Lukewarm: So you have a newsletter called anti-memetic that I subscribe to. And it's where you explore how people can maybe mitigate the downsides of mimetic desire and get some of those good things in their lives. One way you propose people can do this is by cultivating what you called thick desires. Lukewarm: Walk us through, what's the difference between a thick desire and a thin desire? You could think of a thin desire as this fleeting, temporary, ephemeral, relatively superficial kind of desire That is here today and gone tomorrow.
The last time we had entrepreneur, professor, and author Luke Burgis on the show, he discussed the concept of mimetic desire, which says that we want the things we want because other people want them. Since that time, Luke has continued to explore the idea of mimesis, and how to resist its negative consequences, in his Substack: Anti-Mimetic. Today on the show, Luke and I dig into these ideas and discuss ways we can step outside the tempo, cadences, and priorities that the world would foist upon us and establish our own rhythms for our lives. Luke unpacks what it means to have “thick desires” and become a “political atheist” and how these concepts can help you live a more anti-mimetic life.
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