The Philosopher With Silicon Valley's Ear
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Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2022
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
Longtermism, the idea that positively influencing the future is a key moral priority of our time, is hot in Silicon Valley. But does it miss the bigger picture?
Guests: William MacAskill, Robert Wright
Host: Lizzie O'Leary
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Transcript
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| 1:07.6 | So I would love it if you guys could introduce yourselves. We'll all start with you. Who are you? |
| 1:12.6 | Why are you here? Sure, I'm Will McCaskill. I'm an associate professor of philosophy at Oxford |
| 1:18.4 | University. I helped to set up what's known as the effect of altruism community, community of |
| 1:24.7 | people who try to do as much good as they can with at least a significant part of their time and their |
| 1:29.4 | money. I also recently wrote a book called What We Know The Future that's I think going to be the |
| 1:36.8 | topic of conversation in the course of this podcast. Bob, who are you? I'm Robert Wright. I'm mainly |
| 1:44.3 | a journalist. I've written some books, including a book called Non-Zero, which may be the one |
| 1:50.3 | most relevant to this discussion. I also publish a newsletter called Non-Zero and have a podcast |
| 1:56.8 | called Non-Zero. And in fact, I've written a little about Will's ideas in my newsletter and |
| 2:03.7 | the Non-Zero newsletter. I asked Bob and Will to come on the show because Will's new book What We |
| 2:09.9 | Know The Future is something you're likely to see on bookshelves in Silicon Valley. The book is a |
... |
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