Podcast Archives – Evolve Faster with Scott Ely

EF49 (S2-E10): The Domino Effect: The Momentum of an Unstoppable Future

Podcast, Season Two / By Scott Ely / 05/26/2020

Sam Payne is on the brink of tearing down the entire world in hopes of getting in touch with a higher force she believes created the universe. Not knowing what the force might be, she’s risking everything to get to the other side. In the last moment, as she plans to quit to spare the universe, the force replies.

Although the distant future is unknowable, we can still predict what the near future brings. Unlike philosophical theories that deal with the present and the past, futurism doesn’t have the benefit of events happening or that they already happened — thus, it becomes the biggest guessing game. But is it important to know the future or is it all about living in the now?

EF48 (S2-E9): Checkmate: A Child’s Guide to the Good Life

Podcast, Season Two / By Scott Ely / 05/12/2020

Sam Payne, a physicist, finally discovers the true origin of the universe after sacrificing most of her life to the endeavor. But the discovery has vast repercussions which shake the foundation of Sam’s sanity. In light of the drastic nature of her existential dread, Sam is unsure how to even define what a good life would look like for her now. She finds a glimpse of hope in the curious, enigmatic mindset of her 5-year-old daughter, Maya. The hope and desire to live a good life is ingrained in every human. But the day you’re born is also the day you start to die, so the quicker you can arrive at some reasonable and attainable definition of the good life for yourself, the more fulfilling your life will be. But in an existence without obvious meaning, and a society heavily focused on meaningless goals like wealth and fame, how can you uncover an answer for yourself to such a simple question? Is it possible the mindset of seeing the world through a child’s eyes could provide critical insight to that which is otherwise concealed by the challenges and distractions of adult life?

EF47 (S2-E8): Infinite Regress: Drawing Back The Veil of Perception

Podcast, Season Two / By Scott Ely / 04/28/2020

Sam Payne was a physicist on the verge of discovering the true nature of reality when her project was shut down. But a suspicious gift enables her to go underground to an illegal world of virtual work, in order to try and recruit rogue scientists to restart her research. As the risks pile up, and the heat is on, she realizes what she’s been seeking for the last three decades of her career has been hidden in plain sight all along. But the answer is also far more dangerous than she could have imagined. We perceive our day to day experience as the one-and-only, true reality. But the truth is, our perception of reality is very different than that of a catfish, bat, or dog; which can respectively taste, hear and smell far more acutely than we could possibly imagine. So what is the true reality, beyond this seemingly impenetrable veil of perception that shrouds human sensory capabilities? Is it something we can even comprehend using the limited wetware of the human brain? Or does such a thing as reality even exist?

EF46 (S2-E7): Empathetic Distortion: Rigging the Scales of Justice

Podcast, Season Two / By Scott Ely / 04/14/2020

Put in an impossible position early in her career, Mary Payne was forced to make a choice between saving a single identifiable victim or helping an entire community of nameless people. The decision haunts her entire life. Many years later in old age, Mary is faced with another trolley bearing down on her where she will once again be forced to make a difficult decision on which track to send it. But unlike before, this time her life sits in the balance on one of the tracks. In theories about a just society, good deeds are expected to be rewarded and bad deeds punished. But is it really so easy to define what is a good versus bad deed? Can empathy for one human being, and the reward that comes with it, blind you from the same effort being able to help many others instead? Using Paul Bloom’s theory of rational compassion, we will explore what means to be a good person and why genuine good can easily get prosecuted in an unjust society. What would you do with your hand on the switch and a trolley bearing down on two tracks, both with grave consequences? Is there any real possibility for a just world when some decisions have only bad outcomes? Or is life and society just inherently unfair?