Mark Manson || Podcast Improv Jam

up comes up. We have so many mutual interests, so would assume that a lot of interesting things would come up, and a lot of interesting things did. In this episode, I talked to best selling author and badass self help guru Mark Manson about things such as what makes social media so polarizing, why are self help quote so cheesy? Are all pick up artists narcissists? And does free will exist? We also cover topics such as relationships, politics, self esteem,

and ner diversity. This was a really broad and rich chat with motherfucker Mark Manson, who uses the word fucking almost all of his books. So anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this chat as much as I did. We had a blast, So let's get right into it. Hey, yo, how are you, man? I'm good. How are you? I'm good, I'm good. I got this new shirt just for this occasion. Oh shit, but in the top one. I hope that people can handle this. Oh my god, we're getting serious.

We sure are we sure are. Let me give some context to people. This is an unplanned, unscripted well I mean it was planned, but it's unscripted chat about whatever comes up. Even though I made a little bit of a list of some topics. I put together some some items too. We should add that the only rule is that we're not allowed to talk about either of our books. That's right, that's right. Yeah, thank you for thank you for hating that clarification. So Mark, actually I was worrying

what were you like as a child? When I was particularly young, I was pretty happy, go lucky, and then my family life started to go south, I think around age nine or ten, and then I became quite rebellious and a little bit of a shithead starting around then the happy child, and then I was a very angry and obnoxious teenager and pre adolescent. Did you use the word fuck a lot? Oh yeah, I dude, I was that kid. I was always at detention. I was smoking

cigarettes behind school. You know, I was wearing I used to wear Marilyn Manson T shirts. The Bible study. So I was, you know, every teacher and authority figures nightmare. But you know it's what I you know, you get by however you however you can Oh, I get it. I get it. I mean I was. I was one of the world's most notorious computer hackers when I was thirteen. Nice, so I took it in a white collar crime way.

My angst. I had a lot of banks too, you know, for I was labeled special ed you know when I was a kid. So I was, you know what, I'm going to regain power and control in some way. And I discovered computers. When I discovered my Apple two GS, I was like, I'm going to hack the shit out two gs. Can you can you talk about what? What? What was your like greatest high? You mean, can I talk about without going to jail? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I mean a statue limitations is out. I'm pretty sure. I

don't think I want to take any chances. But I had I was the wizard, and I had a whole Bolton board system BBS. And I don't expect anyone to know what that means, because I remember, do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, nineties internet and I shared one of my worst crimes. I shared Wolfenstein three D on the non shareware version for free. Again, I don't expect anyone to know what I'm talking about, Yeah, breaking the law, early piracy. Those were the days used to

get all sorts of stuff for free. Yeah, yeah, those were the days. Those were the days in some ways, and then in some ways. I'm glad that I'm not in those days anymore. Sure, but these days aren't much better. What interesting days, I mean, the days of the last couple of years are fascinating, cultural changes, cultural shifts. I feel like conversations can't be had that were had ten years ago, And some people think that's rightly. So yeah, I get all different sides of perspectives. I get it.

Part of my problem, Mark is that, like, I feel like I have radical perspective taking ability, so like it's hard for me to make a damn decision and take a damn side. I don't know if you relate to this at all, but I feel like it's hard for me. People are like pick US radical side, and I'm like, wait, but I totally get what they're saying on the other side, Like I get it. Like I'm not saying maybe I necessarily agree with it, but like, yeah, I get it,

you know, like I totally relate. So you know, I have just for your listeners who aren't familiar with me or my work, Like I'm primarily I'm in the self help space, so I'm not a psychologist. I'm not an academic. I'm in the self help space. I'm best known for writing the subtle art and not giving a fuck. But I've also been a blogger online for my god like fourteen years now, and I've built up, you know, a pretty large audience online and I have a newsletter that

I send out regularly. And it was interesting because when twenty twenty hit, you know, traditionally, pre twenty twenty, I would always avoid political subjects just because in my mind, it's like if I was writing an article about I don't know, self esteem or self acceptance or you know whatever, anxiety, to bring any sort of political reference to it, in my mind, it like it narrowed my audience immediately, like it would immediately shut out a large percentage of people

who could potentially read and benefit from whatever I was

talking about. So I just think I avoided at all costs for many, many years, and in twenty twenty I felt compelled, I guess you could say ethically compelled to stop doing that because initially, with the pandemic, I felt like it was an important enough subject to talk about some things very plainly, and then with the protests that summer and then the election that followed it, I, you know, I throughout twenty twenty, I continually found myself in situations

where I'm like, well, if I don't talk about this, you know, I have a large audience, I have a lot of influence, and if I don't talk about this, and I feel, you know, yeah, it just felt like the morally correct decision, right, But as a result, it kind of threw me into the middle of these a lot of political conversations that I didn't really want to be in the middle of, and I started to experience a lot of what you're talking about, which is, you know,

well you shared this link to this paper. That means you're like a right wing or left wing fascist slash communist slash you know something is than you're the reason the world is being ruined and all this stuff. I started receiving a lot of hate mail from all over the political spectrum. It seemed like I couldn't there was nothing I could say that didn't piss off people somewhere on the political spectrum, And so I wrote a number

of emails that tried to like address this. There are a couple of newsletters they're still on my site that tried to address this, And you know, I had an entire newsletter where I kind of like went point by point. I'm like, look, you know, just because I share a piece of information doesn't necessarily mean that like that's my conviction or my belief. I'm just sharing information, right, And even if I had if I share a belief, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm like not open to evidence

counter evidence or discussion or debate. You know, there's just all these assumptions, these like kind of instinctual assumptions that seem to happen online these days that it's making I feel like it's kind of just poisoning discourse in general. And I would say this is not only limited to

the political topics. I think you see it like if you get into like health and nutrition Twitter, You're like, you'll see like people arguing about carbs with like the same anger and fervor that you know, people argue about some of these other issues. You know, you see it in all over the place, and I don't know what it is about. Are you know something about the technology?

The cultural moment, the interconnectedness of society is like, it's causing people to shorten their attention spans and double down on like their first inclinations. And it's just not I think there's there's a lot of health discourse that is prevented because of it. Yeah, that's a great point. I view it from a psychological entropy perspective, which gets nerdy real quick, but go on it from a systems entropy

dynamic systems complex perspective. And I do. I do because I think that it makes sense that when you're in a situation where people their sense of coherence, which is a form of meaning. You know that people when they think of meeting, they often think of the need for purpose. But there's a different kind of meaning, which is just how much does your immediate environment make sense? How much

can you predict? You know, our brain is a prediction machine, and when you have too much entropy, you feel like your brain can't predict anything anymore. And when you get to that point, you tend to cling as much as you can to certain beliefs that are unchanging. So I do think that we're living a time where people are are becoming so rigid in their beliefs because they're really lacking a sense of coherence and meaning in that sense.

Does that make sense for sure? I've definitely I agree with that to a certain extent, Like I've do you think what do you think that's primarily do Do you think it's the amount of information? Do you think it's the amount of stimulation? Lack of trust? And so there's a real lack of trust, and people who are the leaders are fanning that flame, you know, on both sides. Again, every time you use the expression both sides, you get plumbled by both sides of course, or you get pumbled

by the people are like, oh, that's both sides. Is like, you can't hide behind your both sides. It's like, well, wait, where am I supposed to go? Then? Exactly? That's exactly right. And my point about both sides is because well, I'm a humanistic psychologist. I see things in terms of humans, not science, and that's people don't want to think that way, you know, but there is potential for these capacities in all of us, regardless of you know, you're not safe.

Just you say I'm a leftist doesn't make you safe all of a sudden from being human. Like it's crazy, like people act as though, like, oh, if you're on the right side, then you can do anything. Yeah, And how many atrocities over the course of human history have stemmed from that one single philosophy, which is I'm on the right side, therefore I can do anything. Oh all of them, yeah, like all of them. Yeah. It's it's a you know, nobody who pulls the trigger thinks they're

unjustified and bullying trigger. You know. I think there's another element of this that I've thought about a lot, which is there's kind of an asymmetrical relationship in online discourse.

Which is what I mean by that is that you know, if you and I are at a dinner party, right and let's say there's twenty people in the room and one person is just a belligerent asshole, the other nineteen people in the room can all kind of look at each other and kind of, you know, give that knowing nod and just ignore that one obnoxious person and yeah, yeah, and things don't spiral out of like everybody just kind

of tacitly agrees to ignore that person. Online, you have that one person out of twenty, and it just derails everything. Like there's something about online discourse that it's that trollish behavior has an asymmetric influence on the overall conversation and discourse. And there's actually I've actually seen research on this where they've found that it only takes I think the threshold is around like four or five percent of people in a forum. I think they did it with Reddit threads.

It only takes like four or five percent of the people in a thread to instigate, like start be combative basically, and everything goes to shit like the other ninety five percent of people get sucked down into it. And and so I think there's something inherent about the medium, you know, And it doesn't mean that you know, Reddit or Facebook or Twitter like built these you know, they're like intentionally making everybody angry because it gets they get more clicks.

It's just like there's just something about the psychological experience of seeing words on a screen, not seeing a person's face, not knowing who's behind that screen, and all the kind of heuristics and biases that we all have when we see something that we don't like on a screen that causes us to despiral in this way when we try to communicate with each other. That's a great point. I mean, Twitter is a great example of how we see it

is to be anonymous. But the greater point there is when you're lacking verbal cues and facial cues, You're lacking whole of cues that you have no idea someone's intense intonation. There's so much information conveyed when you just have a conversation with someone that does not conveyed on Twitter, and what you see is an awful lot of So what you're saying is that people are filling in blanks for

such a lack of information. That's horrible. The other day I wrote a tweet about just questioning about the far left, why don't you see much controversial that label used as much in the mainstream media linguistically? I was just curious. I'm like, I just perplexed me. You don't really use that you know, you don't see that linguistic label used on the far left as much as described as everything's automatically controversial in the far right. You know, fair enough,

but you just don't see that label. It was a really nerdy It was more of a nerdy point. I wasn't trying to like start a war, but people will say. People came in and said, so, what you're saying is genocide is just as you know, a fighting racism is just as bad as genocide. That's that's what you're saying. What I say that, Yeah, it's it's I saw that thread and actually I thought, I think that's a really interesting question. It actually got me. It got me thinking

about that quite a bit. But I also knew better than to go into your comments because I knew. I knew what was going to happen. Monster expired out of control. You know, So why do you think the language is different for say, like radical left beliefs versus radical right beliefs. I you know, part of why I outsources Twitter. I mean, I can be really naive. I was like, oh, I wonder what my thoughtful followers because I want to the thing that's so insane about the climate we're in now

is I didn't even state with certainty and opinion. I actually outsourced my question because I actually have respect and care for I'm basically saying you've I'm giving you a voice and I want to listen to you. And they're like, go go kill him. I mean, that's where we are in America right now. Someone can't even be curious anymore about things that you're not even allowed to be curious about. But sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you really quick. I just want to I want to point one thing out,

and I don't know, like maybe I can. I don't have the thread in front of me right now, right. But it's like I bet if you, oh, did you really? So? I bet if you if you went into the stats on that threat, like looked at the analytics, you know you probably I don't know. Let's say you, let's say twenty thousand people saw it and then you had I don't know, let's say you had two hundred comments and of those two hundred comments, you know, forty were of

the like how dare you kill him? Type? Right? And it's and so we end up like social media, we are constantly in this like tail wagging the dog situation of there's a silent majority who thinks you're reasonable, but they have better things to do so they don't comment,

you know. And it's people who are super angry and psychophantic and zell like obsessed, you know, fanatical, who do stop whatever they're doing and are like, I gotta tell this guy, Scott Kaufman that he's a horrible human being because I'm like protecting my tribe and all this stuff. That's a great point, mark because he got four thousand likes. Yeah, there you go, and it got like almost a thousand reshares,

So so there, you're right. You're right. And in terms of the point I was trying to make again, I don't I don't really know the answer, which why I really wanted to outsource it. But it just dawned on me. I'm like, because I watch a lot of you know, CNN, and then I flipped a Fox News. I'm obsessed with the contrast between the two and the issues. There is

a psychologist. It's fascinating, it's a fascinating, But I never have heard Don Lemon say we now have a critical race theorist on our show and that the theory is a little controversial within academia. Some factions of academia have written some published papers that have said maybe this is not rock solid science, and others haven't. So I just

wanted to make that clear before the discussion happened. I've never once, never, once, once heard any admission that an idea could be controversial from the coming from their own side. But automatically everything coming from the right is controversial. You know, we have this controversial guest now on they never say this guest is controversial. That was my only point, and I think it Isn't it a reasonable point? I do,

I do, and it's it. It's interesting because I do think, you know, the far right and the far left, like they're not mirror image. They inhabit different spaces, they're different demographics of people. You know, far left people tend to be very educated. They tend to be younger, middle aged. Far right people tend to be older, they tend to be less educated. You know, left people tend to be on the coast. Right people tend to be in the

middle of the country. And I also just think influence there, you know, their influence is different as well, Like it's the far left has a very strong influence in academia and media, and those two things are usually upstream of most cultural ideas, whereas the right far right is very influential, say in religion, churches, small communities, rural communities, things like that,

which is not upstream of culture and ideas. It's it's actually upstream of politics because the American system is favored towards more rural communities. So you can get this like this weird dynamic where it's you know, each side is kind of flexing in different places. And I guess controversy is technically it's a it's ideas that are taboo, right like it's and so if a left dominates the the space of idea creation, then that would make sense. But

that's just me spitballing. I'm sure I'm gonna get hate mail after after this. Yeah, it's so funny, will too. I don't really understand why it's taboo to criticize your in group. That to me, that that signals insecurity, That signals like such deep insecurity that you can't even bear the thought that an idea is not perfect, you know, within your own side. I mean, it's just I feel like it'd be unfathomable. For for CNN too, they twenty

four to seven. All they do is talk about how much Trump sucks and how much you know, can you don't believe that's all if you every time you turn on January sixth, like, oh my god, can you believe how much of an asshole this guy is? But I never hear like a criticism of of anything anything from their own side. And then the same thing on Fox News. I mean, look, they're not they're not safe. No, of course, you know, like I do you ever hear Tacker Carlson ever?

Be Like, I don't know if I agree with what some people in the writer are saying right now about X, Like I never hear that, and I don't understand, like why that's the case. I am so critical of myself, you know, like I don't consider myself part of my own group. Yeah, right, enough enough that I don't criticize myself. I mean, do you know what? I don't get it. It's just not the way I think. Yeah, let me ask you this, because I've noticed that you've been you know,

you've been more at least on Twitter. I don't know about on this podcast, but you've been You've been, you know, investigating these subjects more, a little bit more. And you said that now you're watching you're watching cable news to kind of observe and understand what's your relationship to this these in queries like this subject matter, like is it? Are you excited by it? Does it feel like something?

Does it make you miserable? But you feel like, as a good citizen and a good psychologist, you need to do it. It sounds like that's what it is. No, no, no, no, no, no no no. I was just saying, is that where you're going with that question? Yeah? Yeah, But it's a great question. And I don't feel authentic talking about these topics. I don't feel like it's me. I don't It's not the core of what I'm here on this earth to do.

I would love to spend as much time as human possible talking about how we can coach people to greatness, how we can help kids who are falling between the crafts and the education system. When I talk about a whole slew of other topics, I get lit up and inspired and feel like I'm a valuable human being. But every time I talk about politics, I feel the exact opposite. I feel so horrible, feel depressed, I feel like no hope and I hate and yet so then then therefore

the obvious question and why why do you do it? Now? I don't in this podcast, but these conversations are on my mind because I'm an intellectual, I'm a nerd, and I have questions. Well that's the problem is I have questions and the way the world is, I mean, I think these are topics that any intelligent person is worried

about right now, Like I don't. I know, in my friend groups it comes up all the time, you know, and even people who aren't podcasters or writers or psychologists, like it's you know, just family members, people on the right and the left, like everybody seem everybody. It's like, we have this black hole in our culture right now. And you know, I felt myself getting sucked into it a couple of years ago, and I made a very conscious decision last year to just get back out and

stay out. And because I found the same thing, like it just was it was making me miserable. It was really like it made me loathe turning on my computer in the morning, which you know, that's no good. Maybe that's where I need to get to that that's the one potential route is where I make a commitment to staying out. I mean, we have mutual friends. You know, I'm not gonna mention this, but they feel their public figures,

you know, they feel the same way. I've talked to them personally about this as well, and they they're like, I'm just not going to even touch any of those issues. I think part of the problem of being a ravenously curious person such as myself is that it's almost like a dopamine thing. If I if I can't get like, who can I talk to this? So maybe I just talk to you privately. Maybe we just get a beer

and talk about these topics. Maybe I don't need to talk about them in public, you know, but yeah, talk about them. I want to. I'm craving to talk to someone about them because I think there's so much nab that's going on right now and I want to understand it for sure, since for sure, and yeah, I limit

it to my private life. But a lot of that is kind of just it's just calculated, because it's like I recognize that, like I'm of most value, you know, my my brain and career is most value to the society if I'm talking about more universal subjects, like you know a lot of subjects, you know, the subjects you

talk about on this podcast. And it's and so as much as I might be, you know, freaking out or troubled or curious about a lot of these topics, I've just found like the cost benefit of bringing you know, engaging online on the internet, it's just it's not there, Like it's it's really not. I might get there, I

might get there soon. Really, let's transition for a second to this to the self help industry, a discussion of the self industry and where you are unique value and I'd love to know more about your unique value from your own perspective. I noticed something you wrote in not that you wrote, but there was a profile view in the New Yorker big response to why you do what you did was your a reaction to tiny Buddha. I was wondering, why you're hitting on tiny Buddha. I love

tiny Buddha. He's only a tiny Buddha. He's a vulnerable, vulnerable tiny Buddha. And I love tiny Buddha and I share those things, and I was just I was wondering, that's one thing I wanted to discuss with you is why why? Why? Okay? Okay? Well, so, first of all, public apology to tiny Buddha. Nothing against tiny Buddha, It's fine.

I'm a very competitive person. And if you've ever seen like the Last like the documentary about Michael Jordan, or like Michael Jordan has it like he was so competitive that he would like invent enemies in his own mind to motivate himself, you know. And I think early in my career I had a little bit of that. I was in my twenties. I was writing online no like nobody had ever heard of me, and I didn't like the self help industry. I thought it was a little

bit too cheesy, powder puffy, you know. It needs to be a little bit more real and more raw. And so there were a number of very popular sites at the time that I would kind of look at and I'd be like, fuck that guy, like I'm gonna I'm gonna beat them, you know, like kind of like Michael Jordan getting before a game. That makes sense, it's not personal.

But anyway, so when I was talking to the journalist, he was like, so, like what sites And I was like, ah, well, there's a site Tiny Buddha like posted a million like little you know love yourself today because your special you know type things, and and I wanted to be the antithesis to that, and so it was just kind of a tool of motivation. It's nothing against tiny Buddha. So if Tiny if the I don't even know who runs Tiny Buddha, but if they're listening, he's a lovely guy.

He's a lovely guy. I just opened up their page and I just thought this would be fun. Let me read the last three quotes and you tell me what your reaction to them are. Okay, okay, Never be a shame again. This is all improv I didn't plan any of this. Never never be ashamed to say I'm worn out. I've had it. Oh boy already, I'm like rolling my eyes. Never be ashamed to say, quote I'm worn out, I've had enough. I need some time for myself. End quote.

That isn't being selfish, that isn't being weak, that's being human to for Kirby said that, what's your immediate gut reaction to that? I mean, yeah, I don't like, I don't know. So that's a good example. There are a lot of like quotes in the self help world that just strike me is so obvious that they're not really And I understand there's some people out there that it's not obvious, but like it's so plain that I wonder why it needs to be said. Well, it's not Edgy.

I mean, I think you like Edgy. I do like Edgy. Yeah, I really be honest, let's get to the core of this, sir. From a psychoanalytic perspective, I think that like if something's too milk toast, I think you kind of yes, like no, no, I can do better. Yeah, that's absolutely part of it. I also think, so you have that same bone you do, by the way, I get it, like I get it.

I'm saying that from a person who gets it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's I also think that you know a lot of traditional self help, like that quote, you know a lot of it. I think a lot of the industry kind of originated from And I'm sorry that I'm about the stereotype, but I think just understanding the demographics of

the self help industry, I believe this is true. I think a lot of the industry kind of spawned from a lot of housewives in the seventies, eighties, and nineties who were very codependent and very bored and probably felt exhausted and burnt out all the time. And so I feel like a lot of the traditional quotes are like very like laser directed at that. So like that person, that audience. I think that quote makes total sense for it, and it's probably a very powerful quote for a person

like that to hear. It's just that, you know, these days, especially like the last ten to fifteen years, everybody reads self help, like self help is everybody now. It's young people, it's old people, it's single people, married people, parents, people without kids, you know, super ambitious people, people who just want to like hang out at the beach, Like everybody is reading self help and so there. To me, it feels like that quote no longer casts a wide, super

wide net. There's now a large audience of people who are looking for good advice and information who will see that quote and just be like, well, yeah, duh, like dude, take a day off, like you know. I actually I read an interesting study ones that I think is a very underrated study. It found that people who are most insecure and low self esteem just gravitate towards self help quotes more than others. Now this and again that in

itself is probably no duh sort of thing. But isn't so much of these kind of stuff just it's just stuff to make people feel better? Like Forens, I'm going to read another one to you. Yep. And the dandelion does not stop growing because it is told it is a weed. The dandelion does not care what others see. It says, one day they'll be making wishes upon me, see Atkinson, Now, isn't that Isn't that just a motivator? It's like a It's like as let's say, you're insecure

and you feel like you're a schlub. You know, you're eating pizza there on the couch and you you know, you just don't you know, you're lazy? You read that? Is that? Is that even going to motivate you? Though? Like is it gonna work? Okay, So no offence to dandelions either, yeah, pizzas, couches or couches. Yeah anyway. Yeah, So so this kind of like falls into a little bit of a theory I have about the self help

industry in general. Is that like okay, so at the core of that statement, right, like Basically, what that quote is saying is is like, look, hater's gonna hate, you know, like and just keep working on yourself. And you know, it's like, if you're gonna do, if you're gonna become an admirable person, there's always gonna be people who are gonna try to tear you down. Like that's just the

truism about life. I think it's something that we all need to hear occasionally, and I think that's essentially what this quote is accomplishing. My complaint with stuff like that, it's more about the packaging, and my belief about the self help industry in general is that there's nothing new in self help, Like ninety nine percent of what's in self help is been around in philosophy and religion for

thousands of years. The thing that changes and the thing that people the reason why there's so much demand for it is that the packaging changes. So from generation to generation and demographic to demographic, you get the same message but with different stories, different language, different packaging around it.

Because that reaches people differently, and sometimes if you change the packaging around an idea, it lands a little bit more powerfully, like it incites a little bit more emotional reaction in people, which is important if you're trying to change your behavior. So I think a quote like that, you know, when I hear it, it's like, Okay, the idea is fine, it's it's something that we all need to hear, the whole thing with the dandeline or whatever. You know, My question is who is who is that package?

Like why is it packaged that way? And who is that landing for? And it's just that's it's not my style. It's not what lands for me. You know, it gets a little bit of an eye roll out of me. But that's fine. Like there's a lot of people that it does land for, and as long as it lands for them, that's totally fine. And a lot of what I do in my work is just it's repackaging for a different audience, a different demographic of people. And you've

really done a tremendous job. I mean, kudos, like the audience you've built, and you really know your audience and you really you really give them what they want. You give the people what they want. That is great. I was reading an article you wrote four ways I've changed my mind in the past ten years, and you wrote that when you turn thirty. How old are you right now? By the way, I am thirty eight. Okay, so this

was almost ten years ago that you wrote. Again word, I write because ten years before that, which makes me think, now have you written another ten years one? But yeah, have your well when you turn forty, maybe you're right, you'll write about the pieties. But you I believe you do not know what article I'm talking about. Dude. I've written so many things over the years, I do not remember this one yet. One of them is because I have a lot more respect for genetics than I used to. Mmm.

And I thought that was really interesting because no one uses the G word in the self help world. It's controversial. It's controversial. Everyone asks us though, well, look it's all in your mind, you know. Just change your thinking the way you think about it, and you'll attract it into your life. Yeah. Like, I don't know. It's like what if you said, well, actually, personality traits are heritable to

a very large degree. Doesn't mean they're unchangeable, but it means that it for some people, there are individual differences. For some people, it's going to be harder, it's going to be a greater uphill battle. I mean that's the truth. I mean that nuance is the truth. But you never see the nuance in those in those kinds of quotes. So I was wondering what you're thinking of that was when you wrote that, and where you are now eight

years after you wrote that. I would say, you know, I've developed a tremendous amount of respect for genetics and its role and outcomes of well being. And I honestly think, you know, I I don't know how to start this, you know, so so I mentioned earlier, you know my role is really I just say this without being canceled. How do I say, yeah, that that ship is sailed? No?

I mean so, I you know, I see myself as a repackager, and you know, one of that is one of one of the ways that's repackaged is you know, taking ideas from I don't know, stoicism, ors and Buddhism and repackaging them for people nowadays. But another way I see myself is taking ideas from academia and kind of simplifying them, translating them for the lay person, you know,

taking those conclusions. And so a lot of my work over the last ten or twelve years has just been reading a lot of research and under trying to understand data and understand like where the field is. And if you're gonna anybody who's going to seriously dive into psychology or pretty much any science, like you can't. The power of genetics is just like so clear and all the data and all the evidence that you can't ignore it.

And on the flip side too, you know, once I was in this industry for enough years, you know, so when I started out in this industry, I also kind of had a naive view. I was like, you know, you could be whoever you want to be, and you know, sign up for my coaching, Well we'll get you there

together and all this stuff. And you know, once I got five or six years into it and kept in touch with a lot of people over that period, like you just start to realize that, Yeah, Like it's like there are certain things that's like, you know, if you're five foot seven and you want to be in the NBA, like, dude, you can practice basketball all you want, It's probably not going to happen, right, And there are certain things with you know, personality traits and just the way your brain works.

And I think I've really evolved to a place now where my understanding of like what self help actually is or like what a good life actually is is. It's not like becoming whoever you want to be, Like there's always going to be things that you want to be that you're not gonna Yeah, you're never going to fully

get there. Right to me, being a very like mentally emotionally healthy person is having a very strong understanding of who you are in terms of personality disposition, as you would put it, neurodiversity, you know, learning different aptitudes, different styles, different talents and capabilities, and then adapting well to those aspects of yourself, like developing learning skills and finding tools to help you like move well through the world with

an understanding of you know, the machinery you've got up you know, in your head. And that's not like an easily it doesn't that doesn't mark it super well, like you know, it's you can't really build an infomercial out of like you know, you know, hey, probably fifty five percent of your personality is set in stone, so let's just get let's just try to deal with what you've got Like that doesn't that doesn't like move super expensive

audio courses like like hotcakes. But I do think it's the truth, and I think it's an important truth, and it's something I do try to expose people to. You and I are very very much on the same page. I don't think you invented it, but I heard about it through you. This term of neurodiversity. I love it because it's it's so important, I think, not only for our self acceptance to you know, kind of accept the ways that our brains are different, but also like empathize

with others. That's like a real diversity, right, Like it's like, I agree, all of our brains are different, and let's honor and respect and enjoy those differences and learn from each other. Now, I wouldn't say the real diversity, because I do think that like skin color is an important form of diversity and other things. But before people misunderstand, but I do make the point that diversity is more than skin deep and point, and that is a point I really try to make to people. I gave a

commencement address recently. Yes I'm bragging a little bit. Look at you Bridge's Academy, which is a special school for kids who are twice exceptionals and they're very gifted, but they're also have a major area of learning stability, and they're definitely urgent. Most of them are on the autism spectrum. And I made that point and I got a lot of cheers because I do think often they're left out of the conversation of diversity, because I think we're on

the same page with that for sure. So I've got a little bullet here that I wrote down. I've got a little pet theory that I've written about before go on which I want to get your reaction. And then I also want to ask you specifically, you know about yourself a little bit. So I've got this theory that the best part about somebody is well, so the headline is the best part of about somebody is also the

worst part about them. What I actually mean by that is that generally the aspect of ourselves that is our greatest strength or like gives us the most benefits in our life is often also the same thing that is partially responsible for most of the problems in our life. Like it's we all tend seem to have these traits that are double edged swords, and it's often the play the area of our lives that we're very strong in there's that strength causes a weakness in another part of

our life. And so I want to ask you A do you think that's true? And B If so, what would you say that is about you? What is what is the best and worst thing about you? It's a

great question, Leel Freeman. Is there's a real academic to be As I put forward to my book twice exception know about whether or not everything that's neurodiversent about a person has a hidden amazing benefit automatically you know or twice exceptional people or those who tend to have some significant challenges that are challenges, but they also have that person tends to have a gift. You know, they're amazing talent and is creative and it's necessarily stemming from their disability.

So there's different camps about this, and I think this relates to the question you asked. I actually don't think that everything has a secret gift to it. I think the field of neudiversity goes to bonkers on that sometimes saying everything like it's like a taboo to say, you know what, this sucks. I can't I have IDHD, I can't concentrate where shit and you know what, I don't

like that. It's like taboo. You have to you have to say, but you're creative, but you're it's like almost like a knee jerk, sort of like compulsive thing to like, god forbid you face that someone could not be perfect, whereas I as you, I think we both share this thing is telling people, you know what, it's okay to not be perfect. You're not perfect. I'm not perfect either. There's a real reality there. I don't think me and you like bullshit, you know what I mean? Like and

I don't like bullshit. So I I really think that there are a lot of things that do have a hidden benefit. And I think that's true, But I don't think everything has a hidden benefit. Well what would you? Can you give me an example of something that would not have a hidden benefit, right, because maybe someone could do an intellectual exercise and for everything they can come up with some way in some context in which that

could be beneficial. That's true. Well, and I and and I also think a lot of this is contextual based on the person, right, Like it's instance. Yeah, so like I'm I'm I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was a very very mediocre student, but god, I have ADHD two. I wonder if this is this is could this explain some of our own sort of cheekiness. Yeah, well, I was just about to say, like, that's a hidden benefit. I think, Well, I think the hidden benefit of my ADHD is that I get bored with topics and ideas

very very quickly. And so you you spoke earlier of like I like edginess. Well, I think part of me is like I look for that edginess because it keeps me engaged with stuff and I and I think I think a lot of what people like about my writing is that edginess of like I can take I can take a topic that is a little bit academic and stale and make it edgy and put a crazy story on it and keep people you know, hooked on it for a while. Absolutely, So that is the point I

wanted to make is it's very personal. What I'm saying is, who do are we to tell someone if they really find something that sucks in their experience? Who are we to come in and play saviors and say, oh, well, actually it's wonderful. That's the only point I want to make. I agree with that. I would say that this is the sort of thing that you can really is. It's only valid if the person identifies it in themselves, you know,

like I would. I would not want somebody coming to me, you know, eighteen year old me and being like, well your ADHD is actually a great thing, and I'd be like, go fuck yourself. But you know, it's like it took years for me to discover the great thing from that. So my question to you is have you found that in your own experience with yourself? I have, in many many ways as someone who has always been quirky, to be able to like be described as quirky as an

adult in a positive way feels great. It really does for great, Like people like, oh Scott's he's quirky, and I think they mean that. I think they mean that, like you know, and then I'm endearing. Yeah, I'm endearing. But I didn't feel that way as a kid at all, you know, I felt like a freak. Yeah, so there are certainly ways for me personally where there has been the case and we're also just my literalness, which I got made fun of a lot as a kid, has

helped me as a scientist. It has helped me write a lot of do research and do papers. I really do, and I always have had a not just an aversion to, but a I just can't understand it game playing fat around something like politics. I'm baded. This is why I'm bad at politics. This I'll say something of a question,

a genuinely curious question. I'll ask it, not knowing and realizing what landmines I'm stepping on, with no intention of hurting anyone's feelings, no intention whatsoever of causing fires and chaos and World War three. I just had a question I could totally relate to that. It's funny I have that problem. Like I'm not very active in my own social media, Like it's it's very smart. Yeah, it's there's like an arms length distance between. So it's it's not

there so much. But I've noticed whenever I have to deal with kind of like more corporate cultures in my career, like if I need to, you know, discuss plans for a book contract or something, or like I get added to an email thread like, well, I just we just produced a film last year in New Zealand, and so I'll get added to an email thread with a bunch of people at a production company, and I'll just like

it's the same thing in my head. I'm just asking some questions and it's like all of a sudden, there's just fires everywhere that people are putting out because apparently I said the wrong thing and I wasn't supposed to say this to this person or this, you know, not with that person on the email thread, and like, I'm just I have no patience for that stuff. I hate it. I have no patience. I hate it. And I also really think I have a learning disability because I don't

get it. Like I don't get I mean, this is actually a nice transition to your entry away into the pickupart this world. You're part of the pickup ours world. Now, my experience with the pickup oars world is I wrote a book called Mating Intelligence unleasht which I never tell anyone about because I don't know about that book. But that came out in twenty eleven, a co authored with

Glenn gear who's a wonderful evolutionary psychologist. But when that book around that time, I was invited once to attend. They loved the book in the pickup artist community, and they invited me to attend a summit in New York City and it was the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. It was like a room full of the people who were teaching the course were narcissists and the people in the audience were autistic people. That was the dynamic. I don't know if you resonate with that at all, but

it was. It was They're very well intentioned, they didn't understand the rules. They didn't under they did understand the rules of the game. They want to understand. They want rules, they want the people in the audience, they have a wet And then the people who were selling the products to me came across as like hucksters. You know, obviously it's not everyone in the community. It wasn't. I don't want to be canceled by the pickup artist community. This

was mine. This was my observation, and I can honestly say that I really had a lot of empathy for the people in the audience. I talked to some of them. They're like, you really don't understand game playing. Now. What the most ironic thing I noticed from that whole community is well, then therefore they're being taught how to how to be a game player. Yeah, And that's transformation from not understanding it at all and not understanding those kinds

of social directions to becoming like this master player. It's just fascinating to me. So I wanted to does this resonate at all? One hundred? Actually I have, Well, the posts I wrote are long gone from that era, but I actually wrote deleted them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I actually wrote about this back then. You know, so I I coached in that industry for a few years and I what was her handle? Were you coincidentally? Oh? Whoa? Yeah?

So yeah. So my observation is that there were really two types of guys, and I think you nailed one of them. Is a lot of I'd say about fifty percent of them. You know, they were probably on the spectrum really socially underdeveloped. A lot of guys who were intensely sheltered, bullied, you know, just like had never socialized really and they were confused and googled online how to socialize or how to talk to a girl, and like

they ended up at one of these seminars. And so for those guys, and what was interesting about those guys too, is that they didn't really suffer as much from the anxiety. Like you could take one of those guys into you know, I don't know, a bookstore or a coffee shop or whatever, and you know be like, you know, hey, that blonde girl, like go introduce yourself to that girl over there, and

they go do it, and they'd have no problem. And then they, you know, within twenty seconds, say something super weird and the girl would be like, uh, can you go away? And then they go away. And so a lot of them, the work with them was getting them to understand like, Okay, so you said this thing that feels weird to her, and this is why it feels weird, and you like explain kind of like the social context and everything. That sounds valuable. And actually I think for

a lot of those guys it was. If it was just that, it would have been very valuable. The problem is yeah, yeah, the problem is that the big up artist. The next the next step is call them ugly. Yeah. Well, and and I'm just speaking to like how I worked with these guys. You know, there was a lot of baggage and weird beliefs and misogyny and stuff that was went on in that community too. So a lot of

those guys got that as well. But I'd say the other fifty percent of guys, and I would include myself in this category, is that they were actually pretty well socialized, They had pretty good emotional intelligence. They were just intensely low self esteem slash codependent. They had I say codependent because it's like a lot of them were very high functioning in other areas of their life. They had great jobs, they had great groups of friends, they had you know,

went on cool trips and stuff. But you put them in front of an attractive woman and they are just terrified, absolutely terrified, Mark, Really, can I just pause right there? Sure, for the sake of conversation. My observation is that fifty percent there on ourtice inspectum, and you fifty percent who have vulnerable narcissism, and the ones in space have grandiose narcissism one hundred percent. That's why. That's that's that was

my exact analysis. Yeah, so, and you you actually beat me to it, because I was gonna I was actually heading my study vulnerable narcisism. I study it, and it's a textbook. It's textbook that fear of rejection, such such a strong fear of rejection that you need to become something else exactly exactly So with those guys, it was

all about It was mostly about the anxiety. It was getting them to deal with because and it was interesting because a lot of guys would have you know, if you if you kind of see like the courtship process is, like you know, from like meeting to first date to you know, say kissing to actually getting physically intimate, guys would have like this like ball of anxiety on like one spot on that line, you know. So it's like a lot of guys were just terrified of like talking

to somebody. Other guys could talk, but it was like as soon as it was time like to kiss her or whatever, like they would just kind of lose their mind. So a lot of those guys, it was more the emotional side. It was getting them to like conquer their fears, deal with anxiety. What actually ended up happening in a lot of cases though, is you nailed it is it was a lot of the coaching in that industry was grandiose narcissists teaching vulnerable narcissists how to be grandiose narcissists.

But they were codependent on each other. Yes, And I wrote a tweet about that about just in general self help industry is essentially a codependency between vulnerable narcissist and grandiose narcissist. Absolutely, dude, absolutely, And yeah, it's a gross dynamic. And you know, if there's a if there's kind of a unifying thread of my career, it is me kind of discovering that gross dynamic in the pickup artist community, creating the content to kind of get out of that.

Like I wrote my book Models Attract Women through Honesty as like an antidote to that, and then coming into the self help industry and finding that same dynamic happening and being grossed out by it and wanting to, you know, kind of write the antidote for the self help industry as well. That that's like my twelve year career in a nutshell. And you did, you did? You know, well done? Because what is different about yours? And again, this has been a long conversation to say it was your unique

value proposition we started off. That was the thread, That was the thread that started this. In my view, you don't come across to me as grandi as narcissistic because you're not, or at least that dependency, that codependency is not evident. So at least in the relationship between you and your audience, because you're not taking people who are woefully insecure and building them up and puffing them up so much so they feel so great that they don't

have to deal with their insecurities anymore. Because that's that's the code depenze I'm referring to is you know, and I don't see that with you, which is which I love and I say as well, modesty. I'd like to think that's the same kind of relationship I have with my audience. I like to give them science backed information, but I also have I tell them to embrace their darks, embrace their dark side, explore their dark side, explore their insecurities,

explore their fears. It's more about exploration than it is me saying you're great, you know, Like I'm not going to write a book called you are great, you know, because I actually don't think that most people are great. I mean, it's so well, I think there is a book called You Are a Badass, Number one New York Times number one. It is sold very very well. Yeah, let me ask you actually, Well, first of all, what do you think is your unique value proposition? Well, definitely

evidence based already puts me. Yeah, yeah, I mean you of the credentials in this world, like this world of

podcasting and blogging and stuff. It's yeah, like I saw a lane, right, Like there's a point like when I started this podcast, like I saw I was like, you know what, there's an empty lane where I do want to help people, Like I do have an impulse to help people, and that weird hybrid of being a scientist and being really really science minded and nerding it to that level of truth seeking, but also I really do

want to help people. And then I think there may be an extra dimension, which is maybe like my unique Diuye proposition is also my personality, like when you add that and integrate that into those other two things, because I don't take things so seriously, I hope people appreciate my sense of humor. I don't know, what do you think I would say? Well, to bring it back to

your quirkiness, right, your superpower. I think your quirkiness is kind of because ultimately, like psychology and the self exploration that happens through understanding psychology, like it's it's dealing with uncomfortable aspects of yourself and dealing with ideas of judgments and shame and stuff from others. And so I think your quirkiness is probably kind of the sugar that helps

some of the medicine go down. You know, if people see you not taking yourself so seriously, it helps them lighten up on themselves to hear some of the things they need to hear. Yeah, and I also I've just chounded even just with friends, they say that they feel very comfortable with me because I think I don't take myself so seriously, you know, like I want people to feel comfortable around me, you know, and I think I bring that out on my guess. I guess admit things

that they never mitten any other podcasts. For instance, I said, I had this one guy he was crying. He was talking about his childhood and then yeah, like I asked for his signature. I met up with him in Santa Monica's for a signature on his book, and his inscription was thanks for making me cry. Like, you know, like, I I don't know why I said any of those things I said, So maybe maybe that's part of it.

That's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. So can you compare in contrast to me the pickup artist life versus the married life. What's the difference, what's the There's got to be benefits on both sides, and this age is on both sides. It's not like one's perfect and one's not perfect for sure. The and I hate calling it the pickup artist life. Let's call it. Let's call it. Let's call it the uh seduction lifestyle. That's you know where

Let's call it the bachelor lifestyle. You know, I was a very I was a big party guy and intentionally dated a lot of women, you know that like models book. Yeah, you know, I don't even want you, like, I don't even want to. It was it was a double entendre of models and mental models. But anyway, that's so cool. Way are you serious? Was that part of it? Yeah, it's cool. Wait, I had no idea that it actually had a double on tundre for mental models. Yeah. So

it's called models Attract Women through Honesty. But if you actually read the introduction, it says that the problem that most men have is that they have poor mental models of how dating relationships women masculine. That's actually brilliant. Yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah. All right, so the bachelor lifestyle, I'd say is more fun and exciting, but it's also you know, the highs well, no, I don't want to say highs are higher. I would say it's it's more exciting,

it's more stimulating, thrilled, thrilling, uh, venture seeking. Married life is happier, which I think is contingent on marrying the right person and you know, the relationship being healthy. But I would say overall, it's it's everything's more even keel. You know, days are just consistently good and and over enough time that starts to add up into something that feels very very special, you know, and it's I think

five years ago. Sometimes I'd get a little bit wistful of my my party days, you know, and every once in a while, like a guy friend of mine would like, you know, be like, dude, we should go to Vegas and like do this and that and whatever. I'd be like, oh, yeah, maybe I should do that. But it's funny now I'm the last few years, I'm just like, really no desire because there's I hear you. I'm not there yet, but I'm still in my party stage to a very large degree.

But I hear you because the contrast between the feeling of thrilling versus the feeling of contentness. They're different feelings. Yeah, the thrilling feeling never feels content Yep, it doesn't. But then I will also say, on the other side, the content feeling very rarely feels fit thrilling. Yeah, you know, and and so that's tricky. Yeah, but look, wouldn't a home Slice Homegirl what's her name, Esther Pearrell didn't she wouldn't she say this is like probably the most like raw,

unscripted interview I've ever done in a psychology podcast. I love it, I actually love it. I actually could I've enjoyed it too, man. Yeah, wouldn't Esther Pearell say like, well, you couldn't have it to both, That's why that's not her accent at all. But wouldn't she say that, like if she was talking to you, wouldn't she say, well, don't you have thrilling moments with your wife? For sure?

But it's different because a lot of the thrills in in I guess single bachelor life, it's it's around novelty. It's around new person, new experiences, kissing a person for the first time, having sex with them for the first time, going out with them, for the first time, you know, So there's a lot of novelty stimulation, Whereas I would say, so the downside of Mary is that you have to

a certain amount of time with somebody. You have to both of you have to very consciously work on creating novelty to like kind of Yeah, you have to find ways to like keep things novel, whether that's like little romantic getaways or date nights or you know, putting on sexy lingerie or what you know, whatever people want to do to make things a little bit novel. You have to like find a way to include that. Is that why people have open marriages? And I mean isn't that

what polyamory satisfies some of that as well? So you decide to live in monogamous lifestyle, is that correct? Yeah? Yeah, no, no, you're like you're like for the most part, the most part, Yes, we are. My wife and I are monogamous. I have I do you know what I mean? Yeah? No, I mean I've I've experimented with non monogamy and previous relationships.

You know, non monogamy is it's a cost benefit thing, and I you know what I get My audience asked me about non you know polyamory quite a bit, And the answer I always give is, I think it's probably you know, there are there's like a minority of people that their personality is well suited for it. I think it's people hear it and they get very excited about the idea of like, oh my god, you can have sex with other people and not be jealous or like

even include them in your relationship. And you like, yeah, that is very exciting and it's sexy too, like you know, like you sit there and fantasize about it, and it can get pretty exciting. The thing. The thing is, we don't like the human mind. We're bad at We're very

bad at considering trade offs, particularly emotional trade offs. And so what you don't think about is like all, like the many, many awkward and difficult conversations you will have to have not just with your partner but with you know, whoever else you want to hook up with. There will be feelings of jealousy and adequacy shame that will come

up that will need to be dealt with. You'll need to have good lines of communication with all your partners about those, and then on you know, you just throw on top of that. It's like it's it is a large emotional load to be a good partner in one relationship, Like now imagine doubling that and adding a second person. You know, there's an old joke where I forget who said it, but they're like, yeah, it's like I barely have enough energy to handle one one woman, Like why

would I want to? Like I could barely handle one wife, why would I want to have four? It's a it's a real thing, Like there's there's like an emotional exhaustion. So I think some people are well disposed to that sort of thing. They are good at those conversations, they enjoy them. They have a very high sex drive, very high need for novelty in their life. And so if you happen, like if your personality lines up in all those checks, all those boxes, then I think it could

work for you. But I also think I feel like today, maybe I think more people, more people are excited about the idea. I think, you know, if they experiment with it, you quickly, at least from what I've scene of myself and friends and stuff, it's like people get excited, they experiment with it, and then they're like, yeah, I don't think I'm gonna do that again. So that's true. It's and then it works for some people speaking of polyamory, How's Will Smith doing? Oh? God, come on, that was

that was good? That was good. I've been trying to figure out a way of asking how Will Smith is doing? No, dude, that that is the best way you could have possibly asked. Like people are gonna think this is scripted. That was so good. Everything is not scripted. Actually everything is not scripted. Whole conversation. Yeah, this is this is stand up comedian Scott. But now you wrote he wrote his h his autobiography. He wrote. That sounds a good funny thing to say.

He wrote his autobiography, but you co wrote it and your friends, you guys are friends, so well, how's your friend doing. I've not talked to him in a while, but I imagine knowing him. I know immediately after this slap he was pretty bummed out and pretty pretty sad about everything, remorseful. But I haven't talked to him in

a couple months. Knowing him, he's Will has maybe the highest capacity out of any person I've ever met in my life to take whatever situation he is in and psychologically adapt to it and like turn it into a positive for himself. So I haven't spoken to him, but I guarantee you he's somewhere right now living his best life, and he's probably decided that this is, you know, this forced sabbatical from his career is like the best thing

that's happening to him right now. He's probably reconnecting with friends and family. He's probably fine in all sorts of useful, productive things to do. Cool. I hope that that him and Chris Rock can joke someday in public. I'm sure I'm hoping for that. I actually saw a concert. I recently saw Chris Rock and concert, and I can tell you some of the jokes he made. He walks immediately on stage. I wrote that, I wrote, they still they not stole her phones, but they kept her phones in

a thing. So I couldn't write down, but I committed it's all to memory, and he said. He walks on stage and he goes, don't worry, I'm okay, I'm okay. Finally got my hearing back. And then later later in the show, he goes, everyone is doing performative outrage these days. Those words hurt. Those words hurt anyone who tells you that has never been slapped in the face. That was another joke he said. And yeah, he had another one.

That's a third one which I'm black and around. He called him like Sugar Smith Shug Shug Smith is that they called him. Later on he said something about he's like, I'm no victim of Shug Smith is something like that. Yeah, so he's laughing about it. I I what would warm my heart is just to watch them both someday come together and kind of you know joke, you know, a human have a human connection. I think they will. I mean will Is. Honestly, he he's a really good guy.

It was it was a terrible thing that he did. It was a moment of weakness, I think, like a significant vulnerability slash insecurity. But like, deep down he's a great guy. He is, and he's great at doing the right thing when it needs to be done. And so he's I would be shocked if he doesn't find a way to like bury the hatchet and laugh about it with Chris at some point. So it sounds like it was a great experience writing that book with him and

getting to know him. I love the dude. You know, it's really unfortunate that you know what happens, but it's I have nothing but great things to say about him. It was honestly one of the best professional experiences in my life. He was wonderful to work with, really sweet and nice. His team is great. Yeah, it's just a fascinating life, really enjoyed. Like I had full access to his family, his childhood friends, everybody's worked with. Like, you know,

it's what an incredible privilege. It was, honestly, like I basically just got to It's like, here, here's full access to one of the most successful human beings in the world and everything that makes him tick. And guess what, you can write whatever you want about him. You know. It was such a joy and I have only glowing things to say about him, beautiful Mark. I was wondering, do you think we have free will? Oh? By the way, it's like, do you want to have the fish or

the Chicka tacos? O? By the way, do you have free will? I'm keeping this going. I'm keeping this going, so you let me know when you have to go. Oh good, I found a emergency level for the last hour. But I'm keeping this going. I am what I believe his call a soft determinist we probably do not have free will, but I also believe that it doesn't really matter because we perceive ourselves and others as having free will, so and ultimately like that that's what matters for our socialization,

psychological well being, things like that. So we might as well just act as though we do, even though we probably don't. What about the implications though, for the law and for the way that we h you know, punishment,

we hand out punishment. I think that's a fallacy, you know, in our inside our own heads, we are all experiencing our lives as though we have free will, And I don't think you know, it's like if let's say somebody goes into a rage and kill somebody else, you know, the arguing that he didn't have free will, Like that's not a valid argument. He still killed somebody, you know, and we still have the moral question of like what do you do with a murderer and a functioning society, Well,

you probably put him somewhere to keep everybody safe. Doesn't matter if you have free will or not. Like that's just how it yeah to me. It's just too it's like unnecessarily crossing philosophical questions between two domains. There was a really fascinating conversation recently that was published between Daniel Dennett on the one side, and I believe his name is Greg Caruso, a philosopher on the other side, where

they really got into this. There are a lot of complexities and nuances, of course, as there is in philosophy. I don't think the question is that we should let someone off the hook. You know, it's not like someone kills everyone. They're like I heard Sam Harris says, we don't have free will, so so you know, it's all good, folks, it's all good. Nothing to see here. I don't think

either of them arguing that's the case. But there are some interesting implications on how you think about this, for how you punish, you know, so I think Greg has more of a theory of retribution, which is more of getting them back out into society and teaching them the errors of their ways and being kinder think in how we how we treat criminals, and so there might be there might be some some different nuances here, but I still don't see. I mean, this is what makes me

a self determinus. I don't see how that conversation has anything to do with free will. I mean it's like, I think, ultimately, what you do with criminals or say, violent offenders, you know, you want to find the most effective and humane way to deal with the offenders and to protect the people in society. And to me, it's like whether there's philosophical free will or not, like that doesn't really come into it. Like, to me, this is just us. It's a sociological question more than anything. Oh,

that's so interesting. The question with free will is a sociological question. I never hear sociology sociologists debating whether or not we have free will, which is interesting because they could well no, no, no, I'm saying what to do with violent offenders is more of a socio Oh I'm sorry. It's like, how I bet the philosophical fosspy of mine question? No no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no, it's it's yeah, how what how? What do we do with our criminals? I think is more of a sociology

It's not a philosophical Questionhi, gotcha, that's a great, great point. Well, I've sort of exhausted my burning questions. Now you said you made a little bit of a list. Yeah, so what have I left out. Do you have any burning questions for SBK? Well, why why don't we do this? Actually I do have a Bernie, I have a couple

of things here, but we can. Let's finish up with this, because this is I I'd like to do a little bit of like a machine gun overrated underrated question with you, and so I'm just going to throw some things at you, and I want you to say overrated, underrated, and then just explain why ready, Yes, okay, first one meditation, Oh my gosh, I'm going to say overrated. Okay, say overrated.

Even though I bold first love, I personally love meditation, but it's such a personal thing and it has become this sort of thing where like you're shamed if you don't like meditation, Like if meditation doesn't is not for you, it's like, yeah, ain't doing it right? Yeah yeah. And I don't really like that sort of spirit about it. That's it's antithetical the whole spirit of what meditation should be.

And there are a lot of people in the space that the meditation space who do in a non spiritually narcissistic way, but there are a lot who do do do it in a spiritually narcissistic way. Very good point, very good point. I will just comment really quick that

I think what I'm enjoying right now. You know, meditation was kind of like a the this this star, the darling child I think of, you know, became very fashionable ten or fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, and there was a lot of initial research into it that had like stellar results for people and had all these claims about how it improved well being. And what I find really fascinating now is that there's a lot of research coming out saying the opposite. And it's it's like, I'm

just enjoying watching the subject. I mean, I personally enjoy meditating, but I don't really have a horse in this race a whole lot anymore. I think it's just a tool, another tool that people can use if it if it's good, firm, great.

If it's not, that's fine. But it's been interesting watching from afar how it's kind of gone from this like almost panacea to now all this new research coming out showing it like it actually in some cases not only does it not make people better off, but some people, a minority of people might even make them worse off. And there is research something that makes assholes often more Yep, yeah, they're more mindful of their asshole right now though, yep,

waiting for waiting for a laugh. Okay, Next, overrated, underrated, twin studies, overrated interesting? Oh oh what a I mean? You're asking someone who studied all the complexities around it to come up with a binary answer to this. Of course we're going to tweet this out later, so make it good. Well, look, I guess I'm gonna say overrated, but insuring circles, underrated in other circles, underrated within sociology. Yep, the G word is a dirty word in sociology, yeah,

the G being genes. But within other areas, I think overrated, and I think within behavioral genetics the field it's overrated. Interesting. You know, I had a bit of a tet tet with just tet tet mean like disagreement. I don't know. We can google it, look at us. It's just sounds good, it sounds good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got a PhD. I've written a bunch of best sellers. Go for it.

So we don't even know what these words. Ned's an S shaped sofa on which two people can sit face to face, involving involving or happening or happening between two people in private. So okay, it wasn't a tech to tech because this was public podcast. I had a bit of a confrontation with with Pullman, the leading one of

the leading world's leading behavioral genetesis. Nothing against him as a person, but I do think he overrated uh, he overrated he in his book on Jeanes, he he downplayed the role of the environment, I think, and it just went too much in one direction and and relying too much on twin studies to make your point. I think is also can be problematic, even though I hate that word.

It can make you blind to the ways in which our immediate environment can influence our immediate behaviors, even if in the long term it doesn't sculpt us as much as much as we'd like to think it does. Yeah. Interesting, it's funny. Twin studies were kind of the thing that kicked me out of my I guess naive beliefs. You know that you can be whatever you want to be, you know, it was it was it was discovering the twin study research that that about ten years ago that

kind of like woke me up to that. But it's funny because as years have gone on, I have gone back and looked at some of that research, and yeah, it's actually it's very limited. Like I don't it's probably not telling as much as a lot of people say it is telling us. Depends on the context, right, Yeah, for sure, definitely is underrated in certain context. That's true. For sure. For sure, self esteem as a concept, as

an like a constructed concept, underrated. Interesting, underrated because there's a backlash against the self esteem movement in the seventies, but I think that was really a backlash against a narcissism movement. I agree that don't make this distinction between narcissism and self esteem. I've tried gone great pains to make that distinction, because all high selfesteem means is that

you feel like you're good enough. It doesn't feel like you're greater than others, but you have a basic sense of self worth and a basic sense of competency that you can reach your goals in life. And I think those two things are wholly underrated as important things to

instill in children. How often do we focus as much time on teaching kids' maths skills as we do and building up their basic sense of self worth, for instance, especially around a tumultuous time and you know adolescence when they tend to feel very low self worth and it causes them to act down in all sorts of ways, like become a computer hacker. Right, But narcissism is a real problem. But I think there are different things I agree with that I've bought into the backup lash a

little bit. Don't you think it's a little bit of a misnomer, like self esteem? Like it because you know, there are a lot of people coming out with self compassion, self acceptance, self worth value like it's yeah, I think there's a lot of like the debate around this is actually just semantics. Yeah, it's a great point. What part of the word esteem is triggering you? Because to me it's the second E to be honest, just like really

don't like it? Well part no, to me? Esteem? You know those original studies and I think it was Bambmeister did who like that found that like violent criminals and narciss like exhibited very high self esteem. You know. To me, it kind of when I think of esteem, I think of just simply like does a person like themselves do they have positive feelings self regard essentially, just positive self regard.

And I think positive self regard is very different from like believing that you're a good person or believing that you are like morally good, I guess is what I'm saying. And and and believing that you're capable or that self esteem. Yeah, positive self evaluation and defending that at all times is narcissism. Yeah. M it's a defending that at all times that it makes it the narcissism. People who tend to be grand score high in grandiose narcissism. Must like they're defending a fort, defend,

must defend a positive image of themselves. They can't handle criticism, even the slightest criticism. Then they become a victim. Yep, right for sure. So you're on something. Yeah, okay, last one overrated? Underrated. Social media totally overrated. And it may depend on the platform because here's the thing. I find Instagram perfectly cordial. I can post something very innocuous like love much love to everyone on Twitter and I'll get

go to hell, you suck. Love is overrated. I go on Instagram and I'll write that hands clapped a mode love love, love, hearts. I love you, Scott. It's fascinating the difference between those two platforms. I agree with that. So I think there's nuance there in that some are more uplifting and supportive than other platforms. But I think I think Twitter is really overrated. I'm not convinced that

there is that much productive conversations going on there. I'm not convinced that the kind of conversations that happen on Twitter are moving the needle in our society in a positive direction. In fact, I would, if I had to, like intuitively, guess, I would say it's moving society in a negative direction. Yeah, I would agree with all that. I find the same thing. Platforms are different. I'm very skeptical that any useful discourse happens on social media. I'm

going to add to that. You know, I've last year I wrote a little bit about this and it was met with crickets. But you know, it's the research into the negative effects of social media is pretty weak. Like, it's not the studies showing that bad things happen, you know, social media causes bad things to happen and people is like,

it's pretty weak data sets. And then the studies with strong data sets show that nothing bad happens, and I think people have forgotten the excitement and the beauty of connecting that everybody that you've ever known in your life, Like it's you know, it's just I just remember when Facebook came out in two thousand and five, like just how unbelievably awesome it was to like go back and just like see you know, your friend in high school what they're doing now, and seeing your roommate in college

and what they're doing now. And I think we that's become such a normal part of our life that we take it for granted and forget how amazing that is. So I'm with you. I think that the hate is overrated, and I think a lot of it is just people. I think we as people need to like adjust and learn how to use these platforms better. I agree, I agree. Let's end in this note. If you agree with me, hate is overrated. Love is underrated these days? Oh for sure?

Do you agree with that? For sure? For sure? Yeah? The value of love, Yeah, the empathizing listening, yeah for sure. Awesome. It would be awkward if you disagreed with that. No, Scott, I'm all hate all the time. That's been really awkward, really freaking awkward. Thank you so much, Mark, This was so much fun. Thanks for for just just going with it. I really appreciate you. Man. Yeah, dude, I had a blast. I had a blast. It was great, awesome. Thanks for

listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thusycology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.