The Importance of Self-Defeating

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Very, very smart people are actually much better at diluting themselves than maybe not so bright people because what happens is much more practice but also they build better stories. They steal man their own fantasy and hallucination to the point where the indoctrinators themselves are deeply indoctrinated and then they go and spread it everywhere else. The incredible skill and craft within which people do this. It sort of makes me wonder if like this is actually something that people were more aware of centuries ago because we were not yet lying to ourselves that we did not do this. I don't know. There are definitely interpersonal phenomena that we have gotten dumber about. No question. This is on the generally interesting

Alex Danco returns for his seventh (yes, SEVENTH) appearance on Infinite Loops to discuss, as usual, pretty much everything other than the topics we had prepared in advance. This week, we discuss: The two types of lawyers, what Alex learned from reading Don Quixote, Elon the Reply Guy, the psychology of Seinfeld, the best Wall Street Movies, and much more. Important Links:

Show Notes:

The two kinds of lawyers
Medicine, placebo, Don Quixote & theatre
Heroes, villains & main characters
Elon the Reply Guy
Safe words, scams & narrative collapse
Self-deception is multiplayer
The psychology of Seinfeld
To what extent are great innovations already baked into the systems?
Margin Call: The two schools of thought
The best Wall Street movies
MUCH more!

Books Mentioned:

The Theory And Practice Of Gamesmanship Or The Art Of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating; by Stephen Potter
Don Quixote; by Miguel de Cervantes
The Fifth Science; by Exurb1a
The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It; by Will Storr
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History; by Howard K. Bloom
Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships; by Eric Berne
Mendel's Dwarf; by Simon Mawer
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine; by Michael Lewis
The Bonfire of the Vanities; by Tom Wolfe
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron; by Peter Elkind & Bethany McLean