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Julia Galef

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LessWrong
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Julia Galef is a podcaster and journalist. She hosts the official podcast of the New York City Skeptics, the Rationally Speaking podcast. 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.

She 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,[1] and was a founding board member of LessWrong spinoff the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) in Berkeley,[2] 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.[3] She left the board after 2016, the year of the pivot, and as of 2025 is listed under "staff alumni."[4][5] 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.

She was profiled by Kelsey Piper's Future Perfect in 2022.[6]

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