People I Would Like to Interview

Much of each interview would react to the answers given, but here's a sampling of the questions I've got in mind:

Sam Harris

You said in The End of Faith that religion "does not admit of progress." How are St. Augustine, natural theology, process theology, the adoption of empirical psychotherapy into Christian counseling, neo-monastic Christianity, or philosophical Christianity not progress?

You suggest that if we were all rational, there would be no terrorism. What about Stalin's explicitly atheistic rationale for mass murder? Mao and Pol Pot? What is your response to Robert Pape's arguments that the main cause of terrorism is not beliefs about "virgins in heaven" but about national humiliation due to foreign occupying forces? And what do you make of Frantz Fanon's defense of terrorism for people who have no other way to overcome their oppressors? Were the Sons of Liberty justified in their revolts against British rule, for example the Boston Tea Party incident?

As a defender of rationalism, why do you defend Eastern religions? They may be less violent than Western ones, but are they any more rational?

Do you really blame Christianity for the Holocaust? Most historians think Goldhagen has been amply debunked by David Dalin.

You wrote that some beliefs "are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." Really?

What do you think are the most effective ways to spread ethical rationalism?

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the next century? Why?

Paris Hilton

Every famous person is misunderstood by the public. What are the biggest public misunderstandings about Paris Hilton?

If you could trade your life of luxury to be respected and admired by the world instead, would you?

What kind of life do you think is moral or immoral?

How do you want to be remembered?

Do you think jail is different for a celebrity than for an average American?

What popular ideas do you think are the most stupid?

[but I would read her autobiography to formulate more questions]

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I think economic thinking is nearly as moral and important as scientific thinking, but you despise economists. Do you really think economics is baseless, or do you only despise economic forecasters? I don't even consider economic forecasting a significant part of economics...

You've pointed out that wildly successful people are statistical necessities. If a million people play the stock market for 20 years, a few will come out billions of dollars ahead purely by chance. How can you tell who has succeeded by chance, and who has succeeded by making rational, wise decisions? Can you give some examples of each? How do you know whose advice to take seriously?

What are some of your most offensive ideas? Defend them, briefly.

You've stated that people who go straight into academics have too many incentives to maintain the status quo. Do you think more people should live and work a while before becoming an academic, as you did, so that well-defended but radical ideas have a better chance of succeeding?

How can we fix education in the United States?

I suspect you are not happy with with the philosophies or epistemologies of science offered by Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, or Lakatos. What is a Talebian philosophy of science? How can science be done without theories, as you seem to propose?

Could God be a black swan? Some of the findings in quantum mechanics sound more absurd to me than some theologies. Could we one day come across evidence that a god exists, even if the ones invented up to this point are obviously false?

You have some pretty unconventional methods of staying healthy. What are they, and why do you think they work?

What is your basic advice on risk management and investments?

Why are you an anti-Platonist?

What kinds of risks should people take more often, and which kinds should they take less often?

How has being a polyglot affected your ways of thinking?

Richard Feynman offered some tricks on how to become a genius. What are yours?

Mark S. Smith

You are perhaps the world's foremost scholar on ancient Israelite religion. As best as we can tell, what is the story of the development of Israelite religion?

How do you know that? What kind of evidence supports that story?

What have you changed your mind about in the last 10 years due to new evidence?

What are your responses to Simon Parker's criticisms of your work?

What criteria do you apply when seeking for truth in ancient history?

What probability of finding the truth can we enjoy for an era so ancient and so lacking in evidence?

What promising work is being done on the subject right now? What do you hope to find in the next 30 years?

What facts are you most certain of regarding ancient Israelite religion, and why?

Alex Ross

I was disappointed that in The Rest Is Noise you spent more time on The Rite of Spring than on entire genres of contemporary classical music that have arisen since 1960. Why did you do this? That is precisely the era of classical music history that has not already received copious coverage.

If you apply the same "artistic greatness" criteria to rock music as you do to classical music, which works are the most impressive?

What is the future of classical and avantgarde music?

How can classical music capture the imagination and emotions of the populace once again? I recommend personalized lyrics, pop-style singing, music videos, cheaper shows with fewer players, and a more accessible sound.

Do you ever need to hear another Philip Glass piece in your life?

Who will be realized as the most important composers of the second half of the 20th century?

Some compositions are artistic in a way that can be heard, others are artistic in ways that only become apparent when you see them in writing (and in fact they may be painful to listen to). Are both forms of art valid? Do you care for one more than the other?

Does jazz have any future? Is it important that it have one?

When will music, in general, run out of ideas? When will all possible juxtapositions and structures of sounds have been made?

Is there a difference between how "good" music is, and how good it makes you feel?

Which is more important, an art work's impact on art, or an art work's impact on human behavior?

Given that every $1000 given as art subsidies could instead support scientific research or save 50 lives in Africa or help 30 Indians raise themselves from poverty, should art subsidies continue?

Does professional music criticism matter anymore? Is there a reason people should read Alex Ross instead of equally knowledgeable bloggers, besides the salary of Alex Ross?

David Sloan Wilson

You reject the "selfish gene" hypothesis of Richard Dawkins, saying that selection can also happen at the group level. What evidence is there for this? How would that work?

Many writers are talking about the evolution of religion. What is your take on it?

Give some examples of people who have taken Darwinism too far, and applied Darwinian thinking where it does not apply.

What are the most important evolutionary questions that we might answer in the next 30 years?

How has the idea of evolution informed your general philosophy?

What is the best response to people like Kent Hovind?

How would you improve the U.S. university system?

What are the most immediate ways in which we can and should intelligently improve on the human design that has been produced by evolution?

Can you imagine a universe in which social Darwinism would be a moral cause, rapidly progressing a species for the good?

What ideas do you avoid sharing with others because they are embarrassing or judgmental or whatever?

Are there biological ways we can promote ethical behavior in humans?

In what ways do you disagree the New Atheists?

At what point are we justified in dismissing a hypothesis, for example fairies, Zeus, or angel therapy?

How does evolution inform your ethical system?

Names, dates, history, data, logical argument... sorry, I can't be bothered. Give me platitudes!

Or at least let me watch a video. Thanks, Pfizer.

Fuck yeah!

Ms. Maddow has just confirmed that she'll be doing a daily show on MSNBC. [Monday-Friday 9:00PM EST, check your local listings]

If anyone can slay right out of the box it is Rachel. It should be a big heaping plate of awesome drowned in terrific sauce. She starts as soon as the American political party conventions end.

And she's keeping her radio show.

Allow me to observe that this list of potential interviewees is very crowded. It is now so long that I can't imagine you being prepared, or preparing, to deal with half of them... nor they with you.

But if we turn manic enough we could include those listed above on the roster of people we'd stalk through an airport until security kindly asks us to leave.

My forgetfulness not withstanding, you must go to The Parkway Theater tomorrow or the next day... preferably both. The Fair is over, what else ya gonna do?

Rachel Maddow may not be there but Daily Show creator and fellow Minnesotan Lizz Winstead will be there with Billy Bragg. Billy effin Bragg. If anything gets Rachel Maddow out on the town in the middle of MSNBC coverage and creating her own program for the TV-machine it will be Billy Bragg.

Trust me, it will be worth it. It doesn't matter if it's sold out (as it surely must be) and you have to scalp tix. I'll cover all expenses. Years from now you will want to remember doing this. If you don't go then you won't even remember the first Tuesday and Wednesday in September, 2008. Do you really want to be the kind of guy who leads a life where he doesn't remember Tuesday?

Maybe you'll see Rachel's kicks (from when she was with google's CEO Eric Schmidt.) She's the kind of gal who can mix Battlestar Galactica and meth. You might not agree with this guy right now but, trust me again, you will and it will be worth it.

If you don't know who Billy Bragg is let me give you three quotes and an anecdote.
One about Billy Bragg:

Long before Arctic Monkeys started writing painfully accurate love songs; long before Mike Skinner distilled all our drunken nights out into three-minute dramas; long before Radiohead discovered politics, Billy Bragg was already doing it. (NME)

All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.

My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter. There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.When I saw him two times ago he did the most amazing encore/closing/kum-by-yah song performance. He went back to the acoustic guitar and said [paraphrasing] "People look down on 3-chord rock. When I was starting up 3-chord rock was two chords too many. Still, it doesn't take much to write a song, get a girl, change the world."

Bragg went into three songs back-to-back-to-back, seamlessly, one right after the other, that used the same three chords:
"(What a) Wonderful World" Don't know much about...
"Tupelo Honey" She's as sweet as...
and "People Get Ready" You don't need a ticket you just get on board...

With the last line, "You just thank the lord..." he lifted his head, eyes glittering, reached out his hand and held up three fingers

"Three chords." He pointed one finger aloft. "One guitar." He pointed down at the stage. "One world." His arm swung wide. "All of us."

Because she's my fave. :)

I'd probably ask her the usual boring questions: How did you get started? How open is your relationship with your husband? What is it like to know that millions of people have seen the most intimate details of your life? If you had children, how would you feel about them seeing your videos? How would you feel about them entering the porn industry? What do you think of the stigmas attached to porn? What advice do you have for those who want to get into the porn industry? What advice do you have about relationships?

I did ask him. He said that he did publish in peer-review journals back in the day, when he was in the computer science industry. He also stated that now that he's not working with the Academia any longer, it's really hard to get anything peer-reviewed.

I like the way your girl Rachel Maddow handled some harsh comments from David Frum. It was kind of awkward but I'd like to see more television debate go down like that. Let's just say she didn't react to criticism like Bill-O does.

We are too busy welcoming the Christ into our hearts. I mean, the Barack.

And, how are we supposed to keep track of what is happening over there when the players all have such funny-sounding names? I think it would help to concretize the situation with some analogies. Or maybe just call Kazim al-Haeri "Harry" and Nouri al-Maliki "Mike."

No. It's hard for me to even choose the lesser of the evils in American politics. I didn't vote this year.

I do feel kind of bad I didn't vote against Prop 8 (the ban on gay marriage) in California, but the registration deadline ended before I knew it. You can register same-day in Minnesota, where I grew up.