The Existential Hope Podcast
The Existential Hope Podcast
Podcast Description
The Existential Hope Podcast features in-depth conversations with people working on positive, high-tech futures. We explore how the future could be much better than today—if we steer it wisely.Hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite the scientists, founders, and philosophers shaping tomorrow’s breakthroughs— AI, nanotech, longevity biotech, neurotech, space, smarter governance, and more.About Foresight Institute: For 40 years the independent nonprofit Foresight Institute has mapped how emerging technologies can serve humanity. Its Existential Hope program is the North Star: mapping the futures worth aiming for and the breakthroughs needed to reach them. This podcast is that exploration in public. Follow along and help tip the century toward success.Explore more: Transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcastsFollow on X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast delves into themes including the potential of AI, nanotechnology, longevity biotech, neurotechnology, and smarter governance. For instance, episodes with David Deutsch focus on the principles of knowledge and progress, while discussions with David Pearce examine philosophical approaches to eliminating suffering and enhancing human potential.
The Existential Hope Podcast features in-depth conversations with scientists, technologists, and thinkers about the ideas that could shape a better future.
In contrast to both doom and hype narratives, we focus on what positive futures are possible through scientific and technological progress, and the decisions we make about it.
Existential Hope is an initiative of the Foresight Institute, an independent nonprofit that has been advancing technology for the benefit of life since 1986.
→ Show notes, transcripts and resources: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts
→ Join our newsletter to get the best ideas from our podcast and opportunities to help build great futures: https://theexistentialhope.substack.com/
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There’s an overwhelming amount of self-help advice out there, which makes it really hard to know what will work for you. But it turns out that over 450 self-help techniques from 100 books and 20 types of therapy actually boil down to just 12 tools.
In this episode, we talk with Spencer Greenberg, a mathematician and founder of the psychology research nonprofit Clearer Thinking. He recently co-authored the book The 12 Levers with clinical psychologist Jeremy Stevenson, to cut through the noise of self-help and provide people with the smallest number of concrete tools they can leverage in different situations.
We cover:
- How nearly 500 self-help techniques got narrowed down into 12 core psychological strategies, and how to use them.
- Why most people live by values they absorbed from their parents or environment rather than ones they actually chose, and how to figure out what your own values are.
- The real formula for productivity, which takes into account how important the work actually is.
- Why hopelessness is often less about the state of the world than about feeling unable to act, plus the single most evidence-backed exercise for building genuine optimism.
- The exposure therapy techniques he used to overcome severe social anxiety.
Chapters:
0:00 Cold open
0:52 How 459 self-help techniques boil down to just 12 levers
2:36 Does self-help need to be evidence-based?
4:40 Why understanding yourself can change the world
5:42 Are you living on your values or someone else’s values?
7:11 How to figure out what you actually value
8:03 Pleasurable life vs meaningful life: what actually makes you fulfilled?
9:39 Redefining productivity: on the importance of the work vs hours and efficiency
11:46 Optimism vs hope, and training yourself to be more optimistic
15:21 Why Spencer wrote The 12 Levers, and how he beat his own social anxiety
18:14 Which levers are hardest to maintain and self development as an ongoing journey
20:01 Overwhelmed by 12 levers? Where to start
22:26 How to create meaning in your life through your values
26:26 Advice for young people who feel hopeless about the future
28:15 Designing an AI assistant that pushes you toward your values
31:39 What would it look like if everyone used the 12 levers?
32:56 When to accept things vs when to fight for change
36:55 Why your self-help knowledge might have blind spots
38:13 Spencer’s existential hope vision for AI
38:48 The technology Spencer wants to see built
39:14 What Spencer would do instead of his current work
39:58 The best piece of advice Spencer ever received
On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.
Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts
Follow on X.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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