#58 - Ask Us Anything V: How to Read and What to Read

Increments

Alright people, we made it. Six months, a few breaks, some uncontrollable laughter, some philosophy, many unhinged takes, a little bit of diarrhea and we're here, the last Ask Us Anything. After this we're never answering another God D*** question. Ever.

We discuss

• Do you wish you could change your own interests?
• Methods of information ingestion
• Taking books off their pedestal bit
• Intellectual influences
• Veganism (why Ben is, why Vaden isn't)
• Anti-rational memes
• Fricken Andrew Huberman again
• Stoicism
• Are e-fuels the best of the best or the worst of the worst?

Questions

1. (Andrew) Any suggested methods of reading Popper (or others) and getting the most out of it? I'm not from a philosophy background, and although I get a lot out of the books, I think there's probably ways of reading them (notes etc?) where I could invest the same time and get more return.

2. (Andrew) Any other books you'd say added to your personal philosophical development as DD, KP have? Who and why?

3. (Alex) Are you aware of general types of insidious anti-rational memes which are hard to recognise as such? Any ideas on how we can go about recognising them in our own thinking? (I do realise that perhaps no general method exists, but still, if you have any thoughts on this...)

4. (Lorcan) What do you think about efuels? Listen to this take by Fully Charged.

References

• Lying and Free Will by Sam Harris
• Doing Good Better by MacAskill
• Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
• Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel
• Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
• Peace is Every Step and True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Seeing like a State by James Scott
• The Truth Behind Cage-Free and Free-Range | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

People

Producers of rational memes:

• Everything: Christopher Hitchens, Vladimir Nabokov, Sam Harris, George Orwell, Scott Alexander, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Steven Pinker
• Sex and Relationships: Dan Savage
• Environment/Progress: Vaclav Smil, Matt Ridley, Steven Pinker, Hans Rosling, Bjorn Lomborg, Michael Shellenburger, Alex Epstein
• Race: Glenn Loury, John Mcwhorter, Coleman Hughes, Kmele Foster, Chloe Valdery
• Woke: John Mcwhorter, Yasha Mounk, Coleman Hughes, Sam Harris, Douglas Murrey, Jordan Peterson, Steven Hicks, James Lindsay, Ben Shapiro
• Feminism: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christina Hoff Summers, Camille Paglia (Note: Then follow each thinker's favorite thinker, and never stop. )

Producers of anti-rational memes:

• Eric Weinstein
• Bret Weinstein
• Noam Chomsky (See A Potpourri Of Chomskyan Nonsense: https://lingbuzz.net/lingbuzz/001592/v6.pdf)
• Glenn Greenwald
• Reza Aslan
• Medhi Hassan
• Robin Diangelo
• Ibraam x Kendi
• George Galloway
• Judith Butler

Socials

• Follow us on Twitter at @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani
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