Documentary: https://youtu.be/8L6MaNVNBuQ?si=YMRb4z5F12CoJJI3
Steve and Molson discuss:
1:22 Molson Hart's background, experience in China
5:26 The IQ Question
13:19 Entrepreneurship and China
38:40 Selling on Amazon
48:32 Alternatives and Competitors to Amazon
50:40 The Future of Amazon
55:30 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
57:27 Understanding China
1:07:43 China's Rising Global Influence
1:16:12 Personal and National Identities
1:18:45 Demographics: China's Future
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
--
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Bharat Karnad is an Emeritus Professor in National Security Studies at the Center for Policy Research in Delhi. He was a member of India's first National Security Advisory Board and has authored several books on nuclear weapons and Indian security.
Karnad's blog: https://bharatkarnad.com/
Karnad on the death of Homi Bhabha and of other atomic weapons scientists:
https://bharatkarnad.com/2020/12/06/kill-scientists-disrupt-n-weapons-programmes/
An excellent documentary film on the life of Indian theoretical physicist Homi Bhabha:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6GEGOvXh4g&ab_channel=InternationalCentreforTheoreticalSciences
Steve and Bharat discuss:
0:00 Introduction
0:58 Karnad's educational background, nuclear research, journalism career
26:50 Refocusing India's defense posture from Pakistan to China
45:21 Why don't India and China have better relations?
53:33 India's nuclear arsenal
1:04:31 The mysterious death of Homi Bhabha, India's Oppenheimer
1:28:50 Land of subjugation, the caste system, and English as the language of Indian elites
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
--
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
09/22/22 • 111 min
Rob Henderson grew up in foster homes in California, joined the Air Force at 17, attended Yale on the G.I. Bill, and is currently a Gates Fellow at Cambridge University (UK). He is an acute observer of American society and has coined the term Luxury Beliefs to describe ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.
Steve and Rob discuss:
00:00 Early life and foster experience
20:21 Rob’s experience in the Air Force
31:26 Transitioning from the Air Force to Yale and then Cambridge
44:04 Dating and socializing as an older student
50:06 Reflections on the Yale Halloween email controversy
1:01:10 Personal incentives and careerists in higher education
1:09:45 Luxury beliefs and how they show up in elite institutions
1:31:08 Age and moral judgments
1:42:50 Rob on resisting legacy academia and his future
Links:
Rob's substack
https://robkhenderson.substack.com/
Luxury Beliefs are the Latest Status Symbol for Rich Americans
https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-status-symbol-for-rich-americans/
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
–
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.
Richard Sander is Jesse Dukeminier Professor at UCLA Law School. AB Harvard, JD, PhD (Economics) Northwestern.
Sander has studied the structure and effects of law school admissions policies. He coined the term "Mismatch" to describe the negative consequences resulting from large admissions preferences.
Rick and Steve discuss recent oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions vs Harvard College and Students For Fair Admissions vs the University of North Carolina.
0:00 Rick’s experience at the Supreme Court
4:11 Rick’s impression of the oral arguments
16:24 Analyzing the court’s questions
29:09 The negative impact on Asian American students
34:41 Shifting sentiment on affirmative action
40:04 Three potential outcomes for Harvard and UNC cases
44:00 Possible reasons for conservatives to be optimistic
50:31 Final thoughts on experiencing oral arguments in person
52:12 Mismatch theory
56:31 The future of higher education
Resources
Background on the Harvard case:
https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2022/01/supreme-court-to-take-up-harvard-unc.html
Transcripts:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/20-1199_6537.pdf
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/21-707_m64n.pdf
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
--
Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.
Show more best episodes
Show more best episodes
FAQ
How many episodes does Manifold have?
Manifold currently has 124 episodes available.
What topics does Manifold cover?
The podcast is about Life Sciences, Natural Sciences, Podcasts and Science.
What is the most popular episode on Manifold?
The episode title 'James Lee on Polygenic Prediction and Embryo Selection — #1' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Manifold?
The average episode length on Manifold is 74 minutes.
How often are episodes of Manifold released?
Episodes of Manifold are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Manifold?
The first episode of Manifold was released on Jan 24, 2019.
Show more FAQ
Show more FAQ