Mixed Mental Arts

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Ep198 - Beyond Political Correctness: A Scientific Perspective on Gun Control, the success of Asian students and why Texans and terrorists have more in common than they realize Jan 16, 2016

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Richard Nisbett grew up in Texas. So when he was looking for a culture he could say potentially uncharitable things about as a white man, he turned his attention squarely to Southern culture. In his book, Culture of Honor, Professor Nisbett takes a look at why certain very specific parts of the South (and West) of the US have higher homicide rates than the rest of the country. The answer it turns out is that the South and West have the same culture of honor that you find among herding peoples the world over. That culture is why the Mongols raided the Chinese, why the West and the Arab world clash and why America today can't seem to figure out gun control. Since then, Professor Nisbett has researched the cultural differences between East Asians and Westerners, how culture affects education and, most recently in his book Mindware, how slight changes in our thinking can massively improve our own lives. Whether you're sick of political correctness, you just want to understand why we so often clash or your looking for a way to actually solve our problems, Richard Nisbett's books are the books for you. Guest Links Professor Nisbett's Website Guest Promo Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking I'd like to add a fourth book. Intelligence and How to Get it: Why Schools and Cultures Count.

Ep197 - You Have Less Privacy Than You Thought (aka Creepy Shit Your Smartphone Does That You Didn't Even Know About) Jan 02, 2016

Show notes

Alvaro Bedoya is the founding Executive Director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown. In this episode, Alvaro lays out for us the current state of privacy (or lack thereof) and the state of a Congress that either can't or won't keep up with the state of the art in privacy violating technology. Alvaro doesn't have a book yet but he should. So tweet at him with your questions and suggested titles. Guest Links Website: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/bedoya-alvaro.cfm Twitter: @alvarombedoya

Ep196 - Why Culture Matters: Joe Henrich on his book The Secret of Our Success Dec 19, 2015

Show notes

Humans have always been pretty sure that they were special but we've never quite been sure why. Was it because we were made in God's image? Was it our opposable thumbs? Was it that we had bigger brains? Far be it for us to tell you what God does or does not look like but what Professor Joe Henrich can tell you is that it's not because we have bigger brains. In fact, when you compare the baseline intelligence of human toddlers, chimpanzees and orangutans you find out that we're really not smarter at all. Actually, in many areas we may even be dumber. The one area in which we are definitively smarter even as toddlers is social intelligence. That, it turns out, may be the secret of our success. Individually, we just aren't that smart. But, collectively, we have the capacity for genius. In his book, The Secret of Success, Professor Henrich examines how faith, imitation and trial and error have allowed peoples all over the world to evolve cultural practices so brilliant that the people who practice them very often don't understand why they're important but do them with the unwavering faith of believers. Of course, Professor Henrich's book exists within a culture of its own and although the book itself is a sensible and soundly-reasoned argument for humans' success as being heavily driven by culture it serves to challenge a whole series of cherished ideas within academia and the western world more generally. In The Secret of Our Success, religion is not the bug in the human brain that the New Atheists depict it as but a cornerstone of our ability to adopt useful cultural practices evolved through the cumulative work of people who died long before us. Henrich's book does not buy into the cultural relativism so prevalent in Western media and college campuses that argues that culture doesn't matter but instead makes the case that we ignore culture at our peril such as when Europeans transported crops like corn and manioc without also transporting the cultural practices indigenous peoples had developed to avoid potential longterm health problems from eating these foods. And while the pendulum of academic thought swung away from the blank slate towards an almost purely genetic view of human progress, Henrich reveals the next stage in intellectual thought that reveals how genetic and cultural processes can work together to allow humans to succeed. This is really an astounding book. Put it on the list, folks. Guest Links Website: http://heb.fas.harvard.edu/people/joseph-henrich Twitter: @JoHenrich Guest Promo The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

Ep195 - Kim MacQuarrie Dec 01, 2015

Show notes

When Hunter went to Peru this summer, he naturally went looking for books to read in preparation. Universally, the consensus was that THE book on the Inca Empire was Kim MacQuarrie's Last Days of the Inca. It was amazing. And apparently, Hunter wasn't the only one who thought so. In his latest book, Life and Death in the Andes, Kim MacQuarrie draws together a lifetime of researching and writing about the South of American continent. During his trip all the way down the mountain range that serves as the continent's spine, he draws together the greatest stories the continent has to offer from the cop who risked death to hunt down Pablo Escobar to how Darwin nearly didn't discover the theory of evolution and Thor Heyerdahl's epic journey on the Kon Tiki. Along the way, MacQuarrie discovers the impact of his own work. Contacted by a member of the infamous Maoist group The Shining Path, MacQuarrie finds out that Last Days of the Inca has become must reading among Peru's political dissidents. Life and Death in the Andes isn't just a great read; it's an overview of a fascinating continent still reeling for the upheaval of Columbus' "discovery" of the New World. Kim MacQuarrie has won four Emmy's and The Last Days of the Inca is currently being turned into a live action series by FX. It should be awesome. Guest Links Website: http://www.kimmacquarrie.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/kimmacq Guest Promo Product 1: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Death-Andes-Bandits-Revolutionaries/dp/143916889X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448080750&sr=8-1&keywords=kim+macquarrie Product 2: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Days-Incas-Kim-MacQuarrie/dp/0743260503/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1448080764&sr=8-2&keywords=kim+macquarrie Product 3: http://www.amazon.com/Where-ANDES-meet-AMAZON-Bolivias/dp/8489119147/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389052672&sr=1-4&keywords=kim+macquarrie

Ep194 - Peter Turchin: Transforming History Into Science Nov 21, 2015

Show notes

Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, Hari Seldon figures out how to create a mathematical model that can predict the future. Well, Wired magazine has described today's guest as a 'real-life Hari Seldon." Peter Turchin began his career as a biologist but is currently at the forefront of a field called cliodynamics which uses the past as a data set to develop mathematical models that can predict how societies behave. In his latest book Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth, Turchin examines how the forces of history have driven humans to forge the cultural tools that make the truly massive societies we see today possible. Besides providing a bold new view of history, Ultrasociety provides an excellent lens through which to understand human history informed by everything from evolutionary science to economics and anthropology. Guest Links Website: http://peterturchin.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Peter_Turchin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peter.turchin Guest Promo Product 1: http://www.amazon.com/Ultrasociety-Years-Humans-Greatest-Cooperators-ebook/dp/B0185P69LU/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 Product 2: http://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Rise-Fall-Empires/dp/0452288193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448079035&sr=8-1&keywords=war+and+peace+and+war Product 3: http://www.amazon.com/Secular-Cycles-Peter-Turchin/dp/0691136963/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448079049&sr=8-1&keywords=secular+cycles

Ep193 - A Capitalism for the People with Luigi Zingales Nov 14, 2015

Show notes

Growing up in Italy, Luigi Zingales got to experience firsthand something that looked a lot like capitalism but definitely wasn't. Government subsidies, regulations tailored to serve the interests of existing corporations and a system in which connections were more important than merit combined to ensure a capitalism that was anything but inclusive or competitive. Wanting to live in the most competitive and inclusive system on the planet, Zingales moved to the United States. However, during his time here, Professor Zingales has seen the United States start to look worryingly like Italy. In his latest book, A Capitalism for the People, Professor Zingales draws a distinction between being pro-market and pro-business. Being pro-business means using government power to support the already rich. Being pro-market means designing the system to maximize competition. Berlusconi is pro-business…and so are a lot of American politicians. In fact, American politicians who are truly pro-market are incredibly rare. In this interview, Hunter (Bryan is too successful as an actor to be able to do his own podcast) gets Professor Zingales to explain this essential distinction and some of the other important aspects of his superb book. Guest Links Website: http://research.chicagobooth.edu/stigler Twitter: https://twitter.com/zingalesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/luigi.zingales/ Guest Promo Product 1: http://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-People-Recapturing-American-Prosperity/dp/0465085954 Product 2: http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Capitalism-Capitalists-Unleashing-Opportunity/dp/0691121281/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Ep192 - Geoff Miller Oct 17, 2015

Show notes

Geoffrey Miller studies the evolutionary psychology of sex and since sex is the cornerstone of evolution his work ends up having implications that affect pretty much everything. If you've wondered why women's evolutionary programming makes them spend more time shopping and makes men want to get the heck out of the store as quickly as possible, then, in this podcast, Geoffrey Miller will tell you why. If you've wondered why people buy cars like Hummers when they are so wasteful, it's precisely because being wasteful is the key to attracting a mate…and in this podcast Geoffrey Miller will tell you why. Besides writing an excellent book called Spent about how consumerism taps into evolutionary psychology, Geoffrey Miller co-hosts a podcast with Tucker Max (yes, Tucker Max) called The Mating Grounds where they use the latest evolutionary psychology to help listeners become the men women want. From that podcast, they have now written a book called Mate. Whether you're looking to understand consumerism, mating or some other aspect of why we do what we do then Geoffrey Miller is one of the best resources on the planet. Featured Link #1: http://thematinggrounds.com/ Featured Link #2: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mating-grounds-podcast/id894712811?mt=2 Guest Links Website: http://thematinggrounds.com/ Guest Promo Product 1: http://www.amazon.com/Spent-Sex-Evolution-Consumer-Behavior/dp/0143117238 Product 2: http://www.amazon.com/Mate-Become-Man-Women-Want/dp/0316375365/

Ep191 - Dr. Paul Ekman Oct 03, 2015

Show notes

In 1872, in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals Charles Darwin hypothesized that emotions were hard-wired into our biology. However, it wasn't until near a century later that Dr. Paul Ekman and his longtime collaborator Wallace Friesen proved that Darwin was right.At the time, the prevailing wisdom was that pretty much everything including the facial expressions were culturally learned and so when Dr. Ekman headed into the Highlands of Papua New Guinea he was searching for one thing: a tribe that had had no contact with the Western world. In this interview, he tells us just how that experiment and subsequent work demonstrated that human facial expressions are universal.From there, Dr. Ekman went on to turn the study of facial expressions from art into science categorizing all the muscles in the human face and codifying 10,000 different facial expressions the human face is capable of. In the process, he discovered that when people try and mask their own emotions tiny little flashes of what they're genuinely feeling flash across their faces. These microexpressions became a useful technique for telling when people are lying and for revealing their true psychological state. So impressive was this work that Hollywood created a TV show (Lie to Me) based on Dr. Ekman.Dr. Ekman has consulted on documentaries galore and most recently consulted on the amazing Pixar movie Inside Out. He also works extensively with His Holiness The Dalai Lama to bridge the findings of Buddhism (often referred to as the science of the mind) with modern neuroscience and psychology.You can read anything by Dr. Ekman and love it but Bryan and Hunter would both highly recommend starting with Emotions Revealed. It's got lots of pictures (which really helps) because when it comes to describing a facial expression for a particular emotion a picture is really worth a thousand words. It's a real treat to have Dr. Paul Ekman on The Bryan Callen Show.

Ep190 - SUPER TUESDAY: Lawrence Lessig Sep 21, 2015

Show notes

If you listen to a random episode of The Bryan Callen Show, you can bet that Bryan and I will be talking about how amazing Republic, Lost and its author Lawrence Lessig are. Well, we got him!!! Ladies and gentlemen, it is our extreme pleasure to present to you Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law Professor, advocate for internet freedom, campaign finance reformer and our choice for the next President of the United States. If you want to support fixing democracy first, then tweet at @joerogan to get him on the show or anywhere else you believe his message should be heard. Also tweet at major media outlets (@cnn, @abc...) to demand that they include Larry Lessig in the Presidential polls. Featured Link #1: https://lessig2016.us/ GUEST LINKS Website: https://lessig2016.us/ GUEST PROMOS Product 1: http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Corruption-Equality-Steps-ebook/dp/B00XUPPQOM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442859615&sr=8-1&keywords=republic+lost+lessig

Ep189 - The Biological Case for Democracy and Capitalism Sep 19, 2015

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Both Daron Acemoglu (MIT economist and co-author of Why Nations Fail) and Dacher Keltner (Berkeley psychologist and author of many books including Born to Be Good) have appeared on The Bryan Callen Show before. They both were amazing and that is reason enough to bring them back and put them on together to see what happens. But, wait. There's more. Because these two together have the power to do something unprecedented in human history. At least since Plato's Republic, humans have debated the best form of government. (Plato thought it was a "Philosopher King" aka give someone like Plato or Bryan absolute power but recognized that democracy was the least bad system.) However, this has long been an endless debate in which people make the case for the system of government they're biased towards and then dismiss every other opinion as biased. In fact, this highly predictable criticism was leveled at Daron Acemoglu and his co-author James Robinson in the wake of Why Nations Fail. Acemoglu and Robinson build a fantastic case for why politically and economically inclusive societies outperform societies that aren't in their book. However, as American academics at MIT and Harvard respectively, it is easy (if you're so inclined) to dismiss them as being biased towards democracy and capitalism. Acemoglu and Robinson have given the argument for politically and economically inclusive institutions new force but there is a way to make their argument irrefutable. And that ladies and gents is where Dacher Keltner comes in. Professor Keltner studies (among other things) the psychology of power. For a long time, humans have recognized as Lord Acton put it, "That absolute power corrupts absolutely." What was mere observation has now (thanks to Keltner and others) become established scientific fact. We can now no longer deny that power changes the way people think. They become less empathetic and more impulsive. This problem was naturally solved in hunter-gatherer societies by mechanisms like teasing, gossip and nicknaming. These hardwired human desires exist to help bring ballooning egos back into check. However, as societies expanded, and leaders became more remote, it became easier for leaders to wall themselves off, proclaim themselves as Gods and to have people who had never seen them poop believe it. As communications technology has improved, the opportunity to check that power has improved. Martin Luther succeeded where other religious reformers failed, in part, because he was able to take advantage of the printing press. With the internet, we now have more of a mechanism to keep our leaders in check. In a village of 150 hunter-gatherers, it's pretty much impossible to keep a secret for long. In the global village, the same is coming to be true. While the downsides of that are personally obvious, it may be the key to keeping our leaders from suffering the negative psychological effects of power. Of course, as Acemoglu makes clear in this interview, it is important that we never conclude that any of this is inevitable. Institutions are fragile and humans have a dual nature in them. We are capable of great kindness and terrible despotism. We must remain ever vigilant and that is why it is so essential that everyone on the planet read everything these guys have ever written right now. Also, I'm starting a campaign to have them write a book together. James Robinson should come along too. Tweet them with #RealHolyTrinity if you want them to do it. Guest Links Website: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/drdaronacemoglu Guest Promo Product 1: http://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B0058Z4NR8 Product 2: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Be-Good-Science-Meaningful-ebook/dp/B001NLKTVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1439040927&sr=1-1&keywords=dacher+keltner Product 3: http://www.amazon.com/Compassionate-Instinct-Science-Human-Goodness-ebook/dp/B00333NCUQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1439040927&sr=1-3&keywords=dacher+keltner

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