My guest today is Gurwinder Bhogal. Gurwinder writes The Prism, a blog covering the ways technology and psychology conspire to fool us, and how we can withstand the assault on our senses. We talk about writing, bugs in our psychological software, how we can better understand and manage our emotions and reactions, and the pursuit of finding truth. — (00:38) Gurwinder’s background (03:59) Language as the programming language of humanity (11:21) Do humans want to recognize the bugs in our OS & can we convince people to want to do it? (14:16) How much can we actually change our operating system? (30:07) Are our emotions ever valid? (32:01) What is intuition and is it useful? (41:56) Are there systems & institutions that can help the rewiring of humanity at scale? (54:33) How do you know where to draw the line in finding truth vs. trusting sources? (56:25) Gurwinder's final question for listeners — The Prism: https://gurwinder.substack.com/ Gurwinder’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/G_S_Bhogal Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Alpha Barry is the founder of Temple, which builds cities to make the world more prosperous and beautiful, as well as Monolith, which founds and funds companies building Africa’s industrial economy. We talk about his vision for Temple and Monolith, why we need new cities — and the opportunities and challenges of building them — and why Africa is the right place to build these ventures. — (00:50) Alpha’s background (04:59) What is Temple? (08:45) Why Africa (and Nigeria in particular)? (15:00) What's the right mix of private and public involvement to make this succeed? (18:50) Picking what to own; first principles vs. leaning into expertise (24:30) Temple's ideology & ethos (29:24) Recent city-state case studies (36:09) Pre-mortem: what could failure look like? (40:38) What do you have to get right at the beginning? (47:59) Balancing domestic & foreign talent (54:16) His first crack at Temple (58:10) Types of ventures he sees being built as a result of Temple (01:04:07) 20th century governance & infrastructure vs. 21st century technologies (01:10:57) Alpha's final question for listeners — Temple: https://www.templecities.com/ Monolith: https://www.monolithlabs.org/ Alpha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/alphaxbarry Alpha’s personal site: https://alphabarry.xyz/ Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Alpha Barry is the founder of Temple, which builds cities to make the world more prosperous and beautiful, as well as Monolith, which founds and funds companies building Africa’s industrial economy. We talk about his vision for Temple and Monolith, why we need new cities — and the opportunities and challenges of building them — and why Africa is the right place to build these ventures. — (00:50) Alpha’s background (04:59) What is Temple? (08:45) Why Africa (and Nigeria in particular)? (15:00) What's the right mix of private and public involvement to make this succeed? (18:50) Picking what to own; first principles vs. leaning into expertise (24:30) Temple's ideology & ethos (29:24) Recent city-state case studies (36:09) Pre-mortem: what could failure look like? (40:38) What do you have to get right at the beginning? (47:59) Balancing domestic & foreign talent (54:16) His first crack at Temple (58:10) Types of ventures he sees being built as a result of Temple (01:04:07) 20th century governance & infrastructure vs. 21st century technologies (01:10:57) Alpha's final question for listeners — Temple: https://www.templecities.com/ Monolith: https://www.monolithlabs.org/ Alpha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/alphaxbarry Alpha’s personal site: https://alphabarry.xyz/ Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

Visakan Veerasamy is a writer, both on Twitter and through his books Friendly Ambitious Nerds and Introspect — both of which I highly recommend. We talk about writing; networks, scenes, and subcultures; deviants and outliers; being introspective; and more. — (00:42) Visa's background (05:45) Online networks need a cultural paradigm shift to realize its true potential (12:25) We need clusters of independent yet connected communities encouraging pro-social behaviors (18:16) Change comes from small, bottoms-up movements (26:25) The next round of recruiters for the scene (29:04) Historical scenes & outliers, and how to manufacture more of them (34:44) Being authentic & informal, & attracting intrinsically motivated people (43:03) The lifecycle of sub-cultures (46:44) Accepting & encouraging deviants (55:26) Writing Friendly Ambitious Nerds and Introspect to Introspect (01:02:26) What he wants to write next (or rather, what wants to be written) (01:07:13) Trying to become more ambitious, & the tradeoffs of improving your strengths or weaknesses (01:20:13) Visa's final question for listeners — Visa’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/visakanv Visa’s website: https://visakanv.com/ Introspect: https://visakanv.gumroad.com/l/introspect Friendly Ambitious Nerds: https://visakanv.gumroad.com/l/FANbook Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R Spencer’s blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com/

26 seconds · Clipped by Audience of One · Original video \

Ava is the writer of the Bookbear Express Substack, where she discusses human interaction and relationships through the lens of her own life. We talk about writing, reading, how a massive audience can change your writing, vulnerability, finding your thing to commit to, and how AI will impact dating and relationships. — (01:21) Ava's background (02:21) Her novel (03:40) Going from creative outlet to 100s of subscribers (06:40) Has her writing evolved with the growing audience? (10:01) Why she hasn't gone full time on writing yet (14:10) Writing authentically & vulnerably (19:30) Honesty, clarity, and emotion (23:33) What you read heavily influences your writing (25:38) Commitment & focus - finding the thing to commit to (28:58) Do 1-2 things really well & differentiating between what you find intellectually interesting vs. can actually see yourself doing (33:48) The dating game & what needs to change (38:31) Love vs. attachment & three definitions of love (41:58) How AI will impact relationships, love, & intimacy (50:01) Beauty, precision & rigor, & expression (51:34) Ava's final question — Ava's Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/noampomsky⁠ Bookbear Express: ⁠https://ava.substack.com⁠ Spencer’s Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/sp1ns1r⁠⁠ Spencer’s blog: ⁠⁠https://spencerkier.substack.com⁠ — Ava's Substack recommendations: Maybe Baby: https://haleynahman.substack.com/ Morning Person: https://www.morningpersonnewsletter.com/ Between a Rock and a Card Place: https://carolinecala.substack.com/ Grief Bacon: https://griefbacon.substack.com/

Ava is the writer of the Bookbear Express Substack, where she discusses human interaction and relationships through the lens of her own life. We talk about writing, reading, how a massive audience can change your writing, vulnerability, finding your thing to commit to, and how AI will impact dating and relationships. — (01:21) Ava's background (02:21) Her novel (03:40) Going from creative outlet to 100s of subscribers (06:40) Has her writing evolved with the growing audience? (10:01) Why she hasn't gone full time on writing yet (14:10) Writing authentically & vulnerably (19:30) Honesty, clarity, and emotion (23:33) What you read heavily influences your writing (25:38) Commitment & focus - finding the thing to commit to (28:58) Do 1-2 things really well & differentiating between what you find intellectually interesting vs. can actually see yourself doing (33:48) The dating game & what needs to change (38:31) Love vs. attachment & three definitions of love (41:58) How AI will impact relationships, love, & intimacy (50:01) Beauty, precision & rigor, & expression (51:34) Ava's final question — Ava's Twitter: ⁠https://twitter.com/noampomsky⁠ Bookbear Express: ⁠https://ava.substack.com⁠ Spencer’s Twitter: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/sp1ns1r⁠⁠ Spencer’s blog: ⁠⁠https://spencerkier.substack.com⁠ — Ava's Substack recommendations: Maybe Baby: https://haleynahman.substack.com/ Morning Person: https://www.morningpersonnewsletter.com/ Between a Rock and a Card Place: https://carolinecala.substack.com/ Grief Bacon: https://griefbacon.substack.com/