Brave New World - hosted by Vasant Dhar

Latest Episodes:

Ep 30: David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

Goodbye big banks. Hello crypto. The world of finance is in the process of changing forever, and David Yermack is your guide. Yermack joins Vasant Dhar in episode 30 of Brave New World to share his road map of, well, this brave new world! Useful resources: 1. David Yermack at NYU Stern and Google Scholar. 2. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 3. Linus's Law (from The Cathedral and the Bazaar). 4. The DAO hack mentioned in the episode.

Ep 29: Albert Wenger on the World After Capital Jan 06, 2022

Show notes

Capital is no longer a scarce resource. Attention is. Albert Wenger joins Vasant Dhar in episode 29 of Brave New World to discuss how the Industrial Age is past its expiry date, and what we need to do to prepare for the Knowledge Age. Useful resources: 1. Albert Wenger at Union Square Ventures and Continuations. And on Twitter. 2. The World After Capital -- Albert Wenger. 3. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy -- Joseph Schumpeter's book in which he wrote about creative destruction. 4. Homo Deus -- Yuval Noah Harari. 5. Free Lunch Society. 6. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World. 7. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World. 8. Notes on Elinor Ostrom on Wikipedia, Britannica, Econlib and the Nobel Prize website. 9. Adam Alter on Beating Our Addictions -- Episode 28 of Brave New World.

Ep 28: Adam Alter on Beating Our Addictions Dec 23, 2021

Show notes

More and more, the digital world is being designed to turn us into addicts. Adam Alter joins Vasant Dhar in episode 28 of Brave New World to describe the sinister ways in which this happens -- and what we can do about it. Useful resources: 1. Irresistible -- Adam Alter. 2. Drunk Tank Pink -- Adam Alter. 3. Dopamine Nation -- Anna Lembke. 4. Anna Lembke on Beating Dopamine -- Episode 26 of Brave New World. 5. Addiction by Design -- Natasha Dow Schüll. 6. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World. 7. Bias, Lies, and Democracy -- Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi). 8. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.

Ep 27: Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

Andrew Yang supports some game-changing ideas, such as UBI and taxing robots, and they're rooted in a radical vision of what America's politics should be. Yang joins Vasant Dhar in episode 27 of Brave New World to explain why the system is broken -- and how it can be changed. Useful resources: 1. Andrew Yang on his website, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon. 2. Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy -- Andrew Yang. 3. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 4. Erik Brynjolfsson on the Second Machine Age -- Episode 18 of Brave New World.

Ep 26: Anna Lembke on Beating Dopamine Nov 25, 2021

Show notes

Are you addicted? You may be a slave to dopamine without realising it, whether in the substances you put into your body or the behaviors you adopt. Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 26 of Brave New World to discuss how we can beat this. Useful resources: 1. Anna Lembke's website. 2. Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence -- Anna Lembke. 3. Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It's So Hard to Stop -- Anna Lembke. 4. Digital Addictions Are Drowning Us in Dopamine -- Anna Lembke. 5. Is Social Media Hijacking our Minds? -- Anna Lembke and Nir Eyal. 6. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 7. True self and false self (Wikipedia). 8. Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self (1960) -- Donald Winnicott. 9. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 10. How I Became Extremely Open-Minded -- Ross Douthat.

Ep 25: John McWhorter on the Religion of Wokeism Nov 11, 2021

Show notes

There is a new religion in town. It has the best intentions, but it may harm those it claims to help. John McWhorter joins Vasant Dhar in episode 25 of Brave New World to talk about his book Woke Racism -- and on the dangers of this new social movement that could tear us apart. Useful resources: 1. Woke Racism -- John McWhorter. 2. The Coddling of the American Mind -- Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. 3. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 4. The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks -- Randall Robinson. 5. The Case for Reparations -- Ta-Nehisi Coates. 6. What does anti-racism in mathematics look like? -- John McWhorter in conversation with Glenn Loury.

Ep 24: Solon Barocas on Removing Bias From Machines Oct 28, 2021

Show notes

Machine Learning can improve decision making in a big way -- but it can also reproduce human biases and discrimination. Solon Barocas joins Vasant Dhar in episode 24 of Brave New World to discuss the challenges of solving this problem. Useful resources: 1. Solon Barocas at his website, Cornell, Google Scholar and Twitter. 2. Fairness and Machine Learning -- Solon Barocas, Moritz Hardt and Arvind Narayanan. 3. Danger Ahead: Risk Assessment and the Future of Bail Reform: John Logan Koepke and David G. Robinson. 4. Fairness and Utilization in Allocating Resources with Uncertain Demand -- Kate Donahue and Jon Kleinberg. 5. Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes -- Frederick Schauer. 6. Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning -- Frederick Schauer. 7. Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration -- Mathew Salganik and others. 8. Inherent Trade-Offs in the Fair Determination of Risk Scores -- Jon Kleinberg, Sendhil Mullainathan and Manish Raghavan. 9. Limits to Prediction -- Arvind Narayanan and Matthew Salganik. 10. The Fragile Families Challenge. 11. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 12. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment -- Daniel Kahneman. 13. Dissecting "Noise" — Vasant Dhar. 14. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness -- Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.

Ep 23: Terry Odean on How to Think about Investing Oct 14, 2021

Show notes

How do we pick the stocks we buy? What drives us to sell? How does new technology impact our attention and behavior? Terrance Odean joins Vasant Dhar in episode 23 of Brave New World to share his learnings over a lifetime of studying behavioral finance. Useful resources:

1. Terrance Odean's videos on Investing. 2.Terrance Odean's video series on individual investor behavior. 3. All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors -- Brad M Barber & Terrance Odean. 4. Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors -- Brad M Barber & Terrance Odean. 5. The Behavior of Individual Investors -- Brad M Barber & Terrance Odean. 6. Zero-Commission Individual Investors, High Frequency Traders, and Stock Market Quality -- Gregory W Eaton, T Clifton Green, Brian Roseman & Yanbin Wu. 7. Thinking Fast and Slow -- Daniel Kahneman. 8. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World 9. Dissecting "Noise" — Vasant Dhar. 10. The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence -- Hersh Shefrin & Meir Statman. 11. Day-trading reality check: humans are poor investors and even worse traders -- Vasant Dhar. 12. Seinfeld: George Does the Opposite.

Ep 22: Dina Srinivasan on the Dangers of Big Tech Sep 30, 2021

Show notes

Google and Facebook have an outrageous amount of market power, and that's dangerous for society. Dina Srinivasan joins Vasant Dhar in episode 22 of Brave New World to discuss the dangers, and how we can tackle them. Useful resources: 1. Dina Srinivasan's homepage and Twitter. 2. The Antitrust Case Against Facebook -- Dina Srinivasan. 3. Why Google Dominates Advertising Markets -- Dina Srinivasan. 4. Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace. 5. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World. 6. Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt -- Michael Lewis. 7. Bias, Lies, and Democracy -- Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi). 8. Uplift the Unremarkables -- Episode 2 of Brave New World (w Scott Galloway). 9. Can a Machine Have Human Values? -- Episode 13 of Brave New World (w Brian Christian).

Ep 21: Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement Sep 16, 2021

Show notes

We overestimate our skill at decision making. We're pretty bad, and bias isn't the only reason. Daniel Kahneman joins Vasant Dhar in episode 21 of Brave New World to shed light on the problem of Noise, and what we can do about it. Useful resources: 1. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement -- Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein. 2. Thinking, Fast and Slow -- Daniel Kahneman. 3. Dissecting "Noise" -- Vasant Dhar. 4. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction -- Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. 5. Herbert A Simon on Amazon.

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