The Case of David Ike

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David Ike has always been seen as this kind of absolute lunatic. But extraordinarily, he's kind of reborn now as this conspiracy theorist who manages to sell out hundreds of seat theaters. He seemed to really rise after 9-11. His mad genius is to take all the individual conspiracy theories and connect them all into one grand conspiracy theory. And it involves basically high status people like the Queen and Jeff Kay being secret shape-shifting lizards. That leads us rather nicely to the topic at hand, which is status.

Sam Harris speaks with Will Storr about the role that status plays in human life and culture. They talk about the taboo around caring about status, egalitarianism, the perpetual insecurity of status, how we play multiple status games simultaneously, identity, social connection, dominance, virtue, success, status as an evolved mechanism, gossip, status and health, the consequences of humiliation, the role of social media, status and politics, conspiracy thinking, moral panics, status and philanthropy, and other topics.

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