#25 - AJ Jacobs - The Power of Social Experimentation

30 snips

Jun 21, 2024

AJ Jacobs, known for his extreme social experiments, discusses topics like living biblically and constitutionally, maximizing health, radical honesty in relationships, and the power of puzzles to reframe conflicts and competition in an entertaining and insightful conversation.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Founding Fathers' Epistemic Humility

The Founding Fathers showed epistemic humility and flexibility in their thinking.
James Madison's last words were that he changed his mind, showing intellectual openness.

ANECDOTE

The Year of Living Biblically

A.J. Jacobs lived biblically for a year, strictly following the Bible's rules, including avoiding seats his wife sat on during menstruation.
His wife purposely sat everywhere during her period, forcing him to stand the entire year as per the Bible.

ADVICE

Balance in Health Pursuits

Avoid obsessing over perfect health as stress from obsession is unhealthy.
Prioritize social connections as friendships are linked to longevity and well-being.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

How literally should we take the US Constitution? What about the bible? Should we experiment with radical honesty with strangers? Those are just some of the questions human guinea pig A.J. Jacobs spends his life trying to answer. An author and journalist, he regularly immerses himself into extreme social experiments to understand the world better (and then usually writes a book about it). And this conversation does not disappoint -- we explore his discoveries on everything from love and relationships, competitive puzzling, US politics, health... one of my favourite conversations so far! Chapters: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:06 - Immersions 00:05:47 - Maximizing Health 00:11:14 - Living Biblically 00:19:17 - Living Constitutionally 00:49:50 - Gratitude Experiment 00:53:03 - Extreme Outsourcing 00:55:31 - Relationship Stuff 01:01:13 - Radical Honesty 01:10:43 - Choosing Projects 01:17:43 - Tips for Building Habits 01:22:51 - The Power of Puzzles 01:29:19 - Relationship with Competition Links: ♾️ AJ's Books https://ajjacobs.com/books/ ♾️ The Year of Living Constitutionally https://ajjacobs.com/books/the-year-of-living-constitutionally/ ♾️ Cochrane Report https://www.cochrane.org/ ♾️ Cold Takes Blog https://www.cold-takes.com/ ♾️ The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/49081/the-4-hour-workweek-expanded-and-updated-by-timothy-ferriss/ ♾️ The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555240/the-scout-mindset-by-julia-galef/ ♾️ Stickk.com https://www.stickk.com/ Credits: ♾️ Hosted by Liv Boeree ♾️ Produced & Edited by Raymond Wei ♾️ Audio Mix by Keir Schmidt The Win-Win Podcast: Poker champion Liv Boeree takes to the interview chair to tease apart the complexities of one of the most fundamental parts of human nature: competition. Liv is joined by top philosophers, gamers, artists, technologists, CEOs, scientists, athletes and more to understand how competition manifests in their world, and how to change seemingly win-lose games into Win-Wins.