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Marc Schulz is a professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr college, is the Associate Director of the Harvard Study of Human Development, and is the co-author of the book " The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness ." During our conversation, Marc talks about the key insight from the longest study ever done on human flourishing: that good relationships are the most im...

Roy Baumeister is a social psychologist, a professor at Florida State University, and the author of many books, including "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength." During our conversation, Roy speaks at length on a variety of fascinating topics: how and why male homosexuality may have survived through evolution, differences in male and female sexuality, hunter-gatherer parenting styl...

Orna Donath is an Israeli sociologist, a teacher at Tel Aviv University, and the author of the landmark book, "Regretting Motherhood." During our conversation, Orna talks about the women she profiled in her book, the difference between regretting motherhood and having ambivalence towards it, and why and how women end up in a life where they regret being mothers. Orna also talks about regretting mo...

Joyce Benenson is an author, a scientist, and a lecturer in the department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. During our conversation, Joyce talks about her field of expertise and research: sex differences in competition and cooperation. She also discusses human hierarchies, common misconceptions about men and boys, how she would, on average, describe the male and female psyche,...

Tania Reynolds is a scientist, a researcher, and an assistant professor of evolution and development at the University of New Mexico. During our conversation, Tania explains the field of evolutionary psychology, the evolutionary history and culture of hunter-gatherer societies, what we know about how women compete for men, the role and purpose of gossip in female social life and competition, the i...

Kevin Kelly is a photographer, a futurist, an editor, and the author of multiple books, including his newest, " Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier ." On his 68th birthday, Kevin wrote "68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice" for his children - an essay that went viral. He wrote two more birthday advice essays for years 69, and 70. Now, after cleaning those nuggets up and adding 15...

Pico Iyer is an essayist, a travel writer, and the author of many books, including one of my all-time favorites: "A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations." During our conversation, Pico talks about his journey to living in Japan, his observations from and insights into this very-foreign culture, and he speaks at length about the very-Japanese themes of subtraction, cosplay, trad...

Jeremi Suri is a historian, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of multiple books, including his most recent, "Civil War by Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy." During our conversation, Jeremi talks about the circumstances leading up to the American Civil War, the key players in the war, including Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses...

Christopher Ryan is a writer, a podcaster, and the author of the bestselling books "Sex at Dawn" and "Civilized to Death." During our conversation, Chris talks about his interest in human nature, Native American culture, humanity's origins as hunter-gatherers, and what we can learn from the environment and general culture that shaped our psychology. He also talks about the dawn of agriculture, and...

Thomas Moore is a spiritual teacher, a psychotherapist, and the author of many books, including his bestseller, "Care of the Soul." During our conversation, Thomas talks about his many years as a Catholic monk, his time in academia, and his work as a therapist. He also talks about the ideas and life of Carl Jung and James Hillman, archetypes of the human psyche, and spirituality and religion in th...

Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist, a physician, and is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. He is also the author of a variety of books including "Apollo's Arrow" and "Blueprint." During our conversation, Nicholas talks about his experiences as a hospice doctor and what he has learned from working with the dying, his book "Blueprint" and our current evolution...

Chip Conley is an entrepreneur, the author of many books including "Wisdom at Work," and is the co-founder of the Modern Elder Academy. During our conversation, Chip talks about founding, running, and eventually selling Joie de Vivre Hospitality, mentoring both California Governor Gavin Newsom and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, and the role of elders in contemporary and ancestral societies. Chip aims to...

Greg Lukianoff is a journalist, an attorney, the co-author of "The Coddling of the American Mind," and the President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). During our conversation, Greg talks about freedom of speech in America, how social media has affected our propensity to speak openly, and the threats to free expression on modern university campuses. As Greg mentions, wh...

Richard Reeves is a writer, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of "Of Boys and Men." During our conversation Richard presents data detailing how boys and men are falling behind in education and employment, that men represent three out every four "deaths of despair," and the confusion over what is good about being a man and what it means to be a man as gender roles have sig...

Pano Kanelos is an educator, a Shakespeare scholar, and is the founding President of the University of Austin. During our conversation, Pano talks about the problems within modern universities, the principles that have and will guide the creation of the University of Austin, why Austin, Texas was chosen as the location of this new university, the timeline for the rollout of the school, and what su...

Jeff Rediger is an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and a medical director at McLean SouthEast Adult Psychiatric Programs, who holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. Jeff is the author of the book "Cured," which details and explores examples of spontaneous remission, and discusses various aspects of human health. During our conversation, Jeff...

Stephen Kinzer is a former "New York Times" correspondent, is a Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and is the author of "Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control." During our conversation, Stephen talks about the goals of the MK-Ultra program, its leader Sidney Gottlieb, its record of physical and psychological torture, its secrecy...

Josh Chin is the China Deputy Bureau Chief for " The Wall Street Journal" and is the co-author of the book " Surveillance State: China's Quest to Launch a New Era of Social Control ." During our conversation, Josh talks about China's use of surveillance technology in Xinjiang, how it is using that technology to monitor and send Uyghurs to modern gulags (places the Chinese government calls "re-educ...

Joe Henrich is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and is the author of the book " The WEIRDest People in the World ." During our conversation, Joe talks about his interest in human nature, how cultures change people biologically, how the mating laws of the Roman Catholic Church and the literacy imperatives of Protestantism changed Western civilization, cultural limitat...

Huw Price is an author, was the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and is the co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. During our conversation, Huw talks about meeting Jaan Tallinn of Skype, learning about lesser-known existential risks of artificial intelligence and catastrophic new biological threats, the founding of the Centre in 2012, wh...

William Davis is a cardiologist and an author who has written both the best-selling book "Wheat Belly" and his most recent, "Super Gut." During our conversation, Bill talks about the human microbiome, the role of the gut as the "second brain" in the human body, how a modern diet and a modern microbiome may be contributing to common ailments of civilization like inflammation and depression, his sug...

Jim Fadiman is an author, an educator, and is America's leading expert on the science of microdosing. During our conversation, Jim talks about his relationship with his favorite Harvard professor, Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass), his first psychedelic experience, and why he decided to dedicate so much of his career to the study of psychedelics and microdosing. Jim also discusses The Fadiman Protoc...

Deirdre McCloskey is an economist, the author of more than 20 books, and is one of America's most prominent trans academics. During our conversation, Deirdre talks about growing up in the 1940's and 1950's, knowing from an early age that she wanted to be a woman, her marriage of more than 30 years to the "love of her life" and fathering two children, and her epiphany in the 1990's, at more than 50...

Barbara Demick is a journalist, an essayist, and is the author of both "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea" and " Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town ." During our conversation, Barbara talks about how she became interested in North Korea, the founding of North Korea in 1945, how its society is structured, its ability to isolate its citizens from the outside world, its fam...

Merit Cudkowicz is a scientist, a doctor, a researcher, and is both the director of the Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS and Chief of Neurology at Mass General Hospital in Boston. During our conversation, Merit talks about her journey to becoming a doctor and provides a definition of ALS, commonly known as "Lou Gehrig's Disease." She also discusses her interest in ALS, describes its symptoms...