We'd love ideas for 1) who to interview and 2) what topics to cover (even if you don't have a particular expert in mind for that topic) on The 80,000 Hours Podcast.
Some prompts that might help generate guest ideas:
- What 'big ideas' books have you read in the last 5 years that were truly good? (e.g. the Secret of Our Success)
- Who gave that EAG(x) talk that blew your mind? (you can find recorded EAG(x) talks here)
- What's an important EA Forum post that you've read that could be more accessible, or more widely known?
- Who's an expert in your field who would do a great job communicating about their work?
- What's an excellent in-the-weeds nonfiction book you've read in the last few years that might be relevant to a pressing world problem? (e.g. Chip War)
- Who's appeared on our show in the past that you'd like to hear more from? (complete list of episodes here)
- Who's spearheading an entrepreneurial project you want to learn more about?
- Who has a phenomenal blog on ideas that might be relevant to pressing problem areas?
- Who's a journalist that consistently covers topics relevant to EA, and nails it?
- Who are the thought leaders or contributors in online forums or platforms (like LessWrong, EA Forum, or others) whose posts consistently spark insightful discussions?
- We might be interested in covering the following topics on the show: suffering-risks, how AI might help solve other pressing problems, how industries like aviation manage risk, whether we should prioritize well-being over health interventions, what might bottleneck AI progress. Who's an expert you know of who can speak compellingly on one of those topics?
Some prompts that might help generate topic ideas:
- What's a problem area that you've always wanted to know more about?
- What's a great video essay you've seen in the last few months? What was it on?
- What's a policy idea that you think more policymakers should hear?
- What's a problem area that seems seriously underrated in EA?
- What's a philosophy concept that's important to your worldview that people aren't talking enough about?
- What's a major doubt you have about whether a particular problem (e.g. AI / biosecurity) is actually especially pressing, or a particular solution is especially promising?
- What's an issue in the EA community that you'd like to hear someone address? (e.g. FTX, burnout, deference)
We'd love to get lots and lots of ideas — so please have a low bar for suggesting! That said, we get many more suggestions than we can plausibly make episodes, so in practice we follow through on <5% of proposals people put to us.
I liked your interview with a professor who talked about defense methods against pandemics and potential gene drive efficacy against malaria, new world screw worm, lyme disease, and maybe one other nasty enemy. Works in Progress also had an article about gene drives' promise against diseases like these in its most recent edition. I would also like to know about Jamaica and Uruguay's attempts to open new fronts against the New World Screw Worm.
I liked an interview that I believe to have been on 80k hours about efforts to reduce air pollution in India. I would like to know what effect could be expected from allowing export of natural gas from countries like Turkmenistan, Iran, and Venezuela to India.
I am interested in learning about the importance of fertilizer prices and natural gas prices to global nutrition. I think there is a woman at the Breakthrough Institute who studies this topic. I suppose oil prices may be an important input, too.
I would like to know more about how USD interest rates and oil prices impact global poverty, so as to better evaluate the importance of factors like home rental inflation and economic sanctions in determining poverty rates.