For our very special 40th episode of Rabbithole, we're taking a break from our current series to interview our very own Pete Davis, who co-wrote, co-directed, and narrated the documentary "Join or Die," ahead of the film's world premiere at SXSW this weekend. The documentary is an in-depth look at the works of political scientist Robert Putnam, whose works including 2000's "Bowling Alone" connect the decline in participation in clubs, religious groups, and other social organizations to the present crises in American democracy. In this episode, Dan and Sparky have a chat with Pete about what went into making the documentary, working with Bob, and why it's great to become a 'joiner.'

On today's episode, Pete and Dan talk with Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a sociology Ph.D student at Columbia University studying the politics of American criminalization, about his November 2022 essay "Effective Altruism is a political nightmare," and his critiques of the methods and assumptions behind 'effective' charities, based on his understanding of social science research methods.

In today's episode, Pete and Dan speak with computer scientist Adly Templeton (@EigenGender on Twitter) about describing herself as 'Kinda EA,' and how her work with large language models and machine learning informs her opinions on today's discourse about 'longtermism' and AI risk as a focus area for many effective altruists.

In today's episode, we invite effective altruist Nathan Young (@nathanpmyoung) on to the podcast to discuss his recently-concluded holiday fundraiser that he conducted with EA-skeptic Émile Torres (as interviewed in Episode #3 of this series), the importance of reëvaluating one's beliefs, prediction markets, future-archy, and "spreadsheet altruism."

While we line up some more interviews for our Effective Altruism series, Pete and Sparky return down the 'Is School Good' rabbithole to talk with Eleanor Duckworth, professor emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, developer of the Critical Exploration model of teaching, and author of books including 'The Having of Wonderful Ideas and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning."

Continuing our investigation of Effective Altruism's skeptics, Pete talks in this solo interview with Kieran Setiya, professor of philosophy at MIT and author of several books including 2022's Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way. In our conversation, Professor Setiya explains his personal philosophy and outlines his critique of EA's philosophical assumptions.

As we go deeper down the rabbithole of Effective Altruism, it's time to hear from some critical perspectives. Émile Torres, a PhD candidate in philosophy at Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany and author of the forthcoming 'Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation' (Routledge), has been one of the most prominent critics of an increasingly-popular philosophy within the EA community called 'longtermism,' or the idea that current humans have a responsibility to far-off generations of people yet to be born millions of years into the future or further, and that consequentially, problems facing present humanity may not be as bad as they look if they don't threaten our overall survival as a species. In our talk with Émile, we discuss their recent salon.com article examining the recent collapse of EA-aligned billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (AKA SBF) and his crypto exchange FTX in the context of the longtermist philosophy that SBF publicly aligned himself with. Along the way, we talk about the academic discipline of 'eschatology,' or the study of end times, about EA as a philosophy and as a movement, and about the appropriate level of fear that one should have toward so-called 'existential risks.'

In our second episode of the new series, Pete and Dan have a conversation with their old friend Dylan Matthews, the senior correspondent and head writer for Vox's Future Perfect section, which covers stories about people and institutions trying to do the most good that they can. In the interview, Dylan talks about his personal journey towards thinking of himself as an effective altruist, outlines current debates and challenges within the global EA community, and responds to a few critiques of EA philosophy from unexpected angles.

In our first interview in our new series on Effective Altruism, Pete and Dan sit down with philosopher and educator Joshua Kissel, an effective altruist and author of the article "Effective Altruism and Anti-Capitalism: An Attempt at Reconciliation." We discuss the nature of Effective Altruism as a movement and a philosophy, address Kissel's claim that leftist politics and effective altruism are complementary to each other, and consider whether anticapitalist social movements can learn from EA and vice versa.

We're beginning a new series down the rabbithole! In "Is Effective Altruism Right," Pete, Sparky, and podcast editor Dan Thorn will dive deep into the fast-growing Effective Altruism research field and community. What are the philosophical origins of the movement, and how do those ideals affect individuals' choices to donate money and time towards particular charitable causes? Are preventing global pandemics, ending factory farming, preventing climate change, and preventing artificial intelligence takeover equally relevant causes to support? How does 'longtermism' as proposed by philosophers like William McAskill and Nick Bostrom relate to Effective Altruism as a whole? What does it mean that billionaires like Sam Bankman-Fried and Elon Musk have shown a receptiveness to EA-related causes and ideas, or have professed themselves to be effective altruists outright?   As always, we'll be interviewing thinkers from all walks of life, with wildly different perspectives on EA, both supportive and skeptical. As we continue our interview series, we hope to develop our own opinions, find new questions to ask about EA, and uncover deeper rabbitholes to take ourselves, and you the listeners, down!   Please reach out if you have suggestions for interviews we should conduct in this series!

We're hard at work down in the burren, preparing our next batch of interviews, but we'll need just a bit more time before they're ready for you. In the meantime, Sparky has recorded Alfred North Whitehead's essay, 'The Aims of Education,' originally delivered as an address in 1916, and first published in the 1929 book 'The Aims of Education and Other Essays.'

Pete and Sparky welcome Kevin Mattson, author, educator, and Connor Study Professor of Contemporary History in the Department of History at Ohio University, down the rabbithole to discuss punk rock, the progressive movement, and his newest book, "We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America."

Editor's note - apologies for any audio dropouts on yesterday's upload! We've gone over everything and it should be all fixed now. Sparky and Pete speak with Jewish educator and Talmud scholar Xava De Cordova, co-host of the Xai, How Are You? Podcast, to discuss the pedagogical possibilities of a queer reading of Talmud.

Pete and Sparky have a chat with Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College and author of the book "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life," about the importance of unstructured, adult-free activity in children's social and intellectual development.

Pete and Sparky welcome Dan Walden (@dwaldenwrites), freelance writer, educator, and Ph.D candidate in classical philology at the University of Michigan, to discuss his experience as a student at educationally-progressive private primary schools and universities, the positives and negatives of educational canons, and what features his ideal school has in common with a monastery.

Pete and Sparky sit down to discuss the first few interviews from the Is School Good? series - what has stuck with them, what questions are left unanswered, and what their experiences as new parents have taught them so far about learning and teaching. Featuring the Rabbithole debut of the Roberto Unger drop.

In today's episode, Sparky is joined by the writer Bertrand Cooper (@_BlackTrash) to talk about his background as both a former unschooler and a graduate student of education policy, and about the advantages of disadvantages of nontraditional forms of education like unschooling compared to the current public school system.

We've hit some technical difficulties in the process of editing our next Is School Good? interview, and that episode will appear late this week. In the meantime, here's Sparky reading Emma Goldman's 1906 essay, "The Child and its Enemies."

In today's extra-long episode, Sparky and Pete discuss pedagogy, martial arts, and the respective values of tradition and freeform learning with Sam (@LiberationistMA) from the leftist martial arts podcast Southpaw (@Southpawpod). How can instructors express anti-heirarchical and liberatory values in their teaching? How can understanding activities like martial arts instruction - a common after-school activity for children in America and across the globe - provide insight into other forms of education?

We're burrowing back down the MMT rabbithole for a conversation between Sparky and Sam Bell (@samuelwbell), Rhode Island state senator and self-proclaimed 'Vulgar MMTer,' where Sam explains how the principles of MMT can inform state-level government policy, and how states can increase the federal money supply despite not being able to directly print money.