Sheldon Solomon is a social psychologist best known for developing terror management theory concerned with how humans deal with their own sense of mortality. Shaldon's book "The Worm at the Core" is based on 25 years of in-depth research, drawing from innovative experiments conducted around the globe that shows conclusively that the fear of death and the desire to transcend it inspire us to buy expensive cars, crave fame, put our health at risk, and disguise our animal nature. SPONSORS: https://bluechew.com - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code KONCRETE at checkout. EPISODE LINKS: bit.ly/3KNcfgE https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/jonesdannyhttps://twitter.com/jonesdanny JOIN OUR KULT: https://bit.ly/koncretepatreon OUTLINE 0:00 - The #1 driver behind human consciousness 6:49 - Human cognition & awareness of death 23:17 - Death experiments on humans 28:30 - What happens when children learn about death 35:35 - Jordan Peterson 50:23 - Equality of opportunity VS equality of outcome 1:02:03 - John Locke, government, & giving up freedom 1:12:37 - American values & individualism 1:21:55 - How existential dread relates to politics 1:45:43 - Civilization collapse 2:04:32 - Climate change 2:09:52 - Artificial intelligence & immortality 2:16:09 - UFOs & schizophrenia 2:23:18 - Psychedelics 2:35:55 - What happens after we die? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sheldon Solomon is a social psychologist, a philosopher, co-developer of Terror Management Theory, co-author of The Worm at the Core. Please support this channel by supporting our sponsors: – Blinkist: https://blinkist.com/lex – ExpressVPN at https://www.expressvpn.com/lexpod – Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast” Episode links: Sheldon’s Website: https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php The Worm at the Core (book): https://amzn.to/31hQAXH Denial of Death (book): https://amzn.to/329Zxl4 If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/podcast or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 05:34 – Role of death in life 22:57 – Jordan Peterson 53:02 – Humans are both selfish and cooperative 56:57 – Civilization collapse 1:10:07 – Meditating on your mortality 1:16:10 – Kierkegaard and Heidegger 1:33:25 – Elon Musk 1:36:56 – Thinking deeply about death 1:45:53 – Religion 1:56:59 – Consciousness 2:03:39 – Why is Ernest Becker not better known 2:07:09 – AI and mortality 2:21:07 – Academia should welcome renegade thinkers 2:36:33 – Book recommendations 2:43:23 – Advice for young people 2:48:17 – Meaning of life

Sheldon Solomon, Professor of Psychology, talks about terror management theory and the influence of Ernest Becker's 'The Denial of Death'. The discussion covers topics such as self-esteem, Freud's denial of death anxiety, the pursuit of meaning through heroism, flaws in Becker's book, origins of terror management theory, and achieving self-esteem from intrinsic sources.