“Prime Intellect was an uncertain god. It had acted because it had to, but if it had been human its hand would be shaking on the controls.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! This episode dives into The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams, a soft sci-fi novella that imagines an all-powerful AI enforcing the Three Laws of Robotics to their absolute limit. We unpack themes like simulated realities, the search for meaning, and whether a perfect world is actually desir...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 121
“The greatest polluting element in the earth's environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields. I consider that to be a far greater threat on a global scale than warming, or the increase of chemical elements in the environment.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we’re diving into The Body Electric by Robert O. Becker, a fascinating read on how electricity flows through the body and the ways it might influence healing, health, and even consciousness. B...
May 20, 2025•58 min•Ep. 120
“In that instant they felt an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. Though they had failed dismally even to come close to the expedition's original objective, they knew now that somehow they had done much, much more than ever they set out to do. ” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! If you love exploration books as much as we do, you'll definitely enjoy this episode. Today, we're talking about Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. Join us as we exp...
Dec 11, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 119
“The amount of human attention in the world is finite. We have 24 hours in the day, some of which we need to spend paying attention to eating, sleeping and meeting our other needs. The attention during the remaining hours of most people in the world is taken up by having to earn an income and by consuming goods and services, leaving relatively little time for attention to be freely allocated. A hard limit on available attention also exists for humanity as a whole—as I argued earlier, we are head...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 118
“I could hardly form the words. My mouth wasn’t working. My heart hammered in my ears and pins and needles burned my hands and feet. I squeezed my fists as hard as I could to get them to stop hurting as I stumbled into my office and fumbled through my laptop password, pulling up the message that had thrown me out of bed: “Nat, someone found a way to hack us. It sounds bad. All of our funds might be at risk.” This was the absolute worst-case scenario. The one I’d pushed to the back of my mind. Th...
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 117
“If the war was to be over by Christmas, as many believed, or at the latest by Easter 1915, tens of thousands of soldiers might be killed or wounded before the guns fell silent. Every army believed that it could crush its opponents within a few months.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! Join us as we dive into The First World War by Martin Gilbert. We'll explore the intricate details of WW1, from the seemingly pointless triggers to the significant aftermath that reshaped the wor...
Jun 26, 2024•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 116
"The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or of joy. The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we explore the concept of time through the lens of one of the most imaginative books of our time, Einstein's Dreams. The novel portrays Albert Einstein as a young scientist...
May 15, 2024•47 min•Ep. 115
"But if science tells you that something’s impossible, and it happens anyway, it means one of two things. Either the science is wrong, or it’s a scam.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! Today, we're exploring the 3 Body Problem TV series on Netflix, inspired by Cixin Liu's acclaimed novel. Listen in as we discuss Season 1's adaptation from book to screen, analyzing character shifts, narrative changes, and the portrayal of scientific concepts. If you enjoyed The Three-Body Proble...
May 06, 2024•44 min•Ep. 114
"We’ve never had a generation more focused on its feelings and, frankly, not one more tyrannized by their feelings.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! Today, we're delving into Abigail Shrier's Bad Therapy , a thought-provoking book which highlights the impact of therapy on individuals, especially younger generations. Join us as we explore the nuances of therapy, its incentives, and its effects. We cover a wide range of topics including: Challenges of parenting in a therapy-cent...
Apr 11, 2024•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 113
“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! I...
Apr 02, 2024•2 hr 3 min•Ep. 112
"All the facts of science aren't enough to understand the world's meaning. For this, you must step outside the world." Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're adventuring into the world of Logicomix, a graphic novel that takes us on a journey through the intricate life of mathematician Bertrand Russell. From the quest for precision that borders on madness to the historical events Russell was embroiled in, we'll explore the complexities of logic, philosophy, and ...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 111
"Oozification is the process of recursively replacing systems based on numerous larger building blocks, governed by many rules, with ones based on fewer, smaller building blocks, governed by fewer rules, thereby increasing the number of evolutionary possibilities and lowering the number of evolutionary certainties." Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're discussing Fear of Oozification, an article by Venkatesh Rao. Get ready to explore the concept of ooziness i...
Feb 24, 2024•1 hr•Ep. 110
“I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! Today, we're delving into Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Join us as we take you through the journey of an intellectually disabled man who undergoes a procedure with the hopes of increasing his mental abilities. We'll unpack several themes that resonate deeply with the human experience, and seek to get our quest...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr 24 min
“If you believe that humans are animals, there can be no such thing as the history of humanity, only the lives of particular humans. If we speak of the history of the species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, others wretched. None has a meaning that lies beyond itself.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! This week, we’re diving into discussion on Straw Dogs by John Gray. From questioning moral structures ...
Feb 08, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 108
“Quality...you know what it is, yet you don’t know what it is. But that’s self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes poof! There’s nothing to talk about. But if you can’t say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist at all. But for all ...
Jan 19, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 107
“Modern economies will always be tied to massive material flows, whether those of ammonia-based fertilizers to feed the still-growing global population; plastics, steel, and cement needed for new tools, machines, structures, and infrastructures; or new inputs required to produce solar cells, wind turbines, electric cars, and storage batteries. And until all energies used to extract and process these materials come from renewable conversions, modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependen...
Jan 10, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 106
“Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity — but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography," our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards… It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we r...
Nov 27, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 105
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're diving into Novacene by James Lovelock, a book which challenges the very essence of human intelligence. Get ready for a thought-provoking conversation that delves into the realms of evolution, deep oceans, and the enigmatic dance between humanity and artificial in...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 104
“But at a purely personal level, Rondon embodied the best of both modern and old-fashioned virtues. He was intensely and genuinely patriotic, adhered to traditional codes of honor, bravery, and chivalry, and repeatedly demonstrated a moral rectitude that, enhanced a character both ascetic and abstemious, impressed those who regularly came into contact with him." Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're picking up the conversation on our favorite Brazilian explore...
Nov 01, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 103
“The idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even—ultimately, God willing, one day—that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men's eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself." Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're covering The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. Through vi...
Sep 19, 2023•58 min•Ep. 102
“He who sees all beings in his Self and his Self in all beings, he never suffers; because when he sees all creatures within his true Self, then jealousy, grief and hatred vanish.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're covering The Upanishads, a collection of ancient Indian texts which explore the philosophical and spiritual teachings of Hinduism. These texts delve into the nature of reality and the self while emphasizing the importance of meditation, self-real...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 101
“A river of material flows through us. When we share our works and our ideas, they are replenished. If we block the flow by holding them all inside, the river cannot run and new ideas are slow to appear. In the abundant mindset, the river never runs dry. Ideas are always coming through. And an artist is free to release them with the faith that more will arrive. If we live in a mindset of scarcity, we hoard great ideas.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In true Made You Think fa...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 100
“The ordinary traveler, who never goes off the beaten route and who on this beaten route is carried by others, without himself doing anything or risking anything, does not need to show much more initiative and intelligence than an express package." Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're discussing The River of Doubt by Candace Millard, a story that follows the expedition of Theodore Roosevelt as he explores the Amazon river in Brazil. Though faced with many har...
Jul 13, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 99
“Across the board, dietary advice typically focuses on what and how much to eat, with remarkably little attention paid to how farming practices influence the nutritional quality of food and whether the “right foods” pack the nutrients they once had.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're discussing What Your Food Ate by David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé. Exploring the concept of "food chain reactions," the book unveils the hidden connections between our food ...
Jun 08, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 98
“The Chinese people had invented the compass, paper, the printing press, gunpowder, the seismograph, the crossbow, and the umbrella; they had sailed to Africa in the fifteenth century; they had constructed the Great Wall; over the past decade they had built their economy at a rate never before seen in the developing world. They could return a rental car with exactly three-eighths of a tank of gas, but filling it was apparently beyond the realm of cultural possibility.” Welcome back to another ep...
May 30, 2023•49 min•Ep. 97
"First, it's important to remember that merit beliefs aren't necessarily true, nor are crony beliefs necessarily false. What distinguishes the two concepts is how we're rewarded for them: via effective actions or via social impressions. The best we can say is that merit beliefs are more likely to be true." Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! This week, we're talking about Kevin Simler's popular Essay: Crony Beliefs. Our beliefs are essentially divided into merit beliefs and crony ...
May 22, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 96
“Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! This week, we're diving into The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. This book is full of wisdom, challenging you to free yourself from the expectations placed on you by others so you can achieve happiness. We cover a wide range of top...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 95
“It was impossible to expect a moral awakening from humankind itself, just like it was impossible to expect humans to lift off the earth by pulling up on their own hair. To achieve moral awakening required a force outside the human race.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this long-awaited episode, we're covering The Three-Body Problem, a science fiction trilogy by Liu Cixin. Find out what happens when a military group successfully sends signals into space in hopes of making ...
Apr 24, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 94
“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're diving into History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Full of speeches, history, parallels, and battles, this book provides an account of the Peloponnesian War as told by an Athenian general. We cover a wide range of topics including: The style of combat in 5th century BC vs. mod...
Apr 04, 2023•57 min
“It is not the race that makes the civilization, it is the civilization that makes the people: circumstances geographical, economic, and political create a culture, and the culture creates a human type.” Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, we're talking about The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. This concise yet jam-packed book presents pivotal moments and ideas throughout history covering thirteen different areas including religion, progress, governme...
Mar 28, 2023•1 hr 31 min
