Julia Galef

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Julia Galef is a podcaster and journalist who has worked and volunteered for the skeptic, rationalist, and effective altruism movements.

Career

She hosted the official podcast of the New York City Skeptics, the Rationally Speaking podcast, which was active from 2010 to 2021.[1] For the first five years it was co-hosted with philosopher Massimo Pigliucci and sat between the skeptic, atheist, and LessWrong 'rationalist' communities. In February 2015 (episode 114) Pigliucci stepped down to pursue other projects and more and more guests and questions started to come from LessWrong circles. Many of these had a right-Libertarian flavour, such as the right to self-medicate with an academic who later wrote a textbook on Libertarianism (episode 199),[2] or the problems with implicit association tests with Jesse Singal (episode 192). In 2020 she interviewed Vitalik Buterin about cryptocurrency, prediction markets, and life extension.

Galef presented herself as inquisitive and broad-minded but rarely asked hard questions when young wealthy educated guests suggested radical new policies, usually giving the impression that she was undecided between the different perspectives she was hearing. She also blogs for the Rationally Speaking Blog,[3] and was a founding board member of LessWrong spinoff the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) in Berkeley,[4] which originally marketed itself as an exercise in applied skepticism, but pivoted in 2016 to admit it was all about AI Risk in the LessWrong sense.[5] She left the board after 2016, the year of the pivot, and as of 2025 is listed under "staff alumni."[6][7] In 2021 she published a book arguing for approaching problems with curiosity not a predetermined conclusion, and the podcast went on hiatus. Since then she has been less visible in public.

Galef interviewed Effective Altruist Kelsey Piper in 2021,[8] and was profiled by Piper's Future Perfect in 2022.[9]

In 2021, she was engaged to rationalist and effective altruist Luke Muehlhauser, joining the "rationalists who date other rationalists" club.[10] At that time she often described herself as an effective altruist "because it’s easier to explain, and it doesn’t rub people the wrong way the way ‘rationalist’ does. It’s simpler and friendlier."

Popular talks

Bibliography

  • The Scout Mindset Galef, Julia (Penguin, 2021) ISBN 9780735217553

External links

References

  1. ↑ http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/
  2. ↑ Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman, Libertarianism: The Basics (Routledge, 2025)
  3. ↑ Rationally Speaking Collaborators, Rationally Speaking blog. Retrieved 5-10-2012
  4. ↑ CFAR Collaborators, Center for Applied Rationality. Retrieved 10-5-2012
  5. ↑ http://lesswrong.com/lw/o7o/cfars_new_focus_and_ai_safety/
  6. ↑ Benjamin Wallace, "The Tech Elite’s Favorite Pop Intellectual," New York Magazine Intelligencer, 13 April 2021 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/julia-galef-scout-mindset.html#:~:text=In%202016%2C%20Galef%20left%20CFAR,by%20Penguin%20on%20April%2013.
  7. ↑ https://rationality.org/about/staff
  8. ↑ http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/258-how-to-reason-about-covid-kelsey-piper/
  9. ↑ https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23391917/future-perfect-50-julia-galef-cfar-rationalist
  10. ↑ Benjamin Wallace, "The Tech Elite’s Favorite Pop Intellectual," New York Magazine Intelligencer, 13 April 2021 https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/julia-galef-scout-mindset.html#:~:text=In%202016%2C%20Galef%20left%20CFAR,by%20Penguin%20on%20April%2013.
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