Mutual Understanding
Reconciling religion and spirituality with a rational scientific worldview. Also, anything else I find interesting.
Ben & Divia
Show overview
Mutual Understanding has been publishing since 2023, and across the 3 years since has built a catalogue of 52 episodes. That works out to roughly 85 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a monthly cadence.
Episodes typically run over ninety minutes — most land between 1h 8m and 1h 54m — though episode length varies meaningfully from one episode to the next. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Society & Culture show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 2 months ago, with 6 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2024, with 21 episodes published. Published by Ben & Divia.
From the publisher
A podcast where we seek to understand our mutual's worldviews mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Latest Episodes
View all 52 episodesShea and I talk about how money works
Shea and I talk Rawl, desert/luck, and hantavirus
Shreeda interviews me about parenting
Ethics isn't a truce, with me and Shea
Shea and I talk some behaviorism and more parenting
I hope to get back into recording more regularly soon, but no promises. Life has been pretty busy for me lately. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Very Outdated Iran takes, and some other stuff
Apologies for taking forever to edit this podcast we recorded or Feb 7. We talked about the Iran situation some which was all before the US attacked, but there was some other stuff too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Kave and I talk adventure games etc.
Relatively rambling as usual, especially the second half I think. I hope some of you enjoy it!Some links:* Kave on X* Kave’s blog (with his excellent Inkhaven posts)* some tweets of mine about being stuck in puzzles* Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack* Scott Whiskers* Mutropolis* Golden Idol games This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Matt Bateman, Aaron Stupple and I talk kids and freedom
Last week, I went to see Matt Bateman and Aaron Stupple talk about their parenting disagreements at The Montessorium, the (pretty new!) school Matt created. I enjoyed their conversation, wanted to hear even more, asked them if they’d be up for coming on my podcast, and they did!Probably the best place to find more is on X.com, and here are a few more links too:* Aaron’s book, The Sovereign Child (the link is to the free pdf, and it’s also available at all major book stores* Taking Children Seriously* a thing I wrote a while back about some of what I think about unschooling(ETA: I have locked the comments because I both feel somewhat responsible for comments made on my posts and don’t have the bandwidth to monitor them at this time) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Shea and I talk UBI studies and the metaphysics of value
A bunch of this was me trying to understanding Shea’s metaphysics of value and also where he sees property rights as coming from. It may have been more repetitive than usual, since I kept asking him to explain stuff again, but it was helpful for me at least!We reference this series of blog posts about proposed reforms to zoning laws. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Shea and I talk intrapersonal property rights etc
Shea started out talking about recognizing thought processes as value-laden, and then we got into ~psych debugging a way I think some of my thought processes haven’t been respecting what I think are the correct internal property rights. Shea updated somewhat about what I mean when I’m saying things in an IFS framing. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Malcolm Ocean and I talk about collective IFS Self
Some things we mentioned include:* A Positive Account of Property Rights* the original instructions for we-ness* someone's write-up of the we-ship experiment that Malcolm ran (the one where we did the "goodbye for now, Malcolm")Malcolm also posted the same conversation but with video to his YouTube channel if you want that!I’ve included some automatically generated chapter timestamps in case that’s useful.Chapters00:00 Exploring Internal Family Systems and WeSpace03:01 Collective Selfness and Group Dynamics06:00 The We-Ship Experiment: Collective Consciousness08:59 Navigating Individuality within Collectivity11:58 Fractal Nature of Selfness in Groups15:02 Understanding Self-Energy in Group Contexts17:55 Projection and Responsibility in Group Dynamics20:49 Defining Boundaries: What is Us and What is Not Us?27:00 Navigating Relevance in Conversations29:55 The Dynamics of Group Triggers32:57 Exploring Collective Self and Shame36:12 Understanding Boundaries and Ownership39:00 Moral Layers in Property and Boundaries41:54 The Complexity of Group Dynamics44:58 Fairness and Communication Styles55:58 Earning Attention and Communication Dynamics57:03 Navigating Group Dynamics and Proactive Engagement59:00 Establishing Boundaries in Communication59:51 Finding Solutions in Parenting and Communication01:00:55 The Importance of Shared Information in Conversations01:03:05 Addressing Safety and Container Dynamics01:03:59 Self-Sustaining Dynamics in Group Settings01:05:55 The Role of Leadership in Group Containers01:07:54 Exploring Collective Self and Attunement01:10:01 Unpacking Self and Group Dynamics01:11:57 Ego Awareness and Self-Modeling in Conversations This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Shea and I talk military theory and also about how we have bigger families
I probably should have split this up into two episodes, but instead it’s all together. The first part of the conversation is basically about how Shea thinks military conflicts should work in the modern world, with the recent Israel and Iran war as a jumping off point.We talked about The West Wing speech about a proportional response.I tried to summarize what I thought Shea was saying about his theory of conflict, and how it analogized to interpersonal conflicts between individuals.And then, at 1hr 28min in, we switched topics and talked some about how both of us have big families as atheists, which is pretty uncommon. I have plans to make a mini series of podcast episodes with various atheists who have large families, so this is sort of the first episode of that. (But I expect me and Shea to revisit the topic later too.) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Ben and I talk politics and predictions
I had a fun time catching up with my former cohost!Some links we mentioned:* Ben's website* Ben’s substack* Good Strategy Bad Strategy* my blog This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Shea and I talk scarfgate and how ethics works
We talked about the scarfgate and it turned into a whole thing about how discussions of ethics should work. We didn’t even really get to the part about “high agency”! We did get to analyzing how I pirated music when I was in college. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Shea and I talk neurodivergence and how to think about it
We only had a time for a short episode today, but I hadn’t recorded anything in a while, so here it is! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Sarah Constantin and I talk emotions
I saw this Twitter thread from Sarah and offered her to talk to her about it on a podcast, and Aaron volunteered to moderate. I was more taking the position that all emotions are functional, and Sarah was approaching things from a more bio-realist perspective. Ultimately, I don’t think we disagreed about all that much once we hashed it out!Some things we referenced:* How Emotions are Made* It’s not about the nail* Ads don’t work that way* Society is fixed, biology is mutable This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Shea and I talk epistemology etc
In this podcast, we recap a conversation we didn’t record where Shea and I talked about epistemology and decision theory, and I decided to flag it more when I say “but what would that even mean”I also made a case for subjective probability as a useful concept, and we talked a little about politics at the end.At one point I referenced this LW post that mentions confidence and credence.AI generated chapter time stamps:00:00 Introduction and Motivation for Discussion00:39 Exploring Timeless Decision Theory02:00 Objections to Traditional Decision Theories04:33 Functional Decision Theory and Its Implications06:01 The Role of Other People's Decisions08:17 Perspectives on Newcomb's Problem10:01 Voting and Decision-Making Dynamics12:40 The Value of Civic Participation14:03 Philosophical Perspectives on Decision Theory18:10 Platonism and Mathematical Realism23:29 The Nature of Abstractions and Probabilities25:43 Critical Rationalism and Probability Discussions33:19 Understanding Subjective Probability36:57 The Role of Betting in Probability Communication39:20 Precision in Probability Estimates41:10 The Nature of Likelihood and Causality44:56 The Complexity of Probability in Epistemology51:32 Subjective vs. Objective Probability58:48 Understanding Credence and Confidence01:13:06 Navigating Political Uncertainty01:19:41 Protests and Free Speech in Context01:24:17 Navigating Immigration and American Values01:31:06 The Left's Political Landscape and Future Directions01:36:12 Housing and Healthcare: Bipartisan Solutions?01:40:28 Education Reform and the Role of Competition01:52:03 The Need for New Leadership in Politics This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Cristie Henry on unschooling
I had a great time talking to my friend Cristie Henry about unschooling, an educational philosophy that we both practice within our families.And here’s a link to the thing I wrote about unschooling that I mentioned when we were talking. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Jordan Myska Allen on metaphysics, identity, better social media, etc.
I caught up with my friend Jordan, and we talked about a whole bunch of stuff! Not a very organized conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.You can find him at The Relateful Company, and his new company Uptrust should be online soon at uptrusthq.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com
Some recent dog training updates
A pretty rambling podcast about what’s been going through my head recently when trying to work on getting our dogs and cats comfortable with each other. tldr; I think I was accidentally messing up my training plans by using spatial pressure without realizing it, and I think I better get how Argos’s frustration is working This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com