01 / recommendation
Likes Vikings.
“I really love Vikings. This is a Viking myth and history book, and it looks at a number of questions.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler / episode intelligence
Ada Palmer on Viking Metaphysics, Contingent Moments, and Censorship
Speakers in the public record
Claim mix
evaluation 5recommendation 3belief 3prediction 2preference 2observation 1
Evidence policy
Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.
Claim ledger
The useful parts, with receipts.
16 published records
02 / belief
I’m not familiar with that question, although I am familiar with the fact that internationally, when we look at things like the movements for women getting the vote in some of the theocratic Arab countries, when women got the vote, they disproportionately voted for the very religious and conservative parties. So, I think that there is a slight preponderance of women who end up supporting religious fringe movements.
“I’m not familiar with that question, although I am familiar with the fact that internationally, when we look at things like the movements for women getting the vote in some of the theocratic Arab countries, when women got the vote, they disproportionately voted for the very religious and conservative parties. So, I think that there is a slight preponderance of women who end up supporting religious fringe movements.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
03 / observation
If you think about the goal being to silence Galileo, the way to silence Galileo is not to make Galileo world-famous by having a giant splashy trial of Galileo.
“If you think about the goal being to silence Galileo, the way to silence Galileo is not to make Galileo world-famous by having a giant splashy trial of Galileo.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
04 / belief
We have essays about how science fiction historically has served to combat censorship and to increase international empathy. So, it’s a collection of detailed reflections on the genre, its history, and just how powerful it is to influence the way we think as a society.
“We have essays about how science fiction historically has served to combat censorship and to increase international empathy. So, it’s a collection of detailed reflections on the genre, its history, and just how powerful it is to influence the way we think as a society.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
05 / belief
I think more of brocade as the cloth of the Renaissance. But certainly, there were major technological advances in velvet production and a number of other very high-end fabric production in the Renaissance.
“I think more of brocade as the cloth of the Renaissance. But certainly, there were major technological advances in velvet production and a number of other very high-end fabric production in the Renaissance.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
06 / prediction
In Renaissance Florence, which is my specialty, one of the things people never expect is that most sorts of day laborers — which is the bottom of the economic totem pole in the city — earned enough to live on working three days a week and spent the other several days of the week enjoying themselves and looking at art. This is not what we expect, but it was actually true.
“In Renaissance Florence, which is my specialty, one of the things people never expect is that most sorts of day laborers — which is the bottom of the economic totem pole in the city — earned enough to live on working three days a week and spent the other several days of the week enjoying themselves and looking at art. This is not what we expect, but it was actually true.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
07 / recommendation
And if anyone enjoys and is interested in the history of censorship and clandestine publishing, I can’t recommend enough the work of Robert Darnton, a brilliant, brilliant historian of clandestine literature. But the same underground bookshops sell all underground materials, which means an underground bookshop sells pornography, and it also sells Voltaire and Rousseau, and it also sells diatribes criticizing the king, and it also sells radical Jansenist theological pamphlets about whether the Holy Spirit derives from the Father and Son equally or from the Father alone.
“And if anyone enjoys and is interested in the history of censorship and clandestine publishing, I can’t recommend enough the work of Robert Darnton, a brilliant, brilliant historian of clandestine literature. But the same underground bookshops sell all underground materials, which means an underground bookshop sells pornography, and it also sells Voltaire and Rousseau, and it also sells diatribes criticizing the king, and it also sells radical Jansenist theological pamphlets about whether the Holy Spirit derives from the Father and Son equally or from the Father alone.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
08 / evaluation
It’s politically dangerous to censor pornography because censorship is a very blunt instrument, and we must always imagine how a tool we set up to censor something will be used in the future by bad actors we disagree with.
“It’s politically dangerous to censor pornography because censorship is a very blunt instrument, and we must always imagine how a tool we set up to censor something will be used in the future by bad actors we disagree with.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
09 / evaluation
I think the problem with “Is history just a kind of clutter” is the just, because what is clutter, if not a record of the human beings who have been in a place and used it and lived it and all of the delightful experiences?
“I think the problem with “Is history just a kind of clutter” is the just, because what is clutter, if not a record of the human beings who have been in a place and used it and lived it and all of the delightful experiences?”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
10 / evaluation
Weirdly, right now, I would say that one of the ones that’s most undervalued is biography, unfortunately, partly because biography was a very fashionable genre in the 19th century and very early 20th century, and so as a reaction against it, it’s been pushed away.
“Weirdly, right now, I would say that one of the ones that’s most undervalued is biography, unfortunately, partly because biography was a very fashionable genre in the 19th century and very early 20th century, and so as a reaction against it, it’s been pushed away.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
11 / evaluation
In Terra Ignota, for example, there are people who are living in a largely genderless future in which only gender-neutral language is used. And people are not intended to publicly acknowledge gender, nonetheless are sexually excited by gender because of its taboo-ness — not because I’m presenting gender as something that is biologically ingrained or innate, but because our society has spent literal thousands of years developing complex ways to perform gender in not only language, but in clothing, in physicality and comportment, in patterns of inflection, in how we walk, which are performed differently in different societies.
“In Terra Ignota, for example, there are people who are living in a largely genderless future in which only gender-neutral language is used. And people are not intended to publicly acknowledge gender, nonetheless are sexually excited by gender because of its taboo-ness — not because I’m presenting gender as something that is biologically ingrained or innate, but because our society has spent literal thousands of years developing complex ways to perform gender in not only language, but in clothing, in physicality and comportment, in patterns of inflection, in how we walk, which are performed differently in different societies.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
12 / evaluation
I would say that a part of that is, those are excellent figures, and they were embraced by and are famous in the anglophone scientific tradition. But there are certainly two dozen equally innovative and important people from Spain or Italy in the same moment — if not more — who aren’t famous in the anglophone histories of science because we center the nationalistically celebrated British Isles area more, if that makes sense.
“I would say that a part of that is, those are excellent figures, and they were embraced by and are famous in the anglophone scientific tradition. But there are certainly two dozen equally innovative and important people from Spain or Italy in the same moment — if not more — who aren’t famous in the anglophone histories of science because we center the nationalistically celebrated British Isles area more, if that makes sense.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
13 / preference
I love bringing people to think about those contingent moments when a tiny decision, made by somebody often unfamous — and Voltaire’s father is not famous the way Voltaire is — nonetheless shapes enormous amounts of what comes after.
“I love bringing people to think about those contingent moments when a tiny decision, made by somebody often unfamous — and Voltaire’s father is not famous the way Voltaire is — nonetheless shapes enormous amounts of what comes after.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
14 / recommendation
If I want to do the most good — because I’m actually changing history — then I need to go back to preclassical Egypt and teach Imhotep the germ theory of disease and handwashing practices because he is the earliest medical authority who has the correct background to be able to understand the germ theory of disease and the correct degree of authority to be able to teach it to people.
“If I want to do the most good — because I’m actually changing history — then I need to go back to preclassical Egypt and teach Imhotep the germ theory of disease and handwashing practices because he is the earliest medical authority who has the correct background to be able to understand the germ theory of disease and the correct degree of authority to be able to teach it to people.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
15 / preference
The Spanish Inquisition is a very separate thing from the other inquisitions that I work on in other regions. And I like to avoid using the word inquisition ever in the singular because it creates the illusion that there was an actual unified .
“The Spanish Inquisition is a very separate thing from the other inquisitions that I work on in other regions. And I like to avoid using the word inquisition ever in the singular because it creates the illusion that there was an actual unified .”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
16 / prediction
The one-word answer is “progress,” counterintuitively, because as Europe’s economy regenerated after the Black Death and merchants started traveling farther, people started circulating from town to town more.
“The one-word answer is “progress,” counterintuitively, because as Europe’s economy regenerated after the Black Death and merchants started traveling farther, people started circulating from town to town more.”
- Speaker
- Ada Palmer
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler