In September of 2019, I sat down with Mark Sargent at the Gather Festival in Stockholm, Sweden to have a conversation. I wanted to try and understand the reasoning behind his beliefs, and non-beliefs — the reasoning that lead him to believe the Earth is flat.
Moira Dillon studies how “the physical world in which we live shapes the abstract world in which we think,” and in this episode we travel to her Lab for the Developing Mind at NYU to sit down and ask her a zillion questions about how the brain creates the reality we interact with, and how we attempt to communicate that reality to others through language, art, geometry, and mathematics.
In this episode, science journalist Dave Levitan talks about his new book: Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science.
In the book, Levitan takes us through 12 repeating patterns that politicians fall into when they talk about scientific research. Some are nefarious and intentional, some are based on ignorance, and some are just part of the normal business of politicians managing their public image or trying to appeal to their base. Not only do they often get the science wrong, they sometimes fail to communicate the nature of scientific inquiry and the goals of the scientific process itself.
In this episode, we sit down with negotiation expert Misha Glouberman who explains how to talk to people about things — that is, how to avoid the pitfalls associated with debate when two or more people attempt to come to an agreement that will be mutually beneficial.
In this episode we explore prevalence induced concept change with psychologist David Levari.
In a nutshell, when we set out to change the world by reducing examples of something we have deemed problematic, and we succeed, a host of psychological phenomena can mask our progress and make those problems seem intractable — as if we are only treading water when, in fact, we’ve created the change we set out to make.
On this episode, journalist Kate Leaver talks about her new book, The Friendship Cure: Reconnecting in the Modern World, in which she explores the crippling, damaging, life-threatening impact of loneliness and the severe mental health costs of living a life disconnected from a support network of close contacts. But…as she explains in the episode, there is a cure…learning how to connect with others and curate better friendships.
In the interview we talk about loneliness, how to make friends, the difference between male and female friendship, platonic friendships, friends with benefits and lots, lots, more, including the Sardinian secret to a long life surrounded by friends, family, and lovable assholes.
