Are Humans Built For The World We Created?

Welcome back to Questionable Content, the midweek drop from Curiosity Theory, where Dr. Dakotah Tyler (@dr.starkid) and Justin Shaifer (@mr.fascinate) talk through the ideas, headlines, and cultural shifts that feel too important to ignore.

In this episode, we dig into the AI hype cycle, speculative bubbles, and why every generation seems convinced that the newest technology is either going to save us or destroy us. We talk about Project Genesis, government and Big Tech partnerships, the economics of bubbles from Isaac Newton to crypto to AI, and whether we’re heading toward another massive correction.

We also get into AI fear narratives, water and energy usage, dopamine inflation, social media burnout, creativity, work, and why modern humans feel strangely disconnected despite living in the most technologically advanced era in history. Along the way, we argue, push back, change our minds, and try to figure out what actually matters.

Chapters

00:00 Questionable Content intro
02:10 Curiosity Theory merch and supporting the show
03:00 Project Genesis and AI in government science
06:30 Immigration, STEM talent, and global competition
09:00 Speculative bubbles and historical hype cycles
11:30 Isaac Newton, the South Sea Bubble, and human psychology
14:00 Dot-com, crypto, and AI comparisons
18:00 NVIDIA, fear, and surviving hype cycles
20:30 AGI, rebranding AI, and moving goalposts
24:00 Is AI actually intelligent
27:00 Dopamine inflation and social media burnout
31:00 Art, creativity, and “enshittification”
35:00 Authenticity, performance, and online identity
39:00 AI water usage and environmental panic
45:00 Energy, data centers, and real concerns
48:00 Jobs, automation, and embodied AI
52:00 Managing AI versus competing with it
56:00 Small teams, creativity, and the future of work
1:00:00 Human adaptation and historical perspective
1:06:00 Meaning, survival, and staying curious

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