The Joe Walker Podcast (Jolly Swagman formerly)
Latest Episodes
2023 Retrospective — A Listener Interviews Me
In this special episode, the tables are turned as I'm interviewed by a listener of the show, DJ Thornton from Sydney. We reflect on the progress of the show in 2023, what I learned from this year's guests, and what's in store for 2024.Full transcript ava
Katalin Karikó — Forging the mRNA Revolution
Katalin Karik is a Hungarian-American biochemist. She is one of the inventors of mRNA technology.Full transcript available at: thejspod.com.Episode recorded on 15 February 2023.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Richard Rhodes — The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes is an American historian and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.Full transcript available at: thejspod.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ken Henry — An Economic Odyssey
Dr Ken Henry is an Australian economist who served as Secretary of Australia's Treasury from 2001 to 2011. He was instrumental in helping Australia avoid recession during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis — Australia was the only major advanced economy to
Palmer Luckey — Science (Non)fiction
Palmer Luckey is an American tech entrepreneur and billionaire. He has founded two companies: Oculus VR (acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014), and Anduril (recently valued at $8.5 billion). He has been described as the real-life Tony Stark. Full t
Daniel Kahneman — Dyads, And Other Mysteries
Daniel Kahneman is widely regarded as the most influential psychologist alive. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics (2002) for his work on judgment and decision-making under uncertainty, much of it done jointly with his late collaborator Amos Tversky. He i
Talent Is That Which Is Scarce — Tyler Cowen
In the long run, talent allocation is almost everything. But as a society, we're not actually very good at it. The question of how to reliably match people with jobs they are well suited for is one of the big unsolved problems of our times. Joe catches u
Intellectual Exoskeletons — Andy Matuschak
From language and writing to the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, computers and Adobe Photoshop, our species has a history of inventing tools for augmenting our own intelligence. But what comes next?Andy Matuschak is a developer and designer. He helped build
Rationality And Its Opposite — Steven Pinker
How rational are we? How can a species smart enough to set foot on the moon also be prone to conspiracy theories that the moon landing was fake? Joe speaks with Steven Pinker to discuss rationality and its opposite.Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Profes
#139: Against Bayesianism — David Deutsch
Bayesianism, the doctrine that it's always rational to represent our beliefs in terms of probabilities, dominates the intellectual world, from decision theory to the philosophy of science. But does it make sense to quantify our beliefs about such ineffabl