Skeptiko 15 Year Anniversary Special |541|

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Skeptiko 15 Year Anniversary Special |541|
by Alex Tsakiris | Feb 22 | Skepticism
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Al Borealis host Skeptiko 15 year anniversary special.
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Alex, Congratulations on 15 years of excellent work on Skeptiko.
As a true podcast junkie and an an avid Skeptiko listener for a little over 2 years now, I can confirm Skeptiko is the best of it's kind and a great example for anyone aspiring.
Currently 1 hour into listening to the episode and thoroughly enjoying.
 
Congratulations Alex!
What a great accomplishment.
As someone who has been running a weekly podcast (and now 8 of them) for 18 years, I can confirm how much work and dedication takes to create such a vehicle.
I'm glad to be considered at the top of my field because of it, and I know you are at the top of yours. Who else can boast such longevity? MU perhaps, but no one else.
Well done!
J
 
Haven't finished listening to this one yet, but am very much enjoying hearing Alex get some well deserved appreciation for his work over these last 15 years! Both the podcast and forum have played a huge role in helping me find new information and sources of information as well as helping me to sketch out my own post-Christian philosophy and metaphysics that accounts for ALL the data points we have available to us. Big Thank You, Alex!
 
Congratulations Alex!
What a great accomplishment.
As someone who has been running a weekly podcast (and now 8 of them) for 18 years, I can confirm how much work and dedication takes to create such a vehicle.
I'm glad to be considered at the top of my field because of it, and I know you are at the top of yours. Who else can boast such longevity? MU perhaps, but no one else.
Well done!
J
wow... I didn't know! pls link me up to yr work.
 
Just finished the four hours. (Thank god for double speed for Podcasts!- Can't do that with AD)
Great time. Love the five things at the end, Alex.
I think our biggest disagreements between us comes from my certainty of my uncertainty.
I am extremely aware that the moment I land on something like, "There is a Plandemic" or "Climate Change is manufactured", I am surrounded by evidence to the contrary either personal evidence I can identify living here in Canada with siblings in health care and a number of people studying the changes.
People aren't overall diabolical. And they aren't angelic. They are complicated and they tend to be selfish. So, the elites of DAVOS convention applaud and appreciate the changes to hobnob with each other, but they would laugh if you told them they were following some schmeb like Klaus Schwab.
If they could agree on a diabolical plan, you'd think they could pool their money together and have a single space race group. But no- we've got arrogant billionaires all trying to out do each other with three different companies. How smart and how much dominance of space would there be if SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin got together?
They can't and that's the hope for all of us.
Alex points out that evil is stupid. Well, power is stupid whether it's evil. misplaced or good because as Jordan Peterson points out, creating and running civilization is hard. Trump said that basically about healthcare alone. But its true with most things.
I believe Alex when he talks about Darkness, hell I think I get it more than most of his guests here do. It doesn't take a lot of defining. In fact, we get bogged down in the definitions. I think he's 100% right when he says its just a matter of SPEAK YOUR TRUTH.
For right or for wrong, that's what I've always done and it's cost me friends. But I have to speak what does and doesn't make sense, and I have no problem being proven wrong.
That's why I love Skeptiko and everything Alex represents.
 
Everything legendary procures over time with relentless tenacity, fatigue slaughtering effort, and overwhelming love only reminiscent of The Creator. Alex, your podcast is a work of art! You really care about getting to the bottom of the ocean and do so with an unmatched fervor. Congrats on 15 years, brother! We all love you!
 
Alex points out that evil is stupid. Well, power is stupid...

nice... then again, isn't power a mixed bag. how about the power to change... the power to do good... even the power to defend has it's place. not sure we can say the same about evil.

the way I first heard this was "evil always turns stupid" which seems weirdly true... kind of Faustian :)
 
nice... then again, isn't power a mixed bag. how about the power to change... the power to do good... even the power to defend has it's place. not sure we can say the same about evil.

the way I first heard this was "evil always turns stupid" which seems weirdly true... kind of Faustian :)

I think that power, like evil, is a very real thing, but they aren't necessarily one and the same. The feeling of power of others is a temptation. However, against "nature," these stratifications can quickly change. Often, I think that human beings are a lot like rodents. I am a snake man for over 30 years, so I have experience breading rodents for my snakes to eat. When you look at a cage of rodents, it looks like just a bunch of rodents, but these little fuckers have power struggles. Often, they eat their own kids.

I agree with Alex that power is a mixed bag. Evil is a completely different kind of petri dish to look at.
 
@Alex - I am so glad Al did this special tribute for you and Skeptiko. Also too that various guests offered their congrats and Miguel for joining you. I am grateful for Skeptiko and how your journey has supported my own (through grief and growth). As stated to you via email there will be some techno music coming out with your dulcet tones sometime soon :-) I don't know if you'd like it @Alex but I bought a copy of "The quest of the historical Jesus" by Albert Schweitzer with you in mind. I would be happy to send it to you if wanted it. Al referenced it I believe when discussing Skeptiko 4.0.

regarding the episode - I loved it! Having listened from only shows 200 or so I didn't know Skeptiko 1.0 and your various exploits with sceptics. I think since I've listened I've only two shows where you've literally had to debunk the guest, most recently the slavery denier and a sceptic who wanted to challenge you from an atheist perspective (forgive my not remembering their names). I listened to the episodes and didn't view them but it felt as if you got a little irked by Miguel's support of Mitch Horowitz and Al's openness to not write him off. It really did get me thinking about cancel culture from the perspective of evil - what is the point of debating defenders of pedophiles? I heard compassion from you, and both Al and Miguel with reference to Aquino being a victim, which I thought was touching - but difficult. Such is life. I will likely write to Al to thank him.

FYI loving Jimmy Falun Gong's programmed to Chill - thanks for bringing that into my life. Fascinating stuff. looking forward to that second show and finding out what got you guys butting heads.

Thank you Alex.
 
@Alex - I am so glad Al did this special tribute for you and Skeptiko. Also too that various guests offered their congrats and Miguel for joining you. I am grateful for Skeptiko and how your journey has supported my own (through grief and growth). As stated to you via email there will be some techno music coming out with your dulcet tones sometime soon :) I don't know if you'd like it @Alex but I bought a copy of "The quest of the historical Jesus" by Albert Schweitzer with you in mind. I would be happy to send it to you if wanted it. Al referenced it I believe when discussing Skeptiko 4.0.

regarding the episode - I loved it! Having listened from only shows 200 or so I didn't know Skeptiko 1.0 and your various exploits with sceptics. I think since I've listened I've only two shows where you've literally had to debunk the guest, most recently the slavery denier and a sceptic who wanted to challenge you from an atheist perspective (forgive my not remembering their names). I listened to the episodes and didn't view them but it felt as if you got a little irked by Miguel's support of Mitch Horowitz and Al's openness to not write him off. It really did get me thinking about cancel culture from the perspective of evil - what is the point of debating defenders of pedophiles? I heard compassion from you, and both Al and Miguel with reference to Aquino being a victim, which I thought was touching - but difficult. Such is life. I will likely write to Al to thank him.

FYI loving Jimmy Falun Gong's programmed to Chill - thanks for bringing that into my life. Fascinating stuff. looking forward to that second show and finding out what got you guys butting heads.

Thank you Alex.
awesome Daz... much love!

re historical jesus... I would love it if you could find a high-caliber guest who'd be willing to come on and defend the historical jesus position.
 
Alex! I know you have said many times before, and I'm paraphrasing this - but the effect is, "I don't want platitudes nor fanboys". I get that. But man, go ahead 'n take a seat, and lap up your medicine, Alex. I'm gonna throw some fanboy out there.

Your show is awesome. I'm a total fan. It's had many iterations along the way, we all know that. I remember when you broke the news that you were moving to Skeptiko 2.0 and I was like, woah, this is a cool journey. I had no idea how much more was to come. Some shows have been better than others. Some have been amazingly meaningful to me. All have been super valuable, and some that I didn't like at the time mean more now in hindsight. I really like where you've evolved. You are asking truly important questions. Many that frankly, IMHO, we aren't gonna solve in this life. But they are key to our existence, and thay give layman like myself keys to meaning and agency for adventure to inquire and examine.

I was lucky in a serious way to find your show when it was based on your website way back in the beginning. I think I may have found you at episode 30. I can't recall exactly now but it was something like that. I devoured those early shows like a hungry dog. The back catalogue was a Godsend and I whipped through it all in a few months (well less but who's counting). Followed by a brief stint of post binge depression. But that didn't last because more shows were in the hopper, seemingly all the time.

Things I like the best about your show... You made it obvious to me there was something of conspiracy in culture and online culture specifically, early on, via the "Unbelievers" who stalked your show in a seriously dark way and gave you 1 star ratings and truly awful, hateful written reviews daily, for years. It broke me in really early for the upcoming fake news push (still to come, many years later) that online "opinion and mass culture baseline" were not to be believed like first person experience could offer (say, in a room, or after a few months within a real community). Second, your show addressed themes that were present in my life from an early age. (ie... I grew up in what I think was a haunted house, I was raised in a somewhat odd religious household and later broke free from religion yet thankfully not from my truly awesome family... I was always dedicated to the discovery of science, I flirted with atheism in my 20's but also had many personal experiences in spirituality that made me hunger for why I was so pulled by spirit... thankfully through your show rejected atheism in my 30's, thank you for that... I've had continued insights into things some would call woo or paranormal, in spite of my previous separation from specific religion... I have a very close connection to a visceral spiritual moral hierarchy and mandate, and I have come across a few experiences and brushes with evil that I have been frankly thankful to be able to manage and defend myself against).

These are all things that happen in life. Many of these happen to many of us. But they are all so easy to bury, and be distracted by iPhones, money, excitement, career, travel, etc. All while blowing off the connection to other humans and their very real individual spiritual experiences along the way.

Early on - It was great to see you address, but even greater to see you move past, the tit for tat arguments with debunkers. At the time I liked it. Probably because I had discovered I was under their sham of a "Bio-Bot" paradigm and resented that and was breaking free. Other things that seem amazing from the show were the NDE deep dives, Mediums, conspiracy (of course), and the serious helpings of behind the curtain science culture discussions. All amazing. All things no one else was or can talk about with any credibility. Finally, and THANK YOU - for starting to adopt your long form show format. It's been said before, and it's true, the show doesn't even get started until past to 1 hour mark. That's when the main course is served in a discussion, time and again. Please, please, please - keep doing long form. This is something the sham "FauxCasts" can't, nor will attempt to do because truth is what longform reveals - and truth is not what is being served these days. But many of us hunger for it none the less. Your show has introduced many other great podcasts. It's been somewhat of an Oracle for podcasts and authors. Through contact with your show I've read many books along the way too.

Many of your fans don't post here of course. However, it seems, you have many dedicated spitits on a meanigful human journey stopping in to see how your adventure is progressing. Well done Alex! Your journey is legend, thank you for sharing!
 
wow... thx so much! the whole podcasting thing is crazy, eh? I don't know you Skepter, but I totally know you, because you know me :)

I think I may have found you at episode 30.

way back... how cool.

You made it obvious to me there was something of conspiracy in culture and online culture specifically, early on, via the "Unbelievers" who stalked your show in a seriously dark way and gave you 1 star ratings and truly awful, hateful written reviews daily, for years. It broke me in really early for the upcoming fake news push...

You're totally right... and it's so funny because I didn't realize it at the time. back then I thought the conspiracy stuff was wacky


THANK YOU - for starting to adopt your long form show format. It's been said before, and it's true, the show doesn't even get started until past to 1 hour mark.

Thanks for this feedback... this hasn't been so much by design, but just wear some of the topics it taken me. but it's good to get this nudge because I think you're onto somehting.
 
Alex,

You had an interesting discussion about AI, but I wonder how you define Artificial Intelligence. I mean the earliest computers were sometimes referred to as 'giant electronic brains' because they could add up 1000 numbers in less than a second! I suppose the phrase "giant electronic brain" implies super-human intelligence - so how do you define AI so as to exclude 1950's computers?

I don't know the answer exactly, but I do know that Erik J Larson, who claims to be well versed in AI, wrote the book "The Myth of Artificial Intelligence" in which he pretty much debunks the idea of AI, by pointing out that no AI systems perform abductive inference - a process roughly equivalent to that used by fictional detectives such as Poirot or Miss Marple. A good example closer to home might be the kind of inference that is needed to crack complicated software bugs.

Years ago I predicted that we would never see driverless cars on our roads. Even now, you still can't buy a truly self-drive car, even though that fact may be obscured in various ways, for example:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/content/features/self-driving-cars

The nearest you can get is a car that can drive itself for a bit, but then suddenly asks you to intervene! That is obviously horribly dangerous because people do not pay active intension if they are completely passive. Also these cars were supposed to enable people to pack their kids off to grandma's or to travel back home after a drunken party. I guess if you were a qualified driving instructor, you might just be capable of being a passenger in such a vehicle!

The problem is that the problem is completely open ended, so you can never safely rely on a computer to make the correct decisions on its own.

I would say 'AI' is more of a marketing trick than anything well defined.

David
 
I would say 'AI' is more of a marketing trick than anything well defined.

hey David... I would tend to agree with you. when I was at university of arizona and we were working on expert systems we considered the whole thing kind of a joke... i.e. this is what we've been doing all along why all the buzz.

But there's another part of the augmented mind thing that's interesting. always think of spreadsheets. on one hand, they do what we've been doing all along, but in another way they completely changed our imagination about what's possible.

I suspect you might run into the same thing with chemistry. i.e. where information systems/technology changed your idea of what's possible.
 
hey David... I would tend to agree with you. when I was at university of arizona and we were working on expert systems we considered the whole thing kind of a joke... i.e. this is what we've been doing all along why all the buzz.

But there's another part of the augmented mind thing that's interesting. always think of spreadsheets. on one hand, they do what we've been doing all along, but in another way they completely changed our imagination about what's possible.

I suspect you might run into the same thing with chemistry. i.e. where information systems/technology changed your idea of what's possible.
Yes, I guess if they called it "Game changer software", or something, I'd not object so much. However some physicists are even suggesting that future AI's will propose their physics theories!

Computers are certainly transformational - think for example of the dry theory behind Mandelbrot fractals, and compare that with a full colour image! Of course, that just needs a lot of raw computer power to make it happen.

David
 
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