George Hammond is often invited to speak at events in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is a regular speaker at The Commonwealth Club at 595 Market Street and at Humanities West programs at the Herbst Theatre. To find his next scheduled lecture, please visit: www.commonwealthclub.org and www.humanitieswest.org.
The Patterns in Our Personalities (From the Archive)
In this lecture, given on March 7, 2011 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, George explores the patterns in our emotions, in our desires and in our attitudes. Although our lives are littered with illusions, the core principles that drive our personalities are more successful than usually noticed in our pursuit of happiness and avoidance of pain.
The Pursuit of Happiness (From the Archive)
Very few dispute the idea that the pursuit of happiness
is a fundamental source of all our decisions, but among
idealists it remains suspect as a selfish motivation. This
lecture will present the author’s ideas on what all
varieties of the emotion happiness have in common and how
to make its pursuit more effective.
Hear KALW's March 2003 Broadcast of
The Pursuit of Happiness
Pythagoras Discovers Philosophy(From the Archive)
In this lecture, given on May 3, 2008 at Humanities West’s Athens in its Golden Age program at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, George describes the intellectual influence of Pythagoras on Periclean Athens, and then dramatizes Pythagoras’s return home to Samos, Greece in 550 B.C. after years of educational travel in Egypt and Babylon.
Plato on Trial at Syracuse (From the Archive)
The legendary trial of Plato in 361 B.C. by the citizens of Syracuse, at the behest of Dionysius the Younger, Tyrant of Syracuse, is the setting for a verbal description of the world of Magna Graecia. This lecture given on February 25, 2006 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, to an audience of 750 Humanities West seminar attendees, included an imagined version of Plato's defense (both of the crimes he is accused of and of his ideas).
Copernicus Comments on 20th Century Physics (From the Archive)
In this lecture George impersonates a 536-year-old Copernicus, who recently gained access to the internet and has caught up on 20th Century theoretical physics. Copernicus makes several predictions about which current theories will end up as epicycle dead-ends, and which will lead to a new Copernican Revolution. This lecture was given on October 3, 2009 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco as part of the Humanities West program on Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler: Redefining Our Place in the Universe.
Tax Policies To Die For (From the Archive)
In this lecture, given on April 26, 2010 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, George proposes a one-paragraph tax law to replace all current forms of taxation and redistribution. Using a flat income tax, with a smooth progressive curve due to the use of a break even point, this idea incorporates into redistribution policy a means of knowing how large a safety net is sustainable without bankrupting institutions or future generations.
George Hammond is often invited to speak at events in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is a regular speaker at The Commonwealth Club at 595 Market Street and at Humanities West programs at the Herbst Theatre. To find his next scheduled lecture, please visit: 