122. Walter Scheidel — Escape from Rome: The Failure of the Empire and the Road to Prosperity
What has the Roman Empire ever done for us? Fall and go away. That is the striking conclusion of historian Walter Scheidel as he recounts the gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the ...
30 Jun 20201h 13min
121. Maria Konnikova — The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of doll...
23 Jun 20201h 19min
120. Andrew Rader — Beyond the Known: How Exploration Created the Modern World and Will Take Us to the Stars
For the first time in history, the human species has the technology to destroy itself. But having developed that power, humans are also able to leave Earth and voyage into the vastness of space. After...
16 Jun 20201h 41min
119. Howard Bloom — Einstein, Michael Jackson, and Me: A Search for the Soul in the Power Pits of Rock and Roll
Howard Bloom — called "the greatest press agent that rock and roll has ever known" by Derek Sutton, the former manager of Styx, Ten Years After, and Jethro Tull — is a science nerd who knew nothing ab...
9 Jun 20201h 57min
118. Stuart Russell — Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and m...
2 Jun 20201h 21min
117. Matt Ridley — How Innovation Works: and Why It Flourishes in Freedom
Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Forget short-term symptoms like Donal...
26 Mai 20201h 34min
116. Howard Steven Friedman — Ultimate Price: The Value We Place on Life
How much is a human life worth? Individuals, families, companies, and governments routinely place a price on human life. The calculations that underlie these price tags are often buried in technical l...
19 Mai 20201h 10min
115. Matthew Cobb — The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience
For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain ...
12 Mai 20201h 40min
