The Jim Rutt Show

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EP118 Matt Ridley on How Innovation Works Mar 30, 2021

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Matt Ridley talks to Jim about his latest book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom. They cover innovation vs invention, improbable order, the value of technological innovation, the importance of the steam engine, innovation as a team sport, the history of vaccination, fossil fuel's role in the industrial revolution, negative impacts of patents, the light bulb & simultaneous invention, water chlorination, the Haber–Bosch process, the green revolution, GMO's, innovation opposition, nuclear power, the western innovation famine, Matt's bet against Elon Musk's hyperloop technology, and much more.

EP117 Samo Burja on Societal Decline Mar 23, 2021

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Samo Burja talks to Jim about his freely available book, Great Founder Theory. They cover long-lasting societies, theories & limits of history, cultures that prioritize documentation, long-term priorities, institutional organization, social technologies, design vs evolution, what makes a great founder, times of slow change, market reform dynamics, censorship, social coordination costs, social media reformation, centralized vs decentralized declining empires, closed vs open academic journals, pre-registered research, post-modernism, noble lies, technology & society connections, institutional decline, the overproduction of elites, prioritizing functionality & maintaining institutions, psychology's impact on advertising & culture, live vs dead players, borrowed vs owned power, the succession problem & possible solutions, the dangers of risk aversion, political transitions, and much more.

EP116 Doug Erwin on the Cambrian Explosion Mar 15, 2021

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Doug Erwin talks to Jim about his book, The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. They cover the unprecedentedly rapid evolution of life seen during the Cambrian explosion (approx 540 million BCE), archeological dating techniques & accuracy, micro-evolution vs macro-evolution, environmental potential, ecological opportunity and challenges, genetic/developmental contexts, continental landmass locations, pre-Cambrian multicellularity, ocean oxygen levels, snowball earth epoch, predation as an evolutionary driver, changes in species physical sizes, development of circulatory systems and neurons, brain evolution, niche construction & ecosystem engineering, evolutionary investment strategies, Cambrian taxonomic diversity, the Fermi paradox, and much more.

Currents 029: Vance Crowe on the “Well-Actually” Graph Mar 12, 2021

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In this currents episode, Jim talks to Vance Crowe about what led him to work at Monsanto & the dynamics of its public narrative, how he discovered the "Well_Actually" Graph, limitations of PR firms & communications training, the value of skeptics & deep understanding, navigating the "Well-Actually" Graph, disagreeable nerds, GameB & alignment beyond agreement, VR as a strong-link medium, and more.

EP115 Max Borders on America’s Collapse Mar 08, 2021

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Max Borders talks to Jim about his new book, After Collapse: The End of America and the Rebirth of Her Ideals. They cover the definition of collapse, the potential role of debt in triggering a collapse, what a post-collapse scene might be like, cryptocurrencies, GameA vs GameB, complex vs complicated systems, the risks of scientism, climate change and its priority, the commons, mitigating negative externalities, the role of emergence, the negatives of funding moonshots, the cult of Elon Musk, Evonomics & the invisible hand, crony capitalism, negative impacts of wokism, and much more.

EP114 John Bunzl on his Simpol Solution Mar 01, 2021

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John Bunzl talks to Jim about his Simpol approach to global cooperation. They cover simultaneous implementation, connections to GameB, feasible viable support, the first-mover disadvantage, regulatory chill, the veto issue, destructive global competition, utilizing competition & cooperation, global problems, the myth of sovereign nations, wokism vs trumpism, the dead-ends of corporate social responsibility & the global justice movement, the failure of political targets, three core tactics of the Simpol solution, policy creation process & trade-offs, nation vs word-centric consciousness, biological & evolutionary connections, and more.

Currents 028: Simon DeDeo on Explaining Explanation Feb 25, 2021

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In this currents episode, Jim talks to Simon DeDeo about his recently co-authored (with Zachary Wojtowicz) paper, "From Probability to Consilience: How Explanatory Values Implement Bayesian Reasoning". They cover its connection to AI & human development, description vs power in explanation, the value & challenge of using multiple conceptual lenses, the difference between powerful & unifying explanations, co-explanation, the Aristotelian aspect of this work, conspiracies, the value & complexity of simplicity, choosing explanation approaches, understanding their vices, and more.

EP113 Zak Stein on Hierarchical Complexity Feb 22, 2021

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Zak Stein & Jim have a wide-ranging talk about hierarchical complexity: its history, horizontal vs vertical development, the chunking property in development, emergence & evolution, success vs understanding, child development, the development advantage of youth, representational thinking & abstraction, the connection of social complexity & hierarchical development, limitation of measures of general intelligence, core dynamics of the levels of the model of hierarchical complexity, Lectica assessments use in education & business, key leadership skills, and much more.

Currents 027: Charles Hoskinson on Cardano Blockchain Project Feb 17, 2021

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In this currents episode, Charles Hoskinson talks with Jim about the history of blockchain projects, his history with the Ethereum project and what led him to found Cardano, a 3rd gen project. They cover interoperability & decentralization, other projects & protocols, transactions per second considerations & dubious relevance, downside of proof of work & mining, Cardano's innovation via robust theory & strong engineering, Bitcoin inefficiency & scaling issues, the challenge of deeply understanding Cardano, comparing programming languages for blockchains, network effects, ecosystem considerations & their impact on tech adoption, addressing social media radicalization & moderation issues, and much more.

EP112 Annie Duke on Bets & Better Decisions Feb 15, 2021

Show notes

Annie Duke & Jim talk about some of the key themes in her last two books. They cover how she became a championship level poker player, the deep differences between poker and chess, the complexity of poker & winning strategies, "resulting" and outcome bias, skill vs luck, "thinking in bets", making better decisions, system 1 vs 2 thinking, optionality, the 10/10/10 methodology, grit & quit dynamics, hindsight & recency bias, the value of peers & coaching, Nick the Greek, and much more.

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