Category: Podcast

Harris Kenny is the Marketing Manager for Aleph Objects, maker of the amazing and hugely popular consumer 3D printer the Lulzbot.  We discuss the present and future of 3D printing and it’s various applications and implications.

We also talk about one of the most unique things about Aleph, the fact that they are an IP-free company.  Everything from their marketing material to the plans for their products are Creative Commons and without any patents, trademarks, or copyrights.  They openly share all plans and products on the web and welcome customers who copy the designs and build their own.  They’ve managed to create value and remain profitable by fostering an opensource community, rather than keeping their stuff under lock and key.  We discuss how it works and whether this model can be applied in other businesses and industries.

Find this and all episodes on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

The second installment of “Ask Isaac”, where I respond to listener questions, covers a handful of questions posed on Facebook.  When is quitting smart and when should you push through?  Is aging a disease?  Can you be duped by your own optimism?

Feel free to send along questions of your own on Twitter, Facebook, or email and I’ll try to get to as many as I can on future episodes.  As always, this and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Albert Lu, host of the Power & Market Report, joins me to talk about how he went from engineering to financial management to podcasting.  Albert is the one who convinced me to start a podcast, so the show is really his brainchild!  We also discuss parenting and the free-range education of children, and touch on his favorite NFL team the New England Patriots.

As always, this and all episodes can be found on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Yes, Levi is my brother.  But this isn’t nepotism.  He’s a highly successful entrepreneur.  His company Ceterus is growing and revolutionizing small business accounting.  He joins me to talk about why it took him so long to dream big, what greatness means, whether it’s for everyone, if giving advice is a bad idea, and how to balance being an entrepreneur with raising five boys.  (We had some issues with the levels on this episode, so I apologize for any drops or spikes in volume.)

You can check out Levi’s company here.

As always, this and ever other episode is also available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Steve Patterson comes back to the show to defend his claim that popular conceptions of quantum physics are claptrap, paradoxes don’t and can’t exist, and that being accurate is more important than believing what feels good. He also talks about his experiment as a freelance philosopher.

You can find Steve on the web here, and support his work here.

This and every other episode is available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

*I typically release an episode every Monday, but I had a few great ones ready to go so decided to do this special Friday release.

The most widely read person I know, Chris Nelson, joins me to discuss some of the lesser known work of Adam Smith on language and meaning.  We also talk about interdisciplinary research and problems in the social sciences, as well as philosophical movements and how they change over time for better or worse, and how these changes coincide with changes in language.

Chris always gives me something interesting to think about, and today’s episode is no exception!

As always, this and all other episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

International Man of Mystery Jeff Tucker joins me to discuss his approach to life, and how he manages to say ‘yes’ to everything and still consistently produce good work.  Jeff writes 1,500 words every day, and it’s always good stuff.  He is the author of three books, and he speaks regularly around the globe on human liberty, cryptocurrency, virtual communities, economics, philosophy, and more.

My favorite thing about Jeff is that he always seems in good spirits.  Always.  He and I share incredibly similar opinions and outlooks, yet he’s the complete opposite of me in many of his habits and processes.  Conversations like this one always remind me how important it is to find your own rhythm and method.

You can read Jeff daily on his Liberty.me site: tucker.liberty.me.

As always, this and all episodes are available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.

Is police abuse and misconduct a result of racism, or other institutional problems?  Does absence of minority characters on movies and TV reflect consumer preferences, or racist producers?  Does praising rags-to-riches stories imply blaming the down-and-out for their own suffering?  Should some people just keep quiet on the topic of race?  Do we talk too much or too little about it?  Is being ‘color blind’ a good thing?

TK Coleman joins me to discuss these and many other related issues on this episode of the podcast.  If you’re like me, you tend to shy away from conversations about race because it’s such a loaded subject, but this was a very enjoyable and enlightening conversation.

Mentioned in the episode:

• What Kind of Card is Race to Play?
• How to Tell Someone They Sound Racist
• Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?

Subscribe to the podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.  Every Monday a new episode with notes is posted on the blog under the category Podcast.

[Note: I’ve made episodes 1-6 live on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher just to front-load the podcast to get started.  I’ll be sharing individual posts about each episode this week, and then back to the every Monday schedule for new episodes.]

After being intrigued by references to René Girard (including from a seemingly unlikely source in tech founder/investor Peter Thiel) I finally picked up a copy of The Scapegoat and read it.  There was a lot to digest, but one of the primary insights that stuck out to me was the way in which ritualized collective violence can act as a stabilizing force in some societies.  Do not in any way mistake this statement to mean that violence of any sort is good, let alone ritualized mob executions and banishment.  They are terrible.  The insight is that, because they serve some kind of equilibriating purpose as perceived by members of the society, you can’t simply put an end to them through legal decree or forced conversion.

I see the same insight from a totally different approach in the work of economist Peter Leeson.  His work focuses on the unlikely ways in which order can emerge even in the most extreme circumstances, and the often odd or seemingly irrational mechanisms used to generate order – from insect trials to self-immolation.  Again, stability or equilibrium does not mean good.  But it should queue us in to the fact that, if we want social change, we need to understand why perverse practices exist and what function they serve in order to get to the root.

I’ll be bringing Leeson on a future episode to discuss his work and these themes in more detail.  Check out his phenomenal book, Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better Than You Think (Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society).

[Note: I’ve made episodes 1-6 live on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher just to front-load the podcast to get started.  I’ll be sharing individual posts about each episode this week, and then back to the every Monday schedule for new episodes.]

TK comes back to the show to discuss the self-help genre, respond to objections to sports, and share lies that he believes and why.  I am not a fan of self-help generally, and TK loves it.  We discuss what it is, the good and the bad, and what can be gleaned from it.  I play devil’s advocate and ask him why he’d indulge in irrational biases and waste time and energy on sports.

[Note: I’ve made episodes 1-6 live on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher just to front-load the podcast to get started.  I’ll be sharing individual posts about each episode this week, and then back to the every Monday schedule for new episodes.]

Steve Patterson is a philosopher and author without official credentials.  He knew he wanted to do philosophy and write about it, but he was turned off by the hoops and credentialism of the academic system.  He set out on his own as an independent intellectual.  We discuss his journey, his book What’s the Big Deal About Bitcoin?, and how he manages his day in order to continue creating.

[Note: I’ve made episodes 1-6 live on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Stitcher just to front-load the podcast to get started.  I’ll be sharing individual posts about each episode this week, and then back to the every Monday schedule for new episodes.]

Zak Slayback joins me for a discussion primarily on education and how it differs from schooling.  Zak talks about his own story and how he went from top achiever in the schooling system to a major critic of it.  We also touch on Zak’s love of aviation and what’s wrong with the industry and whether or not we can expect to see major innovations there.