Modern Wisdom

#585 - Adam Mastroianni - Are Smart People Actually Happier?

Feb 4, 2023

In this engaging conversation, Adam Mastroianni, a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School, explores the intriguing relationship between intelligence and happiness. He discusses why super smart individuals can struggle with simple problems and challenges the notion that intelligence leads to fulfillment. Adam critiques conventional productivity methods and examines how societal biases shape our understanding of people's capabilities. With humor and insight, he also touches on fascinating connections between sensory experiences and cognition, making for a thought-provoking discussion.

01:11:37

Creator website

Episode guests

Adam Mastroianni

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

The Paradox of Happiness

02:25

How to Remember Stuff

02:06

The Illusion of a Decline in Morality

01:58

The Danger of Confusing Love and Labor

02:26

Intro

5min

Breaking the Mold: A New Approach to Scientific Publishing

4min

Intelligence vs. Happiness: A Paradox

13min

Challenging the Productivity Paradigm

10min

Exploring Sensory Associations and the Power of Belief

2min

Unpacking Eugenics and Ethical Conversations

22min

Navigating Creativity: Overcoming Obstacles

20min

Reflections on Personal Growth and Patterns of Behavior

2min

Adam Mastroianni is a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School and a writer whose research focuses on how people perceive and misperceive their social worlds.

Does being smart make you happy? Does being dumb make you miserable? Why did the guy who created eugenics also get published in Nature for a revolutionary way to cut a cake? Adam is one of my favourite writers so today I get to ask him all these things.

Expect to learn why super smart people can be so stupid, Adam's issue with the productivity approach of eating frogs, whether you can learn arithmetic by smell, why humans misjudge what other people want to talk about, why we forget so many of the things that we've learned, how come it's trendy to call the general public stupid and much more...

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Extra Stuff:

Follow Adam's Substack - https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/

Check out Adam's website - https://www.adammastroianni.com/

Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/

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