Ep. 65: Kevin Kelly With Excellent Advice For Living.
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
Release Date: 04/27/2023
The AI Fallacy: Dr. Jerry Kane on Education, Work, and What We're Getting Wrong
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
The AI fallacy is thinking the transformation is only in the tool. AI is already transforming education and work; not just because of what it can do, but because of what people believe it can do. Students, workers, managers, universities, and companies are all changing their behavior around AI, sometimes rationally, sometimes badly, and often before they even fully understand it. The AI paradox is that it is both a technology and a social event. It is a technology because it is something we install, manage, govern, and use. But it is also a social event because it functions as a moment in...
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Happy or Hidden: Sonja Lyubomirsky on the Science of Connection and Feeling Loved
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness, human flourishing, and what actually helps people feel connected. A Professor of Psychology at UC Riverside, she is the bestselling author of and published in 39 countries. Her latest book, written with Harry Reis, is Sonja’s work has shaped the modern science of happiness and earned major honors, including recognition as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Basel, and several leading awards in personality and positive psychology. She...
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How to Decide: Gary Klein on Expertise, Intuition, and the Limits of AI
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
You make hundreds of decisions a day. Most of them invisibly. A few of them under real pressure, with incomplete information and no clear right answer. So how do the people who do this for a living like firefighters, surgeons, military commanders, and get it right when the stakes are highest? That's the question Dr. Gary Klein has spent his entire career answering. Not in a lab. In the field. With people whose next call might be life or death. Gary is a cognitive psychologist, a Senior Scientist at MacroCognition LLC, and the Chief Scientist at ShadowBox LLC. He's one of the founding figures...
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More Than Matter: Philip Goff on Mind, Value, and Cosmic Purpose
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
Prof. Philip Goff is a British philosopher, author, and professor at Durham University whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. He was an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Central European University and the Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham. Philip is also the author of Galileo’s Error: A New Science of Consciousness, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality, and his most recent, Why? The Purpose of the Universe, is the touchstone for this episode. We’re covering some lofty territory today: from the hard science of physics and cosmology to the deep...
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Beliefs Behind Your Stress: Dr. Walter Matweychuk on REBT and the 'Musts' That Wreck Your Mood
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
My guest on this podcast asserts that a huge chunk of our psychological stress isn’t caused by what’s happening but by the demands one quietly places on reality. In this episode, Dr. Walter Matweychuk teaches me about Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), which focuses on identifying and disputing irrational, self-defeating beliefs to reduce emotional distress and change negative behaviors. Walter makes the case that REBT is not just a therapeutic modality but a philosophy for living based on emotional responsibility, resilience, and a way to stop rating yourself as “good” or...
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Stopping the Clock: Steve Taylor on the Psychology and Physics of Time Expansion
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
Society views time as a fixed commodity, yet modern theoretical physics and cognitive neuroscience suggest otherwise. If the linear flow of time is truly an illusion, then time isn’t just a resource to be managed; it’s a perception to be mastered. My guest on the podcast today, Prof. Steve Taylor, argues that time isn’t experienced evenly. He suggests that where you place your attention and how you live day-to-day can change the way time unfolds, stretching or compressing your sense of it. Steve is a researcher in psychology and a senior lecturer at Leeds Beckett University. He has...
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When Goals Fail: Anne-Laure Le Cunff on How Small Experiments Change Everything
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
We’ve been taught that success comes from setting goals, defining purpose, and executing a plan. But what if those very habits—the linear drive for certainty—are what keep us stuck? Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, neuroscientist, founder of Ness Labs, and world-leading expert on mindful productivity, has an alternative: treat your life like a series of tiny experiments. In her new book Tiny Experiments, she explores how curiosity, liminal spaces, and small-scale testing can transform how we handle uncertainty and growth. Anne-Laure argues that traditional goal-setting and the “tyranny of...
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Fear, Anger, and the Plans They Hide: Angus Fletcher on the Science of Primal Intelligence
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
In a world increasingly dominated by AI and computational thinking, we've been taught that logic is the ultimate form of intelligence. But what if an over-reliance on pure reason is making us more fragile and less equipped to navigate uncertainty? Angus Fletcher is a professor at Ohio State's Project Narrative and the author of the best-selling book, Primal Intelligence. Angus's has had an extraordinary career path to say the least, from building mutant neurons in neuroscience labs to studying Shakespeare at Yale, and being recruited by US Army Special Operations to train their elite...
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When You’re in a Hole: Tony Stubblebine on the Strategy, Psychology, and Lessons of a Business Turnaround
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
In this episode, I’m digging into the messy reality of business turnarounds, the kind where survival isn’t guaranteed and leadership is more about doing the hard, boring things than dazzling with big ideas. My guest is Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium, whose recent post “Fell Into a Hole and Got Out” made the rounds for being one of the most honest and actionable stories about company rescue I’ve ever read. Tony’s background runs deep: founder of Coach.me, architect of the Better Humans publication. This is what it’s really like to take over a company bleeding millions, shrinking...
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Medicine for the Mind: Donald Robertson on Ancient Therapies for Modern Stressors
Bounce! Conversations with Larry Weeks
There’s something strangely reassuring about knowing people were wrestling with the similar issues we struggle with over 2,000 years ago — even if they wore togas and wrote with a chisel. Donald Robertson is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, acclaimed author of How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, and one of the world’s leading voices on Stoicism. He’s also the founder of the Plato’s Academy Centre in Athens, and a founding member of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit. On this pod, we talk about the wisdom literature and how it can help with emotional distress;...
info_outline“The root of my optimism comes in kind of a basic observation, that if we can create 1% more than we destroy every year, that 1% compounded over time is civilization. So the delta, the difference between a gain and very tiny gain, is hard to see in the present.” - Kevin Kelly
My guest is well-known technologist and futurist Kevin Kelly. Kevin is a renowned American writer, editor, and futurist, best known as the co-founder of Wired magazine. He has made significant contributions to the fields of technology, science, and culture. He has written several books, including "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World," "New Rules for the New Economy," "What Technology Wants," and "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future."
He explores recent developments in technology as well as shares some great life advice from his upcoming book aptly named, "Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I'd Known Earlier.
In this conversation, we talk about these topics and more.
- Living in a "protopia" and the net 1% compounding principle
- Embracing problems as capacity improvers
- Why Kevin’s optimistic
- Societal implications of AI
- Current state of AI and its role in job market
- AI's resemblance to the early internet
- What's different this time
- A "universal personal intern"
- Extended Mind and its relation to AI and tools
- Opinions on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology
- What Kevin worries about
- Discussing new book and advice for living
- Practical tips on embracing change, prototyping life, and active listening.
Enjoy!
For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com