Made You Think

“The prestige of the government had undoubtedly been lowered considerably by prohibition”, Albert Einstein observed when he visited the United States in the early 1920s. “Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than laws which cannot be enforced.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss Smoke Signals by Martin A. Lee. In this book we take a walk through the history of marijuana, from it being a legal, useful plant and the third largest crop in the U.S to it being illegal and harshly but selectively punished. We see how racism and the variety of political backgrounds have shaped the PR of this ancient plant. “It was a move that served as a pretext for harassing Mexicans. Just as opium legalization in San Francisco 40 years earlier was directed at another despised minority, the Chinese. In each case the target of the prohibition was not the drug so much as those most associated with its use. Typically in the United States drug statutes have been aimed or selectively enforced against a feared or disparaged group within society.” We cover a wide range of topics, including: The history of marijuana, benefits and uses Arguments for and against legalization Political figures and their contribution to The War on Drugs Effects of consumption, psychedelics and edibles Tangents on wellness retreats, duels and fact checking fake news And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Smoke Signals by Martin A. Lee! You can also listen on Google Play Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, or in any other podcasting app by searching “Made You Think.” If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Homo Deus by Yuval Harari for more on the domestication of plants and animals. Or for a totally different type of episode check out Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter as a counter to this linear, fact based book. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Marijuana [00:32] Neolithic period [01:21] Recreational drug use [02:42] Colorado [02:49] World War I [03:57] World War II [03:58] Virginia [05:27] New York [05:28] Maryland [05:31] Washington, DC [05:32] Austin, Texas [05:38] Shaman [06:18] Biochemistry [06:23] THC [06:26] Psychedelics [06:50] Spirit Journeys [06:53] Hindu texts [07:03] Soma [07:06] Moses [07:52] God [07:53] Ten Commandments [07:54] Ayahuasca [07:59] LSD [08:10] High on Mount Sinai? – Hebrew University’s professor’s theory – Reuters [08:18] The Burning Bush (Ex 3:1–6): A study of natural phenomena as manifestation of divine presence in the Old Testament and in African context [08:18] Hebrew University [08:27] Israel [08:28] Sinai Peninsula [08:31] Amazon Jungle [08:35] Higher Consciousness [09:43] Joe Rogan Experience #1133 – Dennis McKenna [10:25] Silicide [10:26] Mushrooms [10:27] Pharmacological research [10:44] Hemp [12:54] CBD [13:56] Omega 3 [15:18] Declaration of Independence [15:28] Cotton [16:22] Tobacco [16:23] Dietary fat [18:33] Duels [18:40] WeWork [19:01] Estrogen [23:26] Cooking oils [24:46] Soy Oil [24:52] Corn Oil [24:52] Canola Oil [24:57] Arizona [25:32] Miraval Retreat [25:38] Mindfulness [25:38] Healing crystals [26:34] Mysticism [26:39] Civil war [28:26] Hashish candy [28:28] Sears Roebuck Catalog [28:30] Sativa [28:53] Indica [28:54] Edibles [30:11] Salvia [31:30] Paris [32:15] Prohibition [32:54] Mexican Revolution [33:35] California [35:03] Texas [35:11] Ivy League [39:23] FDA [41:18] Patents [41:27] Marinol [41:42] Whey protein [41:57] Keto Diet [42:11] Epilepsy [42:29] Skin diseases [42:32] Autoimmune disorders [42:34] Obesity [42:37] Glaucoma [42:56] Parkinson's [43:24] Federal Marijuana Farm [43:52] California Cannabis Law [44:10] Syria [44:48] Marijuana Tax Act [44:57] Federal Bureau of Narcotics [46:17] FBI [46:27] Great Depression [46:28] Opiate Epidemic [47:06] Alcoholism [47:08] Maryland [47:14] GreenDoc [47:31] San Francisco [48:38] Eaze App [48:44] Postmates [48:47] Ubereats [48:48] Skype [49:10] GrubHub [50:17] LaGuardia committee [50:57] New York Mayor [50:59] Jews [52:23] African-Americans [52:23] Mexican Government [52:56] Congress [54:34] Homophobia [54:39] Pro-family [54:43] Amphetamines [55:13] NIDA agency [55:30] Jamaica [55:38] Postpartum Depression [57:23] Nausea [57:25] Stress [57:33] Anxiety [57:35] Cortisol [57:41] Breast milk [57:45] Meditation [58:15] Heroin [01:01:42] Oxycodone [01:01:59] Libertarians [01:01:23] Protein [01:02:54] Amino acids [01:02:56] Iron [01:02:58] Magnesium [01:02:59] Vitamins [01:03:01] Self-medication [01:05:50] Chemo [01:05:54] Leukemia [01:06:04] Endocannabinoid system [01:06:54] Cannabinoid Receptors [01:07:06] Types of cancer [01:08:20] Peripheral nervous system [01:08:52] Immune system [01:08:54] Lymph cells [01:09:01] Endocrine glands [01:09:02] Reproductive organs [01:09:03] Alzheimer’s Disease [01:09:07] MDMA [01:12:00] Books mentioned Smoke Signals by Martin Lee Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter [04:45] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse [05:11] (book episode) The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus [05:17] (book episode) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley [07:08] The Bible [07:52] Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [20:44] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Sapiens by Yuval Harari [20:46] (Nat’s Notes) (part I, part II) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas [31:58] People mentioned Martin A.Lee Albert Einstein [00:06] Barack Obama [02:37] Joe Rogan [10:31] Terence McKenna [10:35] Dennis McKenna [10:40] Thomas Jefferson [15:24] George Washington [16:30] Donald Trump [18:51] Al Capone [36:53] Nassim Taleb [44:36] (Antifragile episode, Skin in the Game episode) Franklin D. Roosevelt [44:59] Malcolm X [45:56] Harry J. Anslinger [46:07] Richard Nixon [51:23] H. R Haldeman [52:03] Newt Gingrich [54:48] Ronald Reagan [58:49] Nancy Reagan [58:53] Bill Clinton [01:05:08] Show Topics 00:31 – This seems to be one of the longest marijuana books in existence. 390 pages but incredibly detailed. So much history of this ancient plant. Includes scientific, medical and recreational history as well as legislative and political history. The book focuses on the US history of marijuana and some within Europe too. 02:09 – The book starts as soon as the U.S was colonized around 1776 and includes insights right through to 2009. The push on recreational legalization started happening right after this book came out. We knew that cannabis had been illegal for a long time but didn’t know how it became that way. It’s strange to consider that there used to be a law that farmers had to grow hemp. Lots of things in the book are counter to what your original impression might be. We are not high for this episode, this book is too linear and fact-based for that. 05:47 – The book includes a little bit of background on the history of cannabis and the uses. We know old tribes around the world were using psychedelics and other plant medicines to induce spirit journeys or healing rituals. It seems to be a global constant that people are using mind-altering drugs for spiritual experiences. There are theories around certain bible stories being a recounting of a psychedelic experience. 07:59 – Ayahuasca as an incredible psychedelic, several plants found in the Amazon are known for their mind altering capabilities. Drugs have been used in rituals for a long time. Cannabis seems to be like revered for that reason in many of these cultures. Marijuana is a psychedelic when consumed certain ways. It would be pretty easy to think that by taking this plant you're communicating with God. You can't really get these experiences any other way. 11:03 – Looking at the benefits of marijuana and how it can change your perception of the world. Dennis McKenna explains that your brain filters everything you interact with in life and you're looking at it through a lens. With psychedelics and even marijuana some of those filters start to fall away. In some ways you start to see things more clearly. You see things from a different perspective. It puts you in an altered state of consciousness. The uses and harms of marijuana – marketing problem vs framing problem. 12:54 – The distinction between hemp and marijuana is really interesting. They are the same plant but owning hemp products is legal as it is non-psychoactive. So much of society depended up on hemp up until the 1800’s, clothes, paper, rope, oil. It is nutritionally dense too. The production of hemp was so important it was a matter of national security. It’s amazing how public opinion of a product can change. It was the third largest crop until it was criminalized. 200 years later people are getting thrown in jail for possession. Are there any things that we take for granted that will just be like completely illegal in the future? 19:01 – WeWork banning meat consumption on expenses. Vegetarianism would contribute to the reduction in numbers of animals if meat consumption goes down. We can’t sustain the numbers of animals if it is not for consumption. In Homo Deus it mentions that 50% of all non-domesticated fauna have either gone extinct or are on the road to extinction in the last 200 years. 21:18 – Argument against eating chicken. Smaller animal with less meat, not eating chicken is the easiest way to reduce the amount of suffering created through your diet. Also for dietary reasons due to excessive estrogen. 25:49 – Wellness retreats and limited health science knowledge. Some people are vegan for health reasons, some for virtue signalling reasons. They only make choices that are externally visibly as being health conscious. Behind the scenes, like cooking with lower quality oil, poorer choices are made. 28:15 – Origin of the word marijuana from Mexico. Modern strains don’t have much CBD any more because they have been bred to have increased THC. THC is the psychoactive component and CBD is the healing component. Eating it is a very different experience to smoking it. Four times as strong as it is digested and processed by the liver. Varying trends over the years in consumption. Chewing, ingesting, smoking. Hashish clubs and dinner, as part of puddings. 32:44 – The term marijuana came from Mexican slang. Prohibitionist started using it take advantage of growing racism against Mexicans. Became attributed to being a Mexican thing. California was the first to outlaw it in 1913. 35:21 – “It was a move that served as a pretext for harassing Mexicans. Just as opium legalization in San Francisco 40 years earlier was directed at another despised minority the Chinese. In each case the target of the prohibition was not the drug so much as those most associated with its use. Typically in the United States drug statutes have been aimed or selectively enforced against a feared or disparaged group within society.” Recurring theme of using drug laws as a form of racism. Looking at the arguments to keep marijuana illegal, some say this is a way to like catch people who are doing other crimes. Also that the police choose to not go after the actual drug dealers. There are more low level consumers who are easier to prosecute. Laws seem to be enforced extremely selectively. By being put in jail that increases the likelihood of becoming a more serious criminal. 40:23 – Marijuana has so many medical uses. As a society we are used to single target drugs but cannabis has over 200 different active compounds. The pharma industry is mostly interested in patentable compounds – a plant isn’t patentable. Cannabis has been found to reduce side effects of lots of conditions. Remarkable stories of it stopping the progress of glaucoma, stopping people turning blind. People in states that do not have legal marijuana access for medical purposes have to rely on friends bringing it to them illegally. 44:36 – False narratives portrayed to the public about the effects of cannabis use. Taleb said that if any time somebody uses children or women as the reason for something being bad, they're probably lying. It was said that “marijuana will make Mexicans and blacks lust after your wives”. 44:59 – Acts of cannabis taxation were brought into force and enforced harshly before people even knew the law existed. The punishment does not fit the crime at all. Harry J. Anslinger put together a campaign against marijuana for more funding and to keep his job. Doctors are now getting tired prescribing opiates and seeing people get addicted to them so are turning to dispensing cannabis where usage is legal. In San Francisco there are startups that will deliver marijuana products in under 30 minutes. 50:47 – So many research initiatives are being done and they overwhelmingly say it's not harmful however Anslinger ignores them. Side effects are debunked and the LaGuardia committee refutes every claim. 51:41 – Moving on in history to Nixon. “Nixon linked cannabis to loudmouth to racial protesters. ‘They're all on drugs’. He brusquely told an aide. Susceptible to bouts of paranoia the commander-in-chief blamed the Jews for spearheading efforts to legalize cannabis. ‘You know, it's a funny thing every one of those bastards that are out there for legalizing marijuana is Jewish, what the Christ is the matter with the Jews Bob?’ Nixon asked his closest advisor HR Haldeman. In private conversations with his inner circle tricky dick also Savaged African-Americans. Nixon emphasized that ‘you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizing this while not appear in to’ Haldeman wrote in his diary.” 52:30 – You can't like just make a law that it's illegal to be black or Jewish but you can pass a law that targets them. Crackdowns on production did nothing except increase the price of marijuana and make more Mexicans want to farm it. Distinctions between alcohol and marijuana. “Nixon, a heavy drinker, drew a rather fuzzy distinction between marijuana and alcohol. ‘A person doesn't drink to get drunk a person drinks to have fun while a person smokes pot to get high’, the president told a friend” “Addicted to sleeping pills and amphetamines and often South on liquor Nixon staggered through the White House in a daze talking to portraits of past presidents that hung on the walls" 54:08 – Everybody who's heavily against legalization is a hypocrite in one way or another they're either alcoholics or they're taking painkillers. It seems like a fairly common theme. Studies on effects of marijuana consumption in Jamaican mothers. “The ganja moms and their kids did not appear to be harmed by marijuana exposure in the womb. There were no physical abnormalities, no cognitive deficits and no neonatal complications nor were there any discernible differences between the three day old babies of mothers who used marijuana and the three-day-old non-exposed babies. They were surprised to discover that after one month the babies of mothers who had used ganja throughout their pregnancy were actually healthier more alert and less fussy than one month old infants whose mothers did not take cannabis. Test results for one month old infants whose mothers also ingested ganja while breastfeeding were even more striking heavily exposed babies were more socially responsive and more autonomically stable than babies is not exposed to cannabis through their mothers milk. Alertness was higher motor and autonomic function or autonomous systems were robust. They were less irritable less likely to demonstrate in balance of tone needed less examiner facilitation than the neonates of non using mothers. And then when they were tested at four and five their team found absolutely no difference between the children of ganja moms and children of non-users.” 56:58 – These studies showed little side effects, seems quite beneficial. Nancy Reagan was a chronic user of prescription tranquilizers. Her daughter basically said her mother's anti-drug advocacy may have been a form of denial. Dangers of overstating the harmful nature of cannabis has other effects. “Uncle Sam cried wolf too often first. Marijuana was said to create maniacal Killers then to produce inert masses of lazy indulges when teens caught on they weren't getting the Straight Dope about marijuana. They were more likely to ignore warnings about genuinely dangerous drugs.” 01:00:26 – Perception of marijuana impacts other harder drugs. Whenever an authority says something is unhealthy we now re-consider if that is true or not. Fortunately we are now in a time we can fact check anything instantly. Nutritional value of red meat and checking what is true. 01:04:04 – It's really clearly a racism thing, whites and blacks use illegal drugs at the same rate however blacks were arrested prosecuted and jailed at much higher rates. This book covers the war on drugs and how it escalated from the 50’s through to the 90’s. Benefits of marijuana, fasting and ketosis on chemo patients. There could be so much more research on these things. Feels like a crime to make something so helpful, illegal. Horribly ironic in some sense because you know Reagan died of Alzheimer's. It seems like doctors just have known of these benefits it for years. 01:10:37 – Oxycontin and number of deaths. It’s crazy how something so deadly is legal. “Purdue Pharma multi-billion dollar blockbuster was linked to thousands of Overdose deaths. Of the almost 500,000 Hospital emergency room visits in the US in 2004 more than 36,000 involved Oxycontin.” No one has ever died from marijuana ever write as far as we know. People will say it's a gateway drug. The only way it's a gateway drug is when it's illegal as it forces you to create a relationship with a dealer. 01:12:53 – Since legalization teen marijuana use is unchanged in both, Colorado and Washington State. Amazing how political the history is, in a mix of racism and fear mongering. All of the research around the benefits is fairly compelling. “The Economist, the blue-chip British magazine editorialized that the FDA's stance on marijuana lacked common sense adding, if cannabis were unknown and bio-prospectors were suddenly to find it in some remote mountain crevice, its discovery would no doubt be hailed as a medical breakthrough. Scientists would praise its potential for treating everything from pain to cancer and marvel at its rich pharmacopoeia, many of whose chemicals mimic vital molecules in the human body.” 01:15:46 – There has also been significant reduction in opioid usage in the states with active dispensaries for cannabis. 01:16:08 – If you’d like to support the show go to patreon.com/madeyouthink. You get access to fun things like all of our bonus material our detailed notes for each episode and hangouts. You can get that at Patreon and we appreciate the support of the show. We like to keep it ad free and natural. We appreciate everyone who is already supporting us there and everyone who is going to go support us after this show. It means a lot. If you haven't left a review on iTunes, we'd really appreciate that as well. Let your friends know about the show and you can always message us on Twitter at @NatEliason and @TheRealNeilS. There are other options at madeyouthinkpodcast.com/support related to shopping. We'd love to hang out with you in the Patreon community and talk more there we'll see you there and we will see you next week. Thanks everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com  

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. In this book we learn about the Legend of Sisyphus and his never-ending toil. How to find meaning in the struggle and hope for the future. “The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks and this fate is no less absurd but it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.” We cover a wide range of topics, including: Meaning of life, Suicide, Law & Death Evolution, the Brain as an Illusion & the Decline of Religion Tangents on Tesla, Twilight Zone & Twitter The Absurd Man, Consciousness and Japanese Duels And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus You can also listen on Google Play Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, or in any other podcasting app by searching “Made You Think.” If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on The Elephant in the Brain for more on taboo subjects of the mind or our episode on The Book of Five Rings for ideas on philosophy and a retrospective look over life. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Syphilis  [02:10] Antibiotics [02:21] Suicides [03:06] Meaning of life [03:35] Ethics [03:56] Metaphysics [03:57] Antinatalism [04:27] Evolution [05:48] Humanity [05:54] Post Modernists [07:05] Last Will and Testament [07:32] Absurd Man [08:50] Freakonomics Podcast – The Suicide Paradox [11:34] Euthanasia [12:30] Libertarianism [13:15] Stroke [13:24] Prohibition [13:48] Morphine [14:02] Life Insurance [14:16] Hospice Care [14:27] Painkiller Medication [16:57] Facilitated Suicide [17:11] Malpractice [17:24] Hospital [17:53] Liability [18:05] DNR [18:53] Washington [19:24] Legality of Cannabis[19:30] Alcohol Laws [19:44] California [19:50] Colorado [19:51] Byzantine [19:57] Mississippi [20:13] Texas [20:14] Pennsylvania [20:14] Nebraska [20:15] Lawsuit [20:44] Small Breweries [20:51] Lobbying [20:53] Alabama [20:58] Government [21:22] Nanny state [21:47] Austin [22:12] Dallas [22:19] Houston [22:20] Pickup Trucks [22:40] Red Pill [23:20] Atheist [23:50] God [23:53] Consciousness [24:36] Solipsism [27:58] World Simulation [28:15] Automaton [28:38] The Matrix [28:44] Costa Rica [34:19] Dog Refuge in Costa Rica [34:24]   Japanese Duels [36:59] Akane no Mai – Westworld episode on Musashi [37:10] Character Map [38:14] Kindle X-Ray [38:57] Game of Thrones [39:35] Emergency Awesome - YouTube [39:51] Click (film) [42:31] Post Religious [46:12] Secular [46:19] Genetics [47:32] Nihilism [47:45] Nationalism [48:01] Dichotomy [49:22] Hedonism [53:24] Ivory Tower [56:07] Intellectual Yet Idiot [56:09] Frugality [57:44] Stoicism [57:45] Minimalism [58:25] Confirmation Bias [59:10] Rome [59:54] Amazon [01:00:10] Amazon Valuation [01:00:23] Microsoft [01:01:13] Netflix [01:01:18] Apple [01:01:25] Nokia [01:01:43] Twitter [01:01:47] iPhone [01:01:49] Google [01:02:08] IMDb [01:02:32] Alexa [01:02:46] Twitch [01:02:59] Zappos [01:03:00] Pillpack [01:03:03] Audible [01:03:05] Kiva Systems [01:03:06] Goodreads [01:03:08] Stack Overflow [01:03:15] Basecamp [01:03:17] Domo [01:03:17] Business Insider [01:03:18] Washington Post [01:03:21] LivingSocial [01:03:27] AmazonBasics [01:03:40] Tesla [01:03:57] Hyperloop Transportation System [01:04:28] Legend of Sisyphus – Wikipedia [01:07:52] Nomad lifestyle [01:22:37] A Nice Place to Visit - Twilight Zone episode [01:23:02] Uncomfortable Reading – Neil Soni [1:24:14] Crony Belief [01:26:06] Lindy Rule [01:26:24] Gestalt [01:26:49] Guardians of the Galaxy [01:26:59] Disney [01:27:08] New York Times [01:27:43] Wall Street Journal [01:27:44] Harvard discrimination [01:31:01] Books mentioned The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [05:01] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Sapiens by Yuval Harari [05:27] (Nat’s notes) (part I, part II) Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch [05:29] (book episode) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett [05:32] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Stranger by Albert Camus [08:22] Mastery by Robert Greene [09:55] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Cowboy Conservatism by Sean Cunningham [21:14] Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [24:23] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler [25:07] (Nat’s notes) (Neil's notes) (book episode) I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter [26:41] Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter [26:47] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi [37:13] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy [38:06] The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey [44:58] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Letters from a Stoic by Seneca [58:36] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Happy Accidents by Morton A. Meyers [01:17:39] (book episode) Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse [01:17:56] (book episode) The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang [01:41:56] (book episode) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [01:25:40] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) People mentioned Albert Camus Anthony Bourdain [03:01] Young Jamie [06:44] Joe Rogan [06:44] Kafka [07:28] Jordan Peterson [23:57] (12 Rules For Life episode) Musashi [37:02] (The Book of Five Rings episode) Adam Sandler [42:22] Yuval Harari [46:58] (Homo Deus episode, Sapiens episodes Part I, Part II) Seneca [57:56] (Letters from a Stoic episode) Tim Ferriss [58:30] Epictetus [59:27] Jeff Bezos [59:53] Elon Musk [01:05:00] Nietzsche [01:06:37] Dostoevsky [01:12:05] Mark Manson [01:21:57] Nassim Taleb [01:25:39] (Antifragile episode, Skin in the Game episode) James Gunn [01:26:47] Sarah Jeong [01:27:57] Andrew Yang [01:41:46] (War on Normal People episode, Q&A episode) Show Topics 01:28 – This week’s episode is Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. It is a philosophical book exploring the meaning of life, questioning if suicide is ever the rational choice. Themes include, humans questioning their cosmic significance and when life is a struggle, is it still worth living? 06:19 – The book is an essay in 4 sections, Absurd Reasoning, Absurd Man, Absurd Creation & Myth of Sisyphus. Camus was insecure about his work, similarly to Kafka who didn’t wish for his uncompleted works to be published after his death. Camus’ other work, The Stranger, was good, entertaining but it’s easy to hate the main character. Having read more by Camus it’s easier to understand his other works better. 10:03 – Taboo topic of suicide, often discussed as a wholly bad thing and something we should prevent at all costs. This book is a personal exploration of whether or not it makes sense. There are plenty of statistics to suggest that talking about suicide and reporting on suicides causes an increase. We have a natural aversion to talking about it. This essay is an argument against it as none of the reasons presented for it are considered convincing. 12:40 – For those in unbearable pain, what is the compassionate thing to do? This directly competes with the human with the human instinct for not ending a life. If someone is in pain, should it be illegal to let them go? Is it cruel and selfish to extend someone’s life artificially? The practice of assisted suicide still exists even though illegal but just via more illicit means. 14:38 – Insurance has no incentive to keep people alive as they stop paying out for care but hospitals stop getting paid when people die. Waiting for people to pass naturally is often a long drawn out process. Hospitals have to be vigilant in these situations before death to avoid malpractice lawsuits. Their desire is to minimize liability when someone does die. It is often a morally difficult decision for families. Legality of negative actions (not giving an intervention) vs positive action (assisting or speeding up the process of dying). 19:31 – Laws around alcohol and cannabis. Texas is very polarized compared to other states like Pennsylvania. 22:37 – “Living naturally is never easy, you continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons. the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you've recognized even instinctively the ridiculous character of that habit. The absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation and the uselessness of suffering” 24:00 – The brain as an illusion. Consciousness doesn’t have much control, just along for the ride. Can often result in a feeling of chaos or overwhelm. Hard to explain this concept to others not familiar with these subjects. Internal vs external experience of “I”, sub personalities and the internal chatter of the mind. It’s hard to consider that everyone experiences that about themselves. Considering everyone has their own unique experiences, it’s easier to think that it’s just me and the world and you’re all part of the simulation. Perhaps everyone else's consciousness is a figment of our imagination. 29:16 – Determinism vs Free Will & Evolution vs God. You can also think there is third option between non free-will and non determinism, where your brain is still deciding things, there is free will but it’s not yours. Very philosophical episode so far, contemplating the randomness in the universe. 32:07 – Man’s attachment to life. We get into the habit of living (surviving) before we acquire the habit of thinking. Animalian Drive, social bonds and the coexistence behaviors of other animals like chimps & dogs. Human’s drive to co-operate overrides our other urges. However scarcity causes confrontation. 35:52 – Violent crime can be thought of as failure of the cognitive mind. Crime levels show that we co-exist together relatively peacefully. Especially considering density of population, e.g on the island of Manhattan, most of which haven’t killed someone while living there. Getting through lengthy books, taking notes and needing character maps to follow plot. 40:27 – “Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep. And Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm. This path is easily followed most of the time but one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement begins. This is important weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness.” Meaningless of the routine. Moment of clarity after extended periods of working hard. The movie Click and fast forwarding through the autonomous parts of life. How often are you in the driver's seat? How often is life on autopilot? Autopilot can used as a function to get out of your own way. You couldn’t function if you were aware of the absurdity of life for your whole day at your factory job. That would cause more suffering. You have to be satisfied with your life so that when the consciousness comes in you don’t feel weary of how absurd it is. 45:38 – “He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world” Changing notions of religion, no longer an unhesitant belief - without religion people are now ‘woke’. Science answers the how and what but doesn’t answer the why. Science and religion should be separate. If religion and nationalism are fading away, what are we a part of then? Jordan Peterson is an example of figureheads that people are looking up to in place of religion. Externalize the meaning of our lives onto these people - like an over obsessive mother who won’t let their child grow up, or obsession in romantic relationships. 49:13 – There is no objective meaning of life however we have an innate longing and desire for meaning - how do you reconcile those two things? “The mind's first step is to distinguish what is true from what is false. However, as soon as the thought reflects on itself what it first discovers is a contradiction. Of whom and what indeed can I say I know that? This heart within me I can feel and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge and the rest is construction for if I tried to seize this self of which I feel sure. If I try to define a to summarize it it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers.” 50:06 – What does the mind do that the brain doesn’t do? We are always stuck within that contradiction. Lots of overlapping themes with GEB episode. “If through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them I cannot for all that apprehend the world. Were I to trace its entire relief with my finger I should not know anymore” Simply having the data from science isn’t the same as understanding and knowing. The mind is like water dripping through fingers, we can’t hold on to the concept. “What is absurd is the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. At this point of his effort, man stands face to face the irrational, he feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” We want to be happy and we want reasons for existing but the world has nothing to offer us we can never find an external explanation for being and so we either have to create one ourselves or just accept that we will never have one. It’s a hard concept to be comfortable with. 52:51 – Chapter 2. Examples of the absurd life. Revolt, Freedom, Passion. It's the actor who recognizes that everything is ephemeral. Life ends at the end of the role. Mini universes are created within plays. The actor - in those 3 hours he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the men in the audience take a lifetime to cover. You can sit and observe an actor but you can never do that with your own life. 54:40 – The Conqueror. Fighting and taking action, demands respect. Not sitting thinking. But they are not contemplating their life. Comparison of the conqueror to business. Choosing action over contemplation. 56:47 – Who is the "I". Discussing this topic makes you very self aware. These observations are not reasons not to pursue things in life. Stoicism and Minimalism are great philosophies for people who don’t want to feel bad about giving up on their goals. However some people interpret Stoicism as saying to go for your goals. There is fun in accomplishment. Your mindset is often reflected in what you’re reading. Our differing mindset applies different meanings to the same books. Our minds don’t hold on to thoughts we disagree with. We extract what is valuable. Our struggles and wealth can play a part on our viewpoint. Epictetus in poverty vs Seneca with wealth. 01:00:00 – Tangent. Modern wealth, Jeff Bezos and the escalating new heights of wealth. Which tech companies would you be least surprised to not exist in 10 years? Amazon, IPO’s, Tesla and stock prices. 01:06:05 – Humans long for happiness and reason but absurdity is born from our need and the silence of the world. It’s a philosophical contradiction. Nietzsche said we had killed God in becoming God ourselves. That we are taking power and trying to be the arbiters of our faith. We decide what is meaningful. The goal is to not wait for heaven in the afterlife but to create that eternal meaningful life here. 01:07:42 – The Myth of Sisyphus. He defied the Gods and put Death in chains so that no human needed to die. When Death was liberated and it became time for Sisyphus to die, he tried to escape. The Gods decided to punish him for all of eternity. He would push a rock up a mountain and upon reaching the top, the rock would roll down again leaving Sisyphus to start over. Is Camus saying that we are all Sisyphus now? Trying to defy death? Stuck in the absurd meaningless tasks of life. Despite being the Absurd Man, Sisyphus has accepted his fate and continues doing it. “He is as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the Gods, his hatred of death and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this Earth.” Trying to live eternal life here on Earth means we have condemned ourselves to the meaningless repetition. We are doing this senseless toil and we are occasionally conscious of it and trying to find meaning. To live a meaningful life you stay in the routine and stay “unwoke”. Once you’re conscious of the absurdity of life and try to do something about it you are trying to become like God. 01:11:59 – However there is meaning in the task itself, there’s a happy ending to this story. Camus was saying there’s not a God but there doesn’t have to be for your life to have meaning. There is hope in the returning steps of Sisyphus. “A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself. I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step, toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour, like a breathing space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the layers of the Gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.” In those moments, walking back down after the rock, he still has some control and he is conscious of it. 01:14:24 – “I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain, one always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks, he too concludes that all is well. The universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futiile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” 01:15:03 – “All of Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing.” A struggle can make your life meaningful. Tackling a goal can be uplifting. Finite and infinite games and horizon thinking idea. Goals as directional, metrics to shoot for. Being obsessed with a goal you ignore other opportunities and miss out on serendipitous discoveries. Tangent on goal setting, and adapting and changing the goal as you progress. Reaching the goal is not what makes you happy. You have to enjoy the struggle. 01:22:29 – The appeal of a nomadic life. However living the easy, happy life isn’t possible all of the time. Only by losing, does winning mean anything. Sisyphus can choose how he feels about the struggle. 01:23:22 – It’s very easy to keep reading books you already agree with, to avoid struggling with difficult feelings. When you read things that challenge your belief, feeling and challenging that discomfort is something necessary to do. Discriminating some races feels wrong while others not. 01:32:30 – “For the rest of men he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life. Sisyphus returning toward his rock in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions, which become his fate, created by him combined under his memories eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus convinced of the holy human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see, who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go, the rock is still rolling.” The book ends on a hopeful note, answers the question of suicide. Even though life may seem absurd, you can find meaning in the absurdity and the struggle. You can find your rock. 01:34:36 – Thank you to everyone supporting us on Patreon. We have some lovely bonus material to go with this episode. The first tier is $5, if you think we’re worth more than a fancy coffee we would love it if you supported the show. At that level you get the bonus material, notes for each episode, community area to talk about the show, Q&A. At the $10 tier you get to join at monthly one-hour hangout for a casual chat. We feel Patreon is a better model for the future than advertising. Check us out there or you can go to MadeYouThinkPodcast.com/Support - we’ve got our sponsors there. We’ve got a link through to Amazon you can bookmark, you can go to Kettle & Fire for their delicious Bone Broth - use code THINK for a discount at checkout. Go to Perfect Keto for their healthy supplements. Four Sigmatic for the great mushroom coffee and Cup and Leaf . You’ll get 20% off with code THINK. Also check out our Made You Think Tea Bundle. 01:41:46 – Keep telling people about the show. If you haven’t listened to the episode with Andrew Yang we’d love to hear what you think about the format. We also love getting book recommendations, let us know on Twitter. I’m @TheRealNeilS and I am @NatEliason Until next time, have a good one everyone. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com.

“Discovery requires serendipity but serendipity is not a chance event alone. It is a process in which a chance of event is seized upon by a creative person who chooses to pay attention to the event, unravel its mystery and find a proper application for it.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss Happy Accidents by Morton A Meyers. In this book we look at the serendipity of so many scientific discoveries and the author suggests how we can foster these chance happenings to make giant leaps in research and discovery. “Penetrating intelligence, keen perception, and sound judgment — is essential to serendipity. The men and women who seized on lucky accidents that happened to them were anything but mindless. In fact, their minds typically had special qualities that enabled them to break out of established paradigms.” We cover a wide range of topics, including: Penicillin, Petri Dishes and Moldy Mary The impact of freedom on research Tangents on Private Schools, Social Media & Conspiracy Theories Modern Diets, Drugs and Toxins turned into cures Self experimentation, Ostracism and changing Medical opinions A possible special kayaking retreat for supporters And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of Happy Accidents by Morton A Meyers! You can also listen on Google Play Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, or in any other podcasting app by searching “Made You Think.” If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episodes on Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb where he shares other stories of scientists trying treatments firsthand, and Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Cornway for more on controversial science, academia and Pharma companies. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Bottom Up Methodology [01:31] Scientific Method [1:48] Penicillin [05:27] LSD Discovery [05:48] Contact High [06:01] Dogmatic [06:19] Petri dishes [08:01] Lifehacker [08:47] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn [9:31] Narrative Fallacy [16:17] Fleming Nobel Prize Speech [17:38] Peoria, Illinois [26:03] Corn Steep Liquor [26:09] Merck [26:48] Squibb [26:48] Pfizer [26:48] World War I [27:42] Aquatic Apes [29:04] Sippy Diet [30:27] Tetracycline Antibiotic [31:47] Acid Inhibitors [34:14] Statins [34:36] Carbohydrates [36:16] LDL [36:20] LDL receptors [36:33] Viagra [38:26] Asbestos [39:46] Facebook Groups [42:14] Discord Groups [42:15] Carnivore Diet [42:49] Shake Shack [44:04] M&M’s [44:07] Purina Dog Food [46:08] Stats of College Debt – Tweet [46:32] CMU [52:40] Choate School [53:45] Sidwell Friends [54:23] Boarding Schools [54:34] Alkylating Agents [57:15] Geneva Convention [58:08] Patreon [01:02:08] Google Trends on episode 35 [1:02:00] Epidemics [01:02:27] SARS [01:02:54] Influenza [01:02:56] Syphilis [01:03:22] Fish Aquarium Antibiotics [01:04:53] FDA [01:07:51] Nazi Testing [01:08:04] Japanese testing on Chinese prisoners [01:08:08] Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male [01:08:19] Eugenics [01:10:18] Darwinism [01:10:31] (related podcast) Russian Gulag [01:11:38] Thalidomide [01:11:52] Diethyl Glycol [01:12:59] Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act [01:13:10] Accutane [01:15:06] Doxycycline [01:16:26] Microbiome [01:16:52] Eczema [01:17:43] Steroids [01:17:36] Spartan Race [01:20:09] Nat’s Instagram [01:20:15] Blockchain [01:21:06] X-Rays [01:22:29] Morphine [01:23:51] American Urological Association [01:24:48] CVS patient statistics for Viagra [01:29:42] Netflix [01:31:18] Spleen [01:32:47] Confirmation bias [01:34:43] Ego death [01:39:38] Dissociative experience [01:39:40] Magic mushrooms [01:40:02] LSD Therapeutic Research Study [01:41:03] NASA [01:46:22] Direct to Consumer Drug Advertising [01:46:29] ADD [01:47:41] Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder [01:47:58] Prozac / Seraphim [01:48:09] Paxil [01:48:18] Female Sexual Dysfunction [01:48:24] Lipitor [01:48:57] Zoloft [01:49:16] UBI [01:53:07] Ethereum [01:59:48] Books mentioned Happy Accidents by Morton A Meyers Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch [00:42] (book episode) The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang [00:51] (book episode) Antifragile by Nassim Taleb [07:02] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn [9:31] Boron Letters by Gary C. Halbert [14:44] Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [30:00] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway [01:02:02]] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway [01:02:02] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [01:02:36] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Words that Work by Frank Luntz [01:28:24] LSD My Problem Child by Albert Hofmann [01:40:51] Brave New World by Aldous Huxley [01:48:46] People mentioned Morton A Meyers David Deutsch [00:42] (Beginning of Infinity episode) Andrew Yang [00:51] (The War on Normal People episode) Winston Churchill [05:04] Alexander Fleming [05:29] Nassim Taleb [07:02] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Thomas Kuhn [09:21] Peter Thiel [10:12] Gary C. Halbert [14:44] Charles Darwin [18:39] (Daniel Dennett’s book) Ernst B Chain [22:31] Moldy Mary [25:56] Barry Marshall [31:07] Robert Koch [32:10] Bill Clinton [01:00:32] George W Bush [01:01:18] Erik M. Conway [01:02:02] Yuval Harari [01:02:45] (Homo Deus episode) (Sapiens part I and part II) FDR [01:13:08] Claude Bernard [01:22:24] Frank Luntz [01:28:24] John William Gofman [1:31:35] President Eisenhower [01:34:48] Timothy Leary [01:40:28] Albert Hofmann [01:40:51] Steve Jobs [01:41:00] Louis Pasteur [01:45:32] Aldous Huxley [01:48:46] Show Topics 00:26 – The book is fun to read, light, enjoyable, easy going. An exploration of scientific discovery and progress and how consistently it is influenced and driven by the role of Serendipity. A case opposite or complementary to the Scientific Method. Serendipity defined as a combination of accidents and sagacity. 05:05 – Not all discoveries are immediately realized or understood. Winston Churchill – “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened”. Penicillin and LSD examples. The dangers of being dogmatic without leaving room for the unexpected. 06:53 – Central theme of the book–How do you foster that serendipitous mindset? Nassim Taleb says that serendipity comes from chance encounters, like a cocktail party. The potential gain from a chance encounter is worth the effort of stepping outside your comfort zone. 07:42 – Trying to harness serendipity for your own benefit. Serendipity through disorder and randomness. Investigating how scientists can foster serendipity in their lab work and how academia and education and research grants, peer review could change because of that. 09:41 – Normal vs revolutionary science, Meyers is dismissive of puzzle solving. Normal science is making incremental improvements on existing knowledge, whereas serendipity fosters revolutionary discoveries as they come from a change in the ordinary methods. 10:51 – Two stages to serendipity. You need something unusual to happen and you have to recognize it to take advantage of it too. 11:21 – Innovation departments rarely come up with paradigm-shifting ideas and products. Need a certain mindset to make the most of these opportunities. Reason, intuition and imagination. Too much experience in a field can cloud your judgement on new ideas. 13:51 – The book is primarily about serendipity in medicine and science but it can be applied to most fields. Breaking out of the norm and finding inspiration for innovation in other industries. Looking at magazines to apply to blog copywriting. 15:33 – "Analogical thinking has certainly been a cornerstone of science." Another theme in the book is looking for one thing but ending up on a totally different path. All of the people making discoveries seemed to have a level of independence in their research to follow a new path when it interests them. The narrative fallacy involved in serendipitous scientific discovery or startups growth. 17:40 – Alexander Fleming and discovery of Penicillin as anti-bacterial.  Fleming said that if he was working on a research team at the time it would have been ignored as it wasn’t what he was working on. Being free allows you to pursue these anomalies. 19:04 – Darwin and the finches in the Galapagos. Being told to go and study something brings different results than if you’re free to follow your own curiosity. The constraints of research impose harmful limits on discoveries. 19:54 – Structure of the book is Introduction of the premise, 30+ chapters of examples and the conclusion. Myers suggests at the end of the book that the structure for scientific research and funding is counter to the ability for these serendipitous events to happen. 20:50 – More on Fleming and Penicillin. Odds of it happening were astronomically low. He was away for two weeks and on returning and viewing his petri dishes on his desk discovered an anti-bacterial zone around the mold. It wasn’t until 7 years later that another researcher realized what he had found. 23:09 – For Fleming it took a number of environmental factors that allowed Penicillin to be discovered at all: heat, location, time. Penicillin wasn’t originally pitched as a drug, originally suggested as a way to isolate bacterial colonies. Then there was the huge scale up and production process of the drug. Peoria (IL), the role of corn syrup, and the mold discovered by chance. 29:00 – Bonus Material Discussion, Aquatic Apes, Patreon, future episode ideas. 29:52 – Causes of ulcers, used to be thought of as stress and spicy food. Discovery that it is caused by bacteria in 1981. Marshall ran an experiment on himself to take the bacteria, give himself ulcers and cure himself with antibiotics. Pharmaceutical industry had a strong incentive to not prove this as the cause, current drugs of acid inhibitors were reaching sales of $6 Billion dollars in 1992. 35:04 – Pharma companies lobbying to decrease acceptable cholesterol ranges to induce more people into treatments. Changing opinions of statins within last 10 years. Effects of low cholesterol on longevity, links to all-cause mortality. Reducing cholesterol and precursors to creating testosterone in diet has lead to a reduction in testosterone and erectile dysfunction requiring a need for Viagra. 39:59 – What are we currently doing in society now that we will look back on and question in the future? Possible future problems associated with over consumption of social media. Mental and physical health complaints are unknown. 41:53 – Pull away in society from open sharing, moving towards private communities. Effectiveness of diets, feeling good vs having long term health benefits. Benefits of adopting a new diet may be equal to reducing other harmful choices – like stopping drinking for a month. The changing conventions of meal-times, quality of dog food, college debt. 47:12 – Tangent. Education and the need to change the K through 12 program instead of starting with College reform. The benefits of private vs public school. Mixing with different socioeconomic backgrounds, expense of private school. Both build very different sets of social and academic skills. Bay Area dystopia, where citizens pay lots in taxes that go into public schools, but parents end choosing private ones. 55:53 – Chemical weapons, World Wars and the changing use of toxins into cures. Bombing a ship leading to the first chemo treatments for cancer. North Korea and the development of nuclear tech (more info in the Bonus material). Google health trends being able to predict health outbreaks based on search volume. Sex hormones and noticing the change of tumors in animals after castration. 01:07:55 – Consequences of controversial testing on wartime prisoners that have given us useful data. Study of African-American men with syphilis, they were told they were having free medical treatment but they were mislead and were being studied for the untreated effects of syphilis over 40 years. Possibilities of current testing on prisoners or other conspiracies. 01:11:52 – History of Thalidomide being marketed as a sedative and pain management. Widely distributed before it was realized it had the side effect of severely inhibiting fetal development. U.S avoided this because the FDA already setup due to a drug being administered alongside Diethyl Glycol which was toxic, killing over 100 children. Testing required before products could be marketed. Thalidomide now used as an anti-cancer drug as it inhibits new blood vessel growth. 01:15:05 – Acne treatments and the imbalanced side-effects on fertility. Use of cleanser on the face strips natural oils. Use of antibiotics for acne which causes destruction of the microbiome. Latex gloves that may transmit more bacteria than your hands. Effects of steroids and keto on curing eczema. Nat not using shampoo even after a Spartan race. Body naturally cleansing. 01:21:06 – Tangents, aquatic apes, blockchain, negative reviews. 01:21:59 – Heart chapter and testing of catheterization. Self-experimentation and the need to prove theories. Ostracism and dangerous procedures. 01:24:44 – Viagra, originally for treating angina, it was found that this medication increased blood flow and became a cure for impotence – renamed to erectile dysfunction. Self-experimentation on erectile dysfunction. "The annual scientific meeting of the American Urologic Association is usually a pretty staid Affair but one meeting has entered the annals of folklore in the early 1980s. During the course of his lecture on the effectiveness of injecting substances directly into the penis to increase blood flow one urologist announced that he had performed such injections on himself only an hour earlier. Stepping from behind the lectern and he dropped his trousers and proudly demonstrated to the audience his own erect manhood. Urologists who attended this meeting still shake their heads at the memory." 01:28:00 – The power of names and the words used, like pro-life and pro-choice. How you phrase something changes the impact. Pharmaceuticals changing the names of conditions to promote sales of new drugs. Sales of Viagra were $780 Million in the first 9 months of 1998. 01:30:02 – 1% of women take Viagra to increase arousal and sensation and orgasm strength. Netflix’s biggest competitor is sleep, Viagra’s biggest competitor is death. 01:31:48 – Cholesterol testing on rabbits. Cholesterol data seems outdated with the book being 11 years old. Comparison of Chinese soldiers and lifestyle and diet. Lack of nutrition education in Doctors, mostly educated by pharmaceutical companies. People seem to want to take a pill rather than change their lifestyle or diet and doctors have lack of trust in the patient that they will try to improve their own situation. 01:38:07 – Psychiatric stuff. Hoffman discovering LSD by accidentally pouring it over his skin. LSD microdosing experiences. 01:42:40 – Tangents on kayaking, LSD microdosing and the Made You Think – Patreon $1000 Tier. 01:43:06 – Conclusion. Modern sciences are antithetical to the process of serendipity and how our institutions penalize our ability to take advantage of it. Government contracts and grants impose constraints. If you're getting money to research a specific topic you will be disincentivized from exploring things that deviates. If you're a free agent, then you can run down those rabbit holes. 01:44:31 – Peer reviews. Most businesses are judged by their customers but academia is judged solely by their peers. Ostracism as a consequence of investigating fringe theories. Direct to consumer advertising for drugs. Diseases and disorders that seems to be created and renamed just to increase drug sales. Long terms effects of drugs. 01:52:19 – On Patreon you get all kinds of goodies. Bonus materials, detailed notes for each episode and book highlights. You get a space to discuss the show with both of us. You can also join for our monthly live Hangouts. If you join the $1000 a month tier you can join us for a major excursion – Made You Trip! 01:54:57 – Patreon is a great way to support the show and let us keep doing this ad free. So we don't have to break up the episode with ads and we keep rolling with the tangents. 01:55:48 – Leave a review on iTunes that is super helpful for us because we show up as a recommended podcast and also is a great way for us to book guests. Other ways to support the show, you can go MadeYouThinkPodcast.com/support and tell your friends. 01:57:58 – If you want to talk to us, you can talk to us on Twitter anytime. I'm @TheRealNeilS and I am @NatEliason. If you're shopping on Amazon click through on our link. We super appreciate that.  All right, we will see everyone next week. See you guys next time. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

“That's really one of the most powerful things about Universal Basic Income. You start to believe in a sense of abundance and possibility.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat speak to Andrew Yang, the author of The War on Normal People, a follow up to our previous book episode. Today we are discussing the possibility of Universal Basic Income for all. “The bigger people think, the more they wake up. We can make this real together.” We cover a wide range of topics, including : Objections and barriers to adopting UBI The cost of UBI and if can we afford it Video games vs the real world Social Credit Systems and Basic Jobs VAT and economic migration Trump and running for president in 2020 And much more. Please enjoy this interview with the author of The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang. You can also listen on Google Play Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, or in any other podcasting app by searching “Made You Think.” If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and our episode on Emergency by Neil Strauss for related topics discussed in today’s show. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Universal Basic Income [00:30] Roosevelt Institute [04:02] VAT [06:16] Freedom Dividend [07:49] Twitch [10:00] Social Credits [13:24] World of Warcraft [13:50] Pink Collar Jobs [11:19] Blockchain [16:45] (Crypto episode) Ypsilanti, Michigan [18:15] Yang Ventures [18:18] Mynt  [18:31] UBI Pilots [18:59] Solyndra [20:18] The Hamptons [34:32] Enlightened Self-Interest [34:38] Allegiance [30:36] Scrooge McDuck [39:48] Reddit Andrew Yang AMA [43:35] State of the Union Address [43:47] Yang2020.com [47:23] One For Humanity [48:14] Cryptocurrency [54:09] (Crypto episode) Joe Rogan Podcast [59:40] Tim Ferriss Podcast [59:41] Vocal fry [01:01:59] Books Mentioned The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang [00:17] (book episode) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [07:10] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson [35:20] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Emergency by Neil Strauss [38:08] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Raising the Floor by Andy Stern [47:44] Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [52:02] (Nat’s Notes) (Neil’s Notes) (book episode) Sapiens by Yuval Harari [53:22] (Nat’s Notes) (part 1, part 2) Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch [01:00:40] (book episode) College Dropout by Kanye West [01:00:56] (book episode) People Mentioned Andrew Yang Yuval Harari [07:06] Sam Altman [19:09] Chris Hughes [19:10] Cory Booker [25:11] Jeff Bezos [32:04] Donald Trump [40:43] Barack Obama [41:50] Bernie Sanders [41:47] Chris Rock [42:31] George Bush [42:34] Jesus Christ [42:41] Kanye West [1:03:24] Questions Asked 01:01 – What are the main challenges and objections to UBI? 01:36 – Are any of these objections compelling? 05:04 – Isn’t UBI just cycling money from the top consumers to those that are below $120k a year in spending? 08:18 – Do you see any differing objections between liberals and conservatives to UBI? 09:24 – Do you think there will be a portion of society that replaces work with video games and do you see a growth in the gaming industry because of UBI? 14:40 – How would we implement the social credits app in cities for real? 17:33 – Does it have to be the government that starts a social credit initiative? 20:35 – If you were elected, how are you viewing the idea battleground? 21:10 – How do you get past the inertia to convince people UBI is necessary? 25:00 – How do you feel about basic jobs? 26:40 – What makes the basic jobs idea attractive to other candidates and some voters? 29:15 – Is making the majority of the population reliant on a government subsidy making it easier for a totalitarian president to take control after you? 30:58 – You said in the book we are moving to a winner-take-all economy in a variety of fields, where you have a handful of companies controlling Government policy. Do you see a future where that is possible and how do you stop that? 35:20 – Have you read Sovereign Individual? 35:32 – In Sovereign Individual there is an idea that as wealth disparity grows, eventually the elite will separate themselves from the rest of the population. Do you see any concern for that? 38:54 – Will we see countries trying to attract citizens to move and will VAT be a factor in that? 39:59 – How bad would it have to be before more people left? What’s the threshold? 41:24 – Do you think that Trump getting elected is helpful to someone who’s not a career politician, helping them get elected in 2020? 45:40 – Has communicating a very statistics and quantitative approach been a struggle for you when speaking to audiences? So much of politics is about the emotional appearance. How have you adapted to that? 54:09 – Extra Question that we didn’t get to ask - Would adoption of a VAT accelerate a crypto economy and how does that change the estimates of how we would pay for UBI? Show Topics 1:11 – The main objections to UBI are : How can we afford it? Will it turn people into less happy, lazy wastrels? Won’t it cause mass inflation? 1:44 – Universal Basic Income is affordable but we’ve poorly managed budgets in the past and there is stigma around hoarding money. We need to believe in sense of abundance and possibility. Culture and mental barriers and block around hoarding money. 3:28 – Cost of UBI in the US would cost $2 Trillion. It would be $1000 per month given to each person, we call it the Freedom Dividend. It would cause economy growth due to increased taxes and spending. 4:27 – Benefits of UBI. We would get more out than we put in. It reduces health issues, crime and has many secondary benefits to putting the money into the hands of the people. 05:57 – How the money would be spent. The wealthy vs the majority. VAT taking from those who spend the most and given to the bottom 80%. Money sitting in bank accounts causes a stagnant economy. 07:27 – Basic Income as both appealing Liberals and Conservatives. Most people seem to think it is impossible, shows decline of society and lack of faith in democracy. 10:21 – Video games and the growth of the eSports economy. Parents as an early form of UBI for large groups of young people. Will additional income cause people to withdraw into games more or will it allow them to participate in real life more? 11:03 – Lack of appealing opportunities for men in the real world. The digital world as the cheapest form of entertainment, more money equals more options and less time spent in the digital world. 12:05 – Games used as a sense of accomplishment and emotional highs, which can wear off over time. UBI will give opportunities at a time when people are looking for something new. 13:24 – Social credits as a socially constructive gamification of the real world. Gaming impulse transferred into the real world and other outlets. Current philanthropic trials are small by comparison and Government could apply resources. 20:02 – Yang’s plans as president. Government currently too risk averse. Electing a president with UBI as a main objective would be a huge step towards it. Congress people would have to listen to their constituents. 24:08 – Nothing is as effective as cash to people when talking about control of programs. People losing faith in government programs. Basic jobs as a bad idea, no long term value in unproductive work as more jobs get automated. Unproductive jobs lead to unhappy people. Instead find out what work is inside of each person. The idea of Basic jobs doesn’t value people. Valuing people as stakeholders and not serves. 30:10 – People heading towards reliance on the government. UBI as better way, gives people a higher-level of integrity and self-determination. Any government change to UBI would cause riots and is still a powerful check on the government. Doing nothing will lead to bloodshed and revolution. Antitrust laws and harm to consumers. 32:38 – Defining human success independent of economic or monetary measures. Wealth getting concentrated in ever smaller pools is bad for all businesses. Riots in America looking more likely, how can we prevent that instead of waiting. 37:54 – Enlightened self-interest and lifting others up. Renouncing citizenship for tax reasons. Ad campaigns trying to encourage economic migration. VAT not a powerful factor. 40:17 – Lack of entrepreneurial migrants. Electing Andrew Yang would be a compelling message to immigrants. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian guy that likes facts and figures. Clear message through recent politics, people are desperate for change. 44:54 – Using Universal Based Income as a lever to address a crisis. The road to the 2020 election. Challenge of evolving as a person over time. Humanity First and One For Humanity project. Reduction of labor as a central role, the rise of automation and an economy that values people first. 48:36 – Possibility of a follow-up episode. Listeners, send in any questions. Next time we could dive deeper on Venture For America and his other policies. Check out his site Yang2020.com. Follow Andrew on Twitter @AndrewYangVFA and @andrewyang2020 53:29 – Influences of Yuval Harari. Andrew’s perspective is super refreshing for a politician. Getting other authors on the podcast. 57:44 – If you’re enjoying this show we would love to see you over on our Patreon page. You get the bonus material, detailed book notes, all of our questions from interviews and upcoming books and the opportunity to join Neil and I on a live Q&A hangout. Patreon helps us to keep the show as we want it without ads interrupting the flow of the conversation. 01:01:22 – Keep telling your friends about the show, leave a review on iTunes. It helps us to show as up as a recommended podcast. We read all of them and we super appreciate it. If you want to support the podcast in another way you can go to MadeYouThinkPodcast.com/Support. We do have a bunch of products there that we use on a regular basis. If you click through or use the coupon code it does help support the show, I guess we should mention Amazon as well as listed on there and you can go do your normal shopping on Amazon doesn't cost you anything. 01:03:08 – The interview format is new for us so we’d love to know what you think. Send us an e-mail or tweet. On Twitter I’m @TheRealNeilS and I’m @NatEliason and we will talk to you there, see you all next week. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

"The normal American did not graduate from college and doesn't have an associate's degree. He or she perhaps attended college for one year or graduated from high school. She or he has a net worth of approximately $36,000, about $6,000 excluding home and vehicle equity and lives paycheck to paycheck. She or he has less than $500 in flexible savings and minimal assets invested in the stock market. These are median statistics with 50% of Americans below these levels” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss The War On Normal People By Andrew Yang. This book is a balanced and optimistic view on Universal Basic Income, the economic impact of the automation of jobs and our options for the future. "half of American households already rely on the government for direct income in some form." We cover a wide range of topics, including: Universal Basic Income and Government benefits Statistics on unemployment, labor and the changing workforce Technology, automation and robot dog walkers Centralization of certain jobs in certain cities Remote work, freelancers, the gig economy Taxes, Cryptocurrencies & Video Games Tangents on Fortnite, Rolex and ad revenue in sports And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The War On Normal People By Andrew Yang. You can also listen on Google Play Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, or in any other podcasting app by searching “Made You Think.” If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Sovereign Individual for opposing views. Along with our episode on The Elephant In The Brain for more on human nature and the desire for success. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Waking Up Podcast [01:08] Universal Basic Income [02:48] Mass Shooters [04:43] Social Revolution [04:46] Median Statistics [05:33] Labor Participation Rate [06:22] Manufacturing States [12:33] Detroit Riots [13:11] W-2 [13:43] Retraining Programs [15:12] Technology Industrial Wave [15:43] Amazon Warehouses [17:17] Walmart [17:25] Paralegals [19:33] The Sims [23:02] Hive Mind [23:27] UpWork [32:56] Slack [36:40] Esports [37:00] Twitch [37:09] Extremistan [37:12] Mediocristan [37:14] Gig Economy [40:44] Rover [40:52] Wag [40:52] Twilight Zone [42:10] Flywheel effect [45:35] Lincoln University [47:24] Biggest question Nat had have from reading @AndrewYangVFA's UBI book (on Twitter) [55:00] Unlimited Brewing [55:55] The world’s top economy: the US vs China in five charts [57:50] Cryptocurrencies [01:05:50] (Crypto episode) TransferWise [01:09:05] Blockchain [01:09:26] Winner-takes-all effect [01:09:54] Patreon Bonus Material [01:12:19] Fortnite [01:17:46] Call of Duty [01:18:03] Mad Max [01:21:11] ISIS [01:21:17] Social Credits [01:22:48] Million Dollar Bill [01:22:48] Vietnamese Dong [01:23:51] Trump’s Tax Plan [01:27:20] Totalitarianism Article [1:31:45] Yang2020.com [01:31:58] The New Deal [1:32:38] The Great Depression [01:33:40] Obamacare [01:35:22] Selection Bias [01:39:03] Books mentioned The War On Normal People by Andrew Yang Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson [03:17] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama [01:12:47] Sapiens by Yuval Harari [01:18:47] (Nat’s Notes) (part 1) (part 2) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [01:18:48] (Nat’s Notes) (book episode) Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [01:31:47] (Nat’s Notes) (Neil’s Notes) (book episode) Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson [01:38:43] (book episode) People mentioned Andrew Yang Sam Harris [01:00] Winston Churchill [04:25] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [37:06] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Donald Trump [01:03:10] Barack Obama [01:12:12] Youval Harari [01:19:04] Robin Hanson [01:38:05] Show Topics 01:42 – The book feels optimistic and fairly balanced and offers Universal Basic Income as a good solution to our current situation. Andrew sets the stage well with the magnitude of the problem. 03:04 – We have both come from a place of not thinking UBI was a good solution and our views have been changed several times on this, since reading Sovereign Individual and now this. 04:19 – It feels like this could the best of the option that we currently have if we want to maintain this current system and avoid social revolution. 05:10 – Yang starts the book off by emphasizing the scale of the problem using median statistics or labor participation rate, unemployment rate and number of disability claimants. 06:30 – There is a massive number of people who are working age but are no longer looking for work. This is not evident when viewing the unemployment rate as they are discounted. However the labor participation rate is 63% which is lower that all other industrialized economies. 06:58 – One in three people have left the job market entirely. They have self-selected to no longer participate in the search for work and are not counted as unemployed. 08:09 – "half of American households already rely on the government for direct income in some form.". The majority of these are on disability for muscular tissue issues, mood disorders, anxiety or depression. 09:09 – There is a whole industry of lawyers who help people get onto disability who then take a cut of the back dated payments. 10:26 – Similarities between the level of disability payments and the proposition of UBI. However with disability payments, you are dis-incentivized from trying to find work as payments would stop. This causes a large number of people to stay on disability for longer and find untraceable ways of earning additional income. 11:10 – Yang says that 94% of all jobs created within the last 10 years were temporary contractor jobs with no benefits. People are not going to risk their $12,000 disability payment for a job at $7 per hour. 11:35 – Disability has less than 1% churn rate, very few people get off it. It’s like the anti-SaaS startup. 11:59 – Increases in disability payments correlate to the areas with the biggest job losses. Highest in the old manufacturing states. Does the government recognize that these payments are just another type of welfare for those that have lost their jobs? 12:31 – In Michigan of the 310,000 who left the workforce between 2003 and 2013 half went on to take disability payments. They don’t have any other options available. 13:29 – The Government doesn’t seem to actively fight benefit fraud with more people joining but few leaving. Missing of checks to see who is health is improving enough to move back into work. 14:29 – Inefficiencies of job retraining programs and the lack of transferable skills between old industries losing jobs and new (mostly technical) industries with jobs available. "The test is not 'Will there be new jobs we haven't predicted yet that appear?' Of course there will be. The real test is 'Will there be millions of new jobs for middle-aged people with low skills and levels of education near the places they currently reside'. And the answer to that seems almost certainly no." 15:44 – In previous industrial waves people have been able to adapt due to similarities of skill. Automation is now removing low skilled jobs entirely. Automation in car factories, Amazon warehouses. 18:30 – Automation isn’t solely for low skilled, Blue Collar jobs. Anything repetitive and routine can be automated. This will impact White Collar workers too. “Routine jobs of all stripes are those most under threat from AI and Automation and in time more categories of jobs will be affected.” 19:21 – Automation in law, research and reduction in personnel. Repetition as a tool for learning. Loss of high-level expertise as no-one has the foundational knowledge that comes from early repetition. 20:42 – Tangent. A Science Fiction story to make you think! In a distant future, expertise on computers has been lost and no one knows how to resolve a computer bug. A future where humans are reliant on computers to retain the knowledge for them. 22:42 – Computers no longer needing humans. The Sims, the hive mind of the Internet. Memes, Russian hackers, and Wikipedia created by AI destroying humanity. 25:19 – Assumptions of UBI imply an increase of entrepreneurship. What happens when you pay people to not work? Current level of cash wealth for the average American is $500. The expense of Healthcare means that one ER visit can put people into long term financial difficulty. Defaulted medical bills are then just another form of welfare. 27:50 – Median salary in the US is $31,000. Cost of living in New York and San Francisco. Impact cost of living has on average job wages. Manhattan vs Brooklyn. 32:14 – The author criticizes the idea that those that lose their job can just start working remotely. Those in the US can’t compete due to cost of living with locations like the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Tech skills required are also a barrier to entry. 36:10 – Professional eSports players and the popularity of Twitch and the platform reinforcing the popular streamers causes them to be more popular. Extremistan vs Mediocristan. 39:11 – Lack of service jobs, the rise of the gig economy, dog walking apps. Robot dogs and cyborg owners. 42:39 – Hyper-concentration of money and talent in 6 cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC. Reinforcing loop effect. Venture Capital money and secondary cities that are on the rise. The effects of anchor companies in smaller cities. 50:01 – Potential to see an exodus of people moving away from high cost of living areas due to remote work. The increase of remote working technologies which helps team collaboration. 52:32 – Geography is destiny. Jobs disappear where society falls apart and the smartest leave first. Reduction in families relocating across state lines. 54:14 – The ‘useless’ class being subsidized by the 1%. Will this cause talent to leave on a international level? Yang says inertia, lower taxes, standard of Education keep people in the U.S. 55:40 – VAT, international transactions, selling to the UK from the US. Micro economies and city-states. China GDP. Impact of taxes in lower cost of living regions. 01:01:50 – Moving abroad, spending in different economies. Moving to Canada because of Trump. Tipping point for people leaving their state or country because of high tax levels. 01:05:41 – Tangent. Cryptocurrencies as an alternative to being taxed. Adoption of Bitcoin and untraceable payment systems. Exchange rates and paying freelancers. TransferWise, PayPal. UBI as being a better option than the status quo. 01:10:20 – Yang doesn’t present UBI as a perfect solution but it’s an option to divert us from the direction we are already headed in. 1:12:00 – If you want to hear Neil’s comments about Obama’s book, support us on Patreon and listen to the bonus material for this episode. 01:13:14 – The explosion in popularity of video games for unemployed men. The average playing time went from 3 hours per week to 8 hours per week in just a few years. 01:14:32 – E-sports, ad revenue, disposable income of an unemployed audience. Comparisons with NBA, NFL, tennis, golf and other sports. Sponsorships vs engagement of an audience. 01:16:35 – Power of in-app purchases, revenue making game mechanics. Popularity of Fortnite, going to $318MM in monthly revenue in just eight months. Comparisons with Call of Duty, game play and enjoyment. 01:18:55 – Harari's comments on the ‘useless’ class moving to VR as a stimulus. Swapping religion for video games. Lack of creative outlets and sense of reward in modern life. People turning to games for the feeling of progress and adventure. 01:20:31 – Implications of having unemployed young men roam the streets are a recipe for disaster. Preventing social unrest of large group of unemployed people by videogames. 01:21:35 – Lack of stimulation causes unwanted behaviors. People don’t always direct their energy in productive ways. Social credit apps, psychology of spending millions in other currencies. 01:24:07 – UBI as an economic stimulus, makes new businesses more viable. Additional disposable income. Decreasing customers causes decreasing investment. Spending on subscriptions like Netflix causes income to flow back to those already rich cities. 01:26:55 – Trump’s tax plan, government waste. UBI puts money in the hands of the individual and reduces government control. Appealing to both political sides - as a safety net and as a way for individuals to have more control. 01:29:52 – Welfare increasing risk of totalitarianism. Government and citizens in harmony - taxes in exchange for infrastructure and protection. Does reducing taxes reduce how much the government listens to the people? 01:31:36 – Andrew Yang is a presidential candidate for 2020 against Trump. Danger of using UBI as a re-election tactic. An issue so powerful could lead to a potential dictatorship. The Great Depression, introduction of Social Security. Congress, altruistic presidents and Obamacare. 01:35:47 – If you want to hear more about some of our thoughts related to the book get the bonus material for this episode at Patreon. We got to say it a lot of times to make sure everyone remembers what it is. Patreon.com/madeyouthink 01:38:03 – You can also leave a review for this show on iTunes. That is probably one of the best ways to support the show, that helps us show up as a recommended podcast. It makes us feel good. It'll make our mother's proud of us. Keep tweeting about it. We love hearing from you guys and getting your questions and your thoughts. 01:40:23 – You can check out some deals from our wonderful sponsors at MadeYouThinkPodcast.com/Support. That's where you can find the mushroom coffee, the Perfect Keto ketones the Kettle and Fire bone broth, the Cup and Leaf tea and also you can click through to Amazon. Buy anything there and that helps support the show as well. This is a topic we're definitely interested in so if there are articles, other books, videos definitely send them our way on Twitter. I’m @TheRealNeilS and I’m @NatEliason. See you guys next week. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

“Of every thousand dollars spent in so-called charity today, it is probable that $950 is unwisely spent, so spent indeed as to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure.” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie. An essay written later in Carnegie’s life on his philosophy on using money, wealth (and the power that comes with it) well. While still very relevant today it goes against the idea that successful business people are bad people. It’s a model for how wealthy people should use their money for the good of the community. "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." We cover a wide range of topics, including: Billionaires through the ages Monopolies and antitrust laws Ways of disposing of wealth (including our Patreon page) Tangents on life expectancy, intergalactic travel and cyborg pets! Carnegie’s legacy of libraries, music halls and universities Using wealth to enrich the lives of others How to help others and effective altruism And so much more! Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie You can also listen on Google Play Music, SoundCloud, YouTube, or in any other podcasting app by searching “Made You Think.” If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on The Psychology of Human Misjudgements by Charlie Munger to uncover your mental biases and Skin In The Game by Nassim Taleb for more on responsibility and reciprocity. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we’re running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Carnegie’s Wealth [01:50] Richest People in History [01:58] Monopoly & Antitrust laws [02:55] Microsoft [03:24] Google [03:33] The Giving Pledge [04:58] Robber barons [06:08] GM [06:28] Amazon [06:45] Medicare [07:08] Income Tax [07:13] Hunter-Gatherer Tribes [07:41] Feudal Societies [07:49] Invention of the Telegram [08:05] History of the Railroad [08:08] Stratification [08:18] Mæcenas [08:44] Ghana [09:21] Garden of Eden [09:29] Socialist Societies [10:01] Subsistence Farming [10:19] Internet Explorer [11:33] Bing [11:35] Safari [11:38] Yahoo [11:39] Google Ventures [12:16] Alphabet Inc [12:22] Google AdWords [12:33] Justice Department [12:42] Carnegie Steel [13:00] AT&T [13:05] Market cap [14:20] Dell [14:25] Microsoft Windows [14:28] Microsoft Office [14:30] Skype for Business [14:32] Windows Phones [14:47] Microsoft Hardware [14:49] Facebook [14:54] Apple [15:16] iPhone [15:36] iMac G3 [16:55] Instagram [17:25] WhatsApp [17:26] Facebook Messenger [17:28] Growth Machine [19:13] WordPress [19:27] AmazonBasics [20:23] FBA [20:38] Costco [21:03] Bud Light [21:21] Super Bowl Ads [21:43] Kirkland Products [21:48] Absolut [22:00] Anheuser-Busch [22:35] Strand bookstore [24:19] Forest fire analogy [24:39] Economics [25:11] Mythology [25:19] Psychology [25:33] MadeYouThink Podcast Patreon [25:36] Bitcoin [28:35] Monarchy [30:29] Denial of Death [30:39] Darwinism [31:35] Evolution [31:37] Creationism [32:30] Dictatorship [34:27] Democracies [34:32] Russian Roulette [35:16] Athenian Democracy [35:28] Gmail [35:33] Hotmail [35:37] Social Security [35:37] Skin in the Game [35:55] Ponzi Scheme [37:09] Baby Boomers [37:14] Life Expectancy [37:28] Genetic Engineering [38:22] Stem Cells [39:24] Telomeres [39:26] Mars [40:06] Carnegie Library [41:49] Carnegie Mellon University [41:52] Carnegie's Daughter [43:30] Facebook Aquila Drone [46:01] SpaceX Satellites [46:03] Amazonian tribes [46:29] MIT Courses [46:36] Stanford’s Courses [46:38] DuoLingo [47:04] Reddit [47:26] Pornhub [47:36] Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [49:16] Gates Centre [50:01] Steve Jobs Theatre [50:21] Effective Altruism [50:31] GiveDirectly [50:45] Kiva [51:51] Heifer International [52:24] Toms Shoes [53:23] Medium [56:34] Marshmallow Test [57:13] Power Posing [57:14] Stanford Prison Experiment [57:15] Smiling To Make You Happier [57:17] Inattentional Blindness [57:25] Relativity [59:34] Flat Earth Theory [59:51] Flat Earth Subreddit [01:00:05] Climate Change [01:00:37] Twitter [01:01:17] Ice Wall Theory [01:01:49] Strong man Argument [01:02:22] Sphinx [01:02:26] Aquatic Apes [01:02:41] Polynesian Islands [01:03:36] Intergalactic Travel [01:03:52] Milky Way [01:04:04] Hawaii [01:04:38] Jupiter Moons [01:06:03] Give a Man a Fish Quote [01:08:33] Compound Effect [01:09:05] Almsgiving [01:09:21] Cannibalism [01:10:28] Gun Control [01:12:01] (podcast episode) Books mentioned The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [00:34] Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [04:38] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (Book Episode) Andrew Cargegie - A Biography by David Nassau [05:11] The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [25:33] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Denial of Death by Ernest Becker [30:39] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Fat Tail by Ian Bremmer [35:14] Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter [43:07] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch [59:07] (book episode) People mentioned Andrew Carnegie Rockefeller [01:58] J. P Morgan [01:59] Jeff Bezos [02:08] Mellon family [02:34] Vanderbilt family [02:38] Henry Frick [02:40] Paul Allen [3:25] Google Founders [03:33] Warren Buffett [04:56] Elon Musk [27:01] (Elon Musk episode) Socrates [27:15] Ron Paul [36:20] Bill Gates [49:10] Nassim Taleb [51:30] (Skin in the Game Episode) (Antifragile Episode) Charlie Munger [55:41] (The Psychology of Human Misjudgments Episode) Amy Cuddy [59:27] Kanye West [01:11:51] (The College Dropout Episode) Senator Stanford [01:13:03] Show Topics 00:14 – This episode has been planned since April, however other books and travel got in the way. So we pushed it on so we could record a good episode for us. Carnegie’s still here and relevant whenever we do the episode. 00:46 – Background on the book, written as an essay later in life. Covers his philosophy of wealth, based on his experience of getting more money and power as he got older. 01:25 – Historical context for the book, how the era it was written in was one of the first periods where it was possible to amass such wealth as an individual business man. 01:36 – Excess of money as a new problem to be solved. Posing the question - How do we use it well? 01:50 – Converting Carnegie’s wealth in today’s dollars and how far beyond current wealth it still is today. Comparing wealthy figures from the past like Rockefeller, Mellon, J.P Morgan and Vanderbilt with the likes of Jeff Bezos today. 02:55 – Monopoly laws, levels of wealth and disparity between the business owner and the second layer of workers within the company.  Microsoft, Google and their worth. 03:52 – Relevance of the advice Carnegie gives today. Going against the idea of super successful business people as inherently bad people. He says that people should be able to gain heights of success and then they can do good things with their wealth. 04:21 – Carnegie’s model of distributing wealth for good acts. He also followed these rules using his own money. This essay was a call to arms to voluntarily use wealth wisely. 04:56 – Warren Buffett and The Giving Pledge. Carnegie wanted to convince others but also rehabilitate his own image following strikes by his workers. Carnegie’s biography contained context to this essay. He originally saw himself as a self-made man however he realized that during the strikes at his own companies that he had lost his connection with the poor. 05:48 – He described the issues with amassing wealth as ‘the problem of his age’. First national corporations, the catalysts of the railroad creating a transformational era. 07:00 – Lack of social safety nets during Carnegie’s era which created freedom to build runaway success. Levels of wealth, tribal equality through poverty. 08:20 – He poses the question - is inequality a bad thing? Or are we all better off today? Irregularity of income is better than universal squalor. Garden of Eden concept. "The good old times, were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as today." 10:49 – Acceptable levels of inequality. Monopolies in technology today, Google, Yahoo, AT&T and the dismantling of corporations. Antitrust lawsuits impacting on the innovation of Microsoft. Apple, iPhones and the ‘non-corporate’ design of their devices. Breaking up Google and Facebook in smaller companies. 17:34 – Competition in business and the improvements it brings. Lowering prices caused by competition. Amazon as hyper-efficient. Removing bloat from traditional businesses. Costco and their own brand product range passing cost benefits on to the consumer. 24:04 – Revival of independent bookstores, clearing the playing field for those that can deliver true value. Competition forest-fire analogy. Podcast themes and common topics. 25:36 – Join our Patreon to get book notes, bonus audio, upcoming book info. 26:19 – Ways of administering wealth when it’s in the hands of the few. Three modes - Inheritance, Government or use it yourself. Bad impact on society when generational wealth is handed down or wasted when given to government. 31:30 – Darwinism, Evolution. Financial competence of government officials. Dictatorships vs democracies. 35:46 – Tangent. Opting out of social security, skin in the game problem. Young vs Old and who benefits most. Biological limiters for aging, extension of life expectancy. Intergalactic space travel and cyborg Pepper. 40:52 – Lump sums of money making the most difference. Small monetary gains don’t change the individual but collectively that could benefit the community. Libraries and universities as great uses for wealth. Books as a way of speaking to great people throughout history. 43:30 – Carnegie family and descendants. Priorities in wealth building. Unostentatious living followed by surplus revenues given to the community. By building wealth you are better placed to distribute it wisely. 45:29 – Modern community benefits, Internet access as equivalent to libraries. University education as accessible knowledge. Language learning simplified by technology. Impact on exposing tribes to technology. 49:10 – Bill Gates, philanthropy as a legacy. Effective altruism. Charity organizations and the second order effects of disrupting economies. 56:13 – Book on second-order effect follies. Medium blog posts, psychological fallacies. Gorilla tests and inattentional blindness. 59:51 – Flat earth theory, getting angry on the Internet. Climate change denial, ice wall theory. Strongman arguments. 01:02:26 – Sphinx, aquatic ape theory, Polynesian Islands and travel within our galaxy. Communication and sustaining life in space. 01:07:53 – Carnegie suggested that the goal of being wealthy should be to enrich the lives of others. Helping those that help themselves first. Compound effect of aiding those who are motivated to improve. Dangers of charity. "Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving those worthy of assistance except in rare cases seldom require assistance." 01:09:56 – How to help those that won’t help themselves? Tune in next week! Nat the cannibal. Kanye West episode, positive role models in society. 01:12:27 – Dying rich means dying disgraced. Wealth is like a trust fund that should be used for the betterment of society. 01:14:01 – So if you enjoyed this episode, definitely check us out on Patreon. It's a good way to use your wealth. It gets you access to discussions for these episodes, the book notes, show notes, what is coming up and any bonus material we record before or after the episode. Leave us a review on iTunes that just helps more people find the show. Tweet us, we love hearing from you guys. I'm @NatEliason and I'm @TheRealNeilS. Send book recommendations, what you think about the show, feedback. 01:17:31 – You can always also go to MadeYouThinkPodcast.com/support. We've got some show supporting sponsors there that'll give you discounts that give us a little kick back at no cost to you. We will see you all next week where we will continue some of the themes that we discussed today. Join Patreon if you want to know what that is ahead of time so you can read the book before then. Cheers everyone. See you next time. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

“It is inevitable that we face problems but no particular problem is inevitable we survive and thrive by solving each problem as it comes up, and since the human ability to transform nature is limited only by the laws of physics none of the endless stream of problems will ever constitute an impassable barrier” In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. It’s a playful, meandering book on explanations that transform the world, covering evolution, physics, philosophy, politics, ecology, money, memetics, epistemology, history. It ties everything to the central idea that with enough knowledge anything possible, is achievable. “Every putative physical transformation to be performed in a given time with given resources or under any other conditions is either impossible because it is forbidden by the laws of nature or achievable given the right knowledge.” We cover a wide range of topics, including: Wrapping our brains around the concepts of advanced topics like infinity Thinking of problems as a gap in our knowledge that can be solved The repeating cycle of problem > solution > new problem Tangents on Aquatic Apes, Egyptology and Sphinxes Universality of systems Optimistic vs Pessimistic view points And so much more! Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter for a similar kind of book covering a wide range of topics. Also our episode on Leverage Points by Donella Meadows for how we should approach complex systems. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we’re running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Lindy Effect [3:20] Multiverse Concept [5:03] Quantum Entanglement [5:05] Theory of relativity [5:13] Infinity [5:25] Cholera [8:17] Empiricism [11:38] Fallibilism [15:02] The Mediocrity Principle [18:50] Anthropocentrism [19:00] Geocentrism [19:38] Garden of Eden [20:35] Rare Earth Hypothesis [20:40] Anthropomorphism [22:20] Quantum Theory [26:22] Aquatic Apes [30:43] Darwin’s Dangerous Idea [31:32] Confirmation Bias [31:50] Universality [33:22] Roman Numerals [33:30] Hieroglyphics [35:42] Reductionism [39:50] Lady Lovelace’s Objection [42:00] Chinese Room [48:00] Turing Test [48:02] DARPA [48:15] Netflix - Eddie Murphy Shows [50:55] Chris Rock - Controversial stand up [51:25] Chris Rock - Gun Control stand up [51:50] AlphaGo [52:43] MadeYouThink Podcast - Patreon Support [54:10] Death of the Universe [56:10] DMT [59:30] Neuralink [59:47] Neural lace [59:48] Malthus [1:01:04] X Prize [1:07:50] The Jungle - Characters [1:08:35] Sphinx [1:10:17] Joe Rogan Experience Podcast - Sphinx Episode [1:10:17] Semmelweis Reflex [1:15:30] Kevin Simler - Crony Belief [1:20:25] The China Study [1:23:30] Dos Toros [1:27:05] Toms Shoes [1:28:52] Postmodernism [1:29:30] XKCD Comic - Purity of Fields [1:34:01] Books mentioned The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter [1:22] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [3:36] (Nat’s notes) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [3:39] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett [3:56] (book episode) The Denial of Death [8:55] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley [9:44] I Am A Strange Loop - Douglas Hofstadter [17:20] (Podcast Episode) Rare Earth by Donald Brownlee [20:25] Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [24:23] (Nat’s notes) (book episode part 1 & part 2) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne [25:56] The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle [39:40] Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [41:55] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [43:45] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson [43:50] The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [1:08:41] (Nat’s notes) Leverage Points by Donella Meadows [1:29:20] (article episode) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [1:30:10] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway [1:33:05] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins [1:45:40] People mentioned David Deutsch Daniel Dennett [1:45] (Darwin’s episode) Flatgeologist [3:00] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [2:50] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Seneca [8:40] Matt Ridley [9:33] Nicolas Cage [13:43] Socrates [16:55] [1:09:00] Hermes [16:56] Jordan Peterson [21:29] Richard Dawkins [23:35] John Haldane [23:36] Freud [40:55] Plato [1:10:00] Dan Carlin [1:43:30] Show Topics 2:47 – In this book the author, David Deutsch, calls out some of the other authors that we have covered on the podcast before. He calls out Nassim Taleb on some of his ideas, which is something we almost hold sacred on this podcast. This book made us change the way we think about some of these things. 5:03 – Diving into advanced concepts like multiverse, quantum entanglement, relativity and infinity. You have to take your time to wrap your head around this. Our minds are not used to grasping these concepts. Explaining what’s the highest number to a kid. 7:00 – In the introduction the author says “all progress both theoretical and practical has resulted from a single human activity, the quest for what I call good explanations”. Everything is possible if it is not prohibited by the laws of physics. 8:10 – Deutsch uses the example of disease and cholera. People dying of diarrhea when they were right next to a fire and could have boiled their water. The problem was actually a problem of knowledge. A lot of problems we have today are the same and given the right amount of knowledge, can be solved. 8:55 – All other books that we have looked at, Seneca, Taleb and even the book Denial of Death. They all are predicated on the idea that we all will die. Deutsch says most likely yes we will die, but it doesn’t mean it’s not possible to solve. He isn’t saying there is one solution but there maybe solutions to each of the discrete problems - accidents, cancer etc, they are all problems waiting for the right knowledge to be able to solve them. 10:40 – Wealth as a society was another thing he called out in this book, as a species having the resources as well as the knowledge. Even if you had given cavemen the knowledge of how to build a plane, they don’t yet have the resources to get the metals out of the ground and shape the parts needed. Progress is a factor of both knowledge and wealth. 11:25 – He starts the book off in the intro with his refutation of empiricism, where we gain knowledge by experiencing things then learning from them. He makes this good distinction: “Experience is indeed essential to science but its role is different from that supposed by empiricism, it is not the source from which theories are derived its main use is to choose between theories that have already been guessed”. You really can’t learn from experience unless you have some guess about what should happen. You need to have conjecture or a hypothesis before you can actually test something. You’re trying to figure out what the truth might be. Startups “finding” insights in Big Data without an hypothesis to test. 15:00 – “Fallabilsts expect even their best and even most fundamental explanations to contain misconceptions in addition to truth and so they are predisposed to try to change them for the better.” This is like a life philosophy - anything you assume is true you should also assume part of it is wrong. Always look for ways to improve your understanding. 17:46 – Deutsch rounds out the first chapter by saying that “every problem is a signal that our knowledge is flawed or inaccurate.” Our goal as humans is to come up with better explanations which then inevitably leads to a new set of problems. That is this beginning of infinity, each problem leads to infinitely many more problems and the solutions that come with them. We are stuck with this continual loop of solve problem > discover new one > solve problem etc. The Principle of Mediocrity idea and Anti-Anthropocentrism. 23:20 – Deutsch says that humans can understand anything with enough time and knowledge. He is referencing John Haldane who said “The universe not only queerer than we suppose it is queerer than we can suppose”. Deutsch says that nothing is beyond our potential comprehension. 30:43 – Tangent. Aquatic Apes fringe theory. Go listen to Darwin’s dangerous idea episode. We don’t want the aquatic apes theory to be refuted, plus it would make a really good band name. 31:42 – Chapter 4. Form of infinities in the Universe: the process of biological evolution and knowledge growth. Ideas can be replicators same as genes can. 33:22 – Chapter 6. Universality. Some ideas are useful and functional in a contained, local sense and some make the jump to actually being universal and infinite. Roman Numerals were never really universal. It would always require more numerals to count higher and higher. Where as our Arabic system 0-9 they are just 10 symbols plus 1 rule, gives us an infinite number. Same as using an alphabet vs hieroglyphics, having a character represent a word, you will always need more characters. Asian scripts. 40:10 – Reductionism and the concept of the brain as a computer, the way we think about our brain is influenced by the technology of the day. Scaling problems. Knowledge creation for AI. Knowledge ownership. “First the brain was supposed to be like an immensely complicated set of gears and levers, then it was hydraulic pipes, then steam engines, then telephone exchanges, and now that computers are the most impressive technology brains are said to be computers. This is still no more than a metaphor and there is no more reason to expect a brain to be a computer than a steam engine” 47:55 – Tangent. Hofstadter and the DARPA Turing Test, AI joke creation and changing nature of humor through generations. Consciousness Test. 54:44 – Hotel Chapter. Understanding Infinity. Being at the beginning of infinite progress. Time subjective to our mental processing power. 1:00:11 – Optimism Chapter. All problems and evils in the world are caused by insufficient knowledge. All can be solved with enough knowledge. Evils are just situations where we haven’t solved the problem yet. There is never going to be a Garden of Eden state as you always unlock new problems. Deutsch says “We do not yet know what we have not yet discovered.” Sounds similar to the idea of blind faith, that we will just figure it out. We can be optimistic because if there is a necessity to solve something the market really impacts it, it’s a powerful corrective force. Investment and money gets put towards solving the problem. Ebola example. 1:08:33 – Multiverse Chapter. Funny dialogue between Socrates and Plato. 1:10:20 – Tangent. Sphinx theories, Egyptology and the Semmelweis reflex. Respecting and disproving Fringe Theories. Politics vs science in Medicine. 1:17:05 – Tangent. Anthropomorphising food. Now low cholesterol is tied to mortality causes. Where as previously high cholesterol was considered a huge health issue. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, like Taleb says eating a cow doesn’t make you bovine. The cause for bull penis powder. 1:20:07 – Bad philosophies. Philosophies that prevents you from developing other philosophies. Religions, top-down theories, bad company traits. Crony beliefs. if you feel personally attacked when someone questions your belief, that shows it’s not a well reasoned idea and a bad philosophy for you – that may show you what you are believing because you want to. You often only believe things that are socially beneficial. Vegans, palm sugar, plastic activism, foreign orphanages and stupid activism. 1:29:40 – Postmodernism as bad philosophy. Problems in different types of Sciences. Explanational science. Tossing old knowledge requires an explanation. Chemical imbalance for depression. Second and third effects of drugs use. 1:39:41 – Politics Chapter. Separate essay. Beauty Chapter. There is objective universal beauty. Beauty in flowers and music. 1:45:33 – Evolution of Culture. Rational and anti-rational beliefs. Memes as a way of spreading ideas “Consider how you would be judged by other people if you went shopping in your pajamas or painted your house with blue and brown stripes - that gives a hint of the narrowness of convention that govern these objectively trivial inconsequential choices about style and the social cost of violating them. Is the same thing true of the more momentous patterns in our lives, careers, relationships, education, morality, political outlook and national identity. Consider what we expect to happen when a static society is gradually switching from anti-rational to rational memes”. Liberalism-conservatism conflict. Turning child into political statements. 1:58:15 – The Unsustainable Chapter. Easter Island culture diminished as they didn’t solve their problems. We often think things are finite when they can be solved in other ways. Pessimistic and Optimistic conceptions. “Pessimistic conception is that humans are wasters - they take precious resources and madly convert them into useless coloured pictures. This is true of static societies those statues were what my colleagues were what color televisions which is why comparing our culture with the old society of Easter Island is wrong - we are not a static society. The optimistic conception is that people are problem solvers, creators of the unsustainable solution and hence also of the next problem. In the pessimistic conception that distinctive ability of people is a disease for which sustainability is the cure - sustainability is the disease and people are the cure.” Trying to get people to work against their selfish desires isn’t going to work, so find a way to make what you want to work out for the greater good. For example with hotels and reducing washing. It’s a win-win for both the hotel and the environment. They will then encourage environmental acts like that. If it cost them money then they would not encourage that. "What lies ahead of us in any case, is in any case infinity - all we can choose is if it is an infinity of ignorance or of knowledge, wrong or right, death or life." 2:03:48 – Subscribe to Patreon to get our book notes, highlights, bonus material and more for the price of a book. Also, Nat will stop doing saying “it will make you think” once Patreon hits 10k. Participate of the private community! Leave us a review on iTunes to get possible guests on the show. You can write just a 1 sentence description of the show and how you like the tangents. Check our supporters at madeyouthink.com/support. We are drinking delicious Lapsang Souchong tea from Cup & Leaf. If you want some tangent fuel, try the Mushroom Lemonade  Coffee and Chai Latte from Four Sigmatic. Perfect Keto Nut Butter is amazing. Try it frozen for an incredible texture. Check Kettle & Fire Mushroom-Chicken blend, now available on their site. Use our Amazon affiliate link, it doesn’t costs you anything extra and helps support the show. Keep tweeting to us at @Neil Soni (@TheRealNeilS) and @Nat Eliason (@nateliason). If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com  

"Now happiness, more than anything else, seems complete without qualification. For we always choose it because of itself, never because of something else." In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. Aristotle "wrote" this book for his son, Nicomachea, in which philosophizes about the pursuit of happiness and how to find the point of flourishing of our lives. “We become builders building, we become harpists by playing the harp. Therefore we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.” We cover a wide range of topics, including: How to find the perfect middle point to flourish in our activities Why happiness is a path that requires action, and not a destination Why sons may vote for the opposite of their parents Stones, horses and slaves that find their purposes in life Harvard admission problems with Asian-Americans Blaming the 2a.m. pizza And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, a book that approach happiness from another perspective, as well as our episode on Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, whose author proclaimed to be strongly influenced by Aristotle. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Nihilism [2:55] Postmodernism [2:55] The Donald on Reddit [22:39] Eugenics [23:21] The Office “Business School” – 4 types of business [26:33] 23andme [31:29] Asian-Americans Suing Harvard Say Admissions Files Show Discrimination – NYTimes [35:05] Chinese Room Experiment [55:38] Turing Test [55:46] Kantian Deontology [1:26:35] Lindy Effect [1:27:54] Books mentioned The Nicomachean Ethics Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [10:03] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Blank Slate by Steven Pinker [20:40] Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [30:06] (Nat’s notes) (book episode part 1 & part 2) Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [42:38] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) The Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg [50:16] (Nat’s notes) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [55:05] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Letters from a Stoic by Seneca [1:14:27] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) People mentioned Aristotle Socrates [0:59] Plato [0:59] Alexander the Great [0:59] Saint Thomas Aquinas [2:23] Ayn Rand [10:03] (Atlas Shrugged episode) Steven Pinker [19:57] John Searle [55:46] Scott Adams [1:05:18] Lucius Annaeus Seneca [1:14:27] (Letters from a Stoic episode) Zeno [1:14:45] Marcus Aurelius [1:15:02] Epictetus [1:15:02] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:26:59] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Show Topics 0:00 – Were these philosophers famous at their time or they became famous later? Plato's and Aristotle legacy and influence up to our days. Christianity and Virtue Ethics. Aristotle’s argumentation as a lawyer and dichotomy in opening speeches. 5:19 – Human flourishing as a better translation for happiness from Ancient Greek. 8:07 – Book 1. A book of ethics, how we should behave. Being able to judge what is happiness. Happiness Hierarchy. City Happiness before the Individual Happiness. Who decides what happiness is? How the Christian Church decided it was the source of morality. 11:51 – Aristotle and Buddhism. Appropriate level of moderation in all things. Difficulty to know what the a good middle is, but extremes are always bad. Alcohol during pregnancy. Using edge cases to find a good mean is not always possible. 16:46 – Extremism in politics. Family and switching to the opposite extreme view. 20:40 – Personalities traits pre-influenced by genes. Questions not allowed to be asked. "Nepotism" in professional basketball. Where to draw the line from extreme left or right. 25:56 – Hierarchies of a good life. Pleasure, political activity, philosophy. 28:06 – The perfect version of anything is what is most meant by nature. What sets human nature apart. Neanderthal and Sapiens stats. 32:02 – Hairy tangents. Why Indian people are hairy. Shaving dogs by mistake. Harvard discriminating Asians and Jews. Why colleges can ask for your race. 41:42 – Being virtuous requires action. One can't say its virtuous and become automatically it. Going to church doesn't make you a good person. Fasting before a feast. 44:20 – Learning the boundaries by experiencing and living. How to find the middle point by shooting to extremes first. Dating, relationships, meditation, etc. 47:24 – Book 2. Virtues of character. Virtue of thought arises and grows from teaching. Pulling from the observable to apply to the unobservable. The power of habits. Blaming the pizza for feeling bad after staying wake up past 2am. Post hangover foods. 52:48 – Being virtuous while being asleep doesn't count. Avoiding sin while sleeping. Concept of mind. The Chinese room experiment. Religion not being true, however still being useful to control people's behavior. One just can't just hope to do the right thing. One should know why it is a good thing, it is our duty as citizens to learn the why. 59:40 – Criticisms to religion based more on faith than reason. Christianity, Muslim, Pagans. Book as instruments to spread a Church's mission. Realism of a perfect God or person. Paganism vs monotheistic religions. 1:02:54 – Virtue ethics does not try to perfect ethical laws, it's a find-what's-good-by-yourself approach. Natural tendencies. Looking down on other people's tendencies while not recognizing our owns. Vices. 1:07:28 – Skimming through books 3, 4, 5. Common idea at the time: everyone knows everything, one just have to draw out of them (by using the Socratic method). Learning as a mutual discovery between teacher and student. 1:10:40 – Aristotle's Physics. Stones and horses flourishing, chemical stable states. Slaves feeling fulfilled. 1:13:11 – Book 7. Incontinence. People who know the right thing but then they don't do it. Putting down Stoicism. 1:15:21 – Book 8. Friendship. Land owning as a proxy for a good person throughout history. Proxies for intelligence or wealth: job, city where you're living, table manners,etc. 1:18:10 – Book 10. Pleasure. Main dichotomy: happiness of a base nature vs happiness of a higher nature. What pleasure is and why it is not sufficient for happiness. Pleasures relative to context. The problem of pleasure as a metric. 1:21:35 – The problem of happiness as a destination. The importance to know what shit one is able to put up with. Why entrepreneurship porn is popular. Acting in such a way it can become a universal rule for people in the same situation. Taleb's Platinum Rule (compared to the Golden Rule). Aristotle principles vs postmodernism. Ranges of mean where things are acceptable. Good enough vs overspecialized. 1:32:20 – Subscribe to Patreon to get our book notes, highlights, bonus material and more for the price of a book. Also, hang out with us, recommend books, and participate of our private community. Find us on Twitter @Neil Soni (@TheRealNeilS) and @Nat Eliason (@nateliason). Leave us a review on iTunes to get possible guests on the show. You can just write "Love this podcast! Neil and Nat are super fun.". Check our supporters at madeyouthink.com/support. We are drinking delicious Lapsang Souchong tea from Cup & Leaf. If you want some tangent fuel, try the Mushroom Lemonade  Coffee and Chai Latte from Four Sigmatic. Perfect Keto Nut Butter is amazing. Try it frozen for an incredible texture. Check Kettle & Fire Mushroom-Chicken blend, now available on their site. Use our Amazon affiliate link to support the show effortlessly. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

Our second recap! In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat revisit the previous books and topics discussed on the podcast. We delve into the most useful lessons that we’ve learned so far. It's perfect for newer listeners to catch up with the older episodes. Listen to this episode irrigated with Malbec. We cover a wide range of topics, including: The first 20 episodes summarized in one sentence. Reviewing books, speeches, articles, and even a music album. An article that changed our view on guns. Two books with an opposite view on Capitalism. Harari’s three part saga. Which book episodes were the most listened. And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to check out all of our episodes here. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our first Recap episode. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show Sesame Street [7:08] Blinkist [21:44] MentorBox [22:14] GE – General Electric [23:50] Aquatic Apes Hypothesis [25:03] Joe Rogan on Gender Warfare with Milo Yiannopoulos [38:20] Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan’s Experience [38:32] Jordan Peterson on Jocko Podcast [38:59] Breaking Bad [44:58] A vegan diet in children may lead to spinal cord degeneration [46:51] Psychological Priming [47:20] Marshmallow Test [48:15] Lindy Effect [49:37] Vox [49:52] Fox News [1:07:01] Tesla [1:09:41] Prius [1:09:41] Starbucks [1:21:56] Distracted Boyfriend meme – Socialists vs. reality [1:36:26] Freakonomics [1:38:58] Genius [1:41:39] Stitcher [1:47:56] Books mentioned Antifragile by Nassim Taleb [2:46] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Letters from a Stoic by Seneca [3:30] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Mastery by Robert Greene [4:00] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell [4:18] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson [4:42] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) In Praise of Idleness [5:44] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman [7:02] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse [7:22] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Way of Zen by Alan Watts [8:23] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Emergency [9:06] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter [10:09] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Goal [12:52] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Principles [13:50] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey [14:39] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Psychology of Human Misjudgments by Charlie Munger [15:03] Work Clean [15:35] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Denial of Death [16:55] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Influence by Robert Cialdini [17:18] (book episode) Revolt of the Masses by Ortega y Gasset [19:01] The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck [22:41] Lean Startup [23:10] Darwin’s Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennet [24:24] (book episode) What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro [28:50] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Hiroshima Diary by Michihiko Hachiya [32:59] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson [35:59] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway [42:18] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Leverage Points by Donella Meadows [49:55] (article episode) Daily Rituals by Mason Currey [54:15] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb [59:40] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb [1:01:03] The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Taleb [1:03:14] Blink by Malcolm Gladwell [1:01:48] The Riddle of the Gun by Sam Harris [1:06:11] (article episode) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [1:12:20] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [1:16:42] (Nat’s notes) (book episode part 1 & part 2) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [1:16:42] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz [1:22:44] (speech episode) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [1:25:22] The Book of Five Rings by  Miyamoto Musashi [1:29:58] (Nat’s notes) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair [1:32:55] (Nat’s notes) The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson [1:37:58] The College Dropout [1:41:15] (album episode) People mentioned Jordan B. Peterson [0:51] (on Twitter) (12 Rules episode) Jeff Bezos [5:40] Adil Majid [6:05] (Crypto episode) Elon Musk [12:08] (on this podcast) Flatgeologists – Flat Earth Society [12:35] Joseph Campbell [14:09] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [19:49] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Tim Cook [19:50] Eric Ries [24:19] Albert Einstein [41:42 Taylor Pearson [51:21] (Crypto episode) Ayn Rand [56:07] (Atlas Shrugged episode) Eric Weinstein [1:13:31] Friedrich Nietzsche [1:14:20] Malcolm Gladwell [1:21:11] Winston Churchill [1:35:36] Show Topics 1:25 – This episode is entirely sponsored by YOU via Patreon! Follows this link to directly support us. Check out the lovely bonuses you receive by supporting the show. 2:46 – Antifragile. Barbells strategy. Learning how to take advantage of chaos in the world. 3:30 – Letters from a Stoic. Acquire a new mental model for handling stress and challenges in your life. 4:00 – Mastery. 4:18 – The Power of Myth. Why we should take religions more seriously. 4:42 – Sovereign Individual. Rethink the permanence of the nation-states and what your future might look like in a society dominated by technology. 5:44 – In Praise of Idleness. Stop working so hard and reasons you should consider working less hard. 6:05 – Crypto episode. Principles of the tech behind Bitcoin and why you should care. 07:02 – Amusing Ourselves to Death. Don't watch the news, but listen to MYT. 7:22 – Finite and Infinite Games. Look at yourself as part of parallel finite and infinite games played in the world, and recognize artificial constraints to play infinitely. 8:23 – Way of Zen. All what you know about Buddhism and meditation is wrong. 9:06 – Emergency. Steps you should take to protect yourself when the society breaks down. 10:09 – GEB. Strange loops. Patterns that hint at the meaning of intelligence and why it may create issues while trying to understand our intelligence or building AIs. 12:08 – Think Like Elon Musk. Thinking independently vs copying the routines of others. Reasoning for firsts principles. 12:52 – The Goal. Theory of constraints, bottlenecks in businesses. 13:50 – Principles. Lots of business tactics. 14:39 – The Inner Game of Tennis. Learning how to get out of your own way to perform better. 15:03 – Psychology of Human Misjudgments. Guide for better decision making and catalog of human misjudgements. 15:35 – Work Clean. Keep your desk organized to get less distracted. 16:55 – Denial of Death. Our lives are driven by our fear of our mortality. 17:18 – Influence. Classic marketing tactics to make people trust you. 18:06 – Recap #1. 19:01 – Revolt of the Masses. Interesting ideas of the stratification of society. Against rent seekers and bureaucrat layers. Reading summaries will not convert you in Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. 24:24 – Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. There's really no meaning to life if Darwin's evolutionary theories are correct. Aquatic Apes theory! Evolution makes life inherently meaningless. Superstition in animals. Should we eat humans? 28:50 – What Every Body is Saying. Textbook to decipher body language. Communicating with body language, and dating. 32:59 – Hiroshima Diary. Private diary of a doctor from Hiroshima injured in a blast. How much humans are capable of enduring without breaking. Perspective on hardship. 35:59 – 12 Rules for Life. Peterson is a quite controversial character. Gender ideas, misinterpretation, toxic masculinity. 42:18 – Merchants of Doubt. Scientists that get paid to create fake science to support destructive practices of some companies. The problem of Media communicating science. 49:55 – Leverage Points. 12 points you can intervene in a complex system to create some change, and the relative power of each of them. Which President is sitting in the Oval Office is less important than the rules, the government and context inside and outside the country. 52:26 – Support the show on Patreon and help us buy a Tangents Button. 54:15 – Daily Rituals. People doing a lot of drugs. Historically geniuses were drug nubs, drunks, and not sleeping. It's hard to evaluate instant productivity. 59:40 – Skin in the Game. Appendix to Antifragile. Comparing this book with others by Nassim Taleb. Good way to structure your own compensation. Curious notes on Taleb's personality. 1:06:11 – The Riddle of the Gun. A concise, clear, apolitical, view-changer article in favor of gun ownership. Nuances of a black-or-white issue. Micro and macro level incentives. The naive reaction of liberal people. 1:12:00 – Subscribe to the show's Patreon, and discover the secret Nat's misadventures on Facebook. 1:12:20 – Discipline and Punish. Not a BDSM-sex book. It requires discipline to go through the book, and, after it, you'll feel punished. Better to listen to our episode :). A book about post-modernism. Listen to our analogy on Nietzschism and Nazism. 1:16:42 – Harari's 3 parts saga. Sapiens part 1, part 2, and Homo Deus. Mythology and shared stories as big driving forces for human development and organization of large sets of humans. Examples: Money, Cities, Companies. 1:21:21 – Listeners Questions #1. Flow, happiness, power, future of work, personal backgrounds. Subscribe on Patreon to ask questions for the next Listeners' episode. 1:22:44 – Solitude and Leadership. Our first speech. Spend time on your own having the freedom from interruptions, to become a better thinker, doer and leader. Otherwise, amuse yourself to death or be an excellence sheep. There are so many differences between our reality and our biology that we have to construct our reality to be more in line with our biology. Think about your solitude the same way as your diet. 1:25:22 – Atlas Shrugged. The Behemoth. Compelling case for physical Conservatism. A book that will make you respect entrepreneurship. 1:29:58 – The Book of 5 Rings. Applying strategy, military tactics, and sword fighting, to life. 1:32:55 – The Jungle. A "funny" counterpart to Atlas Shrugged. Differences between Anarchism and Libertarianism. "Capitalism is the worst economic system except of all the others". 1:37:46 – The Elephant in the Brain. Secret motivations for doing things that we don't like to talk about because they are ugly and focusing on the pretty side of our actions. Evolutionary reasons to hide those motives even to ourselves. A case for not being so introspective. 1:41:15 – The College Dropout. Our first music album! Growing up poor and making it big. Poetry, well constructed, and with many levels of interpretation. even if you don't like rap, consider listening to the episode, it will make you like rap a little bit more. Kanye as a brilliant marketer. 1:45:05 – Sponsors. Sign up to Patreon to get more notes, goodies, and chat with us. Try Perfect Keto's Nut Butter. A frosting experience, great texture, great flavor, macadamia, cashew, coconut and MCT oil and sea salt. Try Four Sigmatic’s Lemonade, a jet black lemonade with activated charcoal along with chaga mushroom. Reach us on Twitter, TheRealNeilS and nateliason.  Review us iTunes. Keep telling your friends, that's the #1 way people hear about MYT. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com

We, human beings, are a species that’s not only capable of acting on hidden motives—we’re designed to do it. Our brains are built to act in our self-interest while at the same time trying hard not to appear selfish in front of other people. And in order to throw them off the trail, our brains often keep “us,” our conscious minds, in the dark. The less we know of our own ugly motives, the easier it is to hide them from others. Self-deception is therefore strategic, a ploy our brains use to look good while behaving badly. In this episode of Made You Think, Neil and Nat discuss The Elephant in the Brain Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson. In this book the authors dig into the true motives that drive our decisions and behaviors. We cover a wide range of topics, including: Being selfish without noticing it Outsmarting other humans Gossiping, signalling and laughing The truth about Rolex watches (and is not about time precision) Metrics used to measure a charity effectiveness Mona Lisa conspiracy theories And much more. Please enjoy, and be sure to grab a copy of The Elephant in the Brain Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our episode on What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro, a cited book that explains the true language of our body, as well as our episode on Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault, another book that talk about different types of signalling. Be sure to join our mailing list to find out about what books are coming up, giveaways we're running, special events, and more. Links from the Episode Mentioned in the show The Redistribution of Sex - Robin Hanson’s Tweet [1:18] Jordan Peterson about the Toronto school shooter [2:00] Chinese app to watch attractive women [3:18] PornHub [3:35] Melting Asphalt – Kevin Simler’s Blog [4:20] PayPal Mafia [23:40] Spotlight Effect [24:26] Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying on the Joe Rogan Experience - hot vs beautiful [30:25] Game of Thrones [40:40] Uber [4224] Bill Simmons Podcast [47:33] Game of Chicken [47:55] Birchbox [57:01] Superbad film [1:06:48] Harvard students case publishing offensive memes in a private Facebook group [1:10:02] Buzzfeed [1:25:00] Pavlovian Theory [1:29:57] Mona Lisa ashes vs replica [1:35:14] Against Malaria Foundation [1:40:07] Good Street [1:41:14] Effective Altruism [1:42:04] Give Well [1:42:09] Red Cross [1:46:30] Susan G Komen Charity [1:46:50] United Way [1:47:30] Books mentioned The Elephant in the Brain Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson (Nat’s notes) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari [6:56] (Nat’s notes) (book episode part 1 & part 2) Homo Deus by Yuval Harari [6:56] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Daily Rituals by Mason Currey [7:47] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Chimpanzee Politics [14:20] 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson [24:14] (Nat’s notes) (Neil’s notes) (book episode) Lying by Sam Harris [38:18] Switch by Chip and Dan Heath [40:26] Lord of the Rings [40:40] What Every Body is saying by Joe Navarro [1:03:20] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson [1:21:50] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter [1:25:14] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Antifragile by Nassim Taleb [1:25:14] (Nat’s notes) (book episode) Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault [1:53:02] (Nat’s notes) (book episode)   People mentioned Kevin Simler Robin Hanson Jordan B. Peterson [] (on Twitter) (12 Rules episode) Adil Majid [38:29] (Crypto episode) Sean Spicer [54:00] Donald Trump [54:00] Ronaldinho [1:13:37] Geoffrey Miller [1:33:53] Alex Jones [1:39:21] Nassim Nicholas Taleb [1:49:11] (Antifragile episode) (Skin in the Game episode) Show Topics 4:50 – “Elephant in the brain, n. An important but unacknowledged feature of how our minds work; an introspective taboo”. Is there a survival advantage to not being too much introspective? Pros and cons of meditation. Stated reasons for doing things when we interact with other people. The effect of open offices, cafes and music on Neil. 9:17 – Underlying motives of our actions. Figuring out other people: what's making them tick? Example: parents who believe that college is a good idea for their kids, once they already paid. Starting a bitcoin mining company to pay studies at CMU. 11:41 – Thesis outline: we all have selfish modisms. However: People are judging us all the time. Because they are judging we are eager to look good. It’s better if we don’t show our selfishness. This applies not just to our words, but also to our thoughts. In some areas of life, especially polarized ones like politics, we’re quick to point out when others’ motives are more selfish than they claim. But in other areas, like medicine, we prefer to believe that almost all of us have pretty motives. 12:51 – #1 Animal Behavior. Biological social reasons for selfish modisms. Social grooming. The monkeys example: they over spend grooming others, much more than really needed and they'll fight to groom the higher rank monkeys. Analogies with employees in the corporate context. We do things that on the surface look pro social, but in reality we are just looking to increase our social standing. Altruistic behavior is not quite what it seems. 15:18 – Altruistic babblers example: these birds work to earn “prestige” in their community. Prestige will give them more mating opportunities. Analogies with student and religious groups. Knowledge suppression: we hide our big motivators from ourselves because other people are better at reading to our intentions. For example we can read bad sellers. 19:06 – #2 Competition. We are more selfish than we let ourselves think. Evolution first was about competition with the environment. Since we outsmarted other animals, we evolve to outsmart other humans. Unconsciously we try to increase our elements of social status: dominance (intimidate others) and prestige (being an impressive human being). 23:04 – Envy. “But the prestige-seeking itself is more nearly a zero-sum game, which helps explain why we sometimes feel pangs of envy at even a close friend’s success”. Signalling. The most honest signals are expensive. Nowadays being in shape is more expensive than being fat. Facebook and Instagram as tools for signalling. The King and the whisperer. 26:46 – Deceiving signals. Digital Nomads showing off while not being able to support themselves in the US. Behaviors that can be explained by competitive signalling. Luxury consumption is our version of the peacock tail. No one buys a Rolex to tell the time. There is sexual sense to men paying for the first meal on a date. Hot vs Beautiful: most products are advertised to make women hotter than attractive, and that may be a cause of unhappiness. 33:21 – #3 Norms. Gossiping and reputation. Gossip is to tell our group other people is not following norms. We lose reputation when others gossip of us. Gossip is cross cultural, and it seems to exist to enforce reputations and norms. Useful and harmful gossiping. Gossiping as valuable recommendations of people to employ and work with. 37:27 – Gossip are learned behavior or inherited genetics? Gossiping to get attention. Arguments that telling small lies in front of friends erodes your reputation and trust. Telling small lies to ourselves to prove ourselves an action we took. Analogies to the book: Chip & Dan’s elephant and the writer in Switch, Plato’s horses and the chariot driver. 41:01 – #4 Cheating. In order to cheat people, we need to be able to hide our intentions because we are good at sniffing out cheaters. Drinking in public, hiding the bottle in brown paper bags. Pipes and vape pens for... tobacco? Finding ways to encourage good behavior that one wouldn't do otherwise. Recycling. 44:09 – Tangent. Danish study on grocery bags: plastic bags beat paper bags 40 to 1. Electric cars CO2 impact much larger than gas cars. 47:53 – #5 Self Deception. Convincing others that you had sabotaged yourself, and the best way to convince someone for something is for you to actually believe it. Iran’s nuclear deal with the US. North Korea wanting to be taken seriously. Looking like the mad man in town. Closing or degrading a channel communication. Strategic ignorance. Avoid looking at kidnappers face. 52:02 – #6 Counterfeit Reasons. We make up reasons to explain why we do things or why we want things. Split brain patients test. Narrative fallacy. Making up reasons to deny a disability. Press secretary. Sean Spiner on the podium trying to explain Trump's decisions. We accentuate and exaggerate our pro-social motives and downplay our ugly selfish ones. 55:32 – Sponsor! Scentbird. Monthly subscription for premium perfumes and colognes, delivered at your door in convenient packaging for only $15/mo! Avoid the weird and bulky shapes of perfume bottles. Scentbird has a very compact and handy rechargeable cartridge system. Neil is using Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue which is very summery. Nat buyed Gin by Commodity, Bergamote by Commodity, and Encens by Rag & Bone. Use our code to get 50% off the first month. Neil is drinking Milk Oolong from Cup & Leaf Tea (a tea that tastes milky but doesn’t have milk!). You can reinfuse Oolong up to 5 times! Try it iced too. Cup & Leaf will give a 10%  lifetime discount to its first 100 customers. The Cream Earl Grey is great too. Replace-your-coffee and MYT kits coming soon. 1:03:11 – #7 Hidden motives in everyday life. Body Language. Cue is like a signal but it only provides value to the receiver. Catching cues reading other people while playing poker. Eye contact ratio while speaking and listening is a sign dominance. 1:06:12 – #8 Laughter. “We laugh far more often in social settings than when we’re alone—30 times more often”. Laughter is a social way of initiating play with each other. Flirting with the edges of acceptable behavior. Comedians can talk things in ways no one else can talk in public. Laughing seems to come from an instinct. Great apes laugh too. Oscar Wilde said, “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh; otherwise they’ll kill you”. Making offensive statements in a playful manner with friends. 1:11:39 – Theory that laughter relieves nervous energy. Comedians make jokes about things they really don't believe, but many people extrapolates them wrongly. Laughter to test relationships with new people. Argument that humor normalizes bad behavior. Rape jokes. Jokes in the wrong audience. 1:22:49 – #9 Conversation. Conversation is not primarily an exchange of information, but mainly we do it to prove we are a reliable and good source of information. The backpack full of tools analogy. Reading and curiosity. Staying on topic, but not repeating ourselves. 1:27:43 – #10 Consumption. We buy things to look good. Prius example: it was designed ugly on purpose. Lifestyle ads. Corona beer theories: the first, Pavlovian, associating Corona and the beach, the second, one would buy Corona worrying about what others may associate the brand with. Super Bowl ads. BMW have to show their ads to poor people as well, so rich people associate the brand with luxury. Car ads reinforcing owners' believes. Products can be marketed for utility or lifestyle. Guinness and Budweiser have the same amount of calories, but they are marketed and perceived differently (surprisingly, Guinness is very keto-friendly). 1:33:33 – #11 Art. We find waste sexually attractive, because wasting resources is kind of a proof of wealth. People that hold a group in conversation are attractive. We tend to value art because we associate effort and skill with it. Mona Lisa's ashes and replicas survey. Is it the real Mona Lisa in the Louvre? Motivations behind mass shooters. Dinosaurs bones in museums. Conspiracies. 1:39:54 – #12 Charity. People donate in very inefficient ways. Donating for malaria vs high schools. Ivy League schools as hedge funds with an educational side. Comparing malaria deaths with other diseases that lower the quality of life. Is it dollar-to-lifes the best metric to look at when donating? The problem with Red Cross and other famous non-profits. Hollywood movies as non-profits. 1:49:34 – #13 Education. Kids don't learn much in class compared to unschooled ones. National GDP does not rise with education, but individual earning does. School seems more a filtering mechanism where, if you graduate from Harvard it doesn't mean you learned a ton but that you survived it. School as domestication. The most performant students are those more domesticated. 1:52:08 – Required attendance shows that the teacher is insecure of being interesting. Learning topics through other mediums than class subjects. School is more a signalling tool to show conformity to society and employment. For parents, it's a tool to brag that “made it”. School may be useful from a network standpoint. Why we haven't franchised the Ivy League. 2:01:54 – #14 Medicine. We get much more medicine than we need mostly as a way to show we take care of each other. Medicine is great for saving lives, but doesn't perform well on life and quality of life extension. 2:03:21 – #15 Religion. Proving you are a member of the community by sacrificing part of your freedom, time, resources and even identity. 2:04:10 – #16 Politics. We often vote to show loyalty to a community. You’d better don't want everyone to participate in an election, especially if they'll vote the opposite candidate you'll vote. Cheering for your party, as in sports.   2:06:31 – #17 Conclusion. It's easy to spot others doing it, it's difficult to pick up ourselves doing it. “The biggest lesson from Part I is that we ignore the elephant because doing so is strategic. Self-deception allows us to act selfishly without having to appear quite so selfish in front of others. We have a gaping blind spot at the very center of our introspective vision. If we’re going to second-guess our coworkers and friends, we shouldn’t give ourselves an easy pass. In fact, knowing about our own blind spots should make us even more careful when pointing fingers at others”. 2:07:56 – Support us by buying the book through our Amazon affiliate link. Support us by buying stuff from our sponsors, Perfect Keto for all your keto diet needs, Kettle & Fire for grass fed bone broth, Four Sigmatic for delicious mushroom coffee and other low caffeine drinks. If you enjoyed this episode and want to read along with us, don’t forget to subscribe at https://madeyouthinkpodcast.com