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

Modern Wisdom

02/04/23

•

71m

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

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

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

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro (05:23) Why Aren’t Smart People Happier? (16:25) Adam’s Issue with ‘Eating the Frog’ (25:12) The Strange Work & Tests of Sir Francis Galton (34:31) How We Misjudge Conversations (38:26) What the Media is Overlooking in Society (41:04) Why We Forget So Much of What We Learn (49:45) How Adam Overcomes Writer’s Block (1:00:30) How We Misperceive the Sanity of Others (1:06:55) Is It Possible to Overcome our Inherent Biases? (1:11:11) Where to Find Adam

Extra Stuff:

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

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

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

To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom

Episodes You Might Enjoy:

This Is How To Master Your Life - David Goggins - #577: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠

How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs - Dr Jordan Peterson - #712: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠

The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain - Dr Andrew Huberman - #700: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠

Get in touch.

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Previous Episode

How To Take Control Of Your Attention - Dr Gloria Mark - #584

February 2, 2023

•

74m

Dr Gloria Mark is the Chancellor's professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California and an author whose research focuses on human-computer interaction.

Not being able to focus and suffering with distracted attention is one of the most common complaints amongst people in the modern world. The ability to stay focussed on a single task for a long period of time is hugely beneficial and yet has never been more difficult to achieve.

Expect to learn what attention actually is and how it works, the average amount of time that people spend on a single task in the modern world, why attention is so easy to distract, whether multitasking is actually a thing, how to take back control from your distractions, how to deal with guilt around being distracted, the best way to design your daily routine for maximum focus and much more...

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro (00:56) Is Our Attention Worse Than it Was 20 Years Ago? (05:15) Misunderstanding How Attention Works (10:12) The Basics of our Attention System (17:13) Is ADHD Becoming More Common? (20:37) Seeing Attention as a Precious Resource (24:47) It Isn’t Humanly Possible to Multitask (32:42) Is our Relationship with Technology Addictive? (38:29) The Impact of Algorithms on our Attention (46:52) Developing the Skill of Self-Regulation (58:45) Don’t Use Social Media on Your Break (1:03:12) Designing Your Day for Maximum Focus (1:13:29) Where to Find Dr Mark

Extra Stuff:

Buy Attention Span - https://amzn.to/3HzL1ZC

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

To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom

Episodes You Might Enjoy:

This Is How To Master Your Life - David Goggins - #577: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠

How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs - Dr Jordan Peterson - #712: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠

The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain - Dr Andrew Huberman - #700: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠

Get in touch.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast

Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next Episode

Why Do Women Take Sexy Selfies? - Dr Khandis Blake - #586

February 6, 2023

•

78m

Dr Khandis Blake is an Evolutionary Social Psychologist at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on status seeking, the menstrual cycle & sexual politics.

It is no surprise that women try to enhance their beauty, put on makeup, wear high heels and sometimes take off some layers for photos. But what predicts beautification? Is it all a product of the patriarchy or is it something else? Just why are women making all this effort?

Expect to learn whether women condemn promiscuity more when they have sons, what predicts a high prevalence of sexy selfies, whether society has an incel problem, the relationship between makeup and female assertiveness, how income inequality motivates some very odd behaviour and much more...

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro (00:26) Why Do Women Take Sexy Selfies? (06:55) Predicting Increases in Sexy Selfie-Taking (16:25) How Income Equality Impacts Intra-sexual Competition (22:14) Do Sex Ratios Influence Beautification? (28:51) Causes of Conflict Between the Sexes (35:04) Should We Worry About the Future of the Dating Market? (49:37) Does the West Have an Incel Crisis? (1:02:57) Is it Easier for Men to Self-Improve than Women? (1:10:54) Dr Blake’s Background in Gender Studies (1:18:19) Where to Find Dr Blake

Extra Stuff:

Follow Khandis on Twitter - https://twitter.com/KhandisBlake

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

To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom

Episodes You Might Enjoy:

This Is How To Master Your Life - David Goggins - #577: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠

How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs - Dr Jordan Peterson - #712: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠

The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain - Dr Andrew Huberman - #700: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠

Get in touch.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast