The Function of Happiness

David Pinsof is an evolutionary social scientist and a co-creator of the game Cards Against Humanity. He holds a PhD in Psychology from UCLA, where he studied the evolutionary origins of political bullshit, and has written a handful of academic papers, one of which has been cited 152 times and another of which was quoted in the New York Times.     David is the author of the ‘Everything Is Bullshit’ Substack, which aims to poke holes in the stories we tell ourselves. He joins the show to discuss why happiness & morality are bullshit, the difference between bullshit & lying, why we conceal the status monkey, and more!     Important Links:

1. David’s Twitter
2. David’s Substack; Everything is Bullshit
3. Cards Against Humanity
4. The Execution Hypothesis; by Richard Wrangham
5. Discordianism
6. Our podcast with George Mack
7. Our podcast with Will Storr

Show Notes:

1. What is bullshit?
2. The difference between bullshitting and lying
3. Why moralizing is bullshit
4. Concealing the status monkey
5. The origins of Cards Against Humanity
6. How are status games changing?
7. Why happiness is bullshit
8. Happiness as a status symbol
9. How can we escape bullshit?
10. Why we’re driven by negative emotions
11. How to become more positive
12. The role of humor in calling out bullshit
13. MUCH more!

Books Mentioned:

1. On Bullshit; by Harry G. Frankfurt
2. Propaganda; by Edward Bernays
3. Influence: Science and Practice; by Robert Cialdini
4. The Moral Animal: Why We Are The Way We Are; by Robert Wright
5. The Status Game: On Social Position and How We Use It; by Will Storr
6. The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History; by Howard Bloom
7. Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
8. Happy; by Derren Brown
9. Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu
10. Gödel, Escher, Bach; by Douglas Hofstadter